Slovo vol. 20.1 by SLOVO Journal

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SLOVO

SLOVO VOLUME 20

NUMBER 1

SPRING 2008

Contents

Vol. 20, No. 1, Spring 2008

ISSN 0954–6839

slovo

PAGE

EDITORIAL

3–4

ARTICLES

An Inter-disciplinary Journal of Russian, East-Central European and Eurasian Affairs 5–16

beseda peJ

17–32

– sanavards szó slova zvop slovo

33–47 48–53

BOOK REVIEWS

54–60

FILM REVIEW

61–62

slovo ^

Between public and private: the expressive function of internal space in the cinema of Soviet Russia NEIL L. MCCARTNEY Europeans against Europe: the practice of foreign isolationism and seclusion in Stalinist Romania CEZAR STANCIU Croatian National Youth — (HANOA): contribution to the study of the activity and work of Croatian youth organizations in the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes ZELJKO KARAULA Embodying Birds: metaphor and metonymy in Rosy Dreams BRIAN STONE

Vol. 20, No. 1, Spring 2008

zodis wort CLOBO rijec ^

ZACHARY ROTHSTEIN

fjalë slowo l e´ j g

sõna

Maney Publishing for the School of Slavonic and East European Studies, University College London

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SLOVO EXECUTIVE EDITOR: Zachary Rothstein MANAGING EDITOR: Kathryn O’Neill For editorial addresses and submissions, see inside back cover. BOOK REVIEW EDITOR: Chloe Albouze PUBLIC RELATIONS EDITOR: Andrei Tjutrin GENERAL EDITORS: Raul Carstocea Helen Jenkins Charalampos Kissanis Anna Rebmann Erin Saltman Kelley Thompson MANEY PUBLISHING: Lisa Johnstone, Editorial Executive Geetha Nair, Production Editor Slovo discusses and interprets Russian, Eastern and Central European, and Eurasian affairs from a number of different perspectives including, but not limited to, anthropology, art, economics, film, history, international studies, linguistics, literature, media, philosophy, politics, and sociology. Slovo is a fully refereed journal, edited and managed by postgraduates of the School of Slavonic and East European Studies, University College London. Each year a new Editorial Board is selected from the postgraduate community to produce two volumes of academic depth and rigour, considering articles, book, and film review submissions from both established and emerging academics. Indexing and Abstracting Slovo is indexed in MLA International Bibliography and the Directory of Periodicals. Slovo (ISSN 0954–6839) is published for the School of Slavonic and East European Studies, University College London, twice yearly, in the spring and autumn. Subscriptions are entered by the volume and include postage (air-speeded outside the UK). Subscriptions must be pre-paid at the rate appropriate to the location of the subscriber.

Volume 20, 2008 (2 issues) Institutional rate: £98.00; North America: US$188.00 Individual rate*: £28.00; North America: US$51.00 *Subscriptions are welcomed from individuals if prepaid by personal cheque or credit card and if the journal is to be sent to a private address. All orders must be sent to Publication Sales, Maney Publishing, Suite 1C, Joseph’s Well, Hanover Walk, Leeds LS3 1AB, UK (fax: +44 (0)113 386 8178; email: subscriptions@maney.co.uk). Maney Publishing North America, 875 Massachusetts Avenue, 7th Floor, Cambridge, MA 02139, USA. Tel (toll-free): 866 297 5154; Fax: 617 354 6875; email: maney@maneyusa.com. All cheques must be payable to Maney Publishing. Advertising and general enquiries should be sent to Maney Publishing. Copyright © 2008 School of Slavonic and East European Studies, University College London. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise without the written permission of the copyright holder. Requests for such permission must be addressed to Permissions Section, Maney Publishing, at the above address. Disclaimer Statements in the journal reflect the views of the authors, and not necessarily those of the University, editors, or publisher. Photocopying For users in North America, permission is granted by the copyright owner for libraries and others registered with the Copyright Clearance Center (CCC) to make copies of any article herein for the flat fee of US$ 38 per article. Payment should be sent directly to CCC, 22 Rosewood Drive, Danvers, MA 01923, USA. In the UK, the copyright Licensing Agency, 90 Tottenham Court Road, London WIP 9HE is mandated to grant permission to make copies. Maney Publishing is the trading name of W. S. Maney & Son Ltd, Suite 1C, Joseph's Well, Hanover Walk, Leeds LS3 1AB, UK.

Notes for Contributors Slovo welcomes original contributions that match the aims and scope of the journal (as described on the inside front cover) on the understanding that their contents have not previously been published or are currently submitted for publication elsewhere. All submissions will be sent to independent referees. It is a condition of publication that papers become the copyright of the School of Slavonic & East European Studies, University College London. All editorial correspondence should be sent to the Executive Editor, Slovo, School of Slavonic and East European Studies, University College London, Gower Street, London WC1E 6BT. Email: slovo@ssees.ac.uk Deadlines Deadlines are normally September for the spring issue and March for the autumn issue. Presentation and Style Two complete copies should be submitted printed double-spaced with ample margins and not normally exceeding 6–8000 words. All pages should be numbered: the first page should state only the title of the paper, name(s) of the author(s) and, for each author, a short institutional affiliation, and an abbreviated title (for running headlines within the article). At the bottom of the page give the full name, address and e-mail address to which all correspondence, including proofs, should be sent. The second page should contain an abstract in English of not more than 200 words. Contributions should follow the MHRA Style Guide (2002) and the house-style of the journal. Words should not be hyphenated at the end of a line. Use single inverted commas for short quotations (double for quotations within quotations), but quotations over fifty words should be indented and single-spaced without inverted commas. Translations are not generally needed for quotations from the Slavonic languages, although it is left to the author’s discretion if they wish to include the original. Where a passage presents particular difficulty, translation may be offered, either in parentheses in the text, or in an endnote. Transliterations should follow the Library of Congress system without diacritics, which must be used except where conventions for alternative transliterations exist. Quotations in languages other than Slavonic will require translation. Non-English words in the text, apart from names, should be italicized. Notes and References Contributors should adhere to MHRA and the journal’s house-style in the presentation of numbered footnotes and references. Any general note on the article (e.g. personal acknowledgements) should appear as a first unnumbered note. Within the text, references and notes should be indicated by a superscript Arabic numeral. Articles and publications cited in the text should then be listed in full in the footnotes: for books: Bernard Comrie and Gerald Stone, The Russian Language since the Revolution (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1978), p. 2. for articles in books: George Schöpflin, ‘The Functions of Myth and a Taxonomy of

Myth’, in Myths and Nationhood, ed. by Geoffrey Hosking and George Schöpflin (London: C. Hurst & Company, 1997), pp. 31–33. for periodical articles: Lubomir Dolezel, ‘Poststructuralism: A View from Charles Bridge’, Poetics Today, 21 (2000), 640–41. For particular text(s) repeatedly cited, full bibliographical reference should be given in an initial footnote, with author/page references thereafter in parentheses in the text (Schöpflin, p. 31). Consistent abbreviations may be used in such references where appropriate. Authors are responsible for ensuring the accuracy of references. Tables and Illustrations These should be submitted on separate sheets, repeating on the back the title of the paper, and numbered sequentially using Arabic numerals for Figures (illustrations, i.e. photographs, diagrams, and graphs) and Tables. Each must have a caption, source, and where appropriate, a key. The position in the text must be clearly shown (e.g. Figure 1, Table 1). Black and white prints of photographs should be supplied, or TIFF or EPS files on disk (with a print-out supplied for reference). Captions should be submitted on a separate sheet. Submission on disk On notification by the Editors that a paper has been accepted, a final version of the article should be submitted on disk in Microsoft Word. Submission on disk will improve typographical accuracy and accelerate publication. The filename and software must be indicated on the disk. In preparing the disk version, there is no need to format articles: please include italics or bold type where necessary, but not style or footnote codes. Footnotes should be typed at the end of the file as part of the text, or supplied in a separate document. In the main text, numbering of notes should be indicated by superscript numbers. References and captions should be placed at the end of the file, or in separate files. Please use hard returns only at the end of paragraphs; switch auto-hyphenation off; do not justify text; and do not use automatic numbering routines. Consistency in spacing, punctuation, and spelling will be of help. Tables should be submitted as separate files and keyed horizontally from left to right using a tab between columns, not the space bar (or keyed in Table mode in Word). Proofs Proofs will be sent to the author-nominated e-mail address for correspondence. Proofs are supplied for checking and making essential typographical corrections, not for general revision, alteration, or changes to illustrations, which will not be allowed. Proofs must be returned to the editor within 5 days of receipt. Complimentary copies Contributors will receive a free copy of the journal in which their article is featured. Authors can also access a PDF of their article for distribution, obtainable from the Executive Editor at slovo@ssees.ac.uk.

SLOVO Volume 20

Number 1

Spring 2008

CONTENTS EDITORIAL Zachary Rothstein

ARTICLES Between public and private: the expressive function of internal space in the cinema of Soviet Russia Neil L. McCartney

Europeans against Europe: the practice of foreign isolationism and seclusion in Stalinist Romania Cezar Stanciu

Croatian National Youth — (HANOA): contribution to the study of the activity and work of Croatian youth organizations in the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes Željko Karaula

Embodying Birds: metaphor and metonymy in Rosy Dreams Brian Stone

BOOK REVIEWS J. Kornal, By Force of Thought, Irregular Memoirs of an Intellectual Journey (Lászlò Péter); Romanian Stories Online (Ali Zaidi); S. Hanley, The New Right in the New Europe: Czech Transformation and Right-Wing Politics, 1989–2006 (Raul Carstocea)

FILM REVIEW The Banishment (Isabelle Cornaz)

slovo, vol. 20, No. 1, 2008, 3–4

Editorial ZACHARY ROTHSTEIN Executive Editor, Slovo, 2007–08 In our continuing quest for academic rigor and professionalism, Issue 20.1 breaks with several Slovo conventions. As an academic journal, we rely upon regular submissions to determine the content of each issue and we select with our best judgment those articles that exemplify sophisticated academic inquiry and clarity of expression. Though we set strict word limits and expect authors to conform to them, we also occasionally bend the rules in order to accommodate particularly compelling submissions. The first article, ‘Between Public & Private: The Expressive Function of Internal Space in the Cinema of Soviet Russia’ by Neil McCartney, analyses the dynamic interplay between internal space and expression in five films. McCartney explores this relationship with reference to Svetlana Boym’s portrayal of the communal apartment and Soviet housing policy in Common Places. After examining aspects of the communal apartment, McCartney traces the themes of interruption, exposure, embarrassment, and moments of privacy in the films. This article is a testament to the ways in which governmental policies--the communal apartment in this case — can have a lasting effect even after their abolition. The next article, entitled ‘Europeans against Europe: The Practice of Foreign Isolationism and Seclusion in Stalinist Romania’ analyses the conscious self-removal of Romania from international relations in the mid-nineteenth century. These policies, author Cezar Stanciu argues, represented a radical break with previous Romanian foreign policy. Using complex process tracing, the author demonstrates that two exogenous factors explain this isolation, Soviet influence in Romanian affairs and mutual antagonism with the West. The third article, ‘Croatian National Youth (HANAO): A Contribution to the Study of the Activity and Work of Croatian Youth Organizations in the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes’ by Željko Karaula, presents fresh, original research into the origin and development of two youth organizations in Croatia and Bosnia and Herzegovina, HANAO and Academic HANAO. Through in-depth analysis of newspaper articles and publications from the organizations themselves, the author demonstrates how their political surroundings strongly influenced the development, activity, and ideology of the youth organizations. Lastly, Brian Stone’s article ‘Embodying Birds: Metaphor and Metonymy in Rosy Dreams’ sheds light on a little-known film by Dušan Hanák entitled Rosy Dreams (Ružové sny). The article explores and explicates the central metaphor of the film: the two main characters, Jakub and Jolanka, are literally and figuratively lovebirds. © School of Slavonic & East European Studies, University College London, 2008

EDITORIAL

The author demonstrates how Hanák utilizes a variety of cinematic techniques in order to enhance and bolster the film’s potent symbolism. Breaking convention, this issue features two special extended reviews. The first, by László Péter, Emeritus Professor of Hungarian History at the University of London, is an examination of the life of János Kornai and a reflection on his recent memoirs, By Force of Thought, Irregular Memoirs of an Intellectual Journey. This review traces Kornai’s intellectual development with reference to the changing political climate in which he was originating his economic ideas. The second extended review, by Ali Zaidi, Assistant Professor of Humanities at the State University of New York at Canton, examines a compilation of short stories from Romania recently made available online. His review examines each story as a glimpse into the lives of everyday people and in doing so, shows how each uniquely contributes to the collective memory of Romania. This issue — the first of the 2007–2008 academic year — would not have been possible without extraordinary help from a number of people. I am so thankful for the support of previous Executive Editor Dragana Obradovic´ and the countless hours of work from the current Editorial Board. I would like to sincerely thank Dr Bojan Aleksov, Dr Timothy Beasley-Murray, Dr Urszula Chowaniec, Prof Pamela Davidson, Prof Dennis Deletant, Dr Eric Gordy, Prof Julian Graffy, Dr Milena Michalski, and Dr Ilya Nedin for their professional help during the editing process. Additional thanks go to Dr Alena Ledeneva for being a constant source of information from start to finish. Last, but certainly not least, I would like to thank Lisa Johnstone and Geetha Nair of Maney Publishing for their dedication and help in making this issue of Slovo a huge success.

slovo, vol. 20, No. 1, 2008, 33–47

Croatian National Youth (HANAO): contribution to the study of the activity and work of Croatian youth organizations in the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes ŽELJKO KARAULA University of Zagreb

In this paper, the author will present the genesis, subsequent activity, and development of two Croatian National Youth organizations (HANAO)1 in Croatia and Bosnia and Herzegovina. The establishment of both organizations took place at the time of the concentration of Croatian parties in an opposition ‘Croatian Block’, i.e. after the adoption of the Vidovdan Constitution, which proclaimed a centralized system of government. During the period of their activity, each of these organizations had a different approach to the struggle against the centralized government of the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes (Kingdom of SHS). For a certain period of time, their ideological programmes, particularly in respect to the Croatian ethnic issue, were the total opposite of each other. In their activity, both HANAO organizations demonstrated indirect commitment to some of the programmes of Croatian political parties that were active in the political scene of the Kingdom of SHS.

Introduction In the historiography of the period of the Kingdom of SHS and subsequently, from 1929, of the Kingdom of Yugoslavia, political youth organizations, their creation, development, and activity have not received adequate attention, with the exception of the Young Communist League of Yugoslavia (SKOJ), about which many papers 1

Although in the majority of program documents and newspapers HANAO is named Croatian Popular Youth, the name Croatian National Youth has become ingrained in the Croatian historiography and, to avoid any misunderstanding, will therefore be used in this paper. Cf.: Ljubo Boban, Controversies from the History of Yugoslavia, 3 vols (Zagreb: Školska knjiga — Stvarnos — 1987), p. 349.; Ivo Banac, Ethnic Issue in Yugoslavia — the Origin, History, Politics (Zagreb: Globus, 1988), p. 181.

ŽELJKO KARAULA

have been written though many of them have not been critically reviewed.2 Apart from two works by the Serbian historian Branislav Gligorgijevic´ about the Organization of Yugoslav Nationalists (ORJUNA) and Serbian National Youth (SRNAO) written in the 1960s,3 other non-Communist youth organizations in the Kingdom of SHS were not particularly studied. Although such organizations were mentioned in all historical syntheses of that period, it occurred segmentally, without any specific data and, because of the lack of research of this particular historical matter, without the possibility of providing any concrete historical conclusions about their activity. So, in his most recent work Political Reality of Yugoslavism, the historian Srec´ko Džaja had every reason to conclude that Croatian National Youth (HANAO), Muslim National Youth (MUNAO), Slovene National Youth (SLONAO), Organization of Bacˇka Croatian Nationalists (ORBUNA) ‘in research works have remained known almost only by their respective names’.4 Also, in the new book by Bosiljka Janjatovic´ about the repression of the opposition by the government and its organizations in Croatia (1918–1935), HANAO and its activity are hardly mentioned at all.5 Barely known is the very fact that in the same period (1921–1925) two organizations of Croatian National Youth (HANAO) were founded with different programmes and ideological aims, connected with different party groups influencing their methods of activity. This fact also clearly indicates certain divisions of Croatian intellectual and political elite, including the youth as well, over solving the Croatian ethnic issue and the vision of the newly created Yugoslav state in the initial period of its existence. Therefore, the main objective of this paper is to present the ideological structure of two HANAO organizations, particularly with regard to the Croatian ethnic issue, the reasons for their creation, and the course of their political activities in the areas of Croatia and Bosnia and Herzegovina. This paper will not solve all questions regarding these organizations, but provides a basis for future research. Due to the parallelism of the names of both organizations, in this paper the HANAO organization established at Zagreb University in 1921 will be called Academic HANAO, while the one established in Vukovar in 1922 will be called just HANAO.

After the establishment of a new state, the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes, the question of its system of government was the core question of socio-political relations and all parties offered their respective platforms for the internal structure of the government administration. However, due to the predominance of centralist-unionist groups, Great-Serbian politics, and top-ranking military officers, the process of state centralization was accelerated and took place before the elections for the Constituent 2

4 5

See Vojo Rajcˇevic´, Revolutionary Youth Movement in Croatia 1919.–1941, 2 vols (Zagreb: Centar društvenih djelatnosti SSOH, 1979).; Petar Kacˇevanda, SKOJ and Youth in War and Revolution (Belgrade: Eksport pres, 1979).; Neda Marovic´, SKOJ in Dalmatia 1939–1941 (Split: Dalmacija, 1972).; Srec´ko Džaja, Political Reality of Yugoslavism (Sarajevo-Zagreb: Svjetlo rijecˇi, 2004), p. 47. Branislav Gligorijevicˇ, ‘Organization of Yugoslav Nationalists (ORJUNA)’, 20th Century History, 5 (1963), 315–96.; Branislav Gligorijevicˇ, ‘Serbian National Youth (SRNAO)’, Istorijski glasnik, 2–3, (1964), 3–38. Džaja, p.47. Bosiljka Janjatovic´, Political terror in Croatia 1918–1935, (Zagreb: Dom i svijet, 2002), pp. 70–72.

CROATIAN NATIONAL YOUTH

Assembly, which could have determined the government system of the Kingdom of SHS by a qualified majority of all members in accordance with the Corfu Declaration signed by the Yugoslav Committee and the Serbian government-in-exile in 1917. Prompted by their aspiration to ensure political and economic predominance of Serbia and Serbian people over the other nations of the new state, the Great-Serbian circles were preparing for the adoption of the octroyed, the so-called Temporary Constitution of the Kingdom of SHS in 1919, by which the existing Constitution of the Kingdom of Serbia would have been applied to the entire territory. However, the attempt to achieve this failed.6 Serbian elites could not permit the coexistence of two centers: Belgrade and Zagreb, each specialized in certain affairs — one for politics and the other for the economy. The Vidovdan Constitution, adopted by a narrow majority on 28 June 1921, legalized the existing system of government, which rested on markedly centralistic foundations. Subsequently, the political scene of the Kingdom of SHS became radically polarized into two camps: those who defended the Vidovdan Constitution and asked for its preservation on one side, and on the other side those who asked for its revision or did not recognize it at all. The strongest force against the situation proclaimed by the Vidovdan Constitution was the Croatian Block, established in early August 1921 as a coalition of three parties: The Croatian Republican Peasant Party (HRSS), the Croatian Union (HZ), and the Croatian Party of Rights (HSP). In spite of their internal differences7 and the absolute domination of stjepan Radic´’s Party (HRSS) and his tactics in the new coalition, all three parties viewed the Croatian Block as the best way to send to the Belgrade government a clear message that the Croatian people would not accept the constitution imposed against their will and the Constituent Assembly did not have the legitimacy to adopt a constitution that would apply to Croatia as well. It should be noted that recurring political crises in the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes were not caused only by unresolved ethnic issues, but also by a heterogeneous structure of the state composed of nations at different levels of political, economic, and social development, though it is beyond dispute that the ethnic issue was a predominant one and that the struggle for its fair definition persisted unceasingly. It was just this struggle that marked the first years of the new state.8

The creation and activity of Academic Croatian National Youth (HANAO) Under such circumstances, the academic organization of Croatian National Youth (HANAO) was founded at Zagreb University in spring, most probably June, 1921,9 6

Branislav Gligorijevic´, ‘On the Attempt to Impose the So Called Temporary Constitution of the Kingdom of SHS’, Jugoslavenski istorijski cˇasopis, 3–4 (1966), 105–119. The most heated disputes between the parties were caused by the Croatian Party of Rights, which refused any association between Croatia and Serbia, while the other two parties (HRSS, HZ) accepted the idea of a unitary state, asking only for its reconstruction. The problem was in Radic´’s republicanism, which the Croatian Union as a monarchism supporting party, could not accept. About the first years of the new state: Mira Kolar, ‘Croatia in the First Yugoslavia, an Outline of its Position-Was it the Crisis of the Government or of the State’, Collected papers on Croatian politics in 20th Century (Zagreb: Matica Hrvatska, 2004), 191–219. The sources do not mention the exact date when the Academic HANAO was founded.

