Page 193 - Vinkler, Jonatan, Ana Beguš and Marcello Potocco. Eds. 2019. Ideology in the 20th Century: Studies of literary and social discourses and practices. Koper: University of Primorska Press
P. 193
The Functions of Socialist Realism: Translation of Genre Fiction in Communist Romania 193
Stanislaw Lem’s Astronauții [The Astronauts] were published at around
the same time, in 1963 and 1964 respectively. By and large, these books
were published under the imprint of important Romanian state publish-
ing houses, either as part of the wider Soviet literature promotion cam-
paign carried out via Cartea Rusă [The Russian Book], or later by the
publishing house targeted at the younger audience, Editura Tineretului
[Youth Publishing House], which was also granted the rights to print and
distribute subgenre fiction. During the period of socialist realism, dysto-
pian, military SF, horror, and space exploration genre fiction novels were
translated in Romania, since one of the foremost objectives of the Sovi-
et translation program was to introduce young readers to the ideological
agenda. For this reason, a large number of socialist realist canonical au-
thors were presented as genre fiction authors. Thus, classical Soviet prop-
aganda novels ended up being advertised as literature for children and
youth, which points to an almost overt acknowledgment of the obsoles-
cence of socialist realism itself. Writers such as Alexander Fadeyev, Ve-
niamin Kaverin, Boris Polevoi and Aleksey Tolstoy, published in the late
1940s under the imprint of Cartea Rusă, were reissued in the 1950s and
1960s by Editura Tineretului, alongside genre fiction and children’s liter-
ature authors. Notable mentions of writers in Editura Tineretului, who
were marketed as writers of Bildungsroman, historical novels, SF or ad-
venture novels, include Feodor Gladkov and Nikolai Ostrovsky with their
Childhood Story and Born in Storm.
In his 1951 Flacăra article on the role SF literature plays in the com-
munist society, Dan Petrașincu legitimated the genre by identifying an
educational function it was supposed to fulfill, a mission which, he ar-
gued, lay at its very core:
We need science-fiction [and] adventure literature to instill the love for sci-
ence in youth, to elicit their interest in research and gaining insight into life
and natural phenomena, to stimulate their boldness, to educate their hero-
ic spirit, while providing them with a broad perspective on the future (Si-
mion 2010–2018 II, 35).
His wooden language aside, Petrașincu, the translator of Victor
Hugo and one of the most fervent supporters of genre fiction in the Sta-
linist period, relegated to obscurity soon afterwards, did nonetheless
make an important point for contemporary decoding: for socialist real-
ism, concerned as it was with contributing to a socialist future, SF litera-
ture was, first and foremost, a form of cultivating a pragmatic interest in
science. A recurrent theme of the Stalinist cultural discourse, the obses-
Stanislaw Lem’s Astronauții [The Astronauts] were published at around
the same time, in 1963 and 1964 respectively. By and large, these books
were published under the imprint of important Romanian state publish-
ing houses, either as part of the wider Soviet literature promotion cam-
paign carried out via Cartea Rusă [The Russian Book], or later by the
publishing house targeted at the younger audience, Editura Tineretului
[Youth Publishing House], which was also granted the rights to print and
distribute subgenre fiction. During the period of socialist realism, dysto-
pian, military SF, horror, and space exploration genre fiction novels were
translated in Romania, since one of the foremost objectives of the Sovi-
et translation program was to introduce young readers to the ideological
agenda. For this reason, a large number of socialist realist canonical au-
thors were presented as genre fiction authors. Thus, classical Soviet prop-
aganda novels ended up being advertised as literature for children and
youth, which points to an almost overt acknowledgment of the obsoles-
cence of socialist realism itself. Writers such as Alexander Fadeyev, Ve-
niamin Kaverin, Boris Polevoi and Aleksey Tolstoy, published in the late
1940s under the imprint of Cartea Rusă, were reissued in the 1950s and
1960s by Editura Tineretului, alongside genre fiction and children’s liter-
ature authors. Notable mentions of writers in Editura Tineretului, who
were marketed as writers of Bildungsroman, historical novels, SF or ad-
venture novels, include Feodor Gladkov and Nikolai Ostrovsky with their
Childhood Story and Born in Storm.
In his 1951 Flacăra article on the role SF literature plays in the com-
munist society, Dan Petrașincu legitimated the genre by identifying an
educational function it was supposed to fulfill, a mission which, he ar-
gued, lay at its very core:
We need science-fiction [and] adventure literature to instill the love for sci-
ence in youth, to elicit their interest in research and gaining insight into life
and natural phenomena, to stimulate their boldness, to educate their hero-
ic spirit, while providing them with a broad perspective on the future (Si-
mion 2010–2018 II, 35).
His wooden language aside, Petrașincu, the translator of Victor
Hugo and one of the most fervent supporters of genre fiction in the Sta-
linist period, relegated to obscurity soon afterwards, did nonetheless
make an important point for contemporary decoding: for socialist real-
ism, concerned as it was with contributing to a socialist future, SF litera-
ture was, first and foremost, a form of cultivating a pragmatic interest in
science. A recurrent theme of the Stalinist cultural discourse, the obses-
