Page 199 - 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. 199
Socialist Modernism
as Compromise:
A Study of the Romanian
Literary System
Andrei Terian
The study of post-Stalinist literature produced in Eastern Europe un-
der the communist regime is one of the primary challenges of contem-
porary cultural historiography. This is due to the researchers’ tendency to
overextend the neighbouring trends to include this period as a means of
compensating for lack of terminology needed to plausibly chart this am-
biguous period, no longer dominated by a unique ‘method of creation’,
but not yet marked by total freedom of expression. In doing so, they ei-
ther transfer onto late communism concepts that define a polycentric,
relatively autonomous literary system—e.g. ‘counterculture,’ ‘critique of
ideology’—or continue to deploy the instruments priorly devised to an-
alyse Stalinism, which, given the new state of affairs, are deemed relative-
ly soft—e.g. ‘socialist realism,’ ‘party literature,’ etc. The main issue with
these approaches is that they draw on the simplistic understanding of the
subject matter, which, in turn, renders them incapable of accounting for
the peculiarities of this literary epoch. Late communism is not an ordi-
nary intermediary stage, i.e. a blend between communism and capitalism
and/or between totalitarianism and democracy, but a new cultural and
political hybrid that requires an equally new critical framework.
In this essay, it is precisely this conceptual toolbox, hereinafter re-
ferred to as ‘socialist modernism,’ that I aim to put forward for the lit-
erary paradigm prevailing in Romania—and most certainly other are-
as too—between 1960/1965 and 1980. In advancing this new concept,
my argument follows a tripartite approach. Firstly, I provide a diachron-
ic perspective of the period, at the end of which I explain why—in the
aftermath of the fall of socialist realism—post-Stalinist Romanian writ-
as Compromise:
A Study of the Romanian
Literary System
Andrei Terian
The study of post-Stalinist literature produced in Eastern Europe un-
der the communist regime is one of the primary challenges of contem-
porary cultural historiography. This is due to the researchers’ tendency to
overextend the neighbouring trends to include this period as a means of
compensating for lack of terminology needed to plausibly chart this am-
biguous period, no longer dominated by a unique ‘method of creation’,
but not yet marked by total freedom of expression. In doing so, they ei-
ther transfer onto late communism concepts that define a polycentric,
relatively autonomous literary system—e.g. ‘counterculture,’ ‘critique of
ideology’—or continue to deploy the instruments priorly devised to an-
alyse Stalinism, which, given the new state of affairs, are deemed relative-
ly soft—e.g. ‘socialist realism,’ ‘party literature,’ etc. The main issue with
these approaches is that they draw on the simplistic understanding of the
subject matter, which, in turn, renders them incapable of accounting for
the peculiarities of this literary epoch. Late communism is not an ordi-
nary intermediary stage, i.e. a blend between communism and capitalism
and/or between totalitarianism and democracy, but a new cultural and
political hybrid that requires an equally new critical framework.
In this essay, it is precisely this conceptual toolbox, hereinafter re-
ferred to as ‘socialist modernism,’ that I aim to put forward for the lit-
erary paradigm prevailing in Romania—and most certainly other are-
as too—between 1960/1965 and 1980. In advancing this new concept,
my argument follows a tripartite approach. Firstly, I provide a diachron-
ic perspective of the period, at the end of which I explain why—in the
aftermath of the fall of socialist realism—post-Stalinist Romanian writ-
