Language of the Revolution: The Discourse of Anti-Communist Movements in the “Eastern Bloc” Countries: Case Studies 9783031371776, 9783031371783

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PALGRAVE STUDIES IN LANGUAGES AT WAR

Language of the Revolution

The Discourse of Anti-Communist Movements in the “Eastern Bloc” Countries: Case Studies Edited by  Eugen Wohl · Elena Păcurar

Palgrave Studies in Languages at War

Series Editors

Hilary Footitt Department of Modern Languages and European Studies University of Reading Reading, UK Michael Kelly Department of Modern Languages University of Southampton Southampton, Hampshire, UK

Languages play a crucial role in conflict. They enable or disrupt communication between the people involved. They express the identities of the participants. They convey representations and interpretations of what is happening. And sometimes language differences are a key part of what the conflict is about. This series brings together books which deal with the role of languages in many different kinds of conflict, including international war, civil war, occupation, peace operations, humanitarian action, the preludes to conflict and its aftermath. The series embraces interdisciplinary approaches, drawing on applied linguistics, sociolinguistics, translation studies, intercultural communication, history, politics, international relations, peace studies and cultural studies. Books in the series explore conflicts across a range of times and places and analyse the language-related roles and activities involved. The Editors welcome proposals for new contributions, including monographs and edited volumes.

Eugen Wohl  •  Elena Păcurar Editors

Language of the Revolution The Discourse of Anti-Communist Movements in “Eastern Bloc” Countries: Case Studies

Editors Eugen Wohl Faculty of Letters Babeș-Bolyai University Cluj-Napoca, Cluj, Romania

Elena Păcurar Faculty of Letters Babeș-Bolyai University Cluj-Napoca, Cluj, Romania

ISSN 2947-5902     ISSN 2947-5910 (electronic) Palgrave Studies in Languages at War ISBN 978-3-031-37177-6    ISBN 978-3-031-37178-3 (eBook) https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-37178-3 © The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 This work is subject to copyright. All rights are solely and exclusively licensed by the Publisher, whether the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifically the rights of translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on microfilms or in any other physical way, and transmission or information storage and retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar methodology now known or hereafter developed. The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are exempt from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use. The publisher, the authors, and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and information in this book are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication. Neither the publisher nor the authors or the editors give a warranty, expressed or implied, with respect to the material contained herein or for any errors or omissions that may have been made. The publisher remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations. Cover illustration: © Flaviu Haitonic This Palgrave Macmillan imprint is published by the registered company Springer Nature Switzerland AG. The registered company address is: Gewerbestrasse 11, 6330 Cham, Switzerland Paper in this product is recyclable.

Contents

1 I ntroduction  1 Eugen Wohl and Elena Păcurar Part I Narratives of Discord: Misinformation, Dissimulation, Truth

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2 Voices  from Below: Propaganda and Petitioning Power in Late Socialist Romania 27 Mioara Anton 3 The  Great Discursive Divide in Communist Romania 47 Veronica Manole 4 “Words  That Must Not Be Named”: Narratives of Language, Power, and Identity in Communist Romania 67 Réka Lugossy

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5 Compromise  or Survival: Adapting the Religious Discourse and the Topics Covered in Publications of the Romanian Orthodox Church During the Communist Regime 87 Călin Emilian CIRA 6 The  Founding Texts of a Revolution. Romania 1989113 Kazimierz Jurczak Part II Words at War: Expressive Forms of Resistance, Dissidence and Protest 127 7 The  Language of Inner Freedom for Dissent: Müller and Liiceanu Before and After the Revolution129 Jonathan Lahey Dronsfield 8 The  Rhetoric of Albanian Insurgency: Communism and Anti-Communism in Kosovo151 Henrique Schneider 9 The  Change of Worlds and Words: The Language of Protest During and After the Romanian Revolution in 1989171 Dina Vîlcu Part III Written, Spoken, Performed: Archiving the Memory of (Post-)Communism 193 10 Humility  and Hatred, Forgiveness and Hope: A Linguistic Approach on the Subjective Literary Experiences in the Romanian Communist Society195 Maria-Zoica Eugenia Balaban

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11 Retrieving  Memory Via Desk-Drawer Literature: From Reality Escapism in Stories About Cadmav to Contemporary Reflective Writing in With My Woman’s Mind219 Ioana Mudure-Iacob 12 Surviving  the Change, Adjusting the Language. Romanian Writers in the Cultural Media, December 1989–1990243 Magdalena Răduță and Oana Fotache 13 The  December 1989 Revolution in Post-­Communist Romanian Drama265 Anca Hațiegan 14 Staging  Communism in Romania: Language, Propaganda, Memory in Caryl Churchill’s Mad Forest and Matei Vișniec’s How to Explain the History of Communism to Mental Patients289 Alina Cojocaru 15 The  Language of the Velvet Revolution Versus the Anti-­language of Post-­Communist Crime: A Sociolinguistic Analysis of Contemporary Czech Crime Historical Television Series309 Luboš Ptáček 16 Surprising  Silence? Possible Reasons for Scarcity of Representation of the Velvet Revolution in Czech Film Adaptations in the 1990s333 Radoslav Horák 17 Comparing  the Portrayal of the Fall of the Berlin Wall in Two Spanish Newspapers: A Multimodal Analysis357 Samira Allani and Silvia Molina-Plaza

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18 Borghesia and Laibach Against the Socialist Regime of Yugoslavia: Insights from a Socio-Linguistic Analysis  383 Mitja Stefancic 19 C  onclusions401 Eugen Wohl and Elena Păcurar I ndex409

Notes on Contributors

Samira Allani  is a lecturer in the Department of Applied Linguistics at the Technical University of Madrid, Spain. Her research interests cover such areas as applied linguistics, discourse analysis and cross-cultural communication. Mioara Anton  is a senior researcher at the “Nicolae Iorga” Institute of History, Romanian Academy. Her research covers diverse topics pertaining to the history of state socialism in Romania (foreign policy, politics of culture, national minorities, everyday life, social history). She has published numerous volumes and articles, including “Peak Dictatorship. Ceaușescu’s State Visit to Great Britain, June 1978,” with Gavin Bowd, Slavonic and East European Review (October 2019); “Ceaușescu și poporul!”. Scrisori către iubitul conducător [“Ceaușescu and the people!”. Letters to “our beloved leader”] (2016); and Guvernați și guvernanți. Scrisori către putere. 1945–1965 [The Governed and Governors. Letters to power. 1945–1965] 2013. Maria-Zoica Eugenia Balaban  is a lecturer at Babeș-Bolyai University, Cluj-­Napoca, Romania. Her research interests include (applied) linguistics, the discourse of anti-communist resistance, literature, business communication, intercultural communication, English for Specific Purposes (ESP) and Romanian as a Foreign Language (RFL). She published the volumes: Noica şi literatura. Influenţa lui Constantin Noica în literatura ix

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română (2016) [Noica and Literature. The Influence of Constantin Noica in the Romanian Literature]; Cluj-Napoca: Casa Cărţii de Ştiinţã, Pathway to Business English (2016); Cluj-Napoca: Casa Cărţii de Ştiinţã, Improve Your Business English Skills (2021); Cluj-Napoca: Casa Cărţii de Ştiinţã. She is also one of the authors of the Enciclopedia imaginariilor din România (2020) [Encyclopedia of Imaginaries from Romania]/Corin Braga (general coordinator).—Iaşi: Polirom, 2020—5 volumes, contributing with an extensive article to the second volume: Patrimoniu şi imaginar lingvistic [Patrimony and linguistic imaginary]. Călin Emilian Cira  is a librarian at the Lucian Blaga Central University Library, Cluj-Napoca (Department of Research, Special Collections, Oral Archive and Multimedia), as well as an associate lecturer within the Faculty of History and Philosophy, Babeș-Bolyai University, ClujNapoca, Romania. He holds a PhD in History and he is also a doctoral candidate in Theology (Babeș-­ Bolyai University). Published books: Convorbiri despre N. Steinhardt [Conversations about N. Steinhardt, volume I: 2010; volume II: 2012]; “Am ascultat de porunca Bisericii.” Arhiepiscopul Justinian Chira în dialog cu Călin Emilian Cira [“I have obeyed the command of the Church.” Archbishop Justinian Chira in dialogue with Călin Emilian Cira, 1st edition 2012, 2nd edition 2016]; Nae Antonescu. Corespondență primită (1960–1969) [Nae Ionescu. Received correspondence (1960–1969), 2022]. Edited book: “Lângă inima poporului.” Episcopul Justinian Chira Maramureșanul în județul Bistrița-Năsăud [“Near the heart of the people.” Bishop Justinian Chira Maramureșanul in Bistrița-Năsăud County, 2021]. Co-author of Anuarul Istoriografic al României [Historiographical Yearbook of Romania, volumes 2–6]. Alina Cojocaru  is an assistant professor and early career researcher at Ovidius University of Constanța, Romania. Her research interests include spatial literary studies, memory studies and literary theory. She is the author of Geographies of Memory and Postwar Urban Regeneration in British Literature: London as Palimpsest (2022). She is a postdoctoral student and a member of the PROINVENT project, in the framework of Human Resources Development Operational programme 2014–2020, financed from the European Social Fund under contract number 62487/03.06.2022 POCU 993/6/13/—Code SMIS: 153299.

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Jonathan Lahey Dronsfield is a research fellow at the Institute of Philosophy, Czech Academy of Sciences, Prague. His research interest is dissent and its relation to freedom of expression and freedom of assembly, in particular the role inner freedom plays in practices of dissent under authoritarian and totalitarian regimes. Recent publications on dissent include papers on rhetoric and inner freedom, Du Bois and rap music, Kundera and Hrabal, and walking and the civil rights movement in the United States. He is the author of Cryptochromism (2007), Materiality of Theory (2011) and Spinoza Lector, 2 volumes (2014 and 2017). Oana Fotache  is a professor within the Faculty of Letters, University of Bucharest, Romania. Her research interests focus on modern literary theory, history of literary ideas, comparative literature and exile studies. Most recent publications include: The Map and the Legend. 22 Readings of Mircea Cărtărescu’s Work (co-edited, in Romanian, 2020). Anca Hațiegan  is an associate professor at the Faculty of Theatre and Film, Babeș-Bolyai University, Romania. Her research interests include Romanian theatre history, women in theatre and everyday theatricality. She is the author of two books: Dimineața actrițelor [Dawn of the Actresses] (Iaşi: Polirom, 2019), about the first Romanian professional actresses, and Cărțile omului dublu. Teatralitate și roman în regimul comunist [The Books of the Double-Man. Theatricality and the Novel Under the Communist Regime], about the everyday theatricality of the communist society, kept under constant surveillance, and its reflection in the novels of that time (Cluj: Limes, 2010). Numerous contributions to collective volumes in Romania. Radoslav Horák  is a PhD student in the Department of Theatre and Film Studies, Faculty of Arts, Palacký University Olomouc, the Czech Republic. In 2020, he obtained his MA degree in Czech Philology and Film Studies. His research interests focus on Czech cinema and theory of adaptation. In this field of study he has published two papers in monographs. Kazimierz Jurczak is a professor and researcher at the Institute of Romance Philology, Department of Romanian Studies, Jagiellonian University, Kraków, Poland. He is the author of over 40 articles and sci-

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entific studies in Polish and Romanian periodicals, as well as collective works on the history and theory of literature, cultural studies and history of ideas. He worked at the Embassy of the Republic of Poland in Bucharest as the Embassy Counsellor—the head of the Consular Section (1995–2001). Réka Lugossy  is Associate Professor of English Applied Linguistics at the University of Pécs, Hungary. She has published on the role of narratives in identity construction, on L2 teachers’ beliefs and teacher cognition and on the influence of stories, in particular authentic picture books on children’s cognitive, linguistic and literacy development. She has coauthored Stories and Storyline, a book about engaging young learners’ imagination and sustaining language learning motivation through narrative contexts. Her research explores the role of multiple languages and symbolic communities in the lives of historical minorities. Veronica Manole  is a lecturer at the Faculty of Letters, Babeș-Bolyai University, Romania. She is the coordinator of the BA Programme in Portuguese Language and Literature and of the Portuguese Language Centre of Camões I. P. in Cluj-Napoca. She has completed her PhD studies in Portuguese, Brazilian and Lusophone Africa Studies at Paris 8 University with a thesis on Portuguese, Brazilian and Romanian political discourse. She has published extensively on political discourse analysis, Portuguese language and linguistics and Romance intercomprehension. Silvia Molina-Plaza is an associate professor in the Department of Applied Linguistics for Science and Technology at the Technical University of Madrid (UPM). Her research interests are discourse analysis, pragmatics, translation and ESP. Ioana Mudure-Iacob is a lecturer in the Department of Foreign Languages for Specific Purposes, Faculty of Letters, Babeș-Bolyai University, Cluj-Napoca, Romania. Her scientific fields of interest include content and language integrated learning, gamification in language teaching, digital humanities and sociolinguistics. Elena Păcurar  is a lecturer in the Department of Foreign Languages for Specific Purposes, Faculty of Letters, Babeș-Bolyai University, Cluj-

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Napoca, Romania, where she teaches practical courses of English for Specific Purposes. She has published a series of scientific articles on ESP and EFL teaching, language policy and the impact of ICT on language learning. She is the coordinator of the annual conference on “The Dynamics of Languages for Specific Purposes” held in Cluj-Napoca, Romania, and a member of the editorial board for the peer-reviewed academic journal Studia Universitatis Babeș-Bolyai Philologia. Luboš Ptáček  is an associate professor in the Department of Theatre and Film Studies, Palacký University in Olomouc, the Czech Republic. He holds an MA and a PhD in Aesthetics from the Faculty of Arts, Charles University, Prague. He is researching Czech film, especially ideological structures of Czech cinema, historical film and stylistic and narrative experiments of the Czech New Wave creators. Magdalena Răduță  is associate professor within the Faculty of Letters, University of Bucharest, Romania. Her research interests focus on literary history, literary media (twentieth century) and literary sociology. Most recent publication: “In Context. A Sociological Reading of Romanian Literature during the Last Communist Decade” (in Romanian, 2019). Henrique Schneider  is Professor of Economics at the Nordakademie University of Applied Sciences, Germany. His research interests include economic history with a focus on Southeast Europe. Mitja Stefancic is an independent researcher. He holds a PhD in Economics from the University of Ljubljana and an MPhil in Modern Society and Global Transformations from the University of Cambridge. He has been employed at the Centre for Knowledge Development and Transfer, University of Primorska. He is co-editor of the World Economics Association Commentaries. Dina Vîlcu  is a lecturer in the Department of Romanian Language, Culture and Civilization, Faculty of Letters, Babeș-Bolyai University, Cluj-Napoca, Romania. Her main current professional activity is teaching, assessing and conducting research in the domain of Romanian as a foreign language at Babeș-­Bolyai University. She is also interested in language theory and the role of language in social life.

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Notes on Contributors

Eugen Wohl  is a lecturer in the Department of Foreign Languages for Specific Purposes, Faculty of Letters, Babeș-Bolyai University, ClujNapoca, Romania, and a theatre critic (IATC member). His research interests are focused on ESP teaching and learning, specialized lexicography, professional translations and Theatre Studies and Performance Arts. He holds a BA degree in English and Romanian Literature and Language, a BA and MA in Theatre Studies, and a PhD in Comparative Literature and Theatre.

List of Figures

Fig. 16.1 An example of an original and a segmented front page in El País366 Fig. 16.2 An example of an original and a segmented front page in ABC368 Fig. 16.3 The ABC front page on 10 November 1989 372 Fig. 16.4 El País front page on 11 November 1989 374

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List of Tables

Table 16.1 The primary layers of the genre and multimodality framework361 Table 16.2 Analysis of the Berlin Wall news stories in El País front pages 369 Table 16.3 Analysis of the Berlin Wall news stories in ABC front pages 370

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1 Introduction Eugen Wohl and Elena Păcurar

Language Before, During and After 1989 “From being a means of signifying reality, and of enabling us to come to an understanding of it, language seems to have become an end in itself.” (Havel 1992, 12)

There are instances in the palimpsest of world history when the mere mention of a particular moment (a date or a year, for instance) immediately sparks a shared frame of reference, a common awareness of its significance. For a sizable portion of the world, the year 1989 sits at the top of the list, “as important a date as 1945; it was a watershed” (Dahrendorf 1997, vi), “a turning point as important as 1789” (Dahrendorf 2017, epub). It only takes the mention of the year 1989 to trigger analogies between now, more than 30 years later, and then, the “annus mirabilis” (Rupnik 2014, 7); between “past and future” (see A.  Heller 2000);

E. Wohl (*) • E. Păcurar Faculty of Letters, Babeș-Bolyai University, Cluj-Napoca, Cluj, Romania e-mail: [email protected]; [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 E. Wohl, E. Păcurar (eds.), Language of the Revolution, Palgrave Studies in Languages at War, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-37178-3_1

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between a before 1989 and a relative after persisting to this day. Despite deeply rooted differences, sociopolitical and economic variables, as well as language barriers, the consensus stands that the world indisputably changed in 1989, when the Soviet Union disintegrated as “half of Europe had come to the conclusion that it need not continue to live under nondemocratic regimes in the interest of maintaining the stability of the whole” (Sarotte 2014, 47). Much has been written about this historic moment, with pundits focusing on understanding and explaining the context of the Cold War (Lefler and Westad 2010; Day 2017; Westad 2013, 2017), the sequences of events that made possible the collapse of communist regimes in Central and Eastern Europe (Sebestyen 2009; Kramer and Smetana 2014), as well as on the revolutions and their aftermath (Tismăneanu 1999; Antohi and Tismăneanu 2000; Meyer 2009; Tismăneanu and Iacob 2012; Rupnik 2014; Sarotte 2014; Mueller et al. 2015; Ther 2016; Mark et al. 2019; Kosicki and Kunakhovich 2019). To the mentioned sources, an admittedly scant selection of analyses published primarily in English, one can easily add numerous other important resources (books, collective volumes or scientific articles) written in the languages of the nations directly impacted by the 1989 events and which emphasise the distinctive local features and circumstances of the revolutions. This increased scholastic interest manages to further demonstrate the tremendous scale and impact of the upheaval taking Europe by storm at the end of the 1980s, as well as testify to the undisputed fact that the countries comprising the monolith referred to as the “Eastern Bloc” throughout the Cold War (1947–1991) were, in fact, “very different places with vastly contrasting histories, cultures, religions and experiences” (Sebestyen 2009, epub). It was through the manifold manifestations of the 1989 anti-communist fight that both deep divides and significant ties became vividly apparent. In this context, a focus on the “language of revolutions” when investigating the multi-layered and diverse social phenomena leading to the demise of the communist dictatorships from Central and Eastern European countries in 1989 appears as both crucial and necessary. “There is a real sense in which these regimes lived by the word and perished by the word” (Garton Ash 1999, 110), yet the role played by language in the actual revolutionary wave has yet to be investigated in all its complexity.

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In various, often contrasting forms, language played a decisive revolutionary role throughout the 1989 events, long before their outbreak, their outward manifestations, and continues to do so, more than 30 years after the “Communist glacis had been breached, the Iron Curtain ripped asunder” (Dahrendorf 2017, epub), enabling the identification of four interrelated stages assumed, as well as experienced by the linguistic transformations circumscribing the fall of communism: a language of resistance and resilience, ever-growing, diverse and subversive, in permanent conflict with the “wooden language” of communism, “the semiotic system that dominated the discourse culture in the communist countries up to the introduction of the ‘open-discourse’ (glasnost) and ‘system-­ restructuring’ (perestroika) reforms in the mid- to late 1980s” (Andrews 2011, 1); a language of the revolution, delineating the particularities, as well as the role and function of the revolutionary rhetoric in shaping the very instances when increasingly larger crowds of protesters from all over the communist bloc “decided to voice their anger” (Sarotte 2014, 46); a language of negotiation, reconstruction and reunification,1 as the fundamental sociopolitical and economic developments occurring in the post-1989 world have been “accompanied by and, indeed, often been the cause of important linguistic changes” (Dunn 1999, 1), and, lastly, a language of appraisal, a post-factum struggle to understand and occasionally redefine these realities. Predominantly scholastic, the linguistic efforts included in this last stage attempt to appreciate to what extent “it is appropriate to call the East European events of 1989, revolutions” (Dahrendorf 1997, 4), and whether or not another denomination would indeed be terminologically more suitable, more in line with the overwhelmingly peaceful character (with the exception of Romania) of the transformations that occurred that year. As such, researchers might find it important to chronicle the evolving denominational transformations in relation to these historic moments. Terminological distinctions such as “negotiated revolutions” in Poland and Hungary and “real revolutions” in Romania, the GDR and Czechoslovakia (Lévesque 2010, 323), “palace revolution” in Bulgaria (Vassiliev 2011, 99; Sebestyen 2009, epub), a “turn” or a “peaceful revolution” in the GDR and a “system change” in Hungary (Mark et al. 2019, 11), “revolution,” “foreign plot” or “hybrid revolution” understood as a “a mix between a revolution and a coup

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d’état,” in Romania (see Cesereanu 2004, 63–180) demonstrate the constant need for a linguistic reassessment of how we retrospectively understand and explain the important metamorphosis occurring in Central and Eastern Europe. Nevertheless, however thought provoking, such an endeavour to further investigate the language of these diverse perspectives, though not entirely overlooked, is only partially explored in the present enterprise. “There were few signs in the first half of 1989 that the European continent was on the brink of revolutionary change” (Young 2010, 306), with experts failing to “anticipate the possibility of a ‘1989’” (Rupnik 2014, 7). In a 1995 address, Ralf Dahrendorf asks, “Why did we not predict that 1989 would happen? Why did it come as such a surprise?” (1997, 85) and, to a significant degree, the answers also lie in the resilient nature of the “language of resistance” under communism. For more than 40  years, voices of dissent successful in penetrating the Iron Curtain, while unquestionably significant, had been sparse enough to signal to the Western world that, by all appearances, the overwhelming majority of the population living in Eastern and Central Europe was complacent with the status quo, albeit presumably unsatisfied with the political regimes (but unwilling or unable to mobilise against them) and disheartened by the increasingly harsh economic realities. On the other side of the Iron Curtain, however, life under socialist dictatorships presupposed from the very start a “double existence”: an “official” one, under the control of the communist state, subjected to indoctrination, control, fear and repression, and a “private” one consisting of various strategies of resistance to the pressures of the oppressive apparatuses. Language lay at the core of both, and extra care, almost unconsciously at times, was to be taken to a greater extent to what not to say and how not to behave. The “language of communism”—“‘Totalitarian language,’ along with its various cognates, ‘Newspeak,’ ‘politically-correct language,’ ‘communist language’ and ‘wooden language’” (Andrews 2011, 1), to which we can also add such synonyms as “‘ideological language’, ‘ideologemes’, ‘officialese’, ‘bureaucratese’, ‘langue de bois’” (Petrov and Ryazanova-­ Clarke 2015, 5)—served primarily to legitimise the official ideology (Sebestyen 2009, epub). It was extensively and excessively used by state propaganda, permeating every aspect of social life to the point of

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oversaturation and “pushing” citizens, as Blaga Dimitrova puts it, “into a verbal reality that had nothing in common with reality” (in Vassilev 2011, 103). For instance, referring to Romanian dictator Nicolae Ceaușescu’s cult of personality, dissident Gabriel Andreescu noted that “his oversized ego, his thirst for glory quickly dried up the possibilities of the declamatory language of propaganda” (in Ursu and Thomasson 2019, 29).2 Gradually, it eroded to such a degree that by the end of the 1980s, it became almost a “background noise,” irritating, potentially harmful, yet incapable to fully hinder authentic, meaningful communication. As John Keane observed in 1985, “‘dissidents’ are to be found not only among the intellectuals, but also in every café, street queue, factory and church,” and despite the fact that “the party-dominated state continues its attempts to smother public life (…), almost no one (probably not even senior party apparatchiks) believes any longer in its pantomime of empty, ritualized claims,” the political regimes being “content with the regulation and control of apparent behavior; so long as its subjects conform and only disagree silently, they are probably safe” (in Havel 2015, epub). A similar view is shared by Victor Sebestyen who notes that state officials and the secret police “ceased to think they could make people believe in communism. All citizens had to do was pretend they believed and outwardly conform. It became increasingly a spiritless charade” (2009, epub). This abrasion of official languages throughout Eastern and Central Europe—“the Soviet Union and socialist countries of Eastern Europe dictated their communist values in different tongues” and “experiences of life under communism were far from homogenous” (Petrov and Ryazanova-Clarke 2015, 8)—is intrinsically linked to the parallel existence of a language of resistance and resilience, a surviving mechanism, a tool for “resisting vigilantly, thoughtfully, and attentively (…) the power of ideologies, systems, apparat, bureaucracy, artificial languages, and political slogans” (Havel 1992, 267), as well as, in some cases, for publicly voicing dissent. This language also assumed as many regional varieties as there were countries in the Eastern Bloc, yet its strategies converged towards shared goals: speaking the truth and attempting, with various degrees of success, to “stop or at least curb the evolution of the repressive system” (Modreanu 2022, 13).

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The linguistic mechanisms of resistance took on a variety of shapes, ranging from subtle discursive strategies permeating everyday speech (from direct interactions to private correspondence, all forms of communication occurred in a heavily surveilled environment) and subversive cultural products (literary works or artistic productions hoping to deceive the vigilance of censorship or which  were destined primarily for samizdat circulation) to more complex rhetorical tactics utilised primarily by dissidents. In the first category, we can include such approaches as resorting to humour, “a serious matter because it courageously returns to transparency, thus revealing the cruel truth: that the emperor wears no clothes” (Iacob 2017, 335), or employing, in speech but even more so in written texts, an Aesopian language, “manipulating ordinary words so as to make their meaning transparent to the friend and impenetrable to the foe” (Sandomirskaja 2015, 64), a process which, if successful, engulfs all the elements of the communication process to create “a togetherness of dissenting sensibilities and dissident speech” (74). In the latter, we observe a recourse to what Christian Joppke calls “defensive antipolitics,” which replaced “virtuoso activism” and advocated that “the personal should not be political but be rescued from politics” (1995, 184; emphasis ours), “a kind of refrain” (Shore 2013, 26), a “form of opposition to power politics” (Müller 2010, 18), committed to “the restoration of truth and morality in the public sphere, the rehabilitation of civic virtues, and the end of the totalitarian methods of control, intimidation, and coercion” (Tismăneanu 1999, 10), as well as the inventive strategy of “taking their regimes at their word, especially after socialist governments had signed the Helsinki Accords of 1975” (Müller 2010, 16, emphasis ours). As “communism managed to poison many words from the mainstream of European history” (Garton Ash 1999, 115), this last strategy, pressuring totalitarian governments to abide by the doctrines they professed, is indicative of the conflict, and ultimate triumph, of “language against language,” a seized opportunity to reclaim and recharge with meaning such concepts as “victory,” “freedom,” “democracy,” “people,” “equality,” “dignity,” rendered insignificant by their excessive or repetitive use in the propaganda of the oppressive regimes. For example, Victor Sebestyen points out that “magnates in the Kremlin” were “horrified and scared by the slogan adopted by Solidarity, with its deliberate echo of Marx and

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Engels: ‘Workers of all enterprises—Unite’” (2009, epub). In a step further from dissidence, the actions of “those who think differently, disregard official policy, becoming undesirables” (Bălănescu 2020, 382), to opposition, “manifesting opposing beliefs through actions” (Ursu and Thomasson 2019, 28), the use of “hostile inscriptions” such as “distributing manifestos, writing anticommunist slogans on walls or banners, sending disapproving letters to the authorities of the time, calling fellow citizens to a joint action against the regime” (ibid.) represented devices that are now regarded, in the case of the Romanian dictatorship at least, as “one of the main forms of daily resistance to Nicolae Ceaușescu’s cult of personality, alongside other era-specific phenomena, such as political discussions and commentaries, individual or collective actions against images depicting the leader of the Romanian Communist Party and telling political jokes” (Toader 2020, 152). As the 1989 events began to unfold, the very existence of a common vernacular of resistance in which, despite linguistic divides, citizens from all countries in Central and Eastern Europe were fluent, helped foster a rapid coalition beyond borders. At “zero hour,” everybody knew who the enemy was and what they were fighting for and the language of resistance loudly transformed into a unified language of the revolution. And while the following section dwells deeper into the intricacies of the contentious language of the 1989 revolutions, we will anticipate by mentioning two of the main directions assumed by the revolutionary language under analysis: signalling a clear divide between “us,” the people, and “them,” the rulers, the common enemies, and marking a drive towards a common, unified language, “a language of human rights, transcendent of communist—or capitalist—ideology” (Shore 2013, 27), able to suture the divides between “East” and “West.” “We are not like them!” chanted by protesters in Prague (Garton Ash 1999, 114) is indicative of the first technique, as revolutionaries “were all united by consciousness of the one great divide between the communist upper/ruling class, the nomenklatura, and all the rest” (ibid.). “Down with communism!” “Down with the dictator!” as chanted in Romania in December 1989 (Toader 2020, 151) is an example of the second. An edulcorated form of communism, as that envisioned by Mikhail Gorbachev, was not an option, anything less than authentic freedom and democracy was not

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acceptable. The language of the Helsinki Accords resonated deeply in Central and Eastern Europe and the 1989 revolutions gave them the opportunity to verbalise their commitment to reconnect with their extended European family: The notion of a ‘European culture’ provided a language through which those on both sides of an otherwise still deep ideological divide could find common understandings, and which might eventually underpin the relaxation of political tensions. Eastern European states were often at the forefront of such initiatives, viewing the process as an opportunity to place their often marginalised cultures at the centre of the continent’s identity. (Mark et al. 2019, 133)

The (Linguistic) Roots of Division and Conflict “In every capital of Central and Eastern Europe the windows in the Central Committee buildings are illuminated late into the night. Behind their desks sit men well-versed in the writings of Lenin and Stalin. Not the least of their tasks is to define the position of the enemy.” (Miłosz 1953, 183)

The fact that much of the imaginary architecture of the communist ecosystem is shaped by the efforts of identifying (“defining”) the other is not surprising; there is, perhaps, no greater task that would forge the endeavours of many apparatchiks than that of finding the proper vocabulary for something essentially different from or radically opposite to what was considered the norm. Those “well-versed” in the use of the communist rhetoric would want to know the idiom which drew the division line between the two facets of the same reality: one palpable, one imaginary. The lexical stock of the “short century” of 1914–1989 (Dahrendorf 2017, epub) is fuelled on the energy of a contentious language grafted on “World War,” “uprising,” “protest,” “revolt,” “riot,” “occupation,” “insurgency,” “mutiny” or “revolution,” mushrooming according to geographical position, political context and, sometimes, to narrative perspective. Organically integrated in the landscape of this significant part of the

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twentieth century, violence sets the stage for (re)action, both in physical and verbal form and both directed at the “enemy”: Man tends to regard the order he lives in as natural. The houses he passes on his way to work seem more like rocks rising out of the earth than like products of human hands. […] His first stroll along a street littered with glass from bomb-shattered windows shakes his faith in the “naturalness” of his world. The wind scatters papers from hastily evacuated offices, papers labelled “Confidential” or “Top Secret” that evoke visions of safes, keys, conferences, couriers, and secretaries. (Miłosz 1953, 24–25)

Weaponised words, like bombs, can splinter the foundation of the social, political or ideological “bloc” beyond recognition; in the mist of misinformation and deliberate confusion, “to define the position of the enemy” becomes a priority. The language used to pinpoint the location of a projected inimical figure echoes an already classic strategy of framing, according to which the other (in this case, the West) is depicted as “tainted,” “decadent,” “imperialist” and identified with “the kulaks, the bourgeoisie, and the large landowners who sabotaged economic progress” (Bottoni 2017, 58). Domestic and foreign adversaries of the communist regime, the “internal and external enemies” (ibid.), often feature as targets of the ideologically branded lexical arsenal, in the many self-replicating discourses mapping out the separation of the “us” versus “them” binomial, to the point where this conceptual double helix merges into an ambiguous amalgam: “Speaking at the congress of the Patriotic People’s Front in December 1961, HSWP3 General Secretary Kádár declared that ‘those who are not against us are with us,’ thus inverting Rákosi’s notorious assertion that ‘whoever is not with us is against us’”. (Bottoni 2017, 100) At the time, the existence of a collective (rather than individual) consciousness signals the potential for reaction in the form of disobedience, insubordination and even revolt, constituting symptoms of dangerous “opposition thinking.” The 1989 events gave the collective entity made of others the prerogative of gradually consolidating into a “civic society.” In Ralf Dahrendorf ’s view, this essential, albeit sluggish, social transformation epitomising the birth of a civic society would take up to 60 years to complete (Dahrendorf 2017, epub). For some of the countries in the

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“Eastern Bloc,” the work is still under way; yet, alongside the constitutional and economic reforms brought about by the fall of communism, this final stage in the social landscape changeover is regarded as, possibly, the most sustainable one. A civic society comprising, in Timothy Garton Ash’s words, “forms of association, national, regional, local, professional, which would be voluntary, authentic, democratic and, first and last, not controlled or manipulated by the Party or Party-state” (Garton Ash in Dahrendorf 2017, epub) should have the leading role in verbalising “opposition thinking.” Ten years after 1989, post-communist societies would still be perceived in an early stage of development, their filiation to a pre-existent social order being written off as unsuitable. To the infelicitous “posttotalitarian” societies, Agnes Heller prefers “new democracies,” thus highlighting the need to express a definite divorce from the (recent) past: “The new democracies are newborn, without a proper time of pregnancy, but rather only a short period of incubation” (Heller in Antohi and Tismăneanu 2000, 4). Two additional decades later, spanning over episodes of unprecedented social mobility as well as unpredictable changes, both Eurocentric and Eurosceptic discourses compete in a choral repetition of the “us” versus “them” paradigm. Though no longer in a nascent phase, the post-1989 offspring seems to have learnt how to march both forward and backwards. Heavier than any mechanism designed to operate a division or a separation, the Iron Curtain dropped on the “fault line” (Sorin Antohi) between the East and the West and, in the cleavage between the two, several other partitions surfaced: “An ideological, political, military, and increasingly epistemological-cultural fault line appeared to separate two rival, parallel worlds. It was a fault line and not a mere border, as the separation seemed to extend from the minds of people into ontology” (Antohi and Tismăneanu 2000, 62). The post-Yalta agreement voiced this “strict and single dichotomy” (Garton Ash 1986), whereby what was known as “Western Europe” would locate its enemy in the former conglomerate of “historic Central, East Central, and South-Eastern Europe which after 1945 came under Soviet domination” (Garton Ash 1986). The words chosen to describe the two positions have permeated the public sphere; labels such as “the totalitarian East” and “the West’s free world” (Krastev and Holmes 2020, epub) are the buoys of a linguistic landscape

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stretching out to the peripheries of the contention zone. The “most politically consequential schism” (Krastev and Holmes 2020, epub) aggravates a supposedly pre-existing split between the spiritual halves of the continent. For the unconsoled Central European mind bemoaning the very loss of centrality, the former “two Europes” (“one tied to ancient Rome and the Catholic Church, the other anchored in Byzantium and the Orthodox Church”—Kundera 1984) now looked unfamiliar and unsettling. Before, as well as after 1989, an asynchronised tandem made up of “those morally ahead and those morally behind” (Krastev and Holmes 2020, epub) further deepens the “asymmetries” heaving on both sides of the division line. The grip of a stereotypical (political, cultural, linguistic) polarisation into “good” versus “bad,” “progressive” versus “regressive” ultimately throttled the clarity of the many voices of the “Eastern Bloc,” claiming a place in the continental restructuring of 1918–1989. The complex array of European sub-divisions into “Northwest Europe, Southwest Europe, West Central Europe,” on the one side, and “Southeast Europe (the Balkans), East Central Europe, Eastern Europe,” on the other, point out that, in Maria Todorova’s words, “marking out is not an innocent act” (Antohi in Antohi and Tismăneanu 2000, 66). Furthermore, it also starts a conversation on the internal unrest of the various units building up the “Eastern Bloc” and the language they believe best served their strategic positions. Timothy Garton Ash’s astute observation of 1986 that a Mitteleuropean nostalgia actually translated into an articulation of an endemic binary vision, marking the dissociation between Central and Eastern Europe, still lingers: In the work of Havel and Konrád there is an interesting semantic division of labour. Both authors use the terms “Eastern Europe” or “East European” when the context is neutral or negative; when they write “Central” or “East Central,” the statement is invariably positive, affirmative, or downright sentimental. (Garton Ash 1986)

A language that would record these polyglottal instances of discontent, antagonism or discord—whether spoken or written, silent or silenced— is, perhaps, as important as an investigation of the causes that led to

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them. Holding an undeniable role in both “generating conflicts and in their resolution” (Kelly et al. 2019, 5), contentious words are enlisted as essential gear in the “soft war” collection of “cyber warfare, media-based warfare, propaganda, trade sanctions and non-violent resistance” (Kelly et al. 2019, 8) nowadays. The rhetoric of anti-communist resistance and dissidence branched out of the cultural, political and military chasm previously described and aimed at: denouncing the hollow structures of official discourse, restoring meaning(s) and reuniting formerly divorced concepts. Possessing much less sophisticated means for getting the message across than those available today, the lexical inventory of the anti-­ communist revolutions calls attention to the discrepancies between reality and its rhetorical transfiguration, to the fractures of speech and thought, as well as to the creative strategies of survival in/through language. A collective effort is invested in the process of inventing a language of contention necessarily understood as “relational, concrete, and dynamic”: • It is relational in the sense that Bakhtin talks about language as relational: “It is composed of an utterance, a reply, and a relation between the two” (Holquist 1990, 38). • It is concrete in the sense that it develops within specific communities “within the lattice work of daily life” (Steinberg 1999, 5). • And it is dynamic in that it develops through an interactive process of contention with significant others […] (Tarrow 2013, 32–33).

The transfer from individual to collective revolutionary “word making” is expedited through: ambiguity4 and polysemy, symbolic resonance,5 strategic modularity6 or brokerage7—all designed to foster a “culture of contention,” to borrow Sidney Tarrow’s words. As ambitious or difficult as the establishment of such a culture might be, the surge to “contentious politics” affects all parts involved to higher degrees; yet, essentially, both “a culture of contention” and “contentious politics” are scaffolded on the struggle to make allegations, to raise demands or to utter a call to action. “To make a claim” best summarises the communicative acts implied: By contentious politics we mean:

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episodic, public, collective interaction among makers of claims and their objects when (a) at least one government is a claimant, an object of claims, or a party to the claims and (b) the claims would, if realized, affect the interests of at least one of the claimants. (McAdam et al. 2004, 5)

Attempts to point out the invisibility of the “emperor’s new clothes,” to unveil the “hollow rhetoric” (André Fontaine in Dahrendorf 2017, epub) of the wooden language or to amplify the subdued ideological travesty of certain concepts supplied the narrative of anti-communist insurgencies, with the respective collateral victims. Its “claimants” (activists, writers, artists, average citizens, etc.) chose to denounce the fact that “even valued notions like democracy or human rights had different meanings on the two sides of the Iron Curtain” or that “[a]s long as the two languages held, nothing would change” (Dahrendorf 2017, epub). Since the EastWest conversation mirrored a “dialogue of the deaf,” change was prompted to happen in a bottom-up approach. The contribution of communism’s exhausted rhetoric resembling “empty puffs of air” (Gassaway Hill 2018, 177) was essential in helping “the polenta to explode,” as the saying goes. No longer capable to entertain a credible version of history, totalitarian systems collapsed precisely because of the cracks in their narrative architecture; the game of “pretense” can be played only as long as all parts involved decide to suspend their disbelief: [A]s Kennan observes, “when a given regime is no longer able to carry on without accommodating itself to a wide-ranging pretense that it shares with its subject people, the artificiality of that pretense being perfectly evident to both sides, then its ultimate fall must be considered as inevitable and probably imminent, even if no one can tell when and how it will occur.” (Dahrendorf 2017, epub)

Once interrupted, the mechanics of make-believe cannot replicate the outcomes of the political, as well as cultural and linguistic mutilations of speech acts anymore; if “ideas—and words—become deformed, grotesque, or simply crumble” under the totalitarian regime (Garton Ash 1986), they are deemed unfit to paint an accurate representation of reality. A lack of correlation between signifier and signified (or, maybe, the

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inability to trace their correspondence) is the symptom of a failure to communicate. BBC reporter John Simpson’s famous article written upon return to post-communist Romania8 best illustrates this incapacity to access meaning in the anecdotal fragment of the two Romanian boys debating the function of unfamiliar fruit, in a context marked by the socioeconomic hardships of the slow post-revolutionary transition: “There used to be such privation here that immediately after the revolution, I saw two 11-year-old boys looking at the oranges on display in a shop window and arguing whether they were things you played with, or things you ate” (Simpson 1994). The chance that “official rhetoric” could become “‘more real’ than physical objective realities” again (Gassaway Hill 2018, 177) was dispelled once with the anti-communist revolutions of the “Eastern Bloc.” In order to survive the schizoid divide of a language rooted in both the explicit and the implicit meanings, the “claimants” of a right to counter the official rhetoric would often practice ambiguity, thus making use of one of the most discrete features of contentious language. “Duplicity” (Gassaway Hill 2018, 184)—mastering the art of the double-deckered speech—harboured the development of “personal adaptive strategies” whereby “it was possible to separate formal public support for the existing system and private criticism of communism” (Bottoni 2017, 136). Not to be confused with the particular cases of “resistance through culture”—the “tolerated form of spiritual dissent” (Bottoni 2017, 152)— duplicity looks different when compared against the largely accepted definition of “dissent.” A duplicitous communicative act attests to the existence of a “filter” which dictates “what could or could not be written” (Gassaway Hill 2018, 178); “self-censorship” or “self-control” (György Aczél in Bottoni 2017, 101) functions as internal repressive agencies, turning contentious language into mere ius murmurandi (Bottoni 2017, 136). Dismissed by those for whom actual dissent is a publicly acknowledged expressed act, on the one hand, and embraced by those who refuse any type of open political engagement, on the other, “resistance through culture” is an umbrella term for a range of sibylline, allusive items and structures, for innuendos which function as lexical Trojan horses for something perceived as verbal heresy. Situated halfway between a complicit appropriation of the official discourse and its potentially dangerous

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rejection, the phenomenon of “resistance through culture” might have surfaced as the boomerang effect of the communist campaigns of “cultural planning,” intensely promoted in a top-down model of dissemination. The “ideologically charged idiom” delivered at “Communist party assemblies and during political debates” and reaching the “ordinary citizens in the public sector” (Bottoni 2017, 58) was gradually washed off and eventually lost its power. Not coincidentally, perhaps, the fall of the Berlin Wall is fortuitously due to a “fatal communication error” (Bottoni 2017, 167) or “a bureaucratic snafu” (Fischer 2009) committed at the occasion of Günter Schabowski’s declaration regarding the opening of the border between East and West Berlin. The most visible fault line in the history of European communism was erased on November 9, 1989, by a Central Committee member’s slip of the tongue. Intentional defiance, revision, destruction and reconstruction, on the other hand, speak of a potential for envisioning change (however radical) or for speculating on the outcome of transformation; redressing a context is also re-addressing it, being able to chronicle a revolution in (re)newed words, as well as through (f )acts. “Thinking differently” is “the beginning of the utopian enterprise, a reimagining of a community’s possibilities, ranging from a political reimagining of civic life beyond the Berlin Wall in a divided Germany, to a cultural reimagining of women driving in Saudi Arabia” (Gassaway Hill 2018, 10). Conceiving of an opportunity to challenge the status quo is, perhaps, the greatest virtue of those actively engaged in capsizing totalitarian regimes. “Revolution”—alongside many other concepts illustrating iconoclastic movements—opposes the very notion for preserving status quo; “stability” is questioned with each lexical coinage such as “socialist revolution” or “revolutionary movement” (Tarrow 2013, 25). Historically, as the meaning of “revolution” shifted from “the revolution of the planets” to “natural disasters” and, finally, to “overturn[ing] a political system” (Tarrow 2013, 192), the sense of imminent transfiguration was preserved. For theorists who reject the use of “revolution” to talk about the events of 1989, while admitting that “reform” is insufficient, the concept of “rebirth” has been advanced to cover “the distinctive quality and significance of what happened” (Soltan in Antohi and Tismăneanu 2000, 30). In Carol Soltan’s view, “a pure case of rebirth” would meet the following criteria:

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1. rebirths restore some form of continuity with the past, reversing destruction or decay; 2. they are distinguished by the level and form of activity they involve—there is an unusually high level of plural and incremental improvement; 3. they are periods permeated by social energy and passion, in which sacred values are taken seriously. They momentarily reverse, in a way, the disenchanting tendencies of modernity. (Soltan in Antohi and Tismăneanu 2000, 30–31)

While the notion of “rebirth” comes closer to the less violent forms of manifestations—like the Portuguese “revolution of carnations” or the “velvet revolution” in Czechoslovakia—the 1989 upheaval of countries such as Romania, situated eastward to the other states of the “Eastern Bloc,” remains a “revolution” through which “all-encompassing claims of the ruling nomenklatura had to be broken” (Dahrendorf 2017, epub). Some went as far as to associate the Romanian revolution with an atavistic taste for bloodshed (“the autochthonous affinity for violence”— Simpson 1994) and the broadcasting of tragedies between November 16–December 25 with a gruesome performance which “sated the world’s appetite for drama and revenge” (Simpson 1994). If a revolution is the best proof that contentious words and politics are able to rapidly “diffuse” much like a “contagion” or a “wildfire” (Tarrow 2013, 196–197), televising became the equivalent of reaching a peak in terms of “diffusion.” Access to means of showing and telling was akin to stepping across the landmine of “moral borders,” to trespassing previously taboo areas. For some, this would prove too much. The 1989 revolutions brought forth a less noticeable division or rather an enclave, stemming from the hesitant manner of navigating the years of transition to a “new democracy” or a new mentality. The socioeconomic transformations that certain social categories disenchantingly watched on the side of history represented a loss rather than a gain: [F]or Eastern Europeans who were born between the 1930s and 1950s, the postcommunist period has been a collective drama. For entire social groups in the region—former cooperative members, workers from closed-down factories, inhabitants of mining towns—the disappearance of their former home community has resulted in a loss of social status in the strict sense of the term. (Bottoni 2017, 192)

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A new wave of discontent, voiced by those firmly believing that “the greatest beneficiaries [of the Romanian revolution, at least] are probably the people who did most to make the old dictatorship unendurable” (Simpson 1994), gave rise to diverse forms of post-communist contention. Protests, strikes, violent demonstrations (such as the Romanian “mineriads”) or marches occur at intervals in the countries of the former communist bloc seemingly engaged in terminating the agonising labour of this “rebirth.” The gap between the “Autochtonists” and the “Westernizers” (Antohi in Antohi and Tismăneanu 2000, 68), between the socialist elegiacs and the capitalist enthusiasts is widening or contracting systematically; hence, one would be tempted to cast the shadow of the metaphorical “unfinished revolution” (Bottoni 2017, 172) to almost all subsequent contentious chapters of the (post-)communist saga.

Instead of Conclusions Chronologically, the ascend and collapse of the totalitarian regimes stand proof of the way in which their narratives are written (off); indeed, the communist myth “lived and perished by the word,” while its repository of memorabilia is constantly revisited and, therefore, re-authored. One of the most significant “turns” made possible by the annus mirabilis was precisely a turn of the phrase. The departure point of this long turn is the language of resilience and resistance, with its subversive energies and creative camouflage, a collection of documented and undocumented outbursts of the revolt channelled against the babble of a gagged discourse. Whether known as samizdat or tacitly accepted as resistance through culture, the language of resilience lay the foundation for the possibility of contriving the language of the revolution. The circulation of contentious words within a tightly surveyed perimeter showed that language, unlike people, is difficult to detain in the long run. The turning of the screw, so to say, eventually results in lo(o)s(en)ing the grip altogether. Despite the cultural, geographical and linguistic diversity of the “Eastern Bloc” countries, the appropriation of the revolutionary language validated the hypothesis that the idiom of protest and dissent is a shared, collective enterprise. The message surrounding the events of 1989—that there is

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“no turning back”—elatedly proclaimed the end of the “great divide” between the East and the West. A language of reunification substituted the former language of division; in André Fontaine’s opinion, the legacy of 1989 could be attributed to “the reunification of Germany,” “the reunification of Europe” and “a reunification in our language” (Fontaine in Dahrendorf 2017, epub). Last but not least, the language of appraisal, of retroactive assessment, signals the last turn in this interdisciplinary quest; however, due to the morphing landscape of this field of investigation, the point of terminological settlement or agreement is still far in sight. For the authors of this volume, and hopefully for its readers as well, the return to the pre- and post-revolutionary years chronicling the mutations of anti-communist dissidence is an opportunity to capitalise the heritage of (recent) history and to interrogate its dominant narrative. If it is true that “‘[t]he most striking feature in Central European literature is its awareness of history’” (Miłosz in Mikanowski 2017), then an equally haunting concern for the writers, politicians, journalists or members of the civic society of the former “Eastern Bloc” should be the preservation of historical records. We are reminded that “[t]he greatest victory of communism, a victory dramatically revealed only after 1989, was to create people without a memory” (Blandiana in Gassaway Hill 2018, 189). This is precisely the reason why we should only sceptically embrace invitations to forgetfulness claiming that “[so]me measure of neglect and even forgetting is the necessary condition for civic health” (Judt in Bottoni 2017, 195). Moreover, in the absence of reminders (memorials, accounts, commemoration sites, etc.) and under the threat of a latent repetitive history still looming in the corners of the new democracies’ fragile architecture, the probability that “the passage of time has erased from the collective memory the even darker sides of European illiberalism” (Krastev and Holmes 2020, ebook) grows stronger. We can only hope that the present addition to the “Languages of War” series will function as a useful cautionary tale.

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Notes 1. Several studies (Dunn 1999; Andrews 2011; Petrov and Ryazanova-Clarke 2015), cited in the present work, focus specifically on delineating the language transformations occurring after the fall of communism. 2. Our translation. Unless otherwise specified, all subsequent quotes from sources written in languages other than English have been translated by the editors. 3. Hungarian Socialist Workers’ Party. 4. “[W]ords for contentious politics are polysemic, and that makes their meaning both ambiguous and available. […] ambiguity is part of what makes them [the words] modular and therefore available for repetition. […] Ambiguity also condenses meanings” (Tarrow 2013, 15). 5. “Symbolic resonance is in part the result of the core meaning of a specific term; for example, the meaning of a “strike’ or a ‘boycott’ is largely the same in many countries” (Tarrow 2013, 17). 6. “[T]he degree to which terms that emerge in one strategic context can be repeated without losing the strategic advantages they originally possessed” (Tarrow 2013, 17). 7. “[T]he process through which a third party acts to create a connection between two other actors who would remain unconnected except through the action of the broker (McAdam et al. 2001)” (Tarrow 2013, 19). 8. “Ten Days that Fooled the World,” The Independent, December 16, 1994.

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Cesereanu, Ruxandra. 2004. Decembrie ’89. Deconstrucția unei revoluții [December 89. The Deconstruction of a Revolution]. București: Polirom. Dahrendorf, Ralf. 1997. After 1989. Morals, Revolution and Civil Society, New York: Saint Antony’s series (in association with Palgrave Macmillan). Dahrendorf, Ralf. 2017. Reflections on the Revolution in Europe (epub). London, New York: Routledge. Day, Meredith (ed.). 2017. The Cold War. A Political and Diplomatic History of the Modern World. Britannica Educational Publishing. Dunn, J.A. (ed.). 1999. Language and Society in Post-Communist Europe. Selected Papers from the Fifth World Congress of Central and East European Studies, Warsaw, 1995. London: Palgrave Macmillan. Fischer, Joschka. 2009. “Winners and Losers of 1989,” The Guardian. Available online: https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2009/nov/07/berlinwall-­germany-­winners-­losers. Garton Ash, Timothy. 1986. “Does Central Europe Exist?” The New York Review of Books. Available online: https://www.visegradgroup.eu/the-­visegrad-­book/ ash-­timothy-­garton-­does. Garton Ash, Timothy. 1999. “The Year of Truth.” In The Revolutions of 1989, edited by Vladimir Tismăneanu, 105–120. London and New York: Routledge. Gassaway Hill, Mary Lynne. 2018. The Language of Protest. Acts of Performance, Identity and Legitimacy. Palgrave Macmillan. Havel, Václav. 1992. Open Letters. Selected Writings 1965–1990. Selected and edited by Paul Wilson. New York: Vintage Books. Havel, Václav et al. 2015. The Power of the Powerless. Citizens against the State in Central-Eastern Europe. Edited by John Keane. New York: Routledge. Heller, Agnes. 2000. “Between Past and Future.” In Between Past and Future. The Revolutions of 1989 and their Aftermath, edited by Sorin Antohi and Vladimir Tismăneanu. Budapest: CEU Press. Iacob, Miruna. 2017. “Humor as a Survival Technique during Communism in Romania.” Interlitteraria 22/2: 332–340. Joppke, Christian. 1995. East German Dissidents and the Revolution of 1989. Social Movement in a Leninist Regime. London: Palgrave Macmillan. Kelly, Michael; Footitt, Hillary; Salama-Carr, Myriam (eds.). 2019. The Palgrave Handbook of Languages and Conflict. Palgrave Macmillan. Kosicki, Piotr H., Kunakhovich, Kyrill (eds.). 2019. The Long 1989. Decades of Global Revolution. Budapest: CEU Press.

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Krastev, Ivan; Holmes, Stephen. 2020. The Light That Failed. Why the West Is Losing the Fight for Democracy. New York, London: Pegasus Books. Kramer, Mark and Smetana, Vít (eds.). 2014. Imposing, Maintaining, and Tearing Open the Iron Curtain. The Cold War and East-Central Europe, 1945–1989. Lanham: Lexington Books. Kundera, Milan. 1984. “The Tragedy of Central Europe,” The New York Review of Books, vol. 13, no. 7. Lefler, Marvin P. and Westad, Odd Arne. 2010. 1989. The Cambridge History of the Cold War, vol. I–III, New York: Cambridge University Press. Lévesque, Jacques. 2010. “The East European revolutions of 1989.” In The Cambridge History of the Cold War. Volume III: Endings, edited by Marvin P.  Leffler and Odd Arne Westad, 311–332. New  York: Cambridge University Press. Mark, James, Iacob, Bogdan C., Rupprecht, Tobias and Spaskovska, Ljubica (eds.) 2019. 1989: A Global History of Eastern Europe. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. McAdam, Doug, Tarrow, Sidney and Tilly, Charles. 2004. Dynamics of Contention. Cambridge University Press. Meyer, Michael. 2009. The Year that Changed the World. The Untold Story behind the Fall of the Berlin Wall. New York: Scribner. Mikanowski, Jacob. 2017. “Goodbye, Eastern Europe!.” The Los Angeles Review of Books. Available online: https://lareviewofbooks.org/article/goodbyeeastern-­europe/. Miłosz, Czesław. 1953. The Captive Mind. Transl. by Jane Zielonko. New York: Vintage Books. Modreanu, Cristina. 2022. Teatrul ca rezistență. Oameni de teatru în arhivele Securității [Theatre as Resistance. Theatre Practitioners in the Archives of the Secret Police]. București: Polirom. Müller, Jan Werner. 2010. “The Cold War and the intellectual history of the late twentieth century.” In The Cambridge History of the Cold War. Volume III: Endings, edited by Marvin P. Leffler and Odd Arne Westad, 1–22. New York: Cambridge University Press. Mueller, Wolfgang, Gehler, Michael and Suppan, Arnold (eds.). 2015. The Revolutions of 1989: A Handbook. Wien: OAW. Petrov, Petre, Ryazanova-Clarke, Lara (eds.). 2015. The Vernaculars of Communism. Language, Ideology and Power in the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe. London and New York: Routledge.

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Rupnik, Jacques. 2014. 1989 as a Political World Event, New York: Routledge. Sandomirskaja, Irina. 2015. “Aesopian language: the politics and poetics of naming the unnamable.” In The Vernaculars of Communism. Language, Ideology and Power in the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe, edited by Petre Petrov and Lara Ryazanova-Clarke, 63–87. London and New York: Routledge. Sarotte, Mary Elise. 2014. 1989. The Struggle to Create Post-Cold War Europe, New Jersey: Princeton University Press. Sebestyen, Victor. 2009. Revolution 1989. The Fall of the Soviet Empire. London: Phoenix (e-book). Shore, Marci. 2013. The Taste of Ashes. The Afterlife of Totalitarianism in Eastern Europe. New York, Crown Publishers. Simpson, John. 1994. “Ten Days that Fooled the World,” Independent. Available online: https://www.independent.co.uk/life-­style/ten-­days-­that-­fooled-­the-­ world-­1387659.html. Tarrow, Sidney. 2013. The Language of Contention. Revolution in Words, 1688–2012. Cambridge University Press. Ther, Phillip. 2016. Europe since 1989: A History. Transl. by Charlotte Hughes-­ Kreutzmüller. Princeton and Oxford: Princeton University Press. Tismăneanu, Vladimir (ed.). 1999. The Revolutions of 1989. London and New York: Routledge. Tismăneanu, Vladimir and Iacob, Bogdan C. (eds.). 2012. Ideological Storms. Intellectuals, Dictators and the Totalitarian Temptation. Budapest: CEU Press. Toader, Alexandra. 2020. “Forme de opoziție în ultimii ani ai regimului Ceaușescu: problema ‘înscrisurilor anonime cu conținut dușmănos’ și rolul Unității Speciale ‘S’” [“Forms of Opposition in the Last Years of the Ceaușescu Regime: The problem of ‘hostile inscriptions’ and the role of Special Unit ‘S’”]. In Revoluția din 1989. Învinși și învingători [The 1989 Revolution. Winners and Loosers], edited by Anneli Ute Gabanyi, Alexandru Muraru, Andrei Muraru and Andrei Șandor, 151–168. București: Polirom. Ursu, Andrei and Thomasson Roland O. (in collaboration with Hodor, Mădălin). 2019. Trăgători și mistificatori. Contrarevoluția Securității în decembrie 1989 [Shooters and Falsifiers. The Counter-revolution of the Secret Police in December 1989]. București: Polirom. Ursu, Andrei and Thomasson, Roland O. (eds.). 2019. Căderea unui dictator. Război hibrid și dezinformare în dosarul Revoluției din 1989 [The Fall of a Dictator. Hybrid Warfare and Disinformation in the File of the 1989 Revolution]. București: Polirom.

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Vassiliev, Rossen. 2011. “Newspeak in the Language of Politics in the Post-­ Totalitarian Era: The Case of Bulgaria.” In Legacies of Totalitarian Language in the Discourse Culture of the Post-Totalitarian Era, edited by Ernest Andrews, 99–119. Lanham: Lexington Books. Westad, Odd Arne (ed.). 2013. Reviewing the Cold War. New York: Routledge. Westad, Odd Arne. 2017. The Cold War. A World History. New York: Basic Books. Young, John W. 2010. “Western Europe and the end of the Cold War, 1979–1989.” In The Cambridge History of the Cold War. Volume III: Endings, edited by Marvin P.  Leffler and Odd Arne Westad, 289–310. New  York: Cambridge University Press.

Part I Narratives of Discord: Misinformation, Dissimulation, Truth

2 Voices from Below: Propaganda and Petitioning Power in Late Socialist Romania Mioara Anton

Introduction “What is the connection between the slogan ‘Ceaușescu and the people!’ and the current suffering of the people?”1 asked an accusatory voice at Radio Free Europe outraged by the conditions existing in socialist Romania in 1984 (Andreescu and Berindei 2010, 265). Almost 20 years after he had come to power, Nicolae Ceaușescu, the absolute leader of the Communist Party, faced a hostile Romanian society that was forced to participate in the construction of socialism. “The most beloved son of the people,” as Ceaușescu was presented in official propaganda, had become a “disaster of the nation” for most Romanians (Andreescu and Berindei 2010). Ceaușescu’s rule started in March 1965 in an atmosphere of confidence and optimism. In a short period of time, he managed to establish himself in the collective consciousness as a defender of law and justice. Internal measures aimed mainly at raising the standard of living, fostering political rehabilitation, as well as the course of his foreign

M. Anton (*) “Nicolae Iorga” Institute of History, Romanian Academy, Bucharest, Romania © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 E. Wohl, E. Păcurar (eds.), Language of the Revolution, Palgrave Studies in Languages at War, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-37178-3_2

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policies, forged his personal power at the level of the party and state apparatus. The construction of socialism “by the people and for the people” was the foundation of Nicolae Ceaușescu’s regime. The programme was launched in July 1965, during the Ninth Congress of the Romanian Communist Party (RCP), and stated that “consulting the masses” was a priority (Ceaușescu, 1965, 33). This principle was the foundation for the dialogue between the below (ordinary people) and the above (party and state elite), and legitimised the relative transparency of political decisions (Ceaușescu 1965, 7). Consensus with society was seen by Ceaușescu as a key issue in the construction of socialism (ANIC/Cancelarie: 134/1966, 12). The society resonated with the new political changes and repositioned itself with regard to the communist power. From the perspective of the letters sent by ordinary people to decision-makers of the party-­ state, the first years of Nicolae Ceaușescu’s rule show that a good part of the Romanian society committed freely and unconditionally to supporting the projects initiated by the regime. It was a game of transparency and readiness for dialogue that created the party leader’s symbolic capital. People thanked him with “pride, devotion, admiration and satisfaction” for pension increases, medical care, housing. In return, citizens assured Ceaușescu that they would exceed the production plan or fulfil all their obligations on time (ANIC/Cancelarie:182/1966). In Western historiography, the role and place of the individual in communist regimes has been re-evaluated. The case studies referring to the Soviet Union depict a society that reacted, criticised, and responded to the measures that threatened its existence. As Sarah Davies pointed out, the attitudes of Soviet citizens cannot be interpreted solely from the perspective of their support for or opposition to the Stalinist regime. On the contrary, the Soviet citizen and, as we will show, the person living under Ceaușescu’s regime, excelled at refining ambivalent and contradictory opinions (Davies 1997). Some measures met society’s general expectations (wage increases, new housing complexes, social upward mobility), while others enhanced the pressure on the social body (higher quotas in production plans, rationing, censorship, ideological constraints). Making society more responsible through the use of letters and petitions was not an innovation brought forth by Ceaușescu’s regime

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(Fitzpatrick 1996; Fitzpatrick 1999). Taken over from the Soviet experience, encouraging the denunciation of abuse and shortcomings, as well as initiating investigations, had the apparent role of placing ordinary people in a safe area in relation to power and of making them responsible for achieving the development plans set up by the regime. From this perspective, the power of the party was protective rather than abusive. Nicolae Ceaușescu’s predecessor, Gh. Gheorghiu-Dej, had also successfully experimented with this dialogue with the masses, thus proving that his regime enjoyed real support from the people (Anton and Constantiniu 2013). However, Ceaușescu went even further and perfected the institutional and legislative mechanisms that regulated the relationship between society and power. Established in 1949, the Section for Letters and Audiences went through successive reorganisations, especially during the 1980s. These shifts were intertwined with the passing of special legislation governing the dialogue between power and society. Yet all these changes did not respond to the needs claimed by society, which were increasingly pressing in the context of a worsening economic crisis; on the contrary, they strengthened Ceaușescu’s cult of personality (Anton 2016). These letters to power bring to the fore the complexity of everyday life. They reveal two phases in the development of Ceaușescu’s regime, namely, the 1970s—a period of relaxation and diversification of behaviours and attitudes at the societal level—and the 1980s—synonymous to stagnation, economic downturn, ideological freeze, and diffuse fear. In the last decade of its existence, the isolation and regression of the regime forced society to simulate enthusiasm and adapt to complicated economic situations. Indeed, it was what Timothy Garton Ash suggestively called “inner emigration” that defined the double life of everyone living under communism (Ash 1989, 11). The phenomenon was also noticed by the French historian Catherine Durandin, who, from the position of an outsider coming to Romania for some research visits in the early 1970s, wondered what she would have done if she was forced to live under a communist regime. In her opinion, “inner escape” was a safe haven for all those who wanted to avoid the ubiquity of ideology. The greater the ideological pressure, the more the inhabitants of the socialist republic tried to free themselves from under the control of power by projecting their daily

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existence in spaces protected from the interference of political power (Durandin 2018, 76). The “golden age” projected by Ceaușescu through the voice of official propaganda and programmatic documents was truly utopian. The construction of the new man/woman and the total transformation of society shaped an entire existential and ethical universe. Thus, as the regime was plunging ever deeper into dictatorship, everyday life became extraordinary (to borrow the classic formula used by Sheila Fitzpatrick), and the normal exceptional (Fitzpatrick 1999). Especially in the 1980s—marked by economic and systemic crisis—the interaction between the two, the ordinary and the exceptional, left a decisive mark on everyday life. Something seen as banal today, such as a grocery store getting supplies, could lead to stampedes in the streets. Nobody wanted to go home empty-handed. Queuing for basic supplies became indispensable in the everyday landscape of those years. Pavel Câmpeanu, who analysed this phenomenon from a sociological perspective, labelled queuing for food as a form of “domestic genocide” (Câmpeanu 1994, 5). The letters intercepted by the Securitate, as well as those addressed to the Party, expressed the despair of many who were facing daily difficulties in finding supplies. Under socialism, the existence of ordinary people was reduced to a constant race to find food, at a time when the pages of Scânteia [“The Spark,” the most important daily of the regime] constantly published uncritical news about socialist prosperity. It was impossible to see or to find in the shops what was heard about in official discourse. The discrepancies between the bright image of an industrialised, collectivised, rich, and prosperous future and day-to-day poverty eroded the legitimacy of Ceaușescu’s regime. The ambivalent and contradictory stances of society, as they appear in these letters, were directly related to the policies of the regime. Opposition/ criticism against a certain decision (birth control, increase in divorce tax, rationing, and scarcity) did not preclude the support for others (building personal property housing, high pensions, a new pay system, laws to control illicit wealth, or foreign policy, etc.). Consensus lasted as long as the political power kept its promises to the population (access to consumer goods, food supply, improvement of the wage and pension system, access to information, social services, etc.). Once these promises were broken

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and living conditions deteriorated, the regime lost popular support (ACNSAS/Documentar: D013055/1980, 3).

Official and Voluntary Homage Ceaușescu was directly interested in the signals sent out by society. However, it could not have been a real interest, since this dialogue was directed only to emphasise the “huge effort” to build socialism made by the party leader. Dialogue with society was confiscated and transformed into a means of propaganda for and consolidation of Ceaușescu’s cult of personality. Sensitive to criticism aimed at the functioning of the party-­ state, Ceaușescu proved to be ruthless when it came to protecting his rule. Illustrative in this respect are the cases of writer Paul Goma and historian Vlad Georgescu. The two intellectuals criticised the personal dictatorship established by Ceaușescu and complained about the need to respect human rights in Romania in accordance with the international agreements signed at the CSCE in 1975 (Bălănescu 2015). Moreover, the anonymous letters intercepted by the Securitate, under the title “documents with hostile content” or those sent to Radio Free Europe indicated the existence of a state of dissatisfaction that the regime was willing to respond to (ACNSAS/Documentar: D010780/1982, 39). In its reports, the Section for Letters and Audiences was interested in quantifying people’s enthusiasm, loyalty, and joy of living in the best of all possible societies (ANIC/Cancelarie: 24/1988, 52). The official encomiastic correspondence, the best preserved, but also the most numerous among such material, was a form of Potemkin-like narrative about Nicolae Ceausescu’s rule. The dialogue between power and society was animated by “indications,” “guidelines,” and “theses” generously formulated by the Secretary General, a paragon of dedication and tireless effort for the good of many. The new man or woman of the “golden age” was an ideological pioneer, due to their advanced conscience. In this official key, the citizen expressed “deep feelings of respect and admiration” towards the leader. They acted ideologically through proposals and suggestions to improve the measures that ordered his daily life. This type of socialisation was equivalent to a paradisiac existence. At the other end of

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the spectrum were the other men/women who were dissatisfied, who continued to complain about the inadequate temperature in their apartments, the terrible state of public transportation, the rationing of food and queuing, and the obligation to attend official demonstrations or do patriotic work. Since 1977, Ceaușescu had acknowledged that not all of the 21  million inhabitants of Romania were satisfied with the party’s measures. He did consider that most of them were supporting the party in its work to build a multilaterally developed socialist society (ANIC/ Cancelarie: 121/1977, 132). Homage-paying letters outline the image of a disciplined society, submissive, educated in the spirit of socialist ethics and equity, determined to build communism by gladly accepting rationing, saving, and daily shortcomings (ANIC/Cancelarie: 115/1979, 31–32). Work visits in the country, his presence at major construction or industrial sites, and his travels abroad and foreign policy provided the Secretary General with the opportunity to experience crowd adulation and panegyrical proclamations. In writing, the propaganda apparatus expressed the masses’ enthusiasm and full support through standardised letters sent from all over the country at more or less festive times related either to the history of the party or to a calendar of permanent celebration of socialist achievements. Workers, civil servants, pensioners, housewives, party activists, intellectuals, factory committees, pioneers, and young communists, along with groups of members of agricultural collectives, expressed their “admiration,” “pride,” “hope,” “gratitude,” “appreciation,” “high/profound patriotism,” and the “glorious feelings” that they had experienced in the presence of the party leadership. The voice of the nation expressed full solidarity in unison. The socialist state included all those who were submissive, conscientious and active and who understood how to please and obey the decisions of the party-state. Standard formulae, such as “great love and respect,” “united in thought and feeling,” “profound gratitude,” “emotional days of joy and patriotic pride,” “in complete unity of thought and aspirations,” “in an atmosphere of full patriotic engagement,” among others, are just a few of the homage-paying expressions used to the point of saturation to express the full support of society and to highlight the Secretary General’s outstanding achievements. From the viewpoint of its content, this correspondence reveals Nicolae Ceaușescu’s confiscation of

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all party and state power. This staging of consensus and enthusiasm hid not only economic and institutional realities, which turned out to be disastrous in the end, but also the criticism and resistance of anonymous voices. Homage-paying correspondence also includes private letters sent by ordinary people, either to Nicolae or to Elena Ceaușescu, to senior officials or to various party and state structures. These letters were the result of the direct interaction between ordinary citizens and the power that was influencing their existence: from private life to the norms of conduct and behaviour in the socialist society. In addition to day-to-day situations, the content of such letters reveals the acquisition of the language of power by a large part of those who chose to address the Secretary General directly. Some of them took over the praising themes generously broadcast by the propaganda machine and adhered voluntarily to supporting the activity of the party and the Secretary General. Through greeting cards, postcards, or telegrams sent on anniversaries, from their trips and vacations, ordinary people identified unconditionally with the leader’s actions, supported and approved them, were more than satisfied to be living or preparing to live in a golden age. Homage-paying days were a good opportunity to quantify general enthusiasm, starting with those close to the circle of power and ending with the detachments of homeland pioneers, who transmitted all their gratitude and dedication to their beloved leaders. The leader’s personal history had started to be confused with the history of the party. The party did not exist beyond Nicolae Ceaușescu. Personal success—graduation, promotion, gaining benefits—was often associated by petitioners with the leader who had made it possible for them to significantly improve their lives through the invisible levers of power. There were deliberate adhesions that came from ordinary people who believed in the values of the regime. Most of the senders seemed to feel comfortable and enjoyed what “medium developed socialism” offered them. They did not seem to worry about the generalisation of shortages, nor about ideological pressure, rationing, and cutbacks decided in the name of supporting economic plans understood only by Ceaușescu. In order to personalise their support, some of the correspondents chose to praise the homeland, the people, the party, or the leader in more or less

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inspired verses. The clichés of official propaganda branched out into all these lyrical productions, all the more unusual as they came in the context of Ceaușescu’s declining popularity. For example, in November 1989, the 14th RCP Congress gave a final impetus to amateur poets. Inspired by the great transformations of the country, Maria Popa, from the county of Vaslui, sent a poem that described Ceaușescu as a messenger of peace and a defender of the socialist homeland: “There’s peace in our country, we all work together/There’s no need to worry that death will take a father//All the people’s foreheads wear laurels at leisure/We, workers, peasants, scholars… are a treasure.//Let’s go farther, our good and tough helmsman/Nine five-year plans won’t be enough” (ANIC/Cancelarie: 125/1989a, 202). This enthusiasm was nevertheless overshadowed by the criticism spread on air by Radio Free Europe, to which Liviu NeculaiRădășanu, a legal expert at the Electrocontact Enterprise from Botoșani, responded with an ample poem entitled Haita/The pack. “The reactionary and petty stance of the ‘false’ Romanians from Free Europe,” who challenged the achievements of the socialist homeland, deserved as he pointed out a proper answer: “Rootless defectors who left these places/Where you were held in arms by loving moms/In this holy country never show your faces,/Wild pack of flattering dogs!//Monica Lovinescu and Constantin Munteanu/Bernard, Alexandroaie, Orăscu and Crișan… /Go make an honest living with a hammer/Or with a plough, if that’s your manner” (ANIC/Cancelarie: 126/1989b, 162). Informed of the changes taking place in the communist bloc, Neculai-­Rădășanu considered that neighbouring countries had given in to capitalist, retrograde, and reactionary ideas. In another poem, Appeal, he launched a manifesto against the corrupt capitalism that threatened order in Europe: “Why have you let reactionary thoughts into your home?/And in lethargic dreams you start to roam?/ Why have you ceded power to class enemies/And accept such shameful compromise with the West ?// … Just on your own you could be rent-­ free/And, if you want to, have no debts/You should always strive to be independent!/Follow Romania’s proud example, no regrets!//A communist nation that chooses on its own/The path to light, good, and progress/ It is the country where, today, the Party re-elects/THE NATION’S HERO, at our great Congress!//You have no idea how a GENIUS leads/

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Ceaușescu, our beloved son, casts away all our fears!/A man like this is born once in a thousand years!/May his granite strength always care for our affairs!” (ANIC/Cancelarie: 126/1989b, 165). Unconditional support for the leader is also visible in the case of the conscripted soldier Ionel Moraru, who served as a fireman in Caransebeș. Deeply impressed by the Secretary General’s “masterful” and “epochal” speech that was “exceptional in all respects,” the soldier had dared to write to him to express his joy at having been born in a country led by Ceaușescu: “I don’t know how to tell you, but when I was about 14 or 15 years old I realised what a great statesman you are, how lucky we’ve been to have you, the man that our country needs so much to realise its golden dreams” (ANIC/Cancelarie: 126/1989c, 60). Ionel Moraru declared that he unconditionally loved socialism and communism, an enthusiasm which, to his dismay, his colleagues did not share: “As you said it yourself, the revolutionary spirit should be cultivated more among the sons of our homeland, yes! But here in our unit there’s hardly anyone you can do that with, and that’s such a shame” (ANIC/Cancelarie: 126/1989c, 60). Ionel Moraru considered that from the perspective of the theses launched at the Congress, Ceaușescu far surpassed the founding fathers of communism “Marx, Engels and others” in theoretical acumen. By the end of 1989, sincere and undisguised devotion can be found in numerous other letters sent to the Section for Letters and Audiences. The documents praised the leader’s “revolutionary pathos,” “brilliant thinking expressed through his ideas and theses,” “visionary clairvoyance,” “heartfelt gratitude,” “burning love,” and “legitimate patriotic pride.” An anonymous person joined the millions of Romanians who congratulated the beloved leader, but wanted for the message to include a note as original as possible: “I’d like to summarise your work in four words, but they should say more than could be written in a book. You’ve won, you are magnificent!” (ANIC/Cancelarie: 115/1989d, 131). Such letters knowingly ignored the disastrous economic conditions that Romania was facing in the late 1980s. The force of inertia placed them in a state of exceptionality. Several categories of petitioners can be identified: war veterans, much more sensitive to the themes of nationalist propaganda, pensioners, close followers of revolutionary transformations,

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housewives, pioneers among the youth. Naive poems, but also the letters written with similar encomiastic tenor avoid referring to everyday realities, generalised scarcity, the pressures of the ideological apparatus, and the constraints that ordinary people were forced to endure daily.

Criticism, Dissatisfaction, Protests Not all voices chose to sing to the same rhythm; dissonance was born out of critical letters, anonymous or signed, and collective or individual complaints, which flowed to the Section for Letters and Audiences of the RCP’s Central Committee (Anton 2016). A part of the society reacted to the intrusive, often absurd, measures that were darkening its daily life. For this category, what was happening in the immediate present was far more important than the supposedly bright, rich, and, most of all, uncertain future described by official propaganda. The effects of anti-abortion laws, the restrictions referring to divorce, widespread shortages and theft, cold, hunger, the queues for food, absurd competitions in production, patriotic work on large construction sites, and so on were criticised and challenged (Andreescu and Berindei 2014, 47). By the end of the 1980s, Romania was confronted with the undesired effects of an economic crisis which endangered the RCP’s long-term development objectives. Romania found itself excluded from Western markets due to the poor quality of its economic products. Furthermore, IMF’s insistence that the government in Bucharest re-evaluate its plans for industrial development, as well as the prospect of having to default on payments, determined Ceaușescu to announce that Romania intended to pay out its foreign debt (Alexandrescu 2019, 113). This burden fell directly on the population. Unimpressed by the negative signs that came from the economy, despite the high costs, Ceaușescu insisted on increasing exports and drastically limiting imports. This led to a rapid deterioration of living conditions, the extension of the working day, the absence of food, abuses by local officials, and low wages. Ordinary people sent numerous letters to the party leadership requesting better food supplies (and even the introduction of ration cards for basic foodstuffs), the extension of opening hours for shops, extra quantities of bread, meat, and fish,

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and, not least, the reduction of exports to ensure the needs of local consumption. For example, Gheorghe Blănaru, a regular party member and a careful observer of social realities, was intrigued by the communiqué released by the Plenary of the RCP’s CC on April 1–2, 1986. The official document stated that the number of letters, notifications, complaints, and audiences had significantly decreased. It proclaimed that this situation confirmed the quality of state management and that the population’s standard of living had increased. In Blănaru’s opinion, reality seen from below looked totally different from what was presented in the newspapers, on the radio, on television, or in official communiqués. From his own experience, Gheorghe Blănaru had found that the voice of the many was never heard, as party officials had sufficient means at their disposal to punish those who dared to believe in the power of criticism: “You’ve been speaking everywhere in the country for 41  years and we, along with all the people, have been listening to you patiently and diligently, have cheered and behaved like true, faithful communists. After 41 years, when things have become unbearable, we most conscientiously ask you to listen to the sweet voice of the honest, just, and disciplined workers who have not strayed at all from the Party line” (ANIC/Cancelarie: 101/1986, 28). In his opinion, socialist Romania was a fiction of the propaganda in which fewer and fewer people were willing to believe. Worsening living conditions, the permanent queuing, the near empty stores, profiteering from the illegal trade with various products showed that the authorities were deliberately ignoring the economic situation of the population: “All of these [realities] do not match at all the quote above regarding a fairer and better world, when in reality man’s supreme right to life is dragged through the mud” (ANIC/Cancelarie: 101/1986, 28). A similar situation was reported by Teodor Briscan, who in a letter to the newspaper Scânteia [“The Spark”] expressed scepticism about the authorities’ willingness to have a real dialogue with society: “I quote a significant sentence: ‘The word of the working people as holders of the political and economic power is listened to with care and special consideration’. Let me not believe this statement. No one believes this statement, not even the one who wrote it, and even less the working people” (Andreescu and Berindei 2014, 138). Disappointment had replaced

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enthusiasm and hope for the better, which were mentioned only in official discourse. In fact, as the systemic crisis worsened, Ceaușescu became very generous with promises to raise the living standards and improve the economic situation—none of which materialised. The late 1980s witnessed a radicalisation of critical discourse, as ordinary people complained not only about the dire economic conditions, but also about the dictatorial nature of the regime. Human rights violations and the repression engineered by the Securitate became constant themes in the anonymous letters sent either to the Section for Letters and Audiences or to Radio Free Europe. For its part, the Securitate tried to intercept as many letters as possible and to identify those who had the courage to challenge the legitimacy of the regime (ACNSAS/Documentar: D010780/1983a, 293). During the last years of communist rule, respect for human rights became a problem that significantly affected Nicolae Ceaușescu’s cult of personality, at home and abroad. The reforms in other Eastern European countries, particularly in the Soviet Union, as well as international pressure from Western governments and NGOs greatly frustrated the Romanian leader. He responded by tightening even more the party’s control over the society. Among sections of the population, the reforms initiated in Moscow by Mikhail Gorbachev were received with great hope. Their effects were felt in the other communist states, except for Romania, where Ceaușescu was unwilling to reform the system, much less to allow some political freedoms. In a letter sent to Radio Free Europe, “a sad pensioner” visiting Chișinău in the summer of 1989 asked herself rhetorically when a Gorbachev could also appear in Romania: “Ceaușescu has locked us up for good and uses barbed wire to keep us in check. What harm have we, all Romanians, done to this man that he is punishing us so cruelly?” (Andreescu and Berindei 2014, 391). It was unimaginable that the atmosphere in Chișinău, where the future of the regime was being discussed in public, could become a reality in Bucharest too. The full payment of the foreign debt, completed in April 1989, was presented by the regime as a success of the Romanian model of socialism. Ceaușescu was confident that the project of building up a “multilaterally developed socialist society” would follow its course. Ordinary people who continued to struggle with daily deprivations could not say the same. In

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the summer of 1989, “a housewife from Romania” had become a permanent correspondent for Radio Free Europe, informing the “free world” that the payment of the external debt had not improved the situation of domestic austerity. Although the official press claimed that the economic situation was stable and prosperous, people were still forced to pay very high social costs. The anonymous “housewife” would list the disastrous situation of the Romanian economy, wondering anxiously: “How long will this take???!!!” (Andreescu and Berindei 2014, 392). Fulfilling production plans and celebrating the party leader with pomp were flooding people’s everyday lives. Complaints about the perpetuation of poverty remained constant, but they were considered mere accidents in the supply chains of the economy (ANIC/Cancelarie: 23/1989e, 112). In November 1988, the monthly report about incoming letters at the CC’s Section stated that in 153 letters from across the country, people had asked the party leadership to distribute potatoes, corn, beans, sugar and oil to markets, as well as to supplement milk and meat products. The supply of hot water, low gas pressure, the cold in apartment buildings, and the squalor in hospitals completed the long list of shortcomings that the population was forced to endure to fulfil the communist dream. The economy operated on the principle of barter, the purchase of rations of food being conditioned by the delivery of products and animals from people’s own households, such as eggs, beans, chickens and pigs. Despite these hardships, the propaganda proclaimed in 1988 that the society had joined as the “monolithic unit,” socialist Romania, led by its “genius founder,” whose achievements were brilliantly complemented by the no less illustrious work of Elena Ceaușescu, “an internationally renowned scientist” (ANIC/Cancelarie: 23/1989e, 2). The leader’s 70th birthday was an occasion to express joy through 1,622,481 letters and requests for audience (ANIC/Cancelarie: 103/1989f, 10). People were concerned about the issues in the industry, agriculture, transportation and health, among others, and had come up with suggestions for improving these sectors of the state administration. The majority of these personal letters demanded living conditions be improved, apartments be granted in the big cities, buildings be better heated and foodstuffs to be supplied.

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Despite overwhelming economic evidence about the profound crisis, propaganda-created fiction continued to fuel Nicolae Ceaușescu’s decisions. Profiteering and illicit trade had taken on new proportions, a sign that, over time, people had developed techniques to adapt and avoid the rigours imposed by the system (Rostás and Momoc 2013). The underground economy had grown steadily, fuelled by widespread scarcity. Shortages had generalised, but the regime continued to create the illusion of progress and prosperity. The system had become inert, and the voices of the many people who complained about the poor state of affairs in socialist Romania were ignored (Țăranu 2012, 71). The propaganda apparatus had devoted all its energy to the staging of tribute shows in support of the leader and his initiatives. Officially, everyday life was regulated by theses, guidelines, programmes, and valuable guidance from above. One of the letters addressed to Ceaușescu in 1989 stated ironically that “socialism begins where meat ends”: “(…) Weren’t you shaken or made to think when the only spontaneous, non-staged, non-arranged round of applause during Ceaușescu’s speech at the RCP’s National Conference was triggered by the announcement that the amount of meat to be delivered to markets would be increased?” (ANIC/ Cancelarie: 191/II/1972, 175). More and more letters were signalling the lack of agri-food products from the markets, rising prices, and the scale of the profiteering phenomenon. The markets in Bucharest were supplied only when Ceaușescu was expected to visit them, and the party activists staged scenes of plenty and prosperity to feed the Secretary General’s illusion that the population was living in abundance. The Securitate was monitoring the mood of the society affected by the absence of food from the markets. The secret police assessments showed that the supply plans for food and goods were well under the estimated quotas (ACNSAS/ Documentar: D010780/1983b, 263). In 1989, the Romanian society was in a state of restless limbo. Something was about to happen, but no one could anticipate when, where, and what would trigger the wave of change in Romania. Unlike the Soviet Union, in socialist Romania, which had not shown any openness to reform, the permanence of the system was still closely linked to the personal aspirations of the party leader to complete the construction of communism and the multilaterally developed society. These goals,

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however, had turned into empty slogans, repeated to the point of saturation by the propaganda apparatus, in which only a few were still willing to believe.

Conclusions By the end of the 1980s, Ceaușescu had lost interest in “consulting with the masses,” and was concerned only with quantifying enthusiasm and popular support. Annual reports on the dialogue between those above and those below failed to hide the continuous degradation of Romanians’ everyday life, who were overwhelmed by scarcity and fear. In the socialist welfare society, nothing was enough: food, medicine, houses, cars, clothes, school supplies, shoes, gas tanks. According to official propaganda, the people of socialist Romania enjoyed a paradisiac existence: jobs in factories, new apartments, household appliances, bookstores, new furniture, networks of department stores, schools, nurseries and kindergartens, and so on. Moreover, official discourse proclaimed that the citizens resonated in unison “with satisfaction/joy/hope/pride” with all the decisions announced by the party leader during his public appearances. From time to time, the pages of Scânteia [“The Spark”] newspaper denounced the bourgeois remnants of the backward mentality of all those who did not align with the fast pace of socialist progress (Andon 1989, 4). The standardisation of daily existence through clothing, food, furniture, way of living, and leisure activities was aimed at educating the tastes of the population so that they would not want anything other than the models imposed by the regime. This massive social engineering often had effects opposite to those expected by the regime. The greater the ideological pressure, the more the inhabitants of the socialist republic tried to escape and free themselves from the control of power. People were often tempted to look for information outside the official channels: foreign radio stations, dissent within the family or among friends, and private letters show stances discordant with the political reality in which they were forced to live. Private life found forms of expression in the art of concealment, as an adaptive response resulting

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from the desire to limit as much as possible the interference of the regime in the space of daily existence. Educated or less educated, people contacted power motivated mainly by personal problems, and less by ideological beliefs. Deteriorating living conditions, rising prices and supply shortages, rationing and cutbacks complicated everyday life in the multilaterally developed society. “A group of angry communists,” “a group of intellectuals,” “a group of workers,” “a group of city-dwelling citizens,” “a large group of teachers,” “a group of outraged citizens,” “a group of women,” and so forth were the collective voices who believed in the real functioning of the dialogue between power and society and who hoped that, following their appeal, even if anonymous, the situation would improve. A constant theme of official propaganda was the idea of prosperous living conditions. However, in private letters, people lamented the party’s failure to implement measures to elevate their welfare (wages, living conditions, bureaucratic abuse, absurd production plans, etc.). Everyday life deteriorated as ideological freeze and official lies became the only rules governing the relations between the society and its leaders. The number of those who were willing to sacrifice for the golden dream of building a socialist society sharply declined. Future abundance seemed unlikely to them, since massive industrialisation or the much-promised agrarian revolution had not elevated their existence. Romanians tried to adapt to the realities of the socialist society, and when development programmes affected directly their standard of living, they reacted through complaints and criticism. They often wondered if the Secretary General was aware of the country’s problems or if information was being deliberately hidden from him by those in the circle of power. This question lingered in the letters to Ceaușescu until December 1989. During the second half of the 1980s, people wondered why bread, milk, meat, cheese, vegetables had disappeared from markets and shops. Who was responsible for supply shortages and the never-ending queues? The regime’s policies were considered deeply unjust, and people felt exploited and humiliated by a party leadership that remained deaf to their complaints. According to party archives and memoirs of communist officials, Nicolae Ceaușescu was fully informed on the economic realities of the country and on the living conditions of the population. Blinded by

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his desire to pay off the country’s foreign debt, to increase the rate of exports and to drastically reduce imports, Ceaușescu was not interested in the general impoverishment of the population. The letters to power are representative of the way in which ordinary people related to the regime, which tried to control their existence down to the smallest detail: from private life to the norms of public conduct. These documents reveal the fears, hopes, anxieties, illusions, and disappointments of those who believed that they could change something in relation to the power that governed their lives. Some of them took over the encomiastic narratives broadcast by the propaganda apparatus and voluntarily expressed their support for the party and the Secretary General. They identified with Ceaușescu’s actions, endorsed his policies and dreamed unconditionally about the “golden age” of reaching communism. They believed in the goals of every five-year plan, in the programmes of every party congress, in the directives of every national conference; they were proud of the country’s industrial power and the modernisation of agriculture, and they deliberately ignored everyday realities. The man/woman freed from the constraints of power can be found in the private correspondence intercepted by the Securitate or in the letters that managed to reach Western radio stations, especially Radio Free Europe. For some, the system in which they lived was “bad,” “oppressive,” and “immoral.” Others though still believed that they could negotiate conditions for a better life. The letters were centralised by the Section for Letters and Audiences until the last days of Ceaușescu’s regime. People continued to demand tax exemptions, to complain about their neighbours, bosses, subordinates, to challenge administrative decisions and abuses, to complain about the quality of products and services, and to demand a minimum relaxation of domestic policies. Romania under Nicolae Ceaușescu’s rule included conformists, critics, loyalists, dissidents, and two-faced people alike. What held them together was not the socialist solidarity claimed by official propaganda, but the invisible levers of conformity and fear that paralysed the Romanian society for almost 25  years. By 1989, regimentation and repression had become the very normality of everyday life under socialism in Romania.

