Abstract
The chapter explores the controversial topic of artistic production of religious descent (mostly of Byzantine heritage) accepted by the communist nationalist canon. Against the main narrative—according to which communists did not tolerate any religion-related cultural production—the chapter scrutinizes the cultural policy of late communist Romania which selectively supported certain works of Byzantine inspiration. The rationale behind that was that these artworks could supposedly contribute to the valorization of the ancient Romanian heritage that was part and parcel of the process of consolidating national communist culture. Thus, “Godless religious art” was rendered as an indispensable cultural production to support the communist’s protochronist ethos, disregarding the fact that the “ancient materials” and symbols this cultural style employed were of Christian heritage.
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Notes
- 1.
Lavinia Stan and Lucian Turcescu, Church, State and Democracy in Expanding Europe (New York: Oxford University Press, 2011), 138 (Stan and Turcescu 2011).
- 2.
Lucian Turcescu and Lavinia Stan, “The Romanian Orthodox Church,” in Eastern Christianity and Politics in the Twenty-First Century, ed. Lucian N. Leuṣtean (New York: Routledge, 2014), 212 (Turcescu and Stan 2014).
- 3.
Medeea Stan, “Interviu cu Christian Paraschiv, artist vizual: ‘In Occident, a trebuit să încep prin a înțelege sistemul: ce este un cont bancar, ce sunt impozitele,’” [Interview with Christian Paraschiv, visual artist: In the West I had to start by understanding the system: what is a bank account, what are the taxes] Adevarul, 24 June 2017. Available at: https://adevarul.ro/cultura/arte/interviu-christian-paraschiv-artist-vizual-In-occident-trebuit-incep-intelege-sistemul-cont-bancar-impozitele (16 February 2020) (Medeea Stan 2017).
- 4.
ANIC, fond UAP, file 42/1972).
- 5.
Arhivele Naṭionale Istorice Centrale—ANIC [Central Historical National Archives], “Cenaclul UAP Târgoviṣte” [The UAP Cenacle Târgoviṣte] (26 September 1972), source ANIC, fond UAP, file 42/1972 (ANIC 1972).
- 6.
Arhivele Naṭionale Istorice Centrale—ANIC [Central Historical National Archives], “Instrucṭiuni privind vînzarea obiectelor de artă prin magazinele Consignaṭie si ale Fondului Plastic” [Instructions Regarding the Commercialization of the Art Objects through Consignaṭie and the Artistic Fund] (1965), source ANIC, fond UAP, file 17/1970, ff. 21–22 (ANIC 1970).
- 7.
ANIC, fond UAP, file 17/1970, ff. 21–22.
- 8.
Alexandra Coţofană, “Documentary Film and Magic in Communist Romania,” Open Theology 3 (2017): 202 (Coţofană 2017).
- 9.
Irina Falls, “Family and Child Education in Communist Romania: Consequences of the Duality of Values and Behaviors,” International Journal of Humanities and Social Science 1(13) (2011): 36 (Falls 2011).
- 10.
Pavel Suian, “Marriage in Romania.” In Marriage and quasi-marital relationships in Central and Eastern Europe: from the 2006 Vienna Colloquium on Marriage, eds. Lynn D. Wardle and A. Scott Loveless (Provo, UT: BYU Academic Publishing, 2008).
- 11.
According to Veneta Ivanova, Lyudmila Todorova Zhivkova (Socialist Bulgaria’s Minister of Culture and the daughter of the communist leader Todor Zhivkov) supported alternative religious practices as state policy. Veneta Ivanova claims that “Inspired by her Eastern religious beliefs, she sought to ‘breed’ a nation of ‘all-round and harmoniously developed individuals,’ devoted to spiritual self-perfection, who would ultimately ‘work, live and create according to the laws of beauty.’ Spirituality (dukhovnost ), which she conceived as the ‘spiritual development of the individual’ and the ‘renewal of the spiritual powers of the nation,’ was the cornerstone of her vigorous domestic and international cultural politics.” (Veneta Ivanova, “Occult communism: Lyudmila Zhivkova’s alternative religiosity as state policy in Communist Bulgaria,” paper presented at the conference Anthropological Legacies and Human Features, European Association of Social Anthropologists, 20 July 2016) (Zhivkova 2016).
- 12.
Protochronism is a Romanian cultural-political term referring to Nicolae Ceauṣescu’s obsession to ascribe an idealized past to the Romanian nation. As Katherine Verdery points out, “During the 1970s and 1980s, increasing numbers of Romanian writers and literary critics were drawn into an argument over an idea called “protochronism.” This idea encouraged critics and literary historians to look for developments in Romanian culture that had anticipated events in the better-publicized cultures of Western Europe.” See Katherine Verdery, National Ideology Under Socialism: Identity and Cultural Politics in Ceausescu’s Romania (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1995), 12 (Verdery 1995).
