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ABSTRACT
In Romania, the literary approach to the recent communist past centred on everyday life under the communist regime is usually associated with a nostalgic communist perspective. By reading communist nostalgia in the context of the communist politics that pervaded every aspect of everyday life, this paper traces the connections between narratives and moral responsibility at the level of Romanian literary productions. Many of the topics included in the collective volumes that bring together personal narratives of the past resonate with and influence the fictional creations of the past; in many cases, combining personal testimonies with fictional characters offered an improved mechanism for dealing with the past. The paper argues that the topic of daily life experiences under the communist regime can be further developed, raising awareness of the lack of discussions about moral responsibility at the societal level in post-totalitarian Romania. Even if the younger generations can use the literary narratives of the past to re-appropriate their predecessors’ life stories, the reduction of the past to visual or linguistic stereotypes deepens the separation between public and private memory.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.
Notes
1. For more information on this topic please see Deletant’s books, for example: Romania under Communist Rule and Communist Terror in Romania, also Tismăneanu, Stalinism for All Seasons.
2. Stan, Tismăneanu, “Coming to Terms with the Communist Past,” 24.
3. From the Romanian legislative framework approach see Ciobanu, “Criminalizing the Past,” Stan, Transitional Justice; a topic overview in Mitroiu, “Recuperative Memory.”
4. See for example: Andreescu, From Communism to Capitalism; Preda, Art and Politics.
5. See Petrescu, Petrescu, “The Canon and Remembering.”
6. See, for example, Andreescu, From Communism to Capitalism; Pohrib, “The Romanian ‘Latchkey Generation’ Writes Back”; Pusca, “Re-Thinking (Post)Communism”; Grossman, “Forgotten Domestic Objects.”
7. See Mitroiu, “Recuperative Memory,” 762–5.
8. See the chapter “Romania” in Stan, Transitional Justice in Eastern Europe.
9. For a summarized view please see Mitroiu, “Recuperative Memory,” 751–71. Also for more details about the lustration law and transitional justice mechanisms in Romania please see Stan, Transitional Justice in Eastern Europe and Transitional Justice in Post-Communist Romania.
10. Preda, “Le rôle de la nostalgie”, identifies three versions of the communist past present at the level of Romanian society correlated with the agents of memory: the regime victims and the civic ONG who actively sustain the condemnation of the past, the nostalgic people defined here as those who lost their past privileges, and those who want to forget the past: from political reasons or for lack of interest.
11. See for example Preda, “Le rôle de la nostalgie”; Georgescu, “Between Trauma and Nostalgia.”
12. Petrescu and Petrescu, “The Canon and Remembering Romanian Communism,” 69.
13. Petrescu and Petrescu, “The Canon and Remembering Romanian Communism,” 53–4. Smaranda Vultur also out: “Scarce food supplies and the survival strategies this entailed are often spontaneously associated in people’s mind with communism.” (“Daily Life and Constraints,” 181).
14. See also Apor et al. Citation2017, especially chapter 6 written by Florin Abraham, “To Collaborate and To Punish: Democracy and Transitional Justice in Romania”, 129–148.
15. Petrescu and Petrescu, “The Canon and Remembering Romanian Communism,” 46. Georgescu also argues: “As opinion polls seem to indicate, the pedagogy of ‘working through’ the traumatic past has largely failed to align public opinion with institutionalized memory, and remains a conceit of public intellectuals.” (“Between Trauma and Nostalgia,” 306).
16. Louyest, and Roberts, “Nostalgia, Culture and Identity,” 175.
17. See for example, Todorova, Dimou, and Troebsthe’s volume Remembering Communism, and Todorova and Gille’s volume Post-Communist Nostalgia. For the Romanian context especially attention must be given to the chapters written by Smaranda Vultur (food and eating habits, daily life and surveillance), Simina Bădică (taking picture during the communis regime), Andi Mihalache (a chapter about the “bibelot”, “the accesories in our houses”), Cătălina Mihalache (about school, childhood and communist regime), Corina Cimpoieru (everyday life in an industrial city).
18. See Todorova, “Introduction. From utopia,” 1–16.
19. For an extensive analysis of the research projections over nostalgia and memories of the communist past please see Mihelj, “Memory, Post-socialism and the Media.”
20. Todorova, “Introduction. From Utopia,” 7.
21. See in Todorova and Gille, Post-Communist Nostalgia, the chapters written by Oana Popescu-Sandu and Diana Georgescu.
22. In 2013 almost half of Romanians (44,7%) believed that the communist regime was a good thing (the number is direct correlated with the respondents’ age and education), and that the living conditions were better than they were at the time of the INSCOP survey.
23. Marin, “Assessing Communist Nostalgia,” 5.
24. Petrescu, “Nostalgia, Identity,” 193.
25. See Dan Lungu’s novel Raiul găinilor.
26. For example, the volume O lume dispărută, reuniting four intellectuals’ stories, and Eugen Istodor’s volume Cartea vieţii mele.
27. See for example Radu Pavel Gheo’s novel Noapte bună, copii!.
28. For example the novel Sunt o babă comunistă and the short stories collection Cum încărunţeşte o blondă.
29. Zakharova, “Everyday Life,” 210.
30. Zakharova, “Everyday Life,” 211.
31. Zakharova, “Everyday Life,” 211.
32. See for example: Neculau, Viaţa cotidiană, a volume reuniting stories of the past using the social memory approach, Lungu’s book Povestirile vieţii, or Chelcea’s personal life narrative, Aşa a fost?.
33. Lungu’s novel Raiul găinilor includes also references to the childhood world during the communist regime. The toys created by the children and also their created playground in a small Romanian town are ample presented.
34. A rather special volume, Cartea cu bunici (The book with grandparents), edited by Marius Chivu, includes cherished memories of the childhood spent under direct protection of the grandparents, figures representative of another world, one that was destroyed by the communist regime.
35. Ruxandra Cesereanu also offers various analyses of specific aspects of Romanian daily life during communist period. For example, she edited a volume dedicated to urban life and the conditions of living in the industrial flat blocks constructed during the communist period, where the space and the privacy were rather reduced and inevitably people’ lives were connected through sounds, smells and shared privacy (România înghesuită).
36. Three main directions of research begin to develop in the Romanian context on the topics of the educational system (for example Mihalache, “Talking Memories of the Socialist Age”), the post-communist childhood memoirs (see Georgescu’s works) and the childhood memorabilia, with an increased online interest in childhood material culture (Pohrib, “The Afterlives of Communist Things”).
37. Lenart-Cheng, Luca, “Memories in Dialogue,” 20.
38. Kligman, The Politics of Duplicity, 25.
39. See for example Adam, Mitroiu, “Remembering the Past.”
40. Georgescu, “Between Trauma and Nostalgia,” 293, 304.
41. See Preda, Patrie română, especially 59–74.
42. The comic books were also published in Romania in the ‘80s.
43. Florian and Florian, Băiuţeii, 24.
44. Florian and Florian, Băiuţeii, 64.
45. See Preda, Patrie română; Vasile, “Propaganda and Culture.”
46. Cernat et al., O lume, 8.
47. For a comprehensive view see, for example, Ciobanu’s paper “Romania’s Travails.”
48. Lungu, Raiul găinilor, 26.
49. See Vasile’s analyses in “Propaganda and Culture.”
50. See for example Petrescu’s paper “Communist Legacies.”
51. Lungu, Raiul găinilor, 138–9.
52. Lungu, Raiul găinilor, 140.
53. Lungu, Raiul găinilor, 193.
54. For more details about Nicolae Ceauşescu’s representations and Romanian nostalgia please see Asavei, “Nicolae Ceauşescu”; Preda, “Le rôle de la nostalgie.”
55. See for example Miroiu, “Communism Was a State Patriarchy.”
56. See more on this topic in Adam, and Mitroiu, “Remembering the Past”. See also Andrei and Branda, “Abortion Policy.”
57. Zoltán Rostás and Theodora-Eliza Văcărescu published in 2008 an edited volume including almost twenty life narratives resulted from their gender research on different social categories.
58. Gheo and Lungu, Tovaraşe de drum, 29.
59. Gheo and Lungu, Tovaraşe de drum, 77, 78.
60. Please see Pop-Eleches and Tucker's Citation2017 volume Communism’s Shadow, especially the chapter seven: “Gender Equality,” 215–46. See also Jinga’s chapter “Women in the Communist Party”, in the volume Quest for a Suitable Past.
61. Gheo and Lungu, Tovaraşe de drum, 100–101.
62. Gheo and Lungu, Tovaraşe de drum, 101.
63. Mihaela Miroiu speaks about the fact that communism succeeded only in “emancipating women through work,” without any legislative support (Drumul către autonomie, 185–213).
64. Bittel, Cum încărunţeşte, 95.
65. Bittel, Cum încărunţeşte, 175.
66. Bittel, Cum încărunţeşte, 99.
67. Bittel, Cum încărunţeşte, 111.
68. Lungu, Sunt o babă, 5.
69. Lungu, Sunt o babă, 6.
70. Lungu, Sunt o babă, 188.
71. Marin, “Assessing Communist Nostalgia,” 7.
72. Lungu, Sunt o babă, 168.
73. Lungu, Sunt o babă, 69.
74. Lungu, Sunt o babă, 91.
75. Lungu, Sunt o babă, 164.
76. Lungu, Sunt o babă, 166.
77. Lungu, Sunt o babă, 48.
78. Lungu, Sunt o babă, 54.
79. Lungu, Sunt o babă, 91.
80. For a detailed discussion of this concept please see Mitroiu, “Women’s Narratives.”
81. Lungu, Sunt o babă, 189.
82. The post-communist autobiographical works also include daily life past narratives from the high educated perspective, see for example Iaru, Fraier de Bucureşti, Istodor, Cartea vieţii mele, Cernat et al., O lume dispărută, and Ernu, Născut în URSS.
83. Judt, Postwar, 102.
84. See for example the arguments invoked by Petrescu and Petrescu in “The Canon and Remembering Romanian Communism,” 46, 55–6.
85. Louyest, and Roberts, “Nostalgia, Culture and Identity,” 177.
86. About moral justice in Romania see for example Tismăneanu’s chapter, “Democracy, Memory, and Moral Justice.”
87. Lungu, Sunt o babă, 91.