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Note 1. Unless otherwise specified, all quotations from sources written in Romanian have been translated by the author.

References Archives Buletin Informativ din 2 aprilie 1980 [Newsletter of 2 April 1980], ACNSAS, Fond Documentar, D 013055, vol. 2, 3. Buletin informativ din 7 iunie 1982 [Newsletter of 7 June 1982], ACNSAS, Fond Documentar, D 010780, vol. 33, 39. Buletin informativ din 17 noiembrie 1983 [Newsletter of 17 November 1983a], ACNSAS, Fond Documentar, D010780, vol. 7, 293. Buletin informativ din 7 august 1973 [Newsletter of 7 August 1983b], ACNSAS, Fond Documentar, D 010780, vol. 6, 263. Ședința Secretariatului CC al PCR, 10 octombrie 1966 [Meeting of the Secretariat of the CC of the RCP, 10 October 1966], ANIC, Fond CC al PCR, Secția Cancelarie, 134/1966, 12. Scrisori omagiale [Homage Letters], ANIC, Fond CC al PCR, Secția Cancelarie, 182/1966. Protocolul ședinței plenare a CC al PCR, 26–27 octombrie 1977 [Protocol of the Plenary Meeting of the CC of the RCP, 26–27 October 1977], ANIC, Fond CC al PCR, Secția Cancelarie, 121/1977, 132. Scrisori omagiale [Homage Letters], ANIC, Fond CC al PCR, Secția Cancelarie, 115/1979, 31–32. Raportul scrisorilor din primul semestru al anului 1988 [Report on the letters received in the first half of 1988], ANIC, Fond CC al PCR, Secția Cancelarie, 24/1988, 52–56. Scrisoare adresată lui N. Ceaușescu [Letter to N. Ceaușescu], ANIC, Fond CC al PCR, Secția Cancelarie, 101/1986, 28. Scrisoare omagială adresată lui N. Ceaușescu [Letter of homage to N. Ceausescu], ANIC, Fond CC al PCR, Secția Cancelarie, 125/1989a, 202. Scrisoare omagială [Letter of homage to N.  Ceaușescu], ANIC, Fond CC al PCR, Secția Cancelarie, 126/1989b, 162–165.

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Scrisoare omagială [Letter of homage], ANIC, Fond CC al PCR, Secția Cancelarie, 126/1989c, 60. Scrisoare omagială [Letter of homage], ANIC, Fond CC al PCR, Secția Cancelarie, 115/1989d, 131. Raport al scrisorilor din noiembrie 1988 [Report on the letters of November 1988], ANIC, Fond CC al PCR, Secția Cancelarie, 23/1989e, 2, 112. Raport general al scrisorilor din 1988 [General report on the letters from 1988], ANIC, Fond CC al PCR, Secția Cancelarie 103/1989f, 10. Scrisoare anonimă, aprilie 1989 [Anonymous letter from April 1989], ANIC, Fond CC al PCR, Secția Cancelarie 191/1972, II, 175.

Secondary Literature Alexandrescu, Ion. 2019. România între Est și Vest. Achitarea anticipată a întregii datorii externe: un experiment unic [Romania between East and West. The early payment of the external debt: a unique experiment]. București: Oscar Print. Andon, Sergiu. 1989. “Combativitatea revoluționară” [Revolutionary militancy]. Scânteia (LVII/14506):1–4. Andreescu, Gabriel and Berindei, Mihnea (eds). 2010. Ultimul deceniu comunist. Scrisori către Radio Europa Liberă [The Last Communist Decade. Letters to Radio Free Europe]. Iași: Polirom. Andreescu, Gabriel and Berindei, Mihnea (eds). 2014. Ultimul deceniu comunist. Scrisori către Radio Europa Liberă [The Last Communist Decade. Letters to Radio Free Europe]. Iași: Polirom. Anton, Mioara and Constantiniu, Laurențiu. 2013. Guvernați și guvernanți. Scrisori către putere. 1945–1965 [The Governed and the Governors. Letters to Power. 1945–1965]. Iași: Polirom. Anton, Mioara. 2016. “Ceaușescu și Poporul!”. Scrisori către “iubitul conducător” [“Ceaușescu and the people!.” Letters to “Our Beloved Leader”]. Târgoviște: Editura Cetatea de Scaun. Ash, Timothy Garton. 1989. The Uses of Adversity. Essays on the Fate of Central Europe. New York: Random House. Bălănescu, Flori. 2015. Grup Canal ’77. “Paraziții social” și mișcarea Goma pentru drepturile omului. Studiu de caz [Channel Group ‘77. “Social Parasites” and the Goma Movement for Human Rights. Case Study]. Oradea: Editura Ratio et Revelatio.

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Ceaușescu, Florea. 1989. “Preocupări pentru modernizarea rețelei comerciale” [Concerns for the modernisation of the commercial network]. Scânteia (LVII/14267): 5. Ceaușescu, Nicolae. 1965. Cuvântare de deschidere a Congresului rostită de tovarășul Nicolae Ceaușescu [Opening speech of the Congress by Comrade Nicolae Ceausescu], în Congresul al IX-lea al Partidului Comunist Român. 19–24 iulie 1965 [9th Congress of the Romanian Communist Party. 19–24 July 1965]. București: Editura Politică: 7–8, 33. Câmpeanu, Pavel. 1994. România: Coada pentru hrană. Un mod de viață [Standing in Line for Food. A Way of Life]. București: Litera. Davies, Sara. 1997. Popular Opinon in Stalin Russia: Terror, Propaganda and Dissent, 1934–1941. New York: Cambridge University Press. Durandin, Catherine. 2018. România mea comunistă [My Communist Romania]. București: Editura Vremea. Fitzpatrick, Sheila. 1996. “Supplicants and Citizens: Public Letter-Writing in Soviet Russia in the 1930s.” Slavic Review 55: 78–105. Fitzpatrick, Sheila. 1999. Everyday Stalinism. Ordinary Life in Extraordinary Times: Soviet Russia in the 1930s. New York: Oxford University Press. Rostás, Zoltán and Momoc, Antonio. 2013. Bișnițari, descurcăreți, supraviețuitori [Peddlers, By-getters, Survivors]. București: Curtea Veche Publishing. Țăranu, Liviu (ed.). 2012. “Pe luna decembrie nu mi-am făcut planul…”. Românii în “Epoca de Aur”. Corespondență din anii ’80 [“I did not fulfil my plan for December…” Romanians in the ‘Golden Age.’” Correspondence from the 1980s]. Târgoviște: Cetatea de Scaun Publishing.

3 The Great Discursive Divide in Communist Romania Veronica Manole

“The logic of double-talk is at the very heart of communist ideology.” —Lucian Boia

Introduction In this chapter, we seek to analyse the discursive construction of national ethos during the last decade of the communist dictatorship in Romania in Scînteia [The Spark], the official newspaper of the Romanian Communist Party (RCP), and in a corpus of letters sent by Romanian citizens to Radio Free Europe (RFE). By using theoretical instruments of discourse analysis (such as the ethos), we will try to illustrate the enormous gap between the discourse of the official propaganda and the opinions of common citizens in their letters sent to RFE.

V. Manole (*) Babeș-Bolyai University, Cluj-Napoca, Romania e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 E. Wohl, E. Păcurar (eds.), Language of the Revolution, Palgrave Studies in Languages at War, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-37178-3_3

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The 1980s were a particularly difficult decade for Romanians living under the communist regime. While communism seemed to be on the verge of collapse in the Soviet Union and in some of the satellite states, “the generalisation of the moral and material misery” (Andreescu and Berindei 2010, 19) reached unbearable levels in Romania. As many scholars (Deletant 1995, 2019; Boia 2001) have pointed out—and as many Romanians still remember—the divide between the official discourse and the reality of everyday life was striking. The official propaganda spread by state-controlled media had adopted a newspeak—or a “wooden language,” according to Thom (1987)—which was used to present the greatest achievements of the regime and of the so-called Golden Age. Ceaus,escu’s cult of personality was at its peak: poems, paintings, radio, and TV shows were depicting him as the nation’s most beloved son. At the same time, a powerful nationalist discourse was promoting in the media and in the educational system the image of Romanians as a victorious people, having won countless battles against empires over the last two millennia, while Ceaus,escu was described as a modern Burebista1 (Boia 2001) fighting against “the enemies of the people.” On the other hand, the letters that Romanian citizens sent to RFE during the 1980s, in a desperate attempt to make their voices heard, tell an entirely different story. In these texts, Romanians do not describe the so-called Golden Age of their country, filled with the great achievements of the Ceaus,escu family and of the RCP. Instead, they present Romania as a land of fear, cold, hunger, and oppression. The difference between these two Romanias, the one of the official propaganda and the one of the ordinary citizens will be the focus of our chapter. We will try to identify how Romanians saw themselves as a nation and as citizens in the letters sent to RFE and how the regime was constructing the image of the Romanian people in Scînteia, the official newspaper of the RCP. This enormous gap between the image of a real Romania and the image constructed by the official propaganda was present in the daily lives of most Romanians, especially during the last years of the regime. Ordinary citizens were forced to master the art of dissimulation and speak their mind only in the presence of a few trusted friends or family members. The long arm of the powerful Securitate, the Romanian Secret Police, seemed ubiquitous. It didn’t take long for common citizens to realise that to

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survive they had to keep to themselves what they really thought about the current affairs, the regime, or their lives. Any form of dissidence was severely punished, leaving the country was almost impossible, and defections to the West were rare. The official propaganda controlled the public sphere and any form of opposition was banned, given that, according to the Law of the Press from 1974, the press functioned under the rule of the RCP.

 omanian Nationalist Propaganda During R the 1980s One of the pervasive characteristics of the public discourse in Romania during the last decade of communist dictatorship was “the exacerbation of nationalism” (Boia 2001, 77), which had begun in 1971, with the “July theses,” a speech given by Nicolae Ceaus,escu on July 6, in front of the Executive Committee of the RCP. The speech included seventeen proposals inspired by the North Korean and Chinese communist models and led to a mini-cultural Revolution in Romania, one of the main consequences being the creation of a state-sponsored nationalist historiography and the enhancement of the nationalist propaganda in public discourse, via state-owned and state-controlled media outlets. According to Lucian Boia, nationalist propaganda dominated Romania’s public sphere during the latter years of the communist rule: The dominant, even in a sense the sole, discourse in the time of Ceaus,escu was that of nationalism. […] And if historians sometimes managed to find safety in less exposed areas or by making use of professional subtlety, the population as a whole was subjected-through the current propaganda channels-to a virulent nationalist demagogy. (Boia 2001, 82)

As a dominant ideology of the regime, nationalism became pervasive in the educational system, in research, and in the public sphere. Boia (2001) explains at large how history was used by the communist regime to create a 2000-year continuity of the Romanian nationhood, which went back to the Dacian kingdom. On the same vein, Papahagi (2017)

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analyses the ideology of Romanian as the national language and the attempt of several linguists to trace its origins back to the Dacian language. It was a large-scale manipulation operation, which sought to shape the way Romanians imagined themselves: a triumphant united nation, with two millennia of uninterrupted history (and with continuous aspirations of nationhood). If a nation is “an imagined political community—and imagined as both inherently limited and sovereign” (Anderson 2016, 6; emphasis mine), sovereignty was understood by the communist elites as a complete identification with the regime. The Romanian nation had to be a socialist one. According to Copilas, (2015), the Romanian “socialist nationhood” was built around five dimensions: political, economic, historical, cultural, and military. Nonetheless, despite its pervasiveness, Emanuel Copilas, claims that Romanian nationalist discourse is a pseudo-­ hegemonic one2 due to its “inability to become a discourse if not unanimously, at least widely accepted, its impossibility to persuade the population of its universality, albeit confined within the borders of the country” (Copilas, 2015, 157).3 This interpretation reflects the overall double-talk present throughout Romanian society. Since the nationalist discourse did not succeed in becoming the hegemonic discourse accepted by the entire society, those who did not adhere to it managed to find strategies either to conceal their beliefs or to identify proper channels to express them. As the Romanian state-controlled media, such as the newspaper Scînteia, would not publish ideas which challenged the regime, one of the few outlets available for expressing criticism was the RFE, a radio funded by the US Congress which broadcasted to Soviet satellite states.

Scînteia Versus Radio Europa Liberă The history of Scînteia goes back to as early as 1931, when it was published illegally by the communist movement. Shut down in 1940, it was reinstated four years later and soon became the official newspaper of the RCP. It was published uninterruptedly between November 5, 1944, and December 21, 1989, and during its 45 years of existence, it was the Organ al Comitetului Central al Partidului Comunist Român4 [Organ of the

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Central Committee of the Romanian Communist Party]. For all intents and purposes, Scînteia was the regime’s propaganda channel of choice. During the late 1940s and the early 1950s, Scînteia published aggressive campaigns against “enemies of the people” (Cesereanu 2012), such as the poet Tudor Arghezi. In the 1980s, as we shall see in the next sections of this paper and as Hat,egan (2017) has already pointed out, Scînteia’s task was to create the image of a perfect country. Written in the newspeak accepted by the regime, the articles published in Scînteia praised the achievements of the “multilaterally developed society,” a catch-all phrase used by the communist propaganda when describing Romania’s “golden age.” Needless to say, the role of the press was not to inform the citizens, but to spread the propaganda of the RCP. In their attempt to be properly informed, Romanians would clandestinely listen to RFE at home. There are no statistics about the actual number of listeners, but it is widely known that “in communist Romania, and more specifically during its latest period, 1971–1989, RFE was the country’s favourite radio station connecting Romanians to the world” (Petrinca 2019, 180). James F. Brown, director of the station in the early 1980s, was very straightforward about the objective of Radio Free Europe: It kept them [listeners] informed. An informed audience was an alert audience. RFE told them what was happening in the world, and it informed and commented on what was happening in their own countries. It broke the communist information monopoly and gave East Europeans the chance to think and judge for themselves. (Brown 2013)

Or in the words of Liviu Tofan (2021), a journalist who worked for the Romanian news desk at RFE from 1974 to 1993, the broadcast “kept us alive.”5 Given its popularity in Romania, RFE became the recipient of letters that citizens wrote to complain about lives on the other side of the Iron Curtain. It was not easy to bypass the correspondence censorship enforced by the communist authorities, but people managed to do it and anonymous or signed letters were sent abroad through foreign tourists or students, relatives, etc. It is estimated that in the 1980s, the radio station received around 500 letters per year from Romania (Andreescu and Berindei 2010, 16).

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In the next section, we will analyse a corpus of letters sent to Radio Free Europe, published in two volumes by Gabriel Andreescu and Mihnea Berindei, in 2010 and 2014, and compare their content to the ideas spread by the official propaganda in Scînteia during the last decade of the communist regime. For the media corpus, we included 18 issues of Scînteia that were published following the last three congresses of the Romanian Communist Party (November 19–23, 1979; November 19–24, 1984; November 20–25, 1989).

A Few Notes on Ethos A few methodological clarifications seem necessary at this point. For the ideological configuration of the Romanian national ethos in both the epistolary and the media corpus, we have used the framework proposed by Copilas, (2015), who identifies five dimensions of the Romanian nationalism during the communist regime: political, economic, historical, cultural, and military. These five dimensions will also be the focus of our analysis. For the analysis of the discursive means which help to construct the national identity, we will operate with the concept of ethos, as used by the French school of discourse analysis, especially by Ruth Amossy (1999, 2001, 2010, 2021) and Dominique Maingueneau (2002, 2013, 2014). Going back to Aristotle’s Rhetoric, the ethos is a key concept of discourse analysis which might be succinctly defined as the use of linguistic means by the speaker in order to construct an image of himself or herself. The discursive images or the ethos constructed by the speaker can be individual, but also collective (Amossy 2021, Maingueneau 2021), when the speaker projects an image of himself or herself as part of a group (social, professional, cultural, political, ethnical, etc.). Although it is a broad generalisation, this operational definition will help us describe in the next sections how the national ethos is configured across the five above-mentioned dimensions: political, economic, historical, cultural, and military. We will seek to identify how key elements of national identity, such as the people (in Romanian popor, neam), the nation, the Romanians, and the country, are constructed in the epistolary and the media corpus.

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The Political Dimension The aim of the communist elites was to create a socialist “democracy” and instil in the population a sense of respect for the ideals of the RCP and a strong love for Romanians’ continuous fight for freedom. However, freedom was understood as emerging within the socialist state and being granted by it. According to Copilas,, “only socialism could guarantee citizen rights and liberties, namely a conscious and free participation of all citizens to the overall political activity” (2015, 166). Therefore, the aim of the regime was to create a “revolutionary awareness” among the working class, as part of a “superior democracy, in which conflicts among classes have been abolished” (166). The analysis undertaken by Copilas, is in line with the data in the media corpus, as a few examples below clearly illustrate. What can be easily identified as one of the main characteristics of the political dimension of the collective national ethos according to the communist propaganda is the complete identity between the party and the nation/the people: “soul of the people’s soul, body of the people’s body, the Romanian Communist Party” (Scînteia, 19.11.1979, 1); “the supreme identity in thought, in feeling and in deed between the party and the people” (Scînteia, 19.11.1979, 1); “the defining reality of the Romanian society: the indestructible unity between the party and the people” (Scînteia, 24.11.1984, 1). The Romanian political nation is defined as a socialist nation, which freely chose its destiny: “the revolutionary destiny that the Romanian people chose, in complete freedom” (Scînteia, 22.11.1989, 5). The epistolary corpus, on the other hand, tells a very different story. The countless complaints show that far from enjoying “complete freedom,” Romanians were living in a brutal dictatorship, in which basic human rights were non-existent. Obviously, the complete identity between the RCP and the nation or the people does not exist in the epistolary corpus. The letters sent to RFE depict the glooming reality of living in 1980s Romania, a country in which the people, far from enjoying a wonderful life under the aegis of the communist regime, are denied basic human rights. Letters complain about: censorship and the severe limitations of freedom of speech: “They also publicly announced that

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censorship was abolished. The people knew from the first moments that it was a farce” (Andreescu and Berindei 2010, 60); denial of human rights: “Is there a more compelling demonstration of the regime’s lack of sincerity than this? A more blatant disregard for human rights?” (Andreescu and Berindei 2010, 169); lack of representation by the communist elites: “The Romanian people is not only exploited and terrorised in its own county, but it is also discredited by representatives it never elected” (Andreescu and Berindei 2010, 42); “This clique [or, more accurately, Ceaus,escu’s mafia, as it is known in our country] is well-known both in our country and abroad” (Andreescu and Berindei 2010, 111); lack of freedom: “The Romanian people desires to live freely without being pursued by the Securitate” (Andreescu and Berindei 2010, 291); lack of freedom of movement: “Give us the freedom to enter or leave the country when each of us wants, for the good of the people and the country, regardless of age, sex, or religion” (Andreescu and Berindei 2010, 217). There are consistent complaints about the lack of reproductive rights, enforced by the pronatalist policy of the regime: “I have talked to many women, listening to their opinion about this burden imposed on them, as the people is never asked whether it agrees with what is being decided on its behalf ” (Andreescu and Berindei 2014, 153); “You want to augment the Romanian population and immediately order that each wife should have three or four children. How many of your sons have three or four children?” (Andreescu and Berindei 2010, 286). Women complain about forced registrations at gynaecologists and the humiliation: “We, women, ended up being registered like cattle, so that ‘the most beloved son of the people’ should know how many babies will come into the world after nine months? Is there any other country where women are humiliated in such a manner?” (Andreescu and Berindei 2010, 282). Without real representation and confronted with the regime’s denial of human rights, the overall assessment in the epistolary corpus is that Romanians are not loyal to the regime: “the Romanian citizens of Hungarian nationality, the great majority, feel loyal to the Romanian people, to the common homeland, not to the regime, as not even Romanians themselves are loyal to it” (Andreescu and Berindei 2014, 127). The gap between the unity and the support of the people that is consistent throughout the articles published by Scînteia and the personal

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letters sent to RFE show, as Copilas, (2015) rightly pointed out, that the discourse of the regime was far from hegemonic. Citizens were aware of the political rights that they should enjoy in a democratic country and understood very well that the RCP had enforced an oppressive and brutal dictatorship. Moreover, a sense of helplessness in the epistolary corpus creates the image of the Romanian people as the victim of the regime: “I am one of the millions of victims of the degeneration of the Romanian way of life under the tyranny and the irresponsibility of a regime like no other in Europe” (Andreescu and Berindei 2014, 272). Even if in Scînteia the political ethos of the Romanian people or of the nation is the complete identification with the RCP, Romanian citizens do not forge the same discursive image: they feel as being part of a nation oppressed by a brutal regime.

The Economic Dimension The socialist economy, which (supposedly) abolished social classes and turned citizens into both producers and beneficiaries of the country’s wealth, was a key element of the Romanian communist propaganda. Ceaus,escu insisted that “work is a duty of honour for each citizen of the country” (Copilas, 2015, 179). Patriotic work was an obligation for each citizen and it was enforced until the fall of the regime. According to Copilas,, “the development of the socialist fatherland had as its main driving force not the hydrocarbon fuels, not the raw materials […] not even the macroeconomic adjustment to the new international trends, but the love for the country” (2015, 182). The paragraph below, published in Scînteia one month before the fall of the regime, contains a synthesis of the main ideas about the economic development of the country under the communist rule and its expected benefits for the population. Our party and its secretary general have promoted a superior concept of the standard of living that incorporates basic human and people’s rights: ensuring that all citizens, especially the younger generation, have access to jobs, decent housing conditions, wide access to science, education and culture. (Scînteia, 26.11.1989, 5)

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The economic dimension of the national ethos is by far the most represented in the epistolary corpus. On almost every page, there are complaints about Romania’s rotten economy, supply shortages on almost all basic items (food, of course, but also hygiene, clothing, footwear, etc.). There are overall assessments of the economy such as the following: “the economic disaster in our country is catastrophic. This is seen by the entire people, but we don’t understand why they accept it” (Andreescu and Berindei 2010, 111); “the economy of the country and the standard of living are deteriorating in a geometric progression […] and the disaster is near” (Andreescu and Berindei 2014, 117); “our country is rich and it’s a shame that we, Romanians, have to beg from door to door” (Andreescu and Berindei 2010, 246). Food shortages are frequently mentioned and they depict the utmost degradation of the standard of living in the 1980s: “the Romanian people wish to buy and eat what they want, not what you are offering as scientific alimentation” (Andreescu and Berindei 2010, 291); “the people don’t have meat, soap, coffee, toilet paper, etc.” (Andreescu and Berindei 2010, 87); “the people suffer from hunger and the lack of everything that they need and can’t find in the stores of our socialist multilaterally developed state” (Andreescu and Berindei 2010, 104); “spare this people from further hunger and the continuous search for food” (Andreescu and Berindei 2010, 105); “the people is we, the many, who are running day and night in search of food” (Andreescu and Berindei 2010, 265). The shortage of food is such that Romanians feel they are a punished people: “What harm did we, all Romanians, do to this man, that he punishes us so severely? We’re worse than dogs, they throw us a few bones that we must stay in line to buy” (Andreescu and Berindei 2014, 392). In one letter, there is a warning that the harsh economic reality is a threat to people’s adherence to socialism: “how can the Romanian people believe that socialism is good, when they die of hunger and have one of the lowest standards of living in the world” (Andreescu and Berindei 2010, 125). Another complaint present across the epistolary corpus is about the power outages and the lack of proper heating, especially during the harsh Romanian winters: “the country is not on fire, it’s shivering of cold; it doesn’t have hot water in the kitchen and in the bathroom; it doesn’t have gas in the stove or the pressure is very low; electricity is always being cut

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off” (Andreescu and Berindei 2014, 138); “you’ve indebted the country by over 10 billion dollars, claiming that you have industrialised it, when the reality is that the country is suffering from hunger and cold” (Andreescu and Berindei 2010, 339). If, in the previous section, we saw that the political elites were not considered true representatives of the people, as they had never been elected, when we analyse the economic dimension of national identity, we identify another characteristic of the communist leaders: they are described as a privileged caste completely disconnected from the people and unaware of the difficulties that common citizens face daily. “We have a typical communist apartheid, applied in the communist system of organising classes, social strata, bands, clans, and castes” (Andreescu and Berindei 2010, 81); “anyhow, it’s not the Romanian people who benefits from these privileges, but the clan in power” (Andreescu and Berindei 2014, 222); “they say that everything belongs to the people, but unfortunately everything belongs to those who rule Romania” (Andreescu and Berindei 2010, 78). The gap between the elites and the working class is very clear: “Many, way too many workers don’t have anything to eat during lunch break. […] They all realise that they work hard not for their own wellbeing, but in order to support a clique whose stomachs are way too full” (Andreescu and Berindei 2010, 111). Moreover, in the same letter, the diagnosis is extrapolated at the national level: “23 million people work not for the wellbeing of the country, as Mr. Ceaus,escu claims, but for the opulence and the antics of the Ceaus,escu family” (Andreescu and Berindei 2010, 111). If we compare the economic dimension of the national ethos in Scînteia (the people were enjoying a superior standard of living created by the regime) with the collective image of the Romanian people in the epistolary corpus, we discover an enormous difference. Romanians describe themselves as people who live in cold and in hunger, as the national economy is collapsing, ruled by prosperous elites completely disconnected from the reality of the common citizens.

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The Historical Dimension The historical dimension of the national ethos, as constructed by the communist propaganda sought to defend the continuity and unity of the Romanian nationhood from the Dacian kingdom until the twentieth century. As Copilas, points out, “the vision and the political ambitions of the present are projected in a past which is ideologically recuperated for the sole purpose of legitimising present sacrifices and future promises” (2015, 182). The Dacian kingdom, the medieval principalities, peasants’ uprisings, the independence war, the unification of the regions of Moldova, Wallachia, and Transylvania were naturally followed by the proclamation of the Popular Republic, all being reflections of the Romanians’ continuous struggle for independence and self-­determination. Romania’s Golden Age under the communist regime was nothing but the culmination of this continuous struggle, while the Ceaus,escu couple represented the epitome of the brilliant rulers who would lead their people towards a glorious future. We find a synthesis of the historical dimension of the national ethos in a speech given by Ceaus,escu at the last Congress of the RCP in 1989: The successful construction of the new socialist order constitutes a lawful continuation of the historical process of the creation of the Romanian people, the Romanian nation, of the Romanian national unitary state, of the fight against foreign domination, oppression and for freedom and independence, for economic and social progress. […] The formation of the first centralised state of the Dacians, more than 2060 years ago, was a decisive moment for the development of the civilisation on this land, for the subsequent development of the Romanian people. (Scînteia 21.11.1989, 3)

As expected, the epistolary corpus does not depict the historical dimension of the Romanian national ethos in the same terms as the communist propaganda did. The past is usually evoked in the letters in comparison with the harsh present. There is no doubt that the present was the exact opposite of the Golden Age depicted in the media by the communist propaganda. Furthermore, the image of the past (in clear opposition with the decaying present) is not as glorious as the one presented by the regime.

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Romanians are described as a standing people in the past which were forced to flee from the country due to the unbearable living conditions: “let us not be surprised that this people, so stable on the land of its ancestors […] under this regime has finally awoken and is going into the wide world to live elsewhere” (Andreescu and Berindei 2010, 84). Another image of the Romanians is that of a people hiding from barbarian invaders in the past, but without any possibility of revolting in the present: “in the past, Romanians would hide in the mountains from the barbarian invasions, but now? Where? It’s easy to demand people to revolt when one is bound by galley chains” (Andreescu and Berindei 2010, 276). Another topic that links the present to the past is the exploitation: “for in the past, our grandparents at least knew that they were oppressed and exploited by foreigners who had invaded the country, but today, when Romanians are oppressing Romanians, it is even more painful” (Andreescu and Berindei 2010, 104). The “troubled” past turned Romanians into a patient and obedient people, which might explain why they tolerate the regime: “we, Romanians, are a good, patient and disciplined people, because our troubled past has taught us to supress our anger and revolt in front of our more powerful enemies” (Andreescu and Berindei 2010, 127). In one letter, the sender compares the glorious past of the propaganda with the current state of the Romanian society, the implication being that, given the current acceptance of the “absurd, the ridiculous, the unbearable,” the past could have been the same: How is it that Romanians and only them, flattered day and night by the entire official press, radio and TV—I mean the cult of history, of our legendary courage, of our pride and our independence—only Romanians have put up for two decades with the absurd, the ridiculous, the unbearable? (Andreescu and Berindei 2014, 166)

The Cultural Dimension Copilas, (2015, 195–206) describes how the nationalist discourse appropriated the works of poets such as George Coșbuc, Mihai Eminescu, and Lucian Blaga or historians like Nicolae Iorga and Vasile Pârvan and

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included them in the narrative of the perennial nation. Going back to its Dacian roots, the Romanian culture had to differentiate itself from other cultures and, at the same time, had to serve as scaffold for the nationalist ideology. Therefore, any attempt to identify and describe the Romanian exceptionalism or its superiority towards other peoples or nations (which inevitably turned into chauvinism and xenophobia) was praised by the regime as it fuelled its nationalist discourse. Protochronism,6 the idea that Romanian culture anticipated well-known Western cultural products or events, was also an encouraged trend in academic research and cultural publications. Perhaps one of the most ambitious aims of the communist propaganda was the creation of a new Romanian cultural pantheon, with Nicolae Ceaus,escu as the most prominent figure: “Hero among the heroes of the people, the brilliant maker of modern socialist Romania, the visionary ruler of the entire people on its path to well-being and happiness, a great personality of the contemporary world” (Scînteia, 22.11.1989, 5). The epistolary corpus is far from showing that Romanians felt that they belonged to a superior nation. Given the lack of reaction to the oppression of the ruling regime, one of the core qualities of a united nation (solidarity) are questioned in a few letters: “I don’t even know if at this time Romanians still form a people, in the true sense of the nation, or just a (shapeless) community of individuals leaving in a given perimeter” (Andreescu and Berindei 2014, 357); “what is indeed true about us, Romanians, is that we have lost, for the most part, our sense of solidarity” (Andreescu and Berindei 2014, 433). There is also criticism regarding the destruction by the regime of the Romanian cultural heritage, namely, architecture, an important part of the national identity: Old Bucharest was demolished to make room for megalomaniac plans. Churches fall down one after another, the same is happening with buildings that still say a little about what we once were. An entire nation is losing its identity, an entire people sees every day that it is meant to disappear. (Andreescu and Berindei 2010, 274)

Nonetheless, there are also testimonies showing that a lively, subversive, and authentic culture still existed and that it was at the antipodes of

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the official culture, developed under the scrutiny of the regime. Commenting on a speech that the Czech writer Milan Kundera gave when awarded the Jerusalem Prize, the anonymous author of one letter writes: In my opinion, in today’s Romania not only the novel is the expression of the laughter, directed at the people in power, but an entire literature, in fact an entire culture, in its most genuine and profound nature. In today’s Romania, there are two radically opposed cultures: an authentic one, that of laughter, and an official one, that of stupidity. (Andreescu and Berindei 2014, 59)

The Military Dimension The last dimension of Romanian nationalism during the communist era analysed by Copilas, (2015, 206–211) is the military one. The “patriotic guards,” created after Ceaus,escu’s 1968 speech in which he condemned the Soviet invasion in Czechoslovakia, aimed at creating a strong patriotic consciousness among Romanian citizens. The objective of the regime was to train ordinary citizens so that they could participate alongside trained military and conscripts in a defensive war and protect the country. Starting from the requirements to defend the integrity and the independence of Romania, the party and our socialist state will continue to pay their full attention to the continuous strengthening of the defensive capacity of our country. […] we strengthen the collaboration between the armed forces, the patriotic guards and the youth military training units, keeping always in mind—I repeat—that defending the country and socialism is and must always be the work of the entire people. (Scînteia, 21.11.1989, 7)

Perhaps the patriotic guards helped instil in the population the desire to protect the country. However, contrary to the expectations of this policy, in the letters sent to Radio Free Europe, Romanians expressed the desire to fight against the regime and not for it: “we want to fight and free the country from the reckless invaders that fell on our heads [the family

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and the clique of Ceaus,escu’s mobsters]” (Andreescu and Berindei 2010, 112); “Mr. Ceaus,escu, our only hope is either to all die or to fight and change your dictatorship” (Andreescu and Berindei 2010, 307). In October 1989, two months before the Revolution that led to the collapse of the Ceaus,escu family, an “optimistic” Romanian (as he described himself ) wrote the following in a letter sent to RFE: “at this moment, the armies are facing each other—on one side themselves and their clan, on the other the people. They are playing in the farce of power, we are waiting for our moment” (Andreescu and Berindei 2014, 436).

Concluding Remarks This comparative analysis of a media corpus (articles and speeches published in Scînteia) and an epistolary corpus illustrate the enormous “discursive divide” between the official discourse and the discourse of ordinary citizens in the last decade of the Romanian communist dictatorship. The discursive construction of the national ethos fuelled by the “exacerbation of nationalism” (Boia 2001, 77) in the state-owned and state-controlled media is in harsh contrast with the national ethos constructed in the epistolary corpus of letters sent to RFE. We have analysed all five dimensions of the national identity identified by Copilas, (2015)—political, economic, historical, cultural, and military—and highlighted striking differences between the two corpora. In Scînteia, the Romanian people or the Romanian nation is one with the RCP, it benefits from a superior standard of living, has an uninterrupted glorious history of two millennia, has created an exceptional culture and is ready to defend the country whenever necessary. The national ethos promoted by the communist propaganda is an ethos of grandeur, focusing on the great achievements of the “multilaterally developed society.” The glorious is a guarantee of a great future, under the rule of the brilliant rulers, the Ceaus,escu family. On the other hand, the national ethos constructed by the senders of the letters to RFE show an opposite image of the Romanian people. The political elites are not considered true representatives as they have never been elected and are perceived as

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completely disconnected from the daily problems of the ordinary citizens. The Romanians describe themselves as a people oppressed by the regime, which denied them basic human rights. Far from enjoying a superior standard of living, Romanians feel that they are punished by the regime, as food and basic products are very hard to find. The past may have been glorious, but the present is decayed and the collapse of the entire country is near. The Romanians depict themselves as a people without any sense of solidarity. As the cultural architectonic heritage is demolished, there is a sense of identity loss. According to one letter, the Romanian people are ready to fight not for the regime, but against it. The antagonistic national identities constructed by the propaganda and by the common citizens are illustrative of the pervasive double talk during the communist dictatorship in Romania. The image imposed by the official discourse was in clear contradiction with the national ethos of the ordinary citizen. One month before the Romanian Revolution and the brutal demise of Nicolae Ceaus,escu and his wife, Scînteia was publishing articles that praised the great achievements of the regime and of the nation’s “most beloved son.” When RFE was on air, the radio host were reading letters which told the truth. While “the logic of double-talk is at the very heart of communist ideology” (Boia 2001, 78), it cannot be sustained forever. The way in which people imagined themselves, given their everyday life experiences in communist Romania, would prevail against propaganda and the official rhetoric of the RCP. Acknowledgements  The research included in the present volume was funded by UEFISCDI, an agency of the Romanian Ministry of Education, within the PD grant PN-III-P1-1.1-PD-2019-0544.

Notes 1. The ruler of the Dacian kingdom from 82/61 BC to 45/44 BC. 2. The pseudo-hegemonic nationalism […] refers to the incapacity of the nationalism in place between 1965 and 1989 to truly become a hegemony, although it was produced by a privileged hegemonic instance at the level of knowledge creation and distribution, to its incapacity to become

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if not a unanimously, at least a generally accepted discourse, to its ­impossibility to persuade the population of its universality, albeit limited to the borders of the country. 3. Our translation. Unless otherwise specified, all subsequent quotations from sources originally written in Romanian have been translated by the author. 4. According to the second article of the Press Law (3/1974), “The press conducts its activity under the rule of the Romanian Communist Party – the ruling political force of the entire society in the Socialist Republic of Romania.” [Presa îşi desfăşoară activitatea sub conducerea Partidului Comunist Român – forţa politică conducătoare a întregii societăţi din Republica Socialistă România.] 5. See the title of the monograph “Ne-au t,inut în viat,a˘” [They kept us alive]. 6. For a detailed analysis of Romanian protochronism, see Verdery (1991, 167–214).

References Amossy, Ruth. 1999. Images de soi dans le discours. La construction de l’ethos. [Images of the Self in the Discourse: Ethos Construction]. Lausanne: Delachaux et Niestlé. Amossy, Ruth. 2001. “Ethos at the Crossroads of Disciplines: Rhetoric, Pragmatics, Sociology.” Poetics Today. 22(1): 1–23. Amossy, Ruth. 2010. La presentation de soi. Ethos et identité verbale. [Self-­ Presentation: Ethos and Verbal Identity]. Paris: PUF. Amossy, Ruth. 2021. “Qu’est-ce que l’ethos collectif? Sciences du langage et sciences sociales” [What is the Collective Ethos? Language Sciences and Social Sciences]. In Ethos collectif et identités sociales, edited by Ruth Amossy and Eithan Orkibi, 21-51, Paris: Classiques Garnier. Anderson, Benedict, 2016, Imagined Communities. Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism. Revised edition. London & New York: Verso. Boia, Lucian, 2001. History and Myth in Romanian Consciousness. Translated by James Christian Brown. Budapest: Central European University Press. Brown, J. F. 2013. Radio Free Europe. An Insider’s View. Washington: Vellum/ New Accademia Publishing. Kindle.

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Cesereanu, Ruxandra. 2012. “Communist Ideological Dystopia – The Newspaper Scânteia (1944–1950) – a “collective linguistic delirium.”” Caietele Echinox. 22: 281–290. Copilas,, Emanuel. 2015. Națiunea socialistă. Politica identității în Epoca de Aur. [The Socialist Nation: The Policy of Identity in the Golden Age]. Iași: Polirom. Deletant, Dennis. 1995. Ceaușescu and the Securitate. Coercion and Dissent in Romania, 1965–1989. London & New York: Routledge. Deletant, Dennis. 2019. Romania under Communism: Paradox and Degeneration. London & New York: Routledge. Hat,egan, Corina. 2017. “The Scînteia Newspaper – The Image of The ‘Perfect’ Communist Romanian Society during the 80s.” Anuarul Institutului de Cercetări Socio-Umane “Gheorghe Şincai” al Academiei Române. 20: 206–220. Maingueneau, Dominique. 2002. “Problèmes d’ethos” [Problems of the Ethos]. Pratiques: linguistique, littérature, didactique. 113–114: 55–67. Maingueneau, Dominique. 2013. “L’èthos: un articulateur” [The Ethos: An Articulator]. Contextes. Available online. DOI: https://doi.org/10.4000/ contextes.5772. Maingueneau, Dominique. 2014. “Retour critique sur l’éthos” [A Critical Return on the Ethos]. Langage et société. 149: 31–48. Maingueneau, Dominique. 2021. “L’ethos collectif représenté” [Represented Collective Ethos]. In Ethos collectif et identités sociales [Collective Ethos and Social Identities], edited by Ruth Amossy and Eithan Orkibi, 21–51, Paris: Classiques Garnier. Papahagi, Cristiana. 2017. “Idéologies de la langue nationale: une comparaison entre le français et le roumain.” [Ideologies of the National Language: a Comparison between French and Romanian]. New Europe College Ștefan Odobleja Program Yearbook 2015– 2016. 121–157. Petrinca, Ruxandra. 2019. “Radio waves, memories, and the politics of everyday life in socialist Romania: The case of Radio Free Europe.” Centaurus. 61(3): 178–199. Tofan, Liviu. 2021. Ne-au t,inut în viat,a˘. Radio Europa Libera˘ 1970–1990. [They Kept Us Alive: Radio Free Europe 1970–1990]. București: Omnium. Thom, Françoise. 1987. La langue de bois. [Wooden Language]. Paris: Julliard. Verdey, Katherine. 1991. National Ideology under Socialism: Identity and Cultural Politics in Ceaus,escu’s Romania. Berkley Los Angeles Oxford: University of California Press.

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Corpus Andreescu, Gabriel; Berindei, Mihnea (eds.), 2010, Ultimul deceniu comunist. Scrisori către Radio Europa Libera˘ [The Last Communist Decade: Letters to Radio Free Europe]. vol. I. Iași: Polirom. Andreescu, Gabriel; Berindei, Mihnea (eds.), 2014, Ultimul deceniu comunist. Scrisori către Radio Europa Libera˘. [The Last Communist Decade: Letters to Radio Free Europe]. vol. II. Iași: Polirom. *** Digitalized archive of Scînteia [The Spark], the official newspaper of the Romanian Communist Party. http://www.bibliotecadeva.eu/periodice/scanteia.html.

4 “Words That Must Not Be Named”: Narratives of Language, Power, and Identity in Communist Romania Réka Lugossy

Aims of the Study The social turn in the study of language has called for research focusing on how language interacts with the sociocultural context and with the conceptual worlds and identities of its users. This longitudinal study examines the multilayered connection between language, power, and identity through the emic perspectives of four highly reflective ethnic Hungarians from Romania (ages: 87, 81, 56, 53) who had extensive first-­ hand experience of Ceaus,escu’s regime and now live abroad. Data were collected through multiple narrative interviews and informal discussions over the years to elicit the dynamics of participants’ lived experiences related to social, historical, cultural, and linguistic processes from the time of the dictatorial regime in Romania. On one level, the study seeks to explore participants’ emic perspectives on how language was used in the examined context and their

R. Lugossy (*) University of Pécs, Pécs, Hungary e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 E. Wohl, E. Păcurar (eds.), Language of the Revolution, Palgrave Studies in Languages at War, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-37178-3_4

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understanding of how power relations were created and navigated through linguistic practices. Another aim of the study is to give insights into discursive constructions of identity over time. From this angle, the study explores participants’ perspectives on how their subjective experiences gained in the specific social, political, and linguistic context shaped their personal and collective identities over the years. The research partly adds depth to the existing literature by relying on an emic approach, which opens space for individuals’ unique perceptions and interpretations (Mackey and Gass 2021). By focusing on a specific social-political and ethnolinguistically diverse context fraught with ethnic sensitivity, the study also aims to deepen the understanding of the inner worlds of ethnic minorities who experienced the years of communism in Romania.

Making Meaning Through Narratives An underlying idea of this study is that narratives have a central role in meaning-making and negotiating identities across contexts. Cognitive psychologists Schank and Abelson (1995) argue that our minds create meaning by relying on narrative patterns: we organise, process, and store new information based on earlier stories. They also contend that stories about one’s experiences and the experiences of others “are fundamental constituents of human memory, knowledge, and social communication” (Schank and Abelson 1995, 1). Narratives also emerge as the central means by which we describe “lived time” (Bruner 1987, 692), create coherence and give meaning to human experience over time (Bruner 1987; Horsdal 2011; Ochs and Capps 2001; Pavlenko 2007). Rather than a precise record of what happened, autobiographic narratives are interpretations of lived experiences. According to Bruner, “life as led is inseparable from a life as told… life is not ‘how it was’ but how it is interpreted and reinterpreted, told and retold” (Bruner 1987, 708). Not only do narratives imitate life, life also imitates narratives, and “[i]n the end, we become the autobiographical narratives by which we tell about our lives” (Bruner 1987, 694).

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A related theme concerns the sociocultural embeddedness of the tales we tell. Life narratives are “shaped by lifelong personal and community narratives” (Webster and Mertova 2007, 2), and they evidence our cultural membership both in terms of their content and in the way in which they are constructed (Fodor 2020; Nikolov 2023; Williams 2020). In the present study, participants’ cultural membership is a key issue, and as shown later, their narratives are unique ways of characterising the specific sociocultural context from which they emerged.

Expanding Identity Another explanatory framework for the current study is the language socialisation paradigm, which offers a socioculturally informed analysis of language intertwined with life course, historical continuity, and transformation (Ochs and Schieffelin 2017, 11). In this dynamic framework, language is seen as a process of participation in a community of practice, which has a central role in expressing and constructing personal and collective identity. Described as “a process of becoming, or avoiding becoming a certain person, rather than a simple accumulation of skills and knowledge” (Norton and Pavlenko 2018, 670), language emerges as a transformative experience as we socialise in novel identities in the course of our lives. In this line of thought, language is not only instrumental in constructing and negotiating identities, but experiences with language involve a constant re-creation and negotiation of identities (Kramsch 2009). A further significant explanatory concept for this study is the idea of investment, developed by Norton (2000) in the field of language education research to complement the psychological construct of motivation and to highlight the sociological aspect of learning. Learners invest in learning a new language to acquire a broader range of symbolic and material resources, which in turn will increase their cultural capital and social power (Darvin and Norton 2016). As shown later, participants in the current study also share the understanding that language can be used as an investment to increase political and symbolic power and expand identity.

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Linked to investment, Norton and Pavlenko (2018) use the notion of imagined communities to discuss how actual and desired memberships in various imagined communities mediate language learners’ agency, motivation, investment, or resistance to learning a new language. Based on Wenger’s work, Norton and Pavlenko argue that imagination emerges as a distinct form of belonging to a particular community: it is “a way in which we can locate ourselves in the world and history, and include in our identities other meanings, other possibilities, other perspectives” (Wenger 1998, 178, cited by Norton and Pavlenko 2018, 670). In this study, the notion of imagined community has been used to explain participants’ need to express their belonging while relying on linguistic resources such as linguistic humour and translanguaging.

Participants The participants of the study are four highly accomplished professionals: Edit (87) and Imre (81) are medical researchers, Trézsi (53) is a secondary school teacher of English, and Barna (56) is a violinist. All of them relocated abroad in the period between 1988 and 1991. Imre and Trézsi live in Hungary, Barna lives in Austria, and Edit divides her time between Hungary and Romania. Despite living outside the borders of Romania for several decades, they all attribute importance to their heritage as ethnic Hungarians from Romania. As for their linguistic background, they share Hungarian as their native language, Romanian as their second language, and they all speak between one and four additional languages (German, French, Spanish, and Italian). The participants were selected through convenience sampling (Dörnyei 2007): two are the author’s close friends, and two are family members. I decided to interview them partly because they all share a gift for storytelling and a good sense of humour. On the other hand, I expected that due to their age differences, they would reflect on a wide range of lived experiences.

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Data Collection Methods and Procedure The research design allowed for a longitudinal exploration of participants’ subjective experiences and the meanings attached to them grounded in a broader sociocultural discourse. I aimed to elicit data grounded in the lives and experiences of the four interviewees and to make attempts at understanding “what was and what was not being said” (Hollan 2005), and why. First, observations of the four participants in their natural contexts over the years and field notes documenting my own experiences as an ethnic Hungarian in communist Romania were used to generate research questions and ensure an emic approach. Multiple narrative interviews and informal discussions were then used to gain more focused insights into participants’ memories and the meanings attached to their subjective lived experiences (Braun and Clarke 2006). During the interviews, participants were asked to reflect on their experiences during the communist regime in Romania, hoping that their narratives would yield language-related data grounded in participants’ lives. I also assumed that the elicited narratives would involve a “landscape of action” along with the “landscape of consciousness” composed of “what those involved in the action know, think, or feel, or do not know, think or feel” (Bruner 1987, 14). Narratives are also well suited to dealing with aspects of time and communication in change (Webster and Mertova 2007, 11), which are vital issues in this study. The interviews were conducted in the participants’ native language (Hungarian) between 2018 and 2022. The transcripts were translated into English and analysed for content and discourse. When translating the transcripts from Hungarian to English, examples of code-mixing and code-switching from Hungarian to Romanian were preserved in the original language (Romanian) to allow for an analysis of the specific discursive features of the text.

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Emerging Themes and Patterns The longitudinal data collected through interviews and informal discussions give insights into participants’ experiences with language during the years of communism in Romania. The excerpts from the interviews and informal discussions provide concrete examples of how lexicon, language structures, and communication strategies were used to create and maintain social and political power. Intertwined with their reflections on the nature of totalitarian discourse, participants discuss their beliefs on how the languages used in specific contexts in communist Romania shaped their lives and identities. Although from different generations, they all tend to believe that their experiences with language in communist Romania had long-lasting implications for their sense of agency and the development of their learned helplessness. Another emerging theme refers to the role of memory and life-story narratives in constructing personal and collective identity. Participants repeatedly express the need to reframe events and experiences through telling their stories about the past. They also refer to untold stories and the need to fill in the gaps in their absent memory. They all believe that having a sense of continuity with the past is crucial in order to have a more complete picture of oneself and make sense of life events. Finally, on a more positive note, participants reflect on humour as a subversive practice in the totalitarian system they experienced. They refer to it as a spontaneous strategy that still helps them build symbolic spaces and imagined communities across contexts. An interesting finding relates to how humour and code-switching intersect. Longitudinal data gained through interviews, informal discussions, and ethnographic observation revealed participants’ reliance on their entire linguistic repertoire: they often code-switched from Hungarian to Romanian when referring to concepts or events that reminded their specific experiences in communist Romania. The examples they provide in this sense indicate distance and closeness as parts of the border experiences of ethnolinguistic groups and show an emic-etic tension.

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Some of the main themes emerging from the dataset are discussed in detail in the sections that follow. The excerpts from the interviews and informal discussions quoted below shed light on the complexity and richness of lived experience and reveal participants’ emic perspectives. Although, as mentioned, data were collected in Hungarian, occasional code-switches to Romanian occurred in the dataset; these were preserved in the original language to allow for an in-depth analysis of the specific discursive features of the text.

Using Dangerous Language A central theme that emerges from the data regards participants’ perceptions of language as a means to instil fear and to exercise social control by those who, in their view, represented the ruling system. Edit recalls how in the 1950s and 1960s, even seemingly “innocent” words became indicative of one’s perceived association with the previous regime. Her experiences refer to dissonant heritage, a concept used to explain contested interpretations of the past: as times change, social actors attribute different, often conflicting meanings to past events and practices and thus recreate heritage through interpretation (Dragićević Šešić and Rogač Mijatović 2014; Tunbridge and Ashworth 1996). In the following passage, Edit captures in what ways and for what reasons “safe language” gained space: Some expressions became widely used, and others disappeared… because they were stigmatising. And people avoided using them in certain contexts … they were not safe, or at least not in some circles. Nobody attended balls anymore. Ball was no longer the accepted term … it counted as a reminiscență mic-burgheză [reminiscence of the petite bourgeoisie] …. The new term for a ball was întrunire tovărășească [comradely gathering].

One of the implications of using words which had negative historical and political connotations was that users came to be associated with a world that was not in line with the new ideology, and they themselves risked being erased by those in power: “And you knew you were not

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supposed to use them, because if you did, you got into trouble and you got kicked out of the UTM [acronym for Union of Working Youth] …in your days it was the UTC [Union of Communist Youth].” While Edit and Imre never felt the urge to join the organisation in question, in the 1950s, membership in the Union of Working Youth, the youth organisation of the Communist party, was a prerequisite for further studies. Removal from the UTM equalled professional annihilation. Imre’s memories of the oppressive government in Romania also go back to the early 1950s. He evokes that “some words suddenly ended up on the wrong side” because they were “by some obsessive mindset,” associated with the earlier regime and considered dangerous: “If you used those words, you were regarded as one of them [i.e. a representative of the old regime]. You were, to say the least, suspect.” Imre’s word choice (i.e. “obsessive mindset”) implies that the practice of renegotiating heritage would instil fear because it appeared to be based on unpredictable criteria. To make matters worse, the atmosphere, undermined by suspicion, created distrust to the extent that “you could never be sure with some people. And you never knew who would tell others that you were ‘unreliable’ based on the words you used” (Edit). The interviews reveal that words related to dissonant heritage were consciously used by the cadre, who were meant to disseminate the official ideology, to label those believed to be ideologically dangerous. That meant anyone. The examples reveal how social actors constructed and deconstructed identities by using politically stigmatising labels. As referred to earlier, “mic burghez” (petit bourgeois) is remembered by Edit as the most dangerous label randomly applied to people, which threatened to erase their public identity: “Now that I think of it, mic burghez [petit bourgeois] was the absolute loser. If you were called a mic burghez, you were done. That meant your professional career was over. You were no longer trusted. You didn’t have to be one [i.e. petit bourgeois], it was enough to be called one. There was nothing you could do about it.” Other stigmas mentioned by Edit and Imre, the two participants who had vivid memories from the 1950s and 1960s, included “class enemy,” “enemy of the people,” and “malagambist.” The last term refers to the Romanian-Armenian jazz musician, Sergiu Malagamba, believed to be too eccentric in his appearance to serve as a model for the communist

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youth in Romania in the 1960s: “If you were called a malagambist, that counted as a serious deviere [deviation]” (Edit). Imre explains the stigmatising strategy applied by the cadre as “some people’s desire to appear avid supporters of the [communist] party” in order to secure themselves “a place in this chicken-shit world” [“ebben a tyúkszaros világban”]. Discussing the theme of investment, Imre also highlights the competitiveness of “the cadre, who always wanted to outperform one another” in acting out an ideologically approved identity and achieving desired membership in the hegemony. Imre also describes what he believes to be one of the mechanisms of totalitarian systems: depriving people of their sense of agency by sustaining “an atmosphere of fear, where people no longer knew who to trust and who not to trust. This was their [i.e., the system’s] ultimate aim: to keep you from saying things and doing things. And from thinking.” Lack of agency and learned helplessness, shown by research to negatively impact motivation, risk taking, and self-esteem (Swann and Jetten 2017) emerge in the data both at the level of content and discourse. Whenever Trézsi, Imre, Edit, and Barna express their perceived lack of control, they tend to use impersonal discursive constructions such as: “What could you do?” “That was the situation then… nobody could do anything about it,” “There was nothing you could do about it,” and “You couldn’t help it….” Participants believe that the repeated experience of situations where they felt little or no control over their actions negatively influenced their sense of agency in the long run. Despite their objectively measurable academic achievements as PhD supervisors and published authors in medical journals, Imre and Edit position themselves as professionals who could have accomplished more had the circumstances been more favourable. Trézsi, who reflects on social and linguistic phenomena from the 1970s and 1980s, also relates her feelings of inadequacy to her ethnic minority status in communist Romania: I always have doubts about myself. I don’t trust I can do things. Even if I get a lot of positive feedback from my students, I feel like I could be told off any minute …. You know, if you are born in a context where you hear

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you are a “minority” and you keep hearing this for twenty-one years, you will believe that you are “minor” and that will never really be that good and therefore you should not make your voice heard.

The Man Who Went to Bed with the Party Unequal relations of power were also created and perpetuated by what participants described as “intimidatingly impolite language” (Trézsi), such as raising one’s voice, the context-inappropriate use of the T-form and relying on “comrade” as a form of address across genders. The last aspect is perceived as one of the pseudo-equalising features of the language they experienced during the years of communism. Substituting traditional polite forms of address with “comrade” in official contexts was considered by Edit not only disrespectful but an attempt to deprive people of their accomplishments and decreases their social status by creating a sense of false equality: This was the aim: to make you feel you are nothing. By forcing you to be a tovarășa [comrade], they also designated a place for you in the world…and they erased your earlier status. You were no longer supposed to be or to feel like a doamnă [madam] … Be content being like anybody else. All this false idea about equality …it was very annoying.

The following narrative illustrates how power positions are created and recreated through discourse over time, and at the same time, it underlines the role of life narratives in constructing meaning. The story focuses on a critical event that will later resonate with different dimensions of her experience: Edit, a young physician practising in a recently founded industrial town named Dr Petru Groza, after the Romanian socialist leader, is asking for a transfer from her superior, the chief medical officer: So I decided to ask for a transfer. And I remember, the chief medical officer in the county was K.Z., a Hungarian man. He was one of those who “went to bed with the party…” That’s what we used to say in those days… So I asked him for an appointment. I thought I would give it a try. I was allowed

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in. He looked at me from behind his desk and roared in Romanian: Ieși afară! [Get out!] He had such a terrible style [… It was humiliating. It was terrible. This is how he communicated with everybody, I wasn’t the only one. And then, you remember how I would always go to Saint Anthony’s [church] with Irén. And after a while, he was always there, hidden in a corner, looking poor and run-down. And I don’t mean to say that he had no right to be there … Who can tell if he ever repented. He was a monster. He did so much harm.

On one level, the story highlights the threatening practices of a superior who uses his power to intimidate a fellow professional by raising his voice, ignoring the mandatory T-V distinction required by the social context, and not even listening to his interlocutor. Along with the suggestive vocabulary and imagery which describe him (“roared,” “monster”), K.Z. is characterised as one who “went to bed with the party” (“lefeküdt a párttal”), implying that he fraternised with people in power to gain political and economic capital, which were always intertwined in communist Romania. Interestingly, Edit underlines that K.Z. was of Hungarian origin, but in the official context, he was using the state language to indicate power. On another level, this story offers a fascinating example of narratives’ role in identity construction. As discussed earlier, Bruner claims that the way we tell our stories shapes our lives (Bruner 1987). Edit positions herself as the protagonist who tries her luck, K.Z. is the villain who “did so much harm.” When she encounters him decades later in a church in Cluj, “hidden in a corner, looking poor and run-down,” the earlier power position is inverted. In the coda, Edit reflects on the once-privileged doctor with words that indicate loss of prestige and economic capital (“poor and run-down”), implying that moral integrity as an investment, as well as the lack of it, has its reward in the long run.

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Untold Stories The data collected from the four participants over the years include frequent references to experiences and events that, for some reason, are only partially known even to the participants themselves. In her narratives and abstract reflections, Edit draws attention to how the language of concealment and withholding information became constant practices to navigate relationships and negotiate identities in communist Romania. Not talking about things and concealing issues related to identity, such as past family events, was applied by participants and their family members as conscious avoidance strategies to protect themselves and their close ones. This idea is made explicit in the following excerpt, which also captures the narrator’s implicit reflection on the dynamic and elusive nature of ideology across time and contexts: Four of my father’s brothers lived in Bucharest … Except for poor Manó, but I told you this story already. He was a student of law … and a communist. At that time, they used to think this was the best thing in the world, and a considerable part of the intelligentsia were progressive thinkers. And then he made a nice speech in front of the university. He made the speech, the Secret Police came and took him away … to Jilava, or who knows where. This wasn’t much talked about in the family. My poor father would not talk about these things. They were terrified… “you should know as little as possible, in case you are brought before court…” So this is why there are a lot of things I don’t know about … and we did not really insist on knowing in those days.

“Poor Manó,” imprisoned for his left-wing beliefs before the communist rule, is partly erased from the collective family memory for fear anyone could be blamed for his imprisonment, which was in fact the result of his progressive beliefs. Edit’s stance to the totalitarian regime in Romania is implied all along her narrative: “At that time they used to think that this [communism] was the best thing in the world,” “they were terrified,” and “we did not really insist on knowing in those days” suggest that communism, as she experienced it, was by far “the best thing in the world.”

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Another hint in her narrative refers to the role of family stories as constituents in building identity and a sense of history. The explanatory “this is why there are a lot of things I don’t know about” is one of Edit’s many comments in the dataset that indicate her negative feelings about knowing, as she claims, relatively little about her family history. Ochs and Capps use the concept of tellability to reflect on untold stories, which, due to cognitive, psychological, or cultural reasons, “remain inaccessible for narration” (2001, 257). Edit believes that some of her family stories remained untold because of the possible repercussions in communist Romania. References to untold stories are also made by Imre and Trézsi, who refer to the “dark side of tellability” (Norrick 2005) when they claim that some stories remained untold because they were too dangerous to know about and perhaps too painful to tell. Imre and Trézsi lost their fathers early in life, and many of their recounted memories focus on what they believe to be the silent messages left behind. Both discuss how their fathers took them to particular places where the children had not been before. Imre’s father took him to the Brașov tunnel system, where he had worked as an engineer; Trézsi’s father took her and her two sisters to a field in the mountains. In both places, the children were told to “look around carefully and remember this place” (Imre) and “take a good look at this field, but he wouldn’t say why” (Trézsi). Imre and Trézsi remember these events as having a special message hidden at that point. They believe these fragments of their past are memorable and meaningful because of the absence of an explanation surrounding them. They both believe that their fathers, who wanted them to know about something, also wanted to protect them from the dangers such knowledge may have brought about “in those days” (Edit). Trézsi found out later in her life that the field she visited with her father and her two sisters used to be their property before being confiscated by the state. This experience went beyond the boundary of tellability because it was both painful and dangerous, as Trézsi assumes. For Imre, the story behind his trip to the tunnels remained untold. In our discussions over the years, participants frequently referred to some of the untold stories in their lives. Whenever they did so, they tried to fill in the missing parts based on their imagination. Intergenerational memory studies also reveal how the offspring of Holocaust survivors

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build on other people’s memories and their own imagination to fill in the missing stories and forge a sense of continuity with the past (Fine 2001, 79). Similarly, participants in the current study expressed their urge to fit the missing pieces together. Edit and Trézsi, in particular, assumed the mission to keep their family stories alive.

 uilding Imagined Communities B Through Language Linguistic humour appears in participants’ narratives both as a theme and as a discursive practice. Initially, this topic was not among the questions I aimed to explore in this study. However, humour, embedded in participants’ everyday discourse, emerged as a conscious strategy for coping with negative emotions “in order to make hopelessness more bearable,” says Edit, and she adds: “and this also made you feel there are others who, in a way, think like you do” (Edit). One manifestation of linguistic humour emerges in the subversive renaming of certain food items. Interviewees recall the 1980s, when now and then, food items “of dubious appearance popped up on the otherwise empty shelves” (Edit) in supermarkets. Imre believes that “people would call them by absurd names because they looked absurd …they looked surreal… there was something that wasn’t right about them.” Both he and Barna recall deep frozen pig feet, nicknamed “Adidas sneakers” [Adidași], another coveted but unavailable item in Romania in the years of communism. Deep-frozen chicken sold two in a pack and “looking like some uncanny birds” were mockingly called “the Petreuși Brothers” [Frații Petreuși]: a reference to the two folkloric singers with this name, who often performed on Romanian television: “They [the chickens] were minute, and they would always come in a pair, like the Petreuși Brothers,” says Edit, adding that “by that time, people had had enough of the excessive folk music on TV … because they made it look like this was what Romanian culture was all about.” Besides commenting on the below-­ average quality of food items, Edit implies a critical reflection on the reductionist image of Romanian cultural identity as propagated by the

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media in the 1980s. Based on my memories, the ironic reframing of desperate situations was a frequently applied discursive practice in our lives in communist Romania. Participants also identify the linguistic clichés used by the communist propaganda as a source of humour, despite the grim memories they also associate with them, as discussed earlier. The data reveals that participants still use “comrade,” “class enemy,” “enemy of the people,” as well as “Be vigilant!” with an ironic connotation in informal contexts among people with whom they share the same historical and political frames of reference and collective cultural memories. In these instances, they code-­ switch to Romanian, even when the language of interaction is Hungarian or, in Barna’s case, sometimes German. Their metalinguistic reflections allow for a deepened understanding of why they use language in ways that remind them of the years of communism and why they rely on code-­ mixing and code-switching when they do so. Barna consciously applies translanguaging. He explains his use of Romanian words and expressions, which are mostly references to the texts of Caragiale, by saying: “I think we just like using them [i.e., Romanian words]. They make us feel more at home… with one another.” His reflection resonates in many ways with Trézsi’s: …because when I say csertifikát [Hungarian spelling of the Romanian certificat, meaning “certificate”], there is a whole world behind that. And it still makes my stomach churn. And perhaps this is why. Because when I say it like this, csertifikát, it’s funny because nobody else here knows what it means. It’s like being in a bubble with a friend. … And then we have a good laugh, and in the back of my mind I also think about how I no longer have to be afraid of this.

Trézsi’s discussion of her code-switching practices draws attention to the liberating function of humour. At the same time, it is also a profoundly personal confession about how language is used to create imagined communities linked by shared symbolic systems over contexts. The words and expressions associated with negative emotions and the discursive features of the language used in the excerpt above reveal an emic-etic tension: Trézsi, along with the other participants of this study, is both an

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insider and an outsider when it comes to totalitarian discourse, as well as the use of Romanian language. An emerging pattern, which is less explored in the present study, relates to how all four participants use and honour their full linguistic repertoire to indicate distance and closeness as parts of the border experiences of ethnolinguistic groups. During the interviews and informal discussions, participants recreate a symbolic space not only by what they say, that is, the content they recall, but also by how they say it, that is, by using both Romanian and Hungarian in context-specific ways. In doing so, they also become members of a metalinguistic community who engage in discourse about language and cultural symbols tied to language (Avineri 2019; Avineri and Sharon 2017).

Conclusion Participants’ recollections of specific events and their abstract reflections on linguistic processes reveal totalitarian discourse features and the relationship between language, power, and privilege. Edit, Imre, Trézsi, and Barna perceive their experiences with language as having profound implications for their identity. For instance, they attribute their struggles with their sense of agency and their feelings of learned helplessness to the discursive constructions experienced during the years of communism in Romania. On the other hand, they also believe that the grim circumstances they experienced helped them develop a perception of events from a humorous perspective, which they define as “specific for that time and place” and identify humour as a coping strategy. An interesting point relates to participants’ translanguaging practices: admittedly, participants used Romanian words and expressions as a way to create a symbolic space in their interactions with others with whom they share historical reference frames and memories. Finally, this study reinforces the role of narratives as central in reframing past experiences from new perspectives and creating coherence in our lives. Participants’ expressed positive feelings about reflecting on the past is an emerging pattern in the data. Imre consciously and conscientiously prepared for our storytelling sessions by thinking ahead (e.g. “This week I have been thinking about my childhood stories”), while Edit repeatedly

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pointed out how she remembered things she believed to be lost and how she re-evaluated some of her life events by retelling the stories. Especially in the case of the two elderly participants (Edit 87 and Imre 81), the process of self-narration emerged as a recontextualisation of social and linguistic processes in ways that appear to enrich their lives. The fact that the four participants were my friends and family members was an advantage rather than a limitation in collecting and analysing data. The interviews and informal discussions with them turned into dialogues in a zone where minds meet and knowledge is constructed in interaction (Lantolf and Genung 2002). One of the limitations of this study stems from the nature of qualitative methodology, where the aim is to work with few participants and provide thick descriptions of their specific contexts and unique experiences and perspectives (Mackey and Gass 2021). Indeed, due to the uniqueness of the experiences, the findings cannot be generalised to other contexts. However, the main trends that emerge in the data regarding the characteristics of totalitarian discourse and its social and psychological implications may be relevant for other contexts of study.

References Avineri, Netta. 2019. “The Heritage Narratives of Yiddish Metalinguistic Community Members: Processes of Distancing and Closeness.” In Storytelling as Narrative Practice. Ethnographic Approaches to the Tales We Tell, edited by Elizabeth A. Falconi and Kathryn E. Graber, 90–135. Leiden: Brill. Avineri, Netta and Avni Sharon. 2017. “Language Socialization in Jewish Communities.” In Language Socialization, Encyclopedia of Language and Education, edited by Patricia A. Duff and Stephen May, 323–330. Springer International Publishing. Braun, Virginia and Clarke, Virginia. 2006. “Using Thematic Analysis in Psychology.” Qualitative Research in Psychology, 3(2): 77–101. Bruner, Jerome. 1987. Life as Narrative. Social Research71(3): 691–711. Darvin, Ron and Norton, Bonny. 2016. “Language, Identity, and Investment in the Twenty-first Century.” In Language Policy and Political Issues in Education. Encyclopedia of Language and Education (3rd ed.) edited by Teresa McCarty and Stephen May, 227–240. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-­ 3-­319-­02320-­5_18-­1

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Dörnyei, Zoltán. 2007. Research Methods in Applied Linguistics. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Dragićević Šešić, Milena and Rogač Mijatović, Ljiljana. 2014. “Balkan Dissonant Heritage Narratives (and Their Attractiveness) for Tourism.” American Journal of Tourism Management3(1B): 10–19. https://doi.org/10.5923/s. tourism.201402.02 Fine, Ellen S. 2001. “Intergenerational Memories: Hidden Children and Second Generation.” In Remembering for the Future: The Holocaust in an Age of Genocide, edited by John K.  Roth and Elizabeth Maxwell, 78–92. New York: Palgrave. Fodor, Mónika. 2020. Ethnic Subjectivity in Intergenerational Memory Narratives: The Politics of the Untold. Routledge. Hollan, Douglas. 2005. “Setting a New Standard: The Person-Centered Interviewing and Observation of Robert I. Levy.”_Ethos: Journal of the Society for Psychological Anthropology_33(4):459–466. Horsdal, Marianne. 2011. Telling Lives: Exploring Dimensions of Narratives. Routledge. Kramsch, Claire. 2009. The Multilingual Subject. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Lantolf, James P. and Genung, Patricia. 2002. “‘I’d Rather Switch Than Fight:’ An Activity-Theoretic Study of Power, Success, and Failure in a Foreign Language Classroom.” In Language Acquisition and Language Socialization: Ecological Perspectives, edited by Claire Kramsch, 175–196. London: Continuum. Mackey, Alison and Gass, Susan M. 2021. Second Language Research: Methodology and Design. Routledge. Nikolov, Marianne. 2023. “You sound like Zsazsa Gabor”: Three Hungarian ötvenhatos refugees’ socialization into their new identities (Plenary talk). 16th Biennal HUSSE Conference, Miskolc, 26–28 January 2023. https:// husse2023.uni-­m iskolc.hu/files/20211/Book%20of%20Abstracts_ HUSSE%202023.pdf. Norrick, Neal R. 2005. “The Dark Side of Tellability.” Narrative Inquiry 15.2, 323–43. Norton, Bonny. 2000. Identity and Language Learning: Gender, Ethnicity and Educational Change. Essex: Pearson. Norton, Bonny and Pavlenko, Aneta. 2018. “Imagined Communities, Identity, and English Language Learning in a Multilingual World.” In Second Handbook of English Language Teaching, edited by Jim Cummins and Chris Davidson, 669–680. Cham, Switzerland: Springer.

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Ochs, Elinor and Capps, Lisa. 2001. Living Narrative: Creating Lives in Everyday Storytelling. Cambridge: Cambridge UP. Ochs, Elinor and Schieffelin, Bambi B. (eds.). 2017. The Handbook of Language Socialization. Malden, MA: Wiley-Blackwell Pavlenko, Aneta. 2007. “Autobiographic Narratives as Data in Applied Linguistics.” Applied Linguistics 28(2):163–188. Swann, Jr. William B. and Jetten, Jolanda. 2017. “Restoring Agency to the Human Actor.” Perspectives on Psychological Science 12(3): 382–399. Schank, Roger C. and Abelson, Robert P. 1995. “Knowledge and Memory: The Real Story.” In Advances in Social Cognition. Volume VIII., edited by Robert S. Wyer Jr.,1–85. Hillsdale: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates. Tunbridge, John and Ashworth, Gregory. 1996. Dissonant Heritage: The Management of the Past as a Resource in Conflict. New York: John Wiley. Webster, Leonard and Mertova, Patricie. 2007. Using Narrative Inquiry As a Research Method: An Introduction to Using Critical Event Narrative Analysis in Research on Learning and Teaching. Routledge: Taylor & Francis Group. Williams, Thomas. 2020. “On the border bus: Narrative and identity construction in an English major from Vajdaság/Vojvodina.” In UPRT 2019: Empirical Studies in English Applied Linguistics in Honour of József Horváth, edited by Adrienn Fekete, Magdolna Lehmann, Magdolna and Krisztián Simon, 21–34. Pécs: Lingua Franca Csoport.

5 Compromise or Survival: Adapting the Religious Discourse and the Topics Covered in Publications of the Romanian Orthodox Church During the Communist Regime Călin Emilian CIRA

Introduction: Religion and the State During Communism The communist regime, established in Romania after 23 August 1944, presented serious challenges to the mission of the Romanian Orthodox Church. The communist doctrine was characterised by materialism and the implicit denial of the transcendental dimension of existence: We are therefore confronted with a materialistic understanding of history and of all things, hence the name historical materialism. This concept applies to history the idea of a development led by determined laws and reliant on the evolution of economic interactions. Social life is nothing more than a struggle against nature in order to survive. Man organizes his C. E. CIRA (*) Lucian Blaga Central University Library of Cluj-Napoca, Cluj-Napoca, Romania e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 E. Wohl, E. Păcurar (eds.), Language of the Revolution, Palgrave Studies in Languages at War, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-37178-3_5

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social life in accordance with his means of struggle; the social order is established by the means of production and exchange. Economy ‘is the basis of social life’ and life itself is nothing but work and economy. The other human endeavours have no independent reality; they are all merely a reflection of economic life and are all influenced by it. (Alexandru 1937, 11)1

Atheism was a fundamental characteristic of communist doctrine, with religion considered “the opium of the people.” As Marx famously put it, “religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of a heartless world and the soul of soulless conditions. It is the opium of the people” (Marx 1970, 131). All nations ruled by communist regimes waged fierce battles against religion, which they saw as a threat against the state. Romania was no exception and religious instruction was outlawed in schools, dioceses were closed, some church properties were nationalised, and numerous clergy members and laypeople were imprisoned for preaching and professing the faith. The Securitate [the Romanian Secret Police] also persecuted numerous hierarchs, clerics, and commoners for adopting the faith. Institutionally, the Department of Cults, operational until 1989, replaced the Ministry of Cults (1945–1957) as the channel for cults to interact with the state. These organisations had to approve all circulars, administrative actions, and appointments of hierarchs and priests. The church was essentially prohibited from acting autonomously and subjected to intense surveillance. In this context, Patriarch Justinian Marina, who presided over the Holy Synod from 1948 to 1977 and strove to adapt the Church to “the times,” had a significant impact on how ecclesiastical activity was carried out throughout the country’s nearly 50 years of communist rule. From a legislative standpoint, The Statute for the Organisation and Functioning of the Romanian Orthodox Church was adopted in 1949, a necessary action in the changing political landscape. Up until 1953, a number of significant operational regulations for church institutions were established on its basis, including the following: “Procedural Rules of the Disciplinary and Judicial Courts of the Romanian Orthodox Church,” “Regulation for the Organisation and Operation of Educational Institutions for the Training of Church Personnel and the Recruitment of Teaching Staff from the Romanian Patriarchate,”

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“Regulation for the Organisation and Operation of the Church Assets Insurance Fund,” and “Regulation for the Organisation of Monastic Life and Administrative and Disciplinary Functioning of Monasteries.” Additionally, Patriarch Justinian showed particular interest in the growth of monastic life, which prospered at the time. The regime, however, increasingly alarmed by this reality, issued Decree 410/1959 and, as a result, some monasteries were permanently closed (such as Vasiova monastery and Dervent monastery).2 At the core of Patriarch Justinian’s organisational and missionary pastoral ideas was the “Social Apostolate” (“Apostolat Social”), based on biblical and patristic teachings, to which he added the jargon of the time: “Serving God as a priest is indeed the most important of all human prowess, but serving God means serving people, giving yourself with all the power of your being for their betterment and happiness. I called the work of the priesthood on this land ‘Social Apostolate’” (Apostolat Social 1971, 84). The Patriarch was convinced the communist regime would endure and this influenced his policies, as Bartolomeu Anania, one of his close collaborators, remembers: The patriarch used to tell us: ‘You are young, you think the Americans are coming. You may believe whatever you want, I won’t try to shatter your beliefs. However, since I am convinced that the Americans are not coming, not anytime soon anyway, and that this communist rule is long-lasting, it is my responsibility as the person in charge of the Church’s strategies to make sure that they are long-term in character. The short-term strategy entails confrontation, an unequal adversary, and possibly martyrdom. It can be done. There are some examples in Bulgaria and others in Russia, but, during this rule, I want my priests to spend as much time as possible performing the Liturgy in their churches rather than in prison.’ (Anania, 1998, 114–115)

This tactic accounts for the use of the political jargon of the day and the inclusion of topics unrelated to theology in church publications and some theological writings. Even in the 12 volumes of the “Social Apostolate,” we can find themes about the issue of “labour,” a favourite of

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communists, as well as “the pursuit of peace” and “the development of the new man.”

Adapting the Language in Religious Journals Ecclesiastical journals adopted the topics and vocabulary brought forth by the new sociopolitical context. In fact, after the establishment of the communist regime, many publications ceased to appear and others were subject to censorship. The most important magazines were published by the Patriarchate and the Metropolitan churches: Biserica Ortodoxă Română, buletinul oficial al Patriarhiei Române [The Romanian Orthodox Church, the official bulletin of the Romanian Patriarchate]; Studii Teologice, revista institutelor teologice din Patriarhia Română [Theological Studies, the journal of the theological institutes of the Romanian Patriarchate]; Ortodoxia, revista Patriarhiei Române [Orthodoxy, the magazine of the Romanian Patriarchate]; Glasul Bisericii, revista oficială a Sfintei Mitropolii a Ungro-Vlahiei [The Voice of the Church, the official magazine of the Holy Metropolitan Church of Hungarian-Wallachia]; Mitropolia Olteniei, revista oficială a Arhiepiscopiei Craiovei şi a Episcopiei Rîmnicului şi Argeşului [Metropolitanate of Oltenia, the official magazine of the Archdiocese of Craiova and the Diocese of Rîmnic and Argeș]; Mitropolia Banatului, revista oficială a Arhiepiscopiei Timişoarei şi Caransebeşului şi a Episcopiei Aradului [Metropolitanate of Banat, the official magazine of the Archdiocese of Timișoara and Caransebeș and of the Diocese of Arad]; Mitropolia Ardealului, revista oficială a Arhiepiscopiei Sibiului, Arhiepiscopiei Vadului, Feleacului şi Clujului, Episcopiei Alba Iuliei şi Episcopiei Oradiei [Metropolitanate of Transylvania, the official magazine of the Archdiocese of Sibiu, the Archdiocese of Vad, Feleac and Cluj, the Diocese of Alba Iulia and the Diocese of Oradea]; Mitropolia Moldovei şi Sucevei, revista oficială a Arhiepiscopiei Iaşilor şi a Episcopiei Romanului şi Huşilor [Metropolitanate of Moldavia and Suceava, the official magazine of the Archdiocese of Iaşi and the Diocese of Roman and Huşi]; Romanian Orthodox Church News, Quarterly Bulletin, edited by the Department of Foreign Relations of the Romanian Patriarchate. Additional periodicals were printed as well. For instance, the Metropolitanate of

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Sibiu published the journal Telegraful Român [The Romanian Telegraph], a periodical that was first issued in 1853. Because they frequently only circulated within the ecclesiastical system, it was extremely difficult for the general public to access these periodicals: “religious periodicals should only be used by cult representatives, and the published content should serve both as guidance and documentation for them in matters of religion or administrative-ecclesiastical, as well as societal issues”3 (Nedelcu 2019, 156). Parishes were required to subscribe to the publications of the Patriarchate and of the metropolitan church to which they belonged. They served as sources of information and inspiration for priests as they prepared sermons: I preach freely but I occasionally also do it based on a plan. I refer to the following bibliography when preparing sermons: The Holy Scripture, Cazania, the magazine The Metropolitanate of Transylvania, Interpretations of the Sunday Gospels of Sundays over the year by father Teodor Ciceu, Teaching of Faith, Church Lectures by A. Buzdug and other sermon books. (Ciceu Mihăieşti Romanian Orthodox Parish, No.3/1985)

“Collectivisation,” the “Soviet-Romanian Brotherhood,” the “Fight for Peace” in Religious Discourse These publications mixed theological substance with the political terminology employed by the party, in order to emphasise certain themes and topics. The 1950s saw the first articles encouraging priests to guide the faithful in their agricultural endeavours: “the village priests, spiritual guides of the Orthodox farmers, have the same responsibility as before to educate their flock about the crucial tasks they must complete, assisting them in any way possible” (Manolache 1955, 327). Such an activity is not only mentioned in articles but was also implemented by the priests. In section 3 of his “Pastoral and social activity report for June 1954,” father V. Hanțiu states: “I contribute through community service pleas to maintain the crops. I appeared before the Council on June 20 of this year and requested to be sent out to the field to inspect potato crops for the

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Colorado potato beetle” (Raport de activitate pastoral și socială pe iunie 1954, 166). Between 1949 and 1962, Romanian agriculture was collectivised and religious magazines also covered the topic. Almanahul creștin ortodox—pe anul comun de la Hristos 1951 [The Orthodox Christian Almanac—Year of the Lord 1951], for example, dedicates such articles as “On Collective and State Farms” to the issue. It is important to note that this article is unsigned, therefore not assumed by an author. The “Socialisation of Agriculture” was a working topic of all the parish priests and had to be debated in the Parish Council meetings as the sole item on the agenda: Minutes from the Parish Council meeting conducted on July 24, 1960, at 4 p.m. at the parish chancellery, with all of the Parish Council members present and presided over by priest Dumitru Soare. Agenda: Regulations concerning the socialisation of agriculture. Opening the meeting, the president informs those present that the initiative to form a collective farm was taken in our commune as well. Therefore, as representatives of the Orthodox Christian community in this commune, the clergy and members of the parish council have a responsibility to lead by example in this initiative by being among the first to join. The president then invites everyone in attendance to offer their assent for registration in the collective farm after demonstrating the ecclesiastical and civil underpinnings of collective life and the advantages of socialist agriculture. The Parish Council members and the church staff agree to uphold the new socialist order by joining the collective farm following discussions with everyone in attendance. (Registru Procese Verbale Vol.II, 93)

This theme persisted until 1962, when the collectivisation of agriculture was completed.4 Articles dedicated to the five-year plan,5 as well as other moments and events at the state level were also published.6 In the 1950s, discussions in church magazines frequently centred on the positive relations between the People’s Republic of Romania and the Soviet Union, particularly those between Romanian Orthodoxy and Russian Orthodoxy. Thus, an unsigned article from 1950, entitled “From the Church Life of the Orthodox East,” featured in Almanahul creștin ortodox—pe anul comun dela Hristos 1950 [Orthodox Christian Almanac—The Year of the Lord 1950], claimed that the popular

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democracy established by the USSR contributed to a better understanding between the Orthodox peoples: “Since the peoples of Eastern Europe were able to establish governments of people’s democracy, with the great help of the Soviet Union, the church ties between them have also been greatly improved” (93–94). The article chooses to focus on the “assistance” the USSR gave in the development of “democratic” governments rather than discuss its takeover of various states. Such ideas, which the author most probably did not believe, prompted him not to sign the text. Nevertheless, the clergy at the parish level also had to support these theses. The commemoration of the “Month of Romanian-Soviet brotherhood,” as illustrated by address No.5502/1954 issued by the Romanian Orthodox Diocese of Cluj, is an eloquent example. The address mentions the “traditional” month of Romanian-Soviet friendship was scheduled between October 7 and November 7, because the Romanian Orthodox Church, closely connected to the life of our people and founded on the friendship between the Russian Orthodox Church and our Church as well as between the peoples of the USSR and our people, joins the celebration of Romanian-Soviet friendship with the conviction that it will further solidify the friendship between our people and the glorious Soviet people and support the Churches and our peoples in the fight for peace. (page unnumbered)

As part of the “celebration,” priests from all parishes had to conduct sermons “about the relationship between the two peoples, with a focus on their cooperation in the service of defending peace,” about the “historical and present-day ties of friendship and mutual assistance between the Russian Orthodox Church and the Romanian Orthodox Church and about the relationship between the two peoples, with a focus on their cooperation in the service of defending peace” and the Romanian Orthodox clergy had to actively participate in “the public events honouring the relationship between Romania and the Soviet Union; at the initiatives launched by A.R.L.U.S. [Romanian Association for Strengthening Ties with the Soviet Union], particularly within the Peace Struggle Committees,” as well as attend and present papers during “orientation conferences” on the topic. All parishes had to devise exhaustive reports on

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how “the program of this celebration was carried out” (Romanian Orthodox Diocese of Cluj, No.5502/1954). Beginning with the 1960s, the topic would vanish from church publications as part of a strategy to distance the Bucharest regime from Moscow. However, from the 1950s onward, additional topics, including “the pursuit of world peace,” “freedom of religion,” and “the union of the Orthodox and Greek-Catholic” Churches will continue to be present for the duration of the communist era. The “fight for peace” was a recurring topic in both political and religious discourse. It was chosen to support the notion that the West sought war, was arming itself, and it was the duty of “popular democratic regimes” to oppose armed confrontation. As the teaching of faith promotes good understanding between people and nations, such a subject was quite easy to adapt theologically: “What responsibilities do we, persons of faith, have? We are powerless. We do, however, have the ability to awaken the consciences of believers to the dangers they face and show them how these go against the most fundamental tenets of our faith” (Plămădeală 1985, 40). Not only the magazines but also the priestly gatherings had the obligation to encourage the fight for peace. In 1982, a series of conferences and speeches were conducted on this topic and signatures were collected on a petition entitled “Call of the Romanian People to the UN Special Session.” In this respect, a Note from 1982 mentions the organisation of “gatherings underlining the initiatives of the state, of President NICOLAE CEAUȘESCU, the ideas contained in the ‘Call for disarmament and peace’ of the Front of Democracy and Socialist Unity and in the Mandate of the Delegation of the Socialist Republic of Romania to the UN,” as well as the request to send “telegrams conveying complete agreement with the state leadership.” All theological schools, meetings of the diocesan assemblies, “orientation or administrative conferences” had to dedicate time to discussing in detail “the main theses contained in the document that the delegation of S.R. Romania will deliver to the UN,” as well as display, “where possible,” “visual propaganda that includes calls to fight for peace, disarmament, international cooperation and détente.” Most significantly, perhaps, sermons had to include ideas referring to the “state policy in matters of peace, disarmament, détente and trust amongst

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peoples,” and theological periodicals, “parochial bulletins and almanacs” had to dedicate pages to “the need to defend international peace, Romania’s actions, and President Nicolae Ceaus,escu’s peace initiatives” (Note 1982).7

 he Romanian Orthodox Church and Its T Relation to Catholicism Up until the 1960s, Romanian Orthodoxy portrayed the Vatican in a negative light. The papacy and the Vatican state were viewed as agents of “Western imperialism.” This attitude can be seen in numerous religious articles, particularly those from the 1950s. This, too, denotes a clear endorsement of the communist regimes’ stance towards the Catholic Church, considered an enemy of communism. In addition to magazine articles, books opposing the Vatican’s policy were also printed, such as Al. Cerna Rădulescu’s 1948 Spionaj și trădare în umbra Crucii. Politica antinaţională a Vaticanului [Espionage and Betrayal in the Shadow of the Cross. Vatican’s Anti-national Policy], edited by the Typography of Religious Books. As Romanian Orthodoxy grew more involved in the ecumenical movement following the 1960s, the anti-Catholic position shifted, at least in part. Consequently, articles with a strong theological foundation that addressed the ecumenical relationship with the Roman Catholic Church started to be published, as demonstrated by Metropolitan of Banat Nicolae Corneanu, who urged for dialogue in 1980: “As regards the Orthodox side, we think that, entering this theological dialogue, we are fully aware that we begin a work which is much liked by God and the people, but at the same time, as difficult as it is necessary” (Nicolae, Metropolitan of Banat 1980, 52). The issue of the Romanian Greek-Catholic Church United with Rome from Transylvania, which the communists abolished in 1948 and whose adherents and priests were “called” to reunite with the Orthodox Church, served as a difficult obstacle in this dialogue. The Orthodox Church saw this “reunification” as the return of these communities that had been coerced by the Habsburg Empire (which had annexed Transylvania at the

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end of the seventeenth century) to ally with Rome in order for Romanian priests and believers to enjoy certain privileges: We took this sacred decision, knowing that the act of union from 1700 was influenced not by spiritual considerations, but by political and economic circumstances that weighed heavily on the clergy and our people at the time (…) In the hope of gaining some of the privileges enjoyed by members of the Catholic Church, our forefathers accepted four points of faith in common with the Western Church, but they never abandoned the practice of ritual or the teaching of Romanian law, which belonged to the Eastern Orthodox Church (…) The reasons that determined the act of union in 1700 no longer exist today. The Constitution and laws of the People’s Republic of Romania ensure equal political, economic, cultural and religious rights for all citizens of the country (…) Under these circumstances, it is a sacred obligation of our entire people to sever relations with the Church of Rome, which is antithetical to the interests of our people, to restore the spiritual unity of the country, and to direct all of our resources toward the struggle for peace, democracy, and progress. In light of these realities, we make the decision to cut ties with the Vatican, proclaiming the return to the bosom of the Romanian Orthodox Church, in our name and in the name of those who delegated us to this assembly. From this day onwards, we will only obey the leaders appointed by the forums of the holy Romanian Orthodox Church. (Moisescu 1948, 422–423)

In ecclesiastical periodicals, both during the communist era and after the revolution of 1989, the issue of church unification was frequently discussed. Before the revolution, the History of the Romanian Orthodox Church textbooks employed in theological seminaries and faculties of theology used the phrase “a return to Orthodoxy” to refer to what was actually the abolition of the Romanian Church United with Rome by the communist state. The published materials omitted mentioning the imprisonment of the Greek-Catholic Church’s episcopacy or the persecution of priests and worshippers as a result of their religious beliefs. The act was instead portrayed as one that both believers and the clergy desired: “Their mass return was only possible under the conditions of full religious freedom, as those created in our Motherland after August 23, 1944” (Păcurariu 1978, 415). The “unification of the church” was

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simultaneously seen as an act of justice because “it abolishes the unfair act of 1698–1701, by which a part of the Transylvanian Romanian believers were removed, by force and trickery, from the body of the Orthodox Church. After 250 years of separation, all of the clergy and members of our ancestral Church have reunited and are now working and praying for the welfare of the Church and their Homeland” (Păcurariu 1978, 415–416). After the fall of the communist regime, the Orthodox historiographical discourse continued to use the term “reunification” when referring to the abolition of the Greek-Catholic Church. Thus, the third volume of the manual for Faculties of Theology written by Mircea Păcurariu, university professor teaching courses in History of the Romanian Orthodox Church at the Theological Institute of Sibiu (Faculty of Orthodox Theology “Andrei Șaguna” after 1989), contains a sub-chapter titled “The 1948 Reunification of the Romanian Orthodox Church from Transylvania.” Again, it is mentioned that in 1948 “the unjust act of 1698–1701, which resulted in the forcible and deceptive separation of a tiny portion of Transylvanian Romanian believers from the body of the Orthodox Church, was eradicated” (Păcurariu 2008, 434). Nevertheless, in contrast to the totalitarian era, the author can now write and acknowledge the suffering of the Greek-Catholic clergy: “As early as October 1948, all of Transylvania’s united bishops were arrested and imprisoned” (Păcurariu 2008, 429). The notion that a climate of religious freedom was established in 1948 vanishes as well, and authors of church history textbooks now openly discuss the limitations imposed on church activity, confined solely to its liturgical dimension, the confiscation of parish and monastic properties, the detention of numerous clergy members, the dissolution of some monasteries as a result of decree 410/1959, and other events that could not be addressed prior to 1989.