ŽELJKO KARAULA

by mainly former members of the student organization Yugoslav Democratic Youth League (JDOL).10 The process of JDOL’s disintegration was undoubtedly caused by the disappointment of the Croatian youth in Zagreb University with political processes in their country. In particular, there was disappointment with the forced imposition of the unitarian and centralist government system, but also with the need to close ranks in the face of such politics. This was best expressed by Milan Vukelic´, the new president of HANAO, who said that ‘our goals will not be easy to achieve [. . .] this way is a hard one and [. . .] leads towards the concentration of all Croats’.11 As the founder of the academic youth organization HANAO, Milan Vukelic´, former vice-president of JDOL and editor-in-chief of HANAO’s organ Nova Hrvatska (New Croatia), became the creator and main initiator of its activity in the initial period of its existence. In its program, the newly established organization endeavoured to rehabilitate the Croatian name among university students, which had been, through the merit of intellectual circles of that time, identified with Austrophilia and Habsburgianism. With its very foundation at the University, the Academic HANAO struck a ‘decisive blow against the Yugoslavism among the Croatian youth’, ‘joined the united Croatian wheel dance’, and paved the way for the foundation of other Croatian youth organizations at the University, such as ‘Kvaternik’ or HRSS.12 The activity of the Academic HANAO remained restricted to Zagreb University, to the expansion of the organization, promotion of national consciousness among the students, and campaigns against Yugoslav student clubs within the University.13 It was only in the last years of its existence that Academic HANAO started to spread to other Croatian towns or towns in which Croats were living. The most important Academic HANAO branch was founded in Sarajevo. A long time had elapsed from the foundation of this organization to the establishment of its practical activity. In its guidelines, HANAO identified its activity with that of ‘progressive youth’ from the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, asserting in particular its policy of ‘delicate work’ in the masses. Feeling that there was no direct contact between intellectual circles and the people, HANAO saw its role as establishing such contact. Speaking about the merits of the ‘progressive youth’, which they considered their predecessors, HANAO, it was believed, should take the same road, particularly in ‘cultural and sanitary terms’ without neglecting ‘economic and organizational activities’ among the Croatian rural population.14 The first cultural workers were also the first political leaders; they enhanced the people’s strength, endurance, and resistance in struggles, but also contributed to their national identity.15 Both in terms of political programs and ideology, HANAO as an organization was subordinated to the Croatian Union (HZ), a party of Croatian urban intellectual circles. This occurred simply because the Croatian Union’s evolution in respect to the Croatian ethnic issue: its approach to the monarchism and state administration system were taken over and 10

11 12 13 14 15

More about the Yugoslav Democratic League: Konstantin Bastajic´, ‘Yugoslav Democratic League and its Predecessors’, Collection of papers of the Faculty of Law in Zagreb, 3–4 (Zagreb: Pravní Fakultet, 1962) 166–180. Hrvat, 8 November 1919, p. 3. qtd. in Rajcˇevicˇ, p. 37. ‘Post-War Movements Among Croatian Academic Youth’, Nova Hrvatska, 15 January 1924, p. 23. In the 1920s, Zagreb University had about five thousand students. Milan Vukelicˇ, ‘Our Standpoint and Guidelines’, Nova Hrvatska, 15 January 1924, p. 3. Ibid.

CROATIAN NATIONAL YOUTH

incorporated in HANAO’s programmes. Hrvat, the main organ of the Croatian Union, followed attentively HANAO’s activities in its reports. HANAO itself did not absolutely deny their connection, pointing out that the greatest and best part of the Croatian youth had joined the Croatian Union ranks and that even many HANAO members were ‘organized in that party’. HANAO’s activities are just ‘wider and more versatile than those of the Croatian Union, but our activities have never been and will never be in conflict’.16 Over time, the positions of Academic HANAO with respect to the Yugoslav state were growing increasingly more hardline and started to diverge from the positions of the Croatian Union. Under the slogan ‘Balkan orientation actually means no orientation’, HANAO expressed its hostility towards the West, in particular to Italy and Great Britain, claiming that they were ‘suffocating’ the newly established Slav states. It could not forgive the great ‘non-Slav’ powers for the loss of ‘Croatian Rijeka’ and Trieste, accusing them of an intention ‘to seal mouths, to close windows and doors’ to all Slav states and to keep them in a state of economic subjection, thus showing HANAO’S support to the Slav orientation.17 In a state of resignation, particularly after Radic´’s failed West European tour seeking support, HANAO started to search for its way somewhere on the boundary of ‘the East and the West [. . .] without falling under either eastern or western exclusive influence [. . .] but, as a special and specific nation [. . .] should actually represent a bridge between the East and the West’.18 In the last years of its activity HANAO increasingly recognized the lead of the university organization HRSS, as the Croatian Union was submitting itself to the dictate of Radic´, acting in a conciliatory and cooperative manner. So, in order to avoid confrontation between Croatian youth organizations, it withdrew its candidates from the election lists. During the elections for the Yugoslav Academic Benefit Association (JAPD), which subsidized poor students, HANAO withdrew its candidates for the Committee members and, in the general interest, ceded their positions to HRSS. At its fifth Ordinary Meeting, HANAO introduced a resolution supporting its gradual merger with the university HRSS, stating that HANAO in its future activity ‘will continue to put all its efforts in the idea of a Croatian state’ and that it will continue to nourish ‘independence’, but also ‘support HRSS’.19

The foundation of Croatian National Youth (HANAO) in Vukovar After having squared the accounts with the communists and the Communist Party of Yugoslavia (KPJ), which had won several local elections in Vukovar during 1920, by adopting the National Protection Act in early 1921, which legalized the prosecution and imprisonment of communists, the ruling regime pounced on the supporters of HRSS, who represented the strongest obstruction to further centralization of the state. Under the Act adopted in 1922, by which the state was subdivided into 16 17

18 19

Ibid., p. 5. Milan Vukelicˇ, ‘Pact of Rome, Rijeka and the Croats, Croatian Rijeka as a victim of non — Slav economic imperialism’, Nova Hrvatska, 15 February 1924, pp. 15–16. Milan Vukelicˇ, ‘Bridge’, Nova Hrvatska, 15 April 1924, p. 150. ‘Resolution Hanao’, Hrvat, 28 November 1924, p. 4.

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thirty-three administrative districts, the towns Vukovar, Županja and Vinkovci were included in a newly created Syrmian District with Vukovar as its centre. Clearly showing their intention to Serbianize this region as efficiently as possible, the ruling parties of Great-Serbian orientation were colonizing the Counts Eltz estate in Syrmia and other Slavonic estates with Serbian families (about eight thousand colonists) and thus intentionally changing the ethnic structure of that area in favour of the Serbs. Supported by the government authorities, they established a number of nationalist Chetnik associations, all with the aim to force the Croats and other non-Serbian populations either to emigrate or to assimilate. Particularly aggressive in the Vukovar area was the National Radical Party, which harassed and exerted strong pressure upon all those who did not agree with its standpoints and politics. Such politics led to the division of Croatian and Serbian populations in the Vukovar area, causing conflicts and further polarization. How electrified the situation was in Vukovar at that time is shown in an unpublished proposal by Dr Rudolf Horvat, from the presidency of HRSS, a member of HANAO’s Big Five Council and a candidate of HRSS in Virovitica County, for the exchange of twenty three thousand Croats from the Eastern Syrmia for the same number of Serbs from the Western Syrmia.20 The convincing victory of the Croatian Block in the elections in Vukovar on 17 February 1922 caused a new wave of repression and violence. In its endeavours to demonstrate the Croatian character of Vukovar, from 8 to 9 June 1922, on the occasion of the inauguration and consecration of the Croatian Community Centre in Vukovar, the triumphant Croatian Block staged a great celebration, which was attended by many other Croatian associations, such as Osijek, Vinkovci, Zemun, Županja, Subotica, and Zagreb. Pro-Yugoslav and Serbian associations from Vukovar imposed a boycott on this celebration and issued a written statement about their refusal to participate in the inauguration of the Croatian Community Centre. However, the response from the Croats came very quickly, because all Croatian associations from Vukovar refused to participate in the consecration of the flag of the Serbian singing club Javor from Vukovar, saying that ‘the Serbs of Vukovar want to undermine Croatian liberty by their obtrusiveness and insults’.21 Shortly thereafter, the Democratic Party of Svetozar Pribicˇevic´ founded in Vukovar a branch of the Yugoslav Nationalist Organization (ORJUNA). Their members, supported by government authorities, attacked Croatian nationalists and other Croatian intellectuals and workers. Under these circumstances, the Croatian Block encouraged the foundation of the Croatian National Youth (HANAO) organization as a counterbalance to ORJUNA, and so HANAO was founded in Vukovar by a group of students from Zagreb University in August 1922. The detrimental activity of ORJUNA, which ‘for Judas pay’ terrorized its brother Croats in the service of Belgrade’s centralism, had been discussed already at the Croatian Block meeting in March 1922. The Croatian youth was warned not to be tricked by those who wanted to isolate Dalmatia from Zagreb and Croatia.22 Stjepan Radic´ himself pointed out at some 20

Mira Kolar-Dimitrijevic´, ‘Proposal by the historian Rudolf Horvat for the exchange of Eastern and Western Syrmia population in 1922’, Collection of historical papers, 49 (Zagreb: Društvoza Hrvatsku Povijest, 1996) 209–218. ‘Attention. To Croats of Vukovar on the eve of the consecration of the flag of the Serbian singing club Javor’ Gvozd, 20 September 1922, p. 2. ‘Have not the separation’, Slobodni dom, 2 April 1922, pp. 4–5.

CROATIAN NATIONAL YOUTH

meetings that nationalists should be opposed and encouraged the Croatian youth to offer open resistance because ‘should ORJUNA supporters ever come to a village, they would never go away’.23 The foundation of HANAO was actually a response to ORJUNA’s political activity and this was clearly stated in the first issue of HANAO’s official paper Gvozd, in which it was underlined that the founding of HANAO helped the Croats ‘to withstand the attack of the local fascist organization which, thanks to the support by Vukovar democratic and radical community, had a big advantage’ and all Croats ‘threatened by the fascists’ were invited ‘to react and rouse themselves as soon as they hear about the founding of a fascist organization in their community, to found a Croatian youth organization and launch their organ as soon as possible’.24 The initiator of the new organization was Franjo Gruber, who was also the editorin-chief of Gvozd, which was published from time to time in 1922 (six issues) and 1923 (nine issues).25 In its first manifesto, the newly established organization calls for the creation of ‘an unyielding Falanga’ that will ‘in a single battle [. . .] in a single fierce clash [. . .] repel any attack at the Croats in general’ and points out that HANAO will be committed to the ‘sublime mission of defending Croatianism’ by all available means.26 Before the transfer of the organization’s seat to Zagreb, HANAO had spread very quickly over Eastern Slavonia and Syrmia, so that its first branches were established in Osijek, Vinkovci, Petrovaradin, Mitrovica, Ilok, Nijemci, and Tovarnik, followed by those in Sarajevo, Bihac´, Dubrovnik, Senj, and Šibenik, among others. The creation of HANAO organizations spread in early 1923, particularly on the eve of the elections of the same year. Some of these organizations did not survive for a long time, while some others passed under the leadership of Academic HANAO like, for example, the one in Sarajevo.

Conﬂicts between the Croatian National Youth (HANAO) and the supporters of Yugoslav Nationalist Organization (ORJUNA) and Serbian National Youth (SRNAO) Founded with the aim ‘to defend Croatianism’ from ’Great-Serbianism and false Yugoslavism’, HANAO most frequently came into conflict with the supporters of ORJUNA (in Bosnia and Herzegovina mostly with SRNAO), wishing to pull out a part of Croatian youth from that organization and opposing its terror. As early as in the second half of 1922, fierce physical and armed clashes had ocurred in different Croatian towns, which developed into some form of a civil war. Dominik Bubmer, a HANAO member, was seriously wounded by ORJUNA supporters in an armed clash in Šibenik in early June.27 In the same month in Osijek a fierce fight took place between HANAO and ORJUNA in front of the Croatian Community Centre, in 23 24 25

26 27

Josip Horvat, Croatian Political History 1918–1929 (Zagreb: Tipografija, 1938), p. 214. Committee HANAO, ‘From Croatian National Youth’, Gvozd, 13 September 1922, p. 3. The main motto, featured on the front page of the newspaper, read: ‘Gvozd is an independent newspaper committed to cultural and national recognition of Croatianism. We stick to that eternal maxim of fearless warriors: Or we, as the Croats, shall live with dignity of a modern and cultural man, or we shall disappear [. . .] Life or grave!’ ‘Why Gvozd ?’, Gvozd, 13 September 1922, p. 1. ‘Dominik Bumber’, Gvozd, 14 June 1923, p. 4.

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which many people were injured.28 As a response of ORJUNA’s attack against the members of Croatian Falcon who were on an excursion lead by Dr Rudolf Horvat, HANAO killed a young ORJUNA supporter in Gospic´ Milan Cervar.29 A serious incident happened in Zagreb when the members of ORJUNA, lead by Berislav Anðelinovic´, attacked with sticks HANAO members at the Croatian Coffee House (Hrvatska kavana); eight persons were seriously injured and the police caught six armed ORJUNA members.30 Democratic newspaper Rijecˇ (The Word) reported that in a conflict between the HANAO and ORJUNA in mid March, sixty shots were fired and two policemen were injured, one ‘seriously and the other lightly’.31 Soon thereafter, policeman Milo Galovic´ was killed in a clash with HANAO in Zagreb.32 In a clash between ORJUNA and HANAO near the Corso coffee house in Zagreb three people were badly wounded and five lightly, some of whom were just passers-by.33 A few months earlier, in an armed conflict between a number of HANAO and ORJUNA supporters on Jelacˇic´ Square, HANAO member Rudolf Rožic´ had been killed.34 Government authorities used that incident to impose a 9p.m. curfew, after which all coffee bars, restaurants, and other public places were closed while reinforced gendarmerie squads that had arrived in Zagreb patrolled the streets of the town.35 This, however, could not calm the activity of the Croatian nationalists and the strong and radical HANAO organization from Osijek, when an attempted assassination at the Tacˇkovic´ Hotel seriously wounded Boško Mašic´, editor-in-chief of the ORJUNA’s newspaper Buduc´nost (The Future).36 In the same town, in a clash in Jelacˇic´ Square, a group of HANAO supporters with ‘large calibre guns’ seriously wounded ORJUNA member Šabatalj Fincl, who only just survived, and a few months later HANAO killed two ORJUNA supporters.37 Many newspapers and institutions appealed for the cessation of violence in Croatia. The appeals for the cessation of violence among the youth were also promoted by Nova Europa, a Yugoslav newspaper with Milan Cˇurc´in as the editor-in-chief. The newspaper accused both ORJUNA and HANAO for having adopted Mussolini’s fascist idea of patriotism and politics and that HANAO, as ‘a typical chauvinist organization, resurrects slogans over the Croatian kingdom which had been dead for a thousand years, while the other organization takes a bomb and a gun in its hand and destroys printing-offices and coffee bars in the name of a united people’s will and state’.38

28 29 30 31

32 33 34 35 36 37 38

‘A Fight in Osijek’, Gvozd, 28 June 1923, p. 3. Gligorijevic´, ‘Organization of Yugoslav Nationalists (ORJUNA)’, p. 325. ‘About the ORJUNA Attack at the Croatian Youth’, Hrvatska sloga, 4 February 1923, p. 3. ‘Riots in Zagreb’, Rijecˇ, 20 March 1923, p. 3. In late January in Tkalcˇic´eva Street of Zagreb, ORJUNA leader Anðelovic´ was badly wounded in a clash between ORJUNA and HANAO supporters. Two policemen were also injured. Fighter, ‘Mercenary Mob Attacks’, Hrvatski borac, 3 February 1923, p. 2. Rajcˇevic´, p. 122. ‘Gun fire in the streets of Zagreb’, Novi hrvatski borac, 17 July 1923, p. 3. ‘Let’s not forget’, Novi hrvatski borac, 1 August 1923, p. 3. ‘For Public Order and Security in Zagreb’, Rijecˇ, 13 June 1923, p. 4. ‘Bandit assault’, Radikalna omladina, 26 January 1923, p. 2. ‘Bloody Fight on the Jelacˇic´ Square in Osijek’, Radikalna omladina, 27 April 1923, p. 3.; Rajcˇevic´, p. 123. ‘New Youth’, Nova Evropa, Vol. VII, 1 May 1923, p. 407.

CROATIAN NATIONAL YOUTH

Ideology of the Croatian National Youth (HANAO) The ideology of the Croatian National Youth is radical Croatian nationalism, which was a response to the terror of government authorities and ORJUNA. Under the motto ‘one power drives out another’, ever since its foundation, HANAO used terrorist means against the power holders supporting integral Yugoslavism and members of ORJUNA and SRNAO. Established primarily as a response to the foundation of ORJUNA, HANAO set as its objective to be the unificaton of all Croatian countries, such as Banovina, Dalmatia, Herzeg-Bosnia and Slavonia, to close ranks and withstand a force which ‘wants to destroy us’.39 In fact, HANAO never outgrew the stage of a weakly interconnected youth organization in different Croatian towns, in spite of the ‘congress of unification’ held in Sarajevo. It never presented a clear and firm action plan nor worked to strengthen the organization, but only declaratively called the Croats ‘to gather in strong, unbeatable Falange ranks’.40 It served as a means for Croatian parties (the Croatian Block, in particular) to mobilize the electoral body, disqualify political enemies and in certain political situations as a means to pressure the ruling regime and its people. In its public activity, using pure slogans and demagogic singling-out, HANAO called on its members to ‘fight’, to finally beat the enemies down ‘in their own blood’.41 This resembles a dose of militarism; ‘each HANAO member should be a soldier’. The calls to both struggle and sacrifice that appear in all HANAO’s public appeals formed its political activity and methods, which actually boiled down to violence upon their opponents. Though it was frequently branded as a fascist organization by its opponents, HANAO never defended itself from such allegations, choosing only to respond that the fascists were on the other side. Taking into account its structure, such as the fact that HANAO had never celebrated its holidays, worn special uniforms, or consecrated its flags like ORJUNA, the similarity with fascism existed only in ideological and declarative terms. Croatian nationalists also spoke about the ‘power of organization’ where an individual must sacrifice his or her ’personal freedom’. The nationalists also nourished the cult of a state for which it is ‘desirable to die’ and held ‘struggle’, ‘sacrifice’, ‘duty’, ‘heroism’, and ‘blood brotherhood’, among others, as paramount values. While fascism as a system tended to be a state within the state, neglecting people’s traditions was unacceptable to HANAO. Yet there were some differences within HANAO when it came to the means and methods for the achievement of the national programme. A weaker and more moderate faction was in agreement with the Serbs regarding a federation of three equal people, and responded to the regime’s violence with slogans that the Croatian people ‘want amputation — amputation of Tzintzars and street politics from the entire state, want a dictatorship — the dictatorship of honest Croatian, Serbian, and Slovene people. They want a proclamation — against rich ministers [. . .] and those who wanted to plunge the country in bloodshed’.42 The more radical, militant faction stuck to the principles of ‘national revolution’ and resistance ‘to the end’, because the Croatian people have learned ‘the lesson of all revolutions’, i.e. that the revolution is unavoidable.43 39 40 41 42 43

Joe Matošicˇ, ‘Salus Croatiae — suprema lex esto’ Hrvatski borac, 13 January 1923, p. 1. Letters, Hrvatski borac, 17 February 1923, p. 2. ‘Bloodshed there shall be’, Hrvatski borac, 10 February 1923, p. 1. Joe Matošicˇ, ‘Amputation, Dictatorship, Proclamation’, Novi hrvatski borac, 7 April 1923, p. 1. Joe Matošicˇ, ‘Lesson Learned from the Bulgarian Revolution’, Novi hrvatski borac, 7 July 1923, p. 1.

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HANAO was undoubtedly inspired by the Young-Croatian and Party of Rights’ ideology until 1910 by its explicit anti-Serbian positions, so that the HANAO congress was announced as a ‘seed from which a new Young Croatia will pop up’.44 In HANAO’s mythology, prominent positions were reserved for the death of Petar Zrinski and Fran Krsto Frankopan, the ‘red-hot crown’ of Matija Gubec, where Croatian nationalists sought acceptable mythological patterns as a kind of balance for the ‘way to unity’ for urban and rural populations. It was pointed out that Croatian peasants had rebelled against the upper class but never ‘against the Zrinski and Frankopan families [. . .] who had the strong support of their countrymen [. . .] and even Orthodox Croats and that bishop Mijakic´’45 readily died for them. Today, 350 years after Matija Gubec, the ‘martyr from Marc’s Square’, gave his life for Croatia, the battle goes on.46 This notwithstanding, for a part of the Croatian youth, HANAO represented an appropriate response to the government’s terror. HANAO’s ‘sacrifice cult’ and cries that ‘Croats will no more be slaves’, fell on fertile ground under the circumstances of state and police violence. The feeling of humiliation and conviction that a great injustice had been done to the Croatian people overcame a great part of the Croatian youth. In its ideology, HANAO of Bosnia and Herzegovina promoted the myth of the Croatian King Tomislav and his coronation in ‘Duvanjsko Polje Valley’ thus making it clear that Bosnia belonged to Croatian countries, because ‘thousands of victorious flags were waving in the air [. . .] and the king swung his sword to the four corners of the world, showing that he would defend the kingdom from any and all enemies.’47 The following four sections are a summary of the Croatian nationalists’ program, the postulates to which HANAO stuck in its actions and which determined its ideological course of action. 1)

44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51

The newly established state, the Kingdom of SHS, became for HANAO a ‘political and state disaster of 1 December 1918’ in which the Croatian people ‘were taken prisoner and oppressed by fraud, while their state was reduced to a “subjugated province”’.48 All promises given to Croatian representatives and various declarations were broken with the ‘cynicism of drunk “winners”, with the support of great powers’.49 The Vidovdan Constitution, referred to as a ‘worthless piece of paper’, was illegal, null and void for the Croats because it had been adopted without the participation of the Croatian representatives, and those Croats who voted in favour of it were just ‘political Serbs’.50 Considering that the Vidovdan Constitution was null and void, preparations should be made ‘for international negotiations with Serbia’.51 The negotiations should ensure full sovereignty because Serbia, as it is, had betrayed Croatia in the Adriatic region ‘by selling the Croatian territory’ and by ‘conferring to Mussolini a White

Franjo Gruber, ‘Independence Croatian people’, Gvozd, 13 December 1922, p. 1. Vlade Bjelovarcˇan ‘Petar Šubic´ Zrinski and Fran Krsto Frankopan’, Novi hrvatski borac, 28 April 1923, p. 1. ‘Gubec Matija’, Slobodni hrvatski borac, 24 February 1923, p. 1. ‘Coronation of King Tomislav’, Hrvatska omladina, 15 October 1922, p. 2. Joe Matošicˇ, ‘Salus Croatiae — suprema lex esto’, Hrvatski borac, 13 January 1923, p. 1. Ibid. ‘Croatian Youth’, Gvozd, 28 June 1923, p. 2. ‘People — Sovereign in the State’, Gvozd, 4 October 1922, p. 1.

CROATIAN NATIONAL YOUTH

Eagle of the 1st grade’. To achieve this, the Croatian Parliament should be reestablished, which will act in compliance with the ‘will of all members of the Croatian people’ and the institution of ban should be restored as a ‘symbol of national individuality’. All Croatian parties should accept this program because ‘we shall present a united front in face of a power that wants to destroy us’.52 To close one’s eyes to the ‘Croatian ethnic issue means criminal insanity’. From the moment the new state was founded, ‘for Croats the throne has collapsed’ and, as a consequence, all Serbian parties in the Croatian countries were doomed. The Croats will no more groan under the Byzantine yoke; instead of European politics, we have Balkan politics. ‘Robbery and theft are in action’ in the name of national unity and the people are extremely patient — but even the proverbial pacifistic nature of the Croatian people has its limits.53 Considering that a fair and equitable agreement with Serbia is not possible, the existing state should be divided so that ‘Serbia, Montenegro, Albania, and Macedonia make one state’ while ‘Croatia with Slavonia, Dalmatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, and Slovenia’ make another.54

In itself, HANAO unified a part of the Croatian youth and there is no doubt that it contributed to their unity by organizing various assemblies, events, and celebrations in the national Croatian spirit. However, while in the beginning it tried to act peacefully, resisting the bearers of the regime and their organizations only through newspaper articles and various resolutions, in time its politics were significantly radicalized. Due to the terror of the regime and ORJUNA, HANAO began to use the same terrorist methods and it transformed into a classical forcible illegal organization, which proclaimed that it will fight until the end. However, it must be mentioned that resorting to violence was not a strategic orientation of HANAO until approximately 1925, due to its loose structure, non-monolithic leadership, and the influence of Croatian parties, particularly HRSS. It can be noticed that the resistance of HANAO towards the regime and ORJUNA was more significant in those areas where the terror of the regime was more atrocious and stronger, while resorting to violence in other areas was occasional and not constant. The city of Zagreb, where HANAO was strongest and where it had its headquarters, was a special case. There ORJUNA was literally breaking apart and facing abolition in the end of 1923 due to the terror of HANAO. In those areas, HANAO also had the greatest support of the Croatian people (Osijek, for example), which felt that such a violent answer of the Croatian youth to the atrocious actions of the regime was acceptable because only in such a way could Croatia oppose the current politics of Belgrade.

HANAO’s attitude towards Communism and its anti-Semitic politics Unlike ORJUNA and SRNAO, which entered into fierce conflicts with communists and supporters of the labour movement, HANAO, at least in its initial phase, 52

53 54

Mate D, ‘Croatian Parliament’, Novi hrvatski borac, 24 March 1923, p. 1.; Boža Nikolajevicˇ, ‘Let’s Restore the Ban back to the Croats’, Hrvatski borac, 13 January 1923, p. 3. ‘Croatian Ethnic Issue and Revision of the Constitution’, Hrvatski borac, 13 January 1923, p. 2. Janko Hitrec, ‘A Fair and Equitable Agreement with the Serbs is not Possible’, Novi hrvatski borac, 28 April 1923, p. 2.

ŽELJKO KARAULA

cooperated with communists and the Young Labour League in Vukovar and Split, mostly because both of these organizations were exposed to strong pressure from the government’s terror and ORJUNA. Josip Cazi, a communist leader from Vukovar, reported ‘that on several occasions HANAO and Young Labour League coordinated their actions in the struggle against some ORJUNA supporters, White Guards, and Chetniks’.55 Their joint tactics were to beat up individuals and to avoid fighting groups, in both of which they used short sticks with a lead ball on one end. The newspaper Gvozd particularly insisted on finally delivering justice to the assassins of Stjepan Supanc, the communist leader from Vukovar, who had been killed by gendarmes and the White Guard, just ‘because he was a communist’. The assassins were free and ‘the young idealist Supanc was decomposing on the Vukovar graveyard, waiting for justice that had not come as yet’.56 In Senj, the town representatives Anton Antic´ and Ivan Belobarbic´ joined the local HANAO branch.57 At a HRSS meeting in Split promoting the ‘union of workers and peasants’, the communists and HANAO supporters prevented a group of ORJUNA supporters in their attempt to obstruct the meeting, and they were ‘beaten black and blue’.58 However, there was soon an estrangement in their relations and at the Third KPJ Conference, HANAO was described as a fascist organization with which more and more clashes were to be expected, and particular attention should be paid to preventing the Young Labour League from joining the Croatian Nationalists’ ranks in great numbers.59 In addition to criticizing the Belgrade camarilla, HANAO in its articles and manifestoes often published anti-Semitic slogans and positions, accusing Jews of supporting Croatian enemies with their capital. Anti-Semitism was here a result of ancient prejudice of Jews and was furthered by the difficult economic and political situation in the initial years of the new state. The newspaper Židov (The Jew) reported that Jews were capitalists for some people and Bolsheviks for others; ‘some blame us for being centralists, other consider us republicans and separatists, and some blame us for not taking any sides, for neglecting any national interests’.60 In this spirit, the newspaper Novi hrvatski borac suggested to look at ‘all our towns in the Civil, Dalmatian, and Herzeg-Bosnian Croatia, in Banat, Bacˇka and Baranya, to find out who holds the Croatian trade, handicrafts, industry, economy; who exploits in an abusive, criminal way Croatian natural resources [. . .] because the present Balkan regime so permits and who are the real capitalist-Jewish vampires in our own home — in our Croatian towns’.61 HANAO tortured individual Jewish merchants in Zagreb, forcing them out of Croatia.62 The tendency of HANAO’s withdrawal from the HRSS political line and tactics may be noted from mid-April 1923. Alhough maintaining its position that nobody shall obstruct the activity of HRSS, because opposing HRSS means ‘opposing all 55 56 57 58 59 60 61 62

Josip Cazi, Vukovar in a Class Struggle, (Zagreb: Savez sindikata Jugoslavije, 1955), p. 183. ‘A Horrible Picture of our Present Day’, Gvozd, 4 January 1923, p. 3. Ante Vlahovicˇ, ‘A Letter from Senj’, Hrvatska omladina, 12 November 1922, p. 3. Drago Gizdic´, Dalmatia in 1941, (Zagreb: 27. Srpanj, 1957), p. 40. Gligorijevic´, ‘Organization of Yugoslav Nationalists (ORJUNA)’, p. 379. Ivo Goldstein, Jews in Croatia 1918–1941 (Zagreb: Liber, 2004), pp. 133.–134. Pero Bakovicˇ, ‘Croatian Youth and the Social Issue’, Novi hrvatski borac, 15 August 1923, p. 2–3. Gligorijevic´, ‘Organization of Yugoslav Nationalists (ORJUNA)’, p. 367.

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those hundred thousand Croats who placed their confidence in HRSS’, ‘HANAO for the first time questioned the work and activity of HRSS, because if the HRSS fails to implement the will of the Croatian people, it will be condemned by that same people and, in such a case, there are two other parties (the Party of Rights and the Cooperative Movement) which will take their chance’. 63 The HRSS policy of relying only upon the peasants proved to be too narrow minded and inefficient. HRSS was a party without the intellectual and urban component and ‘should the government rely only upon one class or one party, its collapse would be unavoidable’. Analysing the reasons for the fall of the Bulgarian peasants’ leader Alexander Stambolijski, and comparing his politics with the politics of HRSS, which ‘has the people but does not have the towns’, HANAO sent a message to the leaders of HRSS that Stambolijski also ‘had villages but not towns, which was his fatal error. To have the whole state, and not to have its towns, means not to have the state either [. . .] because all revolutions are made in towns, and other places just subject themselves’ to the course of events.64 HRSS could not permit such a diversion of HANAO from the HRSS political course. Slobodni dom, a HRSS newspaper, soon published a communiqué that pointed out that HANAO had come under the influence of the Croatian Party of Rights (the Frankists) and of the ‘Frankist upper class members who have been frequently visiting Belgrade ministers lately, held secret meetings with the youth, and spoke about Radic´ as a totally incompetent person [. . .] and therefore he and his Peasants Party should be treated in the same way as Stambolijski and his Bulgarian Peasants Party.’65 Dr Rudolf Horvat, a representative of HRSS, resigned from his position as president of the Supreme Council of the HANAO Five and invited all ‘young Croats, who are HRSS supporters, to subject themselves, in their political activity, to the president of the relevant local HRSS organization’.66 As a response to the HRSS communiqué, letters were sent from HANAO organizations from all parts of Croatia and Bosnia and Herzegovina, speaking about the lack of understanding of HANAO’s efforts and other aspects of its activity on the part of HRSS. In a statement of the Croatian National Youth from Zagreb, the HRSS communiqué as a whole is viewed as based on misinformation which lead to wrong conclusions, pointing out that HANAO is a fighting organization which will continue to defend the Croatian peasants, workers and citizens from attacks by terrorist organizations [. . .] that are supported by pro-regime parties’.67 However, after having lost the support, including financial support, of the strongest Croatian political party, HRSS, and after the HRSS members resigned their respective positions in the HANAO leadership, HANAO started to decline and lose its members, particularly in the second half of 1924. The newspaper Nova Hrvatska published the opinion of their president Milan Vukelic´ that the main reason for the dropout of the members of the Croatian National Youth (HANAO) was the ‘general crisis of both the Young Croatia and Croatian National Youth movements [. . .] when 63 64 65 66

Joe Matošicˇ, ‘Discipline Above All’, Novi hrvatski borac, 14 April 1923, p. 1. Joe Matošicˇ, ‘Lesson Learned from Bulgarian Revolution’, Novi hrvatski borac, 7 July 1923, p. 1. ‘Declaration’ Slobodni dom, 11 July 1923, p. 1. ‘A Voice from the Croatian Countryside. Opinion on the HRSS communique’, Novi hrvatski borac, 25 July 1923, p. 1. ‘Statement by the Croatian Youth’, Novi hrvatski borac, 25 July 1923, p. 1.

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certain political parties showed a tendency to include them into their routine’.68 Zagreb HANAO was the first to dissolve and, after the arrest of Joe Matošic´, the editor-in-chief of Novi hrvatski borac, who was sentenced to a five-month imprisonment, Hrvatski borac ceased to be published.69 At the end of the 1920s, HANAO and its leadership reached a historical turning point. Denying any possibility of HRSS drawing closer to Belgrade, burdened with the past experience, faced with dilemmas regarding the future development, pressed by the growing crisis, and as an organization, incapable of sudden changes, HANAO actually had no valid guidelines as to where and how to proceed. Persistent in its radical politics, just an insignificant shift was sufficient for HANAO to take sides of the Croatian Party of Rights (HSP) and commit itself to the creation of an independent Croatian state. Some HANAO organizations in Bosnia and Dalmatia, however, subjected themselves to the leadership of the Academic HANAO in late 1924. Other HANAO organizations were taken over by the Party of Rights and in its newspaper Starcˇevic´. All other organizations that had not subjected themselves to the Party of Rights Gustav Percˇec calls ‘the so called Croatian Youth’ and underlines that such organizations do not differ from ORJUNA ‘in anything else but in the fact that ORJUNA is our declared opponent’ and appeals to the national youth of Sarajevo ‘not to deceive the Croatian public’.70

Conclusion This paper tried to explain the activity of the Croatian National Youth (HANAO) in the period from 1921 to 1925, so far scarcely or never addressed in the Croatian historiography. It first examined its main mission of defending the Croatian people from terror and repression of the government authorities and their organizations; and second, it analysed HANAO’s activity as a product of the interdependence of the actual political movement and the activity of Croatian political parties. There is no doubt that the appearance of two organizations of the Croatian National Youth (HANAO) on the political scene of the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes was a product of a stormy and complex political process that had shattered this state from its very beginning. In an accelerated process of centralization, imposed by the ruling Great Serbian elite, Croatia soon lost even the limited political autonomy that it used to have under the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy (local government in Zagreb, Croatian Parliament). Due to various legal and illegal methods, Croatian political, economic, and territorial integrity was broken and Croatia’s right to its ethnic individuality was forfeited. In the new state, there were various forms of repression and terror against those who expressed their disagreement or dissatisfaction with such processes. The objective of such politics was to preserve the predominance of Serbia and Serbian people over other peoples of the new state and for that purpose, ‘in the name of national unity’, the gendarmerie and the army were granted free licence in their struggle with the opponents to the new system of government. Under 68 69 70

Milan Vukelicˇ, ‘About Croatian Youth’ Nova Hrvatska, 15 October 1924, p. 195. ‘Matošic´ sentenced to 5 month imprisonment’, Novi hrvatski borac, 30 June 1923; p. 1.; Rajcˇevic´, p. 124. Gustav Percˇec, ‘They Have no Right to the Croatian Name’, Starcˇevic´, 1 November 1926. p. 1.

CROATIAN NATIONAL YOUTH

such circumstances, organizations of Croatian National Youth (HANAO) were established in Croatia, as a direct response to the terror and violence of the regime and attempts to create a ‘great Yugoslav nation’. The first organization was Academic HANAO, founded at Zagreb University in 1921 under the patronage of the Croatian Union (HZ), which in a short period of activity supported the centralization program of that party. In its work, Academic HANAO was focused on the cultural and social aspects, insisting on the education of the people and spreading of Croatian ideas. In its actions, it was restricted to Zagreb University and very rarely tried to expand its activity to other areas. The other organization of Croatian National Youth (HANAO) was created in a turbulent area of Vukovar District and Syrmia County, where the repression of the regime, which viewed this area as a part of the envisaged Great Serbia, was more intensive and persisting. Founded under the patronage of the Croatian Block in Vukovar in 1922, HANAO spread quickly to other parts of Croatia and Bosnia and Herzegovina and launched its attack against the regime and its politics with its own terrorist means, sticking to the motto ‘an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth’. Viewing the establishment of the new state as a ‘political and administrative disaster’, HANAO started to attack ORJUNA and SRNAO supporters, civil servants and ‘national traitors’ with lead sticks and guns, organizing the assassinations of the editors-in-chief of their newspapers, fighting with gendarmes and the members of the Royal Army in the streets of Croatian towns. Alhough it never transformed into a firm, homogeneous organization with rules, discipline, and a well-defined course of action, in a part of the Croatian youth HANAO developed into an adequate response to the violence of the regime, enjoying wide support in some Croatian areas. In its activity, HANAO manifested a strong dose of anti-Semitism, because Jews were frequently the target of its accusations of the ‘economic and financial exploitation’ of Croatia.71 HANAO used to call them ‘the servants of Belgrade’ and there were some physical clashes.72 Falling more and more into radicalism, HANAO gradually started to draw its views closer to those of the Croatian Party of Rights (HSP), which advocated the establishment of an independent Croatian state and putting an end to the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes. Aware of the fact that it was losing its grip on HANAO, the Croatian Republican Peasant Party (HRSS) of Radic´, which at the time represented the Croatian interests, in its communiqué gave up this organization, suspending any further financial support and forbidding its members to come to Croatian villages, which contributed to a faster division and dissolution of HANAO and eventually lead to its disappearance from the political scene in late 1925.

71 72

Joe Matošicˇ, ‘Salus Croatiae — suprema lex esto’, Hrvatski borac, 13 January 1923, p. 1. ‘Declaration’, Slobodni dom, 11 July 1923, p. 1.

slovo, vol. 20, No. 1, 2008, 5–16

Between public and private: the expressive function of internal space in the cinema of Soviet Russia NEIL LORN McCARTNEY University College London

This article analyses the ways in which internal spaces are used for expressive purposes in five films from Soviet Russia. Drawing on the text Common Places, by Svetlana Boym, the article looks at the relationship between Soviet communal housing policy and the portrayal of internal spaces, particularly domestic settings, in each of the five films. Through detailed sequence analysis and reference to production history and critical appraisals, one can observe the extent to which the policy of communal housing influenced the creative choices of Soviet filmmakers. Significantly, however, the ideological stance of each film varies, which provides telling insights into the filmmakers’ opinions and their (in)ability to retain creative control over their projects within the Soviet film industry.

Introduction In her book, Common Places, Svetlana Boym makes penetrating insights about some of the housing conditions that existed in Soviet Russia. In this essay, with reference to her accounts, I will look at the historical context of these conditions and, from that point, analyse the different ways in which both public and private interior spaces are used artistically in five Russian films from the twentieth century. I will be focusing primarily on My Friend Ivan Lapshin (1984),1 Bed and Sofa (1927),2 and The Cranes are Flying (1957),3 with additional reference to A Long Goodbye (1971),4 and Moscow Doesn’t Believe in Tears (1979).5 In similar and contrasting ways, these films depict domestic and public interiors that merit close analysis in relation to certain aspects of Soviet housing policy. I will examine how, in addition to conveying

1 2 3 4 5

My Friend Ivan Lapshin (Moi Drug Ivan Lapshin, Dir. Aleksei German, Lenfilm Studio, 1984). Bed and Sofa (Tretya Meshchanskaya, Dir. Abram Room, Sovkino, 1927). The Cranes are Flying (Letiat Zhravli, Dir. Mikhail Kalatozov, Ministerstvo Kinematografii, 1957). A Long Goodbye (Dolgie Provody, Dir. Kira Muratova, Odessa Film Studios, 1971). Moscow Doesn’t Believe in Tears (Moskva Slezam Ne Verit, Dir. Vladimir Menshov, Mosfilm, 1979).

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narrative information, these depictions are employed to frame and communicate ideologies and to convey the atmosphere of particular historical eras. Every communal apartment dweller is probably scarred for life by that symbolic mutual responsibility — a double bind of love and hatred, of envy and attachment, of secrecy and exhibitionism, of embarrassment and compromise.6

The above quotation refers to the policy of communal dwelling, which was introduced shortly after the revolution as a means of evenly distributing living space amongst the population. The extract also makes it clear that, for those forced to live under such conditions, the experience was generally a negative one. Soviet policy sought to re-appropriate housing from middle-class property owners in order to alleviate the country’s housing crisis and to impose a social structure that would encourage the development of ideologically sound domestic habits amongst its citizens. ‘The house-commune would radically reconstruct the individualist bourgeois quarters, “defamiliarise” them in a literal sense of the word by subverting the structure of the bourgeois family and instituting the relationship of proletarian comradeship.’7 Lenin defined a ‘rich apartment’ as ‘the apartment where the number of rooms equals or surpasses the number of residents who permanently inhabit this apartment.’8 As a result, any property that fell into this category was to be reclaimed from the owner, sub-divided into smaller rooms or areas within rooms, and allocated to families or individuals who needed to be housed. In reality, however, the socialist ideal of harmonious communal living and shared responsibility was an elusive myth. One of the reasons why this system failed was the fact that properties were divided up in an illogical way that went against the original design intentions. Partitions were introduced to demarcate areas allocated to the various inhabitants, but, as I shall illustrate, this was a highly unusual and far from adequate method of providing living quarters for large numbers of people.

The communal apartment Abnormal spaces The space is divided mathematically or bureaucratically as if it were an abstract problem in geometry, not the real space of existing apartments. As a result, most of the apartments in the major cities were partitioned in an incredible and often unfunctional manner, creating strange spaces, long corridors, and so-called black entrances through labyrinthine inner courtyards.9

One can appreciate what an alarming experience it was for families and individuals to be thrust into a living situation with an excessive number of co-habitants and neighbours. Exacerbating this sudden change was the fact that socialist ideals failed 6

7 8 9

Svetlana Boym, Common Places: Mythologies of Everyday Life in Russia (London: Harvard University Press, 1994), p. 124. Ibid., p. 127. Julian Graffy, Bed and Sofa: The Film Companion (London: I.B. Tauris, 2001), p. 41. Boym, p. 125.

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to be reflected in its citizens’ behaviour. Bullying, harassment, and threats from fellow inhabitants were frequent, compounding the obvious difficulties of noise pollution and a greatly reduced level of privacy. Indeed, the issue of privacy and seclusion is an important one, which will be examined in more detail in section three. Building on the above quotation through some examples, however, I will first look more closely at the issue of the layout of the communal apartment. My Friend Ivan Lapshin is set almost entirely in 1935, shortly before the great terror of Stalin’s purges began, which has great significance in the first sequence of the film. After cutting to the young narrator, there is a long take, which pans around the apartment, by the end of which we have seen at least eight different people seated at various positions around a table. The dominant feature of this sequence is how, through the lack of a clear establishing shot, it ignores conventional narrative modes of introducing characters and locations. Instead, we are shown mid-shots of certain characters smoking, drinking, playing cards and guitar, while others move in and out of the frame in the extreme foreground and background so much that it is difficult to say accurately how many characters are in the room. As Benjamin Rifkin states: ‘The filmic narration [. . .] seems to filter or pre-select nothing at all.’10 The soundscape is equally chaotic, with a cacophony of conversations, guitar strums, the thump of a boxing glove, whistling, and telephone calls. The impression of undefined space is deepened in the subsequent scene when Okoshkin is moving his bed around. We can discern a Soviet poster on the wall, which was visible in a previous scene, indicating that their bedroom and living room must be one and the same. With German’s film, we infer rather than witness that the apartment is of an irregular shape or that it has, as Giovanni Buttafava states, an ‘amorphous structure’.11 By portraying the apartment in this way, German seems to tap into significant elements of communal living in 1930s Russia, such as overcrowding and the necessity of multi-functional living areas. The stylistic features in this scene are characteristic of the film as a whole and they contrive to produce an overall feeling of disorientation. By frustrating and limiting the viewer’s knowledge of the geography of Lapshin’s apartment, the film unsettles our understanding of how people, objects, and rooms all exist in relation to one another. Although set in a public interior, the opening sequence of The Long Farewell also makes use of the disorienting technique present in German’s film. Sasha and Evgenia are in a botanic garden. We hear them conversing, but they appear to be standing perpendicular to and facing away from each other. The fact that only medium closeups are used makes the geography of the scene very unclear; one can only speculate about where the characters are in relation to one another and to their immediate environment. This technique also generates a lack of clarity about when they have actually left the botanic garden and moved outside into the graveyard. As Jane Taubman notes, ‘In [this] sequence the freedom of Gennadi Kariuk’s camera is striking; it looks almost everywhere except where we would expect . . .’.12 10

Benjamin Rifkin, ‘The Reinterpretation of History in German’s Lapshin’, Slavic Review, 51 (1992), 431–437 (p. 438). Giovanni Buttafava, ‘Alexei German, or the Form of Courage’, in The Red Screen: Politics, Society, Art in Soviet Cinema, ed. by Anna Lawton (London: Routledge, 1992), pp. 275–83 (p. 280). Jane Taubman, Kira Muratova (London: I.B. Tauris, 2004), p. 24.

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This sequence foreshadows much of what we will come to understand about the mother and son’s relationship. The framing gives an impression of being locked-in and cramped; the characters have very little room to manoeuvre, and the cages for the flowers and trees are shot in such a way as to frame the characters behind bars. Later in the film, a high-angle establishing shot of their apartment shows how mother and son sleep uncomfortably close to each other. Their apartment, like Lapshin’s, has an irregular layout and lacks any distinction between the functions of its different areas; the dining table, the refrigerator, both beds, the straight-backed sofa and the dresser are all thrown together in the same space. As a result, the desires and requirements of the two occupants overlap and clash equally, so that Sasha wants to read but the mother wants to sleep, one wants the light on, the other does not. Significantly, the film seems to attest that the difficulties of shared living space are felt no less acutely when the inhabitants are related to one another. Although set a mere six years after German’s film and therefore still within Stalin’s reign, The Cranes are Flying is notable for the comparative differences in how its characters live. From the first shots when we see the protagonists’ homes, it is clear that they are suffering less under the housing policy than are those in Ivan Lapshin. In her apartment, in order to reach her own room, Veronika has to cross her parents’ room, which also doubles as the living room. The corresponding sequence in Boris’s apartment, romantically mirrored with Veronika’s, shows Boris crossing his sister’s and parents’ rooms, to reach his own. Josephine Woll notes how the two family homes differ, claiming that Veronika’s is more Soviet in design and appearance.13 I would argue, however, that the differences between the two are negligible. We see enough to suggest that Boris and Veronika come from families that, for one reason or another, can afford to live in conditions that are more spacious and comfortable than those experienced by the majority of Soviet citizens at that time. Despite the general policy being, as Bengt Turner states, ‘to limit the existence and use of private ownership of homes as much as was politically and practically feasible,’ this does not seem to be the case here.14 The high-angle shot in Boris’s apartment shows a baby-grand piano and there seems to be only family and extended family living in either apartment, indicating that perhaps both households have some form of leverage to help ensure exemption from this general policy. The luxury of their apartments is emphasised further after the families are evacuated to the communal barracks and I will be looking at the importance of this environment in the next section.

The ideology of beds Our understanding of Abram Room’s Bed and Sofa is tightly bound to the associations made between characters and certain areas of their shared apartment. At the beginning, Liuda and Kolia live together in a flat of their own, a situation that could be regarded as quite comfortable and as not adhering to the ideal Soviet model. This much can be read in one of its alternative titles, Third Meshchanskaya Street, since

13 14

Josephine Woll, The Cranes are Flying (London: Tauris, 2003), p. 48. Bengt Turner, ‘Housing Reforms in Eastern Europe: An Introduction’, in The Reform of Housing in Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union, ed. by Bengt Turner and others (London: Routledge, 1992), pp. 1–6 (p. 3).

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meshchanstvo translates as ‘petit-bourgeois’. Indeed, the fact that none of the titles that Bed and Sofa is known by contain any reference to the characters indicates the importance that the setting has within the film.15 Perhaps more so than any of the other films being looked at here, Bed and Sofa uses its setting and props as a key method of defining characters and communicating its ideologies. In his companion to the film, Julian Graffy describes the apartment as ‘an affront to the new order’,16 which can be observed in the behaviour of the characters and in the furniture they have. There are various examples of the latter, most notably the bed and sofa referred to in the title, which would have been regarded as too ‘comfortable’ and ‘bourgeois’ for a Soviet apartment. One particularly interesting scene takes place outside the flat. When Kolia moves out and attempts to sleep at his office, we see him dream longingly about the (un-Soviet) comforts of home — the bed, the rocking chair, the cat, and, eventually, Liuda. Boym outlines how 1920s Russian art, literature, and film frequently focused on interiors and living spaces, when she states: ‘Indeed, the identity crisis and the housing crisis are closely linked.’17 She goes on to argue that, thematically, human passions are redirected towards housing issues: ‘Love, hatred, even melancholy [. . .] usually translate into love of dwelling space, hatred for those who have it, and melancholy for lost housing.’18 This seems applicable to Kolia’s behaviour here, particularly since he dreams of home with more affection that he does for his wife. It is also a useful observation for considering Moscow Doesn’t Believe in Tears, a film that has been dubbed ‘The Soviet Cinderella’, because of its fairytale plot with an emphasis on housing as well as romance: ‘If the French Cinderella finds herself a prince, the Soviet Cinderella finds herself a working-class Mr. Right and a three-bedroom apartment.’19 Also of note in the scene where Kolia tries to sleep at his office is the wry comment Room seems to be making about Soviet policy regarding beds. As Graffy explains, ‘The new “revolutionary” bed was to be multi-functional, easily folded away and invisible,’20 and that Kolia’s unsuccessful attempt to sleep on the desk is ‘a sardonic parody of the theory of multi-functional furniture.’21 This observation can also be applied to a scene in Moscow Doesn’t Believe in Tears. After the film jumps forward to the 1970s, we see Katia living in quite different circumstances than those in which she cried herself to sleep years before. Her new apartment is well-furnished, with plenty of modern conveniences and ample space for herself and her daughter. Significantly, she does sleep on a foldable sofa bed, but its large size and soft, comfortable bedding gives it the appearance of an insolent, bourgeois imitation of the Soviet ideal.

15 16 17 18 19 20 21

Boym, p. 133. Graffy, p. 25. Boym, p. 131. Ibid. Ibid., p. 137. Graffy, p. 28. Ibid., p. 52.

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Between public and private Interruptions Since the 1920s and especially during the Stalin years the communal apartment had become a major Soviet institution of social control and a form of constant surveillance.22

As mentioned earlier, an inherent feature of communal living was the struggle to find seclusion: whether to spend time alone or with a choice group of friends or family. The films I have chosen to study contain crucial scenes where exchanges between characters are interrupted in some way by an exterior force, which for the most part is regarded as unwelcome. Such moments serve to remind us of the lack of control that Soviet citizens had over their immediate environment, and how the boundary between private and public was often blurred. A major cause of this ambiguity was the existence of partitions. As we have seen, the Soviet housing policy led to the creation of unusual, often illogical, layouts within existing apartments, and the use of partitions, often flimsy, plywood structures, was one of the main ways in which these areas were established. One of their defining features, however, was their inability to actually create divisions. Rather, given their makeshift nature, partitions succeeded only in creating the illusion of separation. As Boym describes: ‘[The partition] let through all the noises, the snoring, the fragments of conversations, the footsteps of the neighbor, and everything else you can think of.’23 In Bed and Sofa, the partition is ceremoniously brought out by Kolia, who announces, rather naïvely, that it will solve the privacy issue that Volodia’s arrival has raised. As we see later, Volodia and Liuda are able to converse from opposite sides of the partition, underlining Boym’s point about how the soundscape of the communal apartment was even more fragile than its landscape. Even though the partition is only used when the characters are preparing for bed, from the moment it is brought into use, i.e. from the moment that Volodya arrives, the apartment moves from being a private area into an ill-defined middle-ground between personal and shared space.24 This situation is, arguably, foreshadowed in the scene showing Volodya’s arrival when one brief shot shows him on the train, sitting on the coupling between two carriages. The play on the English word ‘coupling’ is perhaps one link too far, but there is certainly significance in the image of Volodia, who will come between Kolia and Liuda, being positioned in this way. When referring to the scene in Bed and Sofa in which Volodia confesses the affair to Kolia, Graffy describes Liudmilla as ‘an eavesdropper on her own life’.25 This description is highly evocative since it communicates the powerlessness she feels in relation to her marriage, as she listens from behind the kitchen partition. However, it is also useful when considering the themes that feature prominently in several of the films in this study. Overhearing and being overheard, watching and being watched, 22 23 24

Boym, p. 125. Ibid., p. 146. Lynne Attwood, ‘Women, Cinema and Society,’ in Red Women on the Silver Screen: Soviet Women and Cinema from the Beginning to the End of the Communist Era, ed. Lynne Attwood et al. (London: Pandora, 1993), pp. 51–70 (p. 48). Graffy, p. 44.

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and distrust created by the uncertainty over what others could see and hear fuelled a paranoid atmosphere in communal apartments and beyond. In Ivan Lapshin, there is an interesting exchange between Adashova and two of her co-habitors. While Natasha is talking to Khanin and Lapshin, her ‘neighbour’, Pavel, enters the frame, looking for his teapot, from an unseen room off to Natasha’s left. He doesn’t speak, but has his hand outstretched and looks sullen, at which point Natasha apologises and hurriedly fetches it. After Pavel has left, her tone changes and she tells Lapshin that she wishes he would arrest him. This intrusion is alarming because the close framing creates the illusion of privacy; we are given no indication of the fact that Adashova’s room adjoins another, particularly not one from which complete strangers can enter unannounced. Significantly, in response to this intrusion, a different scene in the same room shows Lapshin opening this door, turning on the light and shouting at old Pavel, who is in bed, blinking in the brightness, exposed and confused. Lapshin’s behaviour, and Adashova’s comment about wanting her neighbour arrested, are examples of the bullying and intrusiveness that was a common feature of life in the communal apartments. At times a room itself can play an important role. In The Cranes are Flying, during the blackout scene, Boris tussles with Veronika over the curtain while she exclaims that she is ‘sick of it.’ This complaint is a curious one since, in the other films being looked at, the problem most of the characters experience is a lack of privacy, an inability to shut oneself off from others. Here, however, the prohibitive curtain carries negative connotations, at least for Veronika, who wants light and to be able to see the city. After they have talked about marriage and agreed to be wed, Veronika contradicts her previous statement, saying that she now likes the blackout. When Boris asks why, her answer is to lean forward to kiss him. This behaviour is more typical of what one would expect of a young couple forced to live in communal circumstances. Significantly, however, before she reaches his lips, they are interrupted by Stepan, who enters from an adjoining room, flooding the lovers’ darkened, secretive area with light. Even though both are excited to see him, the ease with which private moments can be disturbed is nevertheless highlighted by Stepan’s arrival. These intrusions and observed moments not only demonstrate the lack of privacy and overcrowding in Russian apartments, but they also carry an additional, more sinister message. They serve as a reminder of the Stalinist purges and the very real possibility that citizens could find themselves arrested, whether justly or otherwise, as a result of being informed upon by a malicious co-habitant or neighbour. Indeed, a whole spectrum of hierarchical power struggles existed as motivation for informing upon one’s neighbour, leading to deliberate spying under the pretence of upholding Soviet standards, while in reality acting purely out of self-interest. An ideologically different portrayal of the area between public and private can be seen in the 1958 section of Moscow Doesn’t Believe in Tears. Tonia’s wedding celebrations are held in the workers’ dormitory, with the ‘dance’ taking place literally on the stairs. In the next scene, the dinner table is completely full. It has been extended through an open doorway and is straddling two rooms. An accordion player is crammed in behind the guests and some are unable to find a chair. Crucially, however, everyone is shown to be having a wonderful time, the implication being that the overcrowded environment is enhancing, not detracting from, the quality of the

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celebrations. Although the overall ideological statement of the film is not as straightforward as this scene illustrates, its tone is certainly one of affection for the camaraderie generated by communal living. This would also illustrate a generational distinction, given that the characters are living during ‘the thaw’, and is perhaps in anticipation of the ‘kitchen culture’ that would emerge during the 1960s.26

Exposure and embarrassment Another common feature of life in communal apartments was embarrassment, which sometimes occurred accidentally and at other times quite deliberately. Boym lists the potential psychological effects of these occurrences: The consequences of ritual embarrassment varied: it could lead to establishing communal tolerance, to making a compromise of minimal plausible conviviality in the impossible circumstances, or to continued intolerance and repressed anger.27

In the ‘amorphous flat’ of Ivan Lapshin, there is a chain of events involving the inhabitants that can be studied in relation to this quote. We see the old lady complaining to Lapshin that she has no more sugar. Lapshin shouts that he cannot afford any more, she then threatens to report him to ‘Comrade Kalinin,’ and Lapshin hands over some money. Next, Okoshkin threatens the woman, saying that she has eaten her husband, is living under an alias, and that he has a file on her and plans to have her imprisoned. In a swift reversal, Okoshkin soon after becomes the victim when Lapshin and the narrator’s father slip a bed knob under his covers, then jump on him, crushing his back down onto it — a clear example of ‘ritual embarrassment’. In the following scene, we see Lapshin in bed, lying awake, evidently having just been crying. The eye-line match shows Okoshkin sitting on his own bed, still awake, staring at Lapshin. He asks if Lapshin is okay, but his expression and tone do not match his sentiment — he looks unsympathetic and menacing, and, in order to escape from this glare, Lapshin moves onto the freezing balcony. Finally, we see Okoshkin talking in his sleep and Lapshin leaning over him, trying to make him talk some more, before walking off, laughing to himself. This poisonous, tit-for-tat bickering and bullying occurs constantly throughout the film, and is indicative not only of the stress created by having to live in an awkward, domestic no-man’s-land, but of the fear and paranoia that would come to define the latter part of 1930s Russia. Moments like this one in Ivan Lapshin convey the discomfort that characters feel by having their emotions exposed to others. In The Cranes are Flying, one of the film’s incredible set pieces shows the aftermath of an air raid, in which Veronika’s home is destroyed. On one level, the shocking impact of the destruction is felt because Veronika has lost her parents. I would argue, however, that there is a more subtle way in which this scene delivers its impact. When she reaches her apartment door and flings it open, the interior is literally gone. There is no floor, no rooms, no far wall — just empty space looking down onto the burning roofs below. All that remains is a small portion of the ceiling and right hand wall, with the torn lampshade, and the ticking pendulum clock. In the most gruesome way, the inside, the interior, 26 27

Boym, p. 147. Ibid., p. 148.

