Page 205 - 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. 205
Socialist Modernism as Compromise: A Study of the Romanian Literary System 205
truth” and “the quest for literarity” (2002, 160). What the critic fails to
note, however, is that these two quests are bound by a relation of reverse
proportionality: the more a work strives to be ‘literary,’ the less represent-
ative it is of its period and the more it distances itself from the norms of
the regime.
At any rate, I believe that the peculiarities of Romanian literature
under the communist regime discussed thus far are best subsumed un-
der the concept of ‘socialist modernism.’ Not only does the term success-
fully portray the ambivalence of the literature and period wherein it orig-
inates—‘no longer tyranny, not yet freedom’—, but it also allows for the
paradigm to be aligned with a trend that pervaded arts around the same
time, as the term was originally deployed in former Yugoslavia in refer-
ence to architecture (see Denegri 2003; Šuvaković 2009; Šuvaković 2014)
and has since come to be widely used in the music and film criticism of
the Soviet bloc countries as diverse as the German Democratic Republic
(Westgate 2002, 18–58) and Kyrgyzstan (Tlostanova 2018, 92–96).
To be honest, the two other concepts used to denote Romanian
post-Stalinist literature are equally well-represented in the internation-
al critical terminology. ‘Neo-modernism,’ for instance, was introduced in
the mid-1960s by Frank Kermode who opposed it to ‘palaeo-modernism’
(1968, 73) and defined it as a series of “marginal developments of older
modernism” (1968, 88), primarily the neo-avant-garde, the cult of the ar-
bitrary, the abolition of established forms, humour, and anarchist nihil-
ism. In Romania, the term ‘neomodernism’ was first circumstantially de-
ployed by Nicolae Manolescu (1987, 227), and then systematically by Ion
Bogdan Lefter (1997, 115–136). Surprisingly enough, neither of the two
Romanian critics mentioned Kermode, although it is highly likely that at
least the latter read it at some point. What is even more curious, despite
his using the prefix ‘neo-,’ Lefter did not attribute any sort of innovation
to this paradigm; for him, it was but “a cultural replay” (2012a, 237) or an
‘anachronism’ stemming from a ‘counter-evolutionary movement’: “They
[writers] move forward by going backwards. The discoveries they make
are nothing more than re-discoveries” (2012b, 118).
At least to some extent, Lefter’s stance is justifiable, as in the case of a
postmodernist who revisits modernism. Yet, instead of deploring it unan-
imously, it is more constructive to note that neomodernism applies in-
novation within an already existing paradigm, employing “an arsenal of
tried and true techniques” to this end (Jameson 2002, 166). In fact, Left-
er’s successors have made the necessary emendations, pointing out that
postwar modernist poets were not mere imitators of their interwar coun-
truth” and “the quest for literarity” (2002, 160). What the critic fails to
note, however, is that these two quests are bound by a relation of reverse
proportionality: the more a work strives to be ‘literary,’ the less represent-
ative it is of its period and the more it distances itself from the norms of
the regime.
At any rate, I believe that the peculiarities of Romanian literature
under the communist regime discussed thus far are best subsumed un-
der the concept of ‘socialist modernism.’ Not only does the term success-
fully portray the ambivalence of the literature and period wherein it orig-
inates—‘no longer tyranny, not yet freedom’—, but it also allows for the
paradigm to be aligned with a trend that pervaded arts around the same
time, as the term was originally deployed in former Yugoslavia in refer-
ence to architecture (see Denegri 2003; Šuvaković 2009; Šuvaković 2014)
and has since come to be widely used in the music and film criticism of
the Soviet bloc countries as diverse as the German Democratic Republic
(Westgate 2002, 18–58) and Kyrgyzstan (Tlostanova 2018, 92–96).
To be honest, the two other concepts used to denote Romanian
post-Stalinist literature are equally well-represented in the internation-
al critical terminology. ‘Neo-modernism,’ for instance, was introduced in
the mid-1960s by Frank Kermode who opposed it to ‘palaeo-modernism’
(1968, 73) and defined it as a series of “marginal developments of older
modernism” (1968, 88), primarily the neo-avant-garde, the cult of the ar-
bitrary, the abolition of established forms, humour, and anarchist nihil-
ism. In Romania, the term ‘neomodernism’ was first circumstantially de-
ployed by Nicolae Manolescu (1987, 227), and then systematically by Ion
Bogdan Lefter (1997, 115–136). Surprisingly enough, neither of the two
Romanian critics mentioned Kermode, although it is highly likely that at
least the latter read it at some point. What is even more curious, despite
his using the prefix ‘neo-,’ Lefter did not attribute any sort of innovation
to this paradigm; for him, it was but “a cultural replay” (2012a, 237) or an
‘anachronism’ stemming from a ‘counter-evolutionary movement’: “They
[writers] move forward by going backwards. The discoveries they make
are nothing more than re-discoveries” (2012b, 118).
At least to some extent, Lefter’s stance is justifiable, as in the case of a
postmodernist who revisits modernism. Yet, instead of deploring it unan-
imously, it is more constructive to note that neomodernism applies in-
novation within an already existing paradigm, employing “an arsenal of
tried and true techniques” to this end (Jameson 2002, 166). In fact, Left-
er’s successors have made the necessary emendations, pointing out that
postwar modernist poets were not mere imitators of their interwar coun-
