Identitate, social și cotidian în România comunistă

Colegiul redacțional: Raluca Grosescu, Dan Drăghia, Corina Doboș, Marius Stan, Mihai Burcea, Adelina Țînțariu

Redactor-șef: Luciana Mărioara Jinga

Secretar de redacție: Ștefan Bosomitu

Luciana Jinga, Cuvânt înainte (pp. 13-15)

Studii

Ştefan Bosomitu, Mihai Burcea, Mihail Roller (1908‑1958). O scurtă biografie (pp. 19-65)

Peu de gens se souviennent aujourd’hui le nom de Mihail Roller. A ce sujet, on parle encore à voix basse, comme d’un «fantôme rouge», qui hantait une fois la historiographie roumaine. Peu de choses ont été écrites à propos de Mihail Roller au cours des dernières vingt années. Et à chaque fois dans le même paradigme, en insistant sur le rôle négatif qu’il a joué dans la culture roumaine. On connaît peu sa biographie. Notre étude vise à combler juste cette lacune. Mihail Roller était un membre du Komintern dans le vrai sens du mot, pendant sa carrière politique il a été membre des partis communiste allemand, français et roumain. Contrairement à de nombreux autres militants, son adhésion et son engagement à la cause communiste n’était ni formel, ni conditionné. Sa biographie est exemplaire, montrant l’intransigeance et le fanatisme qu’il a mis au service de la cause communiste pendant le siècle dernier.

Mots‑clés: biographie, communisme, militantisme, adhésion, historiographie

Florin S. Soare, Alexandru Bârlădeanu – schiţă biografică (pp. 67-96)

This study represents an incursion into the biography of one of the most representative members of the Romanian Communist Party, which have held positions at the highest level in three regimes: Gheorghiu‑Dej, Ceauşescu and Iliescu. Marxist economist by training, faithful to centrally planned economy, with a political career over 50 years, Alexander Bârlădeanu remained one of the few technocrats whose merits in stabilizing the postwar economy, or the liquidation of Sovrom (Romanian‑Soviet joint ventures), the economic openness and resistance to economic integration plans of Moscow in the early ‘60s can be recognized. Promoted and then marginalized during Ceauşescu’s regime, he is involved in 1989 in one visible action of regime contestation, namely the “Letter of the Six”. But the role he played during the events of December 1989 remains quite controversial. After 1989 he serves as chairman of the Senate, ending a political career of nearly 50 years.

Keywords: biography, leadership, Romanian Communist Party, technocrat, dissident

Georgiana Leşu, Trecutul din prezent. Memorie şi istorie în amintirile lui Dumitru Popescu (pp. 97-122)

Secretary of the Central Committee of the Romanian Communist Party, Rector of Ştefan Gheorghiu Academy and member of the Executive Committee until the fall of the regime, Dumitru Popescu is a very special character of the Romanian communist scene. He was known as the conductor of the propaganda and one of the main architects of Ceauşescu’s cult of personality, being nicknamed “God” due to his unlimited powers and authority. His memoirs reveal a personal vision regarding the regime, which becomes interesting as it reflects a panoramic perspective upon the Romanian communism, seen from the top of its hierarchy. The present study focuses on the narrative technique of the discourse, the author’s style, as well as the arguments and methods used as an attempt to reconsider the character’s entire political evolution. Beyond the professional and political path of the character, we are rather interested in his retrospection and ability to relate to his own past. Dumitru Popescu is thus one of the main actors and witnesses in a regime that often makes the topic of memorialistic works. He reveals to the reader events and interesting facts behind the curtains, as well as a personal perspective upon the intricate mechanisms of a doctrine.

Keywords: biography, leadership, Romanian Communist Party, propaganda, discourse, memory

Cristina Roman, Ştefan Voitec. Destinul unui intelectual de stânga. Viaţa politică din România anilor 1920‑1948 (pp. 123-143)

The study is a beginning of a research project. Our research approach was to focus on the intellectual and politician Stephen Voitec. The politician Stephen Voitec was one of the Social Democratic Party leaders in the interwar and postwar part. During Dej and Ceauşescu’s communist regimes he was one of the leaders of the Communist Party holding important political and ministerial functions. We watched and analysed his entire political activity since its inception. We wanted to emphasize the important aspects of its activity from the first appearances on political scene, continuing to break the Social Democrats and the Communist Party framing, analysing trends and its involutions in the Communist Party and his successful political motivations in the Ceauşescu regime. We surprised in our study the context in which there have been significant changes in the political options and career of the intellectual Stephen Voitec. Archival sources were really helpful in our research. To this was added of course the related bibliography.

Keywords: biography, leadership, Social Democratic Party, Romanian Communist Party, continuity

Irina Tulbure, De la politicile sociale la politica socialistă. Locuinţa socială, factor de continuitate în practica de arhitectură şi urbanism din România (pp. 145-171)

Due to political reasons, any continuity between the interwar practices and those of the communists was firmly denied between 1944‑1989. Moreover, the same approach remained dominating after 1989 in the historiographical discourse, emphasizing the apparent opposition between the two political regimes. Although, despite the political ideology, the main ideas of the professionals proves that there is a stripe of continuity consistent enough that only found and ending at the beginning of the ’60. The new line in the social housing policies was urged not only by Hrusciov’s new political vision, but also by a radical change of view that came from the professionals. Therefore, the housing policies implemented in the 20th century Romania can be regarded as a continuous process. This begins with the first official initiatives in 1910, followed by a mature legislative corpus between the two wars and with the coagulation of all previous initiatives in a national plan at the beginning of the ’40. The fifties meant for the housing policies the addition of the socialist component. Despite the accumulations and ideological changes, the central core of the social housing policies remained more or less on the same, promoting ideas such as: individual versus collective housing, traditional expression or modern appearance, housing as a measure for social protection, etc.

Keywords: housing, politics, social protection, continuity, interwar, communist regime

Mara Mărginean, Reconstrucţia în România postbelică. Aspecte urbanistice, 1945‑1948 (pp. 173-198)

This article investigates the urban development models sketched by the Council of Ministers and the National Council of Scientific Research affiliated to the Romanian Academy. By the end of the World War II the two institutions, which were equally responsible of Romania’s reconstruction, carried out programs of analysis, prognosis and construction countrywide, which were based on theoretical concepts formulated by architects, urban planners or economists. Urbanization, closely linked to industrialization and the transformation of social relations based on formative strategies articulated by the decisional power, questions how lucrative activities may be influenced by the spatial structure of cities on one hand, and, on the other hand, how local power centers are hierarchically organized. Using archival materials and press articles, this article argues that the engagement with postwar Romania’s reconstruction project became the expression of the ideologisation of the economic capital by recovering institutions with responsibilities in the field that have previously functioned in the interwar period. As the central theme of these ideas was initially shaped by the interwar debates about modernizing the state under a centralized administrative system, the activity of the two institutions starting with 1945 became a source of legitimacy for all players, whether they were representatives of the old political class or they came from the ranks of the Communist Party.

Keywords: urbanization, Romanian Communist Party, industrialization, continuity, interwar

Corina Doboş, Copiii primesc numele de Nicolae… Exerciţiu de interpretare lacaniană (pp. 199-212)

The study undertakes a Lacanian discourse analysis of 38 letters sent to Nicolae Ceauşescu, Secretary General of the Romanian Communist Party (R.C.P.) in 1968. Most of the senders were inviting the agnostic, openly anti‑religious Secretary General to baptize their new‑borns, and even to give them his name “Nicolae”. I argue that these requests indicate Ceauşescu’s or R.C.P.’s transformation into the Symbolic Father of the new‑borns, together with the integrative and prohibitive functions Lacan associates to the parental figure. Moreover, this transformation is articulated in the intimate structures of the Romanian citizens, a sign of the internalization of the official propaganda.

Keywords: psychoanalysis, symbolic, Ceauşescu, communism, paternalism

Bogdan‑Alexandru Jitea, Disidenţa în cinematografia ceauşistă. Gruparea „Mircea Daneliuc” (pp. 213-233)

In his effort to subordinate the art of cinema to the propaganda purposes, the Ceauşescu regime has faced opposition from filmmakers who refused the convenient solution of an aesthetics compromise. Censored, banned, harassed by Securitate, they avoided ideological barriers and made movies that expose hypocrisy and injustice within the communist society. In this asymmetric conflict, we have on the one hand the Party‑State that controls all resources in the film production and is not willing to any ideological compromise, and on the other hand we find a handful of filmmakers who believe in the autonomy of the artistic act. They embraced active forms of resistance, as in the case of Lucian Pintilie and Mircea Daneliuc who have defended their movies from the claws of censorship. In his battle with the system, Pintilie fails because his resistance was individual, while Daneliuc succeedes through a strategy of collective resistance, becoming the leader of a reformist faction in the Romanian cinema. This study aims to show how this group responded to the monopoly exercised by the directors of film houses and of the leadership of Filmmakers Association (A.C.I.N.). Through an active strategy of heated debates in A.C.I.N., through the repeated letters addressed to the Party and State leadership, through meetings with high rank Party members, the “Daneliuc group” manages to establish a small ideological thaw in the early ’80s.

Keywords: ideological control, censorship, filmmakers, reformist faction, dissident

Beatrice Scutaru, Mobilizarea asociativă franceză în favoarea unei Românii în criză (anii ’80 şi ’90) (pp. 235-259)

À la fin des années 1980, Nicolae Ceauşescu, autrefois interlocuteur privilégié des Occidentaux, initie un projet de destruction massive des villages roumains. Projet de longue date, la systématisation prévoit la disparition de 7.000‑8.000 villages sur les 13.000 existant en Roumanie. Expression de la volonté de l’État totalitaire d’avoir un contrôle total sur ses citoyens, la systématisation est perçue, à l’étranger, comme une attaque de la culture et des traditions roumaines. Au delà de la mobilisation des intellectuels de Roumanie, le projet est amplement dénoncé sur le plan international. Toutefois, l’absence de mesures concrètes contre le plan de systématisation détermine Paul Hermant à agir avant qu’il ne soit pas trop tard et créer l’Opération Villages Roumains. Initiée en Belgique, O.V.R. ne tarde pas à atteindre la France, la Suisse, les Pays‑Bas, le Royaume‑Uni, la Norvège et même la Hongrie et la Pologne. Initialement prévu pour la défense des villages en danger de démolition, le mouvement connaît un succès qui surprend même ses initiateurs et donne naissance, dans les premières années qui suivent la chute de Ceauşescu, à une mobilisation humanitaire sans précédent. Les rapports entre les collectivités locales françaises et roumaines évoluent et se transforment en véritables relations intercommunales européennes.

Mots‑clés: les années 1980, régime communiste, systématisation, villages, l’Opération Villages Roumains, mobilisation

Recenzii

Lavinia Betea, Cristina Diac, Florin‑Răzvan Mihai, Ilarion Ţiu, Viaţa lui Ceauşescu. Ucenicul partidului (Alin Mureşan) (pp. 263-265)

Ana Selejan, Adevăr şi mistificare în jurnale şi memorii apărute după 1989 (Clara Mareş) (pp. 266-269)

Ana Maria Zahariade, Arhitectura în proiectul comunist. România 1944‑1989 (Corina Doboş) (pp. 270-274)

Cath Collins, Post‑Transitional Justice. Human Rights Trials in Chile and El Salvador (Raluca Grosescu) (pp. 275-279)

Jeffrey A. Engel (ed.), The Fall of the Berlin Wall. The Revolutionary Legacy of 1989 (Dan Drăghia) (pp. 280-286)