The capitalization of the vast archives of the MFA within the framework of a national collection of diplomatic documents has been a desire expressed for many years. So far, the attempts made have not yielded significant results. With the establishment of the Romanian Diplomatic Institute, which has among its tasks the publishing of the “Romanian Diplomatic Documents” national collection, the premises for this goal to become a reality have emerged. Hence, the publication of this collection became a government program.
The group of specialists responsible for preparing and editing the volumes of diplomatic documents is made up of academics and researchers from the University of Bucharest and the “Nicolae Iorga” Institute of History, Romanian Academy, people who have solid scientific work and experience in the field of editing, recognized in the Romanian academic field. This group has elaborated the standard rules for editing and the research strategy for archival collections, mainly diplomatic archives but also other archives – National Archives, Academy Library – likely to provide documents of interest to the collection.
The national collection “Romanian Diplomatic Documents” is structured in three chronological series whose logic derives both from the great stages of universal history and the specific evolution of the Romanian state from the second half of the 19th century until the collapse of the communist regime. The first series is dedicated to Romanian diplomacy from the formation of the modern Romanian state until the end of the First World War. The second series covers the period of Great Romania and ends in 1947. The last series, the third, corresponds to the foreign policy of the communist period (1948-1989). In addition to the three chronological series, the collection may also include thematic volumes concerning major issues in the history of the Romanian state with implications for international relations.
Also, according to GD 8 80/2005, IDR has the mission of publishing diplomatic memoirs, an important source that complements the information provided by the diplomatic documents themselves.
Each volume of the collection “Romanian Diplomatic Documents” has an introductory study and a note on the edition written in Romanian and English; the list of documents is also published in Romanian and English. Documents written in French and English are published in their original language and documents written in other languages are translated into Romanian; each volume has an analytical index at the end. The volumes of the “Romanian Diplomatic Documents” collection as well as the volumes of diplomatic memoirs have both a printed and an electronic version, freely accessible on the RDI website.
The following volumes have been published so far: