Abstract
Immediately after the December 1989 Revolution, Romanian writers took on the active role of public intellectuals. As soon as the ideological constraints that had compelled the literary discourse to disguise itself as a hybrid socio-political one were overturned, a revisiting and redefining of the writers’ position in society became necessary. This chapter looks into the complex changes that occurred within the post-revolutionary literary field during the first six months of 1990. It analyses the strategies of legitimisation employed by writers and literary critics in order to preserve the functions of the autonomist discourse and to ensure the continuity of the aesthetic ideology of non-commitment, or, conversely, to call for an ethical revision of tradition from the part of the younger generation. In the articles published in cultural magazines between December 1989 and June 1990, the conspicuous frequency of the vocabulary of revival or restoration in terms of literary forms or trends kept in place a logic of continuity instead of the revolutionary change that might have been expected. At the same time, a generational divide replaced what had functioned before as a coherent autonomous pole. In such a context, the revaluation of past compromises was to be postponed, as well as the creation of a new literary language.
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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 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 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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Răduță, M., Fotache, O. (2023). Surviving the Change, Adjusting the Language. Romanian Writers in the Cultural Media, December 1989–1990. In: Wohl, E., Păcurar, E. (eds) Language of the Revolution. Palgrave Studies in Languages at War. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-37178-3_12
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