- 13.
Sabina Păuṭă Pieslak, “Romania’s Madrigal Choir and the Politics of Prestige,” Journal of Musicological Research 26 (2&3) (2007): 232 (Păuṭă Pieslak 2007).
- 14.
Ibidem.
- 15.
Nuṭa Drăghici-Vasilescu, Changes in the Phenomenon of Icon-painting in Romania from the Second Half of the Nineteenth Century to the Present Day. PhD thesis in Theology (Regent’s Park College Trinity: University of Oxford, 2004) (Drăghici-Vasilescu 2004).
- 16.
Gheorghe Cosma, “Arta contemporană” [Contemporary Art], Arta 5–6 (1974): 6 (Cosma 1974).
- 17.
Anca Șincan, “From Bottom to the Top and Back: On How to Build a Church in Communist Romania,” in Christianity and Modernity in Eastern Europe, eds. Bruce R. Berglund and Brian A. Porter-Szücs (Budapest: Central European University, 2010), 192 (Șincan 2010).
- 18.
Ibidem.
- 19.
Valentina Sandu-Dediu, Octave Paralele (Bucureṣti: Humanitas, 2015), 35 (Sandu-Dediu 2015).
- 20.
Nicolae Gheorghiṭă, “Nationalism through Sacred Chant? Research on Byzantine Musicology in Totalitarian Romania,” Studia Musicologica 56(4) (2015): 324–342 (Gheorghiṭă 2015).
- 21.
Eugen Stănescu ṣi Gheorghe Zbuchea, Bizantinologia la Universitatea Bucureṣti [Byzantinology at the University of Bucharest]. Analele Universitaṭii Bucureṣti. Istorie [History Annals of the University of Bucharest] 14 (1965): 111–123 (Stănescu and Zbuchea 1965).
- 22.
Alexandru Elian, “Bizantinologia in Preocupările Teologiei Româneṣti” [Byzantinology in Romanian Theology Studies]. Studii Teologice II(XXIII: 5–6) (1971): 23–30 p. 348 (Elian 1971).
- 23.
Ștefan Adreescu, “Revistele Bisericeṣti—loc de refugiu al istoricilor români în perioada stalinistă” [Church’s Magazines—Romanian Historians’ Refuge during Stalinism]. Memoria—Revista Gândirii Arestate 31(2): 28–30 (Andreescu 2017).
- 24.
Ṣtefan Adreescu, “Revistele Bisericeṣti,” 29.
- 25.
Păuṭa Pieslak, “Romania’s Madrigal Choir,” 220.
- 26.
Idem, 227.
- 27.
Valentina Sandu-Dediu’s argument is explored in Nicolae Gheorghiṭă, “Nationalism through Sacred Chant?,” 340.
- 28.
Ibidem.
- 29.
Dan Alexandru Streza, “The Religious Carol in Transylvania: Function and Symbol,” Review of Ecumenical Studies Sibiu 8(1) (2016): 76 (Streza 2016).
- 30.
Ruth Heller, Christmas its Carols, Customs and Legends (Chicago: Schmitt, Hall &McCreary, 1948), 42 (Heller 1948).
- 31.
Păuṭa Pieslak, “Romania’s Madrigal Choir, 232.
- 32.
Ibidem.
- 33.
Sabina Păuṭă Pieslak, “Lenin in Swaddling Clothes: A Critique of the Ideological Conflict between Socialist State Policy and Christian Music in Cold War Romania,” Current Musicology 78 (2004): 26.
- 34.
“Colindul, manifest anticomunist” [The Carols, Anti-Communist Manifesto]. Televiziunea Română [Romanian Television], 17 Decembrie 2014. http://www.tvr.ro/. Available at: http://www.tvr.ro/colindul-manifest-anticomunist_10580.html#view (16 February 2020).
- 35.
Pieter Dhondt and Florea Ioncioaia, “Christmas Carolling in Bucharest and Campfire Singing in Iaṣi,” in Student Revolt, City, and Society in Europe: From the Middle Ages to the Present, ed. Pieter Dhondt and Elizabethanne Boran (London: Routledge, 2017), 240 (Dhondt and Ioncioaia 2017).
- 36.
Stejărel Olaru, “Un concert de colinde din iarna lui ‘68,” [A Carols Concert from the winter of 1968]. Dilema Veche 411: 29 December 2011 (Olaru 2011).
- 37.
Dhondt and Ioncioaia, “Christmas Carolling,” 2017.
- 38.
Stejărel Olaru, “Un concert de colinde.”
- 39.
Adrian Cioflâncă, “Cum am devenit instigatoarea numărul unu” [How I became the number one instigator]. Ziarul de Iaṣi, 18 December 2016 (Cioflâncă 2016).
- 40.
Ibidem.
- 41.
Cristian Vasile, Viaţa intellectuală şi artistică în primul deceniu al Regimului Ceauşescu 1965–1974 [Intellectual and Artistic Life in the First Decade of Ceauṣescu Regime: 1965–1974] (Bucharest: Humanitas, 2014) (Vasile 2014).
- 42.
Alice Mocănescu, The Leader Cult in Communist Romania, 1965–1989: Constructing Ceauṣescu’s Uniqueness in Painting. PhD Thesis in History (Durham: Durham University, 2007) (Mocănescu 2007).
- 43.
Mădădalina Hotoran, “The Psaltic Byzantine Chant in Paul Constantinescu’s Creation and its Relevance for the Romanian Composers of the twentieth Century.” The Psaltic Art as an Autonomous Science 1, (2015): 240 (Hotoran 2015).
- 44.
Alice Mocănescu, The Leader Cult in Communist Romania, 190.
- 45.
Ibid., 30.
- 46.
Anon, “Songs of Peace and Happiness,” For a Lasting Peace, for a People’s Democracy, September 14, 1951. Quoted in Joel Crotty, “A Preliminary Investigation of Music, Socialist Realism, and the Romanian Experience 1948–1959: (Re)-Reading, (Re)-Listening and (Re)-Writing Music History for a Different Audience,” Journal of Musicological Research 26 (1–2) (2007): 151–176 (Crotty 2007).
- 47.
Nicolae Gheorghiţă, “Nationalism through Sacred Chant? Research on Byzantine Musicology in Totalitarian Romania.” Studia Musicologica 56(4) (2015).
- 48.
See Plate 5 in Nicolae Gheorghiţă, “Nationalism through Sacred Chant?,” 338–339.
- 49.
Ibidem.
- 50.
Drăghici-Vasilescu, Changes in the Phenomenon of Icon-painting in Romania, 40.
- 51.
Idem, 265.
- 52.
Ibidem.
- 53.
Gina Necula, “Religious Terminology Facing Communist Ideology,” Procedia—Social and Behavioral Sciences 63 (2012): 49 (Necula 2012).
- 54.
Idem, 56.
- 55.
Dan Verona, “The Nightmare. Poetry,” in Censorship in Romania, ed. Lidia Vianu (Budapest: Central European University Press, 1998), 169–189 (Verona 1998).
- 56.
Idem, 181.
- 57.
Ibidem.
- 58.
Drăghici-Vasilescu, Changes in the Phenomenon of Icon-painting in Romania, 251.
- 59.
Drăghici-Vasilescu’s interview with Archdeacon Sibiescu, in Drăghici-Vasilescu, Changes in the Phenomenon of Icon-painting in Romania, 249.
- 60.
Idem, 251–252.
- 61.
“In the Romanian Art, in Romania, 1967. Manuscript,” in Cristina Petrescu and Cristian Valeriu Pătrăşconiu, The Horizon 2020 project Courage Connecting Collections (2018). Available at http://cultural-opposition.eu/registry/?uri=http://courage.btk.mta.hu/courage/individual/n16487 (24 January 2020) (Petrescu and Pătrăşconiu 2018).
- 62.
Ibidem.
- 63.
Evan Freeman, “Flesh and Spirit: Divergent Orthodox Readings of the Iconic Body in Byzantium and the twentieth century,” in Personhood in the Byzantine Christian Tradition, ed. Alexis Torrance and Symeon Paschalidis (New York: Routledge, 2018), 206 (Freeman, 2018).
- 64.
Drăghici-Vasilescu, Changes in the Phenomenon of Icon-painting in Romania, 262.
- 65.
Idem, 94.
- 66.
Drăghici-Vasilescu, Changes in the Phenomenon of Icon-painting in Romania, 262.
- 67.
Consultative Council of Denominations (1987), quoted in Simina Bădică, “I Will Die Orthodox: Religion and Belonging in Life Stories of the Socialist Era in Romania and Bulgaria,” in Ageing, Ritual, and Social Change: Comparing the Secular and Religious in Eastern and Western Europe, eds. Peter Coleman, Daniela Koleva and Joanna Bornat (London: Routledge, 2016), 47.
- 68.
Zoe Petre quoted in English by Cătălin Nicolae Popa, “The significant past and insignificant archaeologists. Who informs the public about their ‘national’ past? The case of Romania,” Archaeological Dialogues 23(1) (2016): 28–39.
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Asavei, M.A. (2020). Godless Religious Art of Romanian National Communism. In: Art, Religion and Resistance in (Post-)Communist Romania. Modernity, Memory and Identity in South-East Europe. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-56255-7_3
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