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 eligious Freedom in the Ecclesiastical Texts R of the Time The idea that there was religious freedom under the communist government did occur in literature at the time so that it could be published, even though it was untrue and has subsequently been disproved. The authors made a compromise in order to have their works printed; otherwise, they would not have been able to do so. However, given the Church’s claim at the time that its operations were unrestrained, it was also a kind of pro-regime propaganda. For example, the Romanian Orthodox Church News. Quarterly Bulletin, written for a Western public, addressed the internal life of the Church (topics included ordained priests, church consecrations, visits by hierarchs, theological studies, and so on): “In our ‘Bulletin,’ the reader will find information about the internal life of our Church, in its varied aspects, its ecumenical activity and attitude, the situation of theological education, a bibliography, aspects of Romanian theological thought, notes, reviews, etc.” (Editorial 1971, 1). It claimed to objectively depict the reality: Stepping into its second decade of existence, the present publication will consistently continue to fulfil its tasks, being a reliable objective source of information on the life and activity of the Romanian Orthodox Church. Trying to promote the constructive ideas of the contemporary ecumenism and the will of approachment, brotherhood and peace of mankind nowadays, the Bulletin ‘Romanian Orthodox Church’ will continue to serve the cause of Christian unity and of the good understanding among people and nations. (“Romanian Orthodox Church News”—10 years of uninterrupted publication, 1980, 15)

The events depicted in the Bulletin did, in fact, match reality, but only partially and selectively, as they also avoided to mention the restrictions placed on the Church, the number of clerics and believers being sought after by the Secret Police, the censorship of ecclesiastical publications, and the fact that the Church was unable to act without the Department of Cults’ approval. The state maintained constant control over the bishops and the clergy, yet it was not possible to write about these realities at

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the time. However, by reading these magazines now, we can still observe that the Church was able to carry out a liturgical activity, ensure that the teaching of the faith was promoted, maintain the presence of priests in the parishes, construct churches despite the obstacles frequently imposed by the authorities, and engage in ecumenical dialogues despite the environment being hostile to Christianity. This was also a method of compromise that allowed the Church to carry out its mission.

Patriotism, Church, State The topics addressed by the church also touched on patriotism and how Christians should interact with the government. According to Orthodox doctrine, “our church did not develop its own notion of the state to try to impose on the faithful. Its theory holds that the state authority as such, rather than a particular political system, is of divine origin.” (Mladin et al. 1980, 301). However, as this is a 1980 publication, it was hard to ignore the political background, so there are also words that are supportive of the communist state, credited to have eliminated prejudice and injustice: Therefore, it is the state’s moral and social duty to ensure that everyone has the chance to earn what they need for survival through honest and fairly compensated employment, for the sake of the common good. The injustices that used to burden employees and attack their very dignity as human beings have been removed thanks to today’s socialist state perspective of work and the value of the individual in society, which equitably resolves this issue on the basis of fundamental human rights. Without any kind of discrimination, our socialist society has guaranteed its citizens the chance to equally share in all the positive accomplishments of human endeavour. (Mladin et al. 1980, 302–303)

Although they couldn’t have been further from the truth, these phrases were required in order for the book’s theology section to be printed. The claims regarding the socialist state were deleted from a new edition of the two volumes of the manual that was published in 2003, demonstrating

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that they were conjectural and simply intended to increase the likelihood of printing. In church publications, the love of one’s country and the performance of civic obligations have been promoted as qualities of the good Christian. Therefore, the believer must cherish his country, serve it by working and paying taxes, and even be prepared to make the ultimate sacrifice (Bellu et  al. 1957, 122). Arguments were sought from the Holy Scripture (Romans 13) and from the writings of church writers: “Following the example of the Saviour and the exhortation of the Holy Apostles, the Holy Fathers preached obedience to the authorities. Tertullian defends Christians against the accusation of not being good citizens, proving that they are the best, most correct and loyal citizens” (Mladin et al. 1980, 306). All these statements aimed to reaffirm one’s adherence to the totalitarian state’s ideology. It was believed that there was a close relationship between autocephaly (the ability of an Orthodox Church to govern itself ) and love of nation, as the former helps to foster the latter: “The Romanian Orthodox Church supports the faithful’s sense of patriotism by conducting services and preaching in the language of the flock as well as through its autonomous organisation” (Mladin et al. 1980, 306). Even while the declarations themselves do convey historical facts, the Church having played a crucial role in the cultural advancement of Romanians, its involvement in fostering a sense of patriotism may also be seen as a participation in strengthening the state. In addition to cultivating patriotism, churches also frequently promoted nationalism, which was in line with the national-communist viewpoint that emerged, particularly under Nicolae Ceaus,escu. Numerous articles and studies on the history of the Romanian Orthodox Church attempted to demonstrate the interconnections between Orthodoxy and the Romanian people. The argument was not new, having existed since the interwar years: “The Romanian population is the one most permeated by Orthodox spirituality. It was Christian at birth. It is not founded on a different religious system capable of upsetting the Orthodox one” (Stăniloae 1936, 407). As a result, the nationalist perspective that emerged during the Ceaus,escu era incorporated this issue of the relationship between the people and Orthodoxy. The studies, articles, and pastoral letters centring on ethnogenesis and the cultural and spiritual

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contributions of Orthodoxy to the formation of the Romanian nation nevertheless had a double effect. On the one hand, they show adherence to the theses supported by the regime, while at the same time demonstrating that the Orthodox faith could not be eradicated and atheism could not take its place as a fundamental component of the identity of the people: “Thus, the nationalism of the state and the Orthodox Church adopted the Marxist dialectic. The destiny of Romanian Orthodoxy is intertwined with the multisecular destiny of the state. Yet, despite the predictions of Soviet doctrine, it was impossible for spirituality and religion to be removed from social life within Romanian Orthodoxy” (Gillet 2001, 255). The popularity of historical research is demonstrated by publications as well as the fact that, on occasion, bishops requested parishes to look for records in response to demands from government agencies: We request that you issue a circular to all parishes in the nation ordering the research of the death registers in every village and commune for the years 1906–1907–1908, stating the reason of death, in order to increase our documentation. We will be able to determine the extent to which the number of deaths in the spring of 1907 is higher than the average of the years 1906 and 1908 by comparing the data for the aforementioned years. (Institute of Party History Associated with the Romanian Workers’ Party’s Central Committee 1965, page unnumbered)

The institute that requested the above-mentioned documents was also curious about the role played by priests in the 1907 uprising and demanded copies of the records pertaining to this historical event: At the same time, some evidence suggests that in many locations, clergymen supported the peasantry’s uprising. In this regard, kindly request that the parishes, deaneries, bishoprics, and metropolitanates of the nation conduct research into their archives for the months of January, February, March, April, May, and June 1907 and extract copies of any documents pertaining to the development of the uprising and the position of the priests, including perhaps teacher priests. (Institute of Party History Associated with the Romanian Workers’ Party’s Central Committee 1965, page unnumbered)

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In this way, it once more demonstrated a willingness to submit to the authority of the state, but, at the same time, the historical significance of the Church was demonstrated by both the existence of archives helpful for historical reconstruction and the priesthood’s presence among the populace during trying times. The priest, then, was not a member of the exploiting classes; rather, he was among the peasants (who made up the majority of the population) and played a part in improving their situation.

The “Beloved Leader”’s Cult of Personality The “beloved leader’s” cult of personality which was visible in print as well as in ecclesiastical pastoral letters was the most obvious example of compromise. There are numerous examples that support this statement. For instance, on 26 January, the day of Nicolae Ceaus,escu’s birthday, tribute pieces used to be published, such as the below example extracted from the review Glasul bisericii [The Voice of the Church] and signed by the members of the Holy Synod of the Romanian Orthodox Church:8 Dear Mister President NICOLAE CEAUȘESCU,//On today’s happy occasion, when the nation encrusts in golden letters the 70th anniversary of Your Honour’s life—of which more than five and a half decades in the service of the continuous progress of the Motherland and the fulfilment of the most ambitious aspirations of the Romanian people—the Holy Synod, the clergy and the faithful of the Romanian Orthodox Church, together with all the sons of this ancient land, turn their thoughts to You, with chosen appreciation, living gratitude and boundless love, bringing you a vibrant tribute of high esteem and honour, together with the warmest wishes for health, happiness, long life and new powers of work in guiding, developing and raising our dear motherland to the highest steps of light and affirmation of its prestige in the world. (Holy Synod of the Romanian Orthodox Church1988, 5)

It should be emphasised that articles about Nicolae Ceaus,escu that appeared in ecclesiastical journals avoided using the phrase “comrade,” common in communist jargon, and instead used the word “Mister.” This

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indicates a certain distance from the terminology of the Romanian Communist Party. Additionally, we see occasional references to the party’s politics, particularly those of Nicolae Ceaus,escu, towards the end of the pastoral letters that the local hierarch used to send to the subordinate parishes at Christmas and Easter to be read in the church. Thus, in the Easter Pastoral Letter for 1987, Bishop Vasile of Oradea stated: Our people, born and raised on these lands, which they uninterruptedly possessed and made fruitful, are among the peace-loving peoples. It never stopped advocating for the creation of a just world peace. Through the voice of the nation’s president, Mr. Nicolae Ceaus,escu, it made its wish and will for peace known across the world, to the peoples of the world and to the leaders of all states. Moreover, our nation demonstrated a real commitment to preserving peace by deciding to cut back on military spending, personnel, and equipment solely for the purpose of preserving world peace and defending the material and spiritual well-being of all people. (Vasile, Bishop of Oradea 1987, 18–19)

Similar statements are to be found in almost all pastoral letters. The liturgical formulas used to commemorate the state’s leadership experienced alterations during that era. The King9 was no longer mentioned after the abolition of the monarchy and the founding of the Republic; instead, the High Presidium of the Romanian People’s Republic was. Thus, for instance, the following was spoken during the pulpit prayer: “bestow peace unto your world, your Churches, your Priests, the High Presidium of the Romanian People’s Republic, your soldiers and all your people...” (Circular Letter to all the offices of the Archbishop and to all the parishes within the Diocese 1948, 4) These texts were modified to reflect political shifts. However, it is significant to note that, unlike in the interwar period, the ruling body was not acknowledged in religious texts, the following phrasing appearing instead: “the Government of the country is mentioned here, in accordance with the principles of the Holy Synod.”10 This solution was most likely chosen because the cult books were intended to be utilised for a long time, and there was a chance that the political direction of the  regime would change, necessitating the replacement of all the volumes. Another possible explanation is that it

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was difficult to publish books at the time, especially religious ones, and therefore, by using a neutral wording, they could obtain the necessary approvals for printing and be used for a long time. It should, however, be noted that honouring national leaders in a liturgical setting is not a compromise; rather, it is consistent with the teaching of religion and has been done so since the beginning of Christianity: “I urge, then, first of all, that petitions, prayers, intercession and thanksgiving be made for all people— for kings and all those in authority, that we may live peaceful and quiet lives in all godliness and holiness” (1 Timothy 2:1–4).

 he 1989 Revolution and Its Aftermath: T Themes from the Communist Era’s Ecclesiastical Discourse Perpetuated After the Fall of the Regime Both the nation and the Church were freed from the communist yoke by the revolution of 1989. In Ceasul adevărului. Scrisoare irenică a Bisericii Ortodoxe Române către organizațiile internaționale și tuturor fraților români din afara granițelor [The Hour of Truth. Irenic Letter of the Romanian Orthodox Church to International Organisations and to all our Romanian Brothers Abroad], the Holy Synod of the Romanian Orthodox Church apologised for the concessions it had made to the regime: On the same occasion, we regret that during the dictatorship some of us did not always have the fortitude of martyrs and did not openly acknowledge the covert anguish and suffering of the Romanian people in a spirit of Christian repentance (metanoia). In the same way, we lament that the tyrant had to receive a tribute of forced and fake applause for the Church’s numerous great accomplishments. (Ceasul adevărului 1990, 3)

The letter acknowledges the compromise, at least in part. But we should not ignore the reality that the Church sought a “modus vivendi” with the state in a setting that was hostile to faith. The policy pursued by Patriarch Justinian Marina was continued by Patriarchs Iustin Moisescu

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(1977–1986) and Teoctist Arăpaşu (1986–2007). The hope was that this would allow the Church to continue its mission, albeit in a limited manner. Some religious freedom, however restricted, did exist. It is also important to remember that the regime actively promoted atheism in society, schools, and state publications; interfered in bishop elections; ousted unpopular hierarchs (some of whom were poisoned, like Huşi Bishop Grigore Leu)11; detained numerous “undemocratic” priests; nationalised multiple church properties, and disbanded monasteries. Additionally, the majority of the periodical ecclesiastical publications were eliminated, and those that did manage to survive were censored and had a limited readership. For this reason, we can find political articles that appear to support the ideas promoted by the regime at a certain time. In a way, their inclusion also made it possible to publish research that is still relevant today and of indisputable importance (and which took up the majority of the editorial space). It should also be highlighted that certain authors who were unable to publish in secular periodicals were encouraged by ecclesiastical ones, sometimes even receiving pay for their work.

 haracteristics of the Wooden Language C Employed in Church Writings The communist press served as the source for the stilted language found in ecclesiastical texts that address political issues. This cannot be avoided in a totalitarian political system since strict language usage conventions must be observed. We cite the following phrases as examples: “bourgeois-­ landlord exploitative regimes,” “Anglo-American imperialists,” “capitalist and imperialist forces,” “struggle for peace,” “capitalist exploitation,” “people’s democratic regime,” “building socialism,” “achieving social justice.” Many articles that deal with political subjects do not differ from those published in the newspapers of the time, especially those that focus on high-level meetings, the establishment of collective households, the industrial activity of the country, the cult of personality. The wooden language characteristic of the regime is present in church publications.

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Let us exemplify: “But the reactionary forces of the West want to maintain the bourgeois-landlord, exploitative regime” (Prin pace la înfrățire și progress 1951, 76); “the anniversary of the President of our Republic— eminent leader and highly prestigious political personality of the contemporary world” (EditorialStaff 1986, 3); “our people, born and raised on these plains, which he continuously ruled and made fruitful, was among the peace-loving peoples” (Vasile, Bishop of Oradea 1987, 18); “in the new five-year economic plan, which will start soon, you should step in with full confidence in the power and will of our people to progress” (Iustin, Archbishop of Bucharest, Metropolitan of Ungro-Wallachia and Patriarch of the Romanian Orthodox Church 1981, 13). The Church’s determination to continue its pastoral and missionary activity in the new sociopolitical context can be appealed to explain why the language usage of the totalitarian doctrine was employed. Periodicals, books, and even a very limited presence of the Church in society were made possible by these concessions made to “Caesar.” From the discursive standpoint, we can see that, following the fall of Nicolae Ceaus,escu, several topics persisted in speeches and church publications. The first would be the one related to the close connection between the people and Orthodoxy, constant to this day. Another topic addressed is the relationship with the Romanian Church United with Rome, which after the revolution entered legality and demanded the recovery of property confiscated by the state and of churches now owned by the Orthodox Church. The unification with the Church of Rome, accomplished at the end of the seventeenth and the beginning of the eighteenth centuries, was depicted after 1989 as a foreign idea, inherently alien to the Romanian people: “[…] We hope that our faithful have understood how the ecclesiastic union with Rome was accomplished by foreign mediators. We think that they have understood how some Greek Catholic hierarchs of age, who disregard the aspirations of the younger generations, attempt— with the aid of the Roman Catholic hierarchy alien to our nation—to create new dissensions and division between the sons of the nation” (Păcurariu 1990, 11).

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Instead of a Conclusion The communist era was one of compromise, as well as one of limitations and persecution, for Romanian Orthodoxy. The Church hoped that, by changing its rhetoric and making a few concessions, it would still be able to continue its activity, albeit in a limited way. Following the Revolution, after complete freedom had been achieved, the Church was able to maintain its presence not only in the liturgical realm but also in the social, cultural, and journalistic spheres. Nevertheless, traces of the concessions made to the totalitarian state are still visible and they should be thoroughly investigated and strongly condemned.

Notes 1. Unless otherwise specified, all quotations from sources written in Romanian have been translated by the author of this chapter. 2. For further details on this decree, see Lucian N. Leustean, Orthodoxy and the Cold War. Religion and Political Power in Romania, 1947–65. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan: 156–157. 3. ANIC, fond Ministerul Cultelor și Artelor [Ministry of Cults and Arts], dossier no.8/1957, f.31, apud. Nedelcu, Silviu-Constantin. 2019. Cenzurarea presei ortodoxe în comunism [Censoring the Orthodox Press during Communism]. Bucharest: Ed. Eikon:156. 4. Some articles were also published in 1963, especially in annual publications such as calendars. 5. See Planul de Stat pe 1950 și planul cincinal pe 1951–1955 [The State Plan for 1950 and the five-year plan for 1951–1955] in Almanahul creștin ortodox–pe anul comun dela Hristos 1951 [The Orthodox Christian Almanac for the Year of the Lord 1951]: 115–116. 6. See Ivan, Iorgu. 1963. Grija regimului democrat popular pentru sănătatea omului în R.P.R [The concern of the people’s democratic regime for human health in the P.R.R.], in Îndrumător bisericesc. Pe anul comun de la Hristos 1963 [Church guide. For the year of the Lord 1963]. Sibiu:Tiparul Tipografiei Eparhiale: 88–96.

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7. NOTE, in Dosar Corespondență 1982 [Correspondence file 1982], Archive of the Romanian Orthodox Archdiocese Năsăud, page unnumbered. 8. Statutul de organizare al BOR 1949 [Organizational statute of ROC 1949] stipulates that “the Holy Synod is the highest authority of the Romanian Orthodox Church for all spiritual and canonical matters, as well as for ecclesiastical matters of any nature included in its competence” and that it comprises “the Patriarch, as president, and of all acting metropolitans, bishops and vicars of the Patriarchy as members” (https:// bibliocanonica.com/statutul-­de-­organizare-­al-­bor-­2008/, accessed on 24.06.2022). 9. For example: “For His Highness, the righteous King [name], may Our Lord remember him in His kingdom” (Sfintele și Dumnezeieștile Liturghii 1937. Bucharest: Tipografia Cărților Bisericești: 142). 10. See Liturghier [Missal]. 1967. Bucharest: Editura Institutului Biblic şi de Misiune Ortodoxă: 134; Liturghier [Missal]. 1987. Bucharest: Editura Institutului Biblic şi de Misiune al Bisericii Ortodoxe Române: 116. 11. See Dumitrașcu, Iulian. 2021. “Rezultatele anchetei: Episcopul Grigorie Leu al Hușilor a murit otrăvit de reprezentanţii regimului comunist” [“The results of the investigation: Bishop Grigorie Leu of Huși died poisoned by representatives of the communist regime”]. Basilica.ro (August): https://basilica.ro/rezultatele-­anchetei-­episcopul-­grigorie-­leu-­al-­husilor-­ a-­murit-­otravit-­de-­reprezentantii-­regimului-­comunist/, accessed on 24.05.2022.

References Archival Documents Parohia Ortodoxă Română Ciceu Mihăieşti Nr.3/1985, Raport de activitate [Ciceu Mihăieşti Romanian Orthodox Parish No. 3/1985, Activity report] in Dosar Corespondență 1985 [Correspondence File 1985], Arhiva Protopopiatului Ortodox Român Năsăud [Archive of the Romanian Orthodox Archdiocese Năsăud], unnumbered. Raport de activitate pastoral și socială pe iunie 1954 [Pastoral and Social Activity Report for June 1954], in Dosar Corespondență 1954 [Correspondence file 1954], Arhiva Protopopiatului Ortodox Român Năsăud.

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Registru Procese Verbale, Vol.II [Minutes Register, Vol.II], Arhiva Parohiei Ortodoxe Române Ungheni [Archive of the Ungheni Romanian Orthodox Parish] (Mureş county). EPISCOPIA ORTODOXĂ ROMÂNĂ CLUJ, Nr.5502/1954 [ROMANIAN ORTHODOX BISHOPRIC CLUJ, No.5502/1954], in Dosar corespondenţă 1954, Arhiva Protopopiatului Ortodox Român Năsăud. NOTĂ [NOTE], in Dosar Corespondență 1982, Arhiva Protopopiatului Ortodox Român Năsăud. INSTITUTUL DE ISTORIE A PARTIDULUI DE PE LÎNGĂ C.C.  AL P.M.R. [INSTITUTE OF PARTY HISTORY ASSOCIATED WITH THE ROMANIAN WORKERS’ PARTY CENTRAL COMMITTEE], Bucharest, 289/24 IV.965, in Dosar Corespondenţă 1965, Arhiva Protopopiatului Ortodox Român Năsăud, unnumbered.

Books Alexandru, Petre F. 1937. Biserica și comunismul [Church and Communism]. Huși: Librăria și Tipografia George Cerchez. Apostolat social. Slujind lui Dumnezeu și oamenilor.Pilde şi îndemnuri pentru cler [Social Apostolate. Serving God and the People. Parables and Advice for the Clergy]. 1971. vol. 10. Bucharest: Editura Institutului Biblic şi de Misiune al Bisericii Ortodoxe Române. Bellu, Dumitru; Todoran, Isidor & Ivan, Iorgu. 1957. Catehismul creştinului dreptcredincios [Catechism of the righteous Christian]. Iaşi: Editura Arhiepiscopiei ortodoxe romîne a Iaşilor. Gillet, Olivier. 2001. Religie şi naţionalism. Ideologia Bisericii Ortodoxe Române sub regimul comunist [Religion and Nationalism. Ideology of Romanian Orthodox Church under Communism]. trans. Mariana Petrişor, Bucharest: Compania. Leustean, Lucian N. 2009. Orthodoxy and the Cold War. Religion and Political Power in Romania, 1947–65. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. Liturghier [Missal]. 1967. Bucharest: Editura Institutului Biblic şi de Misiune Ortodoxă. Liturghier. 1987. Bucharest, Editura Institutului Biblic şi de Misiune al Bisericii Ortodoxe Române. Marx, Karl. 1970. Critique of Hegel’s ‘Philosophy of Right.’ Cambridge, New York, New Rochelle, Melbourne, Sidney: Cambridge University Press.

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Mladin, Nicolae; Bucevschi, Orest; Pavel, Constantin & Zăgrean, Ioan. 1980. Teologia Morală Ortodoxă pentru institutele teologice. Morala Specială [Orthodox Moral Theology for Theological Institutes. Special Morality]. vol. II. Bucharest: EIBMBOR. Nedelcu, Silviu-Constantin. 2019. Cenzurarea presei ortodoxe în comunism [Censoring the Orthodox Press during Communism]. Bucharest: Ed. Eikon. Păcurariu, Mircea. 1978. Istoria Bisericii Ortodoxe Române. Manual pentru Seminariile Teologice [History of the Romanian Orthodox Church. Manual for Theological Seminaries]. 2nd edition. Sibiu: Tipografia Eparhială. Păcurariu, Mircea. 2008. Istoria Bisericii Ortodoxe Române [History of the Romanian Orthodox Church]. vol. III. Iași: Trinitas.

Studies and Articles Anania, Bartolomeu. 1998. “Amintiri despre Patriarhul Justinian” [“Recollections about Patriarch Justinian”]. Biserica Ortodoxă Română. Year CXVI. no. 1–6: 110–130. “Ceasul adevărului. Scrisoare irenică a Bisericii Ortodoxe Române către organizațiile internaționale și tuturor fraților români din afara granițelor” [“The Hour of Truth. Irenic Letter of the Romanian Orthodox Church to International Organizations and to all our Romanian Brothers abroad”]. 1990. Mitropolia Ardealului. Year XXXV. No.1 (January–February): 3–4. “Circulară către toate oficiile Protopopeşti şi preoţeşti din cuprinsul Eparhiei” [“Circular Letter to All the Offices of the Archbishop and Priests within the Diocese”]. 1948. Renaşterea.Organul Episcopiei Vadulului,Feleacului şi Clujului. Year XXV. No. 1–2: 4. “Din viat,a bisericeasca˘ a Ra˘sa˘ritului ortodox” [“From the Church Life of the Orthodox East”]. 1950. Almanahul creștin ortodox—pe anul comun dela Hristos 1950, Cluj-Sibiu-Oradea: Tiparul Tipografiei Reîntregirea: 93–95. Dumitrașcu, Iulian. 2021. “Rezultatele anchetei: Episcopul Grigorie Leu al Hușilor a murit otrăvit de reprezentanţii regimului comunist” [“The results of the investigation: Bishop Grigorie Leu of Huși died poisoned by representatives of the communist regime”]. Basilica.ro (August): https://basilica.ro/ rezultatele-­anchetei-­episcopul-­grigorie-­leu-­al-­husilor-­a-­murit-­otravit-­de-­ reprezentantii-­regimului-­comunist/, accessed on 24.05.2022. “Editorial”. 1971. Romanian Orthodox Church News. Quarterly Bulletin, Year I. No.1:1.

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Ivan, Iorgu. 1963. “Grija regimului democrat popular pentru sănătatea omului în R.P.R” [“The people’s Democratic Regime’s Care for Human Health in the P.R.R.”]. Îndrumător bisericesc. Pe anul comun de la Hristos 1963. Sibiu: Tiparul Tipografiei Eparhiale: 88–96. Iustin, Archbishop of Bucharest, Metropolitan of Ungro-Wallachia and Patriarch of the Romanian Orthodox Church. 1981. “Pastorală trimisă clerului și credincioșilor de Prea Fericitul Patriarh Iustin cu prilejul sfintelor sărbători ale Nașterii Domnului—1980” [“Pastoral Sent to the Clergy and Faithful by the Blessed Patriarch Iustin on the Occasion of the Holy Feasts of the Nativity of the Lord—1980”]. Biserica Ortodoxă Română XCIX. No. 1–2 (January– February): 9–13. Manolache, Teodor N. 1955. “O îndatorire de mare cinste pentru preoţii Bisericii noastre: sprijinirea muncilor agricole de primăvară” [“A Duty of Great Honour for the Priests of our Church: Supporting Spring Agricultural Work”]. Biserica Ortodoxă Română. No. 3–4 (March–April): 325–329. Moisescu, Gheorghe I. 1948. “Întregirea Bisericii româneşti din Transilvania” [“The Reunification of the Romanian Church in Transylvania”]. Biserica Ortodoxă Română. Revista Sfântului Sinod, Year LXVI. No. 9-10 (September-­ October): 413–464. Nicolae, Metropolitan of Banat. 1980. “Prospects of the orthodox-roman catholic dialogue.” Romanian Orthodox Church News. Quarterly bulletin. Year X. No.1 (January–March): 50–52. Păcurariu, Mircea.1990. “Truths unrevealed.” Romanian Orthodox Church News. Year XX. No. 2 (March–April): 5–11. “Planul de Stat pe 1950 și planul cincinal pe 1951–1955” [“The State Plan for 1950 and the Five-year Plan for 1951–1955”]. 1951. Almanahul creștin ortodox—pe anul comun dela Hristos 1951: 115–116. Plămădeală, Antonie. 1985. “Masa rotundă cu tema: Noi pericole ce amenință darul sacru al vieții: îndatoririle noastre” [“Round Table with the Topic: New Dangers that Threaten the Sacred Gift of Life: Our Duties”]. Mitropolia Ardealului. Year XXX. No. 1-2 (January-February): 34–40. “Prin pace la înfrăţire şi progres” [“Through peace towards brotherhood and progress”]. 1951. Almanahul creștin ortodox—pe anul comun dela Hristos 1951: 75–77 (unsigned). Redacția [Editorial staff]. 1986. “Țara întreagă își aniversează conducătorul iubit” [“The entire country celebrates its beloved leader”]. Mitropolia Ardealului. Year XXXI. No. 1 (January–February): 3–6.

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“«Romanian Orthodox Church News»—10 years of uninterrupted publication.” 1980. Romanian Orthodox Church News. Quarterly Bulletin. Year X. No. 4 (October–December): 14–15. Sfîntul Sinod al Bisericii Ortodoxe Române [Holy Synod of the Romanian Orthodox Church]. 1988. “Domnul Pres,edinte Nicolae Ceaus,escu la a 70-a aniversare” [“Mister President Nicolae Ceaus,escu at his 70th anniversary”]. Glasul Bisericii. Year XLVII. No. 1 (January–February): 5–8. “Statutul de Organizare al BOR” [Organisational statute of the ROC]. 1949. https://bibliocanonica.com/statutul-­de-­organizare-­al-­bor-­2008/. Accessed on 24.06.2022. Stăniloae, Dumitru. 1936. “Românism și ortodoxie” [“Romanianism and Orthodoxy”]. Gândirea. Year XV. No. 8 (October): 400–409. Vasile, Bishop of Oradea. 1987, “Pastorală la Învierea Domnului, 1987” [“Easter Pastoral Letter 1987”]. Mitropolia Ardealului. Year XXXII. No. 2 (March– April): 14–19.

6 The Founding Texts of a Revolution. Romania 1989 Kazimierz Jurczak

The title of this chapter may suggest that the manifestos and appeals launched by the main actors of the events of December 1989 had a crucial, decisive character. Also, the temptation may arise to consider as natural the connection between these documents and the course of events, which would directly lead us to accept the obvious revolutionary character of what happened then. However, I keep asking myself whether the events in question really had the character of a revolution, or maybe they were just a riot, a protest against a degenerate government and an explosion of human despair. The problem is not at all obvious, and doubts can be justified. The relatively short temporal distance that separates us from 1989 means that specialised research (undertaken by historians, political scientists, sociologists) is not cutting-edge, especially since the public discourse in most countries of the former Soviet space remains dominated by ideological biases and resentments.

K. Jurczak (*) Jagellonian University, Kraków, Poland e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 E. Wohl, E. Păcurar (eds.), Language of the Revolution, Palgrave Studies in Languages at War, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-37178-3_6

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Sociologists who deal with the phenomenon of violent social changes tend to accept the revolutionary character of the events of the fall of 1989, considering first their consequences. Piotr Sztompka writes as follows: (...) there is a consensus regarding the basic constituent elements of the phenomenon under discussion. 1. Revolutions are about fundamental, vast and multidimensional changes that disrupt the very essence of the social order. (...) 2. Revolutionary changes include large masses of people mobilized to act within the revolutionary movement. (...) 3. Most authors seem convinced that revolutions inevitably bring with them violence and coercion. (Sztompka 2005, 282)1

Although he emphasises the development of the “predominantly peaceful events that took place not long ago in Central and Eastern Europe,” the author does not deny their “revolutionary character,” but his final conclusion is a cautious one, nuanced and based on historical (H. Trevor-Roper), rather than sociological, research: “contemporary observers do not hesitate to define the last two cases [that of the Polish ‘controlled revolution’ and that of the Czech ‘velvet revolution’; A/N] as revolutions” (Sztompka 2005, 283). Seen from this perspective, the events taking place in Romania at the end of 1989 constitute “a tragic exception” to the rule according to which “anti-communist revolutions were not, in principle, accompanied by violence” (Sztompka 2005, 283). In the analysis of the specialists, the focus naturally shifts to the internal political situation as a determining factor of the events and to their immediate consequences. The conclusions of such studies often present the situation of December 1989 as a “palace coup.” One of the most competent observers of the political situation in Romania and familiar with its history, Tom [Thomas Gerard] Gallagher, states very categorically:

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In December 1989, there was no real overthrow of power. The second-­ ranking dignitaries fell out with the Ceaus,escus, hastily executed on December 25th, who prevented them for too long from realizing their dreams of aggrandizement. This was a revolution within the communist system, leading to the imposition of a modified version in which the old structures remained dominant behind a democratizing façade. (Gallagher 2010, 226)

I consider this diagnosis to be an oversimplification of things, which reduces the realities of that time only to their political dimension and does not contribute enough to the understanding of the processes taking place in the “post-revolutionary” society. I also reject the interpretation— in the logic of Gallagher’s diagnosis—based on the conspiratorial sociological model of the revolution and presenting the events in question as the result of an international conspiracy coordinated by Moscow (a view presented, among others, by Jerzy Targalski vel Józef Darski)2 (Darski n.d.). My opinion is primarily due to scepticism regarding the existence of credible sources of information that would justify such interpretations and avoid sterile speculation. I consider, instead, that the Romanian revolt of December 1989 was the result of several factors, both political (including the international context) and psychosocial. I also notice a close relationship, almost quasi-­ dependent, between the continued popularity of conspiracy theories and the consistent propagation by the institutions of the Romanian state of the so-called official version of the 1989 revolution, which insists on the spontaneous character of the social mobilisation of that time and the martyrological dimension of the events. For our analysis, however, the strictly political aspect of what happened more than 30 years ago is not the most important. The research of the content and the meanings that constitute the ideational layer of the texts propagated at that time in Bucharest, Timis,oara, Cluj and other cities is meant to provide an answer to the question, if at the end of the twentieth century a revolution is still possible as a social phenomenon described so many times and analysed by E. Burke, A. de Tocqueville and H. Arendt, not to forget F. Furet and M. Malia.

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In the political discourse prevalent in today’s post-communist Romania, a country still in the transition phase despite already being a part of the structures of the European Union, the term revolution, reserved for what happened in December 1989, is used routinely, uncritically and almost automatically, which is, as we have already noticed, primarily because of those in power, regardless of political colour. Doubts and controversies persist, of course, but they are predominantly related to the unfolding of events, to the main actors and their role—real or imaginary—rather than to the revolutionary nature of the process that led to Ceaus,escu’s ouster. This state of affairs cannot be surprising in the case of a country where virtually all political orientations are interested in cultivating a heroic version of the founding myth that lies at the core of the contemporary Romanian society. The events of late 1989 seem indeed to fulfil the characteristics of a revolutionary turning point, such as those listed by Sztompka: large-scale social mobilisation, accompanying violence and bloodshed, and profound changes which follow them. At the same time, however, they were not preceded by a typical “revolutionary situation” (intensification of social discontent, appearance of protest gestures); the intellectual elites of that time challenged the existing political regime in a cautious and unconvincing way, which did not lead to the formation of a “revolutionary consciousness”; the dictator did not pre-emptively make political and/or economic concessions,3 and—in the end—the “revolutionary mobilisation” took place suddenly, unexpectedly. (I am referring here to the reaction of the crowd summoned by Ceaus,escu in Bucharest. In Timis,oara, however, concrete situations occurred earlier which led to the explosion of social discontent.) The post-revolutionary stages will correspond to a greater extent to the models described in sociological texts (moderate stage, radicalisation of opinions leading to real “political wars,” chaos, stabilisation); however, this is a separate topic that goes beyond the subject of this chapter. Among the two sociological models of the revolution: constructivist and structuralist (Sztompka 2005, 285–6), the first one, especially in its “volcanic” version, seems to correspond better to Romanian realities. The events of December 1989 were initiated by spontaneous and mass citizen actions, not coordinated from above, at a time when social discontent

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reached a critical level. This dissatisfaction was caused primarily by material shortages difficult to bear. From the few manifesto texts that appeared in the week preceding the events in Bucharest (December 21–22), the ones signed by the anonymous Romanian Popular Front and distributed in Ias,i, Timis,oara and Sibiu attract attention. The document from Ias,i, dated December 14, is at the same time ardent and laconic, with a content that attracts attention through the hierarchy of proposed goals: A call to all Romanians of good faith. The hour of our release has arrived. Let’s put an end to the hunger, cold, fear and darkness that has ruled us for 25 years. Let’s put an end to the terror unleashed by Ceaus,escu’s dictatorship that brought the whole nation to the brink of despair. We remain the last country in Europe where the Stalinist nightmare persists amplified by an incompetent, malevolent leadership. Let us show that the last will be the first. (Osiac 2010, 13)

The appeal, not much longer than the excerpt quoted, calls on the population to participate in silence in a gathering in the centre of the city. The text itself does not have the character of an appeal, but rather of a sociological analysis, inevitably superficial, which nevertheless remains an analysis of the state of Romanian society. It cannot go unnoticed that the text, devoid of radicalism, does not even once use the word “communism” or “socialism.” The accusations are against Stalinism and Ceaus,escu’s dictatorship, which may suggest that the author of this appeal-manifesto is no stranger to the left-wing beliefs.4 The proclamation of a similar organisation from Timis,oara (with the adjective “democrat” in the name and dated December 20–21) begins as a true party statement: I. The Romanian Democratic Front is a political organisation, established in Timis,oara, to carry out a dialogue with the Romanian Government for the purpose of democratising the country. The Romanian Democratic Front conditions the beginning of this dialogue on the resignation of President Nicolae Ceaus,escu. II. We propose to the Romanian Government the following claims as a basis for our discussion: (…). (Osiac 2010, 17–19)

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The document has an obvious political character due to the requests made: the resignation of the country’s president, free elections, acceptance of the right to free expression and so on, but at the same time, it contains economic postulates that are a direct reaction to the existing situation: the revival of the national economy, the improvement of the situation in the system of public health and the supply of food products. We find in this text both the call for a general strike and the thanks addressed to the collective of the National Theatre in Timis,oara for the help provided (they facilitated the reading of the Proclamation from the balcony of the National Theatre on the morning of December 21), but also to all the supporters of the Front, current and potential (sic!). The eclectic, heterogeneous character of the proclamation becomes even more obvious if we compare the concrete demands caused by the reprisals ordered by the leadership in Timis,oara (the release of those arrested, the handing over of the lifeless bodies of those killed to the families, the non-­ punishment of the participants in the demonstrations, the punishing of those who gave the order to shoot at protesters, etc.) with political postulates of a fundamental and lasting nature (respect by state authorities for human rights, education reform “in the democratic spirit,” freedom of religious belief, etc.). If Hannah Arendt is right when writing that “only where this pathos of novelty is present and where novelty is connected with the idea of freedom are we entitled to speak of revolution” (Arendt 1990, 34), then we can only consider that the events of December 1989 do not exactly meet the requirements of a conceptual category of revolution. In most documents from that time, the imperative idea/requirement of a democracy (possibly a true democracy) and freedom appears. All manifestos also demand Ceaus,escu’s resignation and are directed against the dictator. They demand, therefore, the release from Ceaus,escu and a democracy other than the one founded by him. Romanians do not demand democracy and freedom as primary and fundamental values but refer to models and variants that already exist, hic et nunc. Instead of “pathos of novelty,” we are dealing with pathos as a discursive formula. Perhaps not by accident, Dumitru Mazilu, leading activist of the National Salvation Front (FSN), added the word “dignity” (“Democracy, Freedom, Dignity—now!”) to

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the title of the December 20 proclamation of the Civic Forum, and ended it with the formula: “so help me God” (Osiac 2010, 14–16). In the calls already launched after the fall of the dictator, the appeal to resume work, especially by public service employees, to protect the national heritage, to combat acts of vandalism, in general—to restore and maintain peace and public order. It is difficult to find traces of pathos and the revolutionary sublime in these documents; between revolution and restoration, there is only a few days’ difference. The rhetoric used by Iliescu’s team after December 25 clearly demonstrates that the revolution reached its peak (goal?) with the execution of the dictatorial couple; immediately afterwards, the restoration of order and social tranquillity becomes indispensable. The qualification “founding text” should go back to the appeal read on the evening of December 22 on television by Ion Iliescu, a few hours after the escape by helicopter of the Ceaus,escu couple. Indeed, in many respects, we are dealing with a founding text for the new order, the one that gathers as in a lens the characteristic features for the Romanian “revolution.” Not passionately titled, the “Communiqué of the National Salvation Front to the country” is banally addressed to the “citizens.” The first three paragraphs refer, of course, to what we could hardly associate with Arendt’s “pathos of novelty,” rather, in the wording used, we can easily identify the conventional language employed by the officials of the deceased, but not buried, political regime: We are living in a historic moment. Ceaus,escu’s clan, which led the country to disaster, was removed from power. We all know and recognise that the victory enjoyed by the entire country is the fruit of the spirit of sacrifice of the popular masses of all nationalities, and, first of all, of our admirable youth, who gave us, at the price of blood, the feeling of national dignity. (…) A new page opens in the political and economic life of Romania. At this moment of crossroads, we decided to establish ourselves in the National Salvation Front, which relies on the Romanian army and which groups together all the vigorous forces of the country, regardless of nationality. (…) (Osiac 2010, 33–36)

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The purpose of the organisation is defined succinctly and it is a repetition of the well-known conceptual triad: “The National Salvation Front [is instituted] for the purpose of establishing democracy, freedom, and affirming the dignity of the Romanian people” (Monitorul Oficial, no. 4/27.12.1989), after which follows the presentation of the FSN’s ten-point programme, which is a modified version of Dumitru Mazilu’s appeal. The document, in an enlarged form, supplemented with the prerogatives of the FSN power and its territorial organisation, was published in Monitorul Oficial [Official Gazette] on December 27. The new form of contact between the power and society (Monitorul Oficial instead of a TV show) can be interpreted as a symbolic end of the revolution. Finally, the revolutionary fiesta, full of enthusiasm and hope, bloody nonetheless, came to an end; the rule of law, which was suspended for a short time, was now restored as the foundation and guarantee of power (but also as its alibi). From the text of the Communiqué, partially already written in functional wooden language, at most three fragments draw our attention, important from the perspective that interests us here: that of the revolution. The first is the statement that the National Salvation Front “was constituted and represents the union of all patriotic and democratic forces of the country for the overthrow of the Ceaus,ist dictatorial clan” (Monitorul Oficial, no. 4/27/12/1989). This constitutes a confirmation of the thesis, already expressed in previous documents, that the removal of the dictator is a necessity, a first and indispensable condition for the success of the revolution. At the same time, however, this means a restriction of the fundamental character of the expected changes, reduced to a revolt against the ruler—something of which, incidentally, the revolutionaries were accused, particularly from the moment of the execution of the dictatorial couple. The second fragment contains the Front’s declaration of “promotion of a humanist (sic!) and democratic ideology, of the true values of humanity.” This very general formulation, almost devoid of content, which dilutes even more the ideological profile of the new power, appears in the version published in the Monitorul Oficial while it was missing from the text read by Iliescu on television. Instead, they excluded a fragment present in the previous version, in which the leadership of the FSN

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undertook to “eliminate ideological dogmas [emphasis mine], who brought so much damage to the Romanian people, and to promote the true values of humanity.” This change, apparently insignificant, suggests actually a weakening of the radicalism of the announced measures; the new arrangement did not necessarily have to differ from the one up to now. The last passage deals with international politics. The authors of the Communiqué first declare that “the foreign policy of the country will serve to promote good neighbourliness, friendship and peace in the world, integrating into the process of establishing a united Europe, a common home of all the peoples of the continent,” after which, in the following paragraph, they announce that “Romania will respect its international commitments and, first of all [emphasis mine], those arising from the Warsaw Treaty (…).” In this regard, Iliescu would soon provide his opponents with the decisive argument proving the anachronism of his way of thinking: he signed an agreement of friendship and cooperation with the Soviet Union which was still alive (no other member country of the Warsaw Pact had done so). The document in question has a founding character both for the December revolution and, perhaps above all, for the new power. On the one hand, in the introductory part, it claims general and inevitably imprecise ideas (“[FSN is established] to focus on the aspirations of the broadest masses of people of the country for a free and dignified life and the framework for their affirmation”). On the other hand, it contains concrete provisions related to the (re)organisation of the country’s administrative system, such as: the composition and prerogatives of the FSN, the territorial organisation, technical solutions for the execution of power (“territorial councils adopt decisions, which are taken with a simple majority of the votes of the members to them”), and so on. Attention is drawn to the fact that the substantive fragments of the Communiqué are professionally drafted (by officials of the old regime, probably), while the preamble is in many places declaratively confusing: the elimination of lies and imposture (sic!), setting criteria of competence and justice in all fields of activity. placing the development of national culture on new bases (sic!);

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freedom of the press, radio, and television; passing them into the hands of the people (sic!). (Monitorul Oficial, no. 4/27.12.1989)

The analysed text reveals many of the characteristics related to the ideological profile of the team that benefited from the spontaneous social uprising, the most important of which seems to be the uncertainty regarding the social-economic system that was to be built on the ruins of Ceaus,escu’s communism. In the absence of true ideologues of the revolution, the foundations of this new system were laid by yesterday’s communists. This review, inevitably incomplete, perhaps even superficial, of the programme documents of the Romanian revolution of December 1989, creates the irresistible impression of incompatibility between them and the course of events that took place. The events had an obvious drama, they were tragic and passionate, sometimes grotesque. The documents are only a pale shadow of what happened. The conclusions that can be drawn from this can be of a diverse nature, depending on the perspective of interpretation adopted. “The incompatibility between the written records and what actually happened” is likely to suggest that, in the absence of an opposition elite that could seriously threaten power, the December revolution took the Romanians by surprise, as they were mentally unprepared for a radical change. The chaotic nature of the programme documents, with numerous incongruities, the rather vague proposals/promises made, and—not least of all—the small number of these documents, all demonstrate that the power truly “lay on the street” and was taken from there by those who were familiar with it, that is, the members of the former party nomenclature. The analysed texts somehow predict the lack of a radical political change, which was to happen in the next decade. In the contemporary world, few revolutions can be directly associated with the French or Bolshevik models. It is equally difficult to find a theory of revolution that does not simplify, at least for methodological purposes, the complex reality. Starting from the reflections of Robert K. Merton and his conception of a “field defined by ignorance,”5 Piotr Sztompka believes that even imperfect theories can help us understand the nature of revolutionary events, at least by making us aware of “the

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things we don’t know, but we know that we should know them in order to understand the phenomenon (…)” (Sztompka 2005, 294). No sociological theory currently at our disposal can adequately explain the Romanian Revolution of December 1989, nor can it be compared to any other historical or modern revolution (see Hobsbawm 1996; Sebestyen 2009; Staniszkis 2001; Hlihor 2014; Báthory et al. 2020). This does not mean, however, that in the case of Romania we are dealing with a unique phenomenon (as some politicians would still like to believe), but at most with a specific one from a historical and sociocultural point of view, something that every research should consider. The Romanian Revolution is far from being an elucidated case and continuing research is the only way to avoid a white spot in the contemporary history of Romania.

Notes 1. Unless otherwise specified, all quotations from sources originally written in Polish or Romanian have been translated into English by the author. 2. Józef Darski is the pseudonym of Polish journalist and historian Jerzy Targalski (1952–2021). His book Rumunia: historia, współczesność, konflikty narodowe [Romania. History, Present, National Conflicts] was printed in London in the 1980s by a publishing house affiliated with Polish emigrants, without any reference to the date of publishing. 3. On the contrary, the payment of all debts announced at the beginning of the year by Ceaus,escu did not bring any improvement in the supply of stores with basic food products. 4. The hypothesis is even more justified, since supporters of the nationalist right, including those who invoke the legionary tradition, quite numerous in the period after 1989, were not active or did not manifest their political beliefs at that time. 5. The concept we refer to comes from R. Merton’s 1968 study Social Theory and Social Structure, New York: Free Press.

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References Primary Sources Monitorul Oficial [Official Gazette], part I, no. 4/27.12.1989. Osiac, Daniela (ed.). 2010. Revoluţia din decembrie 1989: mesaj pentru România. Proclamaţii, apeluri, manifeste ale Revoluţiei Române din decembrie 1989 [The Revolution of December 1989: Message for Romania. Proclamations, Appeals, Manifestos of the Romanian Revolution of December 1989]. Bucharest: Editura IRRD.

Secondary Sources Arendt, Hannah. 1990. On Revolution. London: Penguin Books. Báthory, Dalia, Bosomitu, Ştefan & Budeancă, Cosmin. 2020. România de la comunism la postcomunism. Criză, transformare, democratizare [Romania from Communism to Post communism. Crisis, transformation, democratisation]. IICCMER directory, vol. XIV–XV. Bucharest: Editura Polirom. Darski, Józef. [Targalski J.]. n.d. Rumunia: historia, współczesność, konflikty narodowe [Romania. History, Present, National Conflicts]. Instytut Polityczny (Polish Policy Institute). Gallagher, Tom. 2010. Deceniul pierdut al României. Mirajul integrării europene după anul 2000 [Romania’s Lost Decade. The Mirage of European Integration after the Year 2000]. Bucharest: Editura All. Hlihor, Constantin (ed.). 2014. Revoluţia română din decembrie 1989 şi percepţia ei în mentalul colectiv [The Romanian Revolution of December 1989 and Its Public Perception]. Târgoviște: Ed. Cetatea de Scaun. Hobsbawm, Eric. 1996. The Age of Revolution 1789–1848. New York: Random House. Iliescu, Ion and Tismăneanu, Vladimir. 2004. Marele şoc. Din finalul unui secol scurt [The Great Shock. From the End of a Short Century]. Bucharest: Editura Enciclopedică. Malia, Martin. 2006. History’s Locomotives. Revolutions and the Making of the Modern World. New Haven & London: Yale University Press. Sebestyen, Victor. 2009. Rewolucja 1989. Jak doszło do upadku komunizmu [Revolution 1989. The Fall of the Soviet Empire]. Wrocław: Wydawnictwo Dolnosˊląskie.

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Staniszkis, Jadwiga. 2001. Postkomunizm [Post-communism]. Gdańsk: Słowo/ Obraz Terytoria. Sztompka P., 2005. Socjologia zmian społecznych [The Sociology of Social Changes], Kraków.

Part II Words at War: Expressive Forms of Resistance, Dissidence and Protest

7 The Language of Inner Freedom for Dissent: Müller and Liiceanu Before and After the Revolution Jonathan Lahey Dronsfield

Gabriel Liiceanu: Don’t you think that every book—a clean, good, wonderful book—born during those times was a way of saying “no” to the world in which we lived? —Herta Müller: No, it was a way of evading it.

“Good Clean Books” Herta Müller and Gabriel Liiceanu famously clashed over whether or not “good clean” books published in Romania during the Ceaușescu era of communism can be considered dissident (Müller and Liiceanu 2010). The disagreement took place at the Athenaeum in Bucharest 2010, shortly after Müller had been awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature. They were debating whether “not speaking out” can legitimately be construed as resistance to totalitarianism and its suppression of free speech.

J. L. Dronsfield (*) Institute of Philosophy of the Czech Academy of Sciences, Staré Město, Czechia © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 E. Wohl, E. Păcurar (eds.), Language of the Revolution, Palgrave Studies in Languages at War, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-37178-3_7

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The dispute centred on whether it is enough not to have compromised one’s language, whether books which did not overtly “speak out” against the communist regime but which, on the other hand, did not “prostitute” themselves by using the language of the oppressors can nonetheless be considered to have resisted the regime. There is also the correlative question of whether indeed the books in question were not compromised in their language. Liiceanu believes that not to have mimicked phrases from the official language, not to have borrowed from it, not to have talked in the way in which intellectuals were expected to talk by the party, not to have prostituted one’s language, was enough to flout the repressive regime to the extent that one could be said to have resisted. The metaphor of prostitution is one to which Liiceanu often adverts in this context (see Müller and Liiceanu 2010; Liiceanu 2010; Pleșu and Michnik 2011). “Those who wrote valid books for the history of Romanian culture and who never prostituted their words created acts of real resistance and this must be said” (Liiceanu 2010). This position was called “Resistance through culture” [Rezistenţa prin cultură]. Resistance would consist in not using words contradicting one’s own conscience (Müller and Liiceanu 2010). Liiceanu’s relationship to language, he claimed, was one of respect, above all a respect for its purity. Müller rejects such an argument. She would have liked to have seen and felt this “resistance.” But unlike in other communist countries, there was no solidarity of resistance to communism in Romania, no dissident movements, no samizdat literature, nothing, something she drew attention to as early as 1989 (Müller 1989, 29). Most intellectuals remained silent, they never dared speak out. Those who did were abandoned to their solitariness, to their own devices, and were left with no support. They were persecuted, and Müller counts herself among those who were persecuted. She charges that the likes of Liiceanu, those who claim to have resisted by preserving the purity of language, were cop outs. She is not blaming them, for only those who wrote by order of the party, who “howled ideological words,” are blameworthy. Nonetheless, what they did was too little. It may have been a way of staying honest with respect to oneself, but this was merely personal, in the privacy of their own heads.

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It was a form of non-involvement; it did nothing to disturb the repressive regime. Liiceanu does not contest the non-engagement. Instead, he sees it as part-constitutive of what makes it resistance: When all means of participation in the destiny of the community are suppressed, culture remains a way of continuing to participate from the shadows and of preparing for a regeneration. It is thus in the highest degree subversive. (Liiceanu 2000, xxvi)

Müller reserves for those who stayed in the shadows this way the term Mitläufer: someone who “goes along with” the regime, walks alongside those in power, unseen and inconspicuous, who shuts up, tries not to stand out, doesn’t bother anyone—in order not to get into trouble (Müller and Liiceanu 2010; Müller 2010b). Müller, on the other hand, wanted to live in a way that allowed her to be held accountable for what she did, to live in such a way as not to have to be responsible for what she did not do. There is a difference here between what Liiceanu says about being answerable to his conscience, and what Müller says about being held publicly accountable for her acts and omissions, and this difference in turn relates to differing conceptions of language. There is a fundamental presupposition at work in Liiceanu which underpins his belief that “not speaking out” and instead resisting through culture can be deemed to be subversive. That presupposition is inner freedom [libertate interioară]. Liiceanu kept a journal, The Păltiniş Diary, of his time spent as a disciple of Constantin Noica practising “resistance through culture” in the late 1970s and early 1980s. It first appeared in 1983, under communism, with deletions and changes agreed with the communist authorities. In the Preface to its re-publication in 1990, after the fall of communism, with the changes reinstated, he writes: Any hell could become bearable if the paradise of culture was strong enough to withstand it… paradise was strong enough to resist, even in Ceaușescu’s Romania… the road to this paradise [was] a way of liberation and inner freedom. (Liiceanu 2000, XXIX)

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Liiceanu is not alone in his presupposing the existence of inner freedom; almost all dissident writers, artists and intellectuals in Central and Eastern Europe during communist times invoked inner freedom as a condition of possibility of dissent. The notion of inner freedom appears to be a condicio sine qua non of dissent. It is important to understand why. Inner freedom figures so foundationally in the histories and discourses of dissent because commonly it implies that it is beyond proof and is unquestionable, in the sense that no matter how repressive the material conditions in which the subject lives, nothing or no one can take away “my inner freedom.” To this extent, inner freedom is a dogmatic presupposition. In the western metaphysical conception of the human subject inner freedom is foundational. It is characterised as a priori, immaterial and immanent. In short, the possession of human beings in the form of a mental space whereby they gain autonomy as subjects. But is there such a thing as inner freedom; and if there is not, with what consequence for those dissidents for whom it is fundamental? In my view, the notion of inner freedom as it is presupposed in the discourses of dissent is paradoxical, and in metaphysics it is an error. Moreover, it can function as an ally in the language of the very regimes those discourses of dissent seek to resist, especially when it comes to the suppression of freedom, in particular the freedoms of expression and assembly. However, even if one argues that there is no such thing as inner freedom, at least metaphysically conceived, it is nonetheless important, especially if one is supportive of the dissidents in question and wishes to defend the freedom to dissent, to understand why inner freedom is so often appealed to and to offer a productive critique of it. Then how can we retrieve inner freedom? We may be able to deconstruct inner freedom as a dogmatic presupposition of western metaphysics, but how can we propose a more positive conception, one which does justice to its appeal in the history of dissident resistance and the language of dissenters and repressed peoples the world over? Rather than conceive inner freedom metaphysically, I propose that the task become to grasp inner freedom non-metaphysically, as a space within language in which one may begin to think differently; a space therefore in need of creating in language and forming by language rather than doctrinally presupposing. In my view, this is what Müller does in her writing.

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The dispute between Müller and Liiceanu reveals two different and opposing philosophies of language, and two conceptions of the relationship between freedom of thought and freedom of expression. Either thought is given internally, and writing is the means to externalise the already known thought, or we do not know what we are thinking until we write. If the former is the case, then there is inner freedom. If the latter, then we are not free until we find the words to express it. For those who affirm the existence of an inner freedom, writing is a representation of the inner. For those who deny the inner, the writing comes first; or there is no distinction between the two. If there does exist an inner freedom, then no matter how repressive the regime, we will find freedom from oppression and censorship in an inner self. This is Liiceanu’s position. But if freedom comes in uttering the words, then there is no respite from tyranny which succeeds in repressing expression of them. This is Herta Müller’s position. In turn, these differing philosophies of language lead to opposed ways of conceiving resistance through language. For Liiceanu, resistance comes through preserving the purity of language. For Müller, we resist by tearing holes in it.

Müller and Language Inner freedom is a notion which, I contend, Herta Müller is not committed to, at least in her published work. What is prior, for Müller, is the word, the written word: It is only when I start a sentence that I find out what it has to say. I realise as I go along. So I have to somehow make words help me and I have to keep searching until I think I have found something acceptable. Writing has its own logic and it imposes the logic of language on you. There is no more “day” and “night”, “outside” and “inside.” (Müller and Liiceanu 2010)

When Müller says that “there is no more ‘outside’ and ‘inside,’” what she means, I think, is that these sorts of binary oppositions are not known by language itself. For her, language is neither referential nor representational. Müller puts representation into question by exacerbating the gaps

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between subject and object, and subject and predicate. What writing describes is not simply “out there,” it is not that language is natural or a medium between self and world, for this cleaves to the subject-object distinction, whether it be to say that language is giving true expression to the inner self, or is a true representation of the real world. Müller’s writing detours representation, or the referential function of language. The official legitimacy of things is brought fundamentally into doubt, revealing a life the heavy hand of repression would seek to quash. Her language does not so much escape domination as flex itself in resistance to it, making the domination visible. “The more that which is written takes from me, the more it shows what was missing from the experience that was lived. Only the words make this discovery, because they didn’t know it earlier” (Müller 2009b, 8). Words do not know it, in the sense that they are not invested with the writer’s authorial knowledge, instead they discover it in how they come together. This is why Müller can say, in an interview for the Nobel: “Writing itself does not know what it looks like while one is doing it, only when it’s finished” (Müller 2009a). And neither does the writer know herself until she has written what she writes. There is no proper place from which words are spoken in Müller’s literature, there are no privileged voices whose priority is given or according to any order of values. Müller gives a voice to those who have no place in the order imposed on them under repression. “How’s that, she asked, aren’t I also part of our strength” says the mother in The Appointment. “You can talk like that when you’re bringing the sheep down from the mountain into the valley. At Party meetings just keep your trap shut” replies her husband (Müller 2012a). If there is an axiom, if there is, then it is equality, the equality of words. Müller writes for those whose place is missing. “His tongue was torn apart,” Müller says of the poet Oskar Pastior, who was imprisoned in the camp in which her novel The Hunger Angel is set (Müller 2010a). She re-finds Pastior’s voice at the very limit point of civilisation. Frontiers are made visible where language meets those who do not speak it. Language in the camp is “broken,” Müller remakes it. The common of communism is an imposition and it excludes. Müller refinds the voices excluded and re-articulates them in relation to everyday situations made strange by the ever-present spectre of her characters

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having to answer for what they do to those who inform and police. Müller’s interventions are into a world permanently intervened in by eavesdropping and spying, a world where she re-forms the actions informed and words reported, tearing them back from the eyes and ears which would instrumentalise them. This is what makes her writing democratic, it re-forms the order of the representations given by communism. Democratic and revolutionary. In the midst of so much cynicism, so much fear, so much repressive weight of ideology, she breaks language open, and spreads its words differently across the surface of writing. Müller’s point of departure is that under the condition of dispossession, everyone is a stranger within their own language. Then, in a world where everyone has no language of their own, new forms of collectivity are given a chance, because words are allowed to circulate differently. “There are things we do not speak of. But I know what I’m talking about when I say that silence around the neck is different from silence inside the mouth” (2012b). If words, when repeated, sound unexpectedly different it is because their context is torn. Another way to break language open is to what I call split an image that language presents. An image is begun, which only fully forms later, after the spacing of some lines or paragraphs, or usually pages, as if the pages have been folded, when it is repeated with a variation, or a slight reversal. Variation takes on a power of displacement and defamiliarisation. The image vibrates because the movement between its parts is reversible: Lola came from the south of the country, and she reeked of poor province [Gegend]. I don’t know where it showed the most, maybe in her cheekbones, or around her mouth, or smack in the middle of her eyes. It’s hard to say that sort of thing about a province or a face. […] Whatever you carry out of your province you carry into your face. (Müller 1998, 2–4)

Agency is dislocated: “Every day, a band of light perches on the wall and watches everything” (Müller 2016). Hunger speaks, becomes a character in a novel (Müller 2012b). Attribution of agency becomes difficult. In The Land of Green Plums (Müller 1998) the reader is no longer sure where actions (19), intentions (32), memories (35) or words (88) come

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from or whose they are. Displacement of agency from authorial self to writing implies that sense of self is not given in advance of writing, and that the self is not a necessary pre-requisite with which to begin. Instead, the self comes into being during the process of writing. When I thought of Lola on my own, there were many things I could no longer remember. When they [her friends] were listening, everything came back to me. I learned from their staring eyes how to read what was in my head. (Müller 1998, 35)

Müller writes, then receives the words, allowing the writing to impose its own logic on her. It is not that the world is determining what language says about it. It is language which speaks. The language the writer writes speaks the writer, we are all of us spoken by language—by this, I mean language in its broadest sense, not just linguistically, but culturally, socially, historically and bodily. It is a process which in itself is neither positive nor negative; it can happen under conditions of interrogation: Get dressed, said Captain Pjele. It was as though I was putting on what had been written down, so that the piece of paper would be naked when I was once again dressed. (Müller 1998, 135–6)

Even truth, that most intimate of values sheltered in the conventional conception of inner freedom, is not immune from these processes of formation. For those for whom inner freedom is there from the start, truth is the principal motive force of their voice. For Müller, truth is invented by the voices she writes, for truth is found in the endless colloquy of words. [Literature] can—and this is in hindsight—use language to invent a truth that shows what happens in us and around us when values become derailed. (Müller 2009c) The sound of the words, along with the truth this sound invents, resides at the interface, where the deceit of the materials and that of the gestures come together. In writing, it is not a matter of trusting, but rather of the honesty of the deceit. (Müller 2009b, 8)

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Müller’s writing invents not just singular truths, but entire scenes of truth, where the material of life is rearranged and reconfigured so that truth can emerge differently. Liiceanu appeals to a “purity” of language. He can only do so because he believes it is given in advance, naturally as it were, and that he knows what pure language is, and, moreover, that he can write it, that he is in possession of it. He claims, of course, that the books he, and other “resisters through culture,” the so-called Păltiniș School, wrote and published under communism were not contaminated by or prostituted to the phrasings of the communist party and its abuse of language. In this way, they assert that they did not become complicit with communism even if the communist regime censored their books before permitting them to be published. This purity, the argument goes, exists through inner freedom, it is intrinsic. Along with this comes the idea that the purpose of language is to give expression to this purity. But if purity were intrinsic, then it would be in no need of expression or materiality—that is, language—at all. Any speaking out if it will be a corruption of that purity. But this separation of thought from materiality, from language, is a false separation. There is no such thing as a non-­ relational, pre-linguistic “pure” thought, or an inner self waiting to come out and show the truth of its freedom.

Retreat, Responsivity There is an argument that inner freedom is derivative. Hannah Arendt makes it in her 1960 essay “What is freedom?”: The experiences of inner freedom are derivative in that they always presuppose a retreat from the world, where freedom was denied, into an inwardness to which no other has access. (Arendt 1968, 146; my emphasis)

It is something the Czech dissident writer Ivan Klíma, for instance, experienced productively: “a man begins to think through what freedom means for him only when he loses it, and it can also happen that, quite unexpectedly, he gains an inner freedom” (Klíma, in Skilling 1982, 76). If inner freedom is gained after the denial of one’s external freedom then it

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is derivative. Being-with-others is what gives freedom in the external sense, and we are with others only in and through language. Language is dependent on others, not selves. Any thinking we might call our “own” comes after the fact of being-with-others. This is why it is so important to defend the freedoms of assembly and of expression. Freedom of thought, freedom of expression, these come with participation in language. The inner becomes a space in which to defend language when it is threatened outwardly. But what one finds in this inner space is not oneself in one’s purity, or purely oneself and no one else, or pure language at all, one finds one’s collocation with others, with all the contamination this brings. It may be a place of one’s own to where no one else can follow you if you don’t want them to, but that does not make the space pure. At the very least, that space will be haunted. Arendt is quite right, we would know nothing of the space of inner freedom had we not “first experienced a condition of being free as a worldly tangible reality” (Arendt 1968, 148; my emphasis). She even goes as far as to say that inner freedom is “the very opposite” of what she terms political freedom and that because it is without outer manifestation it is “politically irrelevant” (Arendt 1968, 146). Here I hesitate to agree with Arendt. In my view, it is the derivative character of inner freedom, what I call its responsivity, which is its power, its political power. What inner freedom as a space offers is the possibility of beginning again. Beginning not ex nihilo, but beginning from what we might say is a more proper place than the one dictated by the conditions under which one retreats. In The Origins of Totalitarianism, Arendt identifies inner freedom with action: “Freedom as an inner capacity of man is identical with the capacity to begin” (Arendt 1958, 473). But I would rather say, begin again. All thinking is a thinking again, a re-thinking, and is responsive. Inner freedom makes this explicit, inner freedom is the name for the act of retreating from the material world into one’s thinking in order to begin again, or it is the response to the denial of the material conditions for freely expressing oneself or assembling with whom we might want to associate. But a retreat from or a denial of such material conditions is not the denial of materiality. Indeed, one might say that to be imprisoned is to be ever more subject to the materiality of condition. Under these

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circumstances, inner freedom would be to create or try and create a space within these to think. If, as Arendt puts it, inner freedom is a capacity “identical with the capacity to begin,” it is because that capacity is a space, the making of a space under, and within, the conditions that pertain. It is not a space absent of other voices. Even if the only voice we can hear is the “inner” voice of the call of conscience, well, the call of conscience is not purely one’s own voice either. One’s own voice is heteronomously constituted. What makes one’s conscience singular is that it calls only me, no one else. Or at least, I am the one who hears it, or better still feels it. This does not make the voice itself pure. There is no voice, not even one’s conscience, which is not constituted through discourse with others, and this brings with it a constitutive contamination. The “inner” thought, then, is heterogeneous. The idea that one’s thinking or one’s language or one’s conscience is pure is a dogma, a metaphysical presupposition. Could Liiceanu perhaps refine his presupposed inner freedom, then, from inner “freedom to,” freedom to think, freedom to believe, to inner “freedom from”? That is, inner freedom from being made to think something I do not wish to think, inner freedom from being forced to believe what I do not believe or renounce what I have always believed/what I believe to be true? No, not if he is implying that one comes to these beliefs, this truth, before any social or cultural or historical interaction with others in language. You cannot get out of the fact that your capacity to think at all comes from language, and that language comes with being-­ with-­others. Moreover, it ignores correlative problems which come with the dogmatism of an inner freedom, for example, self-censorship, or inner emigration. If you believe that your inner freedom is a guaranteed defence against succumbing to self-censorship then you are mistaken. The insidiousness of how oppression enforces or obliges a censoring of the self is not just the difficulty of admitting it—a very real difficulty if you are convinced of the veracity of inner freedom—but the difficulty of being able to spot it, to identify it in the first place (see, for example, Blandiana 2015). It is clear from the Diary that there was a retreat in “resistance through culture,” a retreat from protest, from “speaking out.” In May 1981, Noica implores Pleșu not to publish an essay he has written, “The rigors of the national idea and the legitimacy of the universal” (Pleșu 1981), because

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it would risk another form of impurity, “the impurity of the spectacle,” concealed within the gesture of speaking out. Noica asks, if your starting point is a primacy of culture, then I can ask you: What do you prefer? A fulfilled cultural destiny? Or one which is broken in the sublimity of a moment’s demonstration? (Noica in Liiceanu 2000, 177)

In Noica there is a retreat from the people, in favour of transcendence over them. Exposure to the people would appear to be a hindrance to the development of what Noica calls the “vaster mind” [un spirit mai vast]. He of the “vaster mind” has a responsibility towards the culture rather than to the seductions of public life. Rather than risk one’s own advancement to produce a momentary gesture in the form of a public protest— “just as in every beautiful woman there is a seduction which provokes a false need for love in you”—it is the “vaster responsibility” (răspunderea mai vastă) of the intellectual to preserve undisturbed the silence of his “fertile somnambulism” (178). Not only did these men, and unsurprisingly they were all men, not speak out, but there is a mocking tone taken towards those who protest. Liiceanu reports Noica to have criticised Michel Foucault for “keeping in step with the student and tiers état fashion for protest,” describing Foucault’s Surveiller et punir as “an emanation of an obsession in which the West is living at present: the obsession with denouncing oppression wherever it is to be found” (Noica in Liiceanu 2000, 65; my emphasis). Liiceanu’s and Noica’s choice was instead for the “comfort” of keeping silent, staying in the shadows, not protesting, and promulgating amongst themselves the spiritual values that would enable them to find, paradoxically, “the paradise of culture here,” in hell (Liiceanu 2000, 204). Yet there is in Noica the acknowledgement that the “vaster mind” can only be in relation to an other. His notion of the “enlarged self ” [sinele lărgit], the self which has overcome the ego, is a mind which has passed from the individual to a mind which has integrated others, “even the other, the adversary” (Noica in Liiceanu 2000, 71). But there is no account of how this might be achieved beyond the act of thought. Or prayer (Noica 2018).

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The Complicit Silence of Spiritual Purification Liiceanu and Noica would be fundamentally opposed to the heteronomy being outlined here. “The beginning should not need a conjunction (‘and’),” says Noica (Liiceanu 2000, 82). Their conception of the subject is the self-sufficiency of the one. Inner freedom as pure and singular. Their conception of philosophy too is the self-sufficiency of the one. There is no outside from which it may be entered, at least no material outside with which it might share and divide its questions. There is an outside, and only one outside, and that is theology. Not art, not literature, just theology (Noica in Liiceanu 2000, 24). A language of “purification” runs throughout The Păltiniş Diary, not just a purification of language and of culture, but a moralistic elitism which favours those who are “untainted” for the honour of being initiated in such culture. The purification in toto is celebrated as a purificatio spiritualis (Liiceanu 2000, 117, 201). This is precisely what made the book appealing soon after the fall of communism, where it was seen by some as a sign of “the collective conscience of the forces of light in the country” (Deletant 2015, originally 1995). By his own admission, Liiceanu and the other resisters through culture did not speak out, they remained in the shadows, they negotiated with the Romanian Secret Police [Securitate] and state censors over which cuts should be made to the book, yet still they can be perceived by others, after the fact, to have formed a “collective conscience.” Why? Because of the “spiritual” values promulgated by them. It does not occur to those who see in this work a spiritual purification to ask How did the book manage to be published in the first place, in what Liiceanu describes as “the Hell” of Ceaușescu’s Romania? It does not occur to them to wonder whether the values espoused by it might have been useful to the repressive regime. Instead, those spiritual values went so far as to afford these resisters “comfort of the mind,” “the chance to live more authentically, closer, that is, to the human essence”; it was even “the ‘blessing of Romania’” (Liiceanu 2000, 204). In the realm of “the spirit,” so often identified with that of inner freedom, the mind is awakened not by colloquy with others, nor by a relation between two, but in the singular encounter with a culture that must now be retrieved, a very particular

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culture, laden with specific values, supported by the transcendental “outside” that theology treats of. Liiceanu’s was the time-worn fallacy of believing in the possibility of the transcendent made concrete, “the supra-­ individual... concrete universal” (Liiceanu 2000, 3). In two entries in the Diary from 1980, Liiceanu touches on the censorship of his work. He was in discussion with George Ivașcu, editor of various journals and director of România Literară, the Writers’ Union magazine, and therefore censor. In an account of suppressions made by Ivașcu to an essay he wrote on Andrei Pleșu—another resister through culture (Pleșu 2010)—suppressions accepted by Liiceanu as well as some made without his knowledge, Liiceanu remarks about the deletion of the words “in which the author himself learned to keep silence” from the phrase “There followed six years in which the author himself learned to keep silence...” (Liiceanu 2000, 136; see also 105–6). He describes the silence he was referring to as “an autodidactic principle, a necessary step... of spiritual regeneration.. when you must keep silence” (Liiceanu 2000, 137). But the reason that the words were cut, thinks Liiceanu, is because the phrase is polysemic and could also imply other sorts of silence, for instance, silence as “a form of dignity of the mind, a form of protest... when those around you are speaking too much and unworthily,” where “failing to keep silence... means participating in the spread of the immorality of the word” (Liiceanu 2000, 137). It is surely this kind of silence that Liiceanu advocates. Censorship of it, for Liiceanu, is a symptom of a pathology, which he characterises as “a particular case of heteronomy; a society ends up relating to culture exactly as people in general relate to nature: by interventions which permanently upset its autonomous feedback systems,” by which he means that censorship inhibits criticism, the “self-consciousness” of culture, as if culture’s natural selection is determined purely inwardly, and not responsively to an outer other (Liiceanu 2000, 138–9). Culture, then, is essentially self-criticising, and cannot brook criticism from outwith without risking impurity. But the “outside” being denied here is not just communism, it is the people. There is no democratic space in the Diary. Politics is suppressed. No dissenting voices are permitted. Who is given a voice is decided in advance, by the elitist culture being vouchsafed to the selected young men being tutored. This

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community is singular, unified, and premised on an ideal order which denies the political and eschews any form of politics. It is purified of any politics. Politics does not happen anywhere other than in a space of visibility, and Liiceanu and Noica preferred invisibility. And invisibility, as Foucault points out in the book mocked by Noica, is the friend and ally of disciplinary regimes: “Disciplinary power… is exercised through its invisibility, at the same time it imposes on those whom it subjects a principle of compulsory visibility” (Foucault 1979, 187). Communism too sought to put an end to politics, to deny politics any visibility, whilst making people maximally visible for surveillance. “Not speaking out” can only aid communism in this. “Speaking out” is about making repression visible, making it visible to others, making a space for others, for the other hitherto unseen and unheard. The silencing of “speaking out” is at best the privatisation of political space, at worst complicit with the authoritarian suppression of it. Liiceanu falls somewhere in between. He shares with communism the intent to decide what should count as speaking correctly, what the proper of language is, and who is qualified to speak it. “Resistance through culture” is no less the policing of language than communism is. They are competing authoritarianisms. But as with any other form of truth, the truths it espoused are contaminated by the means by which they are expressed. I find myself in agreement with Lavinia Stan, when she describes Liiceanu as a leading “gatekeeper” of who should count as a dissident, in particular whether Herta Müller should count as one. Stan characterises such a “gatekeeper” as invariably and inevitably male, and argues that Liiceanu sought to undermine Müller because of her opposition to “resistance through culture” (Stan 2014). I would go further, I would argue that the likes of Liiceanu were self-appointed intellectual-­ controllers who, under communism, were deciding who, after communism, should count as a member of various social, political and cultural groups, including dissidents and collaborators, but not limited to them. They were gatekeepers to language, to what counted as pure language and who counted as proper speakers of that language. In short, they were gatekeepers of an entire national-spiritual linguistic culture, a culture both male-authored and male-authorised, one which was prepared under communism, gained legitimacy after the fall of communism, and is being dissented, resisted and fought over in

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the present day of its aftermath. I should like to argue that “resistance through culture” is a precursor to the illiberal forms of democracy being put into place today in certain increasingly authoritarian states in Eastern Europe, those states seeking to impose certain naturalised values under the pretext of “identity politics” or “culture wars” or “clash of civilisations” or “gender freedom,” those same states which are intent on silencing dissent.

Inner Freedom as a Space for Thinking Again The language of the oppressor is not just the voice of suppression, it is the very deed of it. As Herbert Marcuse rightly states, language not only defines the one condemned, it creates her (Marcuse 1969, 74). But the means of suppression is at once the means of resistance to it and the chance of liberation from it. If we can rid ourselves of the belief in any purity to language, or any pure internal space in which it might originate, then we can get rid of the naturalness of language. If there is no truth uncontaminated by the means by which it is articulated, then the capacity of language to resist will reside in the voices best able to use it and take advantage of it and invent better truths. If we take inner freedom to be a space which is formed in language, then we can imagine it as a space in which thinking can begin again, and appreciate why literature and philosophy might show us how. Thinking, for the Păltiniș School, only ever originates in the purity of inner freedom. But this metaphysics of origination and propriety does not do justice to thinking, whether it be thinking under conditions of freedom or its denial. Inner freedom is neither the place where thinking originates, nor the repository of a set of timeless and given values governing it. Thinking is always a thinking again, a re-thinking. Each human being is a way of spacing the world and its givenness. Inner freedom is a partition of this spacing. Inner freedom is a place in language where one can go, or where one is forced to go, to retrieve thinking. It is the space where we can rearrange and rejoin things and words differently than how we are told to accept them by those who seek to tell us what to think, it is where we can begin to question how things

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and persons have been put in their place, it is the site where we can begin to resist how we have been taken apart as a self, it is where language can begin again to reform our subjectivity. But this can only be done by speaking out, whether that means in dialogue, on paper, or by protest. Inner freedom is given in discourse. Even the Păltiniș School, as its name implies, was a place where groups of men met to exchange, read and discuss each other’s ideas. Or in other words, where thinking took place in writing and in dialogue. Noica seems to recognise this, even if Liiceanu seems not to have experienced the struggle with the ideas they shared that must inevitably ensue: “The problem is not so much ‘to think your thought’ as to live your thought… the risk of cultural literacy being existential illiteracy” (Noica in Liiceanu 2000, 97–8). Inner freedom can be construed as a space partitioned by battles fought regarding ideas and beliefs, by dominant forces seeking to police and repress, by impulses to resist and reform and begin again, and by feelings which can drive one to dissent what is imposed upon one or presumed to be given. Inner freedom is a site partitioned by all of these things, by sensible and insensible actions and conflicts perceptible and imperceptible to the bodily senses. But it is a fallacy to believe that any of this happens outside of language. On the contrary, it is what language gives form to. Writing, in severing the representational and causal link between language and objects and from any function of language to represent the truth of things or facilitate knowledge of them, allows us to see language as that by which we see things and think about them. Literature has the power to show how spaces of the inner become partitioned, how the outer is both a constraint upon the inner, under conditions of repression and being told what to think, and a freeing of it, in the sense that the words it forms and the creative acts it invents give us the chance to rethink and reform our selves. Writing and discourse is where we struggle with ourselves and wrestle with our conscience, and where we try and come up with something that will make a difference to the repressive conditions under which we find ourselves. It should be obvious, then, why it is so crucially important to defend the freedoms of expression and of association. For those who believe, like Liiceanu, that inner freedom is the originating space of creation, writing is merely the expression of the inner. For

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Müller, the inner is both constituted by writing, and where one receives what writing gives the writer. It is formed by what writing has to say, by what it has in mind: “man muß ihr jedesmal aufs neue ablauschen, was sie im Sinn hat” (Müller 2003, 39; my emphasis). Inner freedom in this sense is the space where the relation between the inside and the outside is reconfigured. Where the relation between words and things, and bodies and their words, are reformed according to a freeing of the causal link between inside and outside. Where the idealised inner freedom of Liiceanu would not question the logic of the interrelation between the inside and the outside, the kind of inner freedom created by Müller throws it into question. Where the purity of the inner and the impurity of the outer, and the opposition between them, go unquestioned in Liiceanu, Müller’s writing pushes both into an impurifying relation, the better to dissent the logic of the given under repression. Making the notion of “inner freedom” something of value in the lives of others does not hinge on whether it is of the “essence” of human being, or an “essential” component of the metaphysical conception of the human subject. Inner freedom is a felt need, which is intensified by totalitarianism. It is defended because the totalitarian regime or the authoritarian leader seeks to penetrate the mind of the human being in order to subject it to a certain way of thinking or not thinking, in order to control the minds of human beings. Inner freedom can be a powerful defence against such forced incursions. The language of inner freedom is a compelling way of responding with a form of words which gives shape to the need to resist. But it is response, not origin. There may well be a philosophical confusion at play in invoking it, but that in no way delegitimises it as a form of defence against authoritarianism. Inner freedom in such cases—the case, say, of Pussy Riot’s Maria Alyokhina, who, in her closing remarks to the judge at her show-trial in the Moscow Khamovniki District Court in 2012, that is just before she is led away to incarceration, said “nobody can take away my inner freedom” (Alyokhina 2012)—is a way of speaking out. Such appeals to inner freedom are uttered in defiance of the regime which tries to dictate thought or which incarcerates those who think otherwise than how the regime dictates. Inner freedom is something that Alyokhina and every other prisoner of conscience carries with them into their prison cell, creating another space within

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carceral space. It may be carried into the cell in the knowledge that others have gone before armed with the space of inner freedom, and that others will come after similarly so-armed, but this is merely to say that a co-­ dependency between resisting human beings can be established in the solidarity of language, where all are experiencing the denial of freedom in the same shared inner space divided by that shared space of denial of outward freedom. Coming to see inner freedom as an after-the-fact construction in language is the best chance we can give ourselves of resisting those powers and regimes which seek to oppress freedom of thought. Freedom of thought is achieved through expression. Inner freedom is given in somehow speaking it out. This is what makes so pernicious a philosophy which invokes inner freedom as a reason not to speak out.1

Note 1. An earlier, shorter version of this chapter was presented to the Society for Romanian Studies Annual Conference, Borders and Transfers, Universitatea de Vest, Timișoara, June 2022.

References Alyokhina, Maria. 2012. “Closing remarks.” Translated by Marijeta Bozovic, Maksim Hanukai, and Sasha Senderovich. n+1 magazine(August): https:// nplusonemag.com/online-­only/online-­only/pussy-­riot-­closing-­statements/. Arendt, Hannah. 1958. “Ideology and Terror: A Novel Form of Government.” In The Origins of Totalitarianism, revised edition, 460–79. Cleveland: Meridian Books. Arendt, Hannah. 1968. “What is Freedom?” In Between Past and Future: Eight Exercises in Political Thought, 143–71. New York: The Viking Press. Blandiana, Ana. 2015. “La ce bun poeţii în vremuri de restrişte?” [What good are poets in hard times?] Vatra (23 September): https://revistavatra. org/2015/09/23/la-­ce-­bun-­poetii-­in-­vremuri-­de-­restriste/. Deletant, Dennis. 2015. Ceauşescu and the Securitate: Coercion and Dissent in Romania 1965–1989. London: Routledge.

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Foucault, Michel. 1979. Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison. Translated by Alan Sheridan. New York: Vintage Books. Klíma, Ivan. 1982. “Variations on eternal themes.” Listy, XII (3–4) July, 30–31; quoted in Skilling, 76–7. Liiceanu, Gabriel. 2000. The Păltiniş Diary: A Paideic Model in Humanist Culture. Translated by James Christian Brown. Budapest: Central European University Press. Liiceanu, Gabriel. 2010. “Replici în Absența Hertei.” Interviu cu Ramona Avramescu. [Replies in the absence of Herta. Interview with Ramona Avramescu] Ultima Ediţie [Last edition, TV programme], TVR. 3 October. Marcuse, Herbert. 1969. An Essay in Liberation. Boston: Beacon Press. Müller, Herta. 1989. “This is Our Fatherland.” Interview with Ceclile Rolin for Amnesty International, Index on Censorship, 8. 29. Müller, Herta. 1998. The Land of Green Plums (originally Herztier, 1993). Translated by Michael Hofmann. London: Granta Books. Müller, Herta. 2003. Der König verneigt sich und tötet. Munich & Vienna: Hanser. Müller, Herta. 2009a. “Language with Different Eyes.” Interview with Maria Griehsel. Translated by Gloria Custance: https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/ literature/2009/muller/interview/. Müller, Herta. 2009b. “Every Word Knows Something of a Vicious Circle,” Nobel lecture. Translated by Philip Boehm. Stockholm City Hall, Sweden: https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/literature/2009/muller/lecture/. Müller, Herta. 2009c. “Nobel Banquet Speech.” Stockholm City Hall, Sw e d e n : h t t p s : / / w w w. n o b e l p r i z e . o r g / p r i z e s / l i t e r a t u r e / 2 0 0 9 / muller/25758-­herta-­muller-­banquet-speech-2009/. Müller, Herta. 2010a. “Literatura nu acuză, cînd scrii tendenţios nu faci literatură.” [Literature doesn’t accuse, when you write tendentiously you are not doing literature] Interviu cu Ovidiu Şimonca, Observator Cultural, 543, (24 September): https://www.observatorcultural.ro/articol/literatura-­nu-­acuzacind-scrii-­tendentios-­nu-­faci-­literatura/. Müller, Herta. 2010b. “Scriitorii români erau prea încurcaţi cu dictatura.” [Romanian writers were too involved with the dictatorship] Interviu cu Sabina Fati, România liberă(15 September): https://romanialibera.ro/special/ scriitorii-­romani-­erau-­prea-­incurcati-­cu-­dictatura-­199678/. Müller, Herta. 2012a. The Appointment, A Novel (originally Heute wär ich mir lieber nicht begegnet, 1997). Translated by Michael Hulse and Philip Boehm. New York: Metropolitan Books.

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Müller, Herta. 2012b. The Hunger Angel (originally Atemschaukel, 2009). Translated by Philip Boehm. New York: Metropolitan Books. Müller, Herta. 2016. The Fox Was Ever the Hunter (originally Der Fuchs war damals schon der Jäger, 1992). Translated by Philip Boehm. New  York: Metropolitan Books. Müller, Herta and Liiceanu, Gabriel. 2010. “In Conversation.” Romanian Athenaeum, Bucharest. https://youtu.be/ekG07e9sURA. Transcribed and edited as “When Personal Integrity is not Enough: language and dissidence.” Translated by Monica Mircescu. Eurozine (26 May 2011): https://www.eurozine.com/when-­personal-­integrity-­is-­not-­enough/. Noica, Constantin. 2018. Pray for Brother Alexander (originally Rugați-vă pentru fratele Alexandru, 1964/1990). Translated by Octavian Gabor. Punctum Books. Pleșu, Andrei. 1981. “Rigorile ideii naţionale și legitimitatea universalului.” Secolul 20 (1–3), 189–196. Pleșu, Andrei. 2010. “Rezistenţa prin cultură.” [Resistance through culture] Dilema veche, 348 (October): https://dilemaveche.ro/sectiune/situatiunea/ articol/rezistenta-­prin-­cultura. Pleșu, Andrei and Michnik, Adam. 2011. “The Logic of Accusation has no End.” Translated by Monica Mircescu. Eurozine (25 May): https://www. eurozine.com/the-­logic-­of-­accusation-­has-­no-end/. Skilling, H Gordon. 1982. Samizdat and an Independent Society in Central and Eastern Europe. Basingstoke: The Macmillan Press Ltd. Stan, Lavinia. 2014. “Women as Anti-communist Dissidents and Secret Police Collaborators.” In Genre and the (Post-)Communist Woman: Analyzing Transformations of the Central and Eastern European Female Ideal, edited by Florentina C. Andreescu and Michael Shapiro, 80–97. London: Routledge.

8 The Rhetoric of Albanian Insurgency: Communism and Anti-Communism in Kosovo Henrique Schneider

Introduction Ku është shpata është feja! Where the sword is, there lies the religion, goes the saying in Albanian, at least in one of its versions. This statement is often taken as an indicator for the Albanian propensity of negotiating identity, being able to adapt to several sociopolitical environments, in which Albanians historically have played the role of a minority (e.g. Doja 2000). Implied in the saying is another meaning: While an Albanian can play along belonging to some faith, or indeed, some polity, this is really nothing more than a mere pretence. Below the surface, the Albanian is and remains Albanian. There are several problems with interpreting this saying, especially its more essentialist version. Yet, it points at the multi-textualism in the rhetoric of Albanian identity. Multi-textualism is especially present in the rhetoric of regionalism, independentism, or nationalism of Kosovo-­ Albanians in Yugoslavia and later. The Kosovo-Albanian multi-textualism

H. Schneider (*) Nordakademie University of Applied Sciences, Elmshorn, Germany e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 E. Wohl, E. Păcurar (eds.), Language of the Revolution, Palgrave Studies in Languages at War, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-37178-3_8

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employs, or is full of, linguistic idealisation, metaphoric language, doublespeak, and changes in register. The focus of this paper is, therefore, the use, structure, and after-effect of political rhetoric of Kosovo-Albanians in Yugoslavia and how it relates to the Kosovo War of 1998–99 and its aftermath. In particular, we will demonstrate how multi-textualism plays a role—exemplified by a rhetorical commitment to communism, and then anti-communism—to advance a completely different goal, namely, the fulfilment of regionalist, independentist, or nationalist aspirations. The level of analysis pursued here is Kosovo-wide majoritarian politics-at-large. Some disclaimers are in order: First, no normative value is attached to the concepts of regionalism, independentism, or nationalism. They refer to the wish of Kosovo-Albanians to steer what they consider to be their polity, which can happen in an independent body or as an entity confederated with others. Second, there is no exclusive claim of multi-­textualism being specifically Albanian or Kosovar. Third, there is no essentialist interpretation of any cultural trait discussed here. Fourth, there is not even a generalisation being made to include all Kosovo-Albanians or all Albanians into the level of agency considered here. Fifth, the object at hand is the Albanian majority in Kosovo. Therefore, little will be said about other self-identified groups and other geographical areas. Finally, the standard names in English are used here. If there is no such standard, the Albanian term will be used for convenience. The remainder of this text is structured as follows. A first section briefly sets up the historical context being analysed here, that is, the political situations of Kosovo-Albanians in Kosovo during Yugoslavia and after. The second section investigates the regionalist, independentist, or nationalist rhetoric. It is subdivided into three phases: from 1968 to 1981, from 1981 to 1999, and from 1999 to the present—the dates were chosen according to important turning points in the recent history of Kosovo, which will be explained later in this text. The third section draws conclusions from the analysis conducted. The reason for this structure is twofold. First, it provides a general overview of the Kosovo-Albanian politics, which is needed, to understand the chronological sequencing of events. Second, the chronology allows to explain how the Kosovo-Albanian narrative changes over time.

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Special attention will be drawn to the dynamic of the rhetoric employed by Kosovo-Albanians; them being able to incorporate new elements and to react to changes in the overall political landscape, namely, using and changing their majoritarian political standing towards communism to advance regionalist, independentist, or nationalist aspirations.

Kosovo-Albanians in Yugoslavia and After On the one hand, and at least on paper, but also credibly in the heads and hearts of many agents, Yugoslavia aspired to create brotherhood and unity among its member nations and their peoples (Sekulic et al. 1994). Yugoslavia, here, is understood as the political entity existing from 1945 to 2003 and the name Yugoslavia is used to refer to the Federal People’s Republic of Yugoslavia as well as to the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia. In this entity, there was an expectation that a shared political agenda, communism or socialism— both will be understood, here, under communism—and the modernisation of the society would weaken nationalism as a political force, eventually converting the people in Yugoslavia into Yugoslavs. Several vectors were identified by the political leadership and specific policies were pursued to transform the people accordingly. Urban residents, the young, those from nationally mixed parentage, communist party members, and persons from minority nationalities (sometimes also, but erroneously, called ethnic minorities) in their respective republics were among those most likely to identify as Yugoslavs (Sekulic et al. 1994). On the other hand, in order to mobilise political resources, the Yugoslav communists catered to nationalism, using it to appeal to different groups of people. Already in 1923, the Communist Party of Yugoslavia released a statement in which it confirmed the party’s duty to “help the movements of oppressed nations in their goals of creating independent states: Croatia, Slovenia, Macedonia, Montenegro, as well as the liberation of the Albanians” (Rajović 1985, 85). Similarly, in 1942, Tito declared that the Party would “never depart from the principles stated by Lenin and Stalin, which is the right of every nation to self-determination” (Lee 1983, 77). Most commentators at that time thought this to include

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Albanians in Yugoslavia as well (Lee 1983). In Yugoslav practice, however, this principle proved more difficult to implement. With a grain of salt, and following Sörensen (2009), the policies of Yugoslavia towards Kosovo-Albanians were broadly a mix of inclusion and exclusion, co-option and oppression, decentralisation, that is, allowing a build-up of local political representation, and centralisation under Serbia. Especially in the first decades and after the mid-1980s, oppression was the norm. Albanians were viewed as a problem in a state of south Slavs, as lazy, remnants of an old, Ottoman order. In the 1950s and 1960s, Sharia law as well as the veil was suppressed and any vocalisation of nationalism or regionalism was taken as proof for Albanians collaborating with “the enemy,” Albania, or the Bourgeoisie, depending on the appropriate framing. This phase of oppression will not be covered by this chapter. Another time frame of oppressive policies was the 1980s and 1990s. At the time, Kosovo-Albanians were depicted as reactionary, wild, and unable to develop. They were blamed for their economic malaise and for holding back the development of Serbia. This culminated in the internal policies of “handing Kosovo back to Serbs,” so that by 1992, Kosovo was completely segregated along ethnic lines, with Serbs and Kosovo-Serbs in leadership and Kosovo-Albanians in subservient positions (Della Rocca 2015). This later phase was ended by the Kosovo War in 1999, factually separating Kosovo from Serbia, and Yugoslavia. Inclusive policies were developed after the mid-1960s until the beginning of the 1980s. Examples include fast-tracking the careers of Kosovo-Albanians in the Communist Party as well as in state-led organisations, including corporations, or setting up Yugoslav modes of interaction like schools, youth groups, or women’s collectives aimed at attracting Kosovo-Albanians into the Yugoslav way of life. Some other policies aimed at integrating Kosovo into the political structure of Yugoslavia while, at the same time, catering to regionalist tendencies in the Serbian province. Examples are upgrading the status of Kosovo from a region to an autonomous region and then even to an autonomous province of Serbia. Eventually, Kosovar representatives were allowed to vote in Yugoslav political bodies, even if that meant voting independently and against Serbia. From the late 1960s on, Kosovo-Albanians were allowed to use the Albanian flag as their regional

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symbol, to employ the Albanian language in schools and universities, or to sing old and new Albanian anthems (Lee 1983). After the Kosovo War, during the protectorate of the United Nations, and especially after the independence of the country, Kosovo policies became, naturally, inclusive of Albanians. Albanians in Kosovo were active receptors of such policies, adapting to them, but also adapting them to their needs. There are different ways of assessing the agency of Kosovo-Albanians as a group, in terms of their subgroups, as well as individuals, in relation to these policies. Sörensen (2009) or Biberaj (1982) undertake a political analysis; Pipa (1989) looks at this through anthropological lenses; Ströhle (2016) puts an emphasis on the economic situation. These different phases in the relationship between Kosovo-Albanians and Yugoslavia can be symbolically divided by acts of insurgency, which will be used in this paper to mark the phases in which political rhetoric is analysed: Student protests mark the transition of phases in Yugoslavia, and the Kosovo War indicates the transition after Yugoslavia. Students took to the streets of Kosovo’s capital Pristina in 1968. As a result, Yugoslavia’s policies became at the same time more inclusive towards Albanians and tougher on public dissenters. This liberalism came to an end after the mass protests of 1981, during which students demanded a full republic status for Kosovo and some openly dreamed of independence (compare Hetemi 2020). The new phase of oppression came to an end with the Kosovo War in 1999. In the period leading up to the war, Kosovo-Albanian political agency was split between two alternative strategies, one that followed the internationalisation of the conflict along with nonviolent opposition to Serbia and another that was based on guerrilla warfare and eventual war for independence. After the war, Kosovo remained a protectorate of the United Nations until its declaration of independence in 2008 (see different accounts in Visoka 2019 or Gashi 2019). During these phases, the rhetoric of Kosovo-Albanian regionalism, independentism, or nationalism changed several times, adapting to the situation. It especially changed its register vis-à-vis its commitment to communism. While still in Yugoslavia, a pro-communist rhetoric was used to advance Kosovo-Albanian regionalism and independentism. On

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the other hand, after 1981 and especially during and after the war, anti-­ communism became the rhetoric key to convey independentist and nationalist messages.

Rhetorical Devices Linguistic markers such as idealisation, metaphor, doublespeak, and change in register show how Kosovo-Albanians adapted their political rhetoric in order to advance their interests in Yugoslavia and after its dissolution. An idealisation is the association of only or overly positive attributes with an idea. For example, referring to “brotherhood” instead of just “sharing the same political entity.” Metaphors compare two things sharing some properties, usually to inspire ideas. Speaking of Yugoslavia as a “family” instead of a “confederation of states” is a metaphor. Doublespeak can be euphemisms, jargon, overly symbolic or inflated language, such as heavily bureaucratic speak, referencing one thing but really conveying a different message. For example, speaking of “devolution of power” but really meaning “segregation.” Finally, changes in register can involve the general types of messages being conveyed, a change in language or dialect, using slang or taboo, playing different levels of formality, or appropriating linguistic properties. For a larger discussion on these linguistic markers compare, among many works on individual aspects of political rhetoric, Wilmer (2004), Krebs and Jackson (2007), or Finlayson (2013). Using the divisions of time as mentioned in the previous section, this section analyses the use of these four linguistic markers in the political rhetoric of Kosovo-Albanians. Special attention is paid to the register “communism versus anti-communism.”

1968–1981 The student protests of 1968 and their political aftermath were characterised by a clearly communist rhetoric. Advancing Albanians’ interests was rhetorically dressed in putting forward communist core values.

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Content-­wise, there was an association with the rights of self-determination, as proclaimed by Lenin and Stalin, as well as an identification of communist equality with the equality of nations and countries. At least in the Kosovo-­Albanian view, communist Albania had the same international standing as Yugoslavia. In line with this, rhetoric used pro-communist, pro-­ Yugoslav, but also pro-Albanian devices to advance the interests of Kosovo-Albanians. At that time, these interests were primarily economic development, cultural liberty, and political representation. Regarding this last interest, there were different aspirations, ranging from regional autonomy to full republic status. On 18 August 1968, Rilindja, the daily newspaper published in Albanian, featured the front-page article “Without Self-Determination, No Equality.” The statement is considered to have inspired Albanian students in Pristina to create the Student Committee, which served as the primary body for organising the 1968 student demonstrations. In terms of idealisations, this period heavily draws on the socialist ideal of equality, interpreting it principally as an equality of nations in Yugoslavia (Hetemi 2020, 79–83). Slogans such as “Albania” and “EHo” (Enver Hoxha) were similar idealisations, referring to a maybe even more communist than Yugoslavia, Albanian communist entity, and leader. According to this idealisation, Albania (which was then still aligned with the Soviet Union) was a fully communist country, whereas Yugoslavia (which had broken off from the Soviet Union) was not. Still in the logic of this idealisation, by becoming more communist, Kosovo would be becoming more Albanian and less Yugoslav. During this time, Kosovo-Albanians used the same metaphors as those deployed by Yugoslavia’s official ideology, for example, the “New Yugoslav Person,” the “Yugoslav Family,” or the “Creation of a New Nation.” Kosovo-Albanians, however, used these metaphors with an anti-Serbian appeal: the more Yugoslav Kosovo and its residents become, the less Serbian they are. Or, in order to escape Serbian rule, Kosovo must become Yugoslav. Similarly, the “new Yugoslav” project was implicitly contrasted against the “old Serbian” order. This is the same structure of doublespeak as contained in the slogans of that time, such as “Down with Revisionism.” In Yugoslavia, Revisionism was identified as the remnant of bourgeois attitudes and the act of re-instating them. It was the Yugoslav communist

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duty to take this down and to propagate the new, communist, project. In the Kosovo-Albanian doublespeak, the term revisionism meant Yugoslavia, or more precisely, Serbia, exercising political power over Kosovo. “Down with Revisionism” was, therefore, the Kosovo-Albanian message of emancipation from Serbia while framing Belgrade as the main motor of counter-Yugoslav interests. This is especially pungent, since it was Serbia that always tried to portray the Albanians in Kosovo as the last remnants of “Turkish” rule (Beqiri 2017). With the increasing inclusion of Kosovo-Albanians in the political establishment, at least in Kosovo, and, to some degree, in Yugoslavia, Kosovo-Albanians started to change the registers of their political rhetoric. Via new institutions such as movies and rock music, regionalist, independentist, or nationalist political stances were communicated more openly and less in line with the communist message. Bands such as Bijelo Dugme, MAX, and TRIX were more open about the aims of Kosovo-­ Albanians, especially republic status or independence. While paying lip service to Yugoslavism and communism, they did not delve into the political programme of planning the economy, giving each what they need to live, or propagating a world revolution. With time, they ditched communist pretence altogether, and by the mid-1980s, sang songs such as “Microphone: Break up Once and for All.” Some rock bands and movie-makers even advanced a different kind of idealisation, for example, folk or mass culture as a return to the Oda. This was a private room, in which men sat in a circle exchanging their knowledge and discussing the matters of social life. In this idealisation, the Oda was stylised as a particularly Albanian institution of exchange and self-governance. As a pre-Yugoslav political institution, the idealisation of the Oda was especially un-communist and particularistic Albanian (Krasniqi 2011).

1981–1999 The change in register on the side of Kosovo-Albanians became more intensive, as in the 1980s, Serbia began drawing Kosovo-Albanians back and segregating society, favouring Serbs and Kosovo-Serbs at the expense of others. In 1981, students took again to the streets demanding the end

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of Serbian repression and especially the republic status in Yugoslavia. Some went as far as advocating independence or a union with Albania. As mentioned above, while in the long decade in which Kosovo-Albanians were treated with more inclusive policies, the official dissidents faced harsh punishments. Also, Yugoslavia did not directly address the demands of the 1968 protests nor engage with its leaders. Kosovo Albanians spoke metaphorically of an “open wound” that was left unattended. Extending the metaphor, this open wound became infected in 1981 (Ramet 1981; Rajović 1985). A contemporary journalist narrates: The failure of the Yugoslav authorities to institute, after the first demonstrations in 1968, some kind of procedure of reconciliation with young Albanian dissidents has both sharpened the latter’s economic, political and social grievances and intensified their nationalism. The mass arrests and trials of 1981 are likely to have much the same effect. The danger is that unless the current policy of instant repression is replaced by a humane, intelligent and continuous process of reconciliation, Kosovo could easily become an area of permanent conflict akin to the Basque troubles in Spain or the Arab-Israeli tension on the West Bank! (Logoreci 1982, 40)

With the emancipation of Kosovo-Albanians in the 1970s, their register began to change, becoming more conscientiously regionalist, independentist, or nationalist and paying less and less lip service to communism. During the protests in 1981, the change became even clearer. The demands for autonomy, freedom, and Albanianism were not masked in the usual communist phraseology employed before—they were bluntly stated. The League of Communists of Kosovo, noticing this change, publicly condemned the protests, calling their instigators anti-­ Yugoslavs, anti-Communists, Revisionists, and Bourgeois. This is especially ironic, since the League of Communists of Kosovo, while being a communist and Yugoslav institution was, at that time still, Kosovo-­ Albanian led and itself trying to advance Kosovo-Albanian interests, but rhetorically using the communist register (Gashi 2019; Clark 2000). While Serbia and the official Yugoslavia as well as its League of Communists used the protest and its aftermath to reign down on Kosovo-­ Albanians, the Kosovo-Albanians continued changing registers. As in the

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1980s, some periodicals and authors started to use the Albanian Gheg dialect as the basis for their writing, and not the Albanian standard, which was also valid in Yugoslavia and is based on Tosk; many took this change in register to be a clear marker of independentism having arrived as the main goal of Kosovo-Albanians (Pipa 1989). As Serbian oppression continued, Kosovo-Albanians migrated their institutions such as schools, hospitals, political bodies, into the underground, instituting a “parallel state” (Pula 2004). The Kosovo-Albanian political leadership split between two strategies on how to deal with the Serbian and Yugoslav policies after 1981—each strategy with its own rhetoric. One strategy was the pacifist movement of the Democratic League of Kosovo, led by Ibrahim Rugova. Relying heavily on rituals—gifting foreign dignitaries with crystals—showcasing Kosovo-Albanian’s Catholicism in order to appeal to a shared European identity, and self-stylising as an ascetic defender of non-violent opposition, Rugova’s strategy aimed at internationalising the conflict, pushing international powers—the USA, the European Union— to intervene in the situation (Clark 2000). In this strategy, too, idealisation played an important role. Rugova declared Kosovo independent from Serbia and let himself be elected president, even without the most basic infrastructure to govern. While being a tactic for internationalisation—foreign powers do not interfere in a country’s domestic problems—it was also an idealisation geared at the Kosovar people, insinuating that under self-determination, they would be able to manage themselves and get economically, culturally, and socially better. The “West” and the “international community” were projected as responsible, mighty stabilisers, and friends of the Kosovo-Albanians. In light of these idealisations, the more intensive was the disappointment, as the peace conference in Rambouillet not only did not produce a solution for Kosovo but even failed in addressing the Kosovar President as such (see the many contributions in Bieber and Daskalosvki 2003). Metaphors were an integral part of Rugova’s strategy. In order to mobilise sympathy, but also political capital, he self-styled as a leader akin to the Indian pacifist Mahatma Gandhi. Rugova’s appearance became more and more ascetic, he employed the vocabulary of non-violence and let himself be metaphorically identified as “the Kosovar Gandhi” (Salla 1995). Furthermore, Rogova also relied on doublespeak. The name of his

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political party, the Democratic League of Kosovo, was supposed to remind people of the League of Prizren of 1878, an Albanian organisation aiming at the emancipation of Albanians under Ottoman Rule. Also, showcasing Catholicism as a religion practised by Kosovo-Albanians and even remaining ambiguous on rumours about his own conversion to the faith of Rome, were rhetorical devices to gain legitimisation among Albanians and international standing (Clark 2000, Salla 1995). There is, however, a double irony, here: the League of Prizren declared itself committed to Islam, which is the supermajority religion of Kosovo-Albanians (Schneider 2016). In any case, Rugova’s strategy employed several devices in political rhetoric—none of them appealed in any way to communism. The more Rugova’s strategy proved ineffectual, the more its alternative gained momentum: Some Kosovo-Albanian groups were increasingly preparing for a guerrilla movement against Serbia. This movement ended in an open war, the Kosovo War of 1998. This strategy was paralleled by a change of register in the political rhetoric of these groups. What first was called a struggle became a call to arms; leaders became commanders, and fighters became soldiers (Judah 2020; Perrit 2010). On the level of idealisation, fighting in the guerrilla and the war became a sacrifice and dying in them became martyrdom. Even the smallest actions became battles and, if won, victories. Smallest guerrilla units became brigades, and their commanders were colonels or generals. The fight for independence itself was called a battle for the future of Albanians in Kosovo and of all Albanians. If victorious, the path for political self-determination, economic flourishing, and cultural emancipation would be just a matter of course (Perritt 2010). The metaphors used for the deployment of this strategy were military- and liberty-oriented. The loose coordination of actions and commanders was titled the Ushtria Çlirimtare e Kosovës UCK, the Kosovo Liberation Army. The war itself was framed as a liberation war. As the military alliance, the North-Atlantic Treaty Organization, or NATO, was drawn into the war; it was referred to as “our air force” (Yang 2003). These idealisations and metaphors were geared at mobilising fellow Kosovo-Albanians to arms, to help with the logistics of war, and to determine/convince the Kosovo-Albanian abroad to donate money. There were, however, also cases in doublespeak, for their other target audience,

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the international community, was to have the impression of dealing with a well-organised and trained, regular army with almost NATO-like chains of command, possessing the military strategy, operational capability, and tactical power necessary to win a war for freedom. All of these properties were missing in the UCK and were not actively sought by its many leaders (Perritt 2010; Judah 2020). Unlike the “president,” Rugova, who remained ambiguous about whether he was a Communist or not, the UCK defined itself as an anti-­ communist force. At least, its leaders did so during the war. For at the inception of the different guerrilla groups converging in the Liberation Army, many of them rhetorically related to Marxism, Marxism-Leninism, or communism-at-large. In all likelihood, this was devoid of the ideology underlying the phraseology and, in a further case of doublespeak, was intended to show/demonstrate the groups’ allegiance to Albania at a time when Enver Hoxha was still celebrating himself as the purest adherent of Marxist-Leninism. In any case, these self-denominations were clearly anti-Serb, which for these groups, was enough ideological glue. The more momentum the strategy of armed conflict gained, the more anti-­ communist UCK’s rhetoric became. Immediately before NATO’s entering the conflict, UCK framed its struggle against Serbia as the West’s last conflict against communism; the last chance to eliminate the communist ideology on the European continent (Perritt 2010; Mulaj 2008). As the war ended, and was perceived as won by Kosovo-Albanians, they rejoiced with the slogan Bac U Kry, “Uncle, it’s over.” The slogan insinuated the end of a long struggle for emancipation and independence to Kosovo-Albanians. To the international community, the logo was supposed to acknowledge that the West won the last, and final, battle against communism. Indirectly pointing at the end of history (Boguslaw 2020).

1999–2008 and Onwards After the war and until its declaration of independence, Kosovo stood under a protectorate by the United Nations (UN). The political rhetoric between the end of the war and independence was marked by changes in register. The initially friendly and cooperative tone used by

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Kosovo-­Albanians in their dealings with the UN degraded. Particularly, following the 2004 riots, political rhetoric became increasingly abrasive. At first, the UN mandate was idealised. Escaping Serbian rule was certainly positive and the UN presence was framed as an inclusion in the community of countries. Its mission was perceived as a force for good, democratisation, and economic development. But Kosovo’s slow progress under UN rule, the UN mission’s extreme bureaucracy—even compared to Yugoslav standards—the corruption of its officers, and its ill-conceived doublespeak of “standards before independence” led to an increasing estrangement of Kosovo-Albanians (for the many problems of the UN mission, see Tansey 2009 and King and Mason 2006). Paralleling the deterioration in the relationship between Kosovo-­ Albanians and the UN, the local political rhetoric started idealising independence and metaphorically downgrading the UN’s mandate. What had once been an ally became an international presence and ultimately a foreign regime. UN officials were called “hakuna matata” by Kosovo-­ Albanian children, insinuating that people from Africa could not bring any expertise to Kosovo. The UN’s (obviously empty) talk of “standards before independence” was deemed tutelage, and later, some political groups started referring to the UN as an occupation. As Kosovo-Albanians forced the international community’s hand to start an independence process and this community thought it wise to negotiate this process with Serbia, the slogan became “Jo negociata, Vetëvendosje,” “no to negotiations, self-determination.” This was the motto of the movement for self-­ determination, the party of Kosovo’s current Prime Minister Albin Kurt. At the time, it was an opposition group, deemed dangerous, and possibly insurgent by the UN and the international community in Kosovo (Schneider and Schneider 2011). This last slogan shows another change in register. Regarding self-determination and independence, doublespeak was not necessary anymore. As Hashim Thaçi, a former UCK commander, became prime minister in 2007 and mentioned his intention of declaring Kosovo’s independence, an Albanian reporter asked him about the position of the UN mission towards this declaration. Thaçi (rightly) dismissed it as “irrelevant” (Schneider 2012). Kosovar independence was celebrated by Kosovo-Albanians with such slogans as newborn and, again, Bac U Kry. Newborn is a case of idealisation. It conveys the idea of a new

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country being given a new chance in life, a re-creation, the possibility, for the first time in history, of self-determined development. A similar idealisation guides—at least, guided—Kosovar politics in aiming membership in the European Union, adopting EU-inspired laws and institutions. These, however, were at the same time idealisations and case studies in doublespeak. Arguably, Kosovo has the most progressive European law on gender equality. It is doubtful, however, how much of it is implemented in practice, especially outside of the cities (Schneider 2016). Continuing doublespeak, Kosovar politics accepts the European Union’s (EU’s) and the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development’s (OECD’s) calls for increasing the autonomy of the municipalities—a process known metaphorically as “decentralisation.” In reality, however, Kosovo only allows the decentralisation of the predominantly Turkish municipality of Mamushë, making it difficult for Kosovo-­ Serb municipalities to attain some degree of official autonomy (Kelmendi and Skendaj 2022). On the metaphorical level, the political parties coming out of the UCK, the Democratic Party of Kosovo (Partia Demokratike e Kosovës) and the Alliance for the Future of Kosovo (Aleanca për Ardhmërinë e Kosovës), framed themselves as “neocon” political entities, implying an alignment with the then–US President George W. Bush. In this neocon framing, the two post-UCK parties were not only aiming at their backing by the Republican US president, they were also playing the anti-­ communist chord. On the one hand, they insinuated that Rugova’s Democratic League of Kosovo (Lidhja Demokratike e Kosovës or LDK) still had a communist allegiance. First, its name was remarkably akin to the League of Communists of Kosovo. Second, and more factual, many ex-communist cadres migrated from their political home to the LDK. On the other hand, the post-UCK parties also used the neocon metaphor to oppose Vetëvendosje. The Self-Determination movement is in content and self-description left-wing, social-democrat, and socialist. The post-­ UCK parties agreed with the international community in treating this movement as potentially dangerous. Additionally, since Vetëvendosje never ruled out the option of a unification of Albania and Kosovo, the neocon framing of post-UCK parties was also an affirmation of political independence and secure borders according to the identity expressed by

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the flag of Kosovo, which features a map of the country. As the US government changed from a Republican to a Democrat president, these parties increasingly adopted the political terms of the middle of the road, in order to return, with Trump’s election, to their self-referencing as neocon and even populist (Krasniqi 2017). While the current government of Kosovo, a coalition of Vetëvendosje and smaller parties, steer away from using the communist-anti-­communist dichotomy as political rhetoric, the locus of this contraposition is migrating from the political arena to the textbooks used in basic and higher education and to the public memory (Tahiri and Hamiti 2020). This change in register, narrating the Kosovo-Albanian fight for emancipation and independence as anti-communist rhetoric in education instead of politics, comes together with the re-evaluation of the political rhetoric of Kosovo-Albanians during Yugoslav times. Textbooks attempt to explain the leaders’ endorsement of the Tito-state as a rhetorical device used to advance Kosovo-Albanian interests (Gashi 2019). Ironically, this is also the approach taken by this paper. However, there are limitations. There were Kosovo-Albanians, including politicians, who, at least for a while, believed in Yugoslavia, its communism, its attempt to create a “new man,” a “new form of life,” and a “new type of polity.” For them, idealisations and metaphors were not cases of doublespeak, but a true commitment towards a Yugoslav idea.

Ideology as Rhetoric How did the political Leadership of Kosovo-Albanians use idealisation, metaphors, doublespeak, and change in register to advance their regionalist, independentist, or nationalist interests? The multi-textualism in the handling of language by Kosovo-Albanians in Yugoslavia provides an interesting and multifaceted answer to this question. During their different attempts at insurgencies and liberation fights, they also employ pro-­ communist and anti-communist rhetorical devices, depending on the political landscape. Even when speaking of economics and social matters, the core interest of Kosovo-Albanians was their emancipation and political self-determination. They conveyed their interest using established

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political slogans but changing their “true” meaning. In the beginning of the time frame studied here, Kosovo-Albanians identify the rhetoric of communism with advancing their self-determination. This changed around 1981 and later, when the anti-communist rhetoric proved more effectual to promote autonomism and was employed accordingly. Claiming their pro-communist position in the 1960s meant that Albanians wanted to become true Yugoslavs, escaping Serbia’s political power over them. Pushing anti-communist position in the 1980s and later meant aligning oneself with the “West,” the European Union, and against Serbia. After Kosovar independence in 2008, the relevancy of the communist-anti-communist dichotomy declined. How to spread a revolutionary or “contentious” message? One can try underground pamphlets, obscure broadsheets, and alternative media. One could go for irony, satire, and humour. One could de-communicate, use art, and employ nostalgia. Kosovo-Albanians went a different way and used the official ideology of Yugoslavia and what they perceived as the official ideology of the West to subvert it with their own message, namely, their political emancipation in regionalism, independentism, and nationalism. The official ideology was used, metaphorically speaking, as a carrier wave for a revolutionary or “contentious” message. In doing so, official idealisations and metaphors were employed and continuously hollowed out in doublespeak. This also allowed for many changes in register. While, to the third-party observer, Kosovo-Albanians might seem to have changed their ideological orientation from communism to anti-­ communism, in the eyes of Kosovo-Albanian politics, the message of self-­ determination remained the same. It was just its carrier wave, the language of ideology, that changed.

References Beqiri, Seadet. 2017, “Albanian language drama in Albania and Kosovo 1960–1970.” KNOWLEDGE-International Journal 17(4): 1617–1620. Biberaj, Elez. 1982. “Albanian-Yugoslav Relations and the Question of Kosovë.” East European Quarterly 16(4): 485–502.

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Bieber, Florian and Daskalosvki, Zhidas (eds.). 2003. Understanding the War in Kosovo. London: Frank Cass. Boguslaw, Alissa. 2020. “‘Suddenly Everyone Started to Love Our Anthem, Our Flag’: Identity Construction, Crisis, and Change in (Almost) Sovereign Kosovo.” Nationalities Papers 48(4): 721–736. Clark, Howard. 2000. Civil Resistance in Kosovo. London: Pluto Press. Doja, Albert. 2000. “The Politics of Religion in the Reconstruction of Identities: the Albanian Situation.” Critique of Anthropology 20(4): 421–438. Della Rocca, Roberto M. 2015. “A Short History of the Kosovar Albanians’ Struggle for Independence, 1878–1998.” In Civic and Uncivic Values in Kosovo: History, Politics, and Value Transformation, edited by Sabrina Ramet et al., 29–52. Budapest: Central European University Press. Finlayson, Alan. 2013. “Ideology and Political Rhetoric.” In The Oxford handbook of political ideologies, edited by Michael Freeden et al., 197–213. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Gashi, Shkëlzen. 2019. “Conflicted Narratives: The 1998–1999 Kosovo War in History Textbooks in Kosovo and Serbia.” In Rethinking Serbian-Albanian Relations Figuring Out the Enemy, edited by Aleksandar Pavlovic et  al., 98–107. London: Routledge. Hetemi, Atdhe. 2020. Student Movements for the Republic of Kosovo. 1968, 1981 and 1997. Cham: Palgrave Macmillan. Judah, Tim. 2020. “The Kosovo Liberation Army.” Journal of International Affairs, Perceptions 20(1): 61–77. Kelmendi, Pëllumb and Elton Skendaj. 2022. “Protests in Postwar Societies: Grievances and Contentious Collective Action in Kosovo.” Nationalities Papers: 1–21. https://doi.org/10.1017/nps.2022.7. King, Iain and Mason, With. 2006. Peace at Any Price. New  York: Cornell University Press. Krasniqi, Gëzim. 2011. “Socialism, National Utopia, and Rock Music: Inside the Albanian Rock Scene of Yugoslavia, 1970–1989.” East Central Europe 38(2–3): 336–354 Krasniqi, Valon. 2017. “Political Parties Ideologies in Kosovo.” Revista de Çtiințe Politice. Revue des Sciences Politiques 49(1): 108–119. Krebs, Ronald R. and Jackson, Patrick Thaddeus. 2007. “Twisting Tongues and Twisting Arms: The Power of Political Rhetoric.” European Journal of International Relations 13(1): 35–66. Lee, Michele. 1983. “Kosovo Between Yugoslavia and Albania.” New Left Review 140(1): 68–97.

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9 The Change of Worlds and Words: The Language of Protest During and After the Romanian Revolution in 1989 Dina Vîlcu

Introduction The vital importance of language and words in any process of societal and political change has been acknowledged by many researchers (Wang 2011; Goina 2012). Its various contexts and manifestations are recognised through syntagms like “language of revolution” (Wang 2011), “language of resistance” (Linke 2008), and “language of contention” (Tarrow 2013). The Revolution of December 1989 in Romania, like similar historic moments, saw dramatic changes in both society and language. The present study will approach some of the most representative phenomena, including the emergence into public use of words that had been merely whispered before the Revolution. For example, words characterising the fleeing president (the Dictator, the Murderer, the Shoemaker) (Nicolau et al. 1990) and words banished before December 1989 from any public D. Vîlcu (*) Babeș-Bolyai University, Cluj-Napoca, Romania e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 E. Wohl, E. Păcurar (eds.), Language of the Revolution, Palgrave Studies in Languages at War, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-37178-3_9

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conversation (freedom, democracy, political pluralism) re-entered common speech. Resemanticisation and divergence in meaning occurred, wherein some words gained traits so novel that they risked developing alternative significata (Coseriu 1988/1992). The study will examine the reversal in protester attitudes towards pejoratives such as “hooligan” and “vagabond,” as they flipped from rejecting them to embracing them with creativity and irony, reshaping their meaning and elevating them above newly derogatory words like “dictator” and “communist.” Finally, we will consider the usurpation by political authorities of their opponents’ words and rhetoric, supplanting the protesters as victims and trying to gain sympathy through a type of discourse uncharacteristic of those in power.

The Historical Context For more than 30 years, people both inside and outside Romania have been trying to determine and define what really happened in December 1989. Even direct participants in the events1 still seek to understand what triggered the protest movements, exactly when did they become unstoppable, what internal or external forces (if any) influenced their development, and how have people in the country and abroad processed what happened. Historians, journalists, and political analysts contribute to the debate. Opinions range from the conviction that this was an authentic revolution, initiated and consummated by the common people (Hodor 2000; Cesereanu 2009) to that it was a coup d’état (Durandine and Petre 2010; Petre 2011; Pepine 2017), with many combinations in between (Ioniță 2019; Stoenescu 2001; Papacostea 2004). The term “revolution,” often used to qualify the events in December 1989, has been attached in time a plethora of epithets which tend to relativise its most central significatum. According to Cesereanu, the revolution was qualified as: “usurped, hijacked, aborted, stolen, kidnapped, confiscated, manipulated, recycled, failed, betrayed, desecrated, desacralised, faked, made up, embellished, polluted, shaded, controlled, staged, impurified, pulverised, controversial, killed, assassinated, shot, rigged, seized, abandoned, unfinished, incomplete, altered, dubious, ambiguous, complicated, etc.”2 (Cesereanu 2009, 7).3 In 2001, the Hungarian philosopher Tamás Gáspár Miklós published his “Letter to My Romanian Friends,” expressing his

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surprise and disappointment at the Romanian intellectuals’ “performance” of repudiating the greatest historical deed of the Romanian people through a “negative mythicization” (Tamas 2001, 8). To a large extent, this relativisation of the word revolution might be due to the fact that the Romanian Revolution is still, after more than 30 years, unfinished business from multiple points of view: the judicial files of the Revolution are still open and people remain unsure who is to blame for the more than 1100 people killed in December 1989,4 while many of the reforms that should have followed the overthrow of the regime are still unrealised.5 People who shouted in the streets against the regime and its leaders were probably themselves unaware of the historic proportions of the moment they were witnessing. What did they call it? Many already called it a revolution. However, asked to define what was going on in those days, responses included rebellion, movement, counter-revolution, riot, the events, civil war, or simply “that thing” (Nicolau et al. 1990, 105).6 In this paper, the events in December 1989 will be referred to as Revolution.

The Linguistic Context Some traits can be identified when it comes to the language of the 1989 Revolution in Romania. First of all, mirroring the abruptness of the events at a social and political level, the language seems to have been totally unprepared for the big change it was required to reflect, describe, and interpret. In the days of the Revolution, a number of ethnographers tried, despite scarce resources, to map the events by building an image of the historic moment through photos, improvised speeches, slogans, and testimonies collected from direct participants and witnesses. Their work resulted in an exceptional volume that is to this day one of the most vivid documents of the Revolution.7 The authors and coordinators tried to present the rapid, successive stages of language evolution in real time during the Revolution. They talked about the phase of the unspeakable, when people did not seem to find the words simply to describe what was happening to them and around them. Then came the phase of the unthinkable, when people found it difficult to process mentally what was going

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on. It was as though they remained on the surface, facing reality, but unable to penetrate the scene and understand what stood behind it, what generated it, and what motivated the human figures populating it. Then came the phase of solidification, when language took sides and divided the participants into “our people” and “the suspects.” The series closes with sacralisation, especially related to honouring the heroes of the Revolution: the already-numerous martyrs memorialised through altars raised in the streets at the places where they had been shot. This process of spiritual and religious reflection started in the days of the Revolution. Second, the Romanian Revolution is a good example of the importance and the power of words in social movements, a characteristic identified and illustrated by numerous analysts. James Jasper wrote about the growing power of words as carriers of meaning, where words uttered first in conversations among intimates move into mild forms of protest such as jokes and snide remarks. Later the circle widens through orators addressing thousands in speech, while once written, “new media allow words to be saved over time and carried across distances” (Jasper 2014, 75–80). Indeed, in multiple media channels, the words were given huge importance in the days of the Revolution. Even as actions were happening in front of people’s eyes, direct participants and witnesses would assemble in front of newsstands, waiting hours in the cold to get the latest sporadic editions in order to understand what was going on. The year 1989 was still a year of traditional media, without Internet websites, social networks, or mobile phones. When some of the direct participants and informal leaders in the Revolution made their debut on national television (heretofore the exclusive rostrum of the communist leadership), they acknowledged its importance in spreading the message of the Revolution. Still under a relatively real threat, thinking that the headquarters of the national television could be attacked, they appealed to the citizens for support: “The heart of the country is now at the television station. We are connected to all the country and we need to keep hold of this connection. Help us!” (Nicolau et al. 1990, 214). George Balandier wrote, on the one hand, about the langue de bois of totalitarian regimes and, on the other, about the attrition of words in democratic regimes, in which their impact and credibility are diminished (Balandier 2000, 149). The Romanian Revolution (and similar events)

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might be considered a moment of grace for language—not particularly in its means, but in the importance which people gave it. Words were at a crossroads from the meaningless langue de bois of the socialist regime, heading to the democratic era in which their meaning, impact, and power would be diluted. The Revolution was a singular moment in which they were invested with the power of contributing to the creation of the new world, on occasion holding equal status with the facts themselves. Third, words were largely used in December 1989 to supplant the myths of the former regime: Revolution, the deepest of all crises, makes visible the myths of a society more than any other event. The conflict unfolds not only at the level of contestation and taking over concrete power, but also for removing the old symbols and imposing new ones. The political myths reveal their presence once the people flood the streets and ultimately contest the power holders. (Tănase 2006, 33)

Removal and reversal of the old symbols had been seen before in social movements, like the rebellion in Brașov in 1987, generated by the hard living conditions on the industrial platforms, when some comrades (members and supporters of the Romanian Communist Party) declared in meetings organised for stigmatising the enemies of the regime that they were horrified to see the desecration of the communist party flag (Cesereanu 2009, 28). Together with the symbols of the communist8 regime, the words that were specific to it fell from use (e.g. comrade, the new man, the golden era, class conflict). The political cadaver was to be buried folded in its linguistic garments.

The Use of Banned Words In communist times, strict control over public speech, cultural performances, and publications marked all levels of public and private life. Critique, written or spoken, in any register—even the comic one—of the political regime or the country’s leaders was totally forbidden, as were discussions of democracy, multiparty systems, freedom of speech, or

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human rights. Nothing that might challenge the perfect image of the regime was tolerated. Participation in religious life was strongly discouraged. In this context, the previously forbidden vocabulary resurfacing in the days of the Revolution had the chaotic force of an explosion. We will look more closely at two dimensions of this phenomenon: references to the communist leader Nicolae Ceaușescu, and the religious sphere. The cult of personality initiated and maintained by the propaganda machine built a variety of avatars for Nicolae Ceaușescu: “The Young Revolutionary,” “Hero of World Peace,” “Architect of Modern Romania,” “Guarantor of National Independence and Unity,” and “Beloved Leader” (Marin 2014). The Revolution in December 1989 flipped this multifaceted image into its opposite through what Ruxandra Cesereanu defined as “black mythicization.” The ex-leader was now called the Antichrist, Nero, Caligula, Macbeth, Dracula, the ogre, the vampire, the monster, and so on (Cesereanu 2009, 8). Some of these invectives—along with others such as the Shoemaker,9 the Beast, the Criminal, or the Dictator— had originated in the common citizens’ verbal resistance during the communist regime. Others, on the other hand, were created during the Revolution as a relief from frustration, fear, or anger.10 Cesereanu reflects on the plethora of insults and considers them superfluous, as Ceaușescu’s sanguinary and despotic character had been demonstrated so many times while he was leading the country that his acts themselves were sufficient. No comparison with mythical, religious, or literary antiheroes was necessary (Cesereanu 2009, 195–196). However, she says, the demonisation of the dictator helped the new leaders justify the decision to execute Nicolae Ceaușescu and his wife, Elena Ceaușescu, on Christmas day of 1989, at the end of a very short and improvised trial. In the absence of a well-­ documented indictment supported by a dossier of evidence, the words contributed to justifying grave decisions in the very concrete world of life and death. Ceaușescu’s death could be perceived as “the violent killing of an abominable ‘monster,’ an executioner” (Cesereanu 2009, 196). The slogans that referred to Ceaușescu and his wife, shouted in the streets in the days of the Revolution and written in public places, were extremely violent. We can notice a clear difference in tone from the protests organised decades after the Revolution, where the participants’ messages were

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often marked by humour, creativity, or literary and film references. In the Revolution, the register was sombre, direct, and menacing: “Down with the Shoemaker!” (where the Shoemaker can be replaced with all the epithets given to him: the tyrant, the dictator, the murderer), “He must die!” “Death,” “This is Uncle Nick’s hearse,” “Judgment Day for them from us.” More than that, Ceaușescu’s death on none other than Christmas day of 1989 was perceived inevitably by some as divine punishment: “A mystical approach would impose resignation with this solution, seen as the work of destiny, as a sanction for desecrating so many sacred places through tearing them down”11 (Frunză in Cesereanu 2009, 196). Cesereanu observes in this interpretation the malformation of the identity of the historical figure, which can lead to a similar distortion of his image in the collective mentality. Considering that the author she is citing published his book in 1994,12 Cesereanu’s remark is sensible, suggesting that an external analysis of the events should be more detached from such emotional implications and interpretations. The Revolution forged a close connection to the newly regained liberty of open religious participation. The Romanians have always placed religion in a very important position in their hierarchy of values.13 In socialist times, their attachment to religion was merely tolerated, often discouraged through the education system, the work environment, and direct political pressure. For a large number of citizens in Romania, religious freedom was one of the most important consequences of the Revolution in 1989. Participation was restored in the everyday expression of religious life: going to church, sharing in rituals, speaking about life events from a religious perspective and using greetings with religious content. Moreover, a very good relationship (too good, some would say) between the new state structures and the representatives of the Orthodox Church was initiated during the Revolution. The new leaders of the country declared on national television in the days of the Revolution: “The Church is close to the sons of all of our people in these moments of national revival” (Nicolau et al. 1990, 187). Some of the most important slogans in the days of the Revolution were connected to religion. “On Christmas we took our ration of freedom” summarises the events in December 1989 in the words of the revolutionaries. The message combines two very important dimensions of Romanian

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life at that moment: one referred to the past, the 1980s, when basic staples such as flour, sugar, oil, eggs, and butter could be purchased only up to the limit of the monthly ration established for each citizen; the other referred to the newly regained religious freedom in which people could once again speak about the religious significance of December 25. Another important message from the days of the Revolution was this: “Hear us and have mercy on us, Lord/Punish Communism.” The fact that divine punishment was invoked for a political ideology and/or a political regime is stunning and shows that in those days of restlessness and unpredictability, people saw in religion a stable system that could replace the mundane political and administrative one. When defining the universe of discourse of religion, the Romanian linguist Eugenio Coseriu points out that real faith is not a matter of opinion; from the point of view of certainty, faith—as a means of knowing the world—is beyond any hypothesis subject to verification (Coseriu 2000, 42). God is the primary cause of the universe and so in times of instability like the ones in 1989, divinity and the religious system become anchors of stability, certainty, and trust, even in mundane matters like justice. The traditional religious texts, like the carols, shifted to carry new messages of the Revolution. Usually carols end with phrases of good wishes to the recipients. However, this time some verses were adapted to carry a timely aspiration: By New Year’s Day, white flowers, apple blossom, Ceaușescu will be in his grave, white flowers, apple blossom.

(Nicolau et al. 1990, 99)

The Resemanticisation According to the integral linguistic theory initiated by Eugenio Coseriu, language develops simultaneously at three levels: universal (language in general); historical (of particular languages); and individual (of text-discourse). Language can be seen, at each of these levels, from different points of view: as activity (energeia), competence (dynamis), and product (ergon). The corresponding contents for each of these planes are

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designatum, significatum, and sense (Coseriu 1988/1992, 106). The most stable type of linguistic content is the significatum, created and shared intersubjectively. As ergon, it is the content listed in dictionaries. The definitions in dictionaries are composed from the basic, intrinsic traits of significatum the speakers of a language share. It follows that these definitions need to be neutral and devoid of any personal, ideological, historical, or other interpretation. This is the ensemble of traits to which all native speakers relate and the basis on which they understand each other. Nonetheless, in historical contexts like this, connotations begin to adhere to these neutral lexical elements, being unavoidably plastered onto words due to the impact of events. Sometimes these connotations are formalised and make their way into dictionaries. The communist period was marked by a new language, which had the mission of “translating the proletarian masses’ liberating vocation, led by the party. The purification of future passes through the purification of words. Langue de bois is the most coherent attempt of eliminating from language any sign of doubt, critique and dissidence” (Stanomir 2021, 155). For Romanians, the official, formal lexicon of this line of thought was the Political Dictionary, published in 1975 in Bucharest, by the Political Publishing House. The definitions in this dictionary reflect a very precise perspective, with traits that lock each lexical element into a positive or negative interpretation firmly served by the authors. The word “revolution” is characterised through progressive historic steps (bourgeois revolution, bourgeois-­ democratic revolution, revolution for the national liberation of the peoples in colonies—each advancing towards the supreme accomplishment of socialist revolution. As the Political Dictionary states, “The socialist revolution begins, at the political level, by removing the state power of the exploiting classes and the installation of the dictatorship of the proletariat.14 This is used for the construction of the new society” (Niri et al. 1975, 518). An essential dimension of the socialist revolution is the Cultural Revolution, representing “the formation and development of the socialist consciousness of the working people, of a new attitude towards work, towards common property, through the liquidation of the influence of the bourgeois ideology and mentality /…/” (Niri et  al. 1975, 519).

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In December 1989, the signifier of the word “revolution” was refreshed and informed by the events of the day, regaining its sense of the overthrow of a political regime. However, in the years to follow, the concept was strongly relativised and diluted. This can be seen in the series of adjectives accompanying the word, as enumerated above in the section entitled The Historical Context. An interesting shift of interpretation occurred after the Revolution with the word “activist.” In communist times, activists were people who propagated Romanian Communist Party ideology in all domains from education and work to culture. They were feared, not loved (to say the least), for their mission was to ensure that people and institutions were sufficiently zealous in implementing and praising state policy. In early 1990, a small number of people began to realise that no real change in power was likely for Romania. They labelled the new leaders of the country neo-communists and organised protests in University Square in Bucharest with actions that persisted for months. Many slogans were created, among them a song emblematic of the fight for democracy in Romania. Its verses included: Better a vagrant than a traitor, Better a hooligan than a dictator Better a punk than an activist Better dead than communist. (Cristian Pațurcă, The Anthem of Punks)

It took some years, after the establishment of non-governmental organisations in Romania along with the fight for causes like human rights and environmental protection, for activist to reflect someone strongly supporting social or political change, who engages in actions like public protests in order to achieve their goal. Nowadays, this is the dominant meaning (and for younger generations, maybe the only known meaning) of this word, so much so that when we refer to the activists of the Romanian Communist Party, we need to specify the exact historical context. As with any other lexical element, the words denominating political ideologies should be defined in strictly neutral terms. In the Political Dictionary of 1975, a definition like the following is expected: “Being a

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revolutionary, being a communist—as shown in the programme of the Romanian Communist Party—(…) means being a courageous explorer of the new, looking always forward, towards what is being developed, thinking daringly on the basis of the revolutionary experiences of the people, acting for the communion of their efforts with the goal of the revolutionary transformation of the society” (Niri et  al. 1975, 136). However, a purely linguistic tool like a general language dictionary should carry no ideological impression, in order not to mislead its users. The communist regime exerted control not only over the political instruments but also on those that should have been free of such influences. The term communism is defined in the Dictionary of Romanian Literary Contemporary Language (1955–1957) in terms far from objective: “The superior social regime that follows after capitalism is destroyed, as a result of the victory of the proletarian revolution and of the installation of the dictatorship of [the] proletariat; in this regime there is no exploitation of the people by other people and the production means are socialist property” (Macrea and Petrovici 1955–1957). The Revolution saw the word “communism” in a totally new context, from slogans like “Down with communism!” to “definitions” written in public places: “Communism is a monstrosity by definition.” Before the Revolution, the official lexical definitions integrated perfectly into the langue de bois, and conversely, in the days of the Revolution few would have contested the characterisation of the political regime as a monstrosity. In the years that followed, the word communism barely retained its main objective traits, restricted mostly to usage by some historians and analysts. For many Romanians, the word acquired connotations reflecting the anger of those who suffered because of it, as well as the nostalgia of those who still regret the fall of communism in Romania. These are just some examples of words whose significata were impacted by the historical context both in the socialist era and at the Revolution. Some words are apparently still seeking the stability characteristic of a neutral, objective dictionary entry.

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The Denigrating Appellatives As mentioned above in the section entitled The Linguistic Context, the Revolution in 1989 was preceded by smaller revolts against the regime, like the ones in Valea Jiului (1977) and Brașov (1987) (Cesereanu 2009). The participants were identified and arrested. Some were tortured and interrogated for hours. Many spent years in prison or were forcibly relocated to other towns, remaining separated from their families and under close scrutiny for the rest of their active professional lives. Part of the punishment they endured was stigmatisation by their fellow workers in political meetings. The use of strong condemning words probably had a powerful jolt coming from their co-workers. Language was instrumental in tarring the protesters as savages of low character. Whether convinced of the infallibility of the communist party and its policy, or just miming it for various reasons (most often fear), the whole collective would participate in stigmatising the culprits. The revolt in Valea Jiului was no exception. Protesters were assailed as “Anarchic elements,” “declassed elements,” and “good-for-nothing people.” Some participants faced trials during which they were called “Gipsies,” “scoundrels,” “impostors,” or “criminals” (Cesereanu 2009, 16). The scenario was repeated after the revolt in Brașov. The participants were denigrated as “hooligans,” “scoundrels,” “vandals,” and “outlaws” and were considered a stain and a shame on the whole collective, as they manifested “barbarian hooliganism” and a “profoundly hostile attitude.” They were accused of being mentally deficient and fears that they might have blown up the factory were expressed (Cesereanu 2009, 27). The society before 1989 was an extremely conventional one; people’s public image mattered in a world in which people were often stuck for years in the same community, willingly or not, due to much reduced and totally controlled work mobility. The participants in the Revolution seemed to be careful with their public image. One of the participants talks about the slogans they shouted in the streets. Among the most frequent were: “We are not fascists!” “We are not hooligans!” It is interesting that they seemed careful to present their action as legitimate and themselves as honourable when confronting such authorities as police, army,

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secret services, or any representing the old state power. Such an episode happened in front of the Embassy of Great Britain. When people shouted “We are not hooligans!” the Romanian policeman guarding the Embassy smiled indulgently and said: “I know, I know, come on, move along…” and then laughed. According to Nicolau et al., other participants in the Revolution faced different reactions. One was talking to a secret police officer asking him if he believed that the young people taking part in the Revolution were hooligans. The officer answered that yes, they were hooligans. But they are students, the future of this country, the revolutionary countered, whereupon the officer accused the young people of having been influenced by video materials (Nicolau et al. 1990, 35). A new phase of the relationship between people and the ones in power began just months later, in April 1990, with the protests in University Square, Bucharest. Some people understood that the change that was supposed to come after the Revolution was not happening. They accused the new authorities of being neo-communists in stealth continuation of the old regime. The protesters stayed for weeks in University Square asking anyone who had been part of the pre-Revolutionary political regime to step down from the new state structures. The protest was violently suppressed in June 1990 with the intervention of the miners from Valea Jiului. The miners attacked the protesters and their actions resulted in 6 deaths and more than 1000 injured, with over 540 persons who needed medical care in hospital. The word “mineriad” was created in Romanian in order to refer to this event. It represents the imposition of brutal force on peaceful political manifestations. Before the violent end to the demonstrations, the new state authorities tried a variety of solutions to stop the protest and empty University Square. They tried to create a negative image for the protesters and called them “punks” or “hooligans.” However, the protesters no longer felt the need to prove the contrary. They adopted the labels proudly, as a means of differentiating themselves from the new politicians whom they considered representatives or continuers of the old regime. As a result of Ion Iliescu’s speech,15 where he derogated the protesters at the University as “hooligans” and “punks,” more and more people came to the square. In front of the Faculty of Architecture, they hung a huge banner saying: “Faculty of punks.” The protesters shouted: “We are not [members of

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political] parties!” and “We are punks!” (Cristea in Dumitrescu 2013, 57).16 Dumitrescu mentions that this was not the first time in the history of protests and of revolutionary movements when a pejorative appellation addressed to the rebels is revalued and gains new signification. He illustrates this phenomenon with the sans-culottes in 1789, the descamisados in the Hispanic area and the rotos in Chile at the beginning of the twentieth century. A polemic and moralistic attitude is expressed through this action (Dumitrescu 2013, 57). In Bucharest in 1990, this phenomenon gains a new dimension. On May 8, a diploma of honour with the title “Punk” was awarded to Doina Cornea, one of the most renowned dissidents. Indeed, the slur was not only adopted by the protesters in University Square, but it proliferated into different expressions sported on pins: “retired punk,” “punk mother,” “punk with two PhD titles,” “punk – ex-­ hooligan” (because the participants in the 1989 Revolution were called hooligans). As mentioned above in the section entitled The Resemanticisation, the culmination was The Anthem of Punks, sung by Cristian Pațurcă, in which all these disqualifying attributes were declared preferable to the formerly high-status labels of “activist” and “communist.” Starting with the events in University Square, the word “punk” was attached to a more positive connotation which resisted in time. Consequently, the context in which the word is used and the content it suggests were changed, as its meaning softened and a hint of sympathy emerged. The weaponisation of language missed its target and was thus turned against its initiators. Ultimately, the new meaning achieved an entry in the Dictionary of Recent Words (Florica Dimitrescu, 1997), with the definition “anti-communist protester who participated in [the] University Square phenomenon,” emphasising the positive value of the word. Another example including the word “punk” illustrated “anti-­ communist” entry in the same dictionary.

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Taking Over the Rhetoric and the Words In his book presenting a framework for nonviolent ways to transitioning from dictatorship to democracy, Gene Sharp reminds us of Aristotle’s warning that “tyranny can also change into tyranny” giving examples ranging from France (the Jacobins and Napoleon) to Burma (SLORC) (Sharp 2002, 73–74). Alternatively, according to Sharp, an old dictatorship may persist in a new, slightly modified form. “Even before the collapse of the dictatorship, members of the old regime may attempt to cut short the defiance struggle for democracy by staging a coup d’état designed to pre-empt victory by the popular resistance. It may claim to oust the dictatorship, but in fact seek only to impose a new refurbished model of the old one” (Sharp 2002, 74).17 The multitude of opinions about exactly what happened in December 1989 in Romania is far from consolidating, and one of the strongest narratives reflects Sharp’s idea. Many of those actively involved in administering the socialist state in its various structures (including the secret police) continued their activity into the new state. According to some analysts, they merely mimicked reforms while attempting to secure control over the judicial system. Additionally, they observed, the new leaders strove to win sympathy by using the same words for contention and conflict, posing as victims of the judicial system and co-opting the language of the protesters. “[T]he symbols, mentalities, and narratives that actors employ can track real-world changes in contentious politics. Not only that, as new words for contention diffuse across social and territorial boundaries to new actors, such words can tell us how meanings change as the same words are used by different actors” (Tarrow 2013, 5). The use of the same words or rhetoric by opposing actors works when political boundaries are crossed, not just social and territorial boundaries. Relevant examples come from Liviu Dragnea, president of the Social Democratic Party between July 2015 and May 2019. Dragnea is said to have led from the shadows one of the most contested governments in Romania: the one installed in December 2016. Only two weeks after investiture, hundreds of thousands protested in the street against the coalition’s attempt to limit the rule of law. In an unbelievable hijacking of

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the term, Liviu Dragnea qualified the protests as a “mineriad” (Ursu 2017, 34). To characterise these peaceful protests in defence of justice as a mineriad was a 180-degree reversal of the meaning of the word, using it to describe the opposite reality than that for which it was created. Liviu Dragnea’s inversion of “mineriad” portrayed the members of government as victims and denied the protesters freedom of speech. In the same year, he complained that he was very disappointed by the injustice to which he was subjected, relating how people supposedly encouraged him during visits to different regions of the country: “Do not give up! They cannot lock us all up!” (Ursu 2018, 102–3). Despite the massive protests against the government of which he was the de facto leader, he suggested that people were ready to protest in the street in order to protect him and that he could not restrain them much longer (Ursu 2018, 127).18 The words of the Revolution had their moment of glory in the days of December 1989, lingering into the aftermath. Honoured as messengers of a new era in the history of the country, carriers of the message of liberty and change, many were resemanticised and shone in the light of consensus from their users. Words like “liberty,” “democracy,” “justice,” and “victory” seemed to have stable traits of significatum, while words like “mineriad” were coined to cover very specific events understood homogeneously by all speakers. Months and years after the Revolution, as people started reflecting, re-evaluating, and even doubting history, the words were relativised and began to accrete secondary, sometimes divergent, meanings, and their power faded.

Conclusions This chapter should shed more light on the historic days of December 1989 in Romania, as people rediscovered and reinvented words in order to relate to and describe the new stage in history they were entering. The examples in this text were chosen to illustrate the importance of language for the participants in the Revolution. Language was a crucial component of the newly won liberty. Reclaiming words forbidden in the communist era, giving them new meanings that freed them from the rigid and often hollow interpretations of the monochromatic langue de bois, the

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Revolution breathed new life into words. Their importance dissipated as people started dissecting and interpreting them, much as they did with the events of the Revolution. People tried to understand what happened and relativised much, sometimes more than intended. The freedom people gained meant also the freedom of embracing doomed words and wearing them proudly, often contrary to the original use. This can be considered a declaration of separation from the rigidly conventional society of the socialist era as well as from new dangers threatening the fragile democracy. It can be seen as an expression of the courage to fight for democracy. Researching the linguistic phenomena which marked the events of December 1989 can illuminate the profound changes in Romanian society during and after the Revolution. Language shaped the people’s emotions, the reflection of the events in the press, and the appraisal of events in all the years that followed.

Notes 1. For example, those later identified as leaders of the Revolution or the actors and writers who, as public figures, spread the message of change. 2. This and all subsequent quotes from sources written in Romanian have been translated by the author of the chapter. 3. In a different tonality, we can add here the notion of “the revolution of the innocents,” relating to the fact that a significant part of the participants in the Revolution were very young. Consequently, many of the victims were adolescents and very young people, with more than 30 children killed during the days of the Revolution. Dan Gîju interviewed a number of people involved in the Revolution at a political or military level, and in 2014, he published a volume named “The Revolution of the Innocents.” 4. Only a few people were condemned for the killings in December 1989 and most of the files opened for those events are still being sent from one judicial institution to another after more than 30 years. At the end of 2021, the file of the Revolution in Bucharest was returned to the General Prosecutor’s Office for the investigation to be continued. It had already been sent back a number of times for the same purpose (Despa 2021).

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5. Timothy Garton Ash qualifies the change of regime in the countries from the ex-communist countries as refolutions (revolution + reform), but he does not include Romania in the list of these countries, because he finds the Romanian Revolution “confused” (in Cesereanu 2009, 7). 6. In the same volume coordinated by Nicolau, Popescu, and Rădulescu, the authors mention that people wanted to sing, but they did not know what would be appropriate to sing because they lacked an archetype of a demonstration that might have guided their behaviour (Nicolau et al. 1990). 7. The volume was called “Vom muri și vom fi liberi” (“We Will Die and We Will Be Free”), it was coordinated by Irina Nicolau, Ioana Popescu, and Speranța Rădulescu and was published in 1990. The stages in the evolution of language in the days of the Revolution are presented and exemplified on pages 313–316. 8. The political regime in Romania between 1948 and 1989 is largely known as the communist regime. It will be referred to in the same way in this text. However, this does not correspond exactly to the ideology the regime was based on. The Romanian leaders considered that the country was in the socialist phase which, according to the communist ideology, was the final step before communism. Between 1948 and 1965, the name of the country was the People’s Republic of Romania and then, between 1965 and 1989 it was Socialist Republic of Romania. 9. This nickname comes from the fact that when he was 11, Nicolae Ceaușescu left Scornicești, the village in which he was born, and went to Bucharest, where he became an apprentice in Alexandru Săndulescu’s shoemaker workshop. 10. During the Revolution “comrade Nicolae Ceaușescu loses his right to have a name and he becomes: the dictator, the tyrant, the despot” (Nicolau et al. 1990, 145). 11. At the end of the 1970s and in the 1980s, dozens of churches were demolished by direct order from Nicolae Ceaușescu. For example, in Bucharest, 20 churches and monasteries, some of them historical and cultural monuments as old as from the seventeenth century, were demolished. 12. Frunză, Victor. 1994. Revoluția împușcată sau PCR după 22 decembrie 1989 [The Shot Revolution or the Romanian Communist Party after 22 December 1989]. București. Editura Victor Frunză.

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13. In 2016, researchers from Vienna-based Institute for Comparative Survey Research published data collected from 60 countries with reference to the importance people gave to a selected set of values (family, friends, work, leisure time, religion, and politics). While in the global ranking of values, religion came in the penultimate place (the fifth place) with a value of 72.3%, in Romania, it came in the third position (before leisure time, friends, and politics and right after family and work) with a combined share of “very important” and “rather important” responses of 83.8%. (https://knoema.com/infographics/hxpxvpg/world-­values-­ family-­work-­friends-­leisure-­religion-­and-­politics?variants=Religion&co untry=Romania). 14. Where “dictatorship” has an entirely positive meaning. 15. Ion Iliescu (Romania’s president after the Revolution) had the paradoxical role of a catalyst for both sides which formed in the public space after December 1989. An immense majority of the population supported the new power, led by Ion Iliescu. For these people, every discourse or press declaration given by Iliescu against the protesters in Piața Universității (or any other people opposing the new regime) had a cumulative effect and suspicion, mistrust—in the end, fury—built up until the violent action seemed, to some of them, the only way to protect the new power structures. On the other hand, the protesters drew on the same speeches and declarations when they became more and more convinced that the new structures were just a new form of the old communist ones. This made their decision of dissociating from the ones in power more radical. Assuming the labels the new politicians were throwing at them was just one of the manifestations of this attitude. 16. A much larger variety of words and expressions, some of them far more insulting, was used to characterise the protesters in University Square and an excellent (yet quite disturbing) inventory is to be found in Ruxandra Cesereanu’s book Imaginarul violent al românilor [The Violent Imaginary of Romanians], published in 2003, with a second edition in 2016. 17. In the same line of thought, it is relevant to mention Sharp’s ideas on planning for democracy: “It should be remembered that against a dictatorship, the objective of the grand strategy is not simply to bring down the dictators but to install a democratic system and make the rise of a new dictatorship impossible. To accomplish these objectives, the chosen

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means of struggle will need to contribute to a change in the distribution of effective power in the society” (Sharp 2002, 49). 18. On 27 May 2019, Liviu Dragnea was sentenced to three years and six months in prison for abuse in office. He was released from prison on 15 July 2021 and declared that he considered himself a political prisoner.

References Balandier, Georges. 2000. Scena puterii [Le pouvoir sur scene/The Scene of Power]. Oradea: Editura Aion. Cesereanu, Ruxandra. 2009. Decembrie ’89: deconstrucția unei revoluții [December ’89: Deconstruction of a Revolution]. Iași: Editura Polirom. Cesereanu, Ruxandra. 2016. Imaginarul violent al românilor [The Violent Imaginary of Romanians]. București: Editura Tracus Arte. Coseriu, Eugenio. 1988/1992. Competencia lingüìstica. Elementos de la teoria del hablar [Linguistic Competence. Elements of the Theory of Speaking]. Madrid: Editorial Gredos. Coseriu, Eugenio. 2000. “Prolusione: Orationis fundamenta. La preghiera come testo. [Opening Speech: Orationis fundamenta. The Prayer as a Text]” In I quattro universi de discorso. Atti del Congreso Internazionale «Orationis Millennium» [The Four Universes of Discourse. Collected Papers of the International Congress «Orationis Millennium»] (24–30 June 2000), edited by G. Gennaro, 24–48. Città del Vaticano: Libreria Editrice Vaticana. Despa, Oana. 2021. “Dosarele Revoluției. Istoria unui eșec judiciar. [The Files of the Revolution. The History of a Judicial Failure]” Europa Liberă (22 December): https://romania.europalibera.org/a/dosarele-­revolutiei-­istoria-­ unui-­esec-­judiciar/31617963.html. Dimitrescu, Florica. 1997. Dicționar de cuvinte recente [Dictionary of Recent Words]. București: Editura Logos. Dumitrescu, Florin. 2013. Bâlciul Universității. Descoperind spiritul târgoveț în Bucureștiul postsocialist [The University Fair. Discovering the Merchant Spirit in Post-Socialist Bucharest]. București: Editura Humanitas. Durandine, Catherine and Petre, Zoe. 2010. România post 1989 [Romania after 1989]. Iași: Institutul European. Gîju, Dan. 2014. Revoluția inocenților [The Revolution of the Innocents]. București: Editura Favorit.

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Goina, Călin. 2012. “Cine nu sare nu vrea schimbare!”. O analiză a mișcărilor de protest din ianuarie-februarie 2012 din Cluj. [“Those Who Do Not Jump Do Not Want the Change! An Analysis of the Protest Movements in January– February 2012  in Cluj”] In Iarna vrajbei noastre: protestele din România, ianuarie-­februarie 2012 [The Winter of our Discontent: the Protests in Romania, January-February 2012], edited by Cătălin Augustin Stoica and Vintilă Mihăilescu, 198–231. București: Editura Paideia. Hodor, Mădălin. 2000. “Lumea ascunsă care l-a dărâmat pe Ceaușescu, rolul lui Ion Iliescu și pumnul în masă al celor fară ‘știință’  – Interviu (II) [The Hidden World which Brought Ceauşescu down, Ion Iliescu’s Role and the Revolt of the ‘Illiterate’]” Spotmedia (24 July). https://spotmedia.ro/stiri/eveniment/lumea-­ascunsa-­care-­l-­a-­daramat-­pe-ceausescurolul-­lui-­ion-­iliescu-­si-­pumnul-­in-­masa-­al-­celor-­fara-­stiinta-­interviu-­ii. Ioniță, Ion M. 2019–2020. “Revoluție sau lovitură de stat? Probabil amândouă [Revolution or Coup d’état? Probably Both],” Historia 215. https://www.historia.ro/sectiune/general/articol/revolutie-­sau-­lovitura-­destat-­probabil-­amandoua. Jasper, James. 2014. Protest. A Cultural Introduction to Social Movements. Cambridge: Polity Press. Linke, Uli. 2008. “The Language of Resistance: Rhetorical Tactics and Symbols of Popular Protest in Germany.” City & Society 2(2). 127–133. Macrea, Dimitrie and Petrovici, Emil (editors). 1955–1957. Dicționarul limbii romîne literare contemporane [Dictionary of Literary Contemporary Romanian Language]. București: Editura Academiei Republicii Populare Romîne. Marin, Manuela. 2014. Între prezent și trecut: cultul personalității lui Nicolae Ceaușescu și opinia publică românească [Between Present and Past: Nicolae Ceauşescu’s Cult of Personality and the Romanian Public Opinion]. Cluj-­ Napoca: Editura Mega. Nicolau, Irina, Popescu, Ioana & Rădulescu, Speranța (editors). 1990. Vom muri și vom fi liberi [We Will Die and We Will Be Free]. București: Editura Meridiane. Niri, Carol, Pânzaru, Petre, Rădulescu, Ilie, Scvorțov-Gorun, Maria & Voiculescu, Marin (editors). 1975. Dicționar politic [Political Dictionary]. Academia “Ștefan Gheorghiu.” București: Editura Politică. Papacostea, Șerban. 2004. “Decembrie 1989: revoluție sau lovitură de stat?  – o falsă alternativă [December 1989: Revolution or Coup d’état?  – a False Alternative].” Revista 22 (February 20) https://revista22.ro/ opinii/serban-­papacostea/decembrie-­1989-­revolutie-­sau-­lovitura-de-­stato-­falsa-­alternativa.

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Pepine, Horațiu. 2017. “Lovitura de stat din decembrie 1989 [The Coup d’état in December 1989].” (December 17). Adevărul. https://adevarul.ro/news/ eveniment/lovitura-­stat-­decembrie-­1989-­1_5a3965235 ab6550cb85fac15/ index.html. Petre, Zoe. 2011. “În ‘89 a fost o lovitură de stat, după care armata i-a predat puterea lui Iliescu [In ’89 It Was a Coup d’état, and Then the Army Gave the Power to Iliescu].” (December 21). (www.rfi.ro) https://www.rfi.ro/articol/ stiri/social/zoe-­p etre-­8 9-­f ost-­o -­l ovitura-­s tat-­c are-­a rmata-­i -predatputerea-­lui-­iliescu. Sharp, Gene. 2002. From Dictatorship to Democracy. A Conceptual Framework for Liberation. Boston: The Albert Einstein Institution. Stanomir, Ioan. 2021. R.S.R. Lecția de învățământ politic [The Socialist Republic of Romania. The Lesson of Political Education]. București: Editura Humanitas. Stoenescu, Alex Mihai. 2001. Istoria loviturilor de stat din România. 1821–1999. Vol. IV. Partea a II-a, “Revoluția din decembrie 1989” – o tragedie românească [The History of Coup d’état in Romania. 1821–1999. Vol. IV. Second Part, “The Revolution in December 1989”  – a Romanian Tragedy]. București: RAO International Publishing Company. Tamás, Gáspár Miklós. 2001. “Scrisoare către prietenii mei români [A Letter to My Romanian Friends].” Dilema. 416. 16–22 februarie. 8–9. Tarrow, Sidney. 2013. The Language of Contention. Revolutions in Words, 1688–2012. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Tănase, Stelian. 2006. Revoluția ca eșec. Elite și societate [The Revolution as a Failure. Elites and Society]. București: Editura Humanitas. Ursu, Ramona. 2017. Noaptea, ca hoții! [At night, Like Thieves!]. București: Editura Humanitas. Ursu, Ramona. 2018. Vă vedem! [We See You!]. București: Editura Humanitas. Wang, Ban. 2011. “Understanding the Chinese Revolution through Words: An Introduction.” In Words and Their Stories. Essays on the Language of the Chinese Revolution. Edited by Ban Wang. Brill.

Part III Written, Spoken, Performed: Archiving the Memory of (Post-)Communism

10 Humility and Hatred, Forgiveness and Hope: A Linguistic Approach on the Subjective Literary Experiences in the Romanian Communist Society Maria-Zoica Eugenia Balaban

Introduction Humility and hatred, forgiveness and hope are the key concepts around which most of the literary works (written during the communist period but published after 1989) revolve. Our main aim will be to analyse the discourse of anti-communist resistance in the case of some emblematic writers, both in the country and in exile: Constantin Noica, Nicolae Steinhardt, Virgil Ierunca, Constantin Virgil Gheorghiu, and Paul Goma. From a methodological point of view, our linguistic analysis will be based on the orientational and ontological metaphors, as they were defined by G. Lakoff and M. Johnson in the early 1980s. The analysis of the anti-communist resistance discourse will be a double-levelled research: on the one side, there is the discourse of the ones who were the victims of the communist regime and, on the other, there is the discourse of those M.-Z. E. Balaban (*) Babeş-Bolyai University, Cluj-Napoca, Romania e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 E. Wohl, E. Păcurar (eds.), Language of the Revolution, Palgrave Studies in Languages at War, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-37178-3_10

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who were the representatives of a tyrannical and arbitrary system. The orientational metaphors up-down, in-out, on-off, and central-peripheral will be used to analyse the language of the detainee in comparison with the language of the persecutor. The ontological metaphors will help us analyse the resistance through language, based on the detainees’ experiences with physical objects. The experiences in prison, shorter or longer, enabled human beings to view non-physical entities (events, emotions, ideas, and activities) as physical entities. It’s of critical importance to analy­se the language used to process the activities such as referring, quantifying, or identifying aspects and causes, setting goals and motivating actions on some abstract concepts. The last part of the research will emphasise the fact that the symbolic load of words has the power to affect individuals, both mentally and physically. They can destroy, generating humility and hatred, but they can also create bonds between individuals, leading to forgiveness and hope.

The Conceptual Metaphor Theory Totally different from the traditional perspective, the cognitive approach regards metaphor as a way of structuring abstract thinking and a means of constructing people’s experiences (Gibbs 1994; Lakoff and Johnson 1980; Lakoff and Turner 1989; Steen 1994; Sweetser 1990). In Metaphors We Live By, Lakoff and Johnson stated that the metaphor, in essence, is “understanding and experiencing one kind of thing in terms of another” (Lakoff and Johnson 1980, 5). According to their theory, though conceptual metaphors share the same basic common feature of being a tool of conceptualisation, they are different from each other, and they could be classified in terms of frequency level and in terms of experiential bases. Our linguistic analysis will focus on conceptual metaphors classified in terms of experiential bases, namely, orientational metaphors and ontological metaphors. Lakoff and Johnson considered that orientational metaphors “organize a whole system of concepts with respect to each other” (Lakoff and Johnson 1980, 14) and they have to do with spatial orientation which will be decisive in terms of approaching the discourse of the detainee in comparison with the discourse of the persecutor. As we will see in the next part of this paper, the orientational/spatial metaphors will

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always have a basis in people’s physical and cultural experiences. Moreover, the ontological metaphors, based on people’s experience with physical objects, will enable prisoners to understand some features of a physical entity in terms of another and the language will be an important source of evidence: the prison experience, the lack of minimum living conditions, the deep darkness, the misery.

The Language of the Detainee Writing is a holy thing! Especially for the post-war Romanian elite, a victim of the communist terror for several decades. (False) survival in/ through writing, in such a tyrannical system, sometimes excessively censored, sometimes alternated with the illusion of relaxation, was a form of memory preservation, essential for finding the self in that composite world. Our analysis will focus on a few emblematic authors of the resistance in writing, both in the country and in exile. The linguistic analysis of their memoirs, diaries, autobiographies, fiction, the result of resistance in writing, whether it is a resistance within borders—silent, tacit, naïve sometimes, or with accents of bitter irony or a resistance outside borders, in exile—vocal, strong, exalted, reflects the same forms of psychic reaction to an imperfect world, in a duplicitous and doubtful space. The language of the detainee can be identified with the help of the spatial metaphors: in-out, on-off, up-down, central-peripheral. There are a few key elements that define the prison jargon and we will try, with the help of spatial metaphors, to clearly explain how the language of the detainee was both a way of sharing the truth over the years, but also a way to resist in unbearable conditions. It is well known, especially in the concentration camp environment, that the common perception of reality also creates a common language—the language of the detainees (see, for instance, Bălan 2000; Cesereanu 1998; Diaconescu (2012); Gheorghiu 2017; Ierunca 2008; Rusan 2004; Soljeniţîn 1997; Steinhardt 1991; Tănase 1997; Zub 2012). In all the memoirs, autobiographies, diaries, and fiction that we have researched, the language is the same; the images of humiliation are rendered with the help of the in-out metaphor and the ones describing the so-called living conditions stand out: arpacaş [a kind

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of soup used in all Romanian prisons], baracă [barrack], bombă [a specific term used in the prison jargon to describe the unbearable conditions], bonetă [bonnet], broscărie [this term is derived from the Romanian word broască (frog) and was used to describe the narrow spaces inside the cells], cameră de infirmerie [the prison infirmary], celulă [cell], gamelă [a small metal bowl used by the detainees to eat], greva foamei [hunger strike], hazna [cesspool], hrubă [a very dark and narrow place], lagăr de muncă [labour camp], mâncare pe spongi [very little food], maţ [bowels], la neagra [the black cell or the punishment cell]. Other words that are specific to the prison jargon are: pârnaie [prison], pe muţeşte [communicating and doing activities speechlessly], percheziţie [official search], prici [kind of a bed used in prisons]. Moreover, sinucidere [suicide], tinetă [a place for discharging excrements], şerpărie [this term is derived from the Romanian word şarpe (serpent) and was used to describe the narrow spaces inside the cells], Zarca [a term used for Gherla prison], zeghe, zeghe vărgată, zeghe giorsită [the detainees’ uniform: striped, old, broken and worn], a (nu) se pune de-a craca [(not) to be against]. Last, but not least, there are words and phrases used to describe the persecutors, emphasising all their positions in the repressive system and the official repressing means—adjutant [adjutant], anchetator [investigator/cross examiner], decret [decree], inspector [inspector], gardian [guardian], locotent [lieutenant], miliţian [Miliţia was the Romanian police force in communism and miliţian was the person working for Miliţia], plutonier [sergeant], ofiţer de Securitate [officer in the Romanian Secret Police], ordin [order], torţionar [the ones who used to torture the detai­ nees], anchetă (am spus, ai spus, ai răspuns) [investigation/cross examination—I said, You said, You answered], a avea un clandestin [to have a clandestine], a avea legături cu Occidentul/America [to have connections with the West/the USA], a discuta “duşmănos” [to discuss in a belligerent hostile manner], dosar [file], dubă [van], duşman al poporului [enemy of the people], a fi frecat în anchete [to be rubbed in investigations/cross examinations], a (nu) fi trecut la dosar [(not) to be transferred to the file], ondestaticol [it refers to a denigrating way of addressing], ordine de ares­ tare/rechiziţie [arrest/requisition orders], percheziţie, probe [proofs], process [trial], secţie [a department within Securitate], Securitate [Romanian

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Secret Police], trădare [betrayal], their satanic behaviour of a brutality beyond imagination—a lovi cu brutalitate [to strike brutally], a-ţi băga minţile în cap [to accept against your will], a fi bătut la tălpi [to be beaten on the soles], a fi pus pe rangă [to be put on the crowbar], a fi târât [to be dragged], bâte [bats], bruftuieli [beats], brutalitate [brutality], ghionţi [strong nudges], la neagra, lovitura Diaca [Diaca blow], toroipane [cudgels], tortură [torture], the words and phrases that reflect the absence of the human characteristics or the degenerated character—ăştia [these ones], autopsicoli [it refers to a denigrating way of addressing], bestie [beast], bombcăluşicoli [it refers to a denigrating way of addressing], caralii [a slang used for Miliţia men], carură de primat [it refers to a denigrating way of addressing, by resembling the persecutors to primates], cavernicoli [it refers to a denigrating way of addressing by referring to people living in graves], corcitură [mongrel], curluntrist [it refers to a deni­grating way of addressing by referring to a dishonest person], dihonie [monster], facies de anthropoid [it refers to a denigrating way of addressing, by resembling the persecutors to primates], im-be-ci-lii [morons], justlinist [a person who used to follow a communist path], omdestaticol [it refers to a denigrating way of addressing], pinguini [penguins], porci [pigs], securorci [it refers to a denigrating way of addressing to people who worked in Securitate], şireţi [cunning people], vite [cattle], and nicknames as a sign of disregard for persecutors through language: Biserică [the Church], Mareşalul [the Marshall], Pisică [Cat], Coreeanul [the Korean], Boiereanu [this way of addressing the persecutor is derived from the Romanian word boier [boyard] which refers to people who were very rich at the end of the nineteenth century and the beginning of the twentieth century], Nikita Rotofeievici [a nickname used for the ex-communist dictator Nikita Hruşciov], ţara lui Ciomag-Vodă [the country where the bludgeon rules], Grenadă [Grenade], Ploşniță [Bug], Pleoşniţă, and so on. All these words, phrases, and nicknames reflect a never-ending space torture within the limits of in-out. The so-called living conditions are reflected not only with the help of the spatial metaphor in-out but also with the help of the metaphor on-off. In and off refer to everything that is associated with a continuous degradation of the human beings as a result of living conditions (if one can say so), the lack of the most elementary things (clothes, food, water, a fork, a

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spoon, a bed, etc.), the continuous torture, the isolation from all that the outside world means, the darkness of the cells and the improper work conditions in the labour camps. Nicolae Steinhardt’s Jurnalul Fericirii [The Diary of Happiness], Virgil Ierunca’s Fenomenul Piteşti [Piteşti Phenomenon], Constantin Noica’s Rugaţi-vă pentru fratele Alexandru [Pray for Brother Alexandru!], Constantin Virgil Gheorghiu’s Ora 25 [25 O’Clock], Paul Goma’s Patimile după Piteşti [The Passions after Piteşti] and Ostinato [Ostinato], all present, with maximum lucidity, the prison experience both in the Romanian communist prisons and in the labour camps abroad. In Steinhardt’s Jurnalul Fericirii, the language of the detainee is an overwhelming combination of the cell atmosphere, the feeling of being lost, the humiliation of surrender, and the quiet and skilful lie. The cell is an image of an in and off torture space in which humility images are hard to bear. The cells from Reduit, at Jilava (one of the most terrifying prisons in communist Romania), as Steinhardt points out, “are particularly gloomy and have the reputation of a regime even more severe than secţiile”1 (Steinhardt 1991, 30; emphasis mine). Cell 34 from Jilava, an unreal sinister place, is the one that strikes Nicolae Steinhardt in an unbearable way: “it is a kind of a dark and long tunnel, with numerous and powerful nightmare elements. It’s a hrubă (emphasis mine), it’s a canal, it’s an underground bowel, cold and deeply hostile, it’s a sterile mine, it’s an extinct volcano crater, it’s a successful image of a faded hell” (Steinhardt 1991, 30). The cell within the prison is different than the one from Securitate. Steinhardt himself reveals the fact that at Securitate he experienced the most “atrocious unhappiness”: I was trapped, tormented by something I couldn’t be absolutely sure of— but it seemed out of the question not to be like this—in the situation of not being able to reveal myself to anyone, not even to the good man who was next to me. And locked in four or five square meters. The abyss was next to me: swarming, like in Poe’s novel, of snakes, rats, stinking water, darkness, and worms. (Steinhardt 1991, 39)

Johan Moritz, the main character in C. V. Gheorghiu’s Ora 25 experiences a similar feeling:

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he knew nothing of what might have happened beyond the walls of his cell. He hadn’t even seen the sun. The window of the cell he was in, was towards the prison yard, its gray and high walls, hid his horizon and the sky … Moritz opened his eyes. His eyelids were difficult to detach from each other. He put his hand on his eyes and touched his eyelids. They were swollen. The blood had clotted. When was he brought to the cell? He didn’t remember. He spoke of himself as if he were a stranger. (Gheorghiu 2017, 165)

The cells, where the detainees were imprisoned, had the most unsanitary conditions and they reflect the humiliation to which the detainees were subjected, a state of humility from which you could not get out, where even the suicide was practically impossible. The humiliation images are reflected not only by the cell itself but also by the humiliating rituals that the detainees, who shared the same cell, went through. In the prison jargon, there are two words that describe, as in a Kafkaesque novel, the human humiliation as an expression of dirt and crawling: şerpărie and broscărie. More than describing the humiliating conditions, these were also used as two of the most common torture forms. N.  Steinhardt, V. Ierunca, C. Noica, and P. Goma describe in their writings the sadistic mechanism of the entrances and exits from şerpărie and broscărie to which the detainees were subjected. In terms of the up-down spatial metaphor, down is always associated with the action of crawling, the action of descending into an increasingly dark place. N. Steinhardt describes this place (şerpărie) from Jilava as “the vast, sinister, stinking cave, which although electrically lit, has a lot of dark places … Everything looks so gloomy and oppressive that it doesn’t seem to be real” (Steinhardt 1991, 57). But probably, one of the most detailed descriptions of the whole process is rendered by V. Ierunca in Fenomenul Piteşti and Paul Goma in Patimile după Piteşti: In one of the large cells there were usually two priciuri (that is, two wooden beds from one wall to another and on which people sleep like sardines). Most often the priciuri had two levels—the ground floor and the first floor—and were symmetrical, so it was as if there were four priciuri in a room. As the rooms were generally overcrowded, some detainees went under the prici and slept directly on the cement. Hence the term şerpărie:

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you slipped under the prici like a snake and there you could only lie. In the spaces between priciuri there was broscăria. There, people stood like frogs, crammed on cement, but it was better than in şerpărie, not having a prici over their heads that would prevent them from making any movement. (Ierunca 2008, 5; emphasis mine)

The term şerpărie has deep connotations in the prison jargon, and the assimilation of man with the serpent is not accidental at all. Like man, but unlike him, the serpent differs from all animal species. If man is at the end of a long genetic effort, we must, instead, necessarily place this cold creature at the beginning of the mentioned effort. In this sense, the man and the serpent are opposed to each other, and they are rivals. On the other side, broscăria is also used as a specific term to illustrate tight and narrow spaces. The symbolism of this animal (broasca—the frog) is always associated with obscurity. This torture procedure usually implied c­ rawling, a form of exacerbated humiliation that aims to reduce the human being to an animal: “you threw yourself on your stomach and, in ten seconds, you should have gotten out of there and presented yourself in a straight position in front of Ţurcanu. Then, again in the şerpărie and again in front of Ţurcanu, also in ten seconds, for about a hundred times” (Ierunca 2008, 51). There was a wide range of degradation forms: the detainees were forced to eat like pigs, grabbing the food with their mouth, and their hand at the back, on their knees, they were not allowed to wash the gamela and they were forced to clean it with their tongues. The general degradation system applied to detainees is thought of in the most abject and sadistic way in order not to leave any trace of hope. Everything is planned perfectly, in advance: questions, answers, statements, torture instruments, the deliberate misinterpretations of words; everything aims at the annihilation of the human being and its transformation into a perfect machine, incapable of thinking freely, of moving freely, the perfect slave as one of C.V. Gheorghiu’s characters from Ora 25 best describes: “the technical slave … has the huge advantage over his human compa­ nion—he is better trained, he does not hear or see anything and does not appear until he is called” (Gheorghiu 2017, 64). The associations with the serpent are not few and they reflect images of humility and hatred, of sadism and abjection. In Ora 25, there is a short dialogue in the

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concentration camp from Ohrdruf, in Germany, between Johan Moritz and Traian Korugă, two key characters in the novel. This dialogue reflects at best the role of the writer in a society where “there will be automatic arrests, automatic convictions, automatic distractions, automatic executions” (Gheorghiu 2017, 68); the writer has nothing left but language that will help him survive in a mechanised, superficial and sadistic society: -Have you heard of people who are taming serpents? asked Traian… -I have heard, said Moritz. …-People can tam serpents, lions and all the beasts… For a while, a new species of animals has risen on the Earth. Those from this species have a name: the Citizens. They do not live either in forests, or in the jungle, but in offices. They were born from the crossing of man with cars. It’s a corcitură. This mixture is the most powerful race on Earth right now. Their faces are like those of men; sometimes you can even confuse them with humans. But then you see them behaving not like humans, but like machines. Instead of hearts, they have stopwatches… I am a writer, said Traian. A writer is, in my opinion, a tamer. When the writer shows the Beautiful to the people, I mean the Truth, they tam themselves. As far as I am concerned, I want to tam Citizens. I started writing a book. I had already reached the 4th chapter. Then, the Citizens took me captive, and I couldn’t write…I will never publish books…Instead of the 4th chapter, I would like to write something to tam the Citizens. If I manage, I will die with my soul in peace…The Citizens do not like literature. To tam them, I will write in the only style they like. I will write petitions…. The only thing they read is petitions. (Gheorghiu 2017, 313–314)

The same idea is expressed by Constantin Noica in Rugaţi-vă pentru Fratele Alexandru and Paul Goma in Patimile după Piteşti; both realise the danger of the communist society and the main threats for the people: “If you want to show that you are a rational human being, you must prove that you are not under a mechanical necessity” (Noica 1990, 42). Not only the cells from Jilava, Gherla, Piteşti, Malmaison reflect the in-out and on-off spatial metaphors, but also the labour camps as they are described in Ora 25 and Jurnalul Fericirii. The cells, where torture methods were applied, were isolated from the ordinary ones, the labour camps are placed in isolated areas, far away from civilisation. For example, N.  Steinhardt, when referring to Fortul 13 [Fort 13] from Jilava

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(completely isolated as compared to the other prisons from Gherla or Canal) says that the detainees have to descend; then he is sent to Cell 18 at Jilava and he is totally frozen: I’m in a bomb of enormous proportions, an unbelievable stench strikes me… A kind of geometrically enhanced night asylum. I am overwhelmed by a double and contradictory feeling of desolation and congestion … The window, in front of me, is slammed into planks, beyond which are the bars … In the space between the many beds, there is a narrow table, two narrow benches… Downstairs, along the beds, rows—which seem endless to me—of boots … The room seems extremely hostile, bad, I feel funny and lost. I also feel overwhelmed by fatigue, but especially scared. Like an exam for which you don’t know the subject. Quite a different horror than at Securitate. (Steinhardt 1991, 76–77)

In terms of a central-peripheral metaphor, or on-off metaphor, the first location of the labour camp is on the banks of Topliţa river, far from the villages, “with only two abandoned stables guarding this deserted land” (Gheorghiu 2017, 95). The detainees were moved from one location to another, finding it more and more difficult to survive while the work was getting harder and harder: first, they had to dig canals and they had to dig into soft and yellow earth, after that, they had to dig into stone. Then they were moved at the border between Romania and Hungary, in a forest (also a closed space) and they were asked to build fortifications against Hungarians. After a while, they were sold like slaves by the Hungarians to the Germans and transferred to 15 labour camps in Germany. The concentration camps from Dachau, Heilbronn, Kornwestheim, Ohrdruf, Darmstadt, and Ziegelheim are the same isolated places, far away from any trace of life: “The concentration camp from Ohrdruf was a field surrounded by barbed wire. Here, 15,000 prisoners were gathered. Only the open sky, the earth, and the people. At the four corners of the barbed wire fence there were tanks with soldiers with automatic weapons guarding the camp” (Gheorghiu 2017, 310). The spatial metaphor up-down is of critical importance when we want to refer to the humiliation images during the communist regimes. These metaphors are reflected in the physical appearance of the detainees and in

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their behaviour at the trials. According to the meaning of this metaphor, up is always associated with verticality, whereas down always refers to horizontality, humility, and falling. In all the novels we read, there is a consistent part that refers to the detainees’ posture. In Jurnalul Fericirii, there is a scene that stands out through its literary finesse—the process scene (we refer to Noica-Pillat process). With a fantastic literary mastery, Steinhardt presents one of the greatest Romanian philosophers of all time in terms of up-down. Up is associated with Noica’s brilliance from his youth, with the image of one of the greatest Romanian philosophers, the only one who wanted to set up a philosophy school in the immensity of Păltiniş’ silence. During the communist regime, Noica was tolerated due to his strongly nationalist beliefs. Steinhardt describes his whole enthusiasm about the possibility of seeing “a very important representative of the pro-legionary intellectuals” (Steinhardt, 25). Nothing left from the former splendour of the great philosopher. The term down of the spatial metaphor best describes the bent posture, which is specific to all detainees, being the effect of a long and painful training in jails. The orientational metaphor up-down has its basis in Steinhardt’s experience when it comes to the confrontation with the leader of the group2 (emphasis mine). Steinhardt doesn’t understand why the confrontation is presented as a threat. He is enthusiastic about the opportunity of meeting a prominent representative of the legionary intellectuals. He imagines the encounter as something extraordinary: “it will be something dramatic and noble and heroic at the same time. We will compete in denying. We will compete in defending each other. We will smile. We will shake hands. We will suffer together” (Steinhardt 1991, 25). The projected heroism of the young man falls at the sight of his friend. In terms of up-down, the dropping posture of his friend shocks and terrifies him: what terrifies and depresses me beyond any ability to express myself is the physical appearance, Dinu’s3 physical appearance and his clothes. Appearance: thin, yellowish, unshaven, dressed in shabby clothes that do not fit him, but hang on him; … and those black glasses, which are my nightmare, which I would understand later—[glasses] symbolize darkness as the opposite of the light of Christ. (Steinhardt 1991, 26)

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The dropping posture typically goes along with sadness and depression, erect posture with a positive emotional state, which here is represented by the prosecutor, by the authority. The language of the detainee is the effect of a long and painful training: “he doesn’t dispute anything, he confirms everything, he pronounces my name … The exam is short, and the candidate answered quickly and well. The candidate also bows a few times”4 (Steinhardt 1991, 26–27). Another important aspect that we should bear in mind refers to the use of nicknames and labels to name the representatives of the communist repression. These ways of addressing the authority had, as a starting point, the possible physical similarities with the respective dictators (when the nicknames referred to former communist dictators), or, in other cases, various physical disabilities, but they aimed especially at the absence of the moral traits of the oppressors. All nicknames and labels reflect a deep disregard for the guards; the agents of the prison hell should no longer be regarded as human beings, but rather as a kind of human beings, hybrids, humanoids, degenerated people, with human faces but with aberrant behaviour. Constantin Noica used to say once that: “The sense of limit— that’s what the modern man lacks” (Dogaru 2008, 50). A limit taken to the extreme by the agents of the communist regime. In Ora 25, Fenomenul Piteşti, Rugaţi-vă pentru fratele Alexandru, Soldatul câinelui, Ostinato, the authors depict the portrait of the ones who are the representatives of the communist authority; technical slaves whose laws of conduct are automatism, uniformity, and anonymity. The language used by the detainees in association with the persecutors highlights their lack of culture, illiteracy, their continuous frustration which is specific for the typology of the self-­ conscious investigator. Biserică5 [this is the name of one of the guards from Jilava prison who used this term to swear at all the detainees and their religious beliefs], Mareşalul, “short, very pleased with his job and himself, with high, cold, contemptuous looks” (Steinhardt 1991, 226), Pisică [whose greatest pleasure was to sneak into the cell and punish the detainees who were trying to doze off], the cruel ones, the savage ones, the sadists, Coreeanul and Boiereanu [both from Gherla prison], Pleoşniţă/ Ploşniţă [a nickname used for General Pleşiţă], Grenadă, Ţara lui Ciomag-­ Vodă, Nikita Rotofeievici. Their voice and pronunciation characteristics reflect their ignorance and lack of culture: wrong pronunciation—ie

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[instead of e], ieste [instead of este], ie [instead of sunt]: nu ie audienţe, tu faci ce zic io! [io instead of eu], totul ie bine, libertăţile ieste respectate; incomplete pronunciation of words—‘telectualule!, Da’mneata!, Ş’ ce vrei să faci?, Mnezeii mă-tii, io-te ce ne-ai făcu’ cu cărţili teli!; mispronunciation by adding sounds—phrostii, chărţi, cholori; and offensive ways of addressing the other ones with mă, bă.

The Language of the Persecutor According to Leo Stone (1971), “some acts of aggression arise from anxiety, and others from rage, some from narcissistic self-promotion and ­others from sexual needs or hunger, still others from sheer pleasure in exercising one’s bodily power” (Gay 1993, 533). Moreover, he noted that “aggression is often integrated with basic and unequivocal instincts such as hunger (where killing is archaically inevitable), and the various phases of sexuality. Inescapably, then, there are varying degrees and varying forms of aggression” (Gay 1993, 533). In the Romanian communist prisons, aggression is just a summary name for many ways of doing unbearable atrocities. The language based on different aggression forms is the one that best reflects the space torture of the communist regime. The profile of the persecutors presents them as indifferent bureaucrats, eager to obtain incriminating answers by any means, driven by a strong sense of hatred towards the detainees. Their behaviour (verbal and non-verbal) is a very good example of how the spatial metaphor central-peripheral works. They are the perfect product of a regime that has annihilated the last drop of humanity. They are the ones who act according to the orders they receive from the central authority; thus, their behaviour is that of a machine: only the truths admitted by the institution are expressed, the house where the accused ones were seen translates into the conspiratorial house where the conspirators met, the tea to which we had been invited by phone calls translates into a hostile meeting organized on the phone (do you deny that he notified you by phone?). (Steinhardt 1991, 169–170)

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In terms of a metaphor in-out, it is of critical importance to see how the truth is revealed in the ordinary investigations and in public trials. The investigations were usually done at night, in a cloistered space, under the threat of torture, most of the time being held in secret. These investigations’ truth is the one that is recorded, whereas at the public trial, everything could be said but it was worthless, never recorded and never taken into consideration. In the persecutor’s profile, there are some constant elements that appear in all the literary works which reflect the atrocities during the communist regime. First, there are the beat and torture scenarios. From a linguistic point of view, all the scenarios developed with a series of leitmotif phrases: La cap, la cap, dă-i la cap ‘telectualului, să-i iasă răul, la cap, la cap! [To the head, to the head, hit him to the head, let the evil come out, to the head, to the head!], Dă-i peste gură!, Dă-i peste gură, ‘nchide-i gura, să nu mai latre! [Smack his mouth! Smack his mouth! Shut his mouth to make him stop barking!], Dă-i la tălpi! [Hit him on the soles!]. Brutality, both in the prisons and in the camps, was a routine. The people there have always been those who are, in some way, “unpleasant for the regime” (Hockenos 1993, 162). Blows to the head and mouth are not accidental; they are a form of humiliation, and they are made on purpose. The head thinks, the mouth says, two actions that the communist regime wanted totally suppressed. You are not allowed to think, you are not allowed to say, you simply need to execute. In addition to physical torture that always took place in a peripheral, dark, and hidden area, other forms of depersonalisation were used: hunger, cold, hard work, insults. Second, there are the verbal insults and threats, with both animal and obscene connotations: broască râioasă [toad], căţea [bitch], dobitoc împuţit [stinking bastard], năpârcă [skunk], scorpie [shrew], scroafă [sow], viperă [viper], banditule [bandit], borfaşule [prowler], criminalule [criminal], curvă [whore], jidan [Jew], pramatie [scamp], renegat [renegade], ticălosule [jerk], târfă [whore]. In the persecutors’ language there seems to be a pleasure for blasphemy; for example, in Fenomenul Piteşti, there is lieutenant Marina who enjoyed torturing the detainees: “the torture sessions were a real soul food for him … he enjoyed especially the anti-­ Christian blasphemy sessions” (Ierunca 2008, 32), or in Ora 25, there is also a fragment that refers to the description of an improvised orthodox church in the concentration camp from Darmstadt:

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the church was placed directly on the ground…. The icons were drawn with charcoal and coloured chalk. The interior had no floor… In the middle of the church there was a cross… Jesus was made of cardboard. The thorns of the crown were made of tin from the cans, cut into strips … The painter had not had red to paint the blood. In the wounds’ places there was red paper from Lucky Strike cigarette packs. (Gheorghiu 2017, 346–347)

Third, special attention should be given to the following ways of addressing: bă and mă. They reflect a hostile way of addressing and postulate a capacity to be aggressive which works out in a variety of circumstances, supported by whatever is experienced as unpleasurable: mă, dobitoc împuţit, ce complotaţi voi acolo, mă, tu faci muhaia de mine, mă banditule!; Ce spui, mă?; Tu eşti ăla, mă, care ai făcut-o pe grozavul?; Mă, tu ai mâncat azi?? Păi, asta e grav de tot, mă, ce nu puteai spune adevărul?; Eşti un mare ticălos, mă, şi zici c-ai mâncat? [you, a stinking asshole, what are you plotting over there, you’re making fun of me, you bandit! What are you saying? Are you the one who played the fox? Hey, you, have you eaten today? Well, that’s a serious thing, man, why couldn’t you tell the truth? You’re a big bastard, man, and you say you have eaten?]. It is also interesting to notice how the central-peripheral metaphor works in the case of these ways of addressing. In Piteşti prison, Ţurcanu, a case of mental pathology, the tool of the central authorities and a detainee too, was the only one who had the right to address the other ones with mă. He had discretionary powers in the prison that were given to him by the communist authorities to organise in the prison an island of absolute terror based on the systematic torture of detainees by other detainees—the socalled re-education process. He could ask the guards to bring to him banditul cutare din camera cutare [that bandit from that room] and both the guards and the detainees addressed him with domnule Ţurcanu [Mr Ţurcanu]. The re-education process, a criminal communist project, started with an indirect involvement of the prison bosses (the representatives of the central communist authorities) who spread false rumours among the detainees (the representatives of a periphery which was located outside the city, the contact with the outside world being off-limits, a place that offered the favourable conditions for a never-ending torture, no yowl

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could be heard by anyone). The problem of aggression proved just another ground for confusions, hesitations, and controversies in Piteşti prison and the main aim was to make the quality of victim disappear by using the torture instruments in such a way that the tortured person tortures in turn, this experience being “one of the most inhuman experiences ever recorded in a possible anthology of sadism” (Ierunca 2008, 29). In terms of both in-out and central-peripheral metaphors, the re-education process took place both on an internal and external level. Moreover, the re-­ education process had four main stages: first, there was the external exposure which was much more aggressive than any other form of investigation. The detainees had to confess everything that they hadn’t said during the investigations from Securitate, to denounce any kind of connections they used to have outside the prison area. Second, there was the internal exposure. During this stage, the detainees had to tell the names of the ones who helped them inside the prison: other detainees or employees from the prison administration or a more benevolent guard and so forth. Furthermore, there was the moral public exposure which was one of the most unimaginable and unbearable methods ever used in the communist prisons worldwide. The detainee had to trample on the holiest things in one’s life: God, parents, family members, friends, himself. Finally, there was the fourth stage, when the re-educated detainee “is put in charge of the reeducation process of his best friend, torturing him with his own hands and, thus, becoming, in turn, an executioner” (Ierunca 2008, 48). This re-education process was based on a culture of hatred that was ­developed within the prison with the help of discord, mistrust, rumours, doubts that were slipped by the instruments of the communist regime among the detainees and aimed at the mental destruction of the individual: “Humans, pugnacious animals that they are, cultivate their hatred because they get pleasure from the exercise of their aggressive powers” (Gay 1993, 9). The new they wanted to create, as a result of the re-­ education process, was never completed because one of the long-term effects of this humiliating and destroying experience was the silence of the ones who were subjected to the re-education torture. The refusal to speak, keeping yourself silent is a constant of the ones who had to experience the re-education process. Not only the ones who were part of it, but also the ones who spent a long period of time in prisons prefer, in some

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circumstances, and for obvious reasons, to remain silent. Silence was also a way of survival in communist prisons. Gabriel Liiceanu (1996) remembers a moment when Noica shared his opinion regarding the new man that the communist regime wanted to create. After being released from the prison, he no longer had teeth and he didn’t want a denture because he wanted people to see what a communist prison can do to people. Moreover, before being released from prison, the political detainees were placed in a car and went on a tour of Bucharest to become aware of the communist regime’s achievements while they were in prison. Noica said: “You made beautiful things, but you made me ugly. And I turned my head towards them with my mouth suckled and without teeth” (Tănase 1997, 468).

Forgiveness and Hope The main aim of this section will be to detail how the detainees viewed non-physical entities (events, emotions, ideas, and activities) as physical entities in terms of ontological metaphors such as referring, quantifying, identifying aspects and causes, setting goals, and motivating actions on some abstract concepts. What strikes the most in this type of literature is the hope that never dies. But different levels of hope. Hope is strongly related to the idea of being free (escaping). In the prison literature, there are three main types of escape: there is a silent one (based on sharing poetry, fiction, history, and culture knowledge), there is a social escape (based on the physical work which, although difficult or very difficult, was always seen by the detainees as a hope), and there is also a religious escape (based on perceiving the prison as a blessing and as a Christian metamorphosis). To reflect the images of forgiveness and hope, we are going to refer to the silent escape and the religious escape. The silent escape through culture was a way of survival in the communist prisons. Sharing cultural knowledge (poetry, fiction, history, religion, biology, architecture, etc.) makes the prison experience more bearable. From an ontological metaphor perspective (quantifying and identifying aspects), these motivating actions enabled the detainees to discover and understand how certain things work, how different concepts are used,

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and how the space torture can be made more endurable. In prison, there is a great thirst for poetry; learning poetry by heart is the most enjoyable and tireless prison activity: “the one who knows by heart many poems is a man made in detention, his are the hours that pass unnoticed and in dignity” (Steinhardt 1991, 31). The motivating actions include a wide range of lessons: history of arts, Spanish, English, general Biology, history of culture, agricultural techniques, law philosophy, the Second World War history, general principles of strategy, painting, et cetera. This intense cultural activity has the aim to keep the hope alive in an environment where cells lack electricity or lighting, toilets are always stopped up and flooded, a putrid, all-­pervading stench fills the air and most detainees clearly look undernourished, many anaemic or weak from other illnesses and continuous tortures for imaginary guilts. Cell 34 from Jilava represents a noble defiance of reality: “joy, springing from aristocracy, poetry and defiance—and pain …, mix so inextricably that everything, including pain, turns into ecstatic and uplifting happiness” (Steinhardt 1991, 33). On the other hand, the ontological metaphors also enable people to understand some features of a physical entity in terms of another. For instance, the metaphorical concept, the mind is a machine, is easily identified in the authors’ subjective experiences: the obsessive repetition of the same words creates auditory hallucinations: “And he said…and I said …and he said again and then I answered” (Steinhardt 1991 and Goma 1990,1991) or in Ora 25: “the machines do not tolerate mess…The machines do not tolerate anarchy, laziness, and human indolence … The robots cannot adapt to humans. You must adapt to the robots … The robot is the perfect worker, and you are not” (Gheorghiu 2017, 196) or in Dumnezeu nu primeşte decât duminica [God Only Receives on Sunday]: “citizens in rotten and decadent societies no longer have a heart or a brain. The citizens of dying societies are reduced to instinct” (Gheorghiu 2018, 349). The religious escape is based on perceiving the prison as a blessing, as a Christian metamorphosis and as a place where empathy and moral models will help the detainees survive. It is a well-known fact that the communist regime used to persecute Christians, especially priests and their families, monks, bishops, archbishops, etc. In all the prison writings, the repressive behaviour against this social category is presented in a

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detailed way. The religious escape is rendered in actions that need to be done quickly without being seen by the guards: “We have to work fast and act clandestinely, in front of everyone” (Steinhardt 1991, 82)—the baptism, the prayer, the cross sign, the religious rituals. The detainees reacted differently to the religious escape; Steinhardt, for example, ­managed to overcome the prison experience with the help of finding the Orthodox religion, as a motivating action: I went into prison blind … and came out with my eyes open; I went in pampered … I came out healed …; I entered unhappy, I came out knowing happiness; I came in nervous, upset, sensitive to trifles, I go out carelessly; the sun and life told me a little, now I know how to taste a slice of bread as small as possible; I come out admiring, above all, courage, dignity, honour, heroism; I come out in peace: with those I have wronged, with my friends, with my enemies, and even with myself. (Steinhardt 1991, 302)

Gheorghiu’s characters save themselves with the help of religion, but they couldn’t overcome the torture from the concentration camps, and they preferred dying (identifying causes from an ontological perspective). It’s the case of Traian Korugă, an Orthodox priest’s son, who wants to die to save himself, by keeping his faith in God in unbearable concentration camp conditions (referring) and by not being able to handle the time torture (quantifying): I have been on the border between life and death for a year. For a year now I have been on the border between dream and reality. I’m out of time and yet I continue to live … And all this suffering comes from the fact that I don’t understand if I’m a prisoner or I’m free. I see I’m imprisoned, but I can’t believe I’m imprisoned. I see I am not free, but my mind tells me that there is no reason not to be free. The torture of this misunderstanding is infinitely heavier than slavery … That is why I would like to die! Help me, Lord, to die! I can’t stand this torment. The hour I am in no longer belongs to life and I cannot pass through it with my flesh and blood: it is 25 o’clock, the hour when it is too late to be saved, too late for life and death. It’s too late for everything. Lord, make me a stone, but don’t let me live! If you leave me, I won’t even be able to die! (Gheorghiu 2017, 348)

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In the concentration camps, the detainees still hope: “that’s our only hope: that we haven’t died yet. But hope cannot replace life. Hope is a weed that grows even on graves” (Gheorghiu 2017, 415). This is a statement that, without any doubts, could conclude how the detainees managed to save themselves with the help of Christian faith. It is a good example of the general observation in talking about abstract concepts by means of using language drawn from concrete domains. And it’s not the only example. Paul Goma states “I will not forget you in a book” (Goma 1991, 2019) referring to the fact that the communist regime atrocities mustn’t be forgotten and the books will have to reveal the truth. The same idea is shared in case of Noica’s writings. In Rugaţi-vă pentru fratele Alexandru, there is an interesting dialogue between the detainee and the guard (setting goals and motivating actions): “Commander, … I knocked on the wall, I admit, but not to communicate with my neighbour, because we don’t know Morse, but to establish a code for communication in the outer space” (Noica 1990, 41). Noica has the metaphysical consciousness that God exists, and he doesn’t need any proof for that. He also has the hope that the written word will keep the memory alive: “What an admirable zero and pencil, a positive zero with a white sheet of paper from which I’m thinking about starting the cosmic dialogue. Anything can come out of using a pencil, communication, non-communication. I’m writing on the first page … COSMIC DAYS. I think that the signal sent by people, with the answer received over the years, could represent a unit, a day of conversation” (Noica 1990, 43–44). The linguistic analysis of the above-mentioned writings reveals interes­ ting conclusions. C.  Noica and N.  Steinhardt plead for an apology of forgiveness. If in Noica’s case it is about an ethical apology for forgiveness, in terms of the victim’s compassion, morally superior to his executioner (who lost his human substance), in case of Steinhardt and Gheorghiu we find a religious apology for forgiveness, explainable in terms of the Orthodox faith. In Noica’s writings it is fascinating to discover the psychology of the winner beyond the psychology of the loser, with so much finesse and literary refinement. Rugaţi-vă pentru fratele Alexandru is a kind of a once upon a time story, in which the detainee recreates the psychology of the investigator with traces of bitter irony; an analysis made by a consciousness that acutely feels the impossibility of

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establishing a dialogue with some infernal machines born practically from the frightening prison hell. Noica manages to forget and forgive but he cannot forgive himself. After years of detention, apparently, reconciled with the other ones, but not at peace with himself, he still lives the complex of the guilty one: “We don’t have to record and remember everything. I decided not to keep in mind their face so as not to recognize them on the street when I am free” (Noica 1990, 18–19). The linguistic analysis of C. Noica’s writings, N. Steinhardt’s journal, C.V. Gheorghiu’s novels and P. Goma’s writings revealed humility in multiple manifestation forms: humiliation, insult, mockery, abjection. Hatred, in its various forms, from aversion and hostility to enmity and anger is present in Virgil Ierunca’s book and Paul Goma’s writings. Paul Goma represents, in the exegetical economy of this paper, the category of the interesting (with a term used by Kierkegaard), constantly in an oscillation between real and objective passions and torn destinies. Paul Goma, nicknamed “the Romanians’ Soljeniţîn,” a vehement critic of the totalitarian system, is, without any doubt, a reflective aesthete. His peculiarity consists in his “awkward, radical style, specific to an author with a vocation of a pamphleteer” (Tismăneanu 2006, 308). His writings, the result of a critical spirit, of an overflowing lucidity, make humility, hatred, and hope coexist perfectly, creating a picture, sometimes painful, sometimes tragic, sometimes deeply sentimental of the Romanian society whose identity remains in rupture.

Conclusions We have been trying to analyse all these writings from a linguistic perspective, emphasising the fact that the symbolic load of words has the power to affect individuals, both mentally and physically. From a metaphorical perspective, the language of the detainees and the language of the persecutors generate a wide range of feelings. The in-depth linguistic analysis of the language of the detainees reflects different stages of humility both in space and in time. The linguistic analysis of the language of the persecutors reflects the atrocities of the Romanian communist regime, the levels of hatred towards the detainees which culminated with the

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re-­education process from Piteşti prison, with scenes of abominable violence supported by a tyrannical and arbitrary system, which gives us the proof that in evil there are no limits, that one can go beyond the credible. We would like to end our linguistic-literary insight with a statement that belonged to one of the detainees who shared the same cell with N. Steinhardt: “that’s our only holy duty: if we are to fall, be it at dawn” (Steinhardt 1991, 235). We strongly believe that this statement best reflects the space and time torture in the Romanian communist prisons. The conceptual metaphor up-down returns to the forefront to help us conclude that, although the prison cells were desecrated and dark spaces, where the coordinates faded away and the bet with existence was almost lost, there was still a hope among detainees, an up movement, towards light, at dawn.

Notes 1. Our translation. Unless otherwise specified, all subsequent quotations from sources written in Romanian have been translated by the author of this paper. 2. We refer to Constantin Noica and the well-known Noica-Pillat trial that resulted in blaming those involved for imaginary guilt. This was a great judicial farce, with sentences that totalled 268 years in prison and 183 years of civic degradation. 3. Constantin Noica. Friends used to call him Dinu. 4. The quote refers to Constantin Noica’s behaviour at the trial. 5. Biserică (church) was one of the forgiveness and hope symbols in the communist prisons.

References Bălan, Ion. 2000. Regimul concentraţionar din România: 1945–1964 [The Concentration Regime in Romania: 1945–1964]. Bucureşti: Editura Fundaţiei Academia Civică.

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Cesereanu, Ruxandra. 1998. Călătorie spre centrul infernului. Gulagul în conştiinta românească [Journey to the Centre of Hell. Gulag in the Romanian Consciousness]. Bucureşti: Editura Fundaţiei Culturale Române. Diaconescu, Ioana. 2012. Scriitori în arhivele CNSAS. Studii şi documente. [Writers in the CNSAS archives. Studies and documents]. Bucureşti: Fundaţia Academia Civică. Dogaru, Constantin. 2008. Noica în amintirile unui preot ortodox. [Noica in the Memories of an Orthodox Priest]. Piteşti: Editura Paralela 45. Gheorghiu, C. Virgil. 2017. Ora 25 [25 O’Clock]. Preface by Gabriel Marcel. Arad: Editura Sens. Gheorghiu, C. Virgil. 2018. Dumnezeu nu primeşte decât duminica [God Only Receives on Sunday]. Bucureşti: Editura Sophia. Gay, Peter. 1993. The Cultivation of Hatred. The Bourgeois Experience Victoria to Freud. New York, London: W.W. Norton and Company. Gibbs, Raymond W. 1994. The Poetics of Mind. Figurative Thought, Language and Understanding. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Goma, Paul. 1991. Ostinato [Ostinato]. Bucureşti: Editura Univers. Goma, Paul. 1990. Patimile după Piteşti [The Passions after Piteşti]. Bucureşti: Editura Cartea Românească. Goma, Paul. 2019. Soldatul câinelui [The Dog’s Soldier]. Oradea: Editura Ratio et Revelatio. Hockenos, Paul. 1993. Free to Hate. The Rise of the Right in Post-Communist Eastern Europe. New York, London: Routledge. Ierunca, Virgil. 2008. Fenomenul Piteşti (fourth edition) [Piteşti Phenomenon]. Bucureşti: Editura Humanitas. Lakoff, George and Johnson, Mark. 1980. Metaphors We Live By. Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press. Lakoff, George and Turner, Mark. 1989. More than Cool Reason: A Field Guide to Poetic Metaphor. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Liiceanu, Gabriel. 1996. Adaosuri la o biografie [Additions to a Biography]. Două opriri pe drumul lui Noica in Revista 22/33. Republished in Tănase, Stelian. 1997. Anatomia mistificării [The Anatomy of Mistification]. Documente ale procesului Noica-Pillat. 1944–1989. Bucureşti: Humanitas. Noica, Constantin. 1990. Rugaţi-vă pentru fratele Alexandru [Pray for Brother Alexandru]. Bucureşti: Editura Humanitas. Rusan, Romulus. 2004. Şcoala Memoriei [The School of Memory]. Bucureşti: Editura Fundaţia Academia Civică.

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Soljeniţîn, Alexandr. 1997. Arhipelagul Gulag [Gulag Archipelago]. With a translation and notes by Ion Covaci. Bucureşti: Editura Univers. Steen, Gerard. 1994. Understanding Metaphor in Literature. New York: Longman Group Limited. Steinhardt, Nicolae. 1991. Jurnalul Fericirii [The Diary of Happiness]. Cluj-­ Napoca: Editura Dacia. Stone, Leo. 1971. “Reflections on the Psychoanalytic Concept of Aggression,” Psychoanalytic Quarterly, XL, 195, 238, 199. Sweetser, Eve. 1990. From Etymology to Pragmatics: The Mind  – as Body  – Metaphor in Semantics Structure and Semantic Change. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Tănase, Stelian. 1997. Anatomia mistificării [The Anatomy of Mistification]. Documente ale procesului Noica-Pillat. 1944–1989. Bucureşti: Humanitas. Tismăneanu, Vladimir. 2006. Raport final. Comisia prezidenţială pentru analiza dictaturii comuniste din România [Final report. Presidential Commission for the Analysis of the Communist Dictatorship in Romania]. Bucureşti: 307–318. https://www.wilsoncenter.org/sites/default/files/media/documents/article/RAPORT%20FINA L_%20CADCR.pdf. Zub, Alexandru. 2012. Alexandru Zub la Sighet [Alexandru Zub at Sighet]. Bucureşti: Fundaţia Academia Civică.

11 Retrieving Memory Via Desk-Drawer Literature: From Reality Escapism in Stories About Cadmav to Contemporary Reflective Writing in With My Woman’s Mind Ioana Mudure-Iacob

Any accurate illustration of the realities of the Romanian communist society in literature during the pre-revolution moment was doomed to censorship, as the mechanism of filtering writing through the constraining “wooden language” was the mainstream procedure of diluting public discourse. Lacking a samizdat—“not one full-blown samizdat publication appeared” (Linz and Stepan 1996, 353), as opposed to other countries in the former Soviet bloc—Romania’s manifestation of dissidence occurred in less visible discourses, mainly in manifold manuscripts of desk-drawer literature. The desk-drawer, a repository of memories that are retrieved via writing, bears different layers of meaning, either as the instrument of censorship of publishing, the locked drawers of the oppressive Security authority or the guardian of language liberation. Desk-drawer literature,

I. Mudure-Iacob (*) Babeș-Bolyai University, Cluj-Napoca, Romania e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 E. Wohl, E. Păcurar (eds.), Language of the Revolution, Palgrave Studies in Languages at War, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-37178-3_11

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along with autobiographical writings published in the post-communist epoch, becomes the mechanism of memory retrieval by capturing glimpses of subjective experiences juxtaposed as a complex mapping of escapist strategies. Mihaela Miroiu’s desk-drawer novel Stories About Cadmav and the autobiography With My Woman’s Mind1 are exemplified in the current study to illustrate instances of the collective imagination as resistance to the persecuting regime. Dwelling on reality escapism via intellectual idealism, peer communion and writing, Stories About Cadmav can be read as an intertwined architecture of multiple realities and fictions shaped as subjective micro-dissidence projections. With My Woman’s Mind embodies the auto-reflexive metamorphosis of a young girl into a complete feminist, transgressing gender norms and illustrating the role of the individual in defying the deeply patriarchal society via empowerment. Both pieces of writing were chosen as landmarks of how resistance, insurgencies and remembrance discourses are portrayed through the lens of written language in an attempt to illustrate how memory retrieval is tantamount to solving a puzzle whose pieces were at times misshapen or triggers for traumatic recollections. The analysis in the current study focuses on the representation of escapism strategies in Mihaela Miroiu’s novel by signalling characters’ profiles as attempts to build identities, by referencing micro-revolutions such as linguistic landscapes and by illustrating triggers created by writing and storytelling. Moreover, the emphasis is on mapping the sense of belonging as described in the autobiography. Referring to recurring concepts such as “freedom,” “people,” “companions” shifting their meaning from the repetitive use in propaganda discourses into new significances, clad with the scent of liberation, the victory of language over the oppressive regime is illustrated in the current study.

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 scapism via Writing and Triggering E Micro-­revolutions in Stories About Cadmav. Building the Foundation of Identity Through the Web of Relations in Stories About Cadmav Mihaela Miroiu’s novel is the author’s actual literary debut that occurred at the end of her academic career2 and can stand as a manifesto to use the power of imagination against the oppressive power of communist authorities. At a simplistic retelling, the novel is the story of a group of intellectuals who seek freedom of mind via various strategies of escapism, from writing to storytelling and peer communion. The novel’s architecture encompasses rich symbolism references and a complexity of character archetypes, inviting towards a reading that is in fact a self-exploratory process of retrieving memories. The reverse path is also the framework for one of the keys of interpretation rendered in the current study, that is from the macro to the micro dimension of perceived realities indicating that the “preoccupation with the macro (how in history, writ large, notions of time and space were conceived) to the micro (how the Self was conceived) concerns the shape of the enemy… and the means to destroy him” (Halfin 2006, 6). The representation of reality is visible in the narrative formula of the novel Stories About Cadmav as a multiplicity of layers, each with planned similarities and differences, with reality-fictional overlapping planes and intertextuality serving as the framework for what appears to be independent narrative mirroring the 1980s society. In the mind of a citizen in a totalitarian state, the notion of reality is not associated with the image of a truthful witness brought before the court in order to corroborate or contest the testimony of someone suspected of lying. Reality means rather the entire court setting- the situation, as it is popularly called for the sake of brevity. This is a setting which the decision on what is to be taken for the truth is made arbitrarily, regardless of what this or that witness may say… What forms reality in a totalitarian country is, to put it in a nutshell, the fact plus what they can do to it. (Baranczak 1991, 100)

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The construct of reality in Stories About Cadmav is the enclave that hosts multi-layered relations between archetypal characters and that is reimagined via writing (Marius’s manuscript) and the embodiment of Cadmav as the image of freedom. This layering is mirrored in the novel as the futile construction of the ice temple, a mausoleum ordered by a figure of authority that remains a distant governing and menacing shadow over the whole micro-society—the community made of workers, architect and designer. The story began the day they were commanded to build an ice temple, without any of them knowing how to do it, or without having the professional experience of carving ice blocks. They were taken out of their purposes in order to complete this unusual and unclear piece of work, put together as skilled craftsmen, isolated on this hill-sided plateau, far from any human settlement. (Miroiu 2021, 151)3

The ice temple is the metaphor of a totalitarian society, apparently shaped into perfection, made from identical and repetitive blocks of ice—the intended amorphous selves of citizens in a totalitarian society, but whose futility is clear to all. “How do you create beauty in the middle of nowhere, the deserted nature, and then privilege one single human being with the power to contemplate it, even more so, to build an ephemeris, an ice temple, a beauty that is to fall apart, to melt the very moment the Sun turns towards it?” (Miroiu 2021, 151).4 Furthermore, the perception that workers have, together with the architect and designer, regarding the absurd and yet imposed requirement is tantamount to the harsh and limiting reality imposed on people by the communist authorities. Their escape from the oppressive task (an oppression sketched by cold, hunger and fear of unknown) can only be via completion of the task, the actual building of the seemingly impossible temple. Likewise, the novel characters, as representations of the intellectuals’ acts of survival in the communist regime, face the similar challenge of fighting the harsh, repetitive and obsolete realities of their lives by resorting to the awareness that escape can only be achieved via completion or closure (which is, in fact, the name of the narrative episode describing the building of the ice temple). Closure, in its own turn, can

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be the effect of the written word, a tangible representation of imagination which appears from the “anti-totalitarian resistance…always identified with the struggle against forgetting” (Baranczak 1991, 110). Prior to finding closure, each of the novel’s characters is cast into self-­ exploratory itineraries, depicting various instances of life in the communist society: from small gatherings between friends, to censorship, to daily interactions between workers and the hierarchical authorities, and eventually to trauma and the marring experiences of facing one’s demons. In terms of sketching the self-exploratory paths of the characters, the author draws conceptual pillars to render the parallelism to experienced realities of the time. The ice temple (shaped as a cone, therefore an enclosed space), symbolising the intended image of communist society as developed by authorities, can well be read as the macro construct, an apparently protective vault for its citizens who are rendered as ice blocks in the construction, the people bereft of identity in a totalitarian society. The shaping of the ice blocks into a construction is the equivalent of interwoven relations—the micro-social constructs—drawn in the novel Stories About Cadmav, whereas the actual doers, the mechanism that enables the birth of the temple/story is, on the one hand, the hands/gestures of the workers and, on the other, the act of writing, the story that puts together the pieces of the puzzle. “Your shape will not have a material face, it will embody into a story”5 (Miroiu 2021, 156). The relationships that are built between different characters in the novel are illustrative of the various topics that the story covers: love, friendship, absurdity or creativity. Catinca, Marius, Irma, Horia, the rapist construction supervisor, the workers, the architect and the designer are all facets of human identity, whose juxtaposing experiences add to the dimension of the story’s new subjective accounts. What is more relevant, perhaps, rather than analysing the archetypes that characters represent, is to portray the relationships between them. The parallelism between the webs of relations and the ice blocks that build the ice temple is noteworthy in this respect and rearticulates the idea of a micro-community as a protective vault for the individual freedom. What relationships embody in the novel is in fact a version of the binary opposition resistance- escapism, the pathway leading to some sort of freedom of thought.

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One dimension of totalitarian societies was the overwhelming impression that the routine and repetitive realities prevent the occurrence of a foreseeable future. In need of a hope for better days and in a permanent waiting for triggers to change the state of imposed orders and regulations, all characters appear to be trying to escape their condition. Such escapism occurs via writing, communion or imagination and becomes viable in the presence of a mutual resistance to the absurdities of the totalitarian society. The duality escapism-resistance becomes a leitmotif along all the relations that the author sketches and maps the story with webs of identity that allow characters to enjoy their sense of individual freedom. Such relations can be understood through the lens of political democracy theories, according to which groups perform as mediators between individuals and the larger society. The groups, or the micro-social constructs, function as “socializing agencies that affect the values, attitudes, political skills of their members” (Finifter 1974, 607) and the influence of groups on individuals’ attitudes, behaviour and beliefs can prevent the sensed force of political totalitarianism. The relationships built along the novel are a portrayal of these groups, enclaves of freedom forged by the members’ affective ties and they are observed as interwoven networks of validation. The largest micro-social construct of a group is made by young intellectuals, individuals who share the passion for literature and words: Catinca, Marius, Irma, Horia, Paul, Petru, Radu Veronica and a group that is named “phalanstery”6 in the book, indicative of a utopic community. Their reunion as a whole occurs only once in the novel in the episode of a carol gathering held at Marius and Catinca’s place, in the proximity of Christmas, when the disparity of the Christmas tree: “Is this Christmas tree an anti-urban protest?”7 (Miroiu 2021, 121) can be a metaphor for the typology of couple that Catinca and Marius make. The relationship illustrating the escapism-resistance duality is the one between Catinca and Marius, whose intellectual idealism seems to be one major common feature, whereas the disparities between them appear to diffuse their connection. Sharing the same living space, their relation passes from a realm of love into an intellectually nurturing association, a form of inter-validation via reading and writing. “Between them, the kindred silence replaced explanations, his behaviour had nothing in

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common with the behaviour of other people who were close, because she would break into his soul without notice, bluntly”8 (Miroiu 2021, 83). The malfunctioning of this relationship as a love connection stems from the fact that inter-validation cannot occur between the two in the sentimental dimension, which rather generates escapism via euphoria. Instead, their relation becomes one of friendship, which the narrator builds among other pairs of characters as well. “That night, Marius and Catinca managed to talk to each other as two friends who are in a state of soulful communion”9 (Miroiu 2021, 145). The transformative force of friendship is sensed within the micro-social constructs and becomes a recurring symbol along the interactions and stories within the novel, from the Companion (the first story of the novel) to the representation of friend-couples (Catinca-Irma, Marius-Irma, Catinca-Horia, Cadmav-­ homeless woman and Cadmav-Nicodim). Friendship is envisaged as the enclave of protection, the escapism mechanism of individuals from an oppressive society, turning the routine and dehumanising obedience into a creative force and a portrait of diversity. Cadmav’s account of the meaning of friendship, retold by Catinca to Irma, is illustrative in this respect: “in the history of mankind, friendship is the purest and most valuable relationship, because it was never altered through institutionalisation…no real belief should become a law, a rule…the history of mankind is the history of their naivety”10 (Miroiu 2021, 171). It is through friendship that individual freedom can be achieved, as a form of escapism and the ante-portas of micro-rebellions against the establishment. There is no institution for it [friendship], because even when it is pale, when it is only a mere shadow of the idea, it can still flow, without mediation, without norms, other than the ones that come from the souls, the spirits that correspond to one another, who are, so to say, of the same spiritual family; it is the perpetual choice, it is freedom, as elective affinity only ends when the relationship ends, not before not after. It’s a pity that in our language, the word that not fully embody the understanding (amos) of the soul mate. But we cannot call it soulship either. (Miroiu 2021, 151)11

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Irma and Catinca’s friendship follows the pattern of escapism via freedom; it is a recollection of the lost paradise, as their encounters revolve around restoring memories of a past clad with freedom to think and dream amid families and neighbours, a representation of the concept ours.12 Irma is the feminine character outside the norms of a communist society, a single woman, engaged in literary activities, strong enough to renounce the pre-defined roles of women. Her friendship with Catinca is the manner of escaping reality by a sort of daydreaming or restoring memories from childhood and of rebuilding Cadmav through storytelling. One notable manner in which Irma attempts to enable Catinca to draw the contour of her own identity rather than see it through the lens of others is to reactivate the lived experience of childhood. Catinca tells the story of the apple tree with its ritualistic symbolism: There was an apple tree in our orchard. It was a ritualistic apple tree because at times of celebration children of the same age would come, they would spin around it singing and then, in turns, they would stop and kiss the cross carved in the tree bark. The song was like this: “Companion with me, Companion with you, Companion with dear God”. When the last line was sung, the children would kiss the place where the two arms of the cross combined, just like you would kiss an icon, they would kiss this last term of companionship, seeing it in the body of the tree trapped in the paradise of innocence. Throughout the whole year, the companion children would think of themselves as kin, they had a special brotherhood. I say the apple tree last summer. The cross broadened along with the trunk, it widened and scorched because of the lack of those kisses that once invigorated it, in the youth of the apple tree and in our own childhood. (Miroiu 2021, 172)13

The liberating memory leads to momentous freedom of thought that can occur within the friendship realm, where truth is spoken freely, deprived of norms and limitations. Irma is the only friend who bluntly warns Catinca of her mental chimera that feeds the Cadmav illusion. If Marius is the writer as creator of the illusion and Catinca the reader as recipient and interpreter of the idea, Irma is the filtering piece, a balancing character between idealism and imposed reality. With Irma and

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Catinca, friendship blends into a sisterhood similar to the children’s nearness to a brotherhood, with a sense of belonging that is carved in time and shared stories. Their sisterhood friendship is the mirror of the binary group enclaves— totalitarian society belonging, which explains the us versus them typology of discourse present in the communist society. It was “either an us of shared commitment and responsibility vs. a them of reactionary global political forces or a more fragile us threatened by traitorous from within them” (Larson 2015, 131). The two characters share commitment and history and find their own particular mechanisms of reacting to exterior forces (one through imagination, the other through a rewriting and remapping of space), while, at the same time, the fragility in the us dimension is visible in their experienced traumas, Catinca’s death and Irma’s rape.

 he Power of Language and Escapism via T Writing and Storytelling Having paralleled the meaning of relationships between the characters of the novel to the metaphorical ice blocks that build the ice temple, the premise was that survival in the totalitarian society depicted as the ice temple can occur as a form of escapism. Such escapism happens via self-­ exploratory routes within friendship relationships, which allow individuals to foresee a glimpse of the future, a hope that was denied by the web of norms, regulations and limitations. The other dimension of escapism with a liberating force for the individual was writing, storytelling, any form of putting imagination and creativity into words. Language thus gains limitless powers and transforms the social construct by reinventing it, becoming the trigger towards freedom. In Stories About Cadmav, the liberating force of language is present at two particular levels. On the one hand, there is the building of Cadmav,14 the product of Marius’s imagination and the embodiment of Catinca’s receptive mind as the trigger that binds micro-social constructs—the friendship relations. On the other hand, there is Irma’s reimagining of the world by rewriting and remapping the physical world and taking

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ownership over her narrative. The former, constituted in Cadmav narratives inserted in the text, lays the foundation of the creative force as the mechanism of storytelling. What Marius, the writer, creates in his mind is deconstructed by Catinca, the naratee, and her reading and reimagining of Cadmav is then expanded into Nathaniel, by the storytelling that Catinca sketches with Irma. It is a permanent remodelling of imagination, passed through distinctive creative filters. “The point of the narrative is, precisely, the creative power of storytelling itself as a life-giving act” (Bal 2009, 78). By engaging in the production, retelling and deciphering of narratives, characters go through a cleansing process and gain access to new realities. Cadmav, the conceptual product of literary creation, is the metaphor of future time, of companionship and escapism at the same time. It embodies the characters’ need to evade from the atemporal dimension of the totalitarian society, by moving the narratives along a patchwork timeline, just as, for Catinca and Marius, Cadmav is the curtain towards a more humane future. The same imaginary Cadmav appears as the ideal companion, a passive protector of the homeless woman on the verge of insanity in the beginning of the novel and a guiding teacher for the team of workers whose seemingly impossible task to build an ice temple pushes them onto the realm of absurdity. Language, words and imagination are the only ones that prevail and survive in a crumbling world, as opposed to the trauma and punishment to which individuals are subjected. The (multiple) ending(s) of the novel illustrate instances of trauma—Catinca’s death and Irma’s rape—but the sense of the ending does not apply to the literary construct. It is the manuscript that survives, restored by a random individual from the debris of time (the clockmaker’s shop is shattered to pieces, ending the imagined existence of Cadmav, as well as Catinca’s life), emphasising the initial premise that stories are atemporal and the strongest escapist mechanism. The second level at which language becomes the escapist strategy occurs in Irma’s journey of remapping the world by deconstructing the dictionary and changing the names of the streets—a nocturnal illegal act that she uses to create her own narrative. If language as the embodiment of Cadmav is an atemporal illustration, Irma’s rebellious project is the manifestation of displacement. Places are tropes of belonging and

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belonging is a stance of memory,15 which is why Irma has the urge to escape. Her baptisms of the street and building names become a rearticulation of language: “she then decided to treat a neighbourhood based on a character trait and attach all the names of being that match that trait”16 (Miroiu 2021, 201). Irma’s rewriting of the place names is synonymous to a revolution of “linguistic landscapes” (Landry and Bourhis 1997, 23), in the sense that public uses of written languages, street and building names, in this case, are changed gradually into an eventual remapping of places. “The linguistic landscape is a sociolinguistic factor distinct from other types of language contacts in multilingual settings … [and it may constitute] the most salient marker of perceived in-group versus out-group vitality” (45). In doing so, Irma shifts identity markers from out-group into in-group, by assigning new names according to imagined common features, thus re-enacting the us versus them discourse and enforcing the power of groups and friendships as resistance constructs. “The group may function as a defence against the extra-group environment” (Golembiewski et al. 1968, 78), which reads as a growing force of micro-social constructs as opposed to individuals who are isolated and who are doomed to fade into the larger picture of the establishment. She overwrites the signs in green paint (the colour of revival and rebirth being not a random choice) and thus assigns new dimensions of identity for the individuals inhabiting such areas: “I no longer live at number 26, but in Sweet clover’s block. The choir of the others let out, in a verbal delirium, names after name: Blueberry street, Elderberry street, Maple tree street, Ivy street, fern street, Chrysanthemum street”17 (Miroiu 2021, 205). Irma dismantles the authority of organised and anonymous places by using the “one way of erasing language from the linguistic landscape…[which] involves replacement of old signs with new signs where the offending language is now absent” (Pavlenko 2009, 255). Rather than replacing, she rewrites the language, a fresh layer of paint dissolving the memory and giving birth to a new identity. Her reshaping of the place triggers others to mimic the rebellion, generating a multiplicity of renaming and remapping initiatives, a supported joining of forces to recalibrate

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a new world and adds motion and vitality to a stale and rigid social construct.

 emory and Mapping the Sense of Belonging M in With My Woman’s Mind: A View Through the Feminist Lens Written using the autobiography instrument of memory retrieval, With My Woman’s Mind is Mihaela Miroiu’s collection of memoirs that paves the “road to autonomy”18 (Miroiu 2017, 5), in fact, the road to becoming a feminist. The six parts that represent the backbone of the book are: The child, The girl, The young woman, Je chante avec toi, liberte!, Simply life and the Century of women, each with their own stories of what becoming a woman had implied, from inequality to patriarchal dominion, from social constraints to breaking patterns, or from rigour of study to the creative force of writing. Each story becomes a brick in the foundation of a genuine and uncensored account of the author’s evolution, retold with a critical look and through the lens of reflexibility. The numerous references and symbols in the narrative paint a picture of pre- and post-­ communist Romania, with the intertwined layers of oppression, power, individual and collective liberty, group membership and the impact of traumas and failings on the individual. The dimension under scrutiny in the current study refers to mapping the sense of belonging, as a woman, to various tropes of identity, particularly focusing on building an identity from the gender role dualisms illustrated in the narrative. Gender roles, with their (limited or lack of ) resonance in a society strongly defined by patriarchal and authority-­ infused hegemony, illustrate the image of women in terms of identity blurring, with the multiple implications that occur in one’s emotional and intellectual becoming. The limitations of a woman’s becoming and being acknowledged as an intellectual in the communist period are rendered in the light of the dualism liberty and power, which is only one of the multifaceted binary oppositions that the author illustrates.

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The pattern of belonging, as illustrated in the previous section, to micro-social constructs, to groups and relationships is a recurring instance of sketching identity, a rewritten story of the us versus them discourse. The us of the narrative, in this case, is the representation of women, from girls, to young women, to wives, employees, teachers, professors and intellectuals, the gallery of assumed roles occurring throughout the communist and post-revolution timeline. It is, however, not solely the voice of the narrator, but rather the spokeswoman of a generation that has experienced the cyclical transformation of gender representation. To illustrate the way in which the author writes about how women experienced gender roles, the key of reading the text is the double burden19 concept, stemming from the reality that the promising idea of emancipation of women was a mere illusion. “European communist regimes understood emancipation mainly as the participation of women in paid employment” (Brunnbauer 2000, 153). The double burden reads as an inherently assumed role, from childhood through adulthood, as a rite of passage in a communist society rooted in patriarchal authority. It is shaped in a multiplicity of pairs of representation, which the author resorts to in the manner of describing what the sense of belonging meant for a woman. One first instance of drawing the sense of belonging refers to the community membership dualism, span between the rural and the urban representation in the first part of the book, particularly in the story entitled The Girl Outlaw.20 The author retells the experience encountered as a little girl who came from the countryside in the urban neighbourhoods of the capital city, which triggered a set of nicknames on behalf of the peer group of children. Subjected to bullying because of her visual impairment and glasses wearing, the girl fights back (after having received the father’s approval to retaliate) and is given the label of a tomboy, a peasant and misfit for the streets of the city. “During the first year, the adventures with [being called] speccy, the damsel on the bike, four-eyes continues, but they were spiced up with a new nickname, given to the provincials who invaded the sacred space of the capital of the Social Republic Romania: ‘the Peasant girl’”21 (Miroiu 2017, 29). The rural roots reverberate in the perception of non-provincials, those belonging to the urban areal, who felt invested with the power of rejecting or accepting those

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who are others, in a reiterated us versus them discourse. The cleavage between the city folk and the peasant was a stringent element of identification to the mainstream and, respectively, other group, creating disparities among children, youth and workplaces. At the opposite pole, the narrative shows how the girl understands that fighting the stereotypes and ostracising can only be done by proving them wrong, a form of survival of the fittest through intellectual supremacy. “It was probably the same year when I thought of the alternative to their mockery: performance. I will show them that I’m the one who is smarter, more cultured and better than them!… It was the glory year of my childhood. The year I had everything at the same time. I think it was then that it went to my head”22 (Miroiu 2017, 30–31). Such memories, adding up to the backbone of experience, stand as milestones in the becoming of the feminist author. The sense of belonging as identity marker for being a woman is also depicted in the recurring manner of women inter-validation of roles, illustrated in at least two episodes along the narrative. The first story of the autobiography draws the portrait of the woman in the countryside, one who is also the Presbytera, thus with more exposure in the rural community and a wider array of roles to take on. Her escapism is retold through the voice of the little girl, a witness to the Presbytera’s breaking of boundaries, who asks her mother about the sneaking and hiding she sees. The dialogue between mother and daughter regarding the woman’s daring act of reading is the confirmation that women’s roles are embedded deep in collective memory and any stepping outside the drawn limits is an act of defiance that needs to be kept hidden: • Mother, what bad thing is the Presbytera doing there, in the latrine? Why is she hiding? • She is reading, my girl. She is reading. But please don’t tell anyone. She is reading novels, poems and history books. I must have looked so surprised that my mother felt the need to teach me the first lesson about women’s role in that world…

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• For a countryside woman it’s a disgrace to just sit around with a book in her hand. She needs to be seen as doing something all the time, with her hands…They believe that reading turns women’s brain and also makes them lazier. It’s different with men. Those holding a book or a newspaper are respected. When the Presbytera is reading, she is wasting time and she gets bees in her bonnet.23 (Miroiu 2017, 11)

The positioning of the mother in the lesson taught to the little girl is precisely the confirmation of stereotypes the society was built on: a woman explaining to a becoming woman how roles are pre-defined, assigned by a patriarchal society. The act of reading, supported by the mother, who is a teacher in the community and whose acts of reading are tolerated as part of the job responsibility, becomes blameable and risky if assigned to a simple countryside woman, be her the priest’s wife. On the other hand, this mother-daughter teaching is rewritten in the exemplification of the urban wife image, Auntie Truță, the wife of a lieutenant,24 who escapes the responsibilities of the household chores to pursue her own needs and pleasures, in oblivion of her prescribed roles. Mother, a hyperactive woman, who had taken on the full-time traditional role of housekeeper, in addition to the new one, as professional, namely, what has been discovered after the fall of the Iron Curtain in the double burden concept of communism, would say: -The hypocrite! Look at that her, such a phony! What the hell do these women do all day? Dillydallying all day?25 (Miroiu 2017, 25)

In this case, the narrative shapes an invalidation of the role that Auntie Truță plays; her escapism is one that breaks patterns not in the pursuit of intellectual self-development, but rather to fulfil her need for love and appreciation. Neither the Presbytera nor Auntie Truță belonged to the communist woman pattern in the sense that they both engage in escaping their realities for self-improvement/self-care. Moreover, the sense of belonging is shaped by the validation that masculine figures provide, in yet another binary oppositions pair: women as seen from the lens of family members versus the lens of other men. Through these lenses, women could be either perceived as sexual objects,

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outsiders from the clan of archetypal feminine images, or as remarkably powerful individuals, the Janes-of-all-trades embodied in men’s grandmothers, mothers, wives, sisters or daughters. By talking about women, objectifying them and mentally and emotionally removing them from the feminine peer group, men used the mechanism that Brunnbauer calls “domestication” (2000, 154)—a process enhanced by a permanent redefinition of traditional roles for women and a forcing of having them fit into these roles. “When men said—Let’s talk about women! they never referred to their colleagues…mothers, sisters, girlfriends, neighbours, grandmothers, aunts. They were out of this category. Women were…in their minds, any good-looking woman, a foolish whore”26 (Miroiu 2017, 49). The other perspective nuanced in Miroiu’s autobiography indicated that women did have their recognition of intellectual achievement, but mostly through the eyes of a masculine figure that was part of the family group, a father, brother or husband. The episode in which the author, a student having obtained a maximum grade in her first university oral exam, is witnessed by the then boyfriend, appreciative of both the result and the framework of reward that the girl’s father sets. Love is the dynamo that switches the perspective into an appreciative awareness, being, together with learning, what the author calls “gender equalizers” (Miroiu 2017, 54), the mechanisms of balancing the two categories of identities—masculine and feminine—beyond the stereotypical patterns of society. With numerous references to landmark encounters with people who shaped the author’s identity and triggered (Avril and Bill Mander, Mary Daly, Laura Grundberg and many others), the autobiography shows a woman’s development from little girl into an accomplished feminist intellectual, a trailblazer in the deep waters of post-communist Romania. From setting the foundations and backbone of political sciences as a discipline to active citizenship and the assumed role of fighting against pervasive stereotypes, the author contours the pillars of feminist identity, giving a genuine account of the gap that the transition period caused in the representation of women. Her road is full of obstacles, from derogatory insults to rape attempts, open inequality and unbearable fear, a story the author summarises in the last story of the book, adding a last touch

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on the narrative self-portrait: “I am the woman who has been through the gauntlet of fear of opposite sex predators, even if the fear was never metaphysical, it was only emotional and physical. But a horrendous fear. I am the woman who hopes she helped some of her kin to fear not, but to react: morally, intellectually, legally, politically”27 (Miroiu 2017, 245).

 hrough the Author’s Voice: On Writing T Experiences and the Feminist Projection with Mihaela Miroiu Given the current study’s word limitations, a brief written interview28 with the author Mihaela Miroiu was inserted, illustrative of the authorial intent and the lived experiences in the communist and post-­ communist epoch. What are the most recurrent symbols that remind you of the Romanian communist society? Collectivist speeches. Attempts of building the cult of personality and attempts to regulate needs. Were there obvious differences perceived in how women’s social status changed from the pre- into the (immediate) post-Revolution timeline? Though women had far less to lose in terms of social status (men became the mass of unemployment more or less masked), women had more to lose economically. They were left with ridiculous salaries so that the state could pay compensatory salaries to men for the bankruptcy. They were nearly gone from politics. They were basically absent from the privatisation of companies. The financial part in the property transfer from state to private ownership went to men. Was the intensity of feelings retrieved through writing similar to the moment when particular experiences took place?

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Yes, but when a particular autobiographical story could not be relived, it was not written, because the feeling of emptiness generated by the experience would sterilise the story. What was the authorities’ manner of manipulating and censoring these two facets of life (love and study as gender equalisers) that women assumed as pillars of identity? It was more difficult to manipulate love by authorities, but they would intervene in other ways: legally speaking, you could not go to a hotel (any accommodation facility) unless you had an identity card with the same name or a marriage certificate. The state would intervene in marriages and divorces in implicit manners: getting married to a person who had family abroad would lead to professional issues. The state would intervene at the level of sexuality with a terrible impact for women, as they were the only ones who would be punished for abortions etc. Divorce also bore an impact upon one’s profession. Access to study was limited by authorities’ decision to those aspects that did not undermine the official doctrine. There were however means of elusion, but difficult to implement, such as special approvals to get access to books and documents, translation policies, etc. The masculine projections in the autobiography explore archetypes of the father, lover, mentor and authority figure. Were these projections sensed as support pillars for a feminist self or rather as obstacles that women had to surpass just to gain an equal status? It depends on the message of the archetype character. My father was a feminist without knowing. The mentors belonged to both genders. With regards to the authorities, they were antiliberal, anti-individualist and anti-feminist.

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Conclusions The effort to reclaim identity and meaning in a totalitarian society was one founded on escapism strategies, on finding ways to reshape, at least at an intellectual and creative level, new realities for survival. Through writing, storytelling and the heterogeneity of language, the revolt against the manifestation of dissidence led to a portrayal of the discourse of memory, a revisiting of the society defined by manipulation, censorship, oppression against the minority others or the wooden language of communism. In this respect, desk-drawer literature, analysed in the current study through Mihaela Miroiu’s novel Stories About Cadmav and the autobiography With My Woman’s Mind, is a lens through which the anti-­ communism discourse is shaped. Memory of the time is reconstituted through the puzzle-like stories in the novel, indicative of the irretrievable lack of liberty and the consequent implications it had on individuals. Mihaela Miroiu’s writing draws the accurate picture of what living in a totalitarian society meant, in which characters travel an off-the-beaten track to build an alternative new world, from the foundation of friendship. Cadmav, the embodiment of the idea of freedom, is the dynamo of the novel that enables the passage to a form of liberation. Escapism occurs in several forms, from storytelling, to the creative force of writing, to imagination, retelling and reconstituting life within the micro-social constructs delineated by friendship. Words become comforting in a world bereft of substance and remapping such a world means starting anew, at times through traumas, at others through rebirth. Restoring the memory of past days is a trailblazer in terms of the language revolution in With My Woman’s Mind The reading of Miroiu’s autobiography is a puzzle making act of finding the pieces in one’s journey of becoming a feminist, a road often paved with the disparities, tabooisation and censorship of gender. Written as a reflexing thinking model, the autobiography, rich in representing the identity of otherness through the filter of the author’s lens, can serve as a generous identification area for readers belonging to various social stratifications. It is, to some extent, the memory re-enactment of any woman, from the rural wife to the urban

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working mother, housewife, teacher, academic, career builder, a portrait of mothers, sisters, wives and girlfriends, all contributing to the gender identity picture on a limitless canvas. What links their individuals’ selves into a sorority is the sense of belonging and the inter-validation network, a rewriting of their roles, expectations and confronting realities, all in a narrative that revisits a society in some of its darkest times. The communist enclaves depicted in the two narratives are the survival islands defined by constructs of friendship, instances of normality in an absurd locked society. Writing, storytelling and imagination dismantle the imprisonment of the mind and lay the foundation of escapism, the only code of retrieving individual freedom and self-exploration.

Notes 1. Mihaela Miroiu, an important figure in the academic community and civil society, is one of the founders of political sciences as a discipline and gender studies, with numerous outstanding books and studies on feminist philosophy, feminist politics and women’s rights (The road to autonomy: Feminist political theories, Lexicon feminist, Convenio. Despre natură, femei, morală). Distancing from the academic philosophical speech encountered in her studies, Mihaela Miroiu also wrote Stories About Cadmav, a novel written throughout a three-year timeline (1985–1988), published in 2021, and the autobiography With My Woman’s Mind, published in 2017. 2. The novel was published when the author retired from her university professor tenure. 3. Miroiu, M. 2021. Stories About Cadmav (Povestiri despre Cadmav). Rocart Publishing House (our translation). 4. Idem (our translation). 5. Idem (our translation). 6. Phalanstery, in Romanian; falanster was a utopic experimental community in Scăieni in the eighteenth century, founded on the principles of isolating small communities where equalitarianism reigned. 7. Idem (our translation). 8. Idem (our translation).

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9. Idem (our translation). 10. Idem (our translation). 11. Idem (our translation). 12. The narrator refers multiple times to instances of belonging and exclusion by resorting to the Romanian phrases “ai noștri,” ours, and “ai altora,” others. 13. Idem (our translation). 14. The name Cadmav is an acronym made of the initials of characters, the group of friends that the author referred to in various public interventions and publications (video recordings, PressOne issues) as Câr-Mâr, to show how the members of the group would meet and growl at the oppressive regime within their encounters, while being fully aware that their rant would not change the establishment’s way of being. 15. The clockmaker’s shop, Nathaniel’s location bears different meanings to Catinca and Irma, being the place where Irma goes to verify if Cadmav/ Nathaniel exists as described by Catinca is the place where she is raped and also the place where the abortion takes place. 16. Miroiu, M. 2021. Stories About Cadmav. Rocart Publishing House (our translation). 17. Idem (our translation). 18. Miroiu, M. 2017. With My Woman’s Mind (Cu mintea mea de femeie). Cartea românească Publishing House (our translation). 19. With the guarantee of employment for both women and men, the communist propaganda was that women gained more support towards their emancipation. However, women took on the double burden of doing both paid work, often in factories and manual labour facilities, as well as the unpaid and tremendous responsibility of the household chores and child care. 20. Miroiu, M. 2017. With My Woman’s Mind (Cu mintea mea de femeie). Cartea românească Publishing House (our translation). 21. Idem (our translation). 22. Idem (our translation). 23. Idem (our translation). 24. The author writes about the categories of women who married to spouses who worked in the Military were self-entitled Mrs Lieutenant, Mrs Captain and so on. They constructed their identities by extending the status of their husbands into their own names and relations. 25. Idem (our translation).

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26. Idem (our translation). 27. Idem (our translation). 28. The interview was administered online through email conversations with the author Mihaela Miroiu in June 2022, using Google Form and additional feedback in the email.

References Baranczak, Stanislaw. 1991. “Memory: Lost, Retrieved, Abused, Defended.” Columbia: A Journal of Literature and Art, no. 17: 98–112. http://www.jstor. org/stable/41807114. Bal, Mieke. 2009 (3rd ed.) Narratology. Introduction to the Theory of Narrative. Toronto: University of Toronto Press. Brunnbauer, Ulf. 2000. “From Equality without Democracy to Democracy without Equality? Women and Transition in Southeast Europe.” SEER: Journal for Labour and Social Affairs in Eastern Europe 3, no. 3: 151–68. http://www.jstor.org/stable/44627816. Finifter, Ada W. 1974. “The Friendship Group as a Protective Environment for Political Deviants.” The American Political Science Review 68, no. 2: 607–25. https://www.jstor.org/stable/1959508?read-­now=1&refreqid=excelsior%3A 9ceb666172e6e7602a0bf7ee45e83ed7&seq=1 Golembiewski, Robert, Welsh, Willian, & Crotty, William. 1968. Methodological Primer for Political Scientists. Chicago: Rand McNally. Halfin, Igal. 2006 (2nd ed.). Language and Revolution. Making Modern Political Identities. Taylor & Francis e-library. Linz, Juan J. and Stepan, Alfred. 1996. Problems of Democratic Transition and Consolidation: Southern Europe, South America and Post-Communist Europe. Baltimore and London: The John Hopkins University Press. Miroiu, Mihaela. 2021. Povestiri despre Cadmav [Stories About Cadmav]. Băbana, Argeș, Rocart Publishing House. Miroiu, Mihaela. 2017. Cu Mintea Mea de Femeie [With My Woman’s Mind]. Iași: Cartea Românească Publishing House. Landry, Rodrigue, Bourhis, Y.  Richard. 1997. “Linguistic Landscape and Ethnolinguistic Vitality: An Empirical Study.” Journal of Language and Social Psychology. 16(1):23–49. https://doi.org/10.1177/0261927X970161002 Larson, Jonathan. 2015. “Deviant Dialectics: Intertextuality, Voice and Emotion in Czechoslovak socialist Kritika.” In The Vernaculars of Communism:

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Language, Ideology and Power in the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe, edited by Petre Petrov and Lara Ryazanova-Clarke, 130–147. London and New York: Routledge. Pavlenko, Aneta. 2009. “Language Conflict in Post-Soviet Linguistic Landscapes.” Journal of Slavic Linguistics 17, no. 1/2: 247–74. http://www. jstor.org/stable/24600143.

12 Surviving the Change, Adjusting the Language. Romanian Writers in the Cultural Media, December 1989–1990 Magdalena Răduță and Oana Fotache

Romanian literary historiography has had difficulties in explaining the literary impact of a historical threshold as important as the Revolution of December 1989. Drawing on traditional views on the inevitable belatedness of artistic reactions to historical/political events, the literary historians have tacitly agreed to label the tenth decade of the last century—a transition period to be followed by the emergence and consecration of a new literary generation, the 2000s, for which a convincing name is yet to be proposed. Under these circumstances, little attention has been granted to the place of 1989 itself in Romanian literature: more often than not, this moment has been regarded as the ending of the local postmodernist movement, rather than a sign of a new literary trend. We are therefore planning to explore, in this context, the active overlapping that characterises this condensation point from a historical and literary perspective and also its inherent ambiguities through a close M. Răduță • O. Fotache (*) University of Bucharest, Bucharest, Romania e-mail: [email protected]; [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 E. Wohl, E. Păcurar (eds.), Language of the Revolution, Palgrave Studies in Languages at War, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-37178-3_12

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reading of the writers’ mediatic reactions to the fall of communism. Considering a corpus of four cultural magazines published in Romania during 1990 (România literară, Amfiteatru, Contrapunct, based in Bucharest, and Orizont, published in Timișoara), we will be considering the changes in the writers’ journalistic discourse on literary and political topics. This study aims at identifying the forms taken by historical change in the literary milieu on several distinct but interrelated levels: of the writers’ self-perception in relation to the literary field (in the sense of Pierre Bourdieu’s literary sociology) and to the public/political space, in general; the revolutionary topoi and the treatment of linguistic stereotypes perpetuated from the propaganda registers; the literary language structure and aspects (figurative language, rhetorics). Special emphasis will be placed on the forms of the generational gap as a marker of the new literary language and ethos, as well as on the relationship between power centres and peripheral literary positions within this privileged (because more sensitive) environment that is the literary/cultural media. War is often about domination and always about self-assertion, whereas revolution is about hope. It is hope for a totally different world. Its features are described with varying degrees of sophistication and of emotion. They range from anarchy in the strict sense to an equally strict concept of association. Whatever the description, the common denomination of revolutionary hopes is a society (if that is still the word) in which all are equal and no one has power over others, a co-operative society, a giant college. (Dahrendorf 1997, 7)

During the first weeks after 22 December 1989, the Romanian literary space seemed to be somehow both in a state of war and in one of revolution, if one follows German social philosopher Ralf Dahrendorf ’s understanding. Thus, the two cores of the social dynamics of change are the following: motivated by hope, but unable to dream of a co-operative society (and much less of a giant college), Romanian writers concentrated their public discourse around a form of self-assertion, which is not only professional in nature but also public in the sense of taking responsibility for guiding the people into the new, democratic society. As the articles published in the first post-revolutionary issues of Romanian literary magazines so clearly prove, at the centre of the public stances lies the interest

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in the writers’ positions and their public roles, almost as frequently as the theme of the new literature in times of freedom. The need to retrieve a public responsibility and representativeness is obviously justified by the nature of the totalitarian society per se, aggravated as it was during the last communist decade by Nicolae Ceaușescu’s cult of personality. The almost complete lack of dissenting public voices after 19651 and the impossibility to achieve unity for the anti-communist social movements2 conversely triggered a very noticeable trend of regaining possession of the public intellectuals’ status for the writers, immediately after the December Revolution.

Forms of Revival in Post-1989 Literary Space The two coordinates of the position-takings in the post-revolutionary literary media, namely the state of free literature and the writer’s responsibility in the public sphere, are expressed in different discursive forms in the articles published between December 1989 and June 1990. For the first one, the dominant vocabulary seems to be that of the revival or restoration, of filling in the blanks imposed by historical circumstances, and only seldom that of innovation, of creative transformation at the level of literary forms and practices. Before being able to proclaim the beginning of a new world, the revolution expressed a need to restore, to look into the past for the mechanisms that would set in place a new logic of the literary world. This past was the quite recent one, the literary area that had been forbidden or willingly ignored during the communist decades. The first new issues of the literary magazines displayed a plethora of references to the need to remerging Romanian literature with its propitious era before communism had settled in. Thus, many writers published extended papers in which they would plead for the enlargement of the national canon so as to re-include past ages and writers that had been eliminated or marginalised on political grounds after 1945. Among these were the so-called literature of authenticity of the Romanian interwar period, certain names of diasporic writers who had made their literary debuts in the 1930s and so on. Also remarkable is the frequency of the restitution in print of forbidden texts: the totalitarian age had left aside a

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lot, from interviews with Romanian writers exiled during the last two communist decades, who would then become quite famous in the West,3 to poems or prose pieces that had been censored,4 or fragments from the literary samizdat of the Eastern Bloc unknown to the Romanian public.5 This was such a systematic effort (almost a frenzy) that would last for the six months of literary media covered here, an effort to fill in a gap as quickly as possible, with a sense of emergency, of the need to repair a cultural injustice triggered by the brutal intrusion of politics into the literary space. As in any social space undergoing a sudden transformation, the need to restore a balance could originate in a fundamental desire to achieve symmetry, which Richard Stites identified as being specific to any revolutionary dynamics, notwithstanding the exact revolutionary timing: “the urge to symmetry in cultural instinct impels some people to remake everything once the binding system has been repudiated and renounced… The motifs of release, liberation and devolving power that infuse the rhetoric and symbolism of the revolutionary moment are invitations to refashion and redesign” (Stites 1989, 4). The reunion is cathartic, yet also functional, as the reintegration into the national circuit of forbidden names was meant to assure not only the fulfilment of Romanian literature but, more importantly, a starting point from which to redesign its evolution into a space of freedom: …one of the matters that should concern criticism right now is the reintegration without delay of all significant Romanian values into the national literary space. Be they created anytime, anywhere and by whomever they may be. …these Romanian writers from everywhere must be urgently reinstated in the national spiritual space, and reconnected to the natural circuits of the culture they belong to. This should happen primarily for the benefit and the growth of Romanian literature itself. What has been, not long ago, a tragic and absurd amputation could become, through a quick reintegration, at least a redeemable profit, a necessary rebuilding of bridges towards Europe, first and foremost. The consequences of reintegration [are] easy to follow: the presence of returning assets will markedly change the image of national literature’s scope, of today and the near past, making clear the fact that our literature is far richer than many would have thought.6 (Dimisianu 1990, 1)

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After 1945, the Romanian literary field had experienced at least once (namely, during the first years of the ideological Thaw) this urgent need to make up for a period of stagnation, to fulfil and galvanise a literary scene condemned at forced ideologisation throughout the era of socialist realism. After 1965, literary debates had included among their essential topics the reinstatement of aesthetic value as the only criterion for literary legitimacy, the opening towards Western literary ideas and trends, as well as the preservation of a relative autonomy from the political field. The non-committed literature and the discourse of aesthetic literary criticism had time for almost a decade (until the moment of the July 1971 Theses when strict political control over artistic creation experienced a surge) to strengthen their position as doxa. Over the last communist decade, the efforts of the autonomous pole of the literary field have focused upon conserving this position of relative autonomy, which would no longer mean “the gratuity of the aesthetic act” or the lack of interest in the immediate, present effect (Bourdieu 1996). Out of the classic features of literary autonomism, only a basic understanding is preserved in order to function strategically under ideological constraint; that is, literature seen as a distinct world, with its own values and functioning laws, a universe of creative sensibility which has to be kept apart from political hindrance at any cost. By defending this essential specificity, the autonomous pole was attempting to stay as far as possible from the official, engaged literature during the 1970s–1980s. To the straight partisan message of the latter, with its blunt and simplified manner, directly delivered, following the elementary rules of propaganda, the former would oppose its carefully crafted ambiguity, its preference for the aestheticising expression of the text, as well as the experiment with form. These practices, which could be found consecutively with the political novelists of the 1960s–1970s and in the literature of the 1980s generation, benefitted from a double advantage in that context: firstly, they could overcome more easily the censors’ political control (interested as it was in representations or themes that bore a direct reference to the present of the Ceaușescu era (Malița 2016),7 and much less in the rhetorical mechanisms of ambiguity, the fantastic motives, the textualist literary devices), and secondly, they would create the general impression of a reactive literature, subversive precisely because it ignored the official dogma.

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For the representatives of the autonomous pole, the price of this constant refusal to become politically engaged was the more and more difficult access to the specific resources of the literary field, especially during a time of precariousness that impinged upon Romanian society during the last communist decade. Among these hardships were the difficulties to get into editorial calendars, limited print runs, significantly lower royalties8 and restricted distribution circuits. These editorial difficulties were all the more dramatically perceived by the non-committed autonomists since the publication per se was for them an essential stake. The fundamental belief in literature’s specificity as a distinct world was represented in the literary work as such, which was expected to obey the rules of the game and to stay alongside other contemporary works in order to be recognised as an instance of true literature. To ensure this recognition, it was first of all necessary for the manuscripts to be published and to circulate inside the local literary space, as basic legitimacy derived from the mere presence in the field, during this period (the 1970s–1980s). Publication represented the proof of survival in the face of official dogma, the proof of crossing the finish line in this competition, an example of non-committed literature’s resilience despite any ideological constraint. Thus, the survival through publication of the non-engaged aestheticism becomes a fundamental theme of the autonomist discourse during the first post-revolutionary days. That section of literature, which (especially during the last communist decade, the most vulnerable to the aggression of politics) had maintained its safe distance from the official dogma, was now interpreted and valued as an honourable form of defending the specificity of literary creation when confronted with the ideological siege. Quoting from one of many opinion papers published in January 1990: To their honour, the majority of Romanian writers have refused to compromise with the recently overturned political regime. Their forms of protest have been diverse. These included silence that spoke for itself when confronted with triumphalist occasions (let’s remember that these occasions have extended monstrously in a tragicomic carnival of orchestrated lies that used to cover all days of the year and all hours of a day); expressing bitter truths in a convoluted manner which would carefully explore the limits set by censorship, and especially its lack of attention. And, in not so

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rare circumstances, the protests went so far as to include a firm attitude, an explicit rejection of impostures, leading more than once to administrative sanctions. The true representatives of Romanian letters have undergone through the particulars of a long, exhausting battle, with its share of chronic episodes. They have been guided by an aesthetic and moral compass alike. They deserve high praise! (Grigurcu 1990, 8)

The autonomous pole’s effort to maintain a relative distance towards the political field of communism would become, in the aftermath of the disappearance of ideological constraints, a justification for an encouraging conclusion: “Romanian literature does not start from scratch…literature has functioned … as a spiritual institution. It took a stance—once more, to its credit—against official literature” (Simion 1990, 9). In the position-takings from the first post-revolutionary period, the battle fought to preserve literary autonomy changed from a specific value of the field into a highly valued ethical one. This transfer from the aesthetic to the ethic further complexifies the relation of subordination, which the theorist Gisèle Sapiro identifies within authoritarian regimes: “dans les régimes autoritaires, la défense de l’autonomie est associée à une lutte politique à laquelle elle reste subordonnée”9 (Sapiro 2007; emphasis ours). The practices used to defend autonomy during the communist decades were interpreted by the important figures in post-revolutionary literary media as the overwhelming evidence that this was the political battle and, moreover, that the battle has been won. The vocabulary of such a victory largely derives from the ethical sphere. It consecrated the important transfer from the aesthetic realm to a certain representation of conscience and morality: “literary talent is displayed with moral consistency” (Ulici 1990, 7); “among our first-rate women writers, none has yielded to pressure … or stained her name” (Bittel 1990, 3); “culture has succeeded in maintaining her nature and her true, specific criteria with the price of indescribable suffering and mutilations of dignity” (Breban 1990, 4); “many, maybe most writers … have defended the dignity of their pen” (Simion 1990, 3). Yet the dominant feature of such opinions is by no means a euphoric one. Displays of passion are lacking (probably due to the overabundance of exultant vocabulary of the years of the cult of personality), and the manifestation of hope

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does not preclude the lucidity of relativisation: “Romanian culture still exists. How we could and as much as we could keep it alive. This was actually our duty: to act such as to keep the institution of literature in function. And to a certain extent we succeeded. There was a culture who was opposed to the official one, to that ridiculous culture of odes and dedications, etc.” (Simion 1990, 3; emphasis ours). To act in such a way as to make the institution of literature work, “how we could and as much as we could,” means both a proclamation of victory (over constraint) and a recognition of the limits of such a victory. When seen from this angle, the non-committed Romanian literature becomes a conglomerate of hybrid practices, which are far from the clear-­ cut distinction between Submission and Rejection, between autonomy and heteronomy with their separate features. Within a literary field, which struggles to preserve an autonomy permanently exposed to the siege of an authoritarian regime, the game being played becomes a relational one of the consecrated heretics type,10 in which the competitors share the same interest of making the field function so that the battle is still possible. The stake of this battle is also a common one: to impose their own definition of literature. The awareness of this type of game between consecrated heretics and their opponents would soon become apparent in the positions and stances of the post-December 1989 literary media. The first sign is the change in the status of parabolic literature. During the 1970s–1980s, it used to convey the survival of a literature that “speaks truth to power” about the communist regime through the “writing between the lines”11 and by resorting to an abundance of rhetorical devices signalling ambiguity. Very soon, this kind of literature is the first one whose demise is asked for because, on the one hand, the political control that forced it to function under an ambiguous status had meanwhile disappeared and, on the other hand, because the retrieval of (historical and social) “truth” could be done now under different circumstances, of freedom of speech and objective evidence, not by means of intentionally obscure writing: Certainly, up to now the main form of protest a writer could use was based on allusion. Our most courageous literature would wink at the reader, who would then understand and together, writer and reader alike, had the feel-

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ing they had been able to deceive the authorities. In my opinion, this is a phenomenon of the past. The recent revolution had purified the Romanian spirit and it compels us to be more lucid, to give up this double speak. (Simion 1990, 3) When we are going to have an open and trustful media, eminently informed journals, less equivocal opinions, which reader will drool with delight in front of literary fabrications and pompous comments on the great processes of political and social life strikingly woven together by the likes of a Dinu Săraru, Dumitru Popescu, and many others more? Where by “many others more” we imply even some honest writers but who are lacking basic knowledge of the sociology of culture. (Simionescu 1990, 5)

Some writers (especially those who had gone through the meanderings of political control also in other areas of artistic creation, for instance, in cinematography or theatre, where the effects of the July 1971 Theses were sooner to be felt and more drastic) partly recognised the surviving strategies from their confrontation with censorship. Therefore, they lucidly arrived at a certain “tacit consensus” (Sălcudeanu 1990, 1), which had allowed for the survival of non-committed literature in the consecrated heretics game: “Romanian literature of the past quarter century was born not only outside the official impositions, but even in contradiction with them, disobeying them, deceiving even the censor’s vigilant eye and taking advantage of his other one, intentionally closed. Both the ones and the others were convinced that we could live together without ‘excesses’” (Sălcudeanu 1990, 1). The existence of such hybrid practices, conscientiously employed by the agents of the literary field, could serve as a plausible explanation for a discursive feature that is noticeable in the articles that make up the corpus of our research: the post-revolutionary discourse of the literary magazines does not carry the striking marks of the guilty/not-guilty dichotomy. Nor do they imply the forms of public condemnation that we might reasonably expect should a revolutionary dynamics involve in its course a sudden process of literary justice.12 The new set of beliefs and values playing a part in the acceleration of the social dynamics (Cordoș 2020) that was employed in the articles published immediately after 1989, the

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excommunication of “the unworthy” did not take any institutional forms such as black lists, nominal exclusions and much less public incriminations. All these are obviously avoided, as they evoke an open wound, familiar as they were in the social tissue of the time as serious forms of institutional violence, practised for decades by the party-state. The partisans of a non-committed literature publicly employed a logic of continuity that would include appeals to moral resignation, in guilty silence, from the part of the ideologised writers. They would also nominate, quite infrequently, writers who were close to the communist power circle: members of the Executive Committee of the Romanian Communist Party such as Eugen Barbu, court poets such as Adrian Păunescu and ideologues of culture such as Mihai Dulea (Băieșu 1990, 8).13 These writers had delegitimised themselves mainly due to their proximity to the pole of dogmatic power, not because of their literary works as such. They were essentially blamed by the autonomous discourse of the dawn of the Revolution for their opportunism, and this contempt was directly expressed only when the moral resignation expected from these “unworthy” writers would not take place: “[regarding those who did not resign from their positions and did not leave the institutional structures they were part of, but did endorse public condemnations of communism] what they have done is incompatible with what is being done right now. And … their attitude bore this stigma forever. They would like us to believe that they had actually been the opposite of what everyone would clearly see they were” (Deșliu 1990, 5). This dichotomic rhetoric is very rarely present in the articles that drew on the theme of pre-revolutionary guilt. The logic of continuity imposed this near absence: “the revival” was not conditioned by a drastic cleansing of the literary space. This happened because, as it could be seen by then, the autonomous discourse valued the conservation of the relative autonomy of non-commitment as a solid foundation for the post-revolutionary reconstruction. Unless we “start from the scratch,” there can be no delegitimising or resonant expulsions, and “the possibility of rebirth, the reversal of destruction as the main source of revolutionary hope” (Soltan 1999, 30) would not be in urgent need of a clean slate. Metaphors of distinction, of the separation between good and evil, of sharpness and conspicuousness would seldom feature in the articles published during

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this period. One of the very few instances of this rhetoric comes up in a piece from February 1990 (Ștefănescu 1990, 4), on the topic of expiation within the literary space. It is constantly accompanied by relativisation, by marks of insecurity that are visible from the question mark at the end of the title (“Anul 1990 sau anul 0?”) to the argument focusing on the difficulty to precisely distinguish everyone’s guilt. The first paragraph is entirely situated within the logic of continuity as a favourable circumstance for regeneration: “All that Romanian writers have done better during this period was against or unconnected with communist dogma. With this understanding of things, we have no reason to think that a careful, responsible appraisal of everything that deserves to be appraised from postwar Romanian literature represents a compromise or a repudiation of the ideals of the December revolution. There are high chances that we thus reconfirm an underground continuity …” (Ștefănescu 1990, 4). What follows is a swift antithesis, a modulation of a feeble attempt to reconfigure a new temporality, in which the year 1990 could actually be a year 1, the beginning of a new era and literary paradigm, a tool for a certain revival (even the surgical knife could be used “when necessary”). To which is added the motivation—soon to be rebuked—of a redeeming spirit, which is far from being the only reason for the act of “parting the waters”: On the other hand, we cannot afford to gently pass from 1989 to 1990, as if nothing had happened. We are in the year 1990, but we also are in the year 1. We have the obligation to seriously question our conscience before moving forward. We have to cut sharply—using the surgical knife when necessary—what is alive from what is rotten in the literature of the last two decades. Out of a redeeming spirit? Surely, for that reason too … Yet not only out of the need to do justice—a late, symbolic and harmless justice— we do have to perform a lucid and severe judgment of the past, but also because it is only in this way that we can overcome our present situation. The threshold between literature and pseudo-literature is not clear at all … how difficult to understand is the mixture of literature and propaganda, of authenticity and forgery, of courage and cowardice which communism had concocted. (Ștefănescu 1990, 4)

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L iterature or Action? Doxa and the Generational Divide Blurred lines, difficulties in distinguishing between various positions, grey areas and the urgency to rebuild in order to ensure the continuity of an aesthetic autonomy of non-commitment—these are the key points that structure the discourse on the past of post- revolutionary Romanian literary space. The logic of crisis, with its sustained dynamism that paves the way for polemics, separates different camps and divergent stances, characterises another discursive zone, that of the revolutionary present. “How should we rebuild starting from what we already have?” quickly and dramatically transforms into “How should we defend what we’ve barely conquered?” The structure of the political sphere also changes radically between February and May 1990.14 “The endangered revolution” becomes an ideologeme,15 which is rapidly reactivated within a collective imaginary that bore the marks of fatalistic representations of national failure, for decades in a row: from “our poor country in the path of the storms” to “the treason of the West at Yalta.” This ideologeme gets refracted in an oblique manner inside the literary space, taking the form of a polemic against the possibility of literary practice in times of a continuing revolution.16 Such a polemic would oppose the partisans of aestheticism, of a literature withdrawn from the world, and those that favour action and fight for the public role of the writer and their involvement in defending a still aspiring democracy. Extended over a couple of months and reaching tipping points due to political or social events, this debate carried out in the literary media typically illustrates the manner in which the clash of antagonistic viewpoints generates lasting polarisations of the public discourse. Also, comprehension is reached precisely through the confrontation of seemingly irreconcilable positions, as Ruth Amossy explains in a fairly recent book in which she examines polemic as a means to deal with conflictual situations into a rhetoric frame of dissensus, without implying the need to reach an agreement (Amossy 2014). Two structuring dimensions of post-revolutionary literary space could be identified in such a polemic, dimensions that are almost simultaneously active: on one hand, the crystallisation of an autonomist doxa that attempts to

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preserve its specificities that had already legitimised it as the basis of postcommunist literary revival. On the other hand, the first authentic internal generational gap, while the pre-December 1989 literary space did not register such a defining stance (since the “common enemy” represented by dogmatic literature and also the common survival strategies had modified intergenerational relationships). The autonomist doxa becomes soon clearly noticeable in the literary media: ever since the second issue of the magazine România literară, the star critic of non-commitment, Nicolae Manolescu (born 1939) vigorously pleads for a “normalcy” of literature separated from the harming noise of daily life. His style is indisputably authoritarian, making use of an essentialised vocabulary: We are dealing in literature, with arts and culture. And these can only survive in a stable environment. Abnormality makes them stifle, kills them little by little. The ways protest is expressed in art differ from mere cries of revolt. Art is not reactionary …, yet neither is it revolutionary, in the sense that it does not really transform unless it occupies its place within a certain tradition … We have to deal in books and ideas, not in immediate reality, no matter how vivid it may look these weeks. Reporting is no literature. (Manolescu 1990a, 3)

To this very explicit statement of the critic’s view, another writer would respond two weeks later. His name was Bedros Horasangian (born 1947) and he was part of the literary generation that distinguished itself during the last communist decade. Horasangian believed that non-commitment is equivalent to lack of action. His was a strictly militant logic that made use of examples from the best of world literature: … We have to do something else than before. Cehov did not spoil his reputation after he had become involved with the (horrifying!) fate of the Sahalin island inmates. Nor did Th. Mann, or Malraux, Camus and many others up to Solzhenitsyn became more stupid (forgive me God!) after they had turned into (but they had been like that all the way) civically engaged people. What would have happened if X, Y, or Z, our stellar intellectuals from the postwar era, had pushed their moral and political intransigence to the limit? Don’t tell me they had failed to understand the whole truth. Then

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what had happened that made them stop short of reaching their goal? To put it differently, why didn’t we have our own Havel? (Horasangian 1990, 3)

This is one of the first stances (if not the first)17 that questions a possible and ambiguous guilt of non-commitment. As we can infer from this explanation, this was an attitude that prevented a spirit of firm opposition from coming into existence. Now it became clear that the practice of literature in the logic of legitimisation through mere presence in the field and the victory over dogma through the continuation of the literary “game” (both excuses for the new post-revolutionary doxa to impose their “revival” model) are no longer satisfactory for the younger generation writers. Interestingly enough, some of the mentors of this new generation are the big names of the autonomous pole, N.  Manolescu included. The active core of this generation, gathered around the newly established Contrapunct magazine, yet also present in other editorial offices (Amfiteatru, Orizont, Convorbiri literare) was quick to distinguish its “tune” on radical ethical grounds: “above all else [the 1980s generation is] a generation defined by moral intransigence towards the world that had been “given” to us during the past decades” (Lefter 1990, 1). Their vocabulary was also moralising, dominated as it was by representations of the citizen-writer prompted by their own conscience to get involved in the urgency of the present. Thus, it will be possible to overcome the old “east-ethics” (in Monica Lovinescu’s phrase) so typical of non-committed literature, which was guilty of complacency about its comfortable show of ideas: “We can no longer be just writers, nor do we have the moral right to such an evasive attitude which even yesterday was perceived as a form of intellectual resistance… All of us will have to learn not only the art of democracy, but also the democracy of art. And the latter cannot just mean aesthetic insularity. The east-ethics will become obsolete as a mere natural moral stance” (Buduca 1990, 2). Over the first six months after December 1989, the literary field selected ever more clearly the agents of this internal polemic. The strong values of the restricted production subfield are to be found in the stances taken by the partisans of aestheticism, from their apologies of pure art’s universalism,18 to their images of elitist withdrawal from the temptations of commercial literature (which had meanwhile become unavoidable in

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the Romanian literary space).19 The aestheticised “normalcy” they would defend was a synthesis of the survival model through mere presence in the field which they had successfully practised during the last two communist decades. Such strategies had included the self-sufficient isolation in the creative activity, non-commitment as an unwavering evidence for literature’s universal and eternal superiority, disinterest in immediate rewards. When N. Manolescu scholarly drew the attention of his former student Ion Bogdan Lefter20 to his “unwisely betting on the identity” of social and literary structures, the critic expressed a truth that was lying at the foundation of the entire symbolic order of the field. Manolescu again: “The truth is that we know nothing about the ways in which these structures could change, how fast or how profoundly. The inertia of the artistic structures is by far greater than that of other structures” (Manolescu 1990b, 9). For the writers of the 1980s generation, actionism in times of crisis was the obvious way to distinguish themselves, to mark their difference. In the framework of a “continuing revolution,” their belief was that taking refuge in literature was an ethically flawed stance and they would publicly sanction it by assuming the role of public leaders for themselves: We are reprimanded more or less overtly for having left the literature we had been called upon to defend and promote only to blindly pursue political debates… Under such circumstances, which is the duty of the intellectual class? And which is the writer’s duty? To turn his back on reality in order to devote his body and mind to subtle aesthetic issues? Or, on the contrary, to put his talent at the service of democratic ideals, to open the eyes of his fellow people to the dangers that are threatening us? (Dobrescu 1990, 1; emphasis ours)

As much as one would want to search for signs of a new literary language during this initial phase of the transition period, it was not the time for a creative breaking with the past at this level. It was only much later (after 2000) that fiction about this period would be written. Besides, as distinct from fiction, journalistic discourse carried the advantage of straightforwardness, be it only in its rhetoric dimension. As disillusionment with

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the political and social course of events settled in, the idea that literary revolution had been already accomplished through resistance to political dogma made the split unnecessary. At the time, the writers’ creative energy focused on the founding of institutions, not on changes in textual poetics. The new literature published in the 1990s drew mainly on retrieving manuscripts out of the writers’ desk drawers or introducing exile literature to the Romanian public.

Notes 1. With few exceptions: Paul Goma (1935–2020), Ana Blandiana (born 1942), Dorin Tudoran (born 1945), Mircea Dinescu (born 1950). 2. For explanations of this impossibility, see Báthory and Cârstea (2019, 9–46). 3. Among other examples, see Dumitru Țepeneag interviewed by Ioan Groșan (“Am avut întotdeauna pentru comunism un dispreț liniștit” [I have always felt a quiet contempt for communism]), in Contrapunct 2/1990; an entire page dedicated to Paul Goma and signed by Gabriela Adameșteanu in România literară XXIII(3): 4; a fragment of the novel Patimile după Pitești [The Passions in the Pitești Version] written by the same Paul Goma (“Câinii morții” [The Dogs of Death], in România literară XXIII(14): 23). 4. Selectively, the first issue of the Orizont magazine, published in Timișoara on 22 December 1989, features some previously censored poems by Mircea Dinescu, Ana Blandiana and Ștefan Augustin Doinaș; the complete version of Marin Sorescu’s play Vărul Shakespeare is published in Contemporanul 51+1/29 December 1989; the issue of 30 December of the new series Tineretul liber—Suplimentul literar și artistic publishes for the first time several texts signed by Mircea Nedelciu, Daniela Crăsnaru, Adrian Popescu and others, under the label “censored text.” See Simion (2014, 3–8). 5. A fragment of Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn’s The Gulag Archipelago, translated by Simeon Lăzăreanu, features in the 22 December issue of the Orizont magazine; Yevgeny Yevtushenko is interviewed by Lucian Avramescu for Tineretul liber. 6. The reintegration of Romanian exile literature into the national circuit becomes a frequent concern during the first six months of 1990, being

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voiced in opinion papers, some of them bearing explicit titles (as, for instance, Dumitru Micu’s “O singură literatură română” [A Single Romanian Literature], published in România literară XXIII(3): 11). 7. Radical forms of interdiction to publish under one’s own name and/or refusal to publish a certain volume occurred in the case of writers who practised a literature of direct or disguised protest (in the form of the parable), or those who publicly denounced the communist regime in a manner of firm opposition. 8. “The writers who preceded us had benefitted from better professional and daily life conditions … We have come after them, we’ve been sentenced to commuting, to unemployment, to marginalisation, to publication postponements, to less visible and less prestigious careers …” (I.B. Lefter in Puia-Dumitrescu 2015, 354; our translation). 9. “In authoritarian regimes, the defence of the autonomy is associated with a political battle to which it is subordinated” (our translation). 10. The features of this relationship in the professional field are analysed by Pierre Bourdieu in chapter III, “Espèces de capital et formes de pouvoir” of Homo Academicus (Bourdieu 1984, 97–167). 11. For this “peculiar technique of writing” that generates a “peculiar type of literature” during times of constraint, see Leo Strauss, Persecution and the Art of Writing, 1988 [1952]. 12. One of the most dramatic forms of this phenomenon was the moment when the French Conseil National des Écrivains [National Writers’ Committee] actively intervened in the restructuring of the French literary field after the end of World War II. See Gisèle Sapiro, “La Justice Littéraire” in La Guerre des écrivains 1940–1953 (Sapiro 1999, 562–626). 13. In this opinion piece, the reader comes across one of the very few representations of the necessity to call the cultural ideologues in court: “… Mr Prosecutor who will charge the despicable clique around Ceaușescu in this trial, do not forget about Dulea! Charge him with crime against Romanian culture!… Someone must pay for our unspeakable humiliation during the last quarter century” (our translation). 14. On 6 February 1990, the National Salvation Front (NSF), the temporary structure of legislative and executive power established in Bucharest on the very first day of the 1989 Revolution, announced that it would transform itself into a political party and run for the elections to be held in May. In turn, numerous former opponents of the communist regime who had been members of the NSF announced their resignations, while

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the so-called historical opposition parties (founded in the interwar period, the leaders of which had died in communist political prisons) organised protest rallies that would go on until June 1990. The most important of these took place in Bucharest’s University Square, which was occupied by protesters for many weeks. Between 14 and 15 June, bands of miners from the Jiu Valley were called on by then-President Ion Iliescu (who would be elected on 20 May with 85% of the voter turnout). They arrived in Bucharest and brutally intervened in order to “calm down” the protests. See Tom Gallagher, Theft of a Nation: Romania Since Communism, 2005. 15. “Any principle underlying a statement the subject of which circumscribes a particular field of relevance, whether it be ‘moral value,’ ‘the Jew,’ ‘the mission of France’ or ‘maternal instinct’” (Angenot 1977, 23; our translation). 16. “When the question ‘Who is the Revolution?’ is asked, the answer is not made of words, but sacrifices: the Revolution are those who continue it” (Blandiana 1990, 5; our translation). 17. In the second issue of România literară, published on 11 January 1990, on the same page as Nicolae Manolescu’s piece was published a divergent opinion in a parallel column: Octavian Paler’s “Care normalitate?” [Which Normalcy?]. It was written in a more general tone, without the revengeful pathetic input of Bedros Horasangian’s article: “My idealism or my flaws actually prevent me from understanding how culture could get disinfected from history, how could it isolate itself in an oasis, in a conservatory, in a snake hole or … a bunker, without becoming frustrated on its own?” (our translation). 18. “Our inner being’s thirst for beauty needs beauty, needs harmony. Only the artist could offer us this beauty, this quintessential beauty” (Gheorghiu 1990, 2; our translation). 19. “We have no other choice: whatever might happen, no matter how many occasional books—detective or other fiction, science fiction, memories of famous dancers, cooking recipes … —would invade the future literary market, we shall be retreating in the dark corner of our study to serve our lifelong obsessions, quietly and strenuously, trying to utter the unutterable one more time …” (Breban 1990, 4; our translation). 20. Poet and critic, member of the 1980s generation, who launched his career at the Monday Literary Club in Bucharest led by Manolescu himself.

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References Adameșteanu, Gabriela. 1990. „Transformarea revoluției în evoluție” [The Transformation of Revolution into Evolution]. România literară XXIII(3): 4. Amossy, Ruth. 2014. Apologie de la polémique. Paris: PUF. Angenot, Marc. 1977. „Présupposé, topos, idéologème” [Presupposition, topos, ideologeme]. Etudes françaises 13 (1–2): 11–34. Báthory, Dalia and Cârstea, Andreea. 2019. “Studiu introductiv” [Introductory study]. In Borbély Ernö, Academia politică de la Aiud. Deţinuţi politici în România anilor ’80 [The Political Academy in Aiud. Romanian Political Prisoners in the ‘80s], edited by Dalia Báthory, Andreea Cârstea, with a foreword by Szöcs Géza, 9–46. Iaşi: Polirom. Băieșu, Ion. 1990. „Amintiri din nopțile în care nu dorm. Dulea” [Memories from My Sleepless Nights]. România literară XXIII(1): 8. Bittel, Adriana.1990. „Scriitoare” [Women Writers]. România literară XXXIII(11): 3. Blandiana, Ana. 1990. „Cine este revoluția?” [Who Is the Revolution?]. România literară XXIII(20): 5. Bourdieu, Pierre. 1984. Homo Academicus. Paris: Minuit. Bourdieu, Pierre. 1996 [1992]. The Rules of Art: Genesis and Structure of the Literary Field, transl. by Susan Emanuel. Stanford: Stanford University Press. Breban, Nicolae.1990. Răspuns la ancheta „Literatura, încotro?” [An answer to the inquiry “Which Way for Literature?”]. România literară XXIII(21): 4. Buduca, Ioan.1990. „Estetismul, iluzii pierdute” [Aestheticism, Lost Illusions], Amfiteatru 1. In Simion 2014, 50–1. Cordoș, Sanda. 2020. „Revoluție și imaginar social” [Revolution and the Social Imaginary]. In Enciclopedia imaginariilor din România [The Encyclopedia of Romanian Imaginaries]. Vol. I, Imaginar literar [Literary Imaginary], edited by Corin Braga, 153–171. Iași: Polirom. Dahrendorf, Ralf. 1997. “Must Revolutions Fall?”, George Orwell Lecture given at Birkbeck College, University of London, on 15 November 1990, in After 1989. Morals, Revolution and Civil Society. New York: St Anthony’s Series in association with Palgrave Macmillan. Deșliu, Dan. 1990. Dialog cu George Pruteanu [A Dialogue with George Pruteanu], Cronica 4. In Simion 2014, 42. Dimisianu, Gabriel. 1990. “Literatura română este una și indivizibilă” [Romanian Literature is One and Indivisible]. România Literară XXIII (2): 1.

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Dobrescu, Al. 1990. „Politică și literatură” [Politics and Literature], Convorbiri literare 10. In Simion 2014, 190–1. Gallagher, Tom. 2005. Theft of a Nation: Romania since Communism. London: Hurst& co. Gheorghiu, Val. 1990. „Pentru normalitate” [For normalcy]. România literară XXIII(5): 2. Goma, Paul. 1990. „Câinii morții” [The Dogs of Death]. România literară XXIII(14): 23. Grigurcu, Gheorghe. 1990. „Moralitate și oportunism” [Morality and Opportunism]. România literară XXIII(1): 8. Horasangian, Bedros. 1990. „Bonjour, popor!” [Hello, People]. România literară XXIII(4): 3. Lefter, Ion Bogdan.1990. „O anume «linie melodică»” [A Certain ‘Tune’]. Contrapunct 1: 1. Malița, Liviu. 2016. Literatura eretică. Texte cenzurate politic între 1949 și 1977 [Heretical Literature. Politically Censored Texts Between 1949 and 1977]. București: Cartea Românească. Manolescu, Nicolae. 1990a. „Intrarea în normalitate” [Achieving Normalcy]. România literară XXIII(2): 3. Manolescu, Nicolae. 1990b. „Textul, contextul și pretextul” [The Text, the Context, and the Pretext]. România literară XXIII(26): 9. Micu, Dumitru.1990. „O singură literatură română” [A Single Romanian Literature]. România literară XXIII(3): 11. Paler, Octavian. 1990. „Care normalitate?” [Which Normalcy?]. România literară XXIII(2): 3. Puia-Dumitrescu, Daniel. 2015. O istorie a Cenaclului de Luni [A History of the Monday Literary Club]. București: Cartea Românească. Sapiro, Gisèle. 1999. La Guerre des écrivains 1940–1953 [The Writers’ War 1940–1953]. Paris: Fayard. Sapiro, Gisèle. 2007. „Pour une approche sociologique des relations entre littérature et idéologie” [For a Sociological Approach to the Relationship Between Literature and Ideology]. COnTEXTES2/2007. https://doi.org/10.4000/ contextes.165. Sălcudeanu, Petre. 1990. „Nu iubeau cărțile…” [They Didn’t Love Books…]. România literară XXIII(9): 1. Simion, Eugen (coord.), 2014. Cronologia vieții literare românești. Perioada postcomunistă 1990 [Chronology of Romanian Literary Life. The Postcommunist Period]. Foreword by Eugen Simion. Editor’s note by Bianca Burța-Cernat. București: Editura Muzeul Național al Literaturii Române.

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13 The December 1989 Revolution in Post-­Communist Romanian Drama Anca Hațiegan

Before delving into the actual subject of the present investigation, concerned with the representations of the December 1989 Revolution in Romanian drama, and in order to provide a more comprehensive context for the reader, I will begin with a historical introduction. The communist regime in Romania—instituted under Soviet rule at the end of the Second World War and perpetuated after the retreat of the Red Army (in 1958) by local leaders who were more or less loyal to Moscow—collapsed in a few days in December 1989, in the wake of a bloody revolution. It was the most violent regime change in Central and Eastern Europe during the Cold War and, at the same time, the first televised revolution in history. The revolution began in Timișoara, a city in Western Romania, on 16 December, and then spread to the capital, Bucharest, and a few other cities (Sibiu, Cluj, Brașov, Arad, Târgu Mureș, Constanța, Brăila, etc.). One of the crucial turning points was the rally organised by the dictator Nicolae Ceaușescu in Bucharest on 21 December, which took place in A. Hațiegan (*) Babeș-Bolyai University, Cluj-Napoca, Romania e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 E. Wohl, E. Păcurar (eds.), Language of the Revolution, Palgrave Studies in Languages at War, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-37178-3_13

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the square holding the headquarters of the Central Committee of the Romanian Communist Party and was meant to condemn the insurrection in Timișoara. The decision proved fatal for Ceaușescu, as the crowd he summoned turned against him. The following day, at noon, the Ceaușescus, Nicolae and Elena, fled Bucharest in a helicopter that took off from the rooftop of the building they had used as a stage the day before. Less than an hour later commenced the first broadcast from the studio of the “free” Romanian Television, which had been occupied by the protesters, and the poet Mircea Dinescu and the actor Ion Caramitru proclaimed the revolutionary victory. In the streets, however, there was shooting even after the summary trial and execution of the Ceaușescu couple (who had meanwhile been captured in Târgoviște) on Christmas day. The masses developed a virtual psychosis concerning the “terrorists” who were still shooting people and, implicitly, the possibility of a counterrevolution. By 27 December, over 1000 people had been killed and more than 3000 injured due to the involvement of the “Securitate” (the Romanian Secret Police), the “miliția” (the State Police) and the army (Deletant 2019, 505). On 22 December, the same day the dictator had fled, Frontul Salvării Naționale (NSF—The National Salvation Front) was born as a composite group, led by Ion Iliescu, a former communist activist, previously marginalised by Ceaușescu, who had seen him as a possible rival. This group was meant to govern Romania only until the first free elections in post-war Romanian history could be organised. The transformation of the NSF into a political party in January 1990 generated suspicions regarding the “confiscation” of the Revolution by the inferior echelons of the Romanian Communist Party. This is when the first anti-NSF protests erupted and were quelled by the authorities with the help of the miners from Valea Jiului (Jiu Valley), summoned into the capital to “bring order.” Ion Iliescu and the NSF achieved a landslide victory in May 1990, and, the following month, the miners were once again summoned into the capital to quell the anti-NSF manifestations in Piața Universității (University Square), which had been named by the protesters “a communism-­free area.” The miners did their job quite zealously, hence the extremely violent character of the June 1990 “mineriade” (Mineriads). The opposition, represented by a coalition of parties, only came to power

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after the 1996 elections, indicating that the democratic mechanism was more or less beginning to function. This was when the first steps were taken to allow Romania to join NATO (2004) and the EU (2007). However, Ion Iliescu won the presidential elections once again in 2000, and the NSF’s successor, the Social Democratic Party, remains the strongest party in Romania to this day. All this time, the difficulties of going from a planned economy to a free market, poor governance, poverty and corruption caused the Romanian emigrants to become the fifth largest diasporic group in the world in relation to the domestic population of the country (OECD 2019, 13), in the context of certain restrictions being lifted, specifically those that had affected the free movement of persons before 1989. It comes as no surprise, then, that the majority of the local artistic representations of the 1989 Revolution have bypassed the optimistic-triumphalist tone, betraying instead a great disappointment. Thus, discussing the works of Romanian writers who tackle the subject of the 1989 Revolution, the literary critic Sanda Cordoș points out that they “denounce the cynicism of those changes which sacrifice the innocent, with the murderers remaining collective, faceless phantasms” (2020, 167). The revolutionary is no longer seen as a “subversive and conspiring character,” in the fashion of previous literary works concerned with thematising revolution, but rather as “a victim of manipulation.” Cordoș also mentions that, in a complementary manner, the novels about the 1989 Revolution also include “the image of a sick or cursed country” (2020, 167). In my opinion, these conclusions apply just as well to post-communist Romanian drama, the difference being that, in this case, the faces of the murderers are sometimes visible (especially in the 1990s). More precisely, I will be discussing the plays Ghilotina [The Guillotine], Aerisirea [The Airing] (19931) and Spitalul Special [The Special Hospital] (1994) by Iosif Naghiu, Repetabila scenă a balconului [The Repeatable Scene of the Balcony] (1996) by Dumitru Solomon, (T) Țara mea [My Country/My Flaw] (1998) by Radu Macrinici, Decembrie, în direct [December, Live] (1999) by Horia Gârbea, Complexul România [The Romania Complex] (2007) by Mihaela Michailov, Anul dispărut. 1989 [The Missing Year. 1989] (2019) by Peca Ștefan and ’90 (2017), “a collective script based on personal experiences and family tales” written by the actors Alexandru Fifea, Alice Monica Marinescu,

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Katia Pascariu, Alexandru Potocean and Andrei Șerban. The list could also include three plays that have been staged but not yet published: Oaia neagră de la Cluj—un poem în mișcare și sunet despre apariția și dispariția lui Călin Nemeș [The Black Sheep from Cluj—A Poem of Movement and Sound About the Appearance and Disappearance of Călin Nemeș] (2019), created by the actor Ionuț Caras based on the writings of an actor from Cluj—a young bohemian artist turned hero and injured during the Revolution, who later committed suicide—and on testimonies about him; Proiectul Revoluția/The Revolution Project (2019) by the (Romanian-­ born) American playwright Saviana Stănescu; and Jurnal de România. 1989 [Romanian Diaries. 1989] (2020), a documentary, multimedia theatre script created by the director Carmen Lidia Vidu based on the memories of the actors Oana Pellea, Ion Caramitru, Florentina Țilea and Daniela Badale from the National Theatre of Bucharest. In the same context, we must also mention the play Porno (2011) (translated from the Hungarian original into English as Porn in 2017) by the Hungarian-­ Romanian playwright András Visky.

 ecember 1989 and “the Tragedy D of Language” However, an author who is completely separate from the Romanian cultural environment takes precedence over local authors when it comes to the artistic depiction of the December 1989 Revolution: the well-known British playwright Caryl Churchill. In March and April of 1990, she made two trips to Romania for documentary purposes; she was accompanied first by the director Mark Wing-Davey, and then also by students from London’s Central School of Speech and Drama. A team was assembled together with students from the Caragiale Institute of Theatre and Cinema in Bucharest. The on-site observations, the interviews with the locals and the joint British-Romanian workshops organised during this interval all helped Caryl Churchill in the process of writing her play Mad Forest. Significantly, it bears the subtitle “A Play from Romania” (rather than “about Romania”), which encapsulates “the experience of not

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understanding” (Darren Gobert 2014, 157). Mad Forest was first performed on 25 June 1990 at the Central School’s Embassy Theatre in London. It was then performed in Bucharest, at the National Theatre, where seven representations took place starting on 17 September. The show was subsequently performed at the Royal Court Theatre in London. Language—including its limitations—plays a central role in Mad Forest. The Revolution of December 1989 is refracted in Caryl Churchill’s play especially in its linguistic dimension, which is also prone to failure: either as a transition “from uneasy silences and snatched moments of freedom of expression to a Romanian Tower of Babel that is far from utopian” (Luckhurst 2009, 65) or as a fact of life that is difficult to render in a language other than Romanian and, ultimately, impossible to put into words. “There were no words in Romanian or English for how happy I was” (Churchill 2014, 85), says the Translator in the play’s median part, based on the verbatim transcripts of interviews with participants in the Revolution. (The character is referring to the sense of euphoria felt in the streets of Bucharest in the first hours of the Revolution, before the “terror shooting” commenced.) Likewise, the engineer Gabriel (one of the protagonists from the first and third parts of the play, both of which are fictitious) is a “hero” who gets injured during the Revolution but is unable to talk about the events of 21 and 22 December: “I can’t talk about it now” (93). His sister, Lucia, a primary school teacher, decries, instead, the inertia of post-revolutionary language, captive within the same clichés and prejudices from before 1989: “This is what we used to say before. Don’t we say something different?” (95). The sense that communicating has become difficult is amplified in Mad Forest by the fact that the spectator is constantly reminded throughout the play that the histories presented on stage are being filtered through a foreign language (these histories, pieced together, can hardly form a coherent HISTORY). Therefore, the public is taking part in an actual “tragédie du langage,” in the words of the French-Romanian playwright Eugène Ionesco (1966, 247). Ionesco’s phrase refers to his own play The Bald Soprano, with which Mad Forest has certain elements in common (see also Bahun-Radunović 2008, 460). Thus, in both plays language eventually collapses in a cacophonous riot of discordant voices, as the characters grow more and more vexed. At the

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same time, both plays end up suggesting that the previous events might happen again in a vicious circle, announcing a new violent explosion.

 he Revolution in the Abstracting Drama T of the 1990s When it comes to Romanian plays depicting the historical events of December 1989, it must be noted that only the last five texts from the list above (starting with The Missing Year. 1989 by Peca Ștefan, from 2015) employ the means of documentary theatre, like Caryl Churchill’s Mad Forest. With one exception (The Black Sheep from Cluj by Ionuț Caras), these plays rely largely or even exclusively (like the play ’90) on the memories of the actors who originated the roles on stage. The other plays, written between 1990 and 2010, are more closely related to the poetic-­ allusive theatrical tradition from the communist period, sometimes in spite of the authors’ intentions. In this sense, the most illustrative case is that of Iosif Naghiu (b. 1932–d. 2003), who dedicated many of his plays to “the man of the failed Revolution,” reflecting his disappointment regarding the turn of events after 1989. Commenting on these historical developments, the dramatist wrote about the manifest abandonment of “mythology” and “metaphor” (Naghiu 1994, 79). He thought of himself as the author of a theatre of unleashed “anger” after decades of repression, censorship and self-censorship. But the plays included in his “the man of the failed Revolution” series, namely Celula poetului dispărut [The Prison Cell of the Missing Poet], Ghilotina, Aerisirea, Spitalul Special and Monstrul [The Monster], written between 1990 and 1993, all betray the influence of abstract and parabolic theatre, with insights from the theatre of the absurd, inherited from the pre-revolutionary period. (Out of these, three plays appear to me as more relevant regarding the theme of the present study.) A unique case can be found in the one-act play Revolta [The Revolt], written by Iosif Naghiu in 1971 and left unpublished until after the Revolution, when the author added a note that “the action takes place in December 1989” (1993, 6). In Revolta, the playwright had imagined a situation that proved prescient regarding the fall of Ceaușescu’s regime:

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an uprising triggered by the speech given at a party adhesion rally by a character close to the central authorities, with a fluid identity, an “artist-­ sportsman-­worker,” while the supreme leader—the Comrade—had fallen asleep on account of the wax ear plugs he chooses to wear. The event is not shown, but it is frantically discussed by two moguls, the Friend and the good Friend (who are utterly frightened and reject their Pal’s gesture), with a brief intervention by the insurgent’s former lover. When news of the uprising finally reaches him by phone, Comrade President (inaudible to the spectators) faints (his capital sin, which brings his downfall, is the habit of covering his ears and rejecting what others have to say). A mute character, the Army Valet, wearing the uniform of a Securitate officer, is a dispassionate witness to the “friends’” agitation; the latter get increasingly restless as the roar of the rebellious masses grows louder and louder. Meanwhile, the Valet meticulously declutters the site (a sumptuous room), eliminating all the documents and all the furniture. Eventually, he also takes the two friends off-stage, as if they, too, were lifeless objects. Therefore, the ending also indicates that the “revolt” has been confiscated by the members of the political police. Muteness proves more effective than the words that rile up the people (the Pal’s discourse) or the cries of the masses, which make the walls quake (literally). “The age of mute cinema,” which is declared dead by one of the characters, being replaced by the “sad, objective, and vocal reality” (15) seems, however, to have survived the emergence of sound, in other words it appears to have survived the revolt materialising in Naghiu’s play as “a roar, a clamouring ocean” (7). Iosif Naghiu initially published Ghilotina in the magazine Teatrul azi [Theatre Today] (1992, 51–59), and later in a 1993 collection that also includes, among other texts, the plays Revolta and Aerisirea. In Teatrul azi, the play’s title is much longer and much more explicit, in a manner reminiscent of Peter Weiss: Spectacol televizat în direct despre executarea “prin sinucidere” a unui terorist în zilele din decembrie sau Ghilotina XX [Live TV Show About the “Suicide” Execution of a Terrorist in December or Guillotine XX]. According to the playwright himself, Ghilotina is “about a revolution that begins tragically and ends grotesquely” (Bardaș 1994, 40). The phrase seems to echo Karl Marx’s famous observation regarding the double emergence “of all great world-historic facts and personages”: “the first time as tragedy, the second time as farce” (Marx 1852). Thus,

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the play’s protagonist, the suicidal terrorist, is meant to be a new Saint Paul on the road to Damascus. He chooses his own punishment (self-­ guillotining) for the crimes he committed during the Revolution as an undercover soldier, under the influence of drugs administered to those like him by order of his superiors. This happens precisely when he is on the point of being released through the intervention of his father, General Justice (the embodiment of opportunism draped in morality). It is no coincidence that the protagonist is called Paul, while his brother, a revolutionary hero, bears the name of the apostle Peter. However, the character’s tragedy is undermined by the crowd that neither accepts nor recognises the miracle. Only three women are willing to forgive and assist him on the path of spiritual rebirth: his own mother, the mother of a child he killed and the child’s sister (who evoke the three Marys in the Bible). The three supernatural apparitions of the Child Killed in the Revolution also go unnoticed by the masses, who are more interested in obtaining material goods and “Certificates of Participation in the Suicide Execution of the Terrorist Paul Iovan” (Naghiu 1993, 55, 57). (This is a reference to the revolutionary certificates issued in post-communist Romania, which provided the owners with certain material advantages, thus quickly becoming the object of speculation and illegal exploits.) The fascination exerted over the crowds by words full of promise such as “dividends, percentages, and stocks” (56), freshly reintroduced into the vocabulary after the fall of the old regime, annihilates any other preoccupation. Ghilotina also plays on the idea that the Revolution was confiscated by various opportunists, who present themselves as leaders of the disoriented masses. A distinctive character from this category bears the title The Representative of the Revolution, who seems to be the hidden choreographer of the events and is accompanied by The Revolutionary, who dances to his tune. In a speech given by the latter, the playwright paraphrases, in an ironic manner, the first televised discourse by Ion Iliescu, who took power after the collapse of the Ceaușescu regime. On 22 December 1989, Iliescu decried the discreditation of socialist ideals by the former dictator and his acolytes, thus showing his commitment to the system that had been contested in the streets (which did not stop the people from subsequently electing him president).

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A phrase brought forward by the 1989 Revolution, namely “vidia bullets” (a sort of expanding bullets), lies at the heart of the most stirring line said by the Mother of the child-victim from Ghilotina: “How can an arbitrary, senseless word rip a child apart?” (29). Iosif Naghiu was deeply preoccupied with the quandary faced by writers in the wake of the 1989 Revolution. The play Aerisirea, whose action takes place during the protests in University Square and the June 1990 Mineriads, is centred around Stelică, a writer who distinguished himself during the events of 1989 and subsequently abandoned his profession, devoting himself to airing the homes of his family, friends and neighbours, all of whom were absorbed by the demonstrations against the new government. At one point, Stelică is stopped by two miners, who have clearly been sent on a mission by those in power to prevent him from continuing his new activity. The reason? His actions “could be interpreted as an illusion,” explains one of the miners, to which Stelică responds, correcting him—“As an allusion!” (Naghiu 1993, 81). According to the two miners, it would be better for him to go back to writing, even in a blunt style (“Go on and swear, sir!”), because “gone are the days when writing was that kind of affair … a shameful one! … Gone are the days when it was simply ignored unless it was about flowers, sparrows, praise, or party secretaries! …” (79). Today, one of them argues, writers have access to “all the women” and “all the ideas,” while, in the past, they could not write about “chicks,” only “about comrades! … The mother-comrade, the Woman-comrade, the Woman-Leader-comrade! …” (79). The miners are painted in broad strokes, in a grotesque fashion, as the representatives of a socio-professional class used as an instrument of repression against the political opposition by those who seized power in the whirlwind of the 1989 Revolution. They are uncivilised, lecherous and speak their language poorly. But Naghiu does not spare the intellectuals, either. The protagonist is also approached by Gogu, a Romanian theatre director who moved to France and is now hoping to obtain from Stelică a text about the Revolution that could be staged in Paris, where he has already introduced the protagonist as “a sort of hero, a tiny Havel of the contestation movement,” “an author who lived through the Revolution, who carried it out, who documented it directly, in a manner of speaking” (67). Gogu is a hypocrite and his intention to make a profit by exploiting the

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other is immediately obvious. The play ends on a pessimistic note, with a discouraged, tired Stelică still surveilled by the agents of power, just like before 1989, and with prices constantly rising, suggesting, through their periodic leaps, the passage of time (measured, after the revolution, in money). The regime change does not seem to have generated any purer motives or the necessary “airing.” The writer is alone in his preoccupation with indoor hygiene and feels the air around him growing stale once again, becoming unbreathable. Under these circumstances—without a prior regeneration, either individual or collective—the written word is superfluous. A secondary character from Aerisirea is taken directly from the universe created by Ion Luca Caragiale (1852–1912), a classic figure in Romanian literature and dramaturgy. Thus, the Romanian reader and spectator will immediately recognise in The Merry Citizen—on account of his verbal tics and phrases—a (degraded) version of The Sloshed Citizen from Caragiale’s comedy O scrisoare pierdută [A Lost Letter]. The latter is a symbol of the Romanian people being fooled and befuddled by various demagogues but is essentially a decent human being. However, Naghiu’s Merry Citizen seems to have lost his moral compass entirely, encouraging the aggressions perpetrated by the miners, for the sake of entertainment. The character remembers, barely, that he too was in the streets during the Revolution (but not what he did there), because he had been kicked out of the house by his wife after an attack of the hiccups caused by fear. In Spitalul Special (which won the UNITER Award in 1993), Iosif Naghiu develops a daunting metaphor for Romanian post-communist society: a hospital in which the heroes and the victims of the Revolution share a room with those who shot at them and who are now being cleared of any moral responsibility or interrogation, leading to the uniformising of all individuals. As soon as the patients or even the hospital personnel (such as Miss Doctor Tonight) show any signs of non-conformism, the management resorts to repressive methods that are worryingly similar to the practices of the political police before 1989, including torture. The hospital is hierarchical, with the higher floors hosting the “pretenders,” that is, the profiteers of the Revolution. The management are primarily interested in Ward 22, where lie Liviu Pițu, a revolutionary hero, and

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Lăutaru, the terrorist who shot him on 22 December 1989 and who is now pretending to be sick in a coma, so as to escape the inquiry that awaits him. As the trial is being postponed, Lăutaru gets bold enough to show his defiant vitality (being encouraged to do so by a superior officer’s command), while Pițu’s health worsens. The experiment (which can be seen as part of a reformatory process) fails; instead of developing a brotherly bond, the incompatible patients start brawling against a backdrop of machine-guns firing and helicopters flying overhead. Some patients manage to flee and emigrate, others are wounded or perish. Pițu survives, waking up in the same hospital bed, near a new patient. The experiment starts anew. The brutal and circular ending is reminiscent of Caryl Churchill’s Mad Forest. In fact, Pițu is an anti-hero, prone to self-deprecating irony and troubled by Hamletian questions regarding the real purpose of participating in the Revolution, considering that “today revolutionary laws have changed,” and the revolutionary is threatened by ridicule rather than martyrdom (Naghiu 1994, 72). After each confrontation, he loses a tooth, so that his capacity to speak biting words is gradually reduced. Miss Doctor Tonight learns from Pițu the language of inner life or “Spargan language”—a reference to the language invented by the Romanian-American poet Nina Cassian (1924–2014). This is why she becomes inaccessible and, thus, suspicious in the eyes of the hospital management, who ultimately eliminates her. The hospital hosts a very diverse and largely promiscuous world, which includes—apart from the revolutionaries, the fake revolutionaries, the terrorists and so on—a host of “bișnițari” (a Romanian word derived from businessman, which became a pejorative term after 1990, given the explosion of commercial speculation), rapists or excessively eroticised nurses. The salacious atmosphere that dominates the play has its origins in the sense of sexual liberation brought by the 1990s, after the repressive tendencies of the rigid communist regime; hence, the impulse to flaunt sexual themes in an unbridled manner. Hospital management is represented by impostors who present themselves as the healers of the wounds caused by “the dictatorship of the Odious and the Sinister”—appellations coined in the public sphere for Nicolae and Elena Ceaușescu immediately after their execution and borrowed ironically by the playwright (Naghiu

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1994, 8). In fact, these pretenders do nothing but prolong the agony of the country’s sick social body. The playwright Dumitru Solomon (1932–2003) was part of the same generation as Iosif Naghiu and shared his stylistic preferences. In Repetabila scenă a balconului [The Repeatable Scene of the Balcony] (which won the UNITER Award in 1995), the author opted for an anti-mimetic, non-Aristotelian theatrical formula, which derives, just like Naghiu’s dramaturgy, from the theatre of the absurd and which places language— used self-referentially—at its centre (similar to Caryl Churchill’s Mad Forest). The text speaks of the intrusion of politics (or, rather, realpolitik) in fiction: Romeo and Juliet are forced to give up the balcony, which hosted their declarations of love in favour of the demagogues, who will use it for their boring speeches aimed at the masses. “I would have liked for us to speak words of love to each other, but they have taken away all of our words,” Juliet complains (Solomon 1996, 38). In the play, political demagogy is embodied by the anonymous figures A and B, whose discourses include, one by one, the echoes of dictatorial phraseology, ranging from Mussolini to Ceaușescu; however, these influences are distorted through various puns, making it impossible for the actors or the audience to simply identify with any of the historical figures. Ceaușescu, linguistically impersonated by the character A, addresses the people—represented by a Choir—using the phrase “dear comrades” (27), as well as fragments taken from the dictator’s last speech, until he is interrupted by helicopter sounds and by a descending rope, which helps him escape (a reference to Ceaușescu’s flight from Bucharest). B takes his place as a revolutionary figure, but is soon proven to be just as eager to seize power and to form a government committee with Juliet’s Nurse—to prevent her refusal, B immediately suggests that the committee should be “decentralised and decommunised” (34). The dialogue between B and the Choir evokes, in this section of the play (31–35), the televised speeches and the slogans chanted in the streets in December 1989. Here, too, the language is self-­ referential, full of puns and words invented by the playwright by slightly altering and rhyming common ones; most of these new terms are difficult to translate into any other language. To give but an example: “B Domnilor! Am doborât dictatura! // The Choir Ura! // B Vom instala democratura! The Choir Ura!” (31). Which could be translated as: “B Gentlemen! We

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have brought down the dictatorship! // The Choir Hurray! // B We will install the democraship! The Choir Hurray!” However, in Romanian “dictatorship” and the derived word—“democraship,” from “democracy”— also rhyme with “hurray,” the choir’s response. By such means, Solomon encourages the reader/spectator to look at the events with a sort of ironic detachment, cultivating a predisposition to critical reflection. The author’s attitude towards the 1989 Revolution is an obviously disenchanted one. The character B makes a series of absurd promises before the masses: the five-minute workday, the allotment of houses to “entrepreneurs and sport coaches” (two words which rhyme in Romanian) and so on. Nevertheless, almost all of these promises are direct references to measures that were actually adopted immediately after the Revolution (shorter work hours, the return of nationalised lands and houses to their previous owners, the privatisation of factories). The speaker, the Nurse and the Choir appear to be under no illusion regarding the regime change and the subsequent reforms: there is generalised enmity, just like between the Capulets and the Montagues, or between “Republicans and monarchists. Owners and tenants. Reformists and profiteers. The avant-garde and the postmodern” (33). In this case, too, the parallel with the ending of Mad Forest is unavoidable. Radu Macrinici (b. 1964) and Horia Gârbea (b. 1962) are two playwrights who made their debut in the first decade after the Revolution, and both have been preoccupied with the figure of the torturer and its metamorphosis after December 1989. In My Country/My Flaw (which won the UNITER Award in 1997), Macrinici focuses on the family of a torturer—comprised of the sadistic and masochistic couple He and She and their 13-year-old daughter, Ela—before, during and after the Revolution. The torturer is forced by his superiors in the Secret Police to live in the same flat where he “works,” having to send his family away every time he is on duty. He tries to paint over the blood of his victims and the marks left on the walls by their fingernails, using whitewash, he keeps the lights turned off, but Ela still manages to discover the macabre remains of her father’s occupation, becoming gradually disenchanted with her family and her country. The girl loses her innocence, both literally and figuratively, in the company of a clairvoyant Blindman, an enemy of the regime, who lives in the basement of the same building. Ela and

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the Blindman are the only people who, despite their guiltlessness, feel responsible for the victims of the Revolution, but their cries for justice at the end of the play are drowned out by a noisy group of rockers. Ela’s father is notified by phone that he must vacate the flat and pass it on to a colleague, perhaps because he had a short moment of remorse and wanted to take up another job. After the chaos of the Revolution and a formal permutation of party cadres, the Secret Police go back to their old habits. It is telling that the replacement of Ela’s father seems even more primitive than the previous employee. His language is rife with swearwords and scatological terms (especially after six months of inactivity and uncertainty caused by the apparent regime change). Ela’s father is no stranger to this language, either, which he uses primarily during intimate moments with his wife. By bringing crude language on stage, under the influence of in-yer-face theatre, Macrinici is a pioneer—more daring than Naghiu in Spitalul Special [The Special Hospital], yet shier than his peer Ștefan Caraman (b. 1967), who, in 1997, published his first collection of plays, titled Zapp…, and shocked the world of Romanian theatre (one of Caraman’s followers in this sense—although he later abandoned this particular direction—was, in his first plays, the dramatist Peca Ștefan). The plot of Macrinici’s play is bidimensional, with a concrete level and a symbolic one, carefully interlaced, like in the scene where Ela, doing her Romanian language homework, discovers that she has missed a diacritical mark, writing “tară” [flaw] instead of “țară” [country]. The playwright draws an entire network of analogies between the mutilated bodies of the tortured victims, handled by Ela’s father, and the broken body of Romania, the country that Ela is doomed to inherit. When the girl rebels against this inheritance, the mother advises her “not to take the country for its people and vice-versa” (Macrinici 1998, 67). Ela then realises that “nobody has ever talked to me about the people. I have learned about the country, the party, the nation” (67). Indeed, under communism the collective had replaced the individual, and any preoccupation with one’s inner life was condemned. The irony is that Ela leads an extremely lonely life, being surrounded most of the time only by her doll and her stuffed animals, just like Laura Wingfield was surrounded by her glass menagerie. She will lose all of these things during the Revolution, depicted in the play as a parade of more or less allegorical scenes, witnessed from a park bench by Ela and

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her mother. The climax is the moment when a few soldiers machine-gun the girl’s toys, placed at her feet like in the Bethlehem manger. Not even the Barbie doll gifted by her mother after the Revolution or Santa Claus (a forbidden name during communism—just like Christmas itself—and replaced with “Father Frosty”) can fill the void created through the loss of her childhood toys, since Ela—on the cusp of growing up—understands that all the replacements are simply surrogates for reality. In Decembrie, în direct [December, Live], Horia Gârbea plays on the reversibility of the executioner-victim relationship. In his short dramatic parable, the two characters illustrate the hypothesis that the Revolution has been confiscated by the inferior echelons of the Communist Party. A brutal, poorly educated Investigator becomes the victim of his much more treacherous and well-trained Prisoner, the spoiled son of party cadres, who has become an anti-communist dissident on a whim and out of vanity. The latter convinces the Investigator to set him free, and the two meet again later, being involved in a vaguely localised revolution, which they participate in rather unenthusiastically and where it remains unclear who is fighting whom. Here, the former Prisoner’s cynicism starts coming to light in all its glory, to the utter surprise of the former torturer. Eventually, the former Investigator ends up being tortured himself and dies without betraying his accomplices, being killed by the former Prisoner, who is now donning “an impeccable officer uniform with embroideries and decorations” (Gârbea 1999, 74). Nothing changes after the Revolution except for the look of the torture chamber, which is now more aseptic and luxurious, the uniform of the torturer, and the name of the institution in charge of repression. Mihaela Michailov’s (b. 1977) Complexul România [The Romania Complex] is her dramatic debut, as well as a transitional play between the (still) highly literary dramaturgy of the 1990s and the de-literarised, much more direct dramaturgy of the 2000s. The play is designed for an arena-type stage, as a succession of 16 “dramatic clips,” an “installation in which each clip is a fragment of collective and individual history” (Michailov 2007, 5). It captures moments from the life of Georgică (first as a child and then as an adult) and his best friend, Mircică, as well as their families, before, during and after the Revolution. The events in the clips, taking place between two football nets, like the stages of a match,

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are punctured (until the end of the Revolution sequence) by the Choir of the Pioneer Organisation—a technique inspired by Brecht. Their chants are subversive: an ironic and parodic version of the standard language (the “wooden language”) of the communist regime and its poetry meant to pay homage to those in power). The paradox is that, when employed by Georgică, who is a diligent student and has automatically absorbed every communist slogan (which he repeats even at home, to his parents’ barely controllable exasperation), the standard language of the regime sounds even more hollow—especially when combined with the ribald phrases he picks up from his classmates. The scenes that present life before the Revolution denounce the small and great horrors of communism. Mircică does his homework by candlelight (in a scene that looks like a replica of Macrinici’s play) and must go, early in the morning, and secure a spot in the queues for various foods (These are emblematic shots of daily life in Romania under Ceaușescu, also included in Caryl Churchill’s Mad Forest). The boy’s father, a good-­ hearted engineer, crushed by the misery of the communist world, is under investigation by the Securitate (the Romanian Secret Police) and is beaten to death for the fault of having made a joke at the expense of the Comrade Elena Ceaușescu and having imitated her grammatically disastrous speech. Georgică’s friend, the nonconformist Mircică, is treated at school as a sort of pariah, because his father is a political prisoner. He ends up in reform school due to an irreverent drawing of the Comrade Nicolae Ceaușescu. Filtered through the eyes of children, just like some of the previous scenes, the Revolution initially appears as a form of play, a party with balloons and fireworks. But Mircică is struck precisely by one of these balloons and dies in Georgică’s arms. Years go by, Georgică graduates from high school, emigrates to Canada, inquires on the phone from time to time about the fate of his grandmother and mother, then he returns to Romania, where he wants to open a car wash in memory of Mircică and his passion for cars—the embodiment of his dream of escaping the reality of communist Romania. In another “clip,” Georgică visits his mother in the hospital; she is suffering from Alzheimer’s and has to be reminded, again and again, that not only is Ceaușescu dead, but the communist system has been officially condemned by Parliament and declared “illegitimate and criminal” (54). We are in 2007 (the year of Romania’s

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official abandonment of communism and its integration into the EU). The play ends with Georgică’s monologue (primarily addressing his dead friend, Mircică), triggered by a televised press report about the Revolution. The protagonist remembers “the cursed night when he died in my arms” (55), when Mircică became part of him, dictating all of his subsequent choices. A “hallucinatory” night, which occupies a similar position in his personal hierarchy of memorable moments as the night when the Bucharest-based football team Steaua won the Champions League (which explains the football nets on stage and the dribbling done by the Choir in the first half of the play) and that on which he held in his hand the key to his first car wash. Now, Georgică owns an entire car wash chain, in a country that has recently become Heaven for any car aficionado (or, rather, a business in charge of maintaining and polishing one’s escapist dreams?!) and wishes to open a branch in Brussels, as well, near the European Parliament. “Super cool,” “plasma” and “integration” are the keywords and phrases that define the fake-triumphal monologue of the protagonist, who announces the advent of a new historical period, in which “many things have not changed. Others have. Losers still dominate the screen. The informers are in top ten” (57). The Romania Complex is the real beginning of the labour of memory regarding the 1989 Revolution in Romanian dramaturgy. From here on, the ethical dilemmas surrounding the Revolution, which represented the axis of dramaturgy in the 1990s, start fading into the background. The act of remembering becomes more important than apportioning blame. The playwright takes a step back and no longer imposes his or her own perspective on the Revolution, allowing the voices of the “polis” to be heard and express themselves in as authentic a language as possible. Subjectivity reigns supreme.

 he Revolution in Post-2000 T Documentary Theatre Anul dispărut. 1989 [The Missing Year. 1989] is part of a trilogy in which the playwright Peca Ștefan (b. 1982), in collaboration with the director Ana Mărgineanu, mapped between 2015 and 2017 a few moments from

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the recent history of Romania. The play was first performed in 2015 at the Small Theatre in Bucharest, and the playwright used in his work the memories of the entire artistic and technical team. The Missing Year. 1989 begins with the verbatim reproduction of the interviews conducted with the crew about their memories of the Revolution (performed by another person than the interviewee—a principle they observed all throughout the production). At the end of this part, a few spectators are always invited to share their own recollections of the Revolution. Then comes the verbatim reproduction of Nicolae Ceaușescu’s address on New Year’s Eve. The “grand, objective” history of the year 1989 is subsequently presented through a succinct enumeration of the major events of each month (Ștefan 2019, 6). Three major scenes are interlaced with these events; they are based on fictionalised versions of the crew’s stories, which strive to reclaim the “subjective history” of the year 1989. Another two parallel scenes, shorter than the others, take place in different spaces than the main stage and are only accessible to certain spectators, chosen at random. The three bigger scenes focus on the world of theatre, that of children and the familial microcosm under communism, respectively. The latter is centred around the dramatic life of Luminița, a young woman forced by her family to have an abortion and break up with her lover, Filip, a poet and Philology student placed under surveillance by the Secret Police, with whom she wanted to escape the Socialist Camp. Her story takes an unexpected turn in one of the parallel sketches (which involves the departure of two actors and two or three spectators, by car, through the centre of Bucharest) and an equally interesting ending, performed on the main stage. Their subject is the confession of a mother who, at her son’s behest—a journalism student—admits to having constructed a fake revolutionary biography for herself, appropriating her best friend’s story (and her lover), after she was shot on 23 December 1989. This young woman was Luminița. The student also finds out that he is the son of the young poet and dissident who had once been in love with Luminița. In her expiatory monologue, the mother speaks of the generalised dishonesty, which has supposedly hindered any real progress in Romania and of her children’s generation, abandoned (metaphorically speaking) by their parents; she urges her son and daughter not to repeat the mistakes of the older generation. Finally, the last part of the play is interspersed with the

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memories of the crew members and the spectators concerning the dreams they had back in December 1989, as well as their subsequent disappointments or even regrets; these memories alternate with fragments from the transcript of Ceaușescu’s last speech (in the production at the Small Theatre, it was performed simultaneously by multiple actors) and from the recorded trial and execution of the dictator and his wife. The voices overlap from time to time, but we never reach the point of generalised linguistic and semantic implosion, which characterises the ending of Mad Forest. Ultimately, what remains is a question for the powers that be, which has to do with the murderers of the victims of the Revolution, who remain unidentified 30 years later. There is an epilogue, as well, in which one of the actors tells the story of Nae Gavrilă, a plumber on a building site, who gets joyfully drunk after the broadcast of Ceaușescu’s execution and hangs himself—just as joyfully—from a heater pipe in his shed, leaving behind the following message: “I’m glad he is dead! I’m going after him to curse him!” (84). Long after his disappearance, his colleagues would wonder whether Nae Gavrilă had been “the stupidest or smartest of them all.” The spectators are invited to give their own answer, while the lights go out. The stories of the crew members at the Small Theatre—who were between 3 and 38 years old at the time of the Revolution—result in an extremely mottled picture of the events. Those who were very young in 1989 have a sort of detachment, which was obviously absent in the case of the characters interviewed by Caryl Churchill while working on the project of the play Mad Forest. Between a resolute “yes” said by three interviewees when asked whether they took part in the revolution and an equally resolute “no” said by most of the crew (i.e., ten people, who were either too young or far from the hotspots of the revolution or afraid to go out in the streets and/or content to watch the events on television), three or four answers happened to be more hesitant. The most striking was given by the cloakroom assistant Felicia, who wondered if “a few bullets flying past her” “can count as participating” (25) in the Revolution. An actress evokes her parents’ suspicion regarding the authenticity of the gunshots they could hear; they felt that the sounds could be a mere recording. Others remember the general psychosis concerning the terrorists, the rumours that their drinking water had been poisoned. An actor

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amusedly mentions the hypocrisy of certain building site superintendents who “had switched gears and were chanting: Down with the terrorists! Down with the communists!” (25). The stage manager remembers a student carrying his girlfriend on his shoulders. The girl had been struck by a bullet directly in the forehead and had collapsed right before her. (This story might have been the inspiration for Luminița’s biography.) Although the interviewees belong to different social classes and are not all university graduates, their language is relatively uniform: the long years of working together in the same environment have erased the differences. Only one of the technicians employs a somewhat colourful language and refers to Ceaușescu as “Ceașcă” (“cup,” like in “a cup of tea”), a nickname based on homophony. While in The Missing Year. 1989 Peca Ștefan mainly investigates the pre-history of the 1989 Revolution, in ’90, a “collective screenplay based on personal experiences and family tales,” written by the actors Alexandru Fifea, Alice Monica Marinescu, Katia Pascariu, Alexandru Potocean and Andrei Șerban and coordinated by the director David Schwartz (b. 1985), the central issue is the post-history of the Revolution, more precisely the dramatic consequences of the transition to the consumer society, affecting both the lower and the middle classes: the loss of one’s home (due to the return of nationalised houses to their previous owners and the consequent wave of speculation), of one’s job, material precarity, the addiction to gambling (one of the industries that took off after 1989). The perspective on this post-history is committedly leftist, since Schwartz is an advocate of “explicitly political” theatre, which “revalorises those personal stories that do not conform to the norms of the postsocialist public sphere: economic liberalism, cultural conservatism, anticommunism and the absolute, unreserved assimilation of the values of Western capitalist democracy” (Schwartz 2017, 5). This also applies to the production team. Post-communist consumerism is criticised in Naghiu’s or Solomon’s plays as well (their work captures, even on a linguistic level, the first signs of capitalism in Romania), but not as programmatically as in the case of Schwartz & Co. While the former suggest that people fall prey to their own greed or to the others’ greed and opportunism, which became so visible after 1989, ’90 operates instead with the thesis that after the Revolution those in the lower and middle classes, regardless of their

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political orientation, became inevitable victims of the capitalist system. The play is comprised of five “stories,” separated by musical intermezzos reminiscent of Brechtian songs. The first has two parts (This Holy Day and Certificate in Idiocy) that frame the other storylines. It refers precisely to the birth of the world described in ’90, namely the revolutionary days of December 1989, seen through the eyes of a child, Alex, and his mother, a kindergarten teacher (as well as a family friend, the actress Gina). In the first part, nine-year-old Alex is anxiously awaiting the return of his mother, who has been missing from home for a long time. He is watching the images on television with fascination as they are being broadcast from the courtyard of the “Free Romanian Television”: “I’ve never seen anything like this, these are real people, they are talking, shouting, they are speaking normally, not the way they speak on the Telejournal” (Fifea et al. 2017, 245). When Gina makes her appearance, she is exhilarated and explains to Alex that a Revolution is under way, that “the bastard” has fled by helicopter, that his mother is a “heroine” and that their lives will change for the better: they will be allowed to travel abroad freely, they will have food, “chocolate, the good kind from Germany” (245). Eventually, the mother also gets home, covered in blood: she was captured by the Militia alongside other protesters, she was cursed, kicked, beaten with guns, she saw a man who had been shot in the leg and had a hole where his ankle had been. In the second part, “the revolutionary heroine” dies in the arms of her son, crushed by the material difficulties of the 1990s and her professional worries, which went hand in hand with a case of diabetes. She refused to request a revolutionary certificate: “When they start calling it a certificate in idiocy, I might reconsider!” (291). “The Holy Day” of Ceaușescu’s flight has become, for her, a particularly unpleasant memory. The language of the characters is carefully differentiated according to their class, as are their opinions—this sets the play apart from the others hereby analysed. However, the authors give in to the temptation to caricaturise the figure of the anti-communist intellectual, proving instead more understanding and genuinely compassionate towards the main losers of the transition to a free market, such as the miners from Valea Jiului (who were demonised in the 1990s because of their violent involvement in the Mineriads—see Aerisirea [The Airing] by Naghiu). While a student

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who was involved in the expulsion of “collaborationist” professors from the university speaks about “the holy ideals of the December Revolution” (251), a miner who lost his job after 1989 wonders whether “it was better or worse under Ceaușescu… Why have they shot him? Cause that’s what those dodgers wanted! Now, the intellectual sort can’t do anything at all, they only rattle and take our money…” (276).

Was There or Was There Not…? The Revolution of December 1989 is an extremely controversial event in the history of Romania, both on a national level and abroad. Its authenticity is often questioned (see Bogdan 2017, 45–62; Deletant 2019, 508–512). Certain speakers hesitate to label it a revolution and refer to it as: a riot, an uprising, a regime being toppled, a coup d’état or, more simply, the events of December 1989. In an attempt to summarise the theories about the 1989 Revolution that have circulated throughout the years, Ruxandra Cesereanu has posited the existence of three major categories: the theory of a pure revolution, the conspiracy theory (either a domestic or a foreign conspiracy) and the theory of a hybrid event, something between a revolution and a putsch (2009, 63–188). In Caryl Churchill’s Mad Forest, the confusion caused by the 1989 Revolution is best reflected by the burst of questions asked by a patient who drives his hospital roommates mad after suffering a head wound during the events of December 1989 and becoming a sort of wise madman: “Did we have a revolution or a putsch? Who was shooting on the 21st? And who was shooting on the 22nd? Was the army shooting on the 21st or did some shoot and some not shoot or were the Securitate agents disguised in army uniforms?” (2014, 93) and more. Considering this controversy, I thought it interesting to conclude this chapter by cataloguing the terms and phrases that designate or refer to the 1989 Revolution in the plays analysed above. This resulted in the following list: “revoltă” [revolt], “vulcan în erupție” [erupting volcano], “ocean în diluviu pe care-l împing elefanții fără să țină cont de regulile de circulație” [an overflowing ocean pushed by the elephants with a complete disregard for traffic rules], “descărcare de energii” [a release of

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energy], “miracol pe viu” [a live miracle] (Naghiu 1993, 5, 7, 62), “coșmar în direct” [a live nightmare], “eroică bulibășeală” [heroic havoc], “circ terorist” [terrorist circus] (Naghiu 1994, 9, 29), “Revoluția Română” [The Romanian Revolution] (Macrinici 1998, 62), “o revoluție” [a revolution], “zarva asta” [this kerfuffle] (Gârbea 1999, 62, 71), “Revoluția din 1989” [the 1989 Revolution], “noaptea aia blestemată” [that cursed night] (Michailov 2007, 55), “revoluție” [revolution] (Ștefan 2019, 25), “Re-vo-lu-ți-e” [Re-vo- lu-tion], “Revoluție” [Revolution] (Fifea et  al. 2017, 245, 291).

Note 1. Unless otherwise specified, all the years written in brackets refer to the publication of the plays in print.

References Bahun-Radunović, Sanja. 2008. “History in Postmodern Theatre: Heiner Müller, Caryl Churchill, and Suzan-Lori Parks.” Comparative Literature Studies, vol. 45 (4): 446–470. https://www.jstor.org/stable/25659684 Bardaș, Adina. 1994. “Iosif Naghiu: ‘Construind metafore, erezii, utopii’ [Iosif Naghiu: ‘Building metaphors, heresies, utopias’].” Teatrul azi (7–8–9): 39–40. Bogdan, Jolan. 2017. Performative Contradiction and the Romanian Revolution. London, New York: Rowman & Littlefield International. Cesereanu, Ruxandra. 2009. Decembrie ‘89: deconstrucția unei revoluții [December ‘89: the Deconstruction of a Revolution]. 2nd edition, revised. Iași: Polirom. Churchill, Caryll. 2014. Plays: 3. London: Nick Hern. (ebook) Cordoș, Sanda. 2020. “Revoluție și imaginar social [Revolution and Social Imaginary].” In Enciclopedia imaginariilor din România [The Encyclopedia of Romanian Imaginaries], edited by Corin Braga, 153–171. Iași: Polirom. Darren Gobert, R. 2014. The Theatre of Caryl Churchill. London, New Delhi, New York, Sydney: Bloomsbury. Deletant, Dennis. 2019. Romania under Communism. Paradox and Degeneration. London & New York: Routledge.

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Fifea, Alexandru, Marinescu, Alice Monica, Pascariu, Katia, Potocean, Alexandru & Șerban, Andrei. 2017. “’90. Scenariu colectiv bazat pe experiențe p ­ ersonale și povești de familie [’90. Collective Scenario Based on Personal Experiences and Family Stories].” In Teatru politic. 2009–2017 [Political Theatre. 2009–2017], edited by Mihaela Michailov and David Schwartz, 243–294. Cluj: Tact. Gârbea, Horia. 1999. Decembrie, în direct [December, Live]. Bucharest: Allfa. Ionesco, Eugène. 1966. Notes et contre-notes [Notes and Counter Notes]. Paris: Gallimard. Luckhurst, Mary. 2009. “On the challenge of revolution.” In The Cambridge Companion to Caryl Churchill, edited by Elaine Aston and Elin Diamond, 52–70. Cambridge, New York, Melbourne, Madrid, Cape Town, Singapore, São Paulo, Delhi: Cambridge University Press. Macrinici, Radu. 1998. (T)Țara mea [My Country/My Flaw]. Bucharest: UNITEXT. Marx, Karl. 1852. The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte. Translated by Saul K. Padover. Online Version: Marx/Engels Internet Archive (marxists.org). Michailov, Mihaela. 2007. Teatru. Complexul România [Theatre. The Romania Complex]. Bucharest: UNITEXT. Naghiu, Iosif. 1992. “Ghilotina [The Guillotine].” Teatrul azi (8–9–10): 51–59. ———.1993. Execuția nu va fi amânată [The Execution Will Not Be Postponed]. Bucharest: Cartea Românească. ———. 1994. Spitalul Special și Visul românesc și omul revoluției prăbușite [The Special Hospital and The Romanian Dream and the Man of the Fallen Revolution]. Bucharest: UNITEXT. OECD. 2019. Talent Abroad: A Review of Romanian Emigrants. Paris: OECD Publishing. https://doi.org/10.1787/bac53150-­en. Schwartz, David. 2017. “Un teatru explicit politic [An Explicitly Political Theatre].” In Teatru politic. 2009–2017 [Political Theatre. 2009–2017], edited by Mihaela Michailov and David Schwartz, 5–12. Cluj: Tact. Solomon, Dumitru. 1996. Repetabila scenă a balconului [The Repeatable Scene of the Balcony]. Bucharest: UNITEXT. Ștefan, Peca. 2019. Anul dispărut [The Missing Year]. (EPUB.)

14 Staging Communism in Romania: Language, Propaganda, Memory in Caryl Churchill’s Mad Forest and Matei Vișniec’s How to Explain the History of Communism to Mental Patients Alina Cojocaru

Introduction The fall of communism in Eastern Europe galvanised artists and scholars into revisiting, re-enacting and re-envisioning the distorted processes of remembering under the regime, putatively accepted as arenas of conflict between the desire to forget the traumatic legacy of a totalitarian past and the right to reclaim the lost narratives that are part of the national collective memory. As theories of social remembering state, there are multiple reactions to escaping the mnemonic stasis that communism imposed, “ranging from decisions to ignore the past, through searching a middle way to achieve a ‘subtle blend of memory and forgetting’, to dealing with the past with the help of all possible strategies” (Misztal 2003: 151). A. Cojocaru (*) Ovidius University of Constanța, Constanța, Romania e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 E. Wohl, E. Păcurar (eds.), Language of the Revolution, Palgrave Studies in Languages at War, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-37178-3_14

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Staging communism through artistic re-enactments represents one such strategy of reconnecting the duality of private and collective memory under communism in the form of a hybrid space that straddles the past and the present. The audience, assigned the roles of both spectators and actors, is challenged to reconnect with the historical past in order to negotiate ways of integrating it into their identities. To this end, plays that reproduce vernacular memories betray the need to process the collective significance of a traumatic past and bring to the fore small resistances in the form of counter-memories. Two such theatrical performances that engage the audience to reflect on the absurdities of communism, from language that carries ideological meaning to the mechanisms of manipulating history and collective memory, are Caryl Churchill’s Mad Forest and Matei Vișniec’s How to Explain the History of Communism to Mental Patients. The metamorphosis of communism into cultural products that are available for reiteration constitutes an open invitation to contestation through dialogue as a way of learning from the past while simultaneously raising public awareness. The British perspective on the Romanian Revolution introduced by Caryl Churchill in Mad Forest emphasises the clamorous atmosphere of a nation in crisis, whose capital was built on a “mad” forest, “impenetrable for the foreigner who did not know the paths” (Churchill 1990: 7), reflected in the semiotic forest-labyrinth that requires a special understanding of the “double language” ensuing from the absurdity of formulaic communication. Through the plurality of languages, the venting of frustrations by means of jokes that have a political subtext and the contradictory “truths” of raw statements collected after the fall of communism, the play conveys the collective memory (Halbwachs 1980) of the Romanian nation, whose physical and political structure relies on “anamnestic solidarity” (Habermas 2002: 129–38) and “a kind of organized remembrance” (Arendt 1998: 198). Conversing about communism is an equally prominent feature of the theatre of Matei Vișniec, which offers a cathartic transfiguration of historical evidence, constructing a quagmire of personal and collective memory, of reality and propaganda. In the conception of Vișniec, the emotional impact created by staging the essence of communism is designed to oppose collective brainwashing. The representation of socialism is mediated by language as an essential tool of cultural

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production during the regime and a means of contesting the absurdity of the subsequently fallen political regime. Both playwrights speak a mutual language of social contestation through dialogue as a method of recovering, denouncing and learning from the past.

 emory and Language as Performance M in (Post-)communist Europe Language not only conveys but also changes social practices. When considering the “wooden language” (“limba de lemn”) of communism, albeit this discursive style of propaganda was used as an expression and extension of ideology, it was nonetheless instrumental in imposing a certain set of power relations, system of beliefs and social identities. In totalitarian regimes, language becomes an indicator of social realities inasmuch as it represents the very blueprint that organises reality. As Jürgen Habermas argues, language “serves to legitimize relations of organized power. Insofar as the legitimations of power relations are not articulated, language is also ideological” (Habermas 1971: 360). Gradually, reality and language become interchangeable. History is falsified to the extent that it is difficult to establish which aspects are accurate or fabricated. Opponents are politically eliminated, erased from historical texts and removed from collective memory. Meanwhile, the personal exposure to the constant falsifications of the regime inadvertently turns citizens into compliant characters in an absurd play. The experience of communism in Romania, arguably one of the most oppressive totalitarian regimes, takes the form of fragments of everyday life in the works of both Vișniec and Churchill precisely because reality surpasses imagination when it comes to the by-­ products of communism, such as metaphysical despair, angst, estrangement or crisis of language. If Western authors adopted the absurd as an aesthetic response to the ethical and political crisis of the time, the lived human experience of writers from the Eastern Bloc bears witness to the fallacies of communism. To use the words of Matei Vișniec from And Now Who’s Going to Do the Dishes?: “Here, we live the absurd, while, over there, you write it” (Vișniec 2015: 391). At its core, the philosophical

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implication of perceiving language as a moralising agent leads to a quest for an active, critical and coherent culture of remembrance that avoids the pitfall of controlling collective memory and fabricating history. Theatre takes the role of embodying and deconstructing “the wooden language” in order to relentlessly reawaken the national collective memory. The fine line between reality and fiction is equally observed by James V. Wertsch in Voices of Collective Remembering (2002). In line with the “anamnestic solidarity” (Habermas 2002: 129–38) under the communist regime, Wertsch points out the processual, changing nature of collective memory, the fact that it was unpredictable, in the sense that its developments were neither linear nor rational, and that collective memory was contingent upon time and space. The absurd result was an illogical succession of sui generis truths: one of the hallmarks of collective memory is that despite its claims to the contrary, it changes over time. … The result was a kind of bizarre fantasy world in which the participants knew that official history had changed, knew that others knew this, and knew that others knew that they knew this, and yet everyone pretended in the public sphere that nothing of that sort had occurred. (Wertsch 2002: 76–7)

The performative aspect of the language of communism no longer allowed memory to serve as the ultimate arbiter of the validity of any claims nor for an ostensible intersubjectivity. Instead, people of the Eastern Bloc developed a certain ambivalence in response to the hypocritical official discourse. While it may never have escalated to the degree portrayed in George Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four, language was turned into a tool of mass control comparable to Newspeak. In Orwell’s novel, language was sanitised and standardised for public use and thus the word becomes mere cliché: “[a]ll ambiguities and shades of meaning have been purged out of them” (Orwell 2021: 234). Communism arguably elicited a more performative response in the sense that speaking and remembering varied, sometimes radically, depending on the context. This fragmentariness of being may explain the choice made by Caryl Churchill to divide Mad Forest into three acts, or slices of life that reveal the

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vicissitudes and absurd normality of repression in Romania before the Revolution. Take, for instance, the fifth scene of the third act (“Mai dorești puțină brânză? Would you like some more cheese?”) in which a conflict of memories occurs between Radu, an art student, and his mother, Flavia Antonescu, regarding her sympathies towards Elena Ceaușescu, or lack thereof: RADU: Do you remember once I came home from school and asked if you loved Elena Ceaușescu? FLAVIA: I don’t remember, no. When was that? RADU: And you said yes. I was seven. FLAVIA: No, I don’t remember. Pause But you can see now why somebody would say what they had to say to protect you. RADU: I’ve always remembered that. FLAVIA: I don’t remember. RADU: No, you wouldn’t. (Churchill 1990: 71)

The suspicions surrounding the reality of what is being uttered changes not only the political front, but the very fabric of family life. Communication between family members is damaged by the division between words and meaning. Since Flavia is also a history teacher, Radu is left wondering whether there was ever an authentic conviction behind the “official” discourse that she fed him even within the confines of their home. Was his mother a true advocate of the totalitarian regime? Wertsch points out that during the communist regime, the difference between the public and private spheres of memory and discourse was particularly striking since unravelling private thoughts and memories in public could have dire consequences (Wertsch 2002: 138). In this case, however, it becomes clear that there is no unequivocal delineation between the two. Flavia’s perception of reality is confounded as a result of being forced to teach the ratified version of communist history to the extent that madness takes over her mind. In the private sphere her unquestioning naiveté that she preaches to her pupils produces childish hallucinations of her

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dead grandmother that instigate a defensive attitude towards her social circle. In the public sphere, history, just like her, goes into a schizophrenic state and changes depending on the dominant discourse. In stark contrast, the new generation personified by Radu turns the oppressive discourse on its head once he realises that the power embedded in the system that seizes the public and private sphere does not hinder him from adopting a contrarian attitude. In the fifth scene of the first act (“Cumpărăm carne. / We are buying meat”), Radu whispers loudly in a queue of people, standing in silence with shopping bags in their hands, the reactionary slogan “Down with Ceaușescu” (Churchill 1990: 21). Silence prevails following his outspokenness, yet the stage directions indicate that the woman standing in front of him looks around and pretends she hasn’t heard, a man casually distances himself from Radu and two other strangers begin to inspect who has uttered the words, with Radu mimicking their ubiquitous gesture of looking around in amazement. Silence, gestures and one fleeting interjection of dissent emphasise a collective familiarity with censorship. The outcome is that “They go on queueing” (Churchill 1990: 21). Despite the non-cooperation of the masses with the fleeting moment of dissent, the rebellious art student continues to resist the home rules until the revolution apparently succeeds. As a form of resistance and ultimately survival, duplicity led to an implicit meta-language, a reading between the lines. When addressing the struggle to maintain a division between public and private performance, Wertsch discusses the double consciousness that results from being what he refers to as an “internal emigrant,” or in other words an individual who chooses to remain in the country but still maintain a hidden disagreement with the regime (Wertsch 2002: 141). Of course, this silent protest stemmed from the fear of being denounced as a dissident and punished accordingly, yet the alienation, vigilance and shame of being a passive participant in the system was usually vented in private discussions among small groups of trusted people. In support of the resistance, underground literature was also distributed on the black market. In Matei Vișniec’s How to Explain the History of Communism to Mental Patients, young Yuri Petrovski is sent by the Writers Union to draft stories that recount the history of communism to the patients of the Central

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Hospital for Mental Disorders in Moscow. The mental hospital becomes nevertheless a universal representation of imprisonment and control. Alina Buzatu observes that in the plays of Matei Vișniec “[e]ach place and each encounter become part of a symbolic ceremony that reconstructs the self through others” (Buzatu 2015: 167, our translation).1 The mental asylum and its diseased patients reflect the moral and political corruption that gradually erodes the psyche of the up-and-coming young writer, divided between his assigned position as an agent of communist propaganda and his propensity for subversive storytelling. Stepan Razanov, the Assistant Director, comments on the matter of language and on the language of matter when it comes to the response of the masses to reactionary literature: STEPAN. At first, I asked myself this question: But how? How is it possible that reactionary, subversive, and counter-revolutionary stories can be effective in identifying suspicious elements? And then I realized that in the case of the mentally ill, it’s the only method! The one reliable method. It’s fantastic, comrade Yuri Petrovski! We’ll get them all! There is no way for them to escape us. They’ll all betray themselves by listening to your stories. In the end it’s so simple, so simple... and so clear... It’s beautiful what you’ve concocted, Yuri Petrovski. It’s beautiful like the revolution. Because it is only by way of reactionary, subversive, and counter-revolutionary stories that we can unmask the reactionary, subversive, and counter-revolutionary elements …. (Vișniec 2015: 163)

One may point to a linguistic and moral suicide that concurs with political and economic decline. In the essay Politics and the English Language, Orwell argues that the decadence of Western civilisation is mirrored in the vague, euphemistic, jargon-filled and often contradictory use of language. To quote Orwell, “if thought corrupts language, language can also corrupt thought. A bad usage can spread by tradition and imitation, even among people who should and do know better” (Orwell 2008: 231). Whether or not this corruption goes against or in line with the system is irrelevant, one might add, by alluding to the duplicitous character of Yuri as the “internal emigrant” who engages in some sort of lucid madness. If language is abused and distorted to simultaneously have contradictory

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meanings, then the spontaneity of human action can be replaced by a systematic logic that bends to the needs of the communist ideology. The crisis of language diminishes the range of thought, reducing the individual to an automaton incapable of disloyalty even when he or she attempts to exert some form of agency over the ratified narrative. Storytelling is crucial in reinforcing the polis, reifying plurality and reasserting words and deeds as the defining feature of humanity. Hannah Arendt argues in The Origins of Totalitarianism (1951) that “the gift of memory” is “so dangerous to totalitarian rule” (Arendt 1976: 434) that the regime “substitutes for the boundaries and channels of communication between individual men a band of iron which holds them so tightly together that it is as though their plurality had disappeared into One Man of gigantic dimension” (Arendt 1976: 465–6). The outcome is the abolition of public freedom and the ubiquity of terror. According to Arendt, storytelling forges the identity of each individual while making memory tangible and thus creating a foundation for political communities. Communities do not provide a mere account of events, but often fabricate memories. In this respect, if collective memory represents a social (re)construction of the past in virtue of the present, history shapes memory into one objective truth. Hence, the imperative need to reassert the plurality of remembrance. Arendt draws a contrast between the democratic “organized remembrance” and the totalitarian “organized oblivion that not only embraces carriers of public opinion such as the spoken and the written word, but extends even to the families and friends of the victim” (Arendt 1976: 452). Remembering requires a social context since it often implies not only recalling but also contesting the past and negotiating power, cultural norms and social interactions. The attempts of the communist state to vanquish plurality, memory and action are visible in concentration camps, in the operations of removing, by all means, undesirable voices of dissent and in the dehumanisation that accompanies the domination of the human being from within, through ideological reasoning. Both Caryl Churchill’s Mad Forest and Matei Vișniec’s How to Explain the History of Communism to Mental Patients feature protagonists who are fixated on writing, disseminating and/or uncovering the past. One may distinguish between performative language and a performative approach

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to memory in communist and post-communist Eastern Europe. Under communist rule, censorship and brainwashing place the oppressor and the oppressed under the authority of Pavlovian principles enforced by Stalinism. The better the performance of the social codes of behaviour that are allowed in the public and private sphere under the careful surveillance of the Romanian Secret Police (Securitate), the more valued that member of society is. Both the Antonescus and the Vladus abide by these rules because of the impending punishment that awaits if they do not support the meta-narrative. At the beginning of the play, Flavia Antonescu is committed to teaching history. She proudly and confidently delivers a monologue that preaches in school the cult of the supreme leader: “Today we are going to learn about a life dedicated to happiness of the people and noble ideas of socialism. The new history of the motherland is like a great river with its fundamental starting point in the biography of our general secretary, the president of the republic, Comrade Nicolae Ceaușescu, and it flows through the open spaces of the important dates and problems of contemporary humanity” (Churchill 1990: 20). One may deduce that Flavia submissively accepts her public role since she adopts the “wooden language” to deliver her political message. Interestingly, an important feature of “wooden language” is introduced to us in the first part of the play through Flavia’s monologue, namely the use of storytelling in communication. “Wooden language” pursues credibility, not truth; therefore, it employs the very archetypical structure that Vladimir Propp identifies in fairy tales. Language does not shape action, and the ideas presented are never substantiated in the following parts of the play. Flavia argues that her job is to follow the book assigned to her without trying to rectify its contents: “All I was trying to do was to teach correctly. Isn’t history what’s in the history book? Let them give me a new book, I’ll teach that” (Churchill 1990: 69). Still, after the revolution, she decides to discover the reality herself: “I’m going to write a true history, Florina, so we’ll know exactly what happened. How far do you think Moscow was involved in planning the coup?” (Churchill 1990: 82). Nonetheless, her inquiries into the matter of lost documents rather qualify as rhetorical questions. The “true” version of history is difficult to discern, it is a mad forest that branches out into countless narratives that may present chaotic, contradictory

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information. Even when faced with the prospect of ideological freedom after the fall of communism, remnants of her indoctrination prevent Flavia from understanding that concepts such as “truth” or “history” cannot be conveyed in the clear, orderly fashion that she was accustomed to. In How to Explain the History of Communism to Mental Patients, Yuri partakes in a grotesque manipulation of a confined mass of mental patients that have been exposed to the topsy-turvy world created by the failed experiment of communism that deems normal people to be mad and mad people to be free. Nevertheless, a distinct mark of the modern dictatorship is that “terror is no longer used as a means to exterminate and frighten opponents, but as an instrument to rule masses of people who are perfectly obedient” (Arendt 1976: 6). The infantile aesthetics of this world turned upside down transforms Yuri into a storyteller that delivers twice a week so-called sessions on the beauty of Art and Literature. The audience framed by the mental institution, as well as the audience from the outer frame that watches the play-within-the-play unfold, witness Yuri’s metamorphosis of linguistic memory fragments into history read aloud. Thus, from the beginning the audience itself is made to perform the role of the patients and “[a]s each spectator, according to his part, enters into a dialogue with the work, the act of interpretation becomes a performance, an intervention” (Savran qtd. in Freshwater 2021: 18). By mirroring this role, since they are also confined in the enclosed space of the theatre watching a performance, audiences are invited to reflect on new, personal post-communist perspectives of self in/ and reality.

L anguage Gone Mad: Staging the Breakdown of Communism When staging the historical/theatrical event, the concept of madness is woven into the patterns of post-communist culture of remembrance in both Matei Vișniec’s How to Explain the History of Communism to Mental Patients and Caryl Churchill’s Mad Forest. The mayhem of the Romanian Revolution and the absurdity of not knowing what actually happened

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during that historical event, coupled with the post-communist anxiety of forgetting, has led to a cult of memorialisation that has set in motion a fool’s errand for historical traces. Based on Michel Foucault’s observations on the phenomenology of madness, there is a “strange proximity between madness and literature” inasmuch as both constitute a “prodigious reserve of meaning” (Foucault 2006: 547–8). In this sense, Foucault introduces the idea of madness as “the absence of an oeuvre” (Foucault 2006). First, madness implies the absence of work as the inability of the afflicted to be productive members of society. Secondly, it refers to the inability to have a voice or access to language. As Felman explains, “the very status of language is that of a break with madness, of a protective strategy, of a difference by which madness is deferred, put off” (Felman 2003: 44). Taking into consideration the transgression of linguistic laws, it is the metaphorical language that is most likely to be able to convey the discourse of madness that can be seen as analogous to the totalitarian discourse of communism. Caryl Churchill’s Mad Forest documents the individual struggles and collective action that culminated in the Romanian Revolution. Act I (“Lucia’s Wedding”) introduces the secretive dissent manifested in the domestic setting of two families, the Antonescu family and the Vladu family, and concludes with a wedding between Lucia Vladu, a primary school teacher, and Wayne, an American. The ordinary aspects of everyday existence are juxtaposed with elements that pertain to the social and economic deprivation of the 1980s. For instance, because of their fear of being spied on, Bogdan and Irina Vladu make their voices incomprehensible by drowning their conversation with loud music from the radio. Bogdan is threatened by the Secret Police on the street. Their son, Gabriel, makes a joke with political subtext about gratuitous violence on the streets of Romania, alluding to the presumably planned events that will occur come December, the punch line delivered by the Securitate man being: “Sorry, I thought it had started” (Churchill 1990: 24). A conversation between an angel and a priest questions the innocence of the silent apolitical, or “internal emigrant” (Wertsch 2002: 141) whose self-interest is deemed disgraceful. The most sensitive subject addressed is probably the abortion that Lucia wants to have in the context of the communist anti-abortion laws of the time. Reading between the lines and double

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entendre are once again used to reach an understanding: “There is no abortion in Romania. I am shocked that you even think of it. I am appalled that you dare suggest I might commit this crime” (Churchill 1990: 24). Actions contradict words since the bribe is accepted and Lucia leaves with a secret smile on her face. One might understand why the social interactions between the protagonists may be hard to follow, especially by a British outsider watching the complex power relations unfold. By beginning each scene with sentences that seem taken out of a travel phrasebook, recited by one of the company “as if an English tourist, first in Romanian, then in English, and again in Romanian” (Churchill 1990: 17), a double alienation is suggested. A cultural distance may be sensed between the outsiders, perhaps even the foreign theatre company itself trying to understand the cultural peculiarities, and those confined within the system. Furthermore, the Brechtian element of using flat, regional language that is incomprehensible for some audiences together with the use of translation in an episodic format brings to the fore the relation between mother-tongue and foreign language, the dilemma of human existence mediated by language. The first act closes with Lucia’s Orthodox wedding to the American and her implied departure from her homeland. Language and remembering become instrumental in Act II (“December”), which tries to contest the maddening incomprehensibility of the events that led to the fall of the communist regime and disclose fragments of what happened in December 1989. The second act of Mad Forest collects a plethora of first-hand accounts in which characters from various professions, ages and social backgrounds recount their memories regarding the outbreak of the Romanian Revolution of December 1989. The fragmented nature of this act highlights the confusion surrounding the bloody revolution and its mass manifestations, on the one hand, and marks the shift from the normality of repression and hardship within the Vladu family and the Antonescu family to the changes that took over the public sphere. This act comprises a “composite of real shards of quotations” (Gobert 2014: 141) from the people the playwright and her team interviewed. Historically speaking, 21 December 1989 marks the first shootings between the activists and the communist army, which result in the death of 35 people. On 22 December 1989, Nicolae Ceaușescu is captured by the army, and on 25 December 1989, Nicolae and Elena

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Ceaușescu are tried, found guilty and shot to death by the army. According to the stage directions, each of the nameless persons being interviewed “behaves as if the others are not there and each is the only one telling what happened” (Churchill 1990: 33). There is no logical or chronological unravelling of events. Instead, the play introduces a kaleidoscope of personal memories that have more or less to do with the historical event that marked an ideological shift. According to Luckhurst, “Churchill felt an ethical responsibility not to try and re-tell these revolutionary stories in her own words” (Luckhurst 2009: 67). This Brechtian interlude offers the opportunity of revisiting the postmodern concepts of the plurality of truths, micronarratives and deconstructing history into “his-story” and “her-story,” with a focus on minor characters. There are stories of fear and joy, confusion and relief, concern and courage. The initial reaction is that of suspicion and self-preservation, the conditioned reaction that the traumatic experience of communism had elicited before. The painter claims that “there was plenty of people but no courage” (Churchill 1990: 33) on the first day. Student 1 recounts the following: “At four in the morning I phone my mother and tell her people are being killed” (Churchill 1990: 39). Student 2 remembers the fear everyone had for the well-being of their families: “My mother, sister and I all slept in the same room that night because we were scared” (Churchill 1990: 39). After the imprisonment of Ceaușescu, people start to gain courage: “I heard people saying ‘Down with Ceauşescu’ for the first time. It was a wonderful feeling to say those words, Jos Ceauşescu” (Churchill 1990: 40). Nonetheless, it is obvious that this joy does not have a firm, tangible foundation since even the Soldier is unaware of what transpired: “We wait something, we don’t know what. We don’t know Ceauşescu speak, we don’t know what happens in Bucharest” (Churchill 1990: 36). Moreover, the instinct to check the pulse of the crowd and follow suit still remains: “But in a crowd you disappear and feel stronger” (Churchill 1990: 41). People mimetically tune in to the emotions of the crowd that they are more than happy to join even though their questions about what is actually going on remain unanswered. The subtle criticism of herd mentality is counterbalanced by the final testimonial of the Painter: “Painting doesn’t mean just describing, it’s a state of spirit. I didn’t want to paint for a long time then” (Churchill 1990: 47). Emotion and the

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sense of a newly acquired freedom of speech permeate the act that is focused solely on the linguistic articulation of memory with only one stage direction that points to the creation of verisimilitude. Eventually, the revolution is over before anybody finds any answers in the crowds. The third act of Mad Forest centres on another presumably joyous event, “Florina’s Wedding,” this time under a new political system. There is however an overall sense of dissatisfaction and lack of closure. The capitalist American Dream that Lucia is supposed to be living abroad seems to have provided her with a material comfort that is beyond her reach in Romania, yet upon her return Lucia wishes to rekindle her romance with Ianoș, to the dismay of her parents. The character of Ianoș is used as a ploy to discuss the tense political relations between Romanians and Hungarians who might be claiming Transylvania. A hospital scene features Gabriel, recovering from the physical injuries caused by the revolution, and an unnamed patient wounded in the head. The patient voices the questions that the whole nation has about the revolution and the status quo, yet he is dismissed as slightly crazy. Iliescu has replaced Ceaușescu, yet the way he moves his hands and the “terrible jargon from before” (Churchill 1990: 70) that he uses reminds Radu of a dictator. Random moments of violence surface occasionally. A parodic re-­ enactment of the trial and execution of Nicolae and Elena Ceaușescu is staged by Ianoș, Radu and Florina to celebrate Gabriel’s safe return from the hospital. The final scene of the wedding offers no resolution. On the contrary, the wedding guests become more inebriated and hostile as the discussion heats up. This time the cause of the conflicts is not ideological control but repressed anger, frustration and powerlessness to change the wrong direction that Romania is heading towards. The symbolical appearance of the vampire and the dog, personifying the power imbalance between the master and the slave, with the vampire as the quintessential typology of the ruler that Romania has had and the stray dog as the willing servant looking for a new master, reinforces the uncertain future of the country. The theatre of Matei Vișniec offers the monstrous and the inhuman a plethora of embodiments. If in the visual realm the essence of communism lies in the carceral milieux of prisons, forced domiciles, hospitals, mental institutions that restrain personal agency, the logos acquires a

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prime position and is instrumental in healing the wounds of communism. Although Vișniec is indebted to the Romanian theatre of Marin Sorescu, the literary avant-garde of Urmuz and Eugène Ionesco, and the European drama of Anton Chekhov, Samuel Beckett or Arthur Adamov, his theatre skilfully complements the style established by the previous authors of modern and contemporary theatre with an intricate use of language that oscillates between the poetic, the absurd and slapstick. The techniques that he uses—from the austere setting that harkens to parables, the oneiric, the grotesque and characters who do not question their condition but obey without hesitating, to the use of allegory and metaphor to convey truths—cater to the postmodern society of information consumption and succeed in morphing his works into visions rather than simple theatrical performances. The surrealism of the situations creates dialogues that dismiss and deconstruct the framed practices of the communist discourse. We have a reduction ad absurdum of language that is robbed of any artifice: “YURI: Open your mouths wide. Say ‘u.’ Breathe. Fill your lungs with air and say ‘utopia.’ One more time. ‘Utopia.’ Concentrate, it’s a word with an upward inflection. It’s like a horse rearing up to the sky. Do you hear how it rises? It rises and embraces the sky. It begins in your mouth and ends in nothingness. ‘Utopiahhhh’” (Vișniec 2015: 139). The word utopia becomes vital to existence, it is inhaled and exhaled, ruminated, assimilated as an idea, then discarded into nothingness, never to be materialised. The obsession with the evanescent idea of a utopian communism is used as a justification of the violence, madness and terror that the system is willing to inflict on the masses. However, from the patients in straitjackets to Stalin himself, there is no protagonist in How to Explain the History of Communism to Mental Patients who is not afflicted by the pathological or the subversive. Nobody chooses this captivity, but is thrown into it to subserviently fulfil a role of no consequence. When he is informed that he has been writing the opposite of what he was supposed to, Yuri the playwright is brought to the free zone and congratulated: “IVAN: To begin with, dear comrade, Yuri Petrovski, we ask you to accept a little gift befitting a free man in the only free zone of the Soviet Union. A woman brings a straightjacket. She approaches with great solemnity” (Vișniec 2015: 171). Of course, the denomination of the free zone is

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farcical because it comprises “a circle of revolutionary studies, a casino, a tribunal that works 24 hours per day, the People-Who-Met-Stalin Club...” (Vișniec 2015, 173). Yuri is now in a straitjacket and is informed that his counter-revolutionary writing will ironically be used in the service of the revolution. Yuri continues to play the role of a sycophant in his conversations with his superiors regardless of the subtext that alludes to the tragic impossibility of overpowering the system no matter what his actions are. The communist double language does not permit the defeat of the totalitarian machine. The allusions to the death penalty of three former official Soviet writers who won the Stalin Prize add to the feeling of impending doom and powerlessness. In a basement, nameless patients play the Passerby Roulette while waiting for Stalin, similar to Beckettian characters who pass time waiting for Godot. Stalin himself, preserved in the collective memory of former communist countries as a monstrous figure larger than life is satirised and turned into a weak, infantile, maudlin old man in dire need of affection. Whereas the protagonists are blissfully unaware of their condition, steeped in the hope of the utopia to come, the audience is made acutely cognisant. Theatre functions as a site of resistance at the border of history and memory, approaching both with lucid detachment in light of the spectre of Communism that still looms over the audience. French historian Pierre Nora famously coined the term lieu de mémoire (site of memory) in his eponymous work, which examines the manifestations of cultural memory. Sites of memory “anchor, condense, and express the exhausted capital of our collective memory” (Nora 1989: 24). In this respect, the distortion and manipulation of history, the fallacious ideology, the Manichaean treatment of the past and present, all for ideological purposes are epitomised by the mental hospital. With regard to Mad Forest, Ludmila Martanovschi states that by “[c]apitalizing on the hospital as a location for much of the last act, the play suggests that, in the wake of the revolution, Romanians need to heal both physical and mental wounds” (Martanovschi 2020: 116). Vișniec and Churchill stage the break with the metanarratives of progress, the broken psyches of the protagonists exposed to the hegemony of doublethink and terror, as well as the breakdown of communism. Protagonists must find their way through the subsequent political mutations of the Romanian “asylum” and “mad

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forest,” respectively. The polyphony of voices that interlace into an absurd speech pattern at the end of Caryl Churchill’s Mad Forest and Matei Vișniec’s How to Explain the History of Communism to Mental Patients reasserts their preoccupation with and subversion of language at the border between fiction and reality.

Conclusion The dramatic structures of Caryl Churchill’s Mad Forest and Matei Vișniec’s How to Explain the History of Communism to Mental Patients produce heterodox stagings of communism in Romania that circumvent performative stereotypes. The “wooden language” pertaining to Communism speak, the double entendre, the ratified versions of history and distortions of reality, the censorship and propaganda that were staged and presented to the population as social codes enforced by Stalinism are subverted in the post-communist stagings of communism. Deconstructed to the point of losing their gravitas, these aspects of the traumatic past of the Eastern Bloc are re-examined through the lens of memory, history and language as both essential tools of cultural production under totalitarian rule and as means of contesting the absurdity and horrors of the now fallen political regime. The cultural consumption of the past equally elicits a renegotiation of collective memory through the social (re)construction of communism in virtue of the present. In an interview, Matei Vișniec argues that “[n]either literature nor theatre ever overthrew a dictatorship or brought about the fall of a monstrous regime. Still, literature and theatre can become spaces of cultural resistance, zones of relative freedom, forms of direct or veiled social critique. Art and especially theatre have an influence upon history as they are able to change people, to make them think and reflect, to get worried and indignant, sometimes to the extent of revolting themselves” (Vișniec qtd. in Grosu 2018: 206). Staging the historical/theatrical event reveals the conditioning that left a painful imprint in the collective memory. Beyond having a chastising, moralising or instigative purpose, dramaturgy discloses the political, psychological and ideological straitjacket put by communism on the countries of the former Eastern Bloc.

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Acknowledgements  The work of Alina Cojocaru was supported by the project PROINVENT in the framework of Human Resources Development Operational programme 2014–2020, financed from the European Social Fund under the contract number 62487/03.06.2022 POCU 993/6/13/—Code SMIS: 153299.

Note 1. In the Romanian original: “Fiecare loc și fiecare întâlnire devin parte a unui ceremonial simbolic al reconstrucției de sine prin ceilalți.”

References Arendt, Hannah. 1998. The Human Condition. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Arendt, Hannah. 1976. The Origins of Totalitarianism. San Diego, New York, London: Harcourt. Buzatu, Alina. 2015. “Teatrul lui Matei Vișniec: Locurile Experimentului” [Matei Vișniec’s Theatre: The Places of Experiment]. In Literatura, Teatrul și Filmul. În Onoarea Dramaturgului Matei Vișniec [Literature, Theatre and Film. In Honour of Playwright Matei Vișniec], edited by Marina Cap-Bun and Florentina Nicolae, 165-168. Constanța: Ovidius University Press. Churchill, Caryl. 1990. Mad Forest. London: Walker Books. Felman, Shoshana. 2003. Writing and Madness. Palo Alto: Stanford University Press. Foucault, Michel. 2006. “Madness, The Absence of an Oeuvre. Appendix I of 1972 Edition.” In History of Madness, edited by Jean Khalfa, 541–549. London, New York: Routledge. Freshwater, Helen. 2021. Theatre and Audience. London, New York: Bloomsbury. Gobert, Darren R. 2014. The Theatre of Caryl Churchill. London: Bloomsbury. Grosu, Cristian. 2018. “The Image of History in Matei Vișniec’s Dramaturgy.” Studia Universitatis Babeş-Bolyai Dramatica. Romanian Theatre  – New Perspectives Celebrating the Centenary of Modern Romania (1918–2018) (63-­ LXIII): 205–216. Habermas, Jürgen. 1971. Knowledge and Human Interests. Boston, MA: Beacon Press.

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Habermas, Jürgen. 2002. Religion and Rationality: Essays on Reason, God, and Modernity. Cambridge: The MIT Press. Halbwachs, Maurice. 1980. The Collective Memory. New York: Harper and Row. Luckhurst, Mary. 2009. “On the Challenge of Revolution.” In The Cambridge Companion to Caryl Churchill, edited by Elaine Aston and Elin Diamond, 52–70. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009. Martanovschi, Ludmila. 2020. “A British Perspective on the Romanian Revolution of 1989: Caryl Churchill’s Mad Forest.” Analele Universității Ovidius Constanța. Seria Filologie XXXI (2/2020): 105–121. Misztal, Barbara A. 2003. Theories of Social Remembering. Philadelphia: Open University Press. Nora, Pierre. 1989. “Between Memory and History: Les Lieux de Mémoire.” Representations, Special Issue: Memory and Counter-Memory (Spring-26): 7–24. Orwell, George. 2021. Nineteen Eighty-Four. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2021. Orwell, George. 2008. “Politics and the English language.” In All Art Is Propaganda: Critical Essays By George Orwell, edited by George Packer, 270–286. Orlando: Harcourt. Vișniec, Matei. 2015. How to Explain the History of Communism to Mental Patients and Other Plays, edited by Jozefina Komporaly. London, New York, Calcutta: Seagull Books. Wertsch, James V. 2002. Voices of Collective Remembering. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

15 The Language of the Velvet Revolution Versus the Anti-language of Post-­Communist Crime: A Sociolinguistic Analysis of Contemporary Czech Crime Historical Television Series Luboš Ptáček

Theme and Objective The social changes of 1989  in Czechoslovakia, known as the Velvet Revolution, have been the subject of many films and television series. The first decade was dominated by films that clearly interpreted the changes as a liberation from totalitarianism and the beginning of a new, better stage in the country’s development. Kolya (Kolja, dir. Jan Svěrák) won the 1997 Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film. The social unity and optimistic expectations gradually began to be disrupted by problems of post-communist development that also emerged in other countries of the former Eastern Bloc. These included differences in social opinions, a new type of criminality, economic and political problems and the L. Ptáček (*) Palacký University Olomouc, Olomouc, Czechia e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 E. Wohl, E. Păcurar (eds.), Language of the Revolution, Palgrave Studies in Languages at War, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-37178-3_15

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influence of pro-Russian propaganda. The myth of the Velvet Revolution as a symbol of the collapse of the previous regime persisted in film and television production, but the new trend after 2000 was to make ostalgic films that depicted history through the filter of a child or teenage protagonist; ostalgia was motivated more by the personal memories of film-­ makers and did not question the development of Czech society after 1989 (see Černík 2016, 30–43, for more details).1 In the last five years, reinterpretations of events associated with the Velvet Revolution have appeared in four prominent television crime series. Each of these series focuses through a different subgenre on new kinds of crimes that emerged after 1989: the retro-comedy The World Beneath Our Heads (Svět pod Hlavou, dir. Marek Najbrt, sc. Radim Špaček, 2017, ČT), the political thriller Rédl (dir. Jan Hřebejk, sc. Miro Šifra, 2018, ČT), the spy drama The Sleepers (Bez Vědomí, dir. Ivan Zachariáš, sc. Ondřej Gabriel, 2019, HBO) and the police procedural The Nineties (Devadesátky, dir. Peter Bebjak, 2022, ČT). The aim of this chapter is to analyse and interpret how crime subgenres (including their linguistic registers and codes) influence the representation of the 1989 events and how these evaluations express in symptomatic terms the contemporary evaluation of history. The analyses and interpretations concentrate on the speech of the characters assessing the historical events of 1989 and the development of Czech society that followed, as well as on their role in the overall drama, with a focus on the protagonists’ place in the history of a fictional universe. The topic and aim of the study requires the interconnection of three theoretical areas: the representation of history in film and television, genre theory and sociolinguistics.

Representation of History I take up the notion of the relationship between film and history from Robert Rosenstone (Rosenstone 1998, 2013), who views the genre of historical film as equivalent to written history and also considers its use on a linguistic level. The author draws on a postmodern (post-­structuralist) understanding of history, according to which traditional historians did

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not depict history objectively, but rather combined it into narrative pieces based on ideological and political goals. Their shape is defined by language conventions rather than objective data (history is always an interpretation). The goal of postmodern history is to make these linguistic conventions apparent and (phenomenologically) incorporate them into the stories of the historians. Rosenstone starts from the premise that visual media are a legitimate way of showing history—of representing, interpreting, thinking about and creating meaning from the traces of the past. Historical film must not be viewed on the basis of how it compares to written history, but as a way of telling the past through its own rules, such as repersonalisation (Rosenstone 1994, 3). In the post-communist bloc, historiographies themselves were also changing. Pavel Kolář and Michal Kopeček discuss the reassessment of Czech historiography. In their conclusion, they mention a sharp polemic of Czech historians at a conference in 1999 ironically called Czech Historikerstreit.2 Jaroslav Pánek (…) expressed his concern about some recent “reinterpretations of Czech history” especially in the daily press, many of which were, according to Pánek, influenced by a “negativist” understanding of Czech history allegedly originating in the Sudeten-German interpretation. In opposition to this view, Pánek suggested that the priority of the central Czech historical institutions should be to cultivate “national historical consciousness” and a positive conception of Czech history, consolidating and solidifying national identity in a European context. During the Congress proceedings, a group of young historians stood up in reaction to Pánek’s article to formulate a sharp critique of the recent development of Czech historiography. (Kolář and Kopeček 2007, 224)

Jiří Suk is devoted to providing a critical assessment of the Velvet Revolution, based on a study of sources and interviews with actors, and chronicles the chaotic emergence of the Civic Forum as a power counterweight to the Communist Party, portraying the ideas and behaviour of Václav Havel and other supporters, and describing the transformation of their dissident ideals under the pressure of real politics.

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 ociolinguistics and the Artistic Evaluation S of History I take the basic framework of the sociolinguistic view from the theory of M.A. Halliday, who understands language as social semiotics and defines text, situation, register and code as its basic components (Halliday 1978, 108). Text, according to Halliday, refers to linguistic interactions in which people engage concretely: anything that is said or written in an active context. Text is encoded in sentences (Halliday 1978, 108–9). By text, I mean a work of art that is made up of individual components (respecting that character speech is only one of its components). Situation is the environment in which the text comes to life; rather, it is an abstract representation of the environment using certain general categories that relate to the text (Halliday 1978, 109). In art, it concerns the fictional world created by the artist that relates to the real world experienced by the recipient. In historical works of art, it is (in line with Rosenstone) the present (the time of the work’s insertion and reception) not the past (the time of the fictional world). Register can be characterised as a configuration of semantic resources that a member of a certain culture associates with a certain type of situation. It is the potential meaning that is accessible in a given social context (Halliday 1978, 110). The register/sets of registers used in a work of art are artificial, or adopted and modified by the creator (e.g. in fantasy, there are fictional creatures speaking their own languages that do not exist in reality, e.g. Avatar). These embellishments are incorporated into the existing register and thus modify it. Code is a principle of semiotic organisation that is above the language system; these are types of social semiotics or symbolic arrangements of meaning generated by the social system. Code is enacted in language through register, as it specifies semantic orientation in particular situational contexts (Halliday 1978, 111). In a work of art, I distinguish between the inner code of the characters and the outer code of the recipient. The two codes can be in harmony or in opposition (the recipient, e.g., perceives the inner code ironically or inversely). In the context of social semiotics as it relates to the evaluation

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of history, I ask why is history portrayed in this particular work of art (or group of works) in this specific way? In relation to the theme of the crime genre, I consider the chapter “Anti-languages,” in which the author discusses the anti-language of the underworld, which is part of an alternative social reality (Halliday 1978, 166). The sociolinguistic analysis of fiction has been addressed by Anastasia Stamou, who characterises traditional sociolinguistic approaches and points out that few scholars have used micro-level methodological approaches (e.g. discourse analysis, conversation analysis) to examine specific fictional dialogues (scene analysis), and even fewer analysts have considered it a conscious methodological option to take into account to find out how characters locally construct their identity. I therefore focus specifically on the analysis of dialogue. More importantly, the present review indicates that the selection on the part of researchers to deal with a topic much neglected and devalued by early sociolinguistics, as fictional discourse is, does not necessarily mean that they have equally adopted the state-of-the-art in the field from a methodological and theoretical perspective. Hence, few researchers employed micro-level methodological approaches (e.g. discourse analysis, conversation analysis) to examine concrete fictional dialogues (scene analysis), and even fewer analysts considered it a conscious methodological option, in order to account for how characters locally construct their identities. Moreover, multimodal aspects of fictional discourse have been addressed by few researchers, and for the most part, no systematic approach was adopted. (Stamou 2014, 133–134)

I derive the function of language in art from the structuralist conception of a work of art by Jan Mukařovský, according to which the individual components of art are in mutual cooperation and are united by a semantic gesture that imprints the work with artistic meaning (Mukařovský 1978). Following Mukařovský, the use of real language in a work of art (including its register and code) is subordinate to the artistic intention and must be analysed in relation to the other components with which it forms a complex whole. Similarly, Venus Qasemirezaa and Hamidreza Dowlatabadi use a discursive analysis derived from van Dick’s

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concept to analyse the sociolinguistic structures of artistic language (Qasemirezaa and Dowlatabadi 2014). The linguistic register used in a historical crime television series (or any other audiovisual medium) is formed on several levels. It is not a “natural” register that directly expresses the socio-cultural state of society in relation to history (specifically the events of 1989 associated with the fall of the communist regime). The artwork is primarily shaped by the creators (director, scriptwriter) within the framework of the author’s intention, and is further influenced by production practices (which may include censorship restrictions) and cultural and political discourse. In works depicting the past, it is used as a basic contemporary register that is marked by symbolic and symptomatic words that indicate the intention of the creators. James Krapfl analyses the rhetoric of texts about the 1989 revolution, methodologically based on concepts borrowed from Lynn Hunt, a researcher who used Northrop Frye’s genre division from Anatomy of Criticism to analyse texts from the French Revolution. According to Krapfl, the Czechs interpreted the Revolution in a similar way to the French. Czechs and Slovaks shared with their French predecessors the linguistic need to shape historical narratives in a certain mode, but their rhetorical changes were more complex. While all the protagonists initially interpreted the Czechoslovak Revolution as a romance, subsequent attempts to portray it comically, tragically, and ultimately satirically were associated with certain groups, none of which could claim to gain hegemony. Indeed, each of these types of narrative implicitly formulated a programme for the future on which citizens could not agree. (Krapfl 2008, 154)

Krapfl connects each genre with a different evaluation of the revolution, the opposition to other groups and different ideological orientations: Advocates of the Romantic line, with their concern for transcendence, rebelled against a revolutionary tradition they saw as bloody and self-­ defeating. The defenders of the comic interpretation rebelled against the revolutionary enthusiasm of the Romantics, fearing its latent anarchy, and

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sought to end the revolution as quickly as possible. Advocates of the tragic interpretation rebelled against the directions in which the revolution seemed to be moving—directions they perceived as leading to disastrous or at least undesirable results. The supporters of the ironic interpretation then revolted against the idea that there was a revolution. Each new retelling served as a guide for the corresponding revolt, a map of action or inaction ultimately serving political or moral ends. (Krapfl 2008, 156)

In the film and television works produced between 1990 and 2015 and depicting the events of the Velvet Revolution, the interpretations (despite the different genres) are much flatter, consisting of schematic anti-­ communism that was even applied in ostalgic comedies.

Czech Detective Series Historical crime series were already very popular with viewers before 1989. The Thirty Cases of Major Zeman (Třicet případů majora Zemana, 1974–1979) became an explicit ideological interpretation of Czechoslovak history between 1945 and 1975 from the perspective of the ruling regime. Across individual episodes, the series explored (alternating between criminal and politically motivated cases) the development of public and state security in Czechoslovakia. The historical background was constructed on the basis of ideological theses (class struggle, domestic enemy, Western spy services as foreign enemy, threat of German retribution for the Second World War, etc.). The appeal of the genre was to counterbalance the audience’s unpopular ideological defence of the regime. Class considerations were applied in the use of language. The protagonist was of working-class origin and spoke colloquial Czech. In contrast, the class antagonists (bourgeoisie, intelligentsia) used formal Czech, while the common criminals used informal Czech. Another distinctive group of historical detective series is nostalgically driven works. During the years of the Iron Curtain, the unofficial nostalgic myth of the First Republic (Czechoslovakia 1918–1938) emerged as a contrast to the Nazi and Communist regimes. The series The Sinful People of Prague (Hříšní lidé města pražského, 1968–1969) made during

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the relatively free interregnum of totalitarian Czechoslovakia still enjoys considerable popularity today. Nostalgia is generated mainly by the affectionate humour, the music and songs imitating period gags, the retro costumes and sets, but also by the genre elements: the police teams are presented as a family, the investigators behave in a recognisable way, the perpetrators follow a “criminal code,” there is a recognised relationship between detectives and criminals, good and evil are clearly separated and justice is always upheld. Slang expressions from the First Republic have been inserted into contemporary colloquial Prague Czech dialect. Czech crime series after 1989 were discussed in detail by Jakub Korda (Korda 2012) and Jana Jedličková and Janstová (Jedličková and Janstová 2019). They focused mainly on their popularity, genre classification and the development of genre conventions, contemporary cultural and political context and gender stereotypes. According to Jedličková and Janstová, detective and police crime series are among the most popular Czech genres, alongside soap operas, with so-called police procedural dramas and detective series predominating. To a lesser extent, we can also find so-called hybrid genre programmes, which combine crime genres with melodrama, thriller or mystery thriller. In several programmes, we can observe an obvious inspiration of the so-called scandi noire, Scandinavian crime (Jedličková and Janstová 2019). None of the authors mentioned above dealt with the representation of history (the events of 1989) or sociolinguistic analysis.

Czech Sociolinguistic Reflections on Film Sociolinguistic themes began to appear in Czech film writing after the arrival of sound film and were mostly associated with criticism of the poor use of dialect in films set in rural regions. In interwar Czechoslovakia, several languages were spoken, and this was reflected in film. A comparison of films that were made in Czech and German versions offers an untapped topic for sociolinguistic analysis. For example, the most popular Czech comedian Vlasta Burian spoke German as a native speaker (he came from the German Sudetenland) and therefore also acted in German

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versions of his films. After the expulsion and displacement of almost 3,000,000 Germans in 1945, German became a significant minority language in Czechoslovakia. In my study The Sudetes in the Czech Cinema—A Political Space Trapped by National and Class Stereotypes, I have shown that the use of German in Czech film and television series was subject to contemporary film conventions (in older films, Germans spoke Czech), ideology (German was presented as the dark language of the enemy) and artistic intention (misunderstanding emphasised the existential crisis) (Ptáček 2019, 23–98). A unique study by Petra Hanáková Attention—Comfort, Man, Power and Language (Pozor—pohov, člověk, moc a jazyk) analyses the relationship between language and power in Miloš Forman’s satirical comedy The Firemen’s Ball (Hoří, má panenko, 1967). A committee of firefighters (older men) organise the ball and try to introduce social innovations (especially the election of Miss Ball). Their language, according to Hanáková, not only reflects the protagonists’ cumbersome thought processes, but also absorbs the mechanisms of control and management, which it both exposes and unmasks. It is a source of caricature comedy but at the same time portrays a frightening power (Hanáková 2012, 105).

Analyses The differences between the series are already suggested by the titles; Rédl emphasises the protagonist, while The Nineties refers to the post-coup era of 1989, and the characters of the police officers are individualised, but still acting as a collective hero. The ambiguous title of The Sleepers carries a double symptomatic meaning; the historical events took place (are taking place) without the consciousness of society, the characters (and, symptomatically, the whole society) find themselves sleeping (emphasised in the title sequence) both realistically, that is (temporarily) losing consciousness, and symbolically, losing their point of view. The title The World Beneath Our Heads, which is derived from an original song from the 1980s, also refers to dreaminess.

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The World Beneath Our Heads The ten-part crime series is based on the original Life on Mars series produced by the BBC. Trailers for the series are introduced with the slogan: “The past will always find you.” The series comically confronts the present day and life in 1982. The episodes alternate between solving civilian crimes (theft, murder) and political cases (death of a KGB agent, investigation of an attempted emigration), similar to the series Thirty Cases of Major Zeman. The pervasive theme consists of two intertwined narratives: family history (the suicide of the father) and the clash between the protagonist and his alter ego from the past and a young Communist Party functionary with ties to the black market (he procures scarce goods), who after 1989 becomes a rich and influential boss as a result of his criminal activities. Members of the VB behave differently towards different groups of the population, interrogating officials with great care, while arrogantly and often ruthlessly mistreating ordinary citizens. They are preoccupied with a group of non-conformist youth, which they label as “glitch youth” and consider its members as potential enemies of the regime. In 1982, the characters use a present-day linguistic register, enriched with contemporary ideological phrases and their comic paraphrases. Marvan does not differ from his colleagues in the way he speaks, which in the series corresponds to the use of contemporary language in audiovisual works, including the increased use of vulgar words. Marvan sometimes does not understand the meaning of certain words, which is explained to him (and the audience) by other characters (prduch—working pensioner). In some situations, the protagonist unwittingly uses words from the present; he asks for his cell phone after waking up in the hospital, asks for DNA tests in the autopsy room while investigating the killing of Šejba’s mother and quickly corrects himself after the doctor’s uncomprehending look, asking for traces of blood and hair. The contemporary register is branded towards history with contemporary ideological slogans and phrases. The evocative use of registers is particularly evident on a comic level, consisting of the hollowed-out phrases of the communist regime’s supporters, which are partially taken from the Thirty Cases of Major Zeman series.

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Marvan verifies his fall by the date on the front page of the Communist newspaper (Wednesday, August 7, 1982). Plachý comments ironically on Marvan’s interest: Plachý:

Summer field work is on the skids in some districts, no? Well, news like that can be annoying, but the comrades from the JZD will make it in the end, I just trust those guys. Marvan: Aren’t there any newer ones? Plachý: You won’t get any newer ones today, except in a country where tomorrow means yesterday.3 Plachý’s ironic commentary on the text from Rudé Právo affects the rhetoric of the normalisation narrative (the struggle for the harvest was one of the themes), while at the same time expressing timelessness, the course of agricultural work was described almost identically every year. The contemporary phrase “a country where tomorrow means yesterday” (meaning the Soviet Union) ironically refers to the timelessness of the regime, while also pointing out that the regime followed instructions from the Soviet Union. The need to investigate is captured by a dialogue between policemen: Špalek (superior of Plachý and Marvan): Guys, I hope this kind of behaviour towards members of the Šejba family doesn’t happen again. Plachý: I don’t know what you want from us, comrade Major. We have a dead body, so we investigate, that’s normal official procedure. Špalek: Now you said it exactly, Martin, official procedure. That’s what I want you to do. Formally, it has to be perfectly fine. So investigate the unfortunate accident and write up a report. Plachý: And what if it wasn’t an unfortunate accident? Špalek: Oh, shit, are you two completely stupid? It doesn’t matter what it is. You know, old Šejba snaps his fingers and you’re

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fucked. And if that’s not enough, young Šejba snaps his fingers and you’re up to your neck in shit. So you investigate it the way the Party and the Šejbas need it.

The contemporary phrase “the (communist) Party needs” is paraphrased as hiding the personal interest of the suspects behind the interest of the Party. Špalek expresses his concern about the power of the Šejbas and calls on his subordinates to act illegally. The paraphrased ideological phrases are decoded by contemporary viewers as both comical and frightening (given the authoritarian power they assert). The language here creates a similar sub-duality to that described by Hanáková in The Firemen’s Ball. The events of 1989 are not explicitly mentioned in the narrative framework of the present; the present is shown as its aftermath. The shortcomings of the current regime are reduced to economic crimes (the protagonist grows corrupted because of his brother’s debts). It is stated that former Communist Party pro-propagandists have become a significant force in society, using their connections and criminal behaviour adopted under the previous regime to enrich themselves. Šejba shows his superiority towards the police (speaking similarly to the criminals in the 1990s), while at the same time making it clear that the political changes of 1989 allowed him to grow richer than before. The series self-reflexively uses different linguistic registers and their code, like the Life on Mars franchise, the difference in registers is amplified by the regime change.

Rédl The four-part miniseries is set at the turn of the year during the division of Czechoslovakia (January 1992) and follows the fate of a military prosecutor who, due to a private search for a missing neighbour, gets involved in a case of illegal arms sales to the Soviet army leaving Czechoslovakia (one of the consequences following the events of 1989). Two accidental witnesses and the protagonist’s friend are murdered and he takes brutal revenge, eventually committing suicide. Genre-wise, it is a political thriller that highlights the emergence of the connection between former

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members of the State Security and organised crime, but does not show its subsequent penetration into politics. In the opening, which functions as a classic exposition, Rédl meets several people with whom he conducts a different type of dialogue that affects his ambivalent inner moods and attitudes. A doctor, who has no further appearances in the series, comments directly on the events of 1989 during a routine examination: Doctor (while filling out a medical card): Rédl: Doctor:

Rédl: Doctor:

You should have shot everyone on those stages. Excuse me? You were in that army? If you did your job, that new rabble wouldn’t be in charge. (Rédl is awkwardly silent) I was also there, in the streets. I’m an idiot. It hasn’t heated for three days (points to radiator). They say they’ll fix it, but when? I bought that with my own money (points to electric heater). Where were you? (with interest) On recreation. (the doctor does not react, the answer is explained later in the series) The communists at least held it together. They say the republic is collapsing. Guess they’re right.

In work conversations with his colleague and supervisor, who orders him to extend the colonial detention of the former State Security commander, he initially resists, but eventually agrees to the indirect order. Rédl: What is this? Colleague: Denial of request for release from custody. Rédl: On what basis? We have all the witness evidence collected. Colleague: So what? Rédl: The court will free him anyway, so what’s to it? (…) Rédl: And so how will this be any different from what they used to do?

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Later he is openly threatened by his superior: Though a lot was promised during the revolution, not all from those changes will end up as winners.

The condemnatory criticism of the doctor (a representative of the middle class that has no further appearances in the series), according to Krampfl’s distinction, belongs to the tragic interpretation of the Velvet Revolution and suggests the tragic death of the protagonist. Rédl’s formulation refers to one of the main slogans of the Velvet Revolution, “We are not like them” (meaning the communists). The warning of the superior revises the contemporary promises of politicians that we are all winners. The protagonist is portrayed as a psychologically torn character. Rédl stands out from society, he acts as a loner and his opinions do not represent the majority of society. The reasons for his melancholic state and character are gradually explained by personal motives (especially the death of his lover in the 1980s). Rédl has no family, his current lover, whom he has no time for, is murdered because of him. In contrast, his opportunistic orderly and prosecuted general of state security live amidst happy families. The lack of a family background may also be one of the reasons why Rédl starts looking for his neighbour. His actions show that he wants to behave (in his private life and work) according to the ideals of 1989, while the other characters have adapted to the current state of society. His tragic fate, however, does not call into question the ideals of the Velvet Revolution, but rather stems from the protagonist’s inconsistency in upholding them. The criticism of the new conditions does not call into question liberal democracy as such. For example, the judge’s decision not to extend the collusion detention is presented as objective and unquestionable. Despite indications to the contrary, the military prosecutor’s office is not a puppet of the new regime. The series also expresses an indirect criticism of the Lustration Law, which prohibited nomenclature cadres of the previous regime from working in state administration. The dismissed members of the state security found new jobs (legal and illegal economic activities). They are wary of direct criticism of the current regime; they resort to doublespeak, in

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public versus among themselves (dissidents of the previous regime spoke similarly). The series conveys disillusionment with the post-Soviet development. The protagonist’s melancholy nature primarily expresses his personal feelings, while simultaneously acting as an allegorical expression of social moods.

The Sleepers The Sleepers interprets the historical events of 1989 as a speculative spy plot. Historical motives include the persecution of dissidents, emigration, relations within state institutions and the rise of new political elites. The police forces behave repressively before 1989. Dissidents are monitored, subjected to police searches, bullied at work and the protagonist fails in a music competition because her father is a dissident. The ambivalent attitudes of Czech society towards emigration are expressed in the relationship between the protagonist Marie and her sister. The emotional joy of reunion after a long separation is replaced by mutual remorse (the protagonist emigrated, her sister was persecuted because of it). The different attitudes are not translated into language (the emigrants usually preserved their language when they left).4 The series is shaped by the subgenre of the spy film, whose narrative, according to David Seed, is characterised by the promise of revealing the unofficial and secret circumstances of national history and reflecting the public’s distrust of the activities of the domestic and foreign governments (Seed 2003, 15). The series fully fulfils this characterisation. The espionage plot consists of a battle between the British MI6 and the Russian KGB for influence in post-Soviet Czechoslovakia. Conspirators within the KGB predicted the fall of the Soviet regime and therefore groomed cadres of the opposition to ensure its influence after the coup. The speculative espionage plot disrupts the realistic mode of representing history, working with implausible speculation and often non-sequential narrative plots. The realistically portrayed character of Maria suddenly becomes a super heroine who has no trouble breaking into a heavily guarded Russian army facility.

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In The Sleepers, several criminal types viewed from different perspectives intertwine, with characters acting on different motivations that lack a unifying element. Considerable space is devoted to the relationships within the StB workplace, which are influenced by personal relationships, likes and dislikes of the leaders who seek to maintain and strengthen their personal influence. Miluška helps her colleague because she has fallen in love with him. The managing officer of Skála working for the KGB loses his guard because his wife is seriously ill. Some of the dialogues are explicitly devoted to an assessment of the current political situation; the conversation of StB officers on the hunt right before November 1989 predicts the future origin and behaviour of the new elites: Berg: Shit, look, is he one of us? Vlach: Business comrade from Tuzex. He’s as filthy rich as Got’ák (meaning the popular Czech singer Karel Gott). He’s been in the pits for drinking lately, might be gone soon. Berg: When sheep are scared, scared so they group up. Vlach: You’re wrong, not everyone is scared, they have access to big cash, they just can’t talk too loud, some are just praying for the party and the government to go to shit, then they’ll go all out. The change of relations between StB members and dissidents is characterised by Berg during a night conversation with his mistress: Berg: Today we were at the Sokolovna, the dissident pub. And they are still afraid of us. They are still afraid of us and we are afraid of them.

The KGB officer Volkogonov also assesses the changes (speaking to Vlach): Volkogonov: The boys fixed it up nicely. Not even our disinfo guys could have done it better. Václav, you’re the only one in this republic who knows what we were up to. I should get you a medal, but I’d have to tell those comrades upstairs what they should give you one for. And they wouldn’t like that. That all these years we’ve been counting on them ending and communism going to shit.

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A psychiatric doctor who treats (and pacifies) the protagonist: It doesn’t matter who runs the place. As long as everything goes on as it should. We only care about her well-being.

A conversation between an MI6 agent and the protagonist’s husband (a double agent), about whom both the KGB and MI6 have been building a legend of a fearless dissident and preparing him for a career as a politician (after intrigues of both services and the murder of another candidate, he becomes the Minister of Internal Affairs): Skála: And people here dreamed that they wouldn’t have to lie to each other anymore. Clayton: People here dreamed like people everywhere else: of making more money. Everything else is bullshit. Skála: So we’ll keep lying. Clayton: So we’ll keep working to have your people make more money. In the above dialogues, political development is presented not as the intersection of the efforts of various domestic political entities (the principle of liberal democracy), but as a passive object of interest of foreign intelligence agencies. The actions of these structures are almost identical before and after 1989; the paradigm of society and the position of individuals within it have not changed despite the November events. The series works with the motif of social paranoia. The exaggerated and undocumented fears caused by personal problems (fear for one’s own safety, the feeling of being a social outcast and failure) as the simplest solution are spun into conspiracy theories that absolve the individual of personal responsibility.

The Nineties The series follows the activities of the Prague Homicide Investigation Department in the first half of the 1990s, with the central theme being the real-life case of assassins who buried their victims in barrels at the

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bottom of the Orlice Dam. The contemporary context is presented mainly in an inconsistent perspective of the police officers. A critical assessment of the political changes is presented by police officers who worked in the criminal police before 1989. Captain Plíšek does not criticise the current regime primarily for ideological reasons, but because of the increase in the number of murders and the significant decline in their clearance. I didn’t jingle my keys!

The jingling of keys was one of the mass gestures at the demonstrations in late 1989 during the fall of the communist regime. In the sixth episode, after confronting the suspected murderers, he openly declares that he would reinstate the death penalty (its abolition was pushed through by President Václav Havel in 1990). Benjamin’s team lieutenant Kozák has a “Havel in the Castle” poster from December 1989 displayed in his office as part of the campaign leading up to Havel’s first presidential inauguration. The changes are most evident in the period news footage used. In the prologue before the first episode, footage of Václav Havel speaking in front of a packed Wenceslas Square is used (the heightened emotion and pathos conveys the desire for historical change). In the following episodes, there are clips from the private TV NOVA station (founded in 1992), which has far outstripped the public Czech Television in terms of ratings, and whose news coverage relies on banality and tabloids. The register indicates the genre of the police procedural (most of the dialogues take place between police officers or between police officers and suspects; family members of police officers are represented by Kozák’s wife). The only significant slang word is used by the policemen for the suspects (gossipers/spectators). Professional forensic terms (including medical examiner-speak) are rather suppressed. Action scenes do not appear in the film; the investigation is presented as a sequence of interrogations and clerical acts. The most capable police officer, Captain Plíšek, is a bad driver and cannot handle a gun. Politicians appear in the series only in the opening montage of contemporary reports. Senior police officers speak to the media, and their

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speeches show a media skill that is more characteristic of the present (in the 1990s, spokespersons presented the output). The public, represented by neighbours and witnesses, express safety concerns by repeating the phrase “Such are the times.” They do not comment on the ideological assessment of the newly forming society. The criminals, based on real people, act as winners, perceiving the changes after 1989 as a time that weakened law enforcement and offered them the opportunity to greatly expand their illegal activities. They often compare their expenses to police salaries and refer to their political contacts (specific politicians are not mentioned). They stress their social status and feel untouchable. The topic of the Orlice murders was treated by Jiří Svoboda in the film The New Breed (Sametoví vrazi, 2005). The director is one of the few Czech film-makers to openly denounce the ideas of socialism, while other film-makers (especially Jan Hřebejk) denounce liberalism in their public appearances. Svoboda was chairman of the Communist Party from 1990 to 1993 and to this day he publicly opposes the Czech Republic’s membership in the EU and NATO. The Czech title of the film is highly critical, ironically questioning the term “Velvet Revolution,” which was spontaneously adopted to describe the fall of the totalitarian regime in Czechoslovakia. Increased crime and contract killings are presented as a consequence of the return to liberal democracy. The film is shot from the point of view of the killers, with police officers gradually appearing as supporting characters. The men in the background (the Deputy Home Secretary and the gangster boss) stand above justice, ironically glossing over events and their position as “untouchables.”

Conclusion In the analysed series, the potential to utilise specific language of criminals as an anti-language of the underworld remains unused with criminals speaking the same way as policemen. Michal Sýkora, a contemporary crime writer and literary historian, explains this by the fact that the anti-­ language of crime is not mapped in the Czech Republic, and therefore writers have no sources from which to draw inspiration.

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Analyses have shown that the language register used is mostly shaped by the dominant subgenre of crime fiction. The subgenre palette of the analysed series ranges from the realistically filmed procedural (The Nineties) to the stylised retro-comedy (The World Beneath Our Heads) and the political thriller (Rédl), to the spy thriller with elements of paranoid fiction (The Sleepers). The subgenre diversity corresponds to the varying degree of stylisation of non-verbal communication. From realistically conceived restrained speeches (The Nineties), through expressive gestures in action scenes (The Sleepers, Rédl) to irony and parody (Svět pod Hlavou). With the exception of the double use of language in The World Beneath Our Heads series and the different media outputs of the police (The Nineties), different social groups use the same language (regime proponents—dissidents, criminals—police officers, emigrants—those who stay). The language used corresponds to the time in which the series were filmed (the present). Particularly noticeable is the increased vulgarity and the higher proportion of colloquial Czech, which is related to the loosened convention of language use in audiovisual works (it is especially evident in films from the present day). The contemporary phrases and their paraphrases are not explained; it is assumed that the contemporary viewer can identify them and decode their altered meaning. The use of contemporary phrases (associated with the communist regime or the events of the Velvet Revolution) refers to history (they perform the same function as costumes and sets), but at the same time, in paraphrases or altered (often ironic) meanings, they evaluate the depicted history. The evaluation of the political changes in 1989 is critical and has lost its revolutionary pathos. The main thrust of development evaluation of contemporary society focuses on the criticism of increasing criminality and new types of crime, which are presented as the consequences of the unmanaged transformation of society. The police officers in The Nineties and The World Beneath Our Heads manage to solve serious crimes despite the changed social status of the police and its reconstruction from a repressive body to a democratically run institution. In Rédl and The Sleepers, criminals escape justice. Rédl fails for personal, not systemic reasons. The protagonists of The Sleepers, a former state police officer and the Minister of Internal Affairs, despite having the courage to confront the criminal system, are murdered. The protagonist,

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under death threats, resigns to achieve justice and continues to live in a marriage with a double agent of the foreign services who has constantly lied to her and used her for his own purposes. The events of 1989 are fundamentally challenged only in the series The Sleepers, which works with the schematics of a spy thriller and reveals to the viewer the “real background of historical events.” This is a favourite narrative of disinformation and pro-Russian websites. The presented crime rate is at odds with the real one. Based on a sociological survey, the authors of the research report, Analysis of Public Attitudes Towards Crime (Analýza postojů veřejnosti ke kriminalitě, Ladislav Toušek and František Kalvas), identify the biggest problems of contemporary Czech society as the political situation, crime and healthcare. Respondents express concern about crime at the supra-local level, rather than in the place of residence itself (Toušek and Kalvas 2011, 89). For crime categories, respondents were most concerned about vandalism, fraud and burglary. Conversely, they had the lowest fears of sexual harassment, extortion and bullying (Toušek and Kalvas 2011, 89). According to repeated surveys of organised crime experts, the most common crimes in 1993 were auto theft, organised prostitution and art theft. Since 1996, tax, credit, insurance, bill of exchange and customs fraud were added, followed by money laundering and corruption in 1997. In 2018, money laundering was the most prevalent, followed by corruption, tax, credit and insurance fraud (Scheinost 2020, 163). Despite the differences in genre, all the series feature a group of powerful people behind the scenes who have become rich on the basis of political contacts from the previous regime, corruption after 1989 and the weakened influence of the police. Their superior rhetoric stems from a sense of privilege, superiority and a sense of untouchability (a mixture of economic, criminal and political power). Their positive evaluation of the post-Soviet development means a negative evaluation for the audience (negation of negation). The accused state security general (Rédl) may be in custody, but he acts and speaks like a winner. The change in the “revolutionary view” of the events of 1989 is mostly presented indirectly by referring to increased criminality as the price of freedom. New types of criminality are presented as a consequence of the (mismanaged) development of society.

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Compared to the dramatic historical artworks of the 1990s, which used strong anti-communist arguments, and the wave of ostalgic films after 2000, there is a change in discourse. In the crime series analysed, the anti-language of crime does not appear as the language of the underworld, but the anti-language of revolution is used to offer a critique on the development of society as a missed historical opportunity. The contemporary language concerning the events of 1989 uses contemporary phrases and works with paraphrases of them (which proves that the Velvet events are still present in the living historical and cultural memory of the nation). The difference lies in the contemporary linguistic code, which turns (especially ironically) the pathos of the time and revolutionary enthusiasm into a critical perspective that does not, with the exception of The Sleepers, question the basic development of Czech society.

Notes 1. The term ostalgia was coined by combining the German words Nostalgie (nostalgia) and Ost (east). According to sociologist Daphne Berdahl, it expresses a sentiment for some aspects of the socialist lifestyle before the fall of the Iron Curtain in Central and Eastern Europe (Berdahl 2010, 48). The manifestations of ostalgia are described by Berdahl in the comedy Goodbye, Lenin! (2003, d. Wolfgang Becker). Czech ostalgic (and often melodramatic) comedies are characterised by an apparent ideological paradox; their creators nostalgically depict the period of the so-called normalisation (1969–1989), while openly expressing anti-communist attitudes. The film-makers separate national and family history. The family idyll emphasises the criminal character of the regime in contrast. 2. Historikerstreit: historian’s dispute. 3. Our translation. Unless otherwise specified, all subsequent quotations from sources originally written in languages other than English have been translated by the author. 4. Milan Kundera’s novel Ignorance (Nevědění, 2021) expresses a similar misunderstanding of emigrants who are confronted by their relatives, classmates and friends.

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References Berdahl, Daphne. 2010. On the Social Life of Post-socialism Memory, Consumption, Germany. Bloomington and Indianapolis: Indiana University Press. Černík, Jan. 2016. “Ostalgická nálada v českém historickém filmu po roce 1989” [“Ostalgic mood in Czech historical film after 1989”]. In Film a dějiny 6 Post-komunismus Proměny českého historického filmu po roce 1989 [Film and history 6 Post- communist changes in Czech historical film after 1989], edited by Ptáček Luboš and Kopal Petr, 30–43. Praha: Casablanca. Halliday, M.A.K. 1978. Language as Social Semiotic: The Social Interpretation of Language and Meaning. London: Edward Arnold. Hanáková, Petra. 2012. “Pozor—pohov. Člověk, moc a jazyk v Hoří, má panenko” [“Careful—march, Person, power and language in The Firemen’s Ball”]. In Hoří, má panenko [The Firemen’s Ball], edited by Anna Batistová, 92–109. Praha: Národní filmový archiv. Jedličková, Jana and Janstová, Iveta. 2019. Ženské hrdinky a jejich zobrazování v českých televizních krimiseriálech [Female heroines and their portrayal in Czech television crime series]. Olomouc: Univerzita Palackého v Olomouci. Kolář, Pavel and Kopeček, Michal. 2007. “A Difficult Quest for New Paradigms: Czech Historiography After 1989.” In Narratives Unbound Historical Studies in Post- Communist Eastern Europe, edited by Antohi, Sorin, Trencsényi, Balázs and Apor Péter,173–248. Budapest New  York: Europe Central European University Press. Korda, Jakub. 2012. České televizní krimisérie a jejich žánrové souvislosti (1989–2009) [Czech television crime series and their genre connotations]. Olomouc: Univerzita Palackého v Olomouci. Krapfl, James. 2008. “Poetický základ politiky: Dějiny významu roku 1989” [“The poetic basis of politics: History of the meaning of the year 1989”]. In Kapitoly z dějin české demokracie po roce 1989 [Chapters from the history of Czech democracy after 1989], edited by Gjuričová, Adéla and Kopeček, Michal, 134–157. Praha: Paseka. Mukařovský, Jan. 1978. Structure, Sign and Function-Selected Essays by Jan Mukarovsky. New Haven, London: Yale University Press. Ptáček, Luboš. 2019. Umění mezi alegorií a ideologií [Art between Allegory and Ideology]. Praha: Casablanca. Qasemirezaa, Venus and Dowlatabadi, Hamidreza. 2014. “Sociolinguistic Structure of Artistic Language; with Emphasis on Nader and Simin—a Separation.” Procedia Social and Behavioral Sciences 98:1428–37.

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Rosenstone, Robert. 2013. History on Film / Film on History, London. New York: Routledge. Rosenstone, Robert. 1994. “Introduction” In Revisioning History. Film and the Construction of a New Past, edited by Rosenstone, Robert, 3–14, Princeton: University Princeton Press. Rosenstone, Robert. 1998. Visions of the Past. The Challenge of Film to Our Idea of History. Cambridge (Mass.), London: Harvard University Press. Seed, David. 2003. “Spy Fiction.” In The Cambridge Companion to Crime Fiction, edited by Priestman, Martin, 115–134. New  York: Cambridge University Press. Scheinost, Miroslav. 2020. Analýza trendů kriminality v České republice v roce 2019 [Analysis of criminality trends in the Czech Republic in 2019]. Praha: Institut pro kriminologii a sociální prevenci. Stamou, Anastasia. 2014. “A literature review on the mediation of sociolinguistic style in television and cinematic fiction: Sustaining the ideology of authenticity.” Language and Literature 23(2): 118–40. Toušek, Ladislav and Kalvas, František. 2011. Analýza postojů veřejnosti ke kriminalitě Koncepce prevence kriminality a sociálně patologických jevů Plzeňského kraje na léta 2009–2011 [Analysis of Public Attitudes Towards Crime. The Concept of Prevention of Crime and Socially Pathological Phenomena of the Pilsen Region for 2009–2011]. Plzeň: Centrum aplikované antropologie a terénního výzkumu při Katedře antropologie FF ZČU.

16 Surprising Silence? Possible Reasons for Scarcity of Representation of the Velvet Revolution in Czech Film Adaptations in the 1990s Radoslav Horák

When thinking about language, it is not without merit to take cinema into account as well. Cinema itself can be, after all, understood as a system of communication/expression. Already the film semioticians of the 1960s, drawing on Ferdinand de Saussure and namely his work Course in General Linguistics (Saussure 2011), considered film as a language and applied the concept of the sign when thinking of film image. In his work Film—jazyk nebo řeč,1 Christian Metz claims that film is parole without langue, a message without an established code (Metz 1971). Even though this point of view has been since surpassed, thanks to it, cinema found its place in the context of linguistic discourse—and so did the film adaptation. When the communist regime collapsed in Czechoslovakia in the fall of 1989, it happened so quickly that local film-makers found themselves entirely unprepared. Still, the event was so significant that many of them reacted to the rapid development and some even made changes to already This work was supported by the grant of the Czech Ministry of Education, Youth, and Sports for specific research under Grant IGA_FF_2022_028. R. Horák (*) Palacký University, Olomouc, Czechia © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 E. Wohl, E. Păcurar (eds.), Language of the Revolution, Palgrave Studies in Languages at War, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-37178-3_16

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ongoing projects. Director Zdeněk Troška, who was at the time working on an intimate drama The Period of Examinations (Zkouškové období, 1990)2 about searching for life, and the questions and insecurities of a university student, quickly updated the story: “When we started preparing the film to go into production in November, the well-known November events transpired. [The protagonist] Petr Soukup is a university student, so I couldn’t ignore the November events” (Zdeněk Troška’s own words, Kolář 1990).3 The so-called Velvet Revolution and adjacent motives were also depicted later in the Czech films of the 1990s: for example, Corpus Delicti (1991), Perhaps Life Is Nice Somewhere (Někde je možná hezky, 1991),4 The Little Hotel in the Heart of Europe (Hotýlek v srdci Evropy, 1993) and also in the Academy Award–winning film Kolja (1996). All these films, however, were based on original film scripts and thus they are not adaptations. Those reflected on the events and symbols of the Velvet Revolution comparatively less often. But, similarly to many other countries, adaptations are an important part of Czech cinema. Even in the 1990s, they constituted approximately a third of all contemporary film production—from the 177 Czech films made between the years 1990 and 1999, 59 were adaptations.5 Their importance can be supported by the fact that The Tank Batallion (Tankový prapor, 1991), a film by Vít Olmer based on the literary work of the same name by Josef Škvorecký, became the most watched film of the decade, with two million cinema viewers in total. Drawing on the works of Canadian theoretician Linda Hutcheon, who emphasises that “neither the product nor the process of adaptation exists in a vacuum” (Hutcheon 2006: XVI) and applies a contextual lens to her research of adaptation, we arrive at the conclusion that the topics of adaptations adjust to the contemporary social and political situation. The validity of the claim is apparent in even a glimpse at which literary works were adapted during the post-revolution period, and how. The interest in previously taboo topics or authors appeared among both film-makers and film viewers. For instance, The Black Barons (Černí baroni, 1992) directed by Zdeněk Sirový was based on the novel of the same name by Miloslav Švandrlík thematising the era of the rigid Stalinism of the 1950s; the film The Beggar’s Opera (Žebrácká opera, 1991) was based on a theatre play written by a former dissident and then president of Czechoslovakia,

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Václav Havel. The aforementioned film The Tank Battalion can be described by both of the trends mentioned above. So why, then, was the Revolution not the topic of the adaptations in the 1990s, when it was the very thing that allowed these films to be made in the first place? Was its language in them really as quiet as it seems at a first glance? And can it even be considered unusual at all? To answer these questions, I use the combination of textual and contextual perspectives developed from the approaches of Hutcheon, who asks not only what is adapted but also under what circumstances.6 First, I describe the most important events and symbols of the Velvet Revolution and their presence in contemporary adaptations and non-adaptations. Afterwards, I approach the research topic from the following two angles: at first, I focus on if and how the Velvet Revolution was portrayed in the Czech literature of its time and so whether there were any literary works allowing film-­ makers to depict the events of the Revolution in adaptations at all. Next, I focus on what was being depicted instead of the Revolution and what captured the attention of film-makers/adapters. The explanation of the possible absence of Revolution-adjacent motives in contemporary adaptations, following this approach, is accompanied by a comparison of the depictions of the end of World War II in Czech cinema after 1945. This offers an insight into a similar situation of the past and clarifies the degree to which this “silence of great historical change” is common in adaptations.

 he Velvet Revolution and Its Presence T in (Non-)adaptations The communist regime of Czechoslovakia was one of the most firmly established in Europe. It did not collapse until after the revolutions in Poland, Hungary and the German Democratic Republic (GDR). Though anti-communist protests had been taking place since 1988, 17 November 1989 was the true beginning of the Revolution. On that day, the students of Prague organised a regime-sanctioned gathering on the occasion of the 50th anniversary of the university closure enforced by the Nazi occupation. After the official conclusion of the event, the participants did not

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disperse but, chanting anti-communist slogans, headed towards the centre of Prague. There they were surrounded by units from the Ministry of Internal Affairs, who intervened using batons. The violent dispersal of the demonstration and the reported death of one student (that particular information later turned out to be untrue) incited a wave of mass, openly expressed resistance to the regime in the following days. The very next day strike unions started forming in theatres and at universities. On 19 November, the Civic Forum was established, which unified the resistance efforts and whose leading figure was Václav Havel. During the following days, hundreds of thousands of people took part in anti-communist demonstrations, which culminated in the general strike on 27 November. Meanwhile, the board of the central committee of the Communist Party, which had held all political power in the country since 1948, stepped down and began negotiations with the Civic Forum and the government. Eventually, the decision to change the constitution was reached, which meant the dismissal of articles anchoring the leading role of the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia and establishing Marxism-Leninism as the official state ideology. The decisions were followed by the appointment of a new government without communists in decision-making positions and by President Gustáv Husák’s resignation. The events of the Revolution culminated on 29 December with Václav Havel becoming the new president, and this step simultaneously concluded the student strike.7 Politologist Oskar Krejčí writes that there are four different ways of interpreting the events of the Revolution in the Czech environment—a heroic legend, a conspiracy theory, an anthropological cause and a political breaking point (Krejčí 2019: 12). He explains the Revolution as a combination of the last two factors, namely a clash between the communist ideal of man versus reality and the changes in the surrounding countries. He entirely rejects the conspiracy theory that sees the Revolution as a secret agreement about a mutually beneficial transfer of power, in the absence of any evidence. In terms of the heroic legend emphasising the spontaneity and the revolutionary potential of students and dissidents, Krejčí, without wanting to devalue the contributions of these groups, points out the absence of a larger picture (12–18). My aim is not to accept Krejčí’s claims uncritically, but to show that it is precisely the

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heroic angle to which the symbols of the Revolution—images of protesting students and regular citizens, dissident personalities (first and foremost Havel), the Czech flag or ringing keys—are connected.8 The symbolism is also represented by specific slogans that were being called out during the demonstration: “Our hands are bare!” “Free election!” “End to one-party rule!” and more. Both the heroic associations and the slogans themselves are important not only for a more detailed definition of the studied phenomena but also for the later interpretation of the reasons for their presence/absence in contemporary literary and film works. In contemporary non-adaptations, the events and symbolism of the Revolution are often referenced, as the characters usually learn of it through a TV or radio report. The films The Beginning of a Long Autumn (Začátek dlouhého podzimu, 1990) or The Little Hotel in the Heart of Europe use primarily this way of depicting these events. In The Period of Examinations, the activity of student strike unions is in focus. The film Sweet Decay (Vyžilý Boudník, 1990), telling the story of a comedic duo and their futile attempts at success during the communist rule, thematises the revolutionary efforts among actors in its conclusion. Conversely, the film It’s Better to Be Wealthy and Healthy Than Poor and Ill (Lepšie byť bohatý a zdravý ako chudobný a chorý, 1992), which reflects on the beginning of “the wild capitalism” of the 1990s, actually starts with the Revolution. In all of these films, the events of the Revolution are depicted or mentioned directly, but some other films showcase less explicit, almost metaphorical references to the Revolution’s symbolism. The film Corpus Delicti shows the Revolution through a series of shots of swiftly passing sidewalks accompanied by an anxious musical score—it is possible to identify this as a stylised image of the November events thanks to the inclusion of the crowd’s chanting “We have had enough!” in the sequence’s soundtrack. In the satirical film Smoke (Kouř, 1990), which depicts the absurd conditions in one company at the end of the regime’s power, no words explicitly describing the contemporary reality are used (for instance the creators avoided using terms like “a communist” or “a comrade”) and the Revolution is shown through the revolt of the employees of this particular company, who spontaneously head into the streets chanting “It is worth it!.”

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Comparatively, the presence of references to the Revolution in contemporary adaptations is almost non-existent. The film Were We Really Like This? (Byli jsme to my?, 1990) is the only film not based on an original script that depicted the events of the Revolution explicitly and straightforwardly. It was directed by Antonín Máša as an adaptation of his own script, based on his own theatre play The Night Rehearsal (Noční zkouška), which was first performed in 1981 in Laterna Magika.9 The play about a director trying to motivate his actors by any means necessary to take theatre seriously was for the purpose of adaptation developed plot-wise and a political dimension was added—the protagonist must now also deal with the limitations imposed by the regime. Towards the film’s conclusion, right before the end credits, authentic footage of protesters chanting the slogan “Long live the actors!” appears. It is followed by a shot of the film’s characters waving from a balcony, which is the film’s closing shot. So it is not only a singular but also an entirely marginal reference. There are elements present in a few other contemporary adaptations reminiscent of the Revolution but are probably not actual references to the events of November 1989. One of these films is In the Flames of Passion of Royal Love (V žáru královské lásky, 1990). It is an updated adaptation of the expressionist novel by Ladislav Klíma, The Suffering of Prince Sternenhoch (Utrpení knížete Sternenhocha, 1928), which uses the backdrop of contemporary Prague and certain elements of the modern age (such as TV, highways, recent models of cars) but does not situate the plot in a specific time or place. One of the episodes of the story is the prince’s public birthday celebration, which gets disrupted by a group of protesters led by his wife. The only potential connection with the Revolution is thus created by the presence of the demonstration itself; there are no slogans explicitly related to the November events, the flags being carried do not belong to a particular country and the protesters behave aggressively, which is in direct opposition to the nature of the Velvet Revolution and its peaceful course (hence the name “velvet” or “gentle”). The second of these films, Don Gio (1992), is a postmodern variation on a Mozartian theme. At the 50th minute of the film’s duration, the revolutionaries appear, but they are not those of 1989’s

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Czechoslovakia—they are stylised to resemble the figures from the painting Liberty Leading the People by Eugène Delacroix. It can be, therefore, inferred, that the motives of the Revolution were not part of the original texts but updating them led to including said motives in the adaptations. This begs the question of whether and how the Revolution was reflected in contemporary Czech literary works. Following Hutcheon’s theory, it is obvious that the absence of the Revolution’s motives in a book does not prevent them from appearing in its adaptation, but at the same time it is true that every adaptation relates, on the basic level, to an original text—so the potential absence of literary works thematising the Revolution can be the reason for adapters overlooking this topic in films. The focus on literature in the following chapter will contribute to the image of if and how the events of the Velvet Revolution were thematised in the contemporary Czech narrative arts in general.

 he Velvet Revolution T in Contemporary Literature An unprecedented multiplicity of voices can be observed in Czech literature after 1989. Not only young authors but also those previously silenced, who now finally had the chance to officially publish their banned works, entered the scene. With the arrival of freedom and the disappearance of “the common enemy,” a question regarding literature’s role in the new circumstances soon arose, prompting the development of many new directions and poetics, with two of them becoming dominant: Postmodern tendencies, playfulness, free imagination and joy of storytelling became the main characteristics of one group of authors, while another one preferred authenticity and produced a wave of memoirs and diary literature. Many works reflecting on life during communism appeared, occasionally highlighting the elements of oppression and lack of freedom, at other times focusing on everyday life or approaching these aspects with irony and emphasising their absurdity.

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The events of the Velvet Revolution were not, however, written about by the 1990s writers too often. Pavel Janáček, who reflected on this fact at the beginning of the twenty-first century in the literary magazine Tvar (Shape), even talks about “a fear of the topic” (Janáček 2001: 1, 4–5). The depictions of social upheaval were entirely absent from poetry, which, according to Petr Hruška, is “an unprecedented phenomenon in the Czech context” (Hruška 2008: 42). The topic appeared more often in prose, but as Lubomír Machala points out, “no work of prose afforded a central role to the November events” (Machala 2008, 278). An extreme example of this is the autobiographical diary novel by Ludvík Vaculík, How to Make a Boy (Jak se dělá chlapec, 1993), which takes place in the years 1986–1993, yet the author avoids writing about the Revolution entirely—the entry of 12 September 1989 is followed by a chapter dated 2 February 1990, and Vaculík references the Revolution sparingly and indirectly in the pages after. So contemporary literature also displays a tendency towards silence about the Velvet Revolution. But why? According to Machala, what occurred after 1989 was “a change of social status of literature, or to be exact the previous perception of the writer as a spokesman of society”; another reason he identifies is “the insufficient distance from the fast-­ paced cultural and social events” (Machala 2008: 277). The writers became reserved towards the thematisation of the current political situation. Besides that, there is a possibility that they were reluctant to embrace the aforementioned heroic discourse, which was (and still is) applied in connection to the Revolution. They could have done so influenced by a negative experience with the politically involved official works supporting the former regime, which to a point discredited any literature celebrating great socio-political changes. The absence of a text with the Revolution as a central topic, as well as the difficulty of avoiding kitsch while maintaining the heroic angle, generated the impulse for a parodic mystification by literary scientists Vladimír Macura and Pavel Janáček, who in 1991 published a collection of reviews for a non-existent lyrical epic Velvet Anna (Sametová Anna) in one of the issues of the magazine Tvar (Cermanová 2008: 41–42). The Czech writers of the 1990s are not entirely silent about the Revolution though, and some works do mention it. Given how rare

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adaptations of poetry are, I focus exclusively on examples of prose. The first prosaic and open reflection of the Revolution was in The November Hurricane (Listopadový uragán, 1990) by Bohumil Hrabal. The author describes the November events in an epistolary format (letters addressed to Dubenka),10 in his typical style reminiscent of the stream-of-­ consciousness technique, and blends them with memories of other events in the narrator’s life. The Revolution is mentioned throughout the story and commented on by the main characters also in the novel The Key Is Under the Doormat (Klíč je pod rohožkou, 1995) by Vlastimil Třešňák, the plot of which is set amongst emigrants during the fall of 1989. The November events play a central role in the novel by Jáchym Topol, Sister (Sestra, 1994), where they are seen as so important the narrator calls them “an explosion of time” and considers them to be the start of a whole new era. The Revolution also influences the plots of The Wonderful Years That Sucked (Báječná léta pod psa) by Michal Viewegh (1992), The Immortal Story (Nesmrtelný příběh) by Jiří Kratochvil (1997) or Grannies (Babičky) by Petr Šabach (1998). This list is only selective; Lubomír Machala presents a complete list of prose thematising the Revolution in the book Panorama of Czech Literature 2 (Panorama české literatury 2) (Machala et al. 2015: 15). But even a selective list demonstrates that texts depicting the Revolution and fit for potential adaptation were created in the 1990s. Nevertheless, the only novel actually adapted was Michal Viewegh’s The Wonderful Years That Sucked, directed by Petr Nikolaev in 1997 and based on a script by Jan Novák. In their adaptation, the plot of which is set primarily during normalisation,11 the social change is not signalled until the references to the first free election in 1990. The events of the Revolution, despite the book describing characters directly participating in them, remained unadapted and are not depicted. How is it possible that, despite reflecting such an important and socially relevant topic, none of these literary works stirred the interest of adapters, and the one that did was adapted without the depiction of the Revolution? The focus on the linguistic aspects of the works can point to the question of the adaptability of certain literary elements. Theoreticians like Seymour Chatman or, more recently, Brian McFarlane claim that there are specific elements or processes connected to a specific medium, which

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are intermediary non-transferrable. Chatman compiles them into a category called discourse (as opposed to the adaptable story) (Chatman 1980: 19–22); McFarlane differentiates between transfer (which includes what is transferrable across media) and adaptation proper (which is needed by elements typical for literature, if the adapter wants to show them in the film) (McFarlane 1996: 13). Chatman points out that film employs different tools of narration than literature and so it is impossible, for instance, to equate the filmic and the literary narrator (Chatman 1990: 109–138). Based on that, it can be assumed that the use of non-traditional narrative techniques in literature presents obstacles for the potential adapter. McFarlane emphasises that while literature has only the verbal sign system at its disposal, the film uses it simultaneously with the visual and sound sign systems, and the verbal one thus loses its dominance in film and gains a new function (McFarlane 1996: 26–27). Linda Hutcheon also differentiates between telling and showing, and even though she disproves many clichés related to the question of adaptability (e.g., that film cannot express a point of view or large time jumps), she claims that while telling stories in literature “is to describe, explain, summarize, expand,” showing them in movies “involves a direct aural and usually visual performance experienced in real time” (Hutcheon 2006: 13). If the potential works for adaptation are based on a specific type of storytelling, wordplay, a key role assigned to the narrator or another technique associated exclusively with the literary medium, and the story is secondary to these elements, the adapters can be possibly discouraged. These tendencies are observable in some of the aforementioned literary works. Hrabal’s emphasis on the act of storytelling, which devolves into a stream of loose associations in The November Hurricane, was already described. The first-person narration is foregrounded also in Kratochvil The Immortal Story. Soňa, the protagonist, often addresses the reader and comments on the plot (which is full of playful passages connotative of magical realism and difficult to reimagine in film—the protagonist spends a large part of the normalisation era in the shape of a cocoon in the attic of an old house). Also in Sister, the narrative technique is foregrounded while the story is secondary. Topol combines various linguistic layers (from archaisms, over modern formal language, dialects, and argot, to

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occasional foreign expressions) and, similarly to Hrabal, uses associative storytelling with a large number of side tracks. This novel did attract the attention of adapters despite these characteristics, but only after the 1990s. In 2008, director Vít Pancíř made a film of the same name based on Sister, or to be exact, on a revised version of the text written by Topol for this very occasion.12 Seven years later, the novel received a theatrical adaptation as well by the Janáček Academy of Music and Performing Arts in Brno.13 Both adaptations were, for obvious reasons, fairly reductive (and I do not mean this as a qualitatively evaluative description); the important part is that the adapters did not perceive the specificities of the original text as an obstacle. This leads one to consider that if the adapters truly wanted a film adaptation of a particular literary work, not even a specificity of medium and the adjacent difficulties would stop them. Even in the 1990s, it is possible to find examples of untraditional literary works getting adapted—the most prominent one is probably the film Horror Story (Krvavý román, 1993) by Jaroslav Brabec, inspired by Josef Váchal’s novel of the same name. The original text is defined by distinct stylisation connected to a book as a medium—a specific topography of the text which in Brabec’s adaptation is replaced by visual stylisation modelled after the aesthetics of the silent film. The works of Bohumil Hrabal are long-term favourites of the adapters; the Academy Award–winning film Closely Watched Trains (Ostře sledované vlaky, 1966) and Hrabal’s work served as a basis for adaptation twice in the 1990s: first with the film Angel Eyes (Andělské oči, 1993) and a second time with Too Loud a Solitude (Příliš hlučná samota, 1994). The aim of the adapters is usually not to create a filmic copy of the literary original—as Linda Hutcheon emphasises, adaptation is a creative interpretation and it is up to the adapter to choose what parts of the original text will be recreated. She says that “the adapted text [...] is not something to be reproduced, but rather something to be interpreted and recreated” (Hutcheon 2006: 84). The characteristics potentially complicating the adaptation process are also not present in every work depicting the Revolution or every passage thematising it (no obstacles in this regard are to be found in The Wonderful Years That Sucked or Grannies, and as mentioned earlier, the former was actually adapted).

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I have concluded that the Velvet Revolution was reflected on surprisingly little, not only in adaptations but in the Czech literature of the 1990s itself; yet, it was not entirely ignored. Literary works with the potential to be adapted were written, while their untraditional form, often connected to the specificity of the medium and its limitations, cannot be considered an insurmountable obstacle in the adaptation process. It can be a discouraging factor, but it depends on the goals and intent of the adapter—and the films In the Flames of Passion of Royal Love, Don Gio or Horror Story are proof that in the 1990s adapters dared to experiment with formally unconventional pieces. It is thus apparent that the Velvet Revolution was not impossible to depict, but its depiction was not the goal—and for that there had to be a reason other than the absence of appropriate original texts.

The Topics of Adaptations in the 1990s The aforementioned conclusion leads to a new point of view. Up to this point, I have examined the topics absent from the adaptations of the 1990s, but what topics were present? In the introduction, I mentioned that adapters often focused on subjects that would be unacceptable during the communist regime, and on literary texts by banned authors. That alone does not create a detailed image of the adaptation practices of the time. A closer look at what the adapters of the 1990s were interested in can contribute to answering the question of what topics were overlooked. The adaptations from the unofficial category of formerly banned topics or authors were unequivocally dominant in the 1990s. Many of these adaptations commented on the communist past, with the first two-thirds of the decade focused on the return to the 1950s. Besides the already mentioned films Tank Battalion and Black Barons, the following films can be included in this trend as well: Family Matters (Jen o rodinných záležitostech, 1990), Big Beat (Šakalí léta, 1993), Boomerang (Bumerang, 1996), The Master of Ceremonies (Ceremoniář, 1996) or The Land Gone Wild (Zdivočelá země, 1997). Only in the year 1996 do the first mentions of normalisation appear, in an updated adaptation of Jakub Deml’s novel Forgotten Light (Zapomenuté světlo, 1996).14 This era is portrayed in a

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light-hearted manner in The Wonderful Years That Sucked, and the second half of the 1960s is revisited in Cosy Dens (Pelíšky, 1999). Returning to the past is typical also for another category of contemporary adaptations—those which depict the events of a more distant past. In the Coat of Arms of a Lioness (V erbu lvice, 1994) is a historical film about the life of Saint Zdislava of Lemberk. The plot of the film The Melancholic Chicken (Kuře melancholik, 1999) is set at the beginning of the twentieth century. Angel of Mercy (Anděl milosrdenství, 1993) depicts World War I. The films Golet in the Valley (Golet v údolí, 1995) and Hanele (1999) show the life of Jews in Carpathian Ruthenia in the interwar period. The story of the films The King of Colonnades (Král kolonád, 1990) or The Life and Extraordinary Adventures of Private Ivan Chonkin (Život a neobyčejná dobrodružství vojáka Ivana Čonkina, 1993) is set during World War II. The immediate post-war era, before the rise of communism, is shown in the film Angel Eyes, the plot of which is set in 1947. The last two dominant categories consist of fairy tale films and experimental films. The former includes the films The Immortal Aunt (Nesmrtelná teta, 1993), The Emperor’s New Clothes (Císařovy nové šaty, 1994), How to Earn a Princess (Jak si zasloužit princeznu, 1994) and more. The experimental category—formal or stylistic oddities that were not continued by any other creators later on—contains the aforementioned films In the Flames of Passion of Royal Love, Don Gio and Horror Story, but also, for instance, the science fiction Nexus (1993), the peculiar take on the Faustian myth by Jan Švankmajer, Faust (Lekce Faust, 1994), Kafka-­ inspired America (Amerika, 1994) or a film version of Alfred Jarry’s theatre play King Ubu (Král Ubu, 1996).15 All these films share the detachment from the era of their making, their contemporary presence. From the 59 Czech adaptations made in the 1990s, only six films were concerned with contemporary topics, the first of which was made no sooner than 1995. Safe for a few exceptions, these reflections were shallow and even cheaply exploitative. The adaptations of the two-part novel by Vladimír Páral, Playgirls I and II (1995) foreground the eroticism. Which was in demand at the time, the film The Taste of Death (Jak chutná smrt, 1995), based on the unpublished short story of the same name by Ladislav Mňačko, emphasises psychopathological violence and action. The combination of both can be found in the film

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Vengeance Is Mine (Má je pomsta, 1995), based on the novella by Otakar Chaloupka Black Friday (Černý pátek). A more civil depiction of contemporary reality is brought only by the films Indian Summer (Indiánské léto, 1995) directed by Saša Gedeon and Bringing Up Girls in Bohemia (Výchova dívek v Čechách, 1997) by Petr Koliha. Only the latter was based on a contemporary literary work (a novel of the same name by Michal Viewegh), and the former is a transcultural updated adaptation of a short story by Francis Scott Fitzgerald, Bernice Bobs Her Hair.16 This points to the fact that the Czech adapters of the 1990s displayed a tendency to choose escapist topics without links to either the Revolution or the post-revolution reality. They dealt primarily with the past, not only the communist one but a more distant past, which used to be deformed by communist explanations and interpretations. They were apparently settling up a debt born in this field during the years of the totalitarian regime. The free creative environment led them, besides the commentary on the past, towards the exploration of the possibilities of Czech cinema; however, on the other hand, they were also influenced by economic factors. In the commercial model of film production, which replaced the state-financing system not long after the Revolution, they tried to come up with pieces that had a big potential for box office success (which can explain also the growth of the fairy tale film). Thus, they could not quite find space for depictions of the Velvet Revolution or its impact—with a slight exaggeration it can be said the creators simply did not get to it. While in the 1990s the adapters moved only slowly from showing the communist and non-communist past and former taboos to more contemporary topics, the situation was entirely different in the field of non-­ adaptations. A colourful reflection of the just concluded totalitarian era began developing already in the films made in 1990, with not only the 1950s depicted in the films Lenin, Lord, and Mother (Vracenky, 1990) or Silent Pain (Tichá bolest, 1990), but also the later time of normalisation shown in the films Our Czech Song II (Ta naše písnička česká II, 1990) or Strange Beings (Zvláštní bytosti, 1990). If the events of the Velvet Revolution enter the plot, they do so at the climax of the story and serve as its conclusion (Smoke, Sweet Decay) or they permeate it continually (The Beginning of a Long Autumn, The Period of Examinations). Already the film Corpus Delicti from 1991 hints at the post-revolution

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development in its last minutes.17 Within the same year, the first nonadaptations that reflect the new reality and do not return to the totalitarian past appear, no matter how shallow and openly commercial their goals are—Discostory 2 (Discopříběh č. 2, 1991) and Sun, Hay, and Erotic (Slunce, seno, erotica, 1991). The films It’s Better to Be Wealthy and Healthy Than Poor and Ill and The Little Hotel in the Heart of Europe from 1992 and 1993 do not end with the events of the Revolution, but start with them and focus on the reality of the early 1990s. After 1993, the topic of the Revolution almost disappears even from the field of non-adaptations, but not because their creators did not “get to it” yet; on the contrary, they exhausted it and their focus shifted to contemporary ideas. The film Kolja from 1996, set in the second half of the 1980s and depicting the Revolution, is one of the few exceptions of that time. The adaptations of the 1990s not only did not depict the Revolution, but they also seldom worked with contemporary topics. It took the adapters longer to deal with the just concluded historical era, the formerly taboo topic, and the new creative possibilities than it took the creators of non-adaptations. Once again, the question “why” arises and it presents a potential challenge for further research and researchers. To answer it satisfactorily in the future, it would be beneficial to know whether this was an unusual isolated phenomenon or whether this delay is a regular occurrence in the field of adaptations. A comparison with a similar event in a different historical era could shed some light on that.

 he End of World War II and Contemporary T Topics in (Non-)adaptations after 1945 It is possible to find many important historical milestones akin to 1989 in the recent European—and thus also Czech—history. Based on the shared characteristic of a dictatorship ending, May of 1945 meaning the end of World War II and the German occupation of Czechoslovakia is the most similar event to the Velvet Revolution. The Prague Uprising and the arrival of the Allied armies present events with a lot of visual and dramatic potential. How much were they reflected in contemporary Czech

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cinema and how different was the frequency of their depiction in the adaptations and non-adaptations? And how fast (comparatively) did the post-war topics enter these two fields after 1945? First of all, it is important to realise that such a comparison has limits. In 1945, film production in Czechoslovakia was nationalised, while in the 1990s, the opposite process took place. The natural development of art and specifically film production was, especially after 1948 when the communist party rose to power, radically influenced by censorship and the efforts to use cinema for propaganda. The number of films made and the ratio of adaptations to non-adaptations was also slightly different during this time—the final number of feature live-action films completed in the post-war decade (1946–1955) was 148, 61 of which were adaptations—that equals more than 41%. Despite the partial similarities, the situation was different from that of the 1990s. I do believe though, that the informative value of such a comparison is not made entirely obsolete by this. The cinema after May 1945 reacted less flexibly to the new situation than cinema at the turn of the years 1989 and 1990. The change was not reflected by any of the films that had not yet entered production during the Protectorate and were finished after the war. But already in 1946 there was a wave of wartime reflection in non-adaptations, specifically in the films Supermen (Nadlidé, 1946), A Big Case (Velký případ, 1946), The Heroes Are Silent (Hrdinové mlčí, 1946), The Mountains Are Rumbling (V horách duní, 1946) and Men Without Wings (Muži bez křídel, 1946). The May events were referenced by the last three of them, though never explicitly—in Men Without Wings a metaphorically cut sequence depicted the victorious march of the liberators, in the other two the end of the war is only talked about. In the following two years, the war continued to be thematised in the films Nobody Knows Anything (Nikdo nic neví, 1947), White Darkness (Bílá tma, 1948), The Long Journey (Daleká cesta, 1948) and Old Ironside (Železný dědek, 1948). A first explicit reference to the events of the war ending appeared in The Long Journey, and Old Ironside was the first instance of them not serving as the story’s conclusion—most of the plot was set after the war. The plot of Mr. Habětín Is Leaving (Pan Habětín odchází, 1949), already a propaganda product, also reached into the post-war circumstances and used the Communist Coup of 1948 as its

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climax. The films Operation B (Akce B, 1951) and A Warning (Výstraha, 1953) begin with the end of World War II; the former depicted the arrival of the Red Army in an editing sequence at the very beginning, the latter approximately in its 10th minute. It could appear as a tendency similar to the one observable in the 1990s—a gradual shifting of the observed topic in terms of its place in the plot, only faster than at the turn of the 1940s and 1950s. In reality, it was nowhere near a clear-cut tendency because since 1947 there were also films dealing with contemporary subjects and issues, where the end of the war was not referenced at all. Probably the first of these films was Don’t You Know of an Unoccupied Flat? (Nevíte o bytě?, 1947), illustrating the post-war housing crisis. A swift development of contemporary subjects started in 1948 with propaganda entering the field of cinema. The adaptations of that time began to deal with the end of World War II and the war itself no sooner than 1948, with the film The Silent Barricade (Němá barikáda, 1948), in which, based on the original text by Jan Drda, the events of the Prague Uprising were depicted. The next adaptation touching upon the subject of the war’s end was the film Deployment (Nástup, 1952), taking place after the war and starting with the arrival of the Red Army. In the meantime, war stories were told in the films The Trap (Past, 1950), The Little Partisan (Malý partyzán, 1950) and The Murderer’s Gorge (Mordová rokle, 1951) but none of them spoke of the war’s end or the post-war events. Only two of the collected 61 adaptations made in the years 1946–1955 thus showed the end of the war, which is almost identical to the situation after 1989, where the Revolution was referenced in one single adaptation. But in comparison with the 1990s, the contemporary adaptations also reflected on the time of oppression—with films after 1945 meaning the war itself—less often. The tendency of progress from depictions of earlier to later stages of the war is not observable in the contemporary adaptations—The Silent Barricade is a story from the end of the war; The Little Partisan, a film two years younger, is focused on its later stage, and The Trap and The Murderer’s Gorge, made in the same and the following year respectively, depict the year 1942. The question of if and since when the contemporary adaptations included the post-war topics remains. Besides the more historical stories

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(The Mischievous Bachelor—Nezbedný bakalář—1946, The Strike— Siréna—1947, Jan Roháč of Dubá—Jan Roháč z Dubé—1947 and more) of the years 1946–1948, the adaptations were defined mostly by universal plots without an explicit setting in a particular time. That included films such as The 13th Police Station (13. revír, 1946), A Dead Man Among the Living (Mrtvý mezi živými, 1946) or Presentiment (Předtucha, 1947); some of them referenced the pre-war tradition—The Last of the Mohicans (Poslední mohykán, 1947) as a new take on a subject already adapted in the film The Last Man (Poslední muž, 1934), or Tales by Čapek (Čapkovy povídky, 1947) and Krakatit (1948) as adaptations of the works of Karel Čapek who died in 1938. It is thus uncertain whether these can be taken as contemporary stories. The first explicit setting of a plot in the post-war present is found in the film Raptors (Dravci, 1947), where contemporary administrative institutions are openly mentioned. The film was released in the same year as the first up-to-date non-adaptation Don’t You Know of an Unoccupied Flat? So in this case there is no delay to speak of. The influx of current topics into adaptations and non-adaptations happened after 1948 almost analogically, the delay was only minimal—already since 1950, films like Karhan’s Team (Karhanova parta, 1950) and The Hen and the Sexton (Slepice a kostelník, 1950) were made, both being adaptations of new theatrical plays that incorporated collectivist and worker-focused topics. So the historical turning point, which the war’s end became, was depicted in the adaptations of the immediate post-war years less than in the non-adaptations, which marks an analogy with the representation of the Velvet Revolution in the 1990s. It does not seem that this is a result of a delay in the reflection of the current situation by adaptations compared to non-adaptations, since the delay in the introduction of current topics into both groups of films is almost imperceptible here. The limited reflection of historical changes in adaptations can thus be seen also as a more general trend.

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Conclusion Similarly to films based on original scripts, adaptations also adjust to the time of their making—be it through the selection of the work to be adapted or the actual creative realisation of the adaptation. The Velvet Revolution was an important historical turning point, and while the reflection of its events and symbolism can be expected in the adaptations of the 1990s, it is explicitly identifiable in only one. It was made apparent that the absence of this reflection was not caused by the lack of literary works depicting these events that were suitable for adaptation. A more probable cause seems to be a simple disinterest on the part of the adapters in depicting the Revolution, which might have several reasons. Firstly, there is the possibility of the effort to avoid the heroic discourse connected with the symbolism of the Revolution, which the adapters may have shared with literary authors. Secondly, as a more significant reason, I see the adapters’ need to deal with the past and the creative possibilities under new political circumstances, which steered them not only away from depictions of the Revolution but also the post-revolution topics. The third reason was revealed in a comparison with whether and how the adaptations and non-adaptation after May 1945 represented the end of World War II and the post-war reality. It turns out the limited reflection of a recent historical turning point in adaptations is not typical only for the 1990s and thus cannot be seen as particularly unusual. It was also revealed that adaptations tend to react belatedly to current events in comparison to non-adaptations. While at the turn of the 1940s and 1950s this delay was barely perceptible, it was rather distinct in the 1990s. The question of “why,” however, remains open for future research.

Notes 1. I worked with Josef Dubský’s Czech translation of Metz’s article, originally published in the book Essais sur la signification au Cinéma, Paris 1968. 2. The English translation of film titles is taken from the database of National Film Archive, Film Review (Filmový přehled, https://www.filmovyprehled.cz)

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3. Our translation. Unless otherwise specified, all subsequent quotes from sources written in Czech have been translated by the author of the article. 4. The film was released in Western cinemas with the title Looking for Lennon. (https://www.filmovyprehled.cz/cs/film/397699/nekde-­je­mozna-­hezky) 5. All statistical data were taken from the database of National Film Archive, Film Review (Filmový přehled, https://www.filmovyprehled.cz) 6. Hutcheon summarises the possible ways of looking at adaptations into a set of questions—what, who, why, how, when and where it is being adapted (Hutcheon 2006: XIV). 7. The description of the events (in an obviously simplified format) is based on the book by Jiří Suk, Labyrintem revoluce (Suk 2020). 8. Ringing their keys was one of the ways the participants of demonstration would express their discontent with the regime. According to Tomáš Vlček, it was supposed to mean “the last bell for the communist leaders of the time.” (Vlček, no date available). 9. “Laterna magika” is a theatre combining the live action of actors with multi-media projection. It is part of the National Theatre in Prague. 10. The nickname Hrabal gives to American bohemist April Gifford (Machala 2008: 409). 11. This term is used to collectively describe the years of communist regime of the 1970s and 1980s, which followed the violent suppression of reformative efforts in 1968. 12. According to Film Review (Filmový přehled): https://www.filmovyprehled.cz/cs/film/66053/sestra. 13. According to the web of Studio Marta: http://www.studiomarta.cz/ index.php?a=sezona-­2015/2016/sestra. 14. Author’s personal confession, originally published in 1934, became in its filmic form a story of a village priest set in the 1980s. 15. These are not exhaustive lists—I do not consider them necessary for this text. 16. The term transcultural adaptation is used by Linda Hutcheon to describe a type of adaptation where a transfer into a new cultural environment occurs—a different place or time—and this transfer influences the final form of the adaptation (Hutcheon 2006: 145–148). 17. It is fitting to mention that its depiction is surprisingly disillusioned for its time—a character of a major personality of the fallen regime remains unpunished in the new circumstances and shamelessly uses the political change to their benefit.

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References Cermanová, Anna. 2008. Polemiky na stránkách literárních časopisů 90. let 20. století—přehled a charakteristika [Controversies on the Pages of Literary Magazines of the 1990s—Overview and Characteristics (master thesis)]. Brno: Masarykova univerzita, Filozofická fakulta. https://is.muni. cz/th/p9h0u. Chatman, Seymour. 1980. Story and Discourse. Ithaca: Cornell University Press. Chatman, Seymour. 1990. Coming to Terms. The Rhetoric of Narrative in Fiction and Film. Ithaca: Cornell University Press. Filmový přehled [Film Review]. https://www.filmovyprehled.cz. Hruška, Petr. 2008. “Poezie.” In V souřadnicích volnosti. Česká literatura devadesátých let dvacátého století v interpretacích [Coordinates of Freedom: Czech Literature of the 1990s in Interpretations], 35–273. Praha: Academia. Hutcheon, Linda. 2006. A Theory of Adaptation. New York: Routledge. Janáček, Pavel. 2001. “Literatura ve znamení Théty. Literatura devadesátých let a revoluce” [Literature under the Sign of Theta. The Literature of the Nineties and the Revolution]. Tvar 12 (1): 1, 4–5. Kolář, Robert. 1990. “Zkouškové období. O novém filmu s režisérem Zdeňkem Troškou” [The Period of Examination. Interview with Director Zdeněk Troška about his new film]. Záběr 23 (15): 3. Krejčí, Oskar. 2019. Sametová revoluce [The Velvet Revolution]. Praha: Professional Publishing. Machala, Lubomír, Gilk, Erik, Kolářová, Jana, Malý, Radek, Pořízková, Lenka, Schneider, Jan. 2015. Panorama české literatury 2. Po roce 1989 [Panorama of Czech Literature 2. After 1989]. Praha: Euromedia group. Machala, Lubomír. 2008. “Próza.” In V souřadnicích volnosti. Česká literatura devadesátých let dvacátého století v interpretacích, 275–552. Praha: Academia. Metz, Christian. 1971. “Film—jazyk nebo řeč?” [Film—Language or Speech?]. In Film jako znakový system [Film as a Sign System], edited by Svoboda, Jan and Benešová, Marie, 49–123. Praha: ČFÚ. McFarlane, Brian. 1996. Novel to Film. An Introduction to the Theory of Adaptation. Oxford, New York: Oxford University Press. Saussure, Ferdinand de. 2011. Course in General Linguistics. New York: Columbia University Press. Suk, Jiří. 2020. Labyrintem revoluce. Aktéři, zápletky a křižovatky jedné politické krize [Through the Labyrinth of the Revolution. Actors, Plots and Crossroads of a Political Crisis]. Praha: Prostor.

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Vlček, Tomáš. Sametová revoluce 1989. Úterý 21. listopadu, situace v ulicích [Velvet Revolution 1989. Tuesday, November 21, 1989. The Situation on the Streets]. Totalita.cz. http://www.totalita.cz/1989/1989_1121_ul.php.

Cited Fiction (Original Title, Author, Year) Bernice Bobs Her Hair (Francis Scott Fitzgerald, 1920). Black Friday (Černý pátek, Otakar Chaloupka, 1992). Bringing Up Girls in Bohemia (Výchova dívek v Čechách, Michal Viewegh, 1994). Grannies (Babičky, Petr Šabach, 1998). How to Make a Boy (Jak se dělá chlapec, Ludvík Vaculík, 1993). Sister (Sestra, Jáchym Topol, 1994). The Immortal Story (Nesmrtelný příběh, Jiří Kratochvil, 1997). The Key Is Under the Doormat (Klíč je pod rohožkou, Vlastimil Třešňák, 1995). The Night Rehearsal (Noční zkouška, Antonín Máša, 1981). The November Hurricane (Listopadový uragán, Bohumil Hrabal, 1990). The Suffering of Prince Sternenhoch (Utrpení knížete Sternenhocha, Ladislav Klíma, 1928). The Wonderful Years That Sucked (Báječná léta pod psa, Michal Viewegh, 1992).

Cited Films (Original Title, Director, Year) 13th Police Station (13. revír, Martin Frič, 1946). A Big Case (Velký případ, Václav Kubásek, Josef Mach, 1946). A Dead Man Among the Living (Mrtvý mezi živými, Bořivoj Zeman, 1946). A Warning (Výstraha, Miroslav Cikán, 1953). America (Amerika, Vladimír Michálek, 1994). Angel Eyes (Andělské oči, Dušan Klein, 1993). Angel of Mercy (Anděl milosrdenství, Miloslav Luther, 1993). Big Beat (Šakalí léta, Jan Hřebejk, 1993). Boomerang (Bumerang, Hynek Bočan, 1996). Bringing Up Girls in Bohemia (Výchova dívek v Čechách, Petr Koliha, 1997). Closely Watched Trains (Ostře sledované vlaky, Jiří Menzel, 1966). Corpus Delicti (Corpus delicti, Irena Pavlásková, 1991). Cosy Dens (Pelíšky, Jan Hřebejk, 1999). Deployment (Nástup, Otakar Vávra, 1952). Discostory 2 (Discopříběh č. 2, Jaroslav Soukup, 1991).

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Don Gio (Don Gio, Šimon Caban, Michal Caban, 1992). Don’t You Know of an Unoccupied Flat? (Nevíte o bytě?, Bořivoj Zeman, 1947). Family Matters (Jen o rodinných záležitostech, Jiří Svoboda, 1990). Faust (Lekce Faust, Jan Švankmajer, 1994). Forgotten Light (Zapomenuté světlo, Vladimír Michálek, 1996). Golet in the Valley (Golet v údolí, Zeno Dostál, 1995). Hanele (Hanele, Karel Kachyňa, 1999). Horror Story (Krvavý román, Jaroslav Brabec, 1993). How to Earn a Princess (Jak si zasloužit princeznu, Jan Schmidt, 1994). In the Coat of Arms of a Lioness (V erbu lvice, Ludvík Ráža, 1994). In the Flames of Passion of Royal Love (V žáru královské lásky, Jan Němec, 1990). Indian Summer (Indiánské léto, Saša Gedeon, 1995). It’s Better to Be Wealthy and Healthy Than Poor and Ill (Lepšie byť bohatý a zdravý ako chudobný a chorý, Juraj Jakubisko, 1992). Jan Roháč of Dubá (Jan Roháč z Dubé, Vladimír Borský, 1947). Karhan’s Team (Karhanova parta, Zdeněk Hofbauer, 1950). King Ubu (Král Ubu, F. A. Brabec, 1996). Kolja (Kolja, Jan Svěrák, 1996). Krakatit (Krakatit, Otakar Vávra, 1948). Lenin, Lord, and Mother (Vracenky, Jan Schmidt, 1990). Men Without Wings (Muži bez křídel, František Čáp, 1946). Mr Habětín Is Leaving (Pan Habětín odchází, Václav Gajer, 1949). Nexus (Nexus, José Maria Forqué, 1993). Nobody Knows Anything (Nikdo nic neví, Josef Mach, 1947). Old Ironside (Železný dědek, Václav Kubásek, 1948). Operation B (Akce B, Josef Mach, 1951). Our Czech Song II (Ta naše písnička česká II, Vít Olmer, 1990). Perhaps Life Is Nice Somewhere (Někde je možná hezky, Milan Cieslar, 1991). Playgirls I, II (Playgirls I, II, Vít Olmer, 1995). Presentiment (Předtucha, Otakar Vávra, 1947). Raptors (Dravci, Jiří Weiss, 1947). Silent Pain (Tichá bolest, Martin Hollý, 1990). Smoke (Kouř, Tomáš Vorel, 1990). Strange Beings (Zvláštní bytosti, Fero Fenič, 1990). Sun, Hay and Erotic (Slunce, seno, erotika, Zdeněk Troška, 1991). Supermen (Nadlidé, Václav Wasserman, 1946). Sweet Decay (Vyžilý Boudník, Václav Křístek, 1990). Tales by Čapek (Čapkovy povídky, Martin Frič, 1947). The Beggar’s Opera (Žebrácká opera, Jiří Menzel, 1991).

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The Beginning of a Long Autumn (Začátek dlouhého podzimu, Peter Hledík, 1990). The Black Barons (Černí baroni, Zdenek Sirový, 1992). The Emperor’s New Clothes (Císařovy nové šaty, Juraj Herz, 1994). The Hen and the Sexton (Slepice a kostelník, Oldřich Lipský, Jan Strejček, 1950b). The Heroes Are Silent (Hrdinové mlčí, Miroslav Cikán, 1946). The Immortal Aunt (Nesmrtelná teta, Zdeněk Zelenka, 1993). The King of Colonnades (Král kolonád, Zeno Dostál, 1990). The Land Gone Wild (Zdivočelá země, Hynek Bočan, 1997). The Last Man (Poslední muž, Martin Frič, 1934). The Last of the Mohicans (Poslední mohykán, Vladimír Slavínský, 1947). The Life and Extraordinary Adventures of Private Ivan Chonkin (Život a neobyčejná dobrodružství vojáka Ivana Čonkina, Jiří Menzel, 1993). The Little Hotel in the Heart of Europe (Hotýlek v srdci Evropy, Milan Růžička, 1993). The Little Partisan (Malý partyzán, Pavel Blumenfeld, 1950). The Long Journey (Daleká cesta, Alfréd Radok, 1948). The Master of Ceremonies (Ceremoniář, Jiří Věrčák, 1996). The Melancholic Chicken (Kuře melancholik, Jaroslav Brabec, 1999). The Mischievous Bachelor (Nezbedný bakalář, Otakar Vávra, 1946). The Mountains Are Rumbling (V horách duní, Václav Kubásek, 1946). The Murderer’s Gorge (Mordová rokle, Jiří Slavíček, 1951). The Period of Examinations (Zkouškové období, Zdeněk Troška, 1990). The Silent Barricade (Němá barikáda, Otakar Vávra, 1948). The Strike (Siréna, Karel Steklý, 1947). The Tank Batallion (Tankový prapor, Vít Olmer, 1991). The Taste of Death (Jak chutná smrt, Milan Cieslar, 1995). The Trap (Past, Martin Frič, 1950). The Wonderful Years That Sucked (Báječná léta pod psa, Petr Nikolaev, 1997). Too Loud a Solitude (Příliš hlučná samota, Věra Cais, 1994). Vengeance Is Mine (Má je pomsta, Lordan Zafranovič, 1995). Were We Really Like This? (Byli jsme to my?, Antonín Máša, 1990). White Darkness (Bílá tma, František Čáp, 1948).