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the private, has been exposed to the outside, to the public. Even Veronika’s initial moment of horror and grief is interrupted by a fireman, who chastises her for running into the burning apartment block. This lack of privacy, of having one’s grief and suffering on such open display, lends increased power to the scene. As I stated earlier, Cranes contains some significant moments that occur after the evacuation of Moscow. In the long, narrow building they are relocated to, there are a number of families thrown in together, all performing various domestic tasks: bathing young children, preparing vegetables, washing clothes, cooking. The overall impression is of an uncomfortable situation, a lack of privacy, and, particularly for Veronika, elements of gossip and bullying. In other words, it now closely resembles the domestic scenes in Ivan Lapshin. This section of the film does, however, produce an effective reversal of interior space in relation to the rape scene in the first half. At the point when Mark’s treachery is revealed, the abundance of eyes is, for once, a welcome element. The framing is of most significance: Mark is confronted by his uncle in front of Irina, at the top of the stairs, and by Veronika, who is halfway up. Both are positioned over the heads of the two men, who are in the foreground at the foot of the stairs. The interior becomes like an amphitheatre, and Mark is finally exposed ‘on the stage of the communal apartment’.28

Moments of Privacy? Standing in stark contrast to constant intrusions of space, eavesdropping, and the fear of spying (whether real or imagined) are rare moments of true seclusion and privacy. Boym notes that ‘the places of communal use — kitchen, corridor, bathroom — were both the battlegrounds and the playgrounds for the communal neighbours.’29 Distinct in her list, however, is the bathroom- the one location offering the potential for privacy. Although prone to impatient rapping from neighbours wishing to use the facilities, a locking door singled out the toilet as an oasis of real isolation. As a result, within the communal apartment it became the site for many activities other than those for which it was designed. Boym’s anecdotes have a tone of affection and amused nostalgia about the irregular use of the toilet. She describes how it was often a place where people chose to do homework, study, or read (especially if it was literature considered to be ‘bourgeois’)30, and this room is afforded significant attention in My Friend Ivan Lapshin. In German’s film, however, it is the setting for behaviour that is very far from quiet reflection and scholarly contemplation. When Khanin arrives in town and moves into the apartment, we learn that he has recently lost his wife. Understandably, he is devastated and his true mental state becomes apparent when he tries to shoot himself in the bathroom. The scene feels inappropriate and melancholic since Khanin initially keeps his true feelings hidden. His moment of real emotion, however — wrestling with his thoughts, almost vomiting from having the gun barrel in his mouth, and eventually failing to

28 29 30

Boym, p. 149. Boym, p. 146–7. Ibid., p. 147.

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commit suicide when the gun misfires — takes place in a communal bathroom cluttered with laundry. To stage a moment of such intense personal distress in a room of such squalor increases our sympathy for Khanin, particularly since it highlights the lack of sympathy elsewhere in the apartment; Lapshin, his friend, is more annoyed about Khanin having stolen his gun. In ironic contrast, a later scene mirrors this one, when it is Laphsin himself who is caught in the throes of despair. After unsuccessfully wooing Adashova, he returns to his apartment, heads for the bathroom and thrusts his hand into the boiling laundry basin. Like Khanin before, he uses the bathroom as an arena for catharsis and escape. Unable to come to terms with his emotions after his embarrassing performance with Natasha, he finds an outlet through self-harm. Significantly, he selects the one room where unimpeded emotion can be released and ‘inappropriate desires’ can be purged. 31 How, then, is one to regard this portrayal of a space where one can be truly alone, at least for a short while? According to socialist ideals, too much time spent on one’s own, or in communal areas without the ‘correct’ type of activity or conversation, leads to an undermining of the communist infrastructure. Privacy and individualism are to be discouraged in favour of shared responsibility and group activity, as a means of reducing feelings of envy and greed.32 I suggest that this sought-after privacy and seclusion is also portrayed as oppressive and threatening, rather than liberating, as is illustrated by several key examples. The rape scene in The Cranes are Flying is carefully orchestrated to imbue the domestic setting with hostile qualities. The opening shot shows Mark playing the piano to Veronika, who is seated in an armchair. The house looks oddly empty, the dinner table is absent and the piano and chair are the only furnishings we can see. It seems, like Lapshin’s apartment, to also have a protean character. When the air raid begins, the windows are blown in, glass shatters all over the floor, and the curtains billow and curl in the wind. Veronika cowers under them and against Mark’s chest in a perverse reflection of the blackout scene with Boris, before Mark imprisons her and takes advantage of her vulnerability. The house that had been opened up to her as a place of shelter and protection is violated just as she is. In a similar way to Khanin’s attempted suicide, Mark commits ‘a profanation of the interior’,33 and, in this instance, the isolation and the lack of prying eyes are what allow this act to continue. This domestic imprisonment is mirrored in Bed and Sofa, when Volodia locks the front door to keep her in (and Kolia out, presumably). This is merely a more literal example of how the flat is essentially a prison for Liuda, as Judith Mayne states, ‘Liudmilla is trapped within the confines of private life. While the two men move with ease from private to public space, Liudmilla has no such mobility.’34 This idea of a woman being imprisoned by the home is both metaphorical and literal, and 31

32 33

Herbert Eagle, ‘Soviet Cinema Today: On the Semantic Potential of a Discredited Canon’, Michigan Quarterly Review, 28 (1989), 743–60 (p. 752). Boym, p. 149. Julian Graffy, ‘Unshelving Stalin: After the Period of Stagnation’, in Stalinism and the Soviet Cinema, ed. Richard Taylor and Derek Spring (London: Routledge, 1993), pp. 212–27, 261–67 (p. 225). Judith Mayne, ‘Bed and Sofa and the Edge of Domesticity’ in Kino and the Woman Question: Feminism and Soviet Silent Film, ed. Judith Mayne (Columbus: Ohio State University Press, 1989), pp. 110–29 (p. 112).

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the film says much about how, despite promises of emancipation, the domestic role of women saw little change as a result of the communal housing policy.35 Another example from Cranes that gives an unsympathetic quality to the occasional privacy of the living quarters is at the end of the scene in which Boris leaves for war. The arrival of the two female Komsomols adds an extra element of activity to a household trying to digest the fact that Boris is going to war and their presence, representing the state, symbolically deprives the family of what would otherwise be a private occasion. In contrast, when Boris has left, along with the others, the father and grandmother are left in a house that now seems hauntingly empty. Josephine Woll describes the father as a ‘symbol of every parent sending his son off to war, he is finally alone in his desolation, framed by the doorway of the now empty apartment’.36 Although Woll’s description is inaccurate (the father goes to the hospital and the grandmother is left alone), she does make a useful observation that, with the empty table in the background and the chairs scattered around as they were left during the departure, the empty house now seems oppressive. Suddenly, the (over)crowded apartment, even with the unexpected addition of two strangers, seems like a vastly more attractive alternative.

Conclusion In none of the films that I have looked at is communal housing used as a principal storyline. Each one, however, to a greater or lesser degree, affords importance to the interior spaces in which its characters operate, with only minimal differences in their ideological standpoint. It is interesting to consider how they were received upon their initial release. Anna Lawton describes the unease that censors felt about Ivan Lapshin: ‘The ambiguity of the multilayered text and the lack of clear narrative closures looked like an ideological trap to the official scanning eye, a visual quagmire that might harbour insidious meanings.’37 Although the ‘visual quagmire’ refers to German’s narrative style, it is evocative also of the appearance and nature of the communal apartment. Like the film’s unclear, meandering direction, the flat is similarly muddled and difficult to define, making it difficult for one to see all that is happening. Unsurprisingly, censors expressed a similar distrust of Muratova’s film: ‘The openness of Muratova’s plots, like that of life itself, seems, to the authoritarian mind, fraught with danger.’38 The irony of this is that one intention behind communal living was to allow, if not force, citizens to be able to observe clearly and police one another. Indeed, the distrust of the censors seems to mirror the paranoia felt by those living during the purges. With their amusing interlinking of romance, relationships, and housing, Bed and Sofa and Moscow Doesn’t Believe in Tears appear farcical, but do make some important statements. The former has been celebrated for its progressive portrayal of 35 36 37

Boym, p. 128. Josephine Woll, Reel Images: Soviet Cinema and the Thaw (London: I.B. Tauris, 2000,), p. 76. Anna Lawton, Kinoglasnost: Soviet Cinema in our Time (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992) p. 147. Jane Taubman, ‘The Cinema of Kira Muratova’, Russian Review, 52 (1993) 376–81 (p. 373).

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a female character, but it also ends significantly with two ‘poor’ examples of the Soviet man, stagnating and alone in their ideologically unsound apartment. Moscow Doesn’t Believe in Tears, however, openly celebrates the acquisition of luxurious property, while also advancing the cause of women — in this case an upwardlymobile, almost capitalist-minded woman. The Cranes are Flying, on the other hand, uses internal spaces as settings onto which poetic, expressive elements are projected in order to enhance the narrative. The social commentary is perhaps secondary to the narrative, just as the war is merely a backdrop to the love story, although the film’s second half does manage to capture the discomfort of communal living. It can be observed in these and other Russian films from the Soviet era, that the various domestic experiences of its citizens have permeated its cinematic output. To argue that its expressive uses of interior spaces are superior to any other country’s canon would be untenable. However, the attention afforded to these formal elements is indicative of the impression left on everyday citizens and filmmakers alike by policies such as communal housing. A highly unusual, and now non-existent, system of domestic dwelling influenced a number of important filmmakers and, as a result, not only allowed non-Soviet citizens a view of this system, it also helped advance the formal portrayal of interior space in cinematically significant ways.

slovo, vol. 20, No. 1, 2008, 17–32

Europeans against Europe: the practice of foreign isolationism and seclusion in Stalinist Romania CEZAR STANCIU University Valahia of Targoviste

The confrontations of the Cold War had a dramatic impact on Romania’s foreign relations. The Communist regime, following Moscow’s instructions and trying to preserve its security, severed all connections with the West. Two primary factors originating outside of Romania itself contributed to the country’s foreign isolationism: Soviet influence and mutual antagonism with the West. In the context of the wider anti-cosmopolitan campaign, counteracting Western influence at every level was viewed as a guarantor of security. The explication of these influences reveals how exogenous factors contributed to the radical change in Romanian foreign policy.

Introduction The Sovietization of Eastern Europe in the aftermath of the Second World War caused a complete break from the relations these countries had with Western Europe throughout modern history. The Communist elites brought to power in East European countries were far removed from the societies of which they were taking control. Their primary support came from the Red Army, which occupied these territories, and from the political influence of the Soviet Union.1 Such factors led to the complete submission of local Communist elites to the Kremlin. Starting in 1947, Moscow abandoned the previous strategy of communization, which allowed for multiple national paths towards socialism. Instead, the Kremlin imposed its unique model of socialism, Bolshevism.2 The implementation of the Bolshevik model, a radical and revolutionary rhetoric inspired by the MarxistLeninist ideology and summarized by Andrei Zhdanov at the Cominform meeting of 1947, erased any trace of continuity in Romanian foreign policy.3 1

Stelian Ta˘nase, Elite s¸i societate. Guvernarea Gheorghiu-Dej 1948–1965, (Bucharest: Editura Humanitas, 1998), p. 37. Zbigniew Brzezinski, The Soviet Bloc. Unity and Conflict (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1967), pp. 80–81. Andrei Jdanov, ‘Despre situat‚ia internat‚ionala˘: Raport fa˘cut la Consfa˘tuirea informativa˘ a reprezentant‚ilor unor Partide Comuniste, ce a avut loc la sfârs¸itul lunii septembrie 1947 în Polonia’ (Report on the international Situation), (Bucharest: Editura Partidului Comunist Român, 1947), pp. 16–18.

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The change of Soviet strategies from national paths to socialism to uniformity in the process compromised all chance for dialogue.4 In the Soviet perspective, the West was divided into two groups: the Communists, who deserved attention and trust from Moscow, and the others, the bourgeoisie, politicians, exploiters, enemies of the working class, etc., with whom dialogue was useless. Here Cominternist radicalism was extended to international relations perspectives in the cleavage between two different attitudes: those who love the Soviet Union must hate the West and those who love the West must hate the Soviet Union.5 Such a simplistic mode of thought left no room for interaction and compromise. Therefore, the break from the West did not only mean separation, but enmity as well. The binary logic did not allow neutral sides. The perception of enmity is translated as a negative reaction towards Western Europe, which acts as a self-fulfilling prophecy. Hostile actions, justified by ideological perception, generate hostile reactions, thus forming a perpetual cycle.6 Fiction and reality intermingle until fiction replaces reality. As Western Europe was seen as a source of enmity and hostility, the only reliable support for the Romanian regime came from the Soviet Union and the other peoples’ democracies, the so-called community of Socialist states. All Soviet satellites adopted these ideas as the basis for their policy towards the West. Europe became a theatre of ideological and historical antinomy, which Communists used to explain Eastern Europe’s historical evolution. As Dimitrov stated in 1948, the Balkans owe their unfortunate past of inner-struggle solely to ‘Imperialist machinations’. The peoples of the Balkans have been enslaved by Western European imperialists, with the support of the local bourgeoisie, and had turned against one another. According to Dimitrov, the national and social liberation brought on by the proletarian revolution banished the bourgeoisie, giving power to the people and putting an end to imperialist plots. Thus, the Balkans, according to Dimitrov, have a new brilliant future of friendship and cooperation in a kind of Socialist brotherhood.7 The social liberation against imperialism started to take on a specifically antiEuropean tone, as is apparent in propaganda blaming the West for Eastern Europe being in a backward stage of development. It was argued that these countries, with their differing economic profiles, could help each other on the basis of complementary features to overcome underdevelopment.8 Obsession with economic development was a traditional feature of East European political thought, which the Communist regimes inherited.9 As Hugh Seton-Watson argues, Lenin had a dual political goal: social and national liberation, due to Marx’s legacy and the Russian intelligentsia of the nineteenth century.10 4

5 6

7 8

Eduard Mark, Revolution by Degrees: Stalin’s National Front Strategy for Europe 1941–1947, Working Paper no. 31 (Washington, DC: Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, 2001), p. 42. Hugh Seton-Watson, The East European Revolution (New York: Frederick A. Praeger, 1961), p. 400. Patrick Major and Rana Mitter, ‘East is East and West is West? Towards a Comparative Socio-Cultural History of the Cold War’, Cold War History, 4 (2003) 1–23 (p. 7). Scânteia, 15 January 1948 V. Carra, ‘Rolul t‚a˘rilor de democrat‚ie populara˘ în economia Europei’, Probleme Externe, 2 (1948), 20–41 (p. 41). Silviu Brucan, Generat‚ia irosita˘: Memorii (Bucharest: Editurile Universul s¸i Calistrat Hogas¸, 1992), p. 253. See also Kenneth Jowitt, The New World Disorder: The Leninist Extinction (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1992), p. 12. Seton-Watson, pp. 412–413.

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The exacerbation of the conflict in the early Cold War period of 1947–1953 had detrimental consequences for Romania’s relations with its former Western European allies. During its nation and state building process, Romania had developed close cultural and political relations with Western European countries, especially France. Romania’s domestic modernization programme in the nineteenth century was an emulation of the French model. Later, in the inter-war period, Romania’s security policy depended greatly upon its relations with Western European countries, guaranteed by the Versailles system. These traditional links were dramatically severed after World War II. This article will identify aspects of the absolute and irreconcilable enmity that developed between Romania and Western Europe in this early stage of the Cold War. Although the United States played a very important role in the communist discourse towards the West, this paper will focus only on Western Europe due to the strong political and cultural ties that connected Romania and Western Europe during the previous century. This article demonstrates that, despite its traditions, the regime in Romania did perceive Western Europe as hostile and responded to this perceived threat by practising isolationism and seclusion in relation to the outside world. By adopting the Bolshevik model of Socialist construction as the only viable model, this approach was ideologically justified. This global outlook of the implacable animosity between socialism and capitalism was fully embraced by the Communist regime in Romania as the only objective truth.

The Bolshevik model of Socialist construction With the assistance of Soviet councillors and cadres instructed by Moscow, the Stalinist model was closely emulated in economics, politics, society, and culture in all countries under direct Soviet influence. This model prescribed rapid industrialization, the collectivisation of agriculture in economic policy, and a uniform configuration of society and politics under Marxist-Leninist ideology enforced by the Party. Stalinization involved transplanting these features to East European countries with the help of the state apparatus dominated by Communist elites. This occurred despite the absence of any revolutionary movement to legitimate its implementation, as had occurred in Russia.11 These factors generated a strict dependence of local Communists on the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU). Following the CPSU model, all Communist parties functioned as isolated oligarchic systems with closed institutional practices, engaged in the utopian project of Socialist construction.12 In their efforts to achieve this goal, the Communist parties used the Stalinist model as their only reference and, therefore, remained isolated from the societies they were supposedly representing. The Romanian Communist regime, absorbing Soviet rhetoric as Communist parties in the satellite countries did, defined itself as a ‘people’s democracy’. Ideologically, a people’s democracy differs from a bourgeois democracy due to one fundamental feature: the social class holding political power is not the bourgeoisie, 11 12

Giuseppe Boffa, The Stalin Phenomenon (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1992), p. 159. Mircea Chirit‚oiu, ‘Democrat‚iile populare sub tutela stalinismului 1950–1953’, Arhivele Totalitarismului, 3 (2000), 89–96 (p. 89–90).

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but rather the proletariat and working peasants. The Communist Party, as an intermediary, exercised this political power, proclaiming itself as the revolutionary avantgarde of the toiling masses. This expression was first used by Iosip Broz Tito in a 1945 speech, whilst East European countries still had coalition governments in power.13 Marxist-Leninist ideology claims that the transition from capitalism to socialism occurs through a dictatorship of the proletariat. However, in the context of the uncertain domestic situations faced by the coalition governments, dictatorships of the proletariat were not possible at the time. The concept of people’s democracy was therefore called upon to explain a new type of political regime, different from the Soviet one due to one essential feature: a broad coalition including progressive bourgeois elements. In November 1946, Polish leader Wladyslaw Gomulka affirmed that Poland was not a dictatorship of the proletariat and would, moreover, achieve socialism without going through such a phase.14 This moderate ‘national front’ approach was justified by the USSR’s imperative to maintain good relations with its Western allies. After 1947, the complete deterioration of the international situation led Stalin toward a different strategy for Eastern Europe, one of complete uniformity and homogeneity. As a result, the theoretical substance of the ‘people’s democracy’ concept would be further explained by two leading Communists, G. Dimitrov and Joszef Revai, in terms completely different to before. Revai stated in 1949 that the peoples’ democracy represented the dictatorship of the proletariat without the Soviet model. Accordingly, he claimed that peoples’ democracies were established through the peoples’ liberation struggle. The first stage of this struggle had a national, anti-fascist character, later becoming a social struggle for liberation against the reign of the bourgeoisie and landlords. This transformation occurred under the influence of the Red Army, which created the premises for social liberation. The Cominform also played a vital role because of the guidance it offered. It showed that the fight should not stop, but must continue until all forms of exploitation were liquidated.15 Therefore, the concept of people’s democracy, though initially appearing as a form of compromise between the dictatorship of the proletariat and the coalition with bourgeois parties, in the end was identified completely with the dictatorship of the proletariat. The assumption and application of the dictatorship of the proletariat by the Communist parties were indispensable components of the Bolshevik model after the concept of national roads to Socialism was abandoned. Stalin defined the dictatorship of the proletariat as an instrument of the proletarians’ revolution that was meant to fulfil two primary objectives: the liquidation of all resistance from former exploiters overthrown from power and the facilitation of the construction of socialism. The revolution, in Stalin’s view, overthrew the capitalist exploiters from power, but their resistance must be quashed entirely through liquidation during the dictatorship of the proletariat.16 The idea came from one of Lenin’s books written in 1917 in which, following in Engels’ footsteps, Lenin endeavoured to

13 14 15 16

Brzezinski, pp. 24–25 Brzezinski, pp. 24–26. Anonymous, ‘The Character of a “People’s Democracy”’, Foreign Affairs, (1949), 143–152 (pp. 145–147). I. V. Stalin, Problemele leninismului (Moscow: Editura în Limbi Stra˘ine, 1940), pp. 40–41.

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define the relationship between the state and the revolution.17 Marxism proclaimed that the victory of socialism would unavoidably lead to the disappearance of the state. Lenin, on the other hand, argued that between capitalism and socialism there lies a long period of transition in which the state is necessary to repress and liquidate the exploiters and ensure the ultimate victory of the toiling masses. Consequently, the state was necessary during the transition period, in order to ensure the dictatorship of the proletariat.18 This meant, by Lenin’s definition, democracy for the majority of people and repression for the exploiters. This difference was destined to disappear as the transition to socialism was completed. Until then, the dictatorship of the proletariat involved mobilization accompanied by a necessary restriction of civil liberties.19 The Romanian Communist regime considered itself a dictatorship of the proletariat of the Marxist-Leninist model: The imposition of the dictatorship of the proletariat in Romania confirmed once again that there is no other way of passing from Capitalism to Socialism but the one showed by Marxist-Leninism and verified by the historical experience of CPSU and of the brotherly parties from the other peoples’ democracies. The way is the overthrow of the exploiting classes from the political leadership and the instauration of the working class power.20

As a dictatorship of the proletariat, the regime in Romania performed three main functions: repressing the exploiters overthrown from power, defending the revolutionary gains of the proletariat against imperialist manoeuvres, and preparing the socio-economic conditions for the construction of socialism.21 After 1948, due to the change in its tactics, the Soviet Union endeavoured to bring the satellite states in line, making them completely uniform in order to enhance Moscow’s control over them. The Bolshevik model of socialism’s construction thus became an ideological instrument of uniformity. The basic principle consisted of the so-called ‘bolshevization’ of the Communist parties. This involved a complete reorganization of the parties in order to become parties of the ‘new type’: revolutionary parties, differing from bourgeois parties through their inherent task of producing revolutionary transformations of society. The reorganization relied on the application of the Bolshevik experience in all fields. It was believed that: A continuous study and assumption of the Bolshevik experience is an indispensable condition for strengthening the Communist parties. No matter what peculiarities may exist in each country, the general principles of Bolshevism are valid for all countries. Forgetting or ignoring the historical experience of the CPSU unavoidably leads to fatal consequences.22 17 18 19

20 21 22

V. I. Lenin, Opere, vol. XXV (Bucharest: Editura pentru Literatura˘ Politica˘, 1954), pp. 375–485. Lenin, p. 455. Ibid. See also Mihailo Marhovic´, ‘Stalinism and Marxism’, in Stalinism: Essays in Historical Interpretation, ed. by Robert C. Tucker (New York: WW Norton, 1977), pp. 313–314. Lect‚ii în ajutorul celor care studiaza˘ istoria PMR (Bucharest: Editura Politica˘, 1960), pp. 563–564. Ibid., p. 564. E. Burdjalov, ‘Important‚a internat‚ionala˘ a experient‚ei istorice a Partidului Bols¸evic’, Probleme Externe, 6 (1948), 7–20 (p. 7).

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The theory admitted that the situation of the peoples’ democracies working towards socialist societies was remarkably different from the situation in the Soviet Union, for the simple fact that peoples’ democracies were not isolated and could benefit from the Soviet experience. The importance of the Soviet experience was seen as fundamental: ‘the general laws of transition from Capitalism to Socialism, discovered by Marx and Engels, verified and developed by Lenin and Stalin based on the experience of the Bolshevik party and the Soviet state, are valid for all countries.’23 The ideology demanded a scientific character and that is why, once they were confirmed by practice, the laws became compulsory, for they were considered unique. The law could not be changed in relation to local conditions, although these conditions could differ. Henceforth, the law applied in the USSR was accepted as valid and compulsory everywhere. The process of the ‘bolshevization’ of all Communist parties was initiated at the Fifth Comintern Congress in 1924, when the Stalin–Zinoviev–Kamenev troika was engaged in a terrible row with Trotsky. The Resolution of the Congress specified that all parties must adopt the methods and practices of the Bolshevik Party, as the only ones verified on a historical scale. This meant, in turn, that the Communist Parties of Europe were subjugated to Moscow’s control.24 After the Comintern was dissolved in 1943, the idea became secondary along with relinquishing revolutionary rhetoric. The concept of ‘bolshevization’ was resurrected in 1948 through the East European Communist Parties. Drawing upon the Bolshevik experience in socialist construction, cooperating with the CPSU, and using its experience, were considered indispensable conditions for a successful construction of socialism in Romania. The Party’s official newspaper Scânteia stressed the idea that: [Our] friendship with the USSR is the guarantee of a successful construction of Socialism in our country. The help given to us by the Soviet Union, in the framework of the new type of relations cultivated by the Stalinist policy toward the peoples’ democracies is a Socialist and brotherly help.25

The transformation project assumed by the Party was therefore dependent on Soviet assistance. Concurrently, resisting imperialist aggressions was inconceivable without Soviet help. In the People’s Republic of Romania, according to Gheorghiu-Dej, the Bolshevik experience was the starting point for the construction of a Socialist system.26

Foreign isolationism and the enemy within Anti-cosmopolitan campaigns of the period were inherent components of communist uniformity, meant to increase the control in two directions: Moscow over the local communists and the local regime over society. Activists of the Foreign Policy Section 23 24

25 26

Burdjalov, p. 20. Leszek Kołakovski, Main Currents of Marxism: Its Origin, Growth and Dissolution, vol. III (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1978), p. 109. Scânteia, nr. 1617/27.12.1949. Gheorghe Gheorghiu-Dej, Marea Revolut‚ie Socialista˘ din Octombrie a ara˘tat oamenilor muncii din lumea întreaga˘ ca˘ile de eliberare de sub jugul imperialist (Bucharest: Editura Partidului Muncitoresc Român, 1949), p. 20.

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(FPS) of the Central Committee of the CPSU visited the peoples’ democracies in May 1949 and reached the conclusion that the local Communist parties had not undertaken sufficient measures to control information, to prevent the infiltration of Western propaganda, and to fight ‘Imperialist machinations’.27 The anti-cosmopolitan campaigns functioned as instruments for information control and the removal of Western influences from culture and collective memories.28 Even during 1945–1946 Moscow was preoccupied with the flow of information to and from the Soviet Union. In November 1945, Soviet authorities introduced the first drastic restrictions on the freedom of expression for foreign press correspondents in Moscow. Later, in August 1946, Viktor Semyonovich Abakumov (Minister for State Security) and Anatoly Kuznetsov (Secretary of the CC) proposed very restrictive conditions on subscriptions to foreign publications by Soviet citizens or institutions. They expressed great concerns as to how easily such publications entered the Soviet Union without any filter.29 The anti-cosmopolitan campaign reflected the need to counteract foreign influence, due mainly to the Soviet populations’ close contact with Western countries during World War II, in particular its soldiers. The central target of the campaign was the ‘anti-patriots’: those under Western influence or with Western sympathies. Molotov would publicly condemn, in 1947, what he called ‘prostration’ in front of Western culture. During the same year, the Writers’ Union leadership was summoned to the Kremlin to debate the idea of ‘Soviet patriotism.30 The anti-cosmopolitan campaign was launched at the end of 1948, when, at a meeting of the Writers’ Union, a number of theatre critics who had expressed negative comments regarding a few plays, were harshly condemned for ‘Western prostration’ and ‘anti-patriotism’. The Party newspaper Pravda adopted this stance and published, at the beginning of 1949, a series of articles denouncing ‘rootless cosmopolitans’.31 The theme was loudly endorsed by the press of the Romanian Party, as well as by all other peoples’ democracies. Gheorghiu-Dej warned against the danger represented by hostile elements within the population who were not loyal to the regime and maintained intimate connections abroad. Imperialism, in Gheorghiu-Dej’s opinion, recruited its agents from the inside and aimed to undermine the Party and the successes of the people’s regime. In order to prevent this, extraordinary vigilance was required to unmask the ‘class enemy’: [The imperialists] recruit bourgeois and petit-bourgeois elements, fascist gutters, corrupt faltering and backward elements from within the working people, turn into their 27

Tatiana Pokivailova, ‘Problema controlului asupra informat‚iilor în contextul politicii represive a Kremlinului s¸i a partidelor comuniste din t‚a˘rile Europei de Est’, in Analele Sighet 7. Anii 1949–1953: Mecanismele terorii, ed. by Romulus Rusan (Bucharest: Fundat‚ia Academia Civica˘, 1999), pp. 418–425 (p. 420). Harold Wydra, Communism and the Emergence of Democracy (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press), pp. 220–221. Dzhahangir G. Nadzhafov, ‘The Beginning of the Cold War Between East and West: the Aggravation of the Ideological Confrontation’, Cold War History 2 (2004), 140–174 (pp. 143–146). Konstantin Azadovskii and Boris Egorov, ‘From Anti-Westernism to Anti-Semitism: Stalin and the Impact of the Anti-Cosmopolitan Campaigns on Soviet Culture’, Journal of Cold War Studies, 1 (2002), 66–80 (pp. 67–68). Werner G. Hahn, Postwar Soviet Politics: The Fall of Zhdanov and the Defeat of Moderation 1947–1953, (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1982), p. 119. Gheorghe Gheorghiu-Dej, Vigilent‚a revolut‚ionara˘ a popoarelor în lupta pentru socialism (Bucharest: Editura Partidului Muncitoresc Român, 1951), p. 8.

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informers any babblers who do not know how to keep a party and state secret, they manipulate unsatisfied elements.32

In Gheorghiu-Dej’s view, the main ideological weapon of the class enemy was bourgeois nationalism. Through nationalism, chauvinistic sentiments were infused into the working class. For a successful victory of socialism, it was be necessary to fight bitterly against cosmopolitan tendencies: The enemy uses, especially among intellectuals, poisoned ideas of cosmopolitanism. As the facts show, cosmopolitanism is the anti-chamber of Imperialist espionage. Cosmopolitans with no homeland easily fall in the arms of Anglo-American espionage. This is why, the fight against nationalism and cosmopolitanism is an essential part of the fight for Socialism.33

Romanian Communist Party propaganda fervently cultivated a strongly anti-Western xenophobia in parallel with the Russification of culture. Confronting international challenges required the feelings of self-confidence and self-sufficiency in order to offer the masses extra pugnacity in the struggle against the ‘class enemy’.34 In order to protect the Party from the menace represented by such elements, purification was considered necessary, which entailed verification of credentials and the removal of all cosmopolitan and opportunistic elements. The verification of the Party cadres started at the unification Congress of February 1948, which was part of a trend seen in all Communist parties of Eastern Europe.35 It was conducted using the model of the Stalinist purges and its beginning was marked by Gomulka’s removal in Poland.36 The purges had an ‘educative’ role, initiating cadres in the Stalinist practices whilst also annihilating any independent or individual initiatives. This was done to strengthen the Party’s unity. Those members who did not have a Cominternist background and were not informed of the ‘great purges’ were especially targeted. In most of the satellite countries, public trials took place following the model of the 1930s show trials in Moscow.37 Many Party leaders like László Rajk, Traicio Kostov, and Rudolf Slanski were convicted of various charges. All accusations brought against them involved charges of Titoism with Anglo-American espionage. Rajk, for example, was accused of facilitating the infiltration of Yugoslav spies, who were in the service of the Anglo-American espionage into Hungary. Titoist propaganda, according to the accusations, was an Anglo-American instrument meant to undermine the peoples’ democracies.38 The propaganda cultivated the idea of the malefic nature of any connections one may have had with both Tito and Titoism, and with the British or Americans. Practically, this was intended to raise suspicions amongst the Party members and society in regard to any connection with the outside world. 33 34

Gheorghiu-Dej, Vigilent‚a revolut‚ionara˘, p. 14. Alina Ilinca and Liviu Marius Bejenaru, ‘Spiono-manie s¸i controlul informat‚iilor în perioada staliniza˘rii României (1948–1953)’, Studii s¸i Materiale de Istorie Contemporana˘ 5 (2006), 121–152 (pp. 124–125). In February 1948, the Romanian Communist Party and the Social-Democratic Party unified, forming the Romanian Workers Party under Communist control. Mircea Chirit‚oiu, ‘Cum s-a impus modelul stalinist 1948–1953’, Document. Buletinul Arhivelor Militare, 2 (1998), 64–70 (p. 69). Marius Oprea, ‘Comunis¸tii români sub control sovietic’, in Analele Sighet 5. Anul 1947 — Ca˘derea Cortinei, ed. by Romulus Rusan (Bucharest: Fundat‚ia Academia Civica˘, 1997), 105–150 (p. 117). ‘Actul de acuzare în procesul de tra˘dare al lui Laszlo Rajk’, Probleme Externe, 9 (1949), 69–74 (p. 71).

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The verification of members of the Romanian Workers Party was performed by special committees between 1948–1950 and resulted in the expulsion of more than 190,000 members from the Party. A large number of the expelled were the extremerightist factions welcomed into the Party in 1945, at Ana Pauker’s initiative, as well as opportunists who joined the party in hope of future benefits. Some of the former Iron Guardists had also joined the Communist Party in an attempt to escape punishment. The verifications were intended to expel these elements, but also to improve the social composition of the party, in which workers were far from constituting a majority. Moreover, strengthening the party line and increasing homogeneity and discipline also served to enhance the transmission of decisions to local organizations and tightened Party control over state institutions.39 The plenary meeting of the Central Committee in July 1950 adopted a resolution that confirmed the expulsion of twenty percent of Party members labelled as ‘exploiting elements’.40 The Stalinist obsession with the infiltration of the class enemy within the Party became more intense after the Soviet-Yugoslav split. In 1951, a government decision established special bureaus, under the control of the Securitate, in all state institutions for the protection of secret documents. The spy-mania was a complementary feature of the purge campaign, best exemplified by Matyas Rakosi’s claim of a ‘unique network of espionage in all people’s democracies’ announced during the Rajk trial.41 The entire process of verification and purification was accompanied domestically by strong political repression. In August 1948, the General Direction of the People’s Security (Securitate) was established and a year later special Securitate troops were created as well. Article 209 of the Criminal Code of 1948 mentions the crime of plotting against the social order.42 In January 1950, a new governmental decision established labour colonies with the publicly declared purpose of ‘re-educating hostile elements’, or those who had tried to jeopardize the people’s democracy regime. In April 1950, a new law was introduced to punish those who spread alarmist or hostile rumours, listened to or disseminated ‘hostile propaganda’ from imperialist radio stations, or brought offence to the People’s Republic of Romania or the Soviet Union. The law also punished citizens who had any connection with foreign embassies or cultural institutions. The crime of grand treason was extended to those who committed economic sabotage, which was made punishable by death.43

Virulent animosity with the West Both the Zhdanovist view of world affairs and the insecurity felt by the Romanian regime internationally contributed to a complete breakdown in Romania’s relations 39

41 42

Mioara Anton, ‘Dinamica reorganiza˘rilor în PMR (1948–1953)’, Studii s¸i Materiale de Istorie Contemporana˘, 3 (2004), 95–107 (pp. 95–98). For further details see Nicoleta Ionescu-Gura˘, ‘Verificarea membrilor Partidului Muncitoresc Român’, Arhivele Securita˘t‚ii, 1 (2004), 326–348. Rezolut‚ii s¸i Hota˘rîri ale Comitetului Central al Partidului Muncitoresc Român 1948–1950 (Bucharest: Editura Partidului Muncitoresc Român, 1951), pp. 240. Ilinca and Bejenaru, pp. 126–140. Ion Ba˘lan, Regimul concentrat‚ionar din România 1945–1964, (Bucharest: Fundat‚ia Academia Civica˘, 2000), pp. 64–67. Ba˘lan, pp. 79–81.

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with Western countries, perpetuating for many years a situation of mistrust and hostility between Romania and the West. Romania’s requests for acceptance from the United Nations and other international organizations were met with constant opposition from Western governments. The regime suffered from a major absence of credibility given the circumstances surrounding its ascension to power. The animosity between Romania and West European countries grew stronger after 1948, due to the total support Romania granted to all Soviet initiatives, mutual suspicion between Romania and the West, and Romanian domestic policies, such as the nationalization of property. The act of nationalization negatively affected the interests of many Western countries. Numerous Western governments responded to Romania’s nationalization of property by adopting harsh measures against the Romanian government. For example, the Swiss government decided, in the summer of 1948, to freeze all Romanian state accounts held in Swiss banks. The funds amounted to fifteen tons of gold and five million dollars. The government of Switzerland informed the Romanian authorities that the measures were necessary because its interests had been badly affected by Romania’s nationalization policy and the People’s Republic of Romania’s refusal to meet the Swiss demands for compensation.44 For the Romanian regime, this was a very difficult issue, as the money was necessary for immediate purchases abroad, which could not be delayed, such as technology for the reconstruction of industry. Nonetheless, as Alexandru Bârla˘deanu, Minister of Foreign Trade, explained in a Politburo meeting, to offer compensation for Switzerland would encourage other countries to demand similar compensations. Gheorghiu-Dej strongly opposed the idea of compensation, labelling the Swiss actions as nothing short of blackmail. He believed that if Romania constantly refused to pay compensation, Switzerland would eventually renounce its claims to compensation.45 Similar demands were voiced by other countries whose citizens held property and assets in Romania that were lost during Romania’s nationalization process. The United States, Great Britain, and the Netherlands sent official notes of protest claiming that the Romanians had discriminated against Western interests in favour of Soviet interests in their nationalization policy. In the spring of 1949, the British government threatened that if Romania did not acquiesce their requests for compensation, Britain would proceed to take similar measures to the Swiss and freeze Romanian funds held in British banks.46 London demanded approximately twenty million pounds for a loan obtained by Romania from Britain in 1939, which Ion Antonescu refused to pay in 1941,47 as well as compensation for British citizens who had lost property in Romania.48 Like the Swiss and the British, the French also demanded five hundred million dollars, which the French government estimated to be the amount of French interests affected by the Romanian nationalization program, and another one hundred million 44

45 46 47

Stenogramele s¸edint‚elor Biroului Politic s¸i ale Secretariatului Comitetului Central al PMR, vol. I 1948, (Bucharest: Arhivele Nat‚ionale ale României, 2002), p. 182 Ibid., p. 183. Ibid., pp. 209–210. Between 1941–1944 Romania was at war with the Allies, due to its alliance with Nazi Germany and its participation in the anti-Soviet war. ANIC (National Historical Archives of Romania), fund CC.PCR — SRE, dos. no. 25/1953. Referat M.A.E, pp. 35–37.

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dollars for the Romanian public debt owed to France.49 The Swedish government also made such demands. Besides demands for compensation of almost one million dollars, the estimation of Swedish assets lost due to the Romanian nationalization program, Sweden also demanded four million dollars for an industrial contract from the 1930s, which was annulled by a Romanian court in 1947.50 In addition to the pressures at the governmental level, the Romanian regime also felt as though it was under a permanent propaganda siege from the West. The regime felt undermined by broadcasts of Western radio, brochures, and newspapers, which it felt attempted to shake its political base. This material denied the legitimacy and credibility of the regime. A report signed by ‘professor XXX’, addressed to the Section of Foreign Relations (SRE) of the Central Committee, described propaganda outside the country as follows: You find them swarming in all centres, near businessmen of Romanian origin, near the personnel of our Legations and Consulates, in permanent contact with the navigating personnel of our airlines, etc. With great ability, they infiltrate venom in the weak hearts and maintain an atmosphere of permanent alarm: the war is coming; only a war can save the world or at least Europe, and other similar phrases at every step [. . .]. The propaganda going on abroad [. . .] is visibly well organized and supported by consistent funds, for wherever a Romanian might travel, he will encounter either people, either publications — apparently well documented — and certainly cleverly conceived, which try to denigrate democratic Romania.51

In the initial phase of the purges in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (occurring between 1945–1947), anti-communist propaganda was supported even by the diplomatic personnel in Romanian legations. An informative note sent by Alexandru Buican to the SRE warned the Party about the dubious activities occurring at Romanian embassies in Paris, the Hague, and Prague.52 In Paris, even the cultural attaché informed the French authorities about every communist in the legation. A Danish delegate who Buican met in Paris admitted that the Romanian diplomats in the French capital were engaging in anti-government propaganda.53 The diplomats of the inter-war period had realized where Romania was headed under a Soviet-led regime and thus the majority of them refused to take part in the ‘new course’. In addition to the anti-communist propaganda, many of these diplomats either abandoned their missions or were removed from their positions.54 This process intensified greatly after Ana Pauker was appointed minister of Foreign Affairs.55 49

52 53 54

AMAE (Diplomatic Archives of the Romanian Ministry of Foreign Affairs), fund 220, dos. Frant‚a 1954, Informarea Legat‚iei R.P.R. din Paris ca˘tre M.A.E. nr. 301/4.12.1954, pp. 4–6. ANIC, fund CC.PCR — SRE, dos. no. 25/1952. Date privind pretent‚iile financiare reciproce între R.P.R. s¸i Suedia, pp. 20–23. ANIC, fund CC.PCR — SRE, dos. no. 17/1947. Raport al Prof. XXX cu ocazia deplasa˘rii sale în stra˘ina˘tate, p. 37. Alexandru Buican was a top party official and editor at Scînteia, the RCP newspaper. ANIC, fund CC.PCR — SRE, dos. no. 17/1947. Informare semnata˘ de Al. Buican, p. 48. Ion Calafeteanu, ‘Schimba˘ri în aparatul diplomatic românesc dupa˘ 6 martie 1945’, in 6 martie 1945. Începuturile comuniza˘rii României (Bucharest : Editura Enciclopedica˘, 1995) 164–171 (pp. 165–167). See also Ion Calafeteanu, Scrisori ca˘tre tovara˘s¸a Ana (Bucures¸ti: Editura Univers Enciclopedic, 2005), pp. 234. Ana Pauker was Minister of Foreign Affairs and member of the Political Bureau. For further details see Robert Levy, Ana Pauker: The Rise and Fall of a Jewish Communist (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2001).

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The Stalinist mechanisms of control were spread through all political levels and Pauker utilized them to organize diplomatic activity. People in whom she had complete trust were appointed to the most important diplomatic positions with no regard to their professional qualifications. Professional experience was not a quality diplomats required, as they were not expected to take any initiative.56 The direction of Romanian foreign policy was decided by Moscow’s foreign policy.57 The Romanian Ministry of Foreign Affairs’ only expectation was obedience from its diplomats. They were required to be unsusceptible to Western propaganda, loyal, reliable, and devoted to the regime. In 1950, the Political Bureau of the Romanian Workers’ Party decided to organize a special section of the Exterior Party Cadres (SCPE). Its purpose was to support the activities of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs by conducting political and ideological education for diplomatic employees. The SCPE was also responsible for the recruitment of Party members for activities abroad and verification of the personal histories and ‘political reliability’ of personnel.58 This was a necessity for the regime as there was insufficient personnel for activities abroad. Both the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Ministry of Foreign Trade complained about this lack of personnel. The conditions which the personnel abroad were required to fulfil were, according to the SCPE, ‘honest comrades, verified, with a developed class consciousness, disciplined, not to be opened to influences, with party spirit and revolutionary vigilance, without relatives in capitalist countries’.59 In Bucharest, the Communists were convinced that American and British diplomats were in close contact with the CIA and consequently were plotting subversive actions against the regime. From this perspective, American and British diplomats were aiding the regime’s enemies.60 Such acts were regarded as a component of the imperialist effort to overthrow the regime, which also included the non-acceptance of Romania in international organizations and discriminatory commercial measures as other components. The activities of exiles also inflamed Western hostility. Romanian exiles who left the country from 1944 to 1947 led an intensive campaign against the Communist regime through the organization of conferences, the publication of newspapers, and contact with Western statesmen. For example, in the spring of 1952, the Romanian National Committee addressed a letter to American President Harry Truman, alleging human rights abuse.61 The issue of human rights was a very sensitive topic for the regime in Bucharest. From 1949, the United States had embarked on a considerable campaign against human rights abuse in Romania, Hungary, and 56

59 60

Molotov Remembers: Inside Kremlin Politics. Conversations with Felix Chuev, ed. Albert Resis (Chicago: Ivan D. Ree, 1993), pp. 69–70. László Borhi, ‘Empire by Coercion: The Soviet Union and Hungary in the 1950s’, Cold War History, 1 (2001), 47–72 (pp. 57). Borhi’s considerations on Hungary’s foreign policy during the early 1950s are generally valid for Romania, as well as for all other satellite states. ANIC, fund CC.PCR — SRE, dos. 20/1950. Regulament de funct‚ionare. Sect‚ia Cadrelor de Partid din Exterior, p. 21. Ibid. ANIC, fund CC.PCR — SRE, dos. no. 3/1949. Lupta imperialismului anglo-american împotriva României democratice, p. 18. Liviu T‚îra˘u, ‘Un episod din istoria ra˘zboiului rece: Comitetul Nat‚ional Român se adreseaza˘ pres¸edintelui Truman — 26 mai 1952’, Anuarul Institutului de Istorie Cluj-Napoca, XXXVI (1997), 297–307 (p. 297).

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Bulgaria. In regards to these three countries, Washington took advantage of its position granted by the Peace Treaties in order to argue that respect for human rights was recognized and therefore abuse of this kind was a violation of international law. As a signatory, the United States brought the issue before the UN General Assembly, which forwarded it to the International Court of Justice in The Hague. The court’s decision acknowledged instances of human rights abuse in these countries and demanded that measures be taken to end them. Romania rejected the Court’s decision with the full support of the Soviet Union.62 The matter was never resolved. Nevertheless, debates in the Western press on this issue were extremely embarrassing for the Romanian communists. Romanian diplomatic missions — after complete purges from 1947 to 1948 — were responsible for surveillance and counter-action, relying particularly on the support of the communist press in the West. Newspapers with such an orientation launched strong attacks on all ‘calumnies’ directed against the people’s regime and ‘unmasked’ the fascist and criminal past of the exiles, based on biographies fabricated in Bucharest. At the beginning of 1952, the Congress of the Commission for Central and Eastern Europe took place in London. On this occasion, Ana Toma, one of Pauker’s right hands in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, demanded that the Romanian legation in Paris contact all ‘friendly’ (i.e. communist) newspapers and associations, in order to prepare a plan for refuting the expected calumnies. The plan was to show the achievements of the regime and to unmask its traitors, relying on biographical material prepared at home.63 The SRE within the party recognized the underlying objectives of the AngloAmerican methods of propaganda and identified several methods of efficient counter measures. The ‘inventory’ of imperialist methods of propaganda was comprised of radio broadcasts, newspapers and magazines in English, religious neo-protestant activities, spreading rumours, artistic displays at their legations in Bucharest, etc.64 Propagandistic activities hostile to the regime were to be thwarted by similar means. The most important instrument of the counter-propaganda measures was the press. Its task was to ‘unmask Imperialist plots’ through articles, sketches, and humour, so that the message would reach common people.65 As foreign policy was nothing but a reflection of Soviet initiatives, there was a strong connection between the positions argued by the regime in international affairs and the positions expressed by Party propaganda domestically. The Party press feverishly denounced the so-called imperialist intrigues directed against the regime and promoted peace and the struggle for peace by all means. Propaganda about peace was a useful Soviet tool. Its goal was to convince public opinion at home and abroad of its honest intentions and reduce public support for aggressive policies directed against the USSR and the peoples’ democracies. The precise aim of such propagandistic activities was to thwart Western initiatives, such 62 63

64 65

Ghit‚a˘ Ionescu, Communism in Rumania 1944–1962 (London: Oxford University Press, 1964), p. 195. AMAE, fund TC, box Frant‚a 1952–1953. Telegrama˘ A MAE Direct‚ia Cabinetului ca˘tre Legat‚ia RPR Paris nr. 90460/1952. ANIC, fund CC.PCR — SRE, dos. no. 17/1947. Metode actuale de propaganda˘ anglo-americana˘, pp. 43–44. Eugen Denize, ‘Propaganda radiofonica˘ româneasca˘ s¸i evenimentele internat‚ionale din perioada 1947–1953’, Studii s¸i Materiale de Istorie Contemporana˘, 3 (2004), 79–94 (p. 79).

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as arming Germany and creating NATO, by exploiting public sentiments regarding war and military engagements. The Soviet Union had used this strategy in the interwar period, as well, in the form of Popular Fronts. These were officially directed against the ascension of fascism, but at the same time were useful instruments of pressure against Western governments. Stalin resurrected this strategy during the Cold War.66 The regime in Romania adopted this direction, firstly, because of simple subordination rationalities and secondly, because war was not an option for the communist elites. Given their extreme vulnerability, both domestically and internationally, a war would have certainly shaken their position to the brink of extinction. Communist counter-propaganda activities required that measures be taken to restrict the enemy’s ability to transmit messages by limiting the potential effects of propaganda through severe measures.67 The party cadres were set the special task of developing the revolutionary spirit among the masses through the organization of conferences and debates inside and outside of Party structures in order to unmask imperialist plots. Propagandistic agitation undertaken by party agitators, with the intention of spreading agitation among the working people, was required for the same purpose.68 A probative example about the way in which counterpropaganda measures functioned is presented by the situation of the British Broadcasting Company (BBC) radio station. Party organs noticed the large numbers of complaints against the regime and the government from within Romania addressed to the BBC. The SRE report proposed sending the BBC a number of letters of criticism from ‘working people’ attacking the ‘calumnious’ broadcasts and expressing full support for the regime. The SRE also recommended that the number of letters and correspondence reaching the BBC be drastically reduced by intervention from the Securitate.69 The written press, it was also mentioned, must assume the task of unmasking British propaganda.70 Communist propaganda also had a foreign reach. The People’s Republic of Romania organized numerous activities with propagandistic content abroad, such as artistic or cultural events, the publication of brochures, etc., all intended to display the ‘great achievements’ of the regime. A number of publications were edited in Romania and sent to the legations in Western capitals and to the United Nations. Such publications were usually very suspiciously received, which is why the regime attempted to obtain the consent of Western writers or personalities to sign such publications to increase their credibility. In 1952, for example, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs published such a brochure for propagandistic purposes, but required that a foreign attorney write it. The Romanian legation in Paris received orders to find a French attorney, preferably with communist sympathies, willing to come to Romania, gather documentation, and later write a book about how human rights, particularly the right of employment, were respected in Romania. The material 66

67 68 69

Marshall D. Shulman, Stalin’s Foreign Policy Reappraised (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1963), pp. 80–82. ANIC, fund CC.PCR — SRE, dos. no. 17/1947. Metode actuale de propaganda˘ anglo-americana˘, pp. 47–48. Metode actuale de propaganda˘ anglo-americana˘, p. 49. For more details on the secret political police see Dennis Deletant, Communist Terror in Romania: GheorghiuDej and the Police State (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1999). ANIC, fund CC.PCR — SRE, dos. no. 16/1948. Referat cu privire la activitatea propagandistica˘ britanica˘, p. 6.

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was to be published abroad, most likely in France, at the Romanian government’s expense.71 The hostile and aggressive perception of the West also led to other, more severe, measures. In 1948, the authorities decided to disband the French Institute of Bucharest, and later the Italian Institute. The decision was proposed by Pauker as a provocative measure, as Pauker explained in a Politburo meeting: Our people in France are permanently subjected to persecution and anybody coming to our Legation is checked up. Let’s show that we cannot cooperate with a government who arrests our representatives, let’s break the cultural convention with France and close down the institute.72

The same provocative manner was evident in the decision to turn down an offer for assistance on social and medical issues from the United Nations. Pauker requested that the answering note should mention that ‘our country takes care of its own needs by itself’73. Due to the Western governments’ enmity vis-à-vis the Romanian regime, international tensions, as well as the regime’s vulnerability, Romania expected help from only the Soviet Union and the other peoples’ democracies. The relations between these countries were based on mutual help and were the only foreign guarantees for the Romanian Communist regime. Gheorghiu-Dej stated this very clearly in February 1948, when the Treaty of Friendship was signed between Romania and the USSR: The Treaty signed in Moscow strikes a terrible blow to the illusions nurtured by reactionary circles inside and outside the country that a return of the former regime is possible, when Romania was but an instrument in the service of Imperialist powers, alien to our people’s interests.74

Gheorghiu-Dej thus connected the domestic survival of the regime to the conditionality of Soviet support. Romanian policy toward the USSR was explained by the fact that the policy defended the Romanian people’s interests, especially its ‘revolutionary’ gains. In the past, Gheorghiu-Dej argued, foreign policy had been serving the exploitation of classes, but it was then in the hands of the toiling masses and their interests coincided with the interests of the Soviet Union.75 The USSR was the guarantor of the people’s ‘revolutionary conquests’ because the Romanian people and the Soviet Union were both engaged in the same battle of constructing socialism. The constant pressures exerted by Western governments, in particular the United States, upon the East European regimes caused them to draw nearer to the Soviet Union. In order to maintain their dominant position in domestic politics, these regimes rallied around Moscow and intensified domestic repression aimed at 71 72

74 75

AMAE, fund TC, box Frant‚a 1952–1953. Telegrama˘ A cu nr. 98 810/30.08.1952. Stenogramele s¸edint‚elor Biroului Politic . . . , 1948. Proces-verbal nr. 18 al s¸edint‚ei Secretariatului din 20 octombrie 1948, p. 319. Stenogramele s¸edint‚elor Biroului Politic . . . , 1948. Proces-verbal nr. 26 al s¸edint‚ei Secretariatului din 6 decembrie 1948, p. 395. Scânteia, 13 February 1948. Scânteia, 27 December 1949.

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expunging the enemies who enjoyed such large support abroad. Therefore, Western policies such as ‘containment’ or ‘roll-back’ unexpectedly contributed to strengthening the bonds between the USSR and the peoples’ democracies instead of weakening them.76

Conclusion The years of Stalinist domination from 1947 to 1953 represented an abandonment of the Romanian foreign policy focused on the West that had been established and consistently followed for more than a century. Before the Communist era, Romanian modern history had consisted of great efforts to emulate the Western model and develop relations with Western nations, mainly France and Great Britain. Russia was perceived as a threat and a menace to national identity, due to its expansionist policy in the Balkans. The Cold War dichotomy between East and West and Romania’s forced placement in the Eastern camp represented a rupture from Romania’s past and led to its denial of Romania’s foreign policy identity from the previous century. Such a dramatic rupture was unprecedented in Romania’s modern history. The Romanian Communist regime was completely aligned to Moscow and the underlying focus of its foreign policy was defined by the Kremlin. Every measure taken in the field of international relations was a reflexive reaction determined by the Soviet position. This position generated a terrible animosity between the Communist regime in Romania and Western Europe. This article has demonstrated that there are two sources of this adversity between Romania and the West: obedience to Moscow and mutual mistrust. Nonetheless, both sources of such a conduct were exogenous to the Romanian regime. They were not the result of a careful consideration of the country’s options in foreign affairs, but were determined only by international political realities. Subordination to the Soviet Union, as well as the animosity of the Cold War, were the primary reasons that lead to the aforementioned rupture. Isolationism and seclusion reflected the anxiety of a vulnerable regime lacking legitimate power. Even political manifestations of isolationism had been borrowed by the Romanian regime from the Soviet Union. Consequently, the conclusion can be reached that both Romania’s behaviour in foreign affairs, as well as the sources of its behaviour, were exogenous to the regime.

Paul Nistor, Înfruntând Vestul. PCR, România lui Dej s¸i politica americana˘ de îngra˘dire a comunismului, (Bucures¸ti: Editura Vremea, 2006), pp. 141.

slovo, vol. 20, No. 1, 2008, 48–53

Embodying Birds: metaphor and metonymy in Rosy Dreams BRIAN STONE Washington University in St. Louis

Jakub and Jolanka are lovebirds. Through this metaphor director Dušan Hanák tells the unconventional story of the forbidden romance between a white Slovak boy and a Roma girl in his 1976 film Rosy Dreams (Ružové sny). What makes this little-known film noteworthy is the complex and varied ways in which cinematic symbolism is employed to tell the love story. Hanák uses both metaphoric and metonymic strategies to develop specific themes around the central ‘lovebird’ motif. Some of these strategies are explicit and simple, while others are obscured and complex, involving visual and aural juxtaposition, or conspicuous symbolic repetition in the mise-en-scène. To achieve this symbolic richness Hanák employs tools exclusively available to filmmaking in combining narrative, visual, and soundtrack techniques in novel ways. Finally, one of these symbolic approaches in Rosy Dreams pushes us to a new understanding of the flexibility and potential overlapping of metaphor and metonymy in film.

Rosy Dreams (Ružové sny, 1976)1 is a film about star-crossed love, but conventionality ceases here. This Slovak film is remarkable for many reasons, not least of which are the ethnicities of the young lovers, a white Slovak boy and a Roma girl. What makes this film exceptional is the way the director, Dušan Hanák, tells their love story through a nuanced, multi-layered tapestry of symbolism. Rosy Dreams is largely unknown in the West, and is rarely given more than a passing glance in English-language literature. This makes it all the more worthwhile to take a closer look at how this forgotten treasure might enrich our understanding of metaphor and metonymy in film. Dušan Hanák worked in Czechoslovakia during a time when the state suppressed works that might put its policies into question. Indeed, Hanák’s debut feature film about a dying man, 322 (1969), and his highly-regarded documentary about rural

Ružové sny (Rosy Dreams aka Tinted Dreams, Rose-Tinted Dreams, Pink Dreams, Slovenský Filmový ústav, Dir. Dušan Hanák, Czechoslovakia, 1976).

METAPHOR AND METONYMY IN ROSY DREAMS

Slovak life, Pictures of the Old World (Obrazy Starého Sveta) 1972, were both banned by the government. The screenplay of Rosy Dreams was delayed for a year because of changes demanded by the government, which Hanák and co-writer Dušan Dušek resisted.2 Hanák said in a 1991 interview, that the inter-ethnic relationship in Rosy Dreams, ‘was completely against the official policies of the Czechoslovak government at the time, which insisted that the Romanys adopt the Czechoslovak culture’.3 Nevertheless, as Peter Hames writes, ‘Its optimistic tone brought it into line with the requirements of the time’, and Rosy Dreams was released in 1976.4 While this film may be a thematically light departure from Hanák’s other works, the symbolic craft in Rosy Dreams should not go unappreciated. Hanák uses a variety of different symbolic strategies to shape the viewer’s understanding of the couple’s story through a strong central metaphor: the two main characters, Jakub (Juraj Nvota) and Jolanka (Iva Bittova), are quite literally lovebirds. As ‘birds’, the couple looks for freedom and love by migrating to the city, only to return to their respective places apart. Their ‘rosy dreams’ are ultimately unattainable. Taking this bird comparison as the central metaphor, Hanák develops thematic implications through a wide variety of symbolic strategies, combining narrative, visual, and soundtrack techniques in novel ways. Most interestingly, however, one of the symbolic approaches used in Rosy Dreams can lead us to a new understanding of the flexibility and potential overlapping of metaphor and metonymy. Russian linguist and theorist Roman Jakobson developed a distinction between metaphor and metonymy in ‘Two Aspects of Language and Two Types of Aphasic Disturbances’.5 He argues that the brain works by making linguistic comparisons based on either similarity or contiguity (corresponding to the distinction made by Ferdinand de Saussure between associative and syntagmatic linguistic relations).6 When using similarity, comparison is based on a symbolic substitution of one thing for another. This substitution is typically based on a perceived or intended similarity between two different, separate ideas; this is metaphor. However, when using contiguity as the factor of comparison, the symbolic representative is rather a ‘complement’ to the original idea. Metonymy is based on a pre-existing relationship between the two parts of the comparison, like a part representing the whole, or the whole representing a part. There is not a new connection based on perceived similarity, as with metaphor, but rather a manipulation of meaning — broadening or narrowing, as the case may be — to cue an already established association. Jakobson goes on to link these tropes to specific tendencies in literature. He acknowledges the longstanding link of metaphor to Romanticism and Symbolism, while highlighting metonymy as the preferred tool of Realism. It should come as no surprise that film, in many 2

Peter Hames, ‘Demanding work, but always creative: Ondrej Šulaj and Dušan Dušek interviewed’, Kinoeye, 2.2 (2002) <http://www.kinoeye.org/02/02/hames02.php> [accessed 7 December 2007] ‘Dušan Hanák and Pictures of the Old World’, in Movie Talk from the Front Lines: Filmmakers Discuss Their Works with Los Angeles Film Critics Association, ed. by Jerry Roberts and Steven Gaydos (Jefferson, N C and London: McFarland & Co., 1995), p. 211. Peter Hames, The Czechoslovak New Wave, 2nd edn. (London and New York: Wallflower, 1987, 2005), p. 250. Roman Jakobson, ‘Two Aspects of Language and Two Types of Aphasic Disturbances’, in Language in Literature, ed. by Kyrstyina Pomorska and Stephen Rudy (Cambridge, Mass. and London: Belknap Press, 1987), pp. 95–114. Ferdinand de Saussure, Course in General Linguistics, ed. by Charles Bally and Albert Sechehaye, rev. ed, trans. by Wade Baskin (London: Peter Owen, 1974), pp. 122–127.

BRIAN STONE

ways an inherently realistic art form, should tend to cultivate metonymic symbolism. Because the format of film requires the selection of a limited amount of visual and aural information, filmmakers often show only a piece to imply the whole. Functioning as automatic visual indexes, these cinematic metonymies typically go unnoticed. However, Hanák uses them purposefully in Rosy Dreams, making them stand out and cue deeper symbolisms. The details of Hanák’s metonymic and metaphoric craft gain their importance only after we come to understand their context in the project of the film. The film is centred on a core metaphor: Jakub and Jolanka are portrayed as birds, and the film’s themes are developed in relation to their bird-like condition. The couple frequently refers to their mutual interest in birds and even explicitly voices their desire to be able to fly like them. Jakub once says that he sometimes dreams he can fly and Jolanka says that she too has dreamed of ‘sitting on a plane’s wing’. Their affinity with birds is highlighted by a scene of the couple in a pigeon coop, where they are shown comfortably alongside the birds. The coop is an intimate refuge from prying eyes where the couple feels at ease, surrounded by the insulating cooing of the pigeons. Both of these characters, though primarily Jakub, also directly embody their bird metaphors in their physical action at various points during the film. Walking along the rails of a train track, for example, the two have their arms held out wide for balance as if imitating the spread wings of a bird. At another point, after talking about birds and flight, on the tracks Jakub stretches his arms behind his back and acts out a comic rendition of a bird flying and calling. Later in the film, after he has had his heart broken by Jolanka, Jakub re-enacts the feat of his legendarily free-spirited grandfather in a drunken leap off the roof, holding an umbrella with which to fly. With this basic level of representation through explicit reference in dialogue and action, the viewer is attuned to the symbolic mode of the film, ready to interpret more attentively Hanák’s subtler work with metaphor and metonymy. It is also crucial to look at the positions these two characters hold in society at large. Jolanka is a Roma and this fact alone already holds coded information relating to a bird-like identity. Because of this ethnicity she is automatically associated with a kind of untamed and natural spirit, linking her to the animal world. The Roma are conventionally seen as a wandering people, migrating from place to place, never giving up their freedom. Her grandmother, after all, tells her that ‘we were leaving in spring and returning in winters [. . .] like birds’. Jolanka is the only member of her community who actually embodies this stereotype, as the Roma of Slovakia are in reality a sedentary population. While Hanák does not deny this reality (in the end even Jolanka returns home to her immobile community) he nevertheless uses the popular connotations of the ever-mobile Roma to inform Jolanka’s character. Jakub cannot draw his bird identity from his broader ethno-social place. White Slovaks, his own social group, present an obstacle to this metaphor since they are the static model against which the (more naturally bird-like) Roma identity is defined. As a result, Jakub’s character must be defined in contrast to his own social setting; he must be seen as an outsider in this ‘un-bird-like’ society. Indeed, Jakub is portrayed as well-liked but nonetheless strange and out of place in typical Slovak circles. He is most at ease not with other Slovaks, but with the pigeons he cares for and trains. Jakub is seen by other white Slovaks as abnormal, acting just like his crazy

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grandfather who thought he could fly with an umbrella. He also frequently performs magic tricks for Jolanka that align him more with the stereotypical perception of the mystical Roma than with his own culture. Jakub’s job as a postman is his most important characteristic, the one that solidifies his birdness. In this job Jakub performs a duty associated with and also once carried out by birds, namely pigeons. This is made explicit in the film: at one point Jakub justifies his attention to the pigeons by saying that he has to train them so that they will be able to take over his letter deliveries when he is sick. Thus, Jakub acts like a bird in being a postman. This role is reinforced by the frequent shots of him riding his bicycle in his caped uniform in a kind of flight while performing his duties as postman. This job also affords Jakub a certain social and physical freedom. This is emphasized in the very first section of the film and reinforced throughout, as Jakub is able to pass from one setting to the next and even between the social boundaries dividing white Slovak society from the Roma community. His separation from Slovak societal norms and his job as a postman therefore work to create a bird-like role for Jakub, aided by his frequent bird-like actions, which is equivalent to the role that ethnicity ‘naturally’ ascribes to Jolanka. Hanák works in both broad strokes, like these bird identities built-in to the couple’s pre-existing nature and situation, as well as in fine detail. In two sequences he artfully edits the sound and image together to create a rare form of almost pure cinematic metaphor. In the first sequence Hanák crosscuts between a scene of Jakub and Jolanka sitting in the grass near the water’s edge and a scene of Jakub’s uncle and a friend on the dock fishing, while overlaying the sound so that the uncle’s words act as a voiceover for the scene of the young couple. The sequence starts on a two-shot of Jakub and Jolanka, with his uncle saying, ‘Who knows what it is in them [. . .] such a passion’. At this point the viewer understands that the words are referring directly and exclusively to the couple as they are gazing at one another. Then Hanák cuts to the men on the dock looking skyward at the circling birds and the uncle continues, ‘When the spring or autumn come [. . .] they fly away’. At this point the viewer is struck by the realization that the old man had been talking about the birds, but a connection has been made and a symbolic bond has been forged between bird and couple. We now see them as the same. Jakub and Jolanka are just like the birds; they replace the birds. Cutting back to the couple, now with the viewer on board with the metaphorical understanding that what is said will apply equally to both the birds and the couple, the voiceover continues: ‘Nobody knows how they find their way’. Breaking into the soundtrack, Jolanka says softly to Jakub, ‘I like to wander’ and, as if in the same conversation, the uncle’s (unwitting) voiceover replies, finishing the exchange, ‘Even people have this feeling sometimes [. . .] to leave and abandon everything’. This elegant, yet powerful, sequence leaves no doubt about Hanák’s metaphor: the uncle is describing them literally as birds rather than as the young lovers he knows, while introducing the theme of migration as a natural drive for the couple as birds. The second of these pure cinematic metaphors is in the scene at the community dance. Despite severe social pressures from their respective groups, Jakub and Jolanka decide to dance together. In the shots leading up to their dance, the scene is filled with the noisy din of voices, dancing, clinking glasses, and music coming from the brass band on the stage. However, as we see the two dancing alone in the centre

BRIAN STONE

of the dance floor with the band in the background, all diegetic sound drops out and all we hear is the cooing of pigeons. This shot recalls an earlier scene in the film where the two had practised the waltz in Jakub’s pigeon coop, an early moment of intimacy, and unmistakably labels the couple as lovebirds. To underline the intimacy of this moment on the dance floor, the loud bawdy atmosphere jumps back in as Hanák cuts back to the crowd, first to the white Slovak thugs who had threateningly warned the couple not to dance together and then to their Roma counterparts. Then, the noise drops out again and the camera cuts back to a tighter two-shot of Jakub and Jolanka embracing in dance. The immediate change in sound and image abruptly aligns the viewer with the couple, deaf to their surroundings and focused only on each other. Like no other scene in the film, this sequence uses juxtapositional simultaneity, possible between sound and image, to create the very real and direct metaphor of Jakub and Jolanka as birds in love. Hanák also uses the technique of inserting still shots related to, but not directly taken from, the narrative continuity for montage-like symbolic purposes. The clearest example of this technique combines five still shots in total, inserted into one of the scenes where Jakub visits his uncle’s house. The first shot seems completely unmotivated in the story: a close up of a birdcage. It seems to mark the beginning of a new section more than to serve any real narrative function. The scene proceeds, and as it turns out, Jakub is reluctantly visiting his uncle in order to collect rent. After a very short sequence of narrative shots, during which time the uncle is talking about his greedy landlord, Hanák cuts to four consecutive shots of different coloured banknotes, each one in turn taking up an entire shot. The plot then resumes. The five still closeups are significantly linked in a kind of symbolic montage that points to the larger themes of the film. One can see how money acts in this story as a constraint on Jakub and Jolanka’s happiness and freedom. Their financial situation entraps them like birds in a birdcage. This ultimately leads to their abandoning their flight for freedom and losing their love. By taking a more oblique symbolic tack here than the direct metaphor seen in the previous two examples, Hanák makes a thematic statement about the role of money in the couple’s story while at the same time reinforces the central bird metaphor. By using the recurrence of symbolic objects again and again in the film’s miseen-scène, Hanák explores the ever more complex ramifications of the core bird metaphor for the couple. Twice in the film, once in the beginning and once towards the end, we come across a feather lying on the ground. Because the feather is not a substitute for, but rather a continuation or part of the bird it represents, the feather is a metonymic symbol. This feather first evokes ideas of the bird that shed it and birds in general, strictly metonymically in the immediate context. This Jakobsonian interpretation is too narrow. The film’s thematic concentration on the couple as birds demands that the fallen feather be understood in its fuller significance. Keeping in mind the couple’s bird-like migration in the film, finding a single feather on the ground may point more to the fact that the bird is no longer present. The feather is only the trace left by a bird departed, an artefact of flight, of migration. Thus, the feather on the ground is both an immediate metonymic symbol referring to the bird or bird-ness in general, and if stretched a little farther, a more comprehensive metaphoric symbol referring to the absence of the bird or even to migration.

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Another important example of a single trope with this new dual interpretation involves time. Throughout the film we are shown close-ups of timepieces. At several points Jakub uses his stopwatch (which he presumably keeps for timing his pigeons’ homing performance while training them to deliver letters) to measure and announce the amount of time that has brought someone closer to their death. At another point there is a small succession of still frames of an ornamental clock at Jakub’s uncle’s house. These images of timepieces can be seen in the immediate context as a metonymic extension of time. We are shown a clock and we think of what it is used to represent, what its function is, namely the measuring of time. As with the feather, when ‘time’ is taken into account with the central metaphor of the couple as migratory birds, it becomes associated with a kind of youthful (migratory) urgency and, indeed, the threat of approaching death. These themes of time and death are recurrent in Rosy Dreams in scenes like the shooting of the hen, the death and funeral of Jolanka’s Roma grandmother, and the dead pigeon in the street at the end of Jakub and Jolanka’s relationship. There are similar dual-readings possible with symbols like the couple’s emulation of having wings, referring both metonymically to birds (and their identities as such, as discussed above) and metaphorically to notions of freedom and ‘flight’ (i.e. escape). Each of these images, the feather, the clock, and the flapping arms, are shown again and again throughout the film, demanding the attention of the viewer with their repetition and announcing themselves as symbols. They are not limited to a single level of interpretation. Jakobson’s distinction suggests that metaphor and metonymy are exclusive, but this dichotomy neglects the overlapping we see in Hanák’s symbolism. Here, a single trope can serve two symbolic purposes. Narrowly these tropes are metonymically meaningful, directly indexing the objects or ideas to which they are immediately linked. The significance does not end there. Metaphoric extension can relate these same metonymically indexed objects or ideas to the larger thematic context of the film, making them more far-reaching symbolically. It is just this kind of symbolic depth and complexity that makes Rosy Dreams remarkable cinema. Seeing the couple’s story through the central metaphor of migratory lovebirds brings manifold themes to the surface. Hanák combines different kinds of metaphors and metonymies through a variety of cinematic techniques. Above all, Hanák makes the most of the flexibility of the film medium to create multi-layered symbolism, blurring the line between metaphor and metonymy. A feather is not just a feather, and a feather is also no longer just a bird. The varied texture of symbol and meaning in Rosy Dreams pushes us to find new ways of interpreting cinematic symbolism and it makes this film so much more than a simple story of forbidden love.

slovo, vol. 20, No. 1, 2008, 54–60

BOOK REVIEWS By Force of Thought, Irregular Memoirs of an Intellectual Journey. By János Kornai. 461 pp, MIT Press, 2006, ISBN 9780262113021 János Kornai is a Hungarian economist well known for the story of his pilgrimage through economic theory from Marxism, as a planner for the Communist regime, to his appointment as a professor of economics at Harvard teaching the orthodoxies of modern ‘capitalist’ theory. His memoirs are more than a narrative of the author’s past, itself a fascinating subject; they are a self-critical account of an intellectual journey. It is an ‘irregular memoir’ in that, apart from his early years, the author’s private life is left out, although there are many references to the friends and colleagues with whom he worked and debated as an economist. Indeed, he is most generous in acknowledging the help he received from them. The book is far too long; it could without loss have been cut to two thirds of its present length. Nevertheless, it is a fascinating book. It is the story of how a young Jewish boy from a secure haute bourgeois background was attracted to communism in 1945 and became an enthusiastic journalist working for the leading party paper under Rákosi, the most appalling of the dictators under whom Hungary has ever suffered. It tells how he then became disillusioned with communism, turned against it and became a leading academic economist who was one of the main theoretical architects of communism’s overthrow from within. Kornai was born in 1928 into a large prosperous family living in the centre of Budapest with servants and a German governess. His father, Dr Pál Kornhauser, was an attorney working for German companies who served in the First World War as a captain and was a proud holder of high decorations. A Hungarian, brought up on German culture, he sent his son to the Reichsdeutsche Schule in Budapest in 1933. Today this sounds like a very odd choice for a well-informed Jew, but Kornhauser, like so many other people, did not think that the violently anti-Semitic Hitler would retain power for long. At his German school Kornai met Peter Kende, who became his closest friend. Kende’s origins and career paralleled Kornai’s own until 1956 when Kornai remained in Hungary while Kende fled to Paris and became a leading intellectual of the émigré community there. Hitler, instead of being eased out of office, consolidated his position. Hungary became a satellite of Germany and the position of the Jews gradually became more and more precarious. There is a harrowing description of how, after the German occupation of Hungary in 1944, the author’s father was deported to his death in Auschwitz and his two elder brothers were sent to a labour camp, where one died. Meanwhile Kornai, his mother, and his sister were hiding in separate places constantly facing the danger of discovery. As a boy of sixteen Kornai enthusiastically welcomed the Russian occupation of Budapest in February 1945 as the true liberation of Hungary. Like so many other young Jews, he was attracted by the Communist vision of a new anti-fascist society into which Jews would be fully integrated. ‘My Jewish identity vanished almost completely’, he observes (p 27). In order to assimilate into a new Hungarian society, he changed his name to Kornai. Because of his talent and dedication, Kornai rose extraordinarily rapidly in ‘the nomenklatura’. In 1946 he was recruited to the headquarters of the Communist Youth Movement (MADISZ) as a full-time cadre. Kornai closely studied Marx, Lenin, and Stalin. He was also influenced by Georg Lukács’s writings. He was captured by the charismatic leadership of József Révai and his devotion to the Soviet Union was unconditional. A ‘sleepwalker’, Kornai swallowed wholesale the trumped-up charges against the enemies of the regime. As a dependable and reliable apparatchik, he was moved in 1947 to the leading party paper, the Szabad Nép. © School of Slavonic & East European Studies, University College London, 2008

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Within two years he was elevated to economic editor — without any degree in the subject. Yet he soon found out much about the Hungarian economy. Instead of sitting in his office, he visited factories meeting workers, managers, and party secretaries. He interviewed leading ministers and attended meetings of the State Economic Committee chaired by Erno˝ Gero˝, who was the ultimate controller of a strictly centralised economy. In his articles Kornai preached discipline, criticized shortcomings, and spoke out against corruption. ‘Never for a moment did I think that the troubles were systemic’, he observes (p. 51). After Stalin’s death in March 1953, the world in which the author had hitherto lived began to dissolve. It is most instructive to follow the stages of Kornai’s mental transformation; his ‘waking up’. After the ‘New Course’ was imposed on Hungary by Moscow and Rákosi was forced to share power with Imre Nagy, Kornai met party members who had been released from prison. It now became obvious that the trials were based on fabricated charges, that the AVH (the secret police) used torture to extract ‘confessions’ and that innocent party stalwarts were treated brutally in prison. Kornai came to see that Rákosi’s system was fundamentally flawed and beyond redemption and he rejected it on moral grounds. The lateness of this realisation is perplexing. Only after the brutalities inflicted on Communists became apparