Cinematic Representations of Otherness in the Era of National Communism in Romania

Cinematic Representations of Otherness in the Era of National Communism in Romania

VISIONS OF IDENTITY: GLOBAL FILM&MEDIA

Lect.univ.dr. Adriana ȘTEFĂNELUniversity of Bucharest

The Other in Romanian Culture

Pogor: why do you talk about Romanian history? Don’t you see that we don’t have any history? A nation without literature, without art, without great ancestors, do not deserve to be taken into consideration by historians. When France produced Moliere and Racine, Romanians where in a absolute barbarism.

Eminescu: What you call barbarism, I call the wisdom and the moderation of a nation that chose to develop according with it’s genius, avoiding the Stranger’s interference.

The Fourth Annual London Film and Media Conference

Why the Nationalist Communist Cinema?

• The emphasis of the nationalist discourse • Propaganda rich its climax• It still produce effects


The National Communism

•At it’s beginning, communism was a class oriented ideology

•In the confuse eastern of Europe, with new-born countries and turbid history, the nationalist feelings could not be hidden for long.


In the ’60, communism tend to glide from internationalism towards nationalism, sometimes to the extremes, sometimes relatively discrete

Boia, L. 2005:126

The Romanian National Communism:Predisposing Factors

Historical predisposing factors:• The interwar tradition of nationalist discourse in Romania• The desire to delineate from its neighbours

Political predisposing factors:• In the ‘60, a new wave of political lieders• The rise of Ceausescu’s personal dictatorship


A Latin island in a Slavic see

The Romanian National Communism:Fundamental Traits


The nationalism was used by Ceausescu and his henchmen in order to concoct a new legitimacy for his regime.



• the emphases of unity served the communist discourse: an unite society, people that think alike, feel alike, strongly united around a providential lieder.

The Romanian National Communism:Fundamental traits


• Ceausescu and his propaganda “forced” the ancestors not to abdicate from national dignity and national sovereignty.



• Romanians defeat the Ottomans and defend the Occident.

The Cinema: a Social Representation Vehicule

• Reality is (re)presented by the media. The media (re)creates representations for us to use, representations of a reality that we do not know firsthand.

• Media create an environment of fictions which slips between us and reality

• In today's society, the cinema is perhaps the most important transmitter of values and attitudes.


Education versus Propaganda in Romanian Communist Cinema

The importance of the Cinema in the process of people’s education in our socialist society

In all our movies, there has to be a militant red thread, militant for our ideas about world and life, for the social humanism, for the politics and for the development of our country.

Nicolae Ceaușescu

25 June 1968

The Executive Committee of CC of PCR conference

about the problem of the Romanian Cinema


The Corpus of Analysis

1. Dacii [The Dacs] 1966

2. Mihai Viteazul [Mihai the Great; The Last cruciate] 1971

3. Mircea [Mircea, the wise man] 1989


Nicolae Ceausescu orders, since 1965, the cinematic version of the most important Romanian historical moments which allowed the emphases of the proud resistance in the confrontation with the Enemy, no matter its name but its capacity to embody the URSS and the West as well.


1.Dacii [The Dacs] 1966

2. Mihai Viteazul [Mihai the Grate; The Last cruciate] 1971



Maybe our gold and our riches are our curse. They ignite hatred of foreigners or their too great love for us. Some are strong, still undefeated. I know, I always received as friends. Never as masters. This is the law of our land, the law of every man.






Today, I fulfil the ancient behest. To join together the ones with the same mother: Tara Romanesca, Ardealul and Moldova.






What now, noblemen? After 30 years of resistance what shall we do? We shall worship the pagan or the Christian? Or both?

The Avatars of Otherness

.


The Other Dacii Mihai Viteazu Mircea

The Romans XXX

The Ottomans X XX

The West XXX X

The Church XX XX

The Other

• The depraved Roman surrounded by women dancers and poets that praises him.

• The Roman solder: well trained but old and scratch in pointless battles.

1. The Romans

2. The Ottomans

3. The West

4. The Church


The Other

1. The Romans

2. The Ottomans

3 The West

4. The Church


A good Roman is a Dac

The Other

1. The Romans

2. The Ottomans

3. The West

4. The Church


• The depraved ottoman ruler: surrounded by women dancer. He do not hesitate to kill his brother or spit his father when needed.

• The ottoman soldier: a trusty enemy and an admirer of the Romanian lieder

The Enemy

1. The Romans

2. The Ottomans

3. The West

4. The Church


Deceiving friends. unreliable and overconfident, weave intrigues and are enable to see the

danger.

The Other

1. The Romans

2. The Ottomans

3. The West

4. The Church


The Other Others

.

•Our brothers, the Bulgarians and the Serbs (Mircea) •The Secui (Hungarian ethnic, currently within Romanian borders)


Conclusion>

.

•In order to construct this new Romanian identity, the film discourse in that period heavily activates The Myth of the (evil) Other.

•Under different name, the Other is the same.

•Caught in the middle, between URSS and West (American and western Europe as well), Ceausescu propaganda used long gone empires to inflame the Romanian pride (we survived, even if they ware stronger) as well as to induce the besieged fortress sentiment.


Cinematic Representations of Otherness in the Era of National Communism in Romania

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