17 Comparing the Portrayal of the Fall of the Berlin Wall in Two Spanish Newspapers: A Multimodal Analysis Samira Allani and Silvia Molina-Plaza

Introduction The Berlin Wall was much more than a geographical border. On both sides, two ways of understanding politics, culture, ideologies and humanity itself were consolidated. On 9 November 1989, when it collapsed peacefully, Eastern Europe had to reinvent itself, and the West discovered that not everything was a gulag on the other side of the Iron Curtain. The ruins of the wall today form a scar that has something of a symbol: it is the wound left in history by the main totalitarianisms of the twentieth century. This insurmountable wall became the symbol of the Cold War. In addition to dividing Germany into two countries—the Federal Republic of Germany, or FRG (Western), and the German Democratic Republic, or GDR (Eastern)—it also split the world into two: the bloc of countries aligned with NATO (under the leadership of the United States)

S. Allani (*) • S. Molina-Plaza Universidad Politécnica, Madrid, Spain e-mail: [email protected]; [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 E. Wohl, E. Păcurar (eds.), Language of the Revolution, Palgrave Studies in Languages at War, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-37178-3_17

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and, respectively, with the Warsaw Pact (the Soviet Union and its satellite countries). Some 45 kilometres of wall separated East and West Berlin. The “anti-fascist wall” or the “peace wall,” according to the communists, and for others, the “wall of shame,” was raised so that those inside would not escape. Meanwhile, in Spain, a few days before the fall of the Berlin Wall, Felipe González was re-elected President of the Government of Spain, obtaining at the same time the third consecutive absolute majority for the Spanish Socialist Workers’ Party (PSOE). The fall of the Berlin Wall and the opening of a process of unity between the two Germanies was received without much enthusiasm at first. Indeed, the official position of the Spanish Ministry of Foreign Affairs was lukewarm and suspicious, as it was influenced by the criticisms of this process from London and Paris. However, the Spanish government began to distance itself somewhat from that position since, due to the historical circumstances of Spanish-­ German relations in the twentieth century, it was freer from past fears than its European counterparts. Indeed, Felipe González was the first head of government to congratulate German Chancellor H. Kohl after the opening of the borders. The Spanish President decided to openly support the process of German unity while remaining concerned about its repercussions on the process of European Unity and about Spain’s position in the European Economic Community (EEC). The favourable position of the Socialist Government was supported by the most sympathetic media publication, El País, as well as by intellectuals. The Spanish centre-right press, headed by the daily ABC, spread the key idea that Germany was being Europeanised while Europe was not being Germanised, so that the process of European unity remained unstoppable. The fall of the Berlin Wall was celebrated in the ABC as a positive symbol heralding a new epoch in history, since its disintegration—in the hands of the people—was a significant mark of the decline of communism. The purpose of this study is to analyse the front pages of two Spanish newspapers, El País and ABC, during the fall of the Berlin Wall. We adopt a multimodal social semiotic approach to examine how the news story was visually and rhetorically constructed and to compare the agendas of these two newspapers’ opposing editorial lines regarding the event in

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Berlin. Firstly, we give a brief overview of the social semiotic approach, more specifically in the study of language and text interactions, the scope of genre and rhetorical analysis in multimodal discourse. The next section presents details on the data and the methodology adopted for analysis. Finally, the subsequent sections inform on the findings and discuss them through some examples before presenting conclusions.

Theoretical Framework (a) Multimodal Social Semiotic Analysis of Front Pages The media coverage of the events that changed the fate of Germany and Europe forever in 1989 was notably massive and largely visible on newspapers’ front pages around the world. Front pages play an important role during disruptive times and their function is to “attract readers, inform them and set the reader’s agenda” (Pasternack and Utt 1986: 29). The design of front pages goes through a complex process, from story selections to headlines and photos, along with typographic decisions and graphic features. Bateman et  al. (2007) contend that the decisions on how to combine resources of layout and typographical emphasis reveal how newsworthy the newspaper considers the news in question. In order to be considered newsworthy, an event needs to satisfy some news value criteria, such as proximity, conflict, drama and personalisation (Mazzoleni and Schulz 1999). Furthermore, Álvarez-Peralta (2011) argues that front-­ page analysis provides a more direct lens on a newspaper’s editorial line than the newspaper’s editorials. Undeniably, daily newspapers have always been, and still in the digital era are, a key instrument for capturing public attention to local and international news. While media scholars have explored the dynamics shaping the production of the newspaper’s front page through content analytic methods, researchers within systemic functional semiotics focus on them as multimodal artefacts with integrated semiotic resources. Tan, O’Halloran and Wignell (2020, 268) define multimodality as a field “concerned with theory and analysis of semiotic resources and the semantic expansions which occur as semiotic choices combine in multimodal phenomena.”

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Multimodal discourse studies are concerned with the construction of meaning and draw on Halliday’s systemic functional theory. According to Halliday (1994), language serves to simultaneously construct three meanings: ideational, interpersonal and textual. One of the key principles of systemic functional social semiotics theory is its assumption that language belongs to an array of interrelated semiotic systems, which serve the function of meaning-making within social contexts (Unsworth 2006: 57). Kress (2012: 38) asserts that “language is just one among the many resources for making meaning. This implies that the modal resources available in a culture need to be seen as one coherent, integral field, of— nevertheless distinct—resources for making meaning.” He also states that “recognising the partiality of language entails that all modes in a multimodal ensemble are treated as contributing to the meaning of that ensemble; language is always a partial bearer of the meaning of textual/semiotic whole” (Kress 2012: 38). Kress and van Leeuwen (2006) establish a multidisciplinary framework for the analysis of multimodal texts, with the aim to provide “inventories of the major compositional structures which have become established as conventions in the course of the history of visual semiotics, and to analyse how they are used to produce meaning by contemporary image-makers” (Kress and van Leeuwen (2006: 1). Other theoretical models have equally advanced valuable insights into image-­ text interaction, by analysing how language and images combine to communicate meaning using automated analysis of text and image relations in large datasets (Bateman 2008; Martinec and Salway 2005; Unsworth 2006).

Multimodal Genre Analysis Genre theory has developed into a major concept in social semiotics (Martin 1992: 546). A genre consists of “a class of communicative events, the members of which share some set of communicative purposes” (Swales 1990: 58), hence providing grounds to explain and predict the structure of some linguistic product. However, from a multimodal discursive perspective, genres are social semiotic formations; that is, they are social constructions, which can also be viewed in terms of process rather

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than product. According to this view, genre presents a repertoire of generic strategies for constructing discourses and language users select and combine such strategies from the available stock (Bateman 2008; Martin 1992; Kress 1993). Van Leeuwen (2017) views a genre as “consisting of a series of stages the sequence of which realises a particular strategy for achieving an overall communicative goal” (678). Attention is, therefore, paid to “the system with respect to which such genres vary and the consequences for realization—in language, layout and graphics/images—that such variation gives rise to” (Bateman et al. 2007: 147). Based on these premises, Bateman (2008) introduces the GeM model (Genre and Multimodality), a framework in which he aims to “uncover just what multimodal documents are doing in their own terms, and not in the terms inherited from investigations of language” (15). The framework defines layers of description for multimodal documents, determines the constraints of the activity in which they appear and proceeds with their layered decomposition. Table 16.1 illustrates the main layers to account for in the analysis of multimodal artefacts. The present study particularly focuses on the analysis through decomposition of the content, rhetorical and layout structure of the Berlin wall coverage in the front pages of El País and ABC newspapers. Table 16.1  The primary layers of the genre and multimodality framework Content Structure Genre structure Rhetorical structure Linguistic structure Layout structure Navigation structure

The content-related structure of the information to be communicated—including propositional content The individual stages or phases defined for a given genre: i.e., how the delivery of the content proceeds through particular stages of activity The rhetorical relationships between content elements: i.e., how the content is “argued,” divided into main material and supporting material and structured rhetorically The linguistic details of any verbal elements that are used to realize the layout elements of the page/document The nature, appearance and position of communicative elements on the page, and their hierarchical interrelationships The ways in which the intended mode(s) of consumption of the document is/are supported: this includes all elements on a page that serve to direct or assist the reader’s consumption of the document

Source: Bateman (2008: 19)

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Multimodal Rhetorical Analysis Research concerned with the multimodal rhetoric of discourse has substantially grown in recent years and called for a verbal and visual integrated approach to the study of the effect of multimodal discourse constructions on the audience (Bezemer and Kress 2008; Kjeldsen 2015; Tseronis and Forceville 2017; van Leeuwen 2017). Rhetoric is “an exercise of justification that focuses on the relationship between arguments and audiences” (Zarefsky 2014: xvi), and hence, is concerned with the interpersonal level of discourse. Roland Barthes defines rhetoric as “a manual of recipes” and contends that it represents a privilege, “a social practice that permits the ruling classes to gain ownership of speech” (1994: 13). Some notable research studies in multimodal rhetoric related to news discourse are authored, for instance, by Kjeldsen (2017) who studies the rhetoric of press photography, Tseronis (2021) who focuses on magazine covers and Caple and Knox (2012) who examine news galleries. The analysis of rhetoric approached from social semiotic theory and multimodality draws mainly on contemporary theories of rhetoric, namely The New Rhetoric (Perelman and Olbrechts-Tyteca 1969) and concurring theories, such as pragma-dialectics (van Eemeren 2010), which put forward a central conception of audience viewed within a communicative social activity. Despite the rising interest in the rhetorical potential of visual texts, some scholars still view the verbal mode as the focus and the visual as a mere juxtaposition to the verbal (Tseronis 2018). Instead, and by integrating the multimodal approach, the interaction of the verbal and the visual mode, and the choices made are, in fact, the ones to be considered in the reconstruction of the discourse and its functions. Van Leeuwen (2017) argues that the “persuasive potential of images and of visual signifiers in general, the ‘image acts’ or ‘visual acts’ they can realise (‘problems’; ‘enticements’; ‘instructions’), has barely been studied” (680). He adds that speech acts and visual acts are the building blocks of genres, therefore, both rhetoric and social semiotics will benefit from further work in this area.

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Data and Method (a) The Data Our case study is concerned with how two Spanish newspapers covered the breaking news on the opening of borders in Berlin in November 1989. The focus is placed on the way the news is multimodally constructed on their front pages at the time the social upheaval was at its peak and the fall of the Berlin Wall became imminent. We take the front pages as the object of analysis in the El País and the ABC, the two most important national newspapers in Spain at the time of event. El País (lit. “The Country”) is a Spanish-language daily newspaper with a national and international scope. It was the first pro-democracy newspaper founded in 1976. Its ideology has always been defined as leaning towards social liberalism. Politically, it was situated in the centre-left during most of the transition. Visually, El País is characterised by its sobriety, in both its treatment of information and its aesthetics. Most pages contain five columns arranged in a neat, clear manner and photographs and graphics play a secondary, supporting role to the written word. ABC is a Spanish national daily newspaper known for supporting conservative political views, the Spanish Monarchy and a right-wing stance. It is one of the oldest newspapers still operating in Madrid. ABC publishes in compact-sized stapled sheets, noticeably smaller than the loose tabloid format favoured by most Spanish dailies.

Selection Criteria The criteria set for the selection of front pages in this case study rely mainly on the historical circumstances in which the fall of the Berlin Wall took place. First, facts about the most prominent and influential Spanish media channels are considered. El País and ABC are chosen because they were the top two national newspapers with the largest national circulations in the late 1980s. This is a highly significant fact in an era where mass media outlets had a hegemonic role over information transfer, hence much social and ideological power. Second, the dates of publication are

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limited to three days following the announcement of the opening of the borders in Berlin. The aim is to capture the news coverage of this historical event from the moment of its eruption with the mass flocking to climb over the Wall from both sides of Berlin on 9 November 1989 through to the national and international impact this had in the following three days. For each newspaper, three front pages are collected, and these were issued between 9 and 12 November 1989. The number is estimated adequate to sufficient for the aims of our comparative study.

Analytic Tools Drawing on the theories of social semiotics in the analysis of multimodal discourse, the present case study combines multimodality analytic tools of text-image realisations of meaning devised by Kress and van Leeuwen (2006), the GeM model framework offered by Bateman (2008) for layout analysis and tools from the theory of pragma-dialectics (van Eemeren 2010) for a systematic rhetorical inspection. We intend to focus on the diagnosis of a selection of layers in this specific genre of the breaking news story and its construction in front pages and the characterisation of the rhetorical strategies employed in the two newspapers. The analysis sets off with the content structure and the layout structure of front pages, hence the nature, composition and position of the communicative elements on the page, and their hierarchical interrelationships (see Table 16.1). The assessment of the layout structure takes the newspaper page as a single unit and is guided by the following three steps put forward by Bateman, Delin and Henschel (2007, 157): 1. Working visually from the page, decomposing the objects on the page in terms of their visual unity and relative mobility/independence 2. Transforming the page decomposition into a hierarchical structure, by seeing which collections of layout units group together and form components of larger visual elements 3. Specifying presentation information for units: for example, font size, type, colour, image type and resolution

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After capturing the basic information in each unit of analysis, we look at its composition to determine how different levels of meaning, specifically the representational and the interpersonal, are conveyed. We apply the principles of composition proposed by Kress and van Leeuwen (2006) in their analysis of multimodal documents as integrated texts (177). These are: 1. Information value. The placement of elements and the specific informational values they are endowed 2. Salience. The degree to which elements are made to attract the viewer’s attention 3. Framing. The presence or absence of framing devices disconnects or connects elements of the image, signifying that they belong or do not belong together in some sense For the rhetorical analysis, we draw on the theory of pragma-dialectics (van Eemeren 2010) and adopt its notion of strategic manoeuvring to examine how the interplay of image and verbal text on the front pages amounts to instances of rhetorical moves (Tseronis 2017, 10). Strategic manoeuvring refers to the move(s) adopted in a communicative activity for the purpose of effective impact on the audience (van Eemeren 2010). The realisation of strategic manoeuvres is determined at three levels: (1) the choice of topic, (2) the adaptation to audience and (3) the use of impactful presentational devices. We adhere to Tseronis’ argument against the division of functions between the verbal and the visual modes in constructing arguments in the multimodal discourse (Tseronis 2018). We also share his belief that pragma-dialectics as a theory of argumentation analysis is well suited for the rhetorical analysis of multimodal text. The pragma-dialectical theory views argumentation as a communicative activity and integrates rhetoric into its analysis of discourse. Hence, the analysis of front pages in this study attempts to determine how choices made from the affordances of the various modes employed, image and language contribute to the construction of interpersonal meaning through these rhetorical strategies.

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Analysis and Discussion (a) Layout Structure in Front Pages The comparative study of the construction and positioning of the Berlin Wall news stories in the front pages of El País and ABC newspapers initiated with layout and content analysis. We segmented each page-­ based multimodal text and determined how the news story under focus is presented and positioned and how spatial organisation of elements in the layout may indicate meaning choices. We further examined the elements of composition where the set of items making up the news story in Germany was measured in terms of its proportion to the entire front page. The aim is to reveal the nature of the information value allocated to the fall of the Wall in Berlin, its degree of salience and whether its framing was made prominent or not. Figure 16.1 shows the segmentation of the front page of El País in terms of meaningful units, which help define the elements’ relationship

Fig. 16.1  An example of an original and a segmented front page in El País

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and hierarchy. On the left, we see the original front page prior to analysis, showing a noticeable coverage of the story on the Berlin Wall. On the right, the segmented page displays the different units arranged in the layout, while our news story is highlighted with colour. The top unit or grid is reserved to the nameplate, nowadays referred to as masthead, which features the name of the newspaper, its visual identity and useful data for the issue identification. Other units in the grid come near the margins on the right towards the bottom, each in the shape of an isolated small space acting as sneak previews of the news reports covered inside the newspaper edition. The units under focus, with the lead story on the breaking news about the fall of the Wall, take up a considerably high-level information value in the page. Indeed, they extend on the top from left to right, with the headline, drophead and lead, then in the centre with a picture followed underneath by the story body. The placement of the elements on an extended central position endows them with the specific values attached to the various zones of the image (Kress and van Leeuwen 2006), hence the headline and related units are granted the “ideal” position (as opposed to the “real” at the bottom section) making them the most important or the essence of the information and perhaps the most salient too. The headline reads: “The Berlin wall disappears, the last symbol of the Cold War,” placing emphasis, therefore, on the immense significance of the events in Germany for the world. In terms of salience, the news story fills over two-thirds of the page surface, half of which being the image placed in the middle of the story unit grids. The image, a photograph attuned to the headline, portrays the barbed wire fence, which, like the Wall, stood for over 28 years as a symbol of the atrocious division and deprivation of Germans. On the left, the distinguishable Brandenburg Gate is placed as “given” information and the warning sign at the right as “new,” bringing into focus the, until then, harsh reality of East Germans and the hard to forget years of sufferance and deprivation they endured. On the same day, 10 November, the ABC equally reported the crucial international news on Germany but not only did it place it in the forefront, but also in a dramatic and more focused manner, where no other news, national or international, seem to require such full attention. Figure 16.2 illustrates the original (left) and the segmented (right) front

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Fig. 16.2  An example of an original and a segmented front page in ABC

page of the ABC into basic units, in which the space covered by our news story is colour highlighted, making clear the total and exclusive surface dedicated to the fall of the Berlin Wall on the front page. The layout arrangement reveals the sharply made choices of composition in which the headline reading “the Berlin Wall has fallen” is placed on the top left, making it an “ideal” revelation, and adding a touch of drama and momentum to the already momentous historical event. The image, a photograph of the Wall, settles on the entire page space giving the news story an absolute and privileged value, by making it the unique story worth telling on the front page. This preferential allocation intrinsically gives the highest salience possible with a heavy visual weight of the wall, which is seen from a low angle to accentuate its power and hostile presence. The remaining units belonging to the same set in the layout, such as the headline and the lead, are superposed on the image, with no framing, blurring any kind of division and hence, integrating the different elements and modes into a single visual unit. Even the nameplate is blended in the same way into the image yielding more salience and adding further visual weight. The layout analysis has therefore allowed us to characterise each front page in terms of how elements provide meaningful distinctions via layout. The principles of composition assisted in capturing the visual clustering and how the placement of elements and their grouping help reveal the selective editorial choices of the newspapers and the ideological stance

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they take on critical political and international matters. Table 16.2 reports the findings on the layout analysis of the three front pages of El País and their construction of the fall of the Berlin Wall through composition. Despite some minor differences between the three front pages, their similarity in layout structure is distinctive. The amount of layout allocated to our news story is comparable within the sample, with similar, slightly above average position in terms of hierarchy within the layout. Salience is enhanced with a photograph in a similar manner adopting heavy framing against other news stories or elements with a tendency to move from top to bottom. The latter is interpreted in terms of information value as moving from the “ideal,” the breaking news announcing the beginning of the end for East Germany, to the “real” downward in the text body, going through details about the opening of the wall and the demands for Germany reunification that were growing louder. Table 16.2  Analysis of the Berlin Wall news stories in El País front pages Front page (FP) FP1

FP2

FP3

Information value

Salience

Framing

Top IDEAL 60% of total − Weak framing: internally Left to right space between related units of the GIVEN: -selfPhoto—position news story evident to NEW − Strong framing: externally the event against other layout units— disconnection through lines − Column grid design Left GIVEN Top 50% of total − Weak framing: internally to bottom space between related units of the From IDEAL to Photo—position news story REAL − Strong framing: externally against other layout units—disconnection through lines − Column grid design Right/ top to 40% of total − Weak framing: internally bottom NEW space between related units of the from IDEAL (gist Photo—position news story in photo) to − Strong framing: externally REAL (details in against other layout units— body) disconnection through lines − Column grid design

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The layout structures of the ABC front pages come across as strikingly different even before implementing composition analysis. The Berlin Wall and the opening of the borders was the one and only news story worth telling for the right-leaning, conservative newspaper and their way of. The front-page composition analysis (Table 16.3) shows how big the breaking story was for the ABC as it takes up the entire layout space, or almost so, equally in the three issues, leaving any other national or international news story out of sight. Additionally, the layout allocates heavy weight to impactful, big size photographs, covering, in two cases, the entire layout space. One of them places the accent on the oppressive nature of the communist regimes by showing the actual Berlin Wall in an exaggerated angle and size, and the second features a close-up shot of a Berliner holding a hammer and discharging his rage against the wall. In the construction of their Berlin stories in their front pages, the two newspapers seem to have followed different paths, which, based on the layout structure choices afforded within the genre, can clearly delineate different ideological agendas. El País constructed the story from an outsider vantage point, and despite the magnitude of its impact on world Table 16.3  Analysis of the Berlin Wall news stories in ABC front pages Front Page (FP) FP1

FP2

FP3

Information value

Salience

Framing

Top to bottom (IDEAL: the impact/REAL the Gate in the photo) Right NEW: the wall from low angle shot made look huge Top to bottom (IDEAL: the gist in the headline and lead/REAL: the report in columns Centre. Image is nucleus Top to bottom IDEAL: close-up image of Berliner destroying the wall

100% of total space Photo: overruling layer

− No framing − Modular grid design − Blended layout layers − Continuity/unified layout space

90% of total space Headline: -photo

− Internal framing with white space − Column grid design

90% of total space Photo

− No framing − Modular grid design − Blended layout layers − Continuity/unified layout space

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politics, the event in Berlin shares space with other news stories, hence is not granted exclusiveness in the layout surface. In two of the three cases, the images bear witness to the atmosphere in Belin, showing Berliners climbing the Brandenburg Gate celebrating their victory against years of repression. The ABC, on the other hand, focuses on the physical symbols of the ideological divide between the free West and the tyrannical East. Indeed, the giant image of the Wall evoking the iron curtain and the angry Berliner (as individual) picking the wall both embody the ideological and physical divide of Western and Eastern Europe. The elements made salient in the front pages do not construct the Berliners, as a community, gathering and celebrating. While they fail to show the German people enacting their revolution, they visually validate the story as evidence of the failure of the Soviet Union and the victory of the West; the West construed as “us,” making the victory inclusive of Spain and the free West.

Rhetorical Structure Analysis The analysis of the strategic manoeuvring in the front pages in our data yielded valuable insights about the editorial decisions made by the two Spanish news organisations when reporting the news on Germany and about their perspectives and the construction of the current affairs for them and their readerships. Here we take an example from each data set and discuss how the elements of the Berlin story are put together in a way that performs a specific communicative act. We examine the discourse moves and their manifestation as strategic manoeuvring at the levels of presentational devices, audience demands and topical potential, as conceived by van Eemeren (2010). The example we first discuss is drawn from the ABC data set. This is the front page issued the day after the government officials announced the opening of the borders, which resulted in a growing crush of Berliners towards the Wall. In this example, as shown in Fig. 16.3, the Berlin news story takes almost the entire surface of the front page, in which a photograph of the Wall near the Brandenburg Gate is made to seem even bigger with a wide-angle lens, and a headline saying: “Cae el muro de Berlin”

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Fig. 16.3  The ABC front page on 10 November 1989

(the Berlin Wall has fallen). This is followed by a lead that informs on the opening of the borders and its expected consequences. The two modes, the visual and the verbal, work together to create a paradox. This powerful rhetorical figure, commonly used to convey contradictory, yet true statements, is conceived by juxtaposing the visual heavy presence of the iconic symbol of division, the wall, against the verbal statement of its fall. No matter how strong and unbeatable the Wall seems, it has now fallen. This strategic move creates a compelling declamatory effect. Declamation is a rhetorical performance, a piece of display oratory that is expressed with intensity, passion and bluster,

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consisting essentially of dramatic monologues, and requiring the skills of an actor (Pullman n.d.). Based on these assumptions, one can discern the fully fledged rhetorical strategy being followed here, as the manoeuvrings in the message converge with respect to topical potential, audience demand and presentational devices. At the level of topic potential, the rhetorical move is that of Kairos, which consists in “seizing the critical, opportune moment” (Liddell and Scott 1996) to make a statement on the collapse of the enemy’s iron curtain and the triumph of freedom. This chosen topic is presented with the highest drama possible, paradox and declamation as powerful presentational means, and is not only geared to the audience common grounds, their cherishing of freedom and loathing of oppression, but also meant to stir up their support to the anti-­ communist stance and the reinforcements of their political and social values aligning with the Spanish right-wing liberal conservatism. This manoeuvring creates the perfect epideictic rhetoric, also known as demonstrative rhetoric, designed to condemn or eulogise, which appeals, as Kjeldsen (2000: 29) argues “particularly suited to uniting recipients around views, attitudes and feeling that are already shared.” While the ABC front pages seem to find the event in Berlin a timely moment to put their ideological values in the spotlight, El País sets up a distinct rhetorical structure in their front pages upon the breaking of the news on Berlin. Figure  16.4 is a front page we take as an example to describe the rhetorical moves identified and their role in constructing different levels of meaning. The Berlin story takes a prominent position on the front pages. While it is far from being an exclusive position as the one allocated for in the ABC front pages, the salience of the visual text grants it the character of a lead story. Indeed, a photograph displays a frontal view of the Berliners standing on the Brandenburg Gate celebrating the historical moment. Above the picture, the headline informs on the call for prudence by the chancellor of West Germany, Helmut Kohl, preceded by a drophead saying: “Vértigo histórico en Europa Oriental” (Historical vertigo/frenzy in Eastern Europe). Choosing the term “vertigo,” or the feeling of dizziness, seems to interplay with the visual representation of Berliners on the Gate and to induce a particular strategic manoeuvre. “Vertigo in Eastern Europe” in the verbal text is likely interpreted as “the frantic pace” or the hustle and bustle

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Fig. 16.4  El País front page on 11 November 1989

provoked by the opening of the borders in Berlin. This figurative meaning is visually confronted with the people hanging on top of the Gate, construing, therefore, a literal meaning to “vertigo,” as a sensation of feeling off balance when standing on top of a tall building. This strategic manoeuvre is intended to create a metaphor out of the double coding of “vertigo” in the visual and verbal text. The frenzy situation generated in Eastern Europe is vertigo, a state of dizziness from heights. This is a case of a “verbo–visually conveyed” metaphor, as classified by Tseronis (2021: 382). The vertigo and the loss of balance signal the hard to handle chaotic

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situation in East Berlin where citizens flocked to the borders and to West Berlin to join the celebration. Focusing on the atmosphere in Berlin and on the Berliners’ reactions by exploiting the two semiotic resources afforded by this news genre is an obvious strategic manoeuvring at the topical level, which puts the German people at the heart of the issue. The news story is rhetorically structured in a way that places emphasis on the Germans in their collective mobilisation against oppression. It frames sympathy towards the people’s protests and a high degree of solidarity with them by telling their stories and experiences and immersing the audience visually and verbally in the revolutionary atmosphere. It sustains the narrative on the revolution with the visual presence of the people and a closer look at their exhilaration and their celebration of the end of the division in Germany and that of the Cold War. The Berlin Wall story takes different rhetorical paths on the front pages of the two Spanish newspapers. The strategically manoeuvred choices of topic, figures and the adaptation to audience highly leave evidence of the nature of ideological backdrop of each of the news institutions and the motivations behind contemplating an aspect of the issue and ignoring another. Perelman and Olbrechts-Tyteca (1969) rightly emphasise that from the very fact that certain elements are selected, “their importance and pertinence to the discussion are implied” (119). Endowing elements with a “presence” or deliberately suppressing presence is a significant phenomenon of choice. The multimodal analysis of rhetoric has provided further insight about the stances of the two Spanish institutions regarding the events in Germany and the nature of the ideological agendas behind their strategic choices. The conservative ABC places less emphasis on narrating the story of Germans while living through their major historical moment and more focus on rejoicing the failure of communism. This is realised through symbolism, the Wall, where anti-communism as a fundamental political value in the Spanish right-wing ideology is reinforced. El País, on the other hand, likely driven by concerns for those persecuted and for their strive for freedom, focuses on the Germans in their protests and their role as active social actors and as key elements in the denouement of their revolution.

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Conclusions The study of the multimodal structure of the front pages of El País and ABC has allowed us to contrast the strategies adopted by two newspapers of opposing editorial lines their manner of bringing news on the Fall of the Wall at the crucial time of the breaking news on Berlin. The analysis focused on three front pages from each news organisation and examined the content and layout, and the rhetorical structures revealing of distinct editorial choices and the possible ideological backdrop behind these choice decisions. Taking a multimodal social semiotic approach as a starting point, the study followed the GeM model developed by Bateman and his systematic analysis of layout in decomposing the front pages and elucidating divergent editorial decisions on the positioning of the Berlin news story. Kress and van Leeuwen’s principles of visual composition helped take the analysis a step further to look at the levels of meanings conveyed through the particular choices of visual elements. We could discern high divergence in terms of the value and salience allocated to the story and its framing within the layout. The analysis finally attends to the rhetorical structure in the front pages by using the notion of strategic manoeuvring from the theory of pragma-dialectics to reveal that while conservative ABC finds the event a perfect opportunity to underpin its antagonism towards communism as a core value in right-wing leaning political stances, El País, nevertheless, seems to focus on the German people while visually anchoring the euphoric moment of the events they were undergoing, a rhetorical strategy that aligns with its social liberal and progressive posture.

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 ppendix 1: Data: The ABC Front Pages A and Decomposition

ABC front page (9/11/1989). Right: Decomposition: Berlin Wall highlighted

Left ABC front page (10/11/1989). Right: Decomposition: Berlin Wall highlighted

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Left ABC front page (11/11/1989). Right: Decomposition: Berlin Wall highlighted

 ppendix 2: Data: El País Front Pages A and Decomposition

El País front page (10/11/1989). Right: Decomposition: Berlin Wall highlighted

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El País front page (11/11/1989). Right: Decomposition: Berlin Wall highlighted

El País front page (12/11/1989). Right: Decomposition: Berlin Wall highlighted

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References Álvarez-Peralta, Miguel. 2011. “Popularization of the Scientific Knowledge about the Economic Crisis in the Spanish Mass Media: Trends, Inaccuracies and Omissions in the Documentation Process of Press Discourse on Economics.” The International Journal of Science in Society (2): 203–218. Barthes, Roland. 1994. The Old Rhetoric: An Aide-Mémoire. The Semiotic Challenge. Translated by Richard Howard. Berkeley: University of California Press. Bateman, John. 2008. Multimodality and Genre: A Foundation for The Systematic Analysis of Multimodal Documents. NY: Palgrave Macmillan. Bateman, John, Delin, Judy, & Henschel, Renate. 2007. “Mapping the Multimodal Genres of Traditional and Electronic Newspapers.” In New Directions in the Analysis of Multimodal Discourse, edited by Terry Royce and Wendy Bowcher, 147–172. New Jersey: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates. Bezemer, Jeff and Kress, Gunther. (2008). “Writing in Multimodal Texts: A Social Semiotic Account of Designs for Learning.” Written Communication 25(2): 166–195. Caple, Helen and Knox, John S. (2012). “Online News Galleries, Photojournalism and the Photo Essay.” Visual Communication 11(2): 207–236. Halliday, Michael A. K. 1994. An Introduction to Functional Grammar. London: Edward Arnold Kjeldsen, Jens E. 2000. “Visuel Politisk Epideiktik.” Rhetorica Scandinavica, (14): 18–31. Kjeldsen, Jens E. 2015. “The Study of Visual and Multimodal Argumentation.” Argumentation (29): 115–132. Kjeldsen, Jens E. 2017. “The Rhetorical and Argumentative Potentials of Press Photography.” In Multimodal Argumentation and Rhetoric in Media Genre, edited by Charles Forceville and Assimakis Tseronis, 51–79. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Kress, Gunther. 1993. “Genre as Social Practice.” In The Power of Literacy: A Genre Approach to Writing, edited by Bill Cope and Mary Kalantzis, 22–37. London: Falmer Press. Kress, Gunther. 2012. “Multimodal discourse analysis.” In The Routledge Handbook of Discourse Analysis, edited by James Paul Gee and Michael Handford, 35–50. New York: Routledge. Kress, Gunther and Van Leeuwen, Theo. 2006. Reading Images: The Grammar of Visual Design (second edition). London: Routledge. Liddell, Henry G. and Scott, Robert. 1996. A Greek-English Lexicon. Oxford: Clarendon Press.

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Martin, James. 1992. English Text: System and Structure. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Martinec, Rodan and Salway, Andrew. 2005. “A System for Image–Text Relations in New (and Old) Media.” Visual Communication 4(3): 337–371. Mazzoleni, Gianpietro and Schulz Winfried. 1999. “‘Mediatization’ of Politics: A Challenge for Democracy?” Political Communication 16(3): 247–261. Pasternack, Steve and Utt, Sandra H. 1986. “Subject Perception of Newspaper Characteristics Based on Front Page Design.” Newspaper Research Journal 8(1): 29–35. Perelman, Chaim and Olbrechts-Tyteca, Lucie. 1969. The New Rhetoric: A Treatise on Argumentation. Translated by John Wilkinson and Purcell Weaver. Notre Dame Ind: University of Notre Dame Press. Pullman, Georges. n.d. “Declamation”. Accessed June 3, 2021. https://www. gpullman.com/8170/declamation.php. Swales, John M. 1990. Genre Analysis: English in Academic and Research Settings. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Tan, Sabine, O’Halloran Kay, & Wignel, Peter. 2020. “Multimodality.” In The Cambridge Handbook of Discourse Studies, edited by Anna De Fina, 263–281. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Tseronis, Assimakis. 2017. “Analysing Multimodal Argumentation within the Pragma- Dialectical Framework: Strategic Manoeuvring in the Front Covers of The Economist.” In Contextualizing Pragma-Dialectics, edited by Frans H. van Eemeren and Peng Wu, 335–359. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Tseronis, Assimakis. 2018. “Multimodal Argumentation: Beyond the Verbal/ Visual Divide.” Semiotica (220): 41–67. Tseronis, Assimakis. 2021. “From Visual Rhetoric to Multimodal Argumentation: Exploring the Rhetorical and Argumentative Relevance of Multimodal Figures on the Covers of The Economist.” Visual Communication 20(3): 374–396. Tseronis, Assimakis and Forceville, Charles. 2017. Multimodal Argumentation and Rhetoric in Media Genres. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Unsworth, Len. 2006. “Towards a Metalanguage for Multiliteracies Education: Describing the Meaning-Making Resources of Language-Image Interaction.” English Teaching Practice (5–1): 55–76. Van Eemeren, Frans H. 2010. Strategic Maneuvering in Argumentative Discourse: Extending the Pragma-Dialectical Theory of Argumentation. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.

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Van Leeuwen, Theo. 2017. “Rhetoric and Semiotics.” In The Oxford Handbook of Rhetorical Studies, edited by Michael, J. MacDonald, 673–682. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Zarefsky, David. 2014. Rhetorical Perspectives on Argumentation: Selected Essays by David Zarefsky. Cham: Springer.

18 Borghesia and Laibach Against the Socialist Regime of Yugoslavia: Insights from a Socio-Linguistic Analysis Mitja Stefancic

Introduction This contribution aims to highlight the role of two musical groups that had a substantial cultural, intellectual and political impact in Slovenia, former Yugoslavia and elsewhere during the 1980s—namely, Laibach and Borghesia. These bands started their musical career and performed their shows in the cities of former Yugoslavia in a socio-political context, which was destined to come to an end for several reasons. During the 1980s, both external and internal economic imbalances, coupled with significant regional disparities and growing inflation, resulted in a situation which was no longer accepted by some constituent republics, especially the wealthier ones (Štefančič 2012; Yarashevich and Karneyeva 2013). The political dissolution was accelerated by Yugoslavia’s relatively poor economic performance during the 1980s with a deepening financial crisis

M. Stefancic (*) Independent Researcher, Trieste, Italy © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 E. Wohl, E. Păcurar (eds.), Language of the Revolution, Palgrave Studies in Languages at War, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-37178-3_18

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(Cvikl and Mrak 1996; Dallago and Uvalic 1998) as well as by the collapse of the former Soviet Union and the “Eastern Bloc,” meaning that the utopian dreams of a communist paradise had come to an end. After the death of Marshall Josip Broz Tito on 4 May 1980, there was a sharp return to nationalisms and a popular call for stronger ethnic identities in former Yugoslavia (Ognyanova-Krivoshieva 2005; Horowitz and Ye 2013). The rise of nationalism happened among the intellectuals as well as among the wider population which preserved memories of past nationalist conflicts (Vladisavljević 2010). Moreover, there are certainly substantial political reasons and diplomatic responsibilities behind the dissolution of Yugoslavia: among them, the failure of the international community to provide timely support for the social and economic reforms in the country, and the unpreparedness of the major European states (in particular Germany) to accompany Yugoslavia’s transition by adequately cooperating with this country and favouring its internal reorganisation and federal restructuring (Libal 1997: 4–5; Lucarelli 2000; Lane 2004). In such a context, politically and culturally engaged artists and musicians played a fundamental role in promoting a discourse against the socialist State in former Yugoslavia. The first albums and videos by Borghesia and Laibach and their live shows at that time are nowadays recognised for their anticipatory interpretation of the country’s break-up. Indeed, during the 1980s, both bands challenged the status quo of the Yugoslavian Socialist regime by advancing a critique of the political establishment and envisaging a different society. For this reason, Laibach was, for instance, banned from performing live in Slovenia and Croatia, and had to use Malevich’s cross on posters advertising live shows instead of the band’s name. Similarly, other independent Slovenian bands such as Borghesia used a provocative, challenging language and chose either German or Italian names that were viewed very negatively by the Yugoslav authorities in that period (this is precisely why Laibach had to use the symbols of a cross to advertise their secret concerts in Ljubljana and its outskirts). Due to the kind of performances they enacted, but also due to the language used in their lyrics, manifestos and interviews, Laibach and, to a lower degree, Borghesia, were both subjected to State censorship during the 1980s: their

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first live shows were banned (e.g. Laibach’s concerts were formally banned from 1983 to 1987) and artists who were close to the bands or more or less directly involved in setting an alternative cultural scene were threatened with detention (Gržinić 2002: 77). Nevertheless, they managed to overcome it and get adequate attention at a local, national and international level. The objective of the present paper is to provide some answers to the following questions: What was Borghesia’s and Laibach’s attitude towards the post-Tito socialist regime in former Yugoslavia, and does such an attitude emerge from the lyrics of their songs? What does a linguistic evaluation of the various songs published by Borghesia and Laibach in their respective albums from the 1980s period tell us about their opposition to socialist authorities and the alternative cultural milieu in Slovenia in the 1980s? This chapter is structured as follows. The first section introduces the bands focusing on the early years of their careers and on some remarkable controversies in the 1980s. The next section provides an analysis of the names of these two ensembles, trying to find the reasons why they were looked at with strong suspicion by the authorities. Subsequently, the paper focuses on Borghesia’s challenging poetics and on the provocative lyrics and messages of Laibach with reference to some songs. It then discusses the main concepts/themes and the style adopted by the bands in some well-known interviews during the 1980s and in speeches that took place before the civil war in Yugoslavia. The last section draws some interesting conclusions.

Introducing the Bands The members of the bands Laibach and Borghesia started their musical and performative careers in 1980 and 1982, respectively, constituting two multimedia bands, which engaged not only in music and musical production of different genres (industrial, early electronic music, alternative pop, new wave etc.), but also in the production of video-art, conceptual shows with video backgrounds and symbolic performances. Since these two bands started playing, they gained attention and popularity on Ljubljana’s alternative musical scene and, by and large, in Slovenia.1 This musical scene, ranging from punk to electronic and (post)industrial

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music, comprised other influential ensembles such as Demo pakt, Indust-­ bag, Kuga, Kuzle, Lublanski psi, Neodvisni sindikat, Niet, O!Kult, Otroci socializma, Pankrti, Via ofenziva and Videosex. Borghesia and Laibach were arguably the most influential among them. In fact, it is no coincidence that they remain active to this day. Borghesia is an electronic music group created in 1982 by Aldo Ivančič and Dario Seraval who were members of the alternative theatre group FV-112/15.2 Along with Dario Seraval and Aldo Ivančič, Zemira Alajbegović, Goran Devide and Neven Korda were Borghesia’s founding members. Borghesia gained popularity as a multimedia group putting on concerts, musical and visual performances, and recording videos, music videos, records and cassettes. Based in Ljubljana, the band managed to launch an activist movement and turn sexual issues and sexual freedom into important political issues by challenging established social norms, thereby becoming an important part of the New Slovenian Art scene in the 1980s (Valetič 2020; Savič 2021: 3). From the onset, Borghesia conceived themselves as an open experiment within a politically libertarian framework (Eder 2019)—a project that its members also continued to pursue later on. An equally notable ensemble is the collective group called Laibach— perhaps still the most successful musical band from the area of former Yugoslavia and “cultural export” considering the last four decades (Bell 2011: 609; Bell 2020). According to authors such as Ramet (2009), Benko (2021) and Šentevska (2022), the group had been dogged with controversy since the outset, prompting significant responses from the political authorities in former Yugoslavia, particularly in the Socialist Republic of Slovenia. Laibach members, who frequently performed under pseudonyms such as Dachauer, Keller, Saliger and Eber, were intimidated and treated with suspicion both by the authorities and conservative citizens. According to Benko, both Laibach and Borghesia were under surveillance by the authorities in former Yugoslavia (2021: 256). Nevertheless, the bands did not give up; instead, they managed to continue their artistic and musical careers. They became highly influential on the musical and cultural scene of Slovenia: “In particular in the 1980s and in the first half of the 1990s, Laibach strongly influenced the cultural and political scene in Slovenia and made a name for themselves abroad to become one of the most well-known brands of all times” (Jerman 2020: 8). The same also

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holds true for Borghesia. An important element which helps explain the survival of Borghesia and Laibach despite the efforts of State censorship to silence them, their growing cultural influence at that time and their subsequent commercial success, lies in the fact that both bands signed contracts with foreign labels which allowed them to release and promote records that could not be easily distributed in former Yugoslavia. In fact, from 1985 to 1990 Borghesia released albums with the Italian record company Materiali Sonori and, afterwards, with the Belgian label Play It Again Sam (also known by the acronym PIAS). Similarly, Laibach’s international success started with the album Nova Akropola released in 1986 by the London-based Cherry Red Records and grew when the well- known British Mute Records signed them and released their 1987 album Opus Dei. Paraphrasing Irena Šentevska, it can be suggested that in over 40 years of existence, which coincided with the economic, political and cultural transition in the Central and Eastern European countries, Borghesia and Laibach have successfully gone from being a harsh, threatening voice on the Slovene alternative cultural scene under the socialist Yugoslav regime, to becoming independent Slovenia’s major cultural and musical exports (2022: 183). Both bands embarked on several tours across both Eastern and Western Europe and elsewhere, as, for instance, Laibach’s 1983 “Occupied Europe Tour” and the 1987 “No Fire Escape in Hell” and “Leben heisst Leben” world tour, or Borghesia’s international tour on which they embarked from 1987 to 1989 (Korda 1989), thereby becoming recognised by fans of alternative music, cultural theorists and contemporary intellectuals such as art critic Boris Groys, sociologist Rastko Močnik, cultural and media theorist Alexei Monroe and the influential philosopher Slavoj Žižek among others.

Provocative Names This analysis, which aims to shed light on the cultural and intellectual impact of Borghesia and Laibach with reference to their lyrics, projects and manifestos, needs to necessarily start by taking into account the names chosen by each band. In the early 1980s, the band names of Borghesia and Laibach were met with distrust both by the authorities and

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by the general public who had a more conservative view of arts and society. For example, in a letter published by the Slovene newspaper Delo, a reader signed as Marica Čepe wrote: “How is it possible that here in Ljubljana, the first city of heroes of Yugoslavia, a youth group has been allowed to take the name of Laibach that forcefully brings back dark memories?” (1982).3 As it will be explained in the next paragraph, the “dark memories” are referred to the German occupation during the Second World War. The role of the names chosen by these two groups can be nowadays interpreted in contrast to what happens in the contemporary musical industry, where the artists need to find a way to gain fame and generate profits. Starting their careers in socialist Yugoslavia in the 1980s, Borghesia and Laibach were not interested in making profits. Their appearance on the scene was influenced by social and political circumstances: they started as artists with a profound political vision and aesthetic sensitivity rather than musicians looking for fame or wealth. If anything, for Borghesia, and even more so for Laibach, visibility was an issue to be treated strategically rather than as a simple commercial objective. In what follows, we will analyse the reasons why the names of the bands caused tensions between the idealistic image of a free socialist State on the one hand, and what was perceived as undesirable or even unacceptable on the other hand. The name Borghesia comes from Italian: it means “bourgeoisie”—the middle class which, according to Marxist theories, possessed most of the wealth in capitalist society. On account of their inherited orthodox Marxist philosophy, socialist regimes did not view the term “bourgeois” favourably. The second example is that of Laibach. Precisely, Laibach is the German version of the name of Ljubljana, the capital of Slovenia. The choice of such a name was anything but neutral. In fact, it had clear political and ideological connotations. As it was recently noted by Motoh, “Laibach […] were considered most dangerous because of their deliberate allusions to the national-socialism, an act that went against the total prohibition of the Nazi symbols in post-war Yugoslavia. The name Laibach was already indicative, for they had chosen the name that was used for Ljubljana when the town was occupied by the Germans during the WWII” (2012: 288).

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The issues around the names of the two bands, together with the bands’ live shows, provoked immediate reactions by the authorities. As documented by Benko, “Laibach’s relations with the authorities were particularly lively. The group’s German name was deemed inappropriate by the presidency of the Ljubljana City Committee of the Socialist Alliance of Working People of Yugoslavia. The formal ban of all public appearances of the group under the name Laibach remained effective until February 1987” (2021: 256). Nevertheless, at the times of these major controversies, several well-established as well as young Slovenian intellectuals, among them Taras Kermauner, Tomaž Mastnak and Slavoj Žižek, showed appreciation for Laibach and other similar bands from Slovenia, which were able to take a radical political position against the establishment. Rather than publicly showing their support, they expressed it mainly in academic journals, in magazines aimed at an intellectual audience and in intellectual arenas. To quote the Slovenian essayist and translator Taras Kermauner, the band’s choice was politically daring and, at the same time, artistically successful, representing a powerful mix: “it would be impossible to imagine a more successful Dadaist step… The group’s name is their most successful poetic invention/idea” (Kermauner 1983: 1052–1053). The names Borghesia and Laibach clearly conveyed strong messages that could not be ignored or simply overlooked. In a society where freedom of expression and free arts exist, the choice of a name should not result in anyone taking a stance against it, or distancing themselves from it. However, that is exactly what happened with Laibach and, to a lesser extent, with Borghesia. In fact, at the time, the names of these two bands were perceived as disrespectful, inappropriate or even subversive by the authorities of former Yugoslavia. Under former Yugoslavia, Borghesia and Laibach challenged the status quo at a time when, following the death of Josip Broz Tito, the socialist regime lacked an authoritative and charismatic leadership. A state apparatus that no longer enjoyed the same level of popularity and appreciation as Tito’s regime was thus even more prone to becoming intolerant towards political and artistic movements that had the power to challenge it publicly. Borghesia and Laibach certainly did have such power, to the extent that, for a number of years, the members of the Laibach collective

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were banned from making live appearances using their chosen name. Despite being banned from performing across Yugoslavia, the group made a successful anonymous appearance at the Malči Belič Hall, Ljubljana, in December 1984—at a time when the ban on the name Laibach was still in place (Lorenčič 2022: 45).4 The message was clear: the band was not ready to stop and, possibly, could not be suppressed in the same ways as ideals cannot be suppressed (Štefančič 2012).

 he Poetic Yet Political Language(s) T of Borghesia and Laibach This section explores the major works by Borghesia and Laibach from their first decade of existence, from a conceptual and linguistic standpoint. The period under investigation is considered particularly prolific since the bands had not received full commercial success yet and also Slovenia would achieve its independence only in 1991, making this investigation particularly relevant today. For Borghesia, from a total of eight albums released in the 1980s, the following have been considered in the present study: Ljubav je hladnija od smrti (Love Is Colder than Death, 1985), Ogolelo mesto (Rugged City, 1988), Escorts and Models (1988) and Resistance (1989), whereas albums such as Clones (released in 1984) have not been considered since they only contain instrumental music to accompany videos. For Laibach, out of the five studio albums released by the ensemble between 1982 and 1991, the following albums have been analysed: the self-titled debut album Laibach (1985), Nova Akropola (1986) and Opus Dei (1987). Their albums Let It Be (1988) and Sympathy for the Devil (1989) have not been considered as they are respectively a sui generis cover of the Beatles’ 1970 album with the same title and an album of cover versions of songs by The Rolling Stones. The outcomes from the content analysis of Borghesia’s and Laibach’s songs are summarised in the next pages. In the cited albums, both Borghesia’s and Laibach’s lyrics are written in Slovenian, Serbo-Croatian and English language, whereas in some other songs Laibach use also Italian or German language for their lyrics. Their interpretation is not an

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easy task: both bands often made use of excerpts from speeches delivered by famous politicians, and they also used a “cut-and-paste” technique in their lyrics. This technique consisted of direct quotes and references from political discourses. The quotes and references were subsequently reinterpreted and placed in a new context, often by referencing the lyrics of other ensembles. In doing so, the two bands were able to question issues of copyright, authenticity and artistic authority. Generally speaking, their songs can be interpreted differently by different audiences, as some degree of interpretation is always granted when the songs are not ambiguous per se. Nevertheless, we will provide a list of concepts and ideas that are recurrent in the analysed albums by Borghesia and Laibach. Borghesia’s lyrics from the 1980s frequently touch upon the following themes: • Social conflict, social chaos and the possibility of self-governance (as in the song “Conflict” from the album Resistance) • Freedom as opposed to domination (throughout the album Ljubav je hladnija od smrti) • Resistance to oppression (political oppression; individual oppression, stereotypes, etc.) • Dreams, hopes and (lost) ideals or nihilism (as in some of the songs in the album Ogolelo mesto) • Rejection of the authorities On the other hand, the following themes are recurrent in Laibach’s analysed albums: • The state and the idea of a transnational state (an example being the song “How the West Has Won” from the album Opus Dei) • Unity, union and belongingness (present in the self-titled debut album as well as in Opus Dei) • War and themes related to military conflict (a theme running through Laibach, Nova Akropola and Opus Dei) • A critical appreciation of heroes and heroism (as in some of the songs released in the debut album, or the piece “Ti ki izzivaš”—“You who challenge” from Nova Akropola) • The (ab)use of power (a recurrent theme in the early works by Laibach)

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Since its very beginnings and throughout the 1980s, Laibach developed a challenging attitude towards the Yugoslav regime, its ideology and politics. This becomes clear when analysing their songs from the first half of the 1980s. Some examples will be provided in the next paragraphs. Arguably, the songs written and performed live by Laibach in the first half of the 1980s are often ambiguous, since they can be interpreted in a number of different ways, depending, for instance, on the context in which they were being released or on the circumstances under which they were performed. Indeed, Monroe (2003: 85) argues that in its lyrics, language, music and concerts, Laibach often simultaneously refers to different meanings, sources and references. In a context of political decline following the death of Marshall Tito, Laibach lyrics targeted the socialist regime that followed. This resulted in a complete displacement of the audience, which in part identified with some of the band’s ideas, symbols and statements, while at the same time taking distance from them due to their recontextualisation and reinterpretation into a new form/meaning. One of the most straightforward examples of Laibach’s dissent and tendency to provoke is the song “Cari amici soldati” (“Dear Soldier Friends,” titled in Italian and reminiscent of a speech by Italy’s defeated dictator Benito Mussolini or of fascist quotes such as “Quando si è forti si è cari agli amici e si è temuti dai nemici” (“When you are strong, you are loved by your friends and feared by your enemies”). “Cari amici soldati” is a provocative song in which the singer informs the audience in Italian that times of peace are gone (“Dear friends, dear friends soldiers, the times of peace are gone!”). “Cari amici soldati” was originally performed and recorded live at the Novi Rock Festival in Ljubljana in 1982, with a confused and enraged audience that started to throw objects and bottles on the stage, injuring the singer Tomaž Hostnik (Badovinac 2015: 42). The song “Država” contains an excerpt from a speech by Marshall Josip Broz Tito in which he focuses on the country’s unity and the (assumed) brotherhood of the Yugoslav people, delivered in 1962 in Split, Croatia: “We are not going to allow anyone to touch, to uproot from the inside, or to destroy in any way this brotherhood and equality.”5 In this case, as elsewhere, Laibach incorporated taped political speeches into their performances and recordings. In this song in particular, the rhetoric of unity

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at any cost mixed with the lyrics “all freedom is allowed, authority here belongs to the people” results in a rather contradictory message (Griffin 1999). The audience perceives the song as a call for the freedom of the people, which clashes with the fact that authoritarian states practice forms of social control, interpellation and cultural homogenisation. “Mi kujemo bodočnost!” (“We are forging the future!”) and “Svoboda” (“Freedom”) provide other interesting examples of the attitude staged by Laibach. “We are forging the future!” is one of the deepest songs ever published by Laibach. It is a song that calls for the highest forms of freedom, one that belongs to the youth (“in rastemo maldostni v širino”/“and as youth we grow in width”). The song clashed with the official state propaganda of that period, and it also served as the title of a special performance in Zagreb in 1983, which was eventually stopped by the police and resulted in a formal ban of the group in Croatia (Lorenčič 2022: 43).6 “Svoboda” (“Freedom”) is a song about the search for freedom, but it is at the same time acknowledging an economic crisis as well as the moral collapse of the society. In other words, “Svoboda” is a song sharply questioning the authorities and the establishment, suggesting that the same political authorities that preached freedom were responsible for the economic distress of their citizens and, thus, their suffering. To provide a direct quote: “In 1982 the authority has cancelled freedom.” As for the songs authored by Borghesia, their “Tako mladi” (So young) is a song whose lyrics focus on feelings of despair and nihilism (“we are so young and so dead inside”). These feelings were quite the opposite of what the Yugoslav socialist regime was trying to show to its citizens— namely, a youth full of courage and self-determination, a youth growing positively under the auspices of a “free” socialist federal state. Arguably, “Tako mladi” as some later Borghesia’s songs appear to stimulate a position of rebellion among the audience. “Discipline” is a song and a video in which the band sing “we are waiting for guns.” An ex post analysis reveals that Borghesia’s musical lyrics contained a grim prophecy, accompanied by a musical video with a decadent political imagery, which was actually a warning about what was to happen in Yugoslavia. Similarly, in the song “Venceremos (133),” the hammering refrain states “upor se kaznuje” (“acts of rebellion shall be punished”). The song’s video contains different symbolic images and

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elements: as noted by Terzin, “the classical Greek model, which was an ideal in Nazi Germany, is a cynical performance for Borghesia, anticipating what was about to happen—the perpetuation of old totalitarian systems in the new form of decaying Yugoslav identity” (2014: 81). According to the same author and critic, in the songs “Discipline” and “Venceremos” Borghesia anticipated the new homogenisation and interpellation of the individual into the collective identity prompted by post-­ socialist national ideology (Terzin 2014: 81). Last but not least, the song “Conflict” is a song about unhappy, rioting crowds (“Rabies and madness are raging through the crowds”), which are ready to fight for their rights within a pervasive atmosphere of tension and feelings of chaos (“Chaos and frenzy rage/A tooth for a tooth/An eye for an eye”). The lyrics of this song talk about irrationality/madness and about lynching. These strong ideas lead to feeling of rage, rioting masses and a premonition of an upcoming fight against oppression and repression.

L anguage as a Vehicle for Expressing Political Dissent in the Speeches Delivered on Stage and in Interviews for the Media Not only does Borghesia’s and Laibach’s challenging attitude towards the regime become clear through some of their songs recorded in the 1980s, but also through a number of interviews they have given from the beginning of their career to the 1980s. These were published in magazines, newspapers and broadcast on television since some media still managed to grant some space to alternative ideas and controversial artists (in fact, by allowing this, the Socialist authorities also tried to show that freedom of expression was granted in the country). Today, some of these interviews are still available in a digital format on social media platforms and video-sharing channels such as YouTube. In addition, Laibach also became influential in cultural and academic circles thanks to a number of statements and manifestos, such as the “10 Items of the Covenant,” a document which was first published in Nova

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revija (n. 13/14, 1983)—a Slovene magazine dedicated to cultural and political topics. The journal also published Laibach’s article titled “Action in the Name of an Idea” with an accompanying text by Taras Kermauner. The above-mentioned points contained the basic principles of how the group worked (collectivism, analysis of the relationship between ideology, culture and politics, denial of the originality of ideas, anonymous membership, provocatory attitudes). Moreover, the ways in which language can be used to provoke and function as a vehicle of criticism become clear through the speeches that the bands (Laibach in primis) delivered to their audiences.7 One of the foremost examples is Laibach’s speech given during a live appearance in Belgrade in Spring 1989. Among other things, as an introduction to the concert, at the very beginning, Laibach told the Serbian audience in a mixture of Serbian, English and German language: “Serbian brothers, you are here the Alfa and the Omega … Your holy towns will remain holy. Saint Sava states that this land is to remain Serbian! Profaned graves, we’ve thought about them too! Yet He preaches attack and honour!”8 The speech contained various quotes and a reference to a British politician from the past times—Neville Chamberlain, particularly his statements and guarantees on Hitler being an assumingly moderate politician.9 Even before the start of the concert, the discourse delivered by a Serbian politician from the present—Slobodan Milošević—at the 1988 Meeting of Brotherhood and Unity in Belgrade was projected by Laibach to the audience. Arguably, Laibach’s idea was to provide a warning about Milošević’s rising nationalist politics and the consequences it was to bring. The consequences of the above-cited speech, in which Laibach’s own use of quotations and their recontextualisation is evident, was a sharp provocation that left the audience astonished. Arguably, it captured the feeling of political transition from the socialist Yugoslav ideology to the growing Serbian nationalistic politics. As commented by Griffin (1999) ten years later: These discourses reworked speeches by Slobodan Milošević performed in a mixture of the Serbian and German languages. Neville Chamberlain’s words of appeasement to Adolf Hitler on the issue of his annexation of lands to the east of Germany were used to conclude the speech given in

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Belgrade, 1989. Images of war and destruction were projected onto screens with the symbol of NATO superimposed over most of the images…These speeches, given in 1989 in both Belgrade and Zagreb, served to succinctly predict and warn of the coming wars in the Balkans and the rhetoric which would later accompany the concentration camps and ethnic cleansing. Nationalistic fervour within Serbia was provoked and controlled by Serbian television broadcasting of war time footage from the Second World War which portrayed Slovenia and Croatia as Nazi sympathizers and collaborators. The war footage was musically accompanied by the Serbian military march from World War I about military advances along the river Drina. (Griffin 1999, online)

Conclusions As shown by our analysis provided, the lyrics, texts and ideas developed by Borghesia and Laibach in the first decade of their careers contained a sharp critique towards the post-Titoist regime in former Yugoslavia. Despite being officially banned, both groups continued with their performances and released albums with the help of foreign Western labels such as the British Mute Records, the Italian Materiali Sonori and the Belgian Play It Again Sam. While most of the time the bands’ music and the videos were complementary to the lyrics, there is no doubt that their linguistic element is essential in understanding the bands’ role in promoting alternative cultural views not only in Slovenia, but also in the other republics of former Yugoslavia. A socio-linguistic analysis shows that Borghesia’s and Laibach’s dissatisfaction and their related critique of the dominant socialist ideology were directed primarily against the crumbling regime of former Yugoslavia rather than against the idea of Socialism per se. Their provocative works came into existence in a historical moment that witnessed the collapse of the “Eastern Bloc” and the beginning of a new era for Europe. The examples of Borghesia and Laibach provide evidence of the fact that, under ideological regimes, due to State censorship even the names of musical bands can become an issue. At the time, the Yugoslav authorities tried to suppress the radical alternative cultural scene in Ljubljana of which

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Borghesia and Laibach were important elements. Yet, these alternative groups survived, and when Laibach or Borghesia could not play in front of the Yugoslav audiences, they simply toured abroad (Kruth 2020; Lorenčič 2022). Later on, during the 1990s and 2000s, Laibach in particular directed its critique towards the late capitalist ideology and the systemic commercial connections between multinational enterprises, the media industry and the military industry (as, for instance, in the album NATO released in 1994); or towards the risks inherent in an increasingly unregulated global capitalist system (WAT 2003), and raising social divisions and tensions (Spectre 2014). Operating in a completely different socio-economic system in comparison to that of the 1980s, Borghesia also criticised in its songs the capitalist financial system and the uneven global economy (And Man Created God, released in 2014). In this regard, both bands remained consistent in advocating for freedom and fighting for a better world, while at the same time criticising the dominant ideologies and looking for alternatives. This is precisely what makes them still so valuable and profoundly contemporary to this day.

Notes 1. Arguably, unconventional and alternative artists, young intellectuals and independent musical groups were among the propelling forces behind the social and political transformations in Slovenia during the 1980s. 2. FV-112/15 was central to the development of the alternative scene in Slovenia’s capital city of Ljubljana in the early 1980s. Marta Rendla describes it as “a creative theatre and music group in the 1980s, which brought together the topical social contents and innovative technical and artistic means” (2018: 140). Among other things, the group cultivated an ironic attitude towards socialism and, at the same time, it remained focused on deconstructing bourgeois stereotypes. The importance of the FV group in developing video production and alternative cultural practices in Slovenia and former Yugoslavia is nowadays fully recognised. 3. The letter was published on 5 May 1982 in the newspaper Delo—under the section “Readers’ Letters.”

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4. More precisely, the concert was held on 21 December, exactly two years after the suicide committed by Laibach’s first singer, Tomaž Hostnik. To quote Lorenčič: “On the second anniversary of Tomaž Hostnik’s death, on December 21, 1984, and a year after the end of the European tour, Laibach held its first concert in Yugoslavia, an anonymous commemorative pre-Christmas concert. It was held at the Malci Belic Youth Home, at 8 p.m. Due to the ban on the use of the name, it was announced only with the Laibach’s Black Cross …” (2022: 158). 5. The excerpt is from a speech by Josip Broz Tito, originally delivered in Serbo-Croatian language in 1962, and known as the speech on “brotherhood and unity” (Titov govor Bratstvo i jedinstvo). 6. Note that the controversial concert, originally performed in April 1983 in Zagreb, was reinterpreted by Laibach many years later, precisely in November 2017 at the museum Reina Sofía in Madrid, Spain. The recording of the show was subsequently released as a live album titled We Forge the Future. 7. It is a common practice of Laibach’s to start their live appearances with provocative speeches or interpellations aimed at the audience before starting the concert itself. 8. The speech is documented in Michael Benson’s documentary film Predictions of Fire (1996) and is also available on the video-sharing platform YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z_p4qxltmkA (accessed on 19 December 2022). 9. See for instance: https://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/education/resources/ chamberlain-­and-­hitler/ (accessed on 19 December 2022).

References Badovinac, Zdenka (ed.). 2015. NSK from Kapital to Capital: Neue Slowensiche Kunst—An Event of the Final Decade of Yugoslavia. Ljubljana: Moderna Galerija. Bell, Simon. 2011. “Laibach and the NSK: Ludic Paradigms of Postcommunism.” Romanian Political Science Review 11(4): 609–619. Bell, Simon. 2020. “Laibach and the Performance of Historical European Trauma.” Art History and Criticism, 16(1): 105–113. Benko, Boris. 2021. “A Few Degenerate Thoughts.” Continental Thought and Theory. 3(3): 255–261. Benson, Michael. 1996. Predictions of Fire. Ljubljana: Kinetikon/RTV Slovenija.

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Cvikl, Milan and Mrak, Mojmir. 1996. “Former Yugoslavia’s Debt Apportionment.” World Bank Internal Discussion Paper IDP 161. Dallago, Bruno and Uvalic, Milica. 1998. “The distributive consequences of nationalism: The case of former Yugoslavia.” Europe-Asia Studies 50(1): 71–90. Eder, Barbara. 2019. “Queer Partizani. Borghesia and the aftermath of Slovenian Punk.” versopolis.com, 17 January. Griffin, Winifred. 1999. “Laibach: The Instrumentality of the State Machine”, artmargins.com (https://artmargins.com/laibach-­the-­instrumentality-­of-­the-­ state-­machine/), accessed on 24 August 2022. Gržinić, Marina. 2002. “Punk: strategija, politika in amnezija.” In: Hribar, Tine et  al. (eds) Punk je bil prej: 25 let punka pod slovenci, 66–85. Ljubljana: Cankarjeva založba. Horowitz, Shale, and Ye, Min. 2013. “Nationalist and power-seeking leadership preferences in ethno-territorial conflicts: Theory, a measurement framework, and applications to the breakup of Yugoslavia.” Civil Wars 15(4): 508–530. Jerman, Gregor. 2020. Laibach: 4 Dekade/ 4 Decades. Trbovlje: Zasavje Museum. Kermauner, Taras. 1983. “Teze o levici in desnici.” Nova revija: mesečnik za kulturo, 2(13/14): 1502–1503. Korda, Neven. 1989. “Document. Live 87–89.” Ljubljana: FV Video, http:// www.e-­arhiv.org/diva/index.php?opt=work&id=1396, accessed on 18 December 2022. Kruth, Xavier. 2020. “Laibach: When they banned Laibach, we said ‘great, let’s move further!”, http://www.peek-­a-­boo-­magazine.be/en/interviews/laibach-­ 2020/, accessed on 4 July 2022. Lane, Ann. 2004. Yugoslavia: When Ideals Collide. London: Palgrave. Libal, Michael. 1997. Limits of Persuasion. Germany and the Yugoslav Crisis 1991–1992. London: Greenwood/Praeger. Lorenčič, Teodor. 2022. Laibach: 40 years of eternity. Beograd: Službeni glasnik. Lucarelli, Sonia. 2000. Europe and the Breakup of Yugoslavia: A Political Failure in Search of a Scholarly Explanation. The Hague: Kluwer. Monroe, Alexei. 2003. Pluralni Monolit: Laibach in NSK. Ljubljana: Maska. Motoh, Helena. 2012. “‘Punk is a Symptom’: Intersections of Philosophy and Alternative Culture in the 80’s Slovenia.” Synthesis philosophica 54(2): 285–296. Ognyanova-Krivoshieva, Irina. 2005. “Croatian Nationalism and the Breakup of Yugoslavia.” Études balkaniques, 1: 3–24. Ramet, Sabrina. 2009. “Reconfiguring the polis, reconceptualizing rights: Individual rights and the irony of history in central and southeastern Europe.” Perspectives on European Politics and Society (10)1: 87–100.

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Rendla, Marta. 2018. “Alternativna kulturna gibanja in “konglomerat FV” v osemdesetih letih v Sloveniji” [Alternative cultural movements and the “FV conglomerate” in the 1980s in Slovenia]. Contributions to Contemporary History 58(2): 139–159. Savič, Urška. 2021. “Reflections on the Archive as a Strategy for Re-writing Histories. Miejsce 7/2021: 1–16. Šentevska, Irena. 2022. “A long march on the mainstream: chronicle of Laibach’s artistic career.” Journal of Contemporary Central and Eastern Europe 30(2): 183–200. Štefančič, Marcel. 2012. Teror zgodovine: Kako je Laibach na začetku osemdesetih premaknil nacijo [The Terror of History: How Laibach Moved the Nation in the Early 1980s]. Ljubljana: UMCO. Terzin, Vanja. 2014. “A critique of ideological identity construction in socialist Yugoslavia: music video clips Venceremos (133) and Discipline by Borghesia.” Život Umjetnosti 94: 76–85. Valetič, Žiga. 2020. 80ta: Desetletje mladih [The ’80s: The decade of the young]. Ljubljana: Zenit. Vladisavljević, Nebojša. 2010. “The break-up of Yugoslavia: the role of popular politics.” New Perspectives on Yugoslavia, edited by Djokić, Dejan and Ker-­ Lindsay, James, 159–176. London: Routledge. Yarashevich, Viachaslau and Karneyeva, Yulya. 2013. “Economic reasons for the break-up of Yugoslavia.” Communist and Post-Communist Studies 46 (2): 263–273.

19 Conclusions Eugen Wohl and Elena Păcurar

Drafted as an addition to the Palgrave series in “Languages at War,” this volume was designed to fill a void in the existing research concerning the anti-communist revolutions from Central and Eastern Europe, by outlining the linguistic implications of the cultural, social and political metamorphoses brought about by the (change of the) totalitarian regime. The authors included in this volume approach the topic from a variety of perspectives, but, ultimately, focus on language seen as a fundamental tool for simultaneously subduing and liberating, concealing and revealing truth, encouraging or discouraging dissidence and fostering revolt. To no small extent, the Central and Eastern European anti-communist movements represented a triumph of “language against language.” The events building up or stemming from the 1989 anti-communist fight covered in the volume and scrutinised in terms of their manifold manifestations are: the fall of the Berlin Wall, the Velvet Revolution in Czechoslovakia, the strive for autonomy of former Yugoslavian countries

E. Wohl • E. Păcurar (*) Faculty of Letters, Babeș-Bolyai University, Cluj-Napoca, Cluj, Romania e-mail: [email protected]; [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 E. Wohl, E. Păcurar (eds.), Language of the Revolution, Palgrave Studies in Languages at War, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-37178-3_19

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or the violent December revolution in Romania—all uncovering the realities of the decades-long struggle of these countries for social and political independence. Each contribution in the volume directly or indirectly delves on the transformative power of language as an expression of individual or collective revolution; whether language is seen an active agent in the construction of ideology or the medium of contention and resistance, the agreement stands that a conversation on the importance of language in both generating and mediating conflict is needed. We are confident that the polyphony of the chapters united under the title of Language of the Revolution. The Discourse of Anti-Communist Movements in the “Eastern Bloc” Countries: Case Studies has accomplished its important educational mission: to inform readers of the subtle mechanisms at play in language-based manipulation and propaganda, as well as in language-fuelled revolutionary turnovers.

 arratives of Discord: Misinformation, N Dissimulation, Truth Most of the contributions to this highly condensed thematic area mapped out the tensional field powered by the ubiquity of an official discourse (fabricated by the propaganda machine and its media outlets), on the one hand, and the diffused voices of discontent or disagreement (attributed to the average citizens living under totalitarianism), on the other hand. The rift between the public and the private spheres of life, between what could be said and what was actually said, would further widen through intense campaigns of misinformation, as well as through distortions of truth and conspiracy theories. The appropriation of official rhetoric, a linguistic compromise consisting in using and adopting the “wooden language” (even in the field of religion), functioned as a survival strategy during times when “voicing” discord would be promptly repressed. Mioara Anton’s Voices from Below. Propaganda and Petitioning Power in Late Socialist Romania opened this first section with an investigation of the fracture between the official state rhetoric proclaiming the victory of

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Romanian socialism and interesting written records comprising (anonymous or signed) letters to the party structures. The corpus of letters sent to the Section for Letters and Audiences (a structure seemingly supportive of a “real” dialogue with society) and examined in this chapter included both homage-paying correspondence featuring undisguised devotion to state leaders and complaints or petitions regarding distressing aspects of everyday life, among which: anti-abortion laws, divorce restrictions, economic shortages or patriotic work. Similarly, Veronica Manole’s chapter dedicated to exploring The Great Discursive Divide in Communist Romania proposed a multi-dimensional analysis of the Romanian national ethos. In stark contrast with the carefully engineered discursive construction of national identity (in propagandistic media such as Scînteia), clandestine forms of communication painted a radically different reality in communist Romania. Letters sent to Radio Free Europe—funded by the US Congress and broadcast to other Soviet satellite states—were consistent in voicing complaints about lack of reproductive rights and basic supplies, the oppressive apparatus of Romanian dictatorship, or the gradual assault on elements of heritage. Neither previously told nor published, the personal accounts obtained from a series of interviews included in Réka Lugossy’s longitudinal study entitled “Words that Must Not Be Named”: Narratives of Language, Power, and Identity in Communist Romania offered the readers access to autobiographical narratives about life in communist Romania. Seen as distant interpretations (in time, as well as in space) of lived experience, these subjective versions of history under Ceaușescu’s dictatorial regime focused on the role of language in identifying power relations, negotiating relationships and affecting agency. Outlining the possible reasons for the need to continuously negotiate and adapt the form or the content of communicative acts in a religious context, Călin Emilian Cira’s exhaustive study recounted the impact of the communist regime on the activities of the Romanian Orthodox Church representatives, clergymen and lay members alike. Entitled Compromise or Survival. Adapting the Religious Discourse and the Topics Covered in Publications of the Romanian Orthodox Church During the Communist Regime, the contribution detailed the main rhetorical strategies used in typical Church-governed actions and distributed via the

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respective outlets: ecclesiastical journals (with their limited circulation), activity reports or conferences. Counterbalancing the dominant discourse of the time, atheism, religious discourse managed to adopt the “language of the time,” and thus to occasionally escape the vigilant eye of censorship. An essential addition to the conversation on the discord regarding the use of “revolution” to refer to the 1989 events in Romania, Kazimierz Jurczak’s chapter The Founding Texts of a Revolution. Romania 1989 raised a warning against the oversimplification of the dominant narrative associated with the tragic circumstances of the time. The incompatibility between the written records and the course of events, accompanied by the local predisposition for mythologising national history, led to the difficulties of choosing the proper words to describe the social and political situation: “riot,” “protest,” “palace coup,” “an explosion of human despair” and, ultimately, “revolution” are still used uncritically and, hence, in need of further terminological refinements.

 ords at War: Expressive Forms of Resistance, W Dissidence and Protest Despite the comparatively smaller number of its chapters, “Words at War” is, perhaps, the most contentious of three main sections in the volume. Situated at the core of the present publication, the articles signed by the authors critically addressed incremental forms of dissidence, from “inner freedom” to overt, large-scale reactionary movements such as revolution and protest. Jonathan Lahey Dronsfield’s The Language of Inner Freedom for Dissent: Müller and Liiceanu Before and After the Revolution revisited the dispute between the Romanian philosopher Gabriel Liiceanu and the writer Herta Müller concerning the (im)possibility of understanding “inner freedom” as a form of dissidence. Theories dismissing these types of non-­ engagement as politically irrelevant gestures were considered incongruous with views fostering the demarcation of an autonomous space, where thought could escape political contamination. A hypothetical immunity

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to the official rhetoric of communism was labelled as tacit complicity on the part of those eluding public accountability. Henrique Schneider aptly provided an overview of both the pro- and the anti-communist rhetorical devices (from idealisation, metaphors, to doublespeak and change in register) employed by the protagonists of Kosovo-Albanian politics in three phases: 1968–1981, 1981–1999 and 1999–the present moment. His paper entitled The Rhetoric of Albanian Insurgency: Communism and Anti-Communism in Kosovo showed how these rhetorical strategies helped the prospects of fulfilling regionalist, independentist and nationalist aspirations. Interestingly, ideology was contextually used as a carrier wave for a more contentious message: the right to self-determination. Last but not least, Dina Vîlcu’s The Change of Worlds and Words. The Language of Protest During and After the Romanian Revolution in 1989 attested to the fact that 1989 was a turning point not only in the history of countries such as Romania, but also in the organic evolution of language and its power of resemantisation. The chapter was a skilful examination of the semantic changes in the use of certain words before and after the Romanian revolution, rooted in the transformations of both the socio-political context and of the protesters’ attitudes towards these lexical items. Careful to point out the ongoing disagreements regarding the legitimate use of the word “revolution” to describe the events of 1989 in Romania, the author highlighted the singularity of such historical moment(s) when words were deemed able to create a new world.

 ritten, Spoken, Performed: Archiving W the Memory of (Post-)Communism The articles included in this consistent thematic area explored how resistance, revolution and reconstruction in Central and Eastern Europe are portrayed in artistic endeavours (literature, theatre, film and music) depicting aspects of life in (post-)communist societies, as well as the revolutions themselves, together with the role played by the mass media, in an age pre-dating the World Wide Web and social networking. The purpose

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was to take a closer look at the manner in which the discourse of memory is constructed in these works, the topics they choose to spotlight, as well as the role of individual, subjective experiences in conveying a better understanding of the “bigger picture.” Examining the linguistic resistance mechanisms employed by “some emblematic [Romanian] writers, both in the country and in the exile” on the basis of the conceptual metaphor theory, Maria-Zoica Eugenia Balaban’s “double-levelled research” Humility and Hatred, Forgiveness and Hope: A Linguistic Approach on the Subjective Literary Experiences in the Romanian Communist Society focused on how the language of the oppressed and the language of the oppressors are portrayed in the investigated “memoirs, diaries, autobiographies, fiction, the result of resistance in writing,” as well as on the various forms of “escapes” destined to “keep hope alive” and ultimately lead to “forgiveness.” The “escapism-resistance duality” was also the focal point of Ioana Mudure-Iacob’s investigation in Retrieving Memory Via Desk-Drawer Literature: from Reality Escapism in Stories About Cadmav to Contemporary Reflective Writing in With My Woman’s Mind. Her reading of author Mihaela Miroiu’s desk-drawer novel, “an intertwined architecture of multiple realities and fictions shaped as subjective micro-dissidence projections” and autobiography, “the auto-reflexive metamorphosis of a young girl into a complete feminist,” managed to reveal the “escapism strategies” employed in order to restore one’s “identity and meaning” in a totalitarian state. Anca Hațiegan’s The December 1989 Revolution in Post-Communist Romanian Drama and Alina Cojocaru’s Staging Communism in Romania: Language, Propaganda, Memory in Caryl Churchill’s Mad Forest and Matei Vișniec’s How to Explain the History of Communism to Mental Patients set out to investigate how, in the aftermath of the December ’89 revolution in Romania, these realities were reflected in dramatic works specifically addressing the issue. While Anca Hațiegan’s approach centred on the “tragedy” of the language of the revolution as manifest in both “the abstracting drama of the ‘90 s” and in “post-2000 documentary theatre,” Alina Cojocaru demonstrated how, in the case of the two playwrights investigated in her paper, key components of artistic production under totalitarian authority were re-examined “through the lens of memory,

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history and language” to reveal their negotiated double status as artistic products and resistance mechanisms. “Negotiation” is also the overarching theme of Magdalena Răduță and Oana Fotache’s Surviving the Change, Adjusting the Language. Romanian Writers in the Cultural Media, December 1989–1990, a foray into the “mediatic reactions to the fall of communism” of Romanian writers and literary critics. The authors considered the discursive strategies evident in a corpus of four cultural magazines published in 1990 in order to bring into the spotlight the “forms taken by historical change in the literary milieu.” Both Luboš Ptáček’s The Language of the Velvet Revolution Versus the Anti-Language of Post-Communist Crime. A Sociolinguistic Analysis of Contemporary Czech Crime Historical Television Series and Radoslav Horák’s Surprising Silence? Possible Reasons for Scarcity of Representation of the Velvet Revolution in Czech Film Adaptations in the 1990s concentrated on the representations of the Velvet Revolution in former Czechoslovakia, albeit in different media. At the intersection between “representation of history in film and television, genre theory, and sociolinguistics,” Ptáček’s study explored the extent to which “the linguistic registers and codes” of recent crime television series concerned with the subject of the Velvet Revolution manage to simultaneously influence the manner in which the 1989 events are represented and offer a “contemporary evaluation of history.” Horák’s investigation focused instead on Czech film adaptations made in the 1990s to understand the reasons why, despite being a highly important moment, the topic of the Velvet Revolution appears to be surprisingly absent from big screen adaptations. His bidirectional approach delved deep into cinema’s ties with literature and into the history of Czech cinema to provide possible explanations for why the language of film refrained “from depictions of the Revolution but also the post-­ revolution topics.” Accepting as fact that the media played a crucial role both “in front of ” and “behind” the Iron Curtain, before and after the revolution(s), Samira Allani and Silvia Molina-Plaza’s Comparing the Portrayal of the Fall of the Berlin Wall in Two Spanish Newspapers: A Multimodal Analysis is a necessary “multimodal social semiotic” incursion into how news centring on

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the Fall of the Berlin Wall was “visually and rhetorically constructed” on the front pages of two Spanish newspapers with diverging agendas. Mitja Stefancic’s Borghesia and Laibach Against the Socialist Regime of Yugoslavia: Insights from a Socio-Linguistic Analysis concludes this section with a look at the subversive nature of the alternative music scene in former Yugoslavia, focusing on the “challenging poetics” and “provocative lyrics and messages” employed by two musical groups whose impact extended well beyond the borders of their homeland in the 1980s. Far from exhausting the conversation on the many facets of the anti-­ communist movements in the former “Eastern Bloc,” the present volume echoes the authors’ conviction that the case studies presented here will have sparked the readers’ interest in critically returning to the recent, yet inconclusive, past.

Index1

A

C

Adaptation, xi, 333, 334, 338, 339, 341–344, 346, 349–351, 352n16, 365, 375 Ambiguity, 14, 19n4, 247, 250 Ambivalence, 292 Anti-communist, ix, 12–14, 18, 114, 162, 164, 165, 184, 195, 245, 279, 330, 335, 336, 373, 401 Apparatchiks, 5, 8 Autonomy, 132, 157, 159, 164, 230, 238n1, 247, 249, 250, 252, 254, 259n9, 401

Censorship, 6, 14, 28, 51, 53, 90, 98, 133, 139, 142, 219, 223, 237, 248, 251, 270, 294, 297, 305, 314, 348, 384, 387, 396, 404 Central Committee, 8, 15, 36, 51, 101, 266 Church, x, 11, 87–93, 95–102, 104, 106, 107, 107n6, 108n8, 177, 199, 403 Catholic Church, 95 Greek-Catholic Church, 96 Orthodox Church, 11, 88, 90, 93, 95–98, 100, 102, 104, 106, 403 Cold War, 2, 107n2, 265, 357, 367, 375

B

Berlin Wall, 15, 357, 358, 363, 366–370, 372, 377–379, 401, 407  Note: Page numbers followed by ‘n’ refer to notes.

1

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 E. Wohl, E. Pacurar (eds.), Language of the Revolution, Palgrave Studies in Languages at War, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-37178-3

409

410 Index

Collective collective action, 299 collective identity, 69, 72, 394 collective memory, xi, xii, 2, 7, 9, 12, 13, 16–18, 27, 36, 42, 52, 53, 57, 68, 69, 72, 78, 81, 92, 105, 118, 141, 177, 182, 220, 230, 232, 254, 267, 274, 278, 279, 284, 289–292, 294, 296, 299, 304, 305, 317, 375, 386, 389, 394, 402 Communist Party, 7, 27, 28, 47, 51–53, 64n4, 103, 153, 154, 175, 180, 181, 188n12, 252, 266, 279, 311, 318, 320, 327, 336 Compromise, 34, 98, 99, 102, 104, 107, 248, 253, 402 Comrade, 76, 81, 102, 175, 188n10, 273, 295, 303, 319, 324, 337 Concentration camp, 197, 203, 204, 208, 213 Conspiracy, 115, 286, 325, 336, 402 Contention, 11, 12, 17, 171, 185, 402 contentious, 7, 8, 12, 14, 16, 17, 19n4, 166, 185, 404, 405 Coup d’état, 3–4, 172, 185, 286 Cult of personality, 5, 7, 29, 31, 38, 48, 102–105, 176, 235, 245, 249 Czechoslovakia, 3, 16, 61, 309, 315–317, 320, 323, 327, 333–336, 339, 347, 348, 401, 407

D

December revolution, 121, 122, 253, 402 Democracy, 6, 7, 13, 16, 53, 93, 96, 118, 120, 144, 172, 175, 180, 185–187, 189n17, 224, 254, 256, 277, 284, 322, 325, 327, 363 Desk-drawer literature, 219, 237 Detainee, 196–207, 209, 210, 214 Dictator, 5, 7, 116, 118–120, 172, 176, 180, 188n10, 199, 265, 266, 272, 276, 283, 302, 392 dictatorial, 38, 67, 119, 120, 276, 403 Dictatorship, 7, 17, 30, 31, 47, 49, 53, 55, 62, 63, 104, 117, 179, 181, 185, 189n14, 189n17, 275, 277, 298, 305, 347, 403 Dissent, xi, 4, 5, 14, 17, 41, 132, 144–146, 294, 296, 299, 392, 394–396 Dissidence, 237 dissident, 7, 12, 18, 49, 127, 179, 219, 220, 237, 401, 404–406 See also Dissent Dogma, 139, 247, 248, 253, 256, 258 Doublespeak, 152, 156, 157, 160–166, 322, 405 Double talk, 63 E

Eastern Bloc, 2, 5, 10, 11, 14, 16–18, 246, 291, 292, 305, 309, 384, 396, 402

 Index 

Escapism, 220, 221, 223–230, 232, 233, 237, 238, 406 F

Freedom, xi, 6, 7, 53, 58, 94, 96–99, 105, 107, 118, 120, 122, 132, 133, 136–139, 141, 144–147, 159, 162, 172, 175, 177, 186, 187, 220–227, 237, 238, 245, 246, 250, 269, 296, 298, 302, 305, 329, 339, 373, 375, 386, 389, 391, 393, 394, 397 Freedom of expression, xi, 133, 138, 269, 389, 394 Freedom of speech, 53, 175, 186, 250, 302 See also Freedom of expression

411

291, 296, 304, 317, 336, 363, 375, 392, 394–397, 402, 405 Imprisonment, 78, 96, 238, 295, 301 imprisoned, 78, 88, 97, 134, 138, 201, 213 Independence, 58, 59, 61, 155, 158, 159, 161–166, 364, 390, 402 Inner freedom, xi, 131–133, 136–139, 141, 144–146, 404 Iron Curtain, 3, 4, 10, 13, 51, 233, 315, 357, 407 Irony, 161, 166, 172, 197, 214, 275, 278, 328, 339 J

Jargon, 89, 102, 156, 197, 198, 201, 202, 295, 302

G

K

Germany, xiii, 15, 18, 203, 204, 285, 357–359, 366, 367, 369, 371, 373, 375, 384, 394, 395 Glasnost, 3 Gulag, 357

KGB, 318, 323–325 Kosovo-Albanians, 151–163, 165, 166 L

Langue de bois, see Wooden language H

Humour, 70, 72, 80–82, 166, 177, 316 I

Ideology, 4, 7, 29, 49, 60, 63, 73, 74, 78, 100, 120, 135, 157, 162, 166, 178–180, 188n8,

M

Manipulation, 50, 237, 267, 298, 304, 402 Mineriad, 183, 186 Multimedia, 268, 385, 386 Multimodal discourse, 359, 362, 364, 365

412 Index N

Nationalism, 49, 52, 61, 62, 63n2, 100, 101, 151–155, 159, 166, 384 nationalist, 35, 48–50, 59, 60, 100, 123n4, 152, 153, 156, 158, 159, 165, 205, 384, 395, 405 National Salvation Front, 118–120, 259n14, 266 Nomenklatura, 7, 16

Propaganda, 4, 6, 12, 27, 30–37, 39–43, 47–49, 51–53, 55, 58–60, 62, 63, 81, 94, 98, 176, 220, 239n19, 244, 247, 253, 290, 291, 295, 305, 310, 348, 349, 393, 402 Protest, 8, 17, 113, 116, 127, 139, 140, 142, 145, 159, 172, 174, 183, 186, 224, 248, 250, 255, 259n7, 260n14, 294, 404–405 Public discourse, see Official discourse

O

Official discourse, 12, 14, 30, 38, 41, 48, 62, 63, 292, 402 Ostalgia, 310, 330n1 P

Perestroika, 3 Post-communist, 10, 14, 17, 116, 220, 230, 234, 235, 272, 274, 297, 298, 305, 309 Post-revolutionary, 14, 18, 115, 116, 244, 248, 249, 251, 252, 254, 256, 269 See also Post-communist; Posttotalitarian Post-Soviet, 323, 329 Posttotalitarian, 10 Prison, 89, 146, 182, 190n18, 196–198, 200–202, 206, 209–213, 215, 216, 216n2 prisoner (see Detainee) Prisoner, 146, 190n18, 213 Proletariat, 181

R

Radio Free Europe, 27, 31, 34, 38, 43, 47, 51, 52, 61, 403 Reeducation, 209, 210, 216 Repression, 4, 38, 43, 134, 143, 145, 146, 159, 206, 270, 273, 279, 293, 300, 371, 394 repressive, 5, 14, 130–133, 135, 141, 145, 198, 212, 274, 275, 328 Resemantisation, 184, 405 Resilience, 3, 5, 17, 248 Resistance, ix, 3–7, 12, 14, 15, 17, 33, 70, 127, 129–134, 139, 143, 144, 171, 176, 185, 195–197, 220, 223, 224, 229, 256, 258, 294, 304, 305, 336, 391, 402, 404–407 Resistance through culture, 14, 15, 17, 131, 139, 143, 144 Romanian revolution, 16, 17, 122, 405 See also December revolution

 Index 

Romanian Secret Police, 48, 88, 141, 198, 266, 280, 297 S

Samizdat, 6, 17, 130, 219, 246 Scînteia, 47, 48, 50–55, 57, 58, 60–63, 403 Secret police, 5, 40, 183, 185 Securitate, see Romanian Secret Police; Secret police Self-censorship, 139, 270 Self-determination, 58, 157, 161, 163, 165, 166, 393, 405 Slogan, 6, 27, 162, 163, 280, 294, 318, 338 Slovenia, 153, 383–390, 396, 397n1, 397n2 Socialism, ix, 27, 28, 30, 31, 33, 35, 40, 43, 53, 56, 61, 105, 117, 153, 290, 297, 327, 388, 397n2, 403 socialist, 4–6, 15, 17, 27, 29, 30, 32–34, 37, 39–43, 50, 53, 55, 56, 58, 60, 61, 76, 92, 99, 157, 164, 175, 177, 179, 181, 185, 187, 188n8, 247, 272, 384, 385, 387–389, 392, 393, 395, 396 Soviet Union, 2, 5, 28, 38, 40, 48, 92, 93, 121, 157, 303, 319, 358, 371, 384 State Security, 321

413

Storytelling, 70, 82, 220, 221, 226–230, 237, 238, 295–297, 339, 342, 343 Strike, 19n5, 118, 198, 199, 336, 337 Subversion, 305 subversive, 3, 6, 17, 60, 72, 80, 131, 247, 267, 280, 295, 303, 389, 408 T

Totalitarian regime, see Dictatorship V

Velvet Revolution/velvet revolution, 16, 114, 310, 311, 315, 322, 327, 328, 334–344, 346, 347, 350, 351, 401, 407 W

Wooden language, 3, 4, 13, 48, 105–106, 120, 219, 237, 280, 291, 292, 297, 305, 402 Y

Yugoslavia, 151–159, 165, 166, 383–386, 388–390, 393, 396, 397n2, 398n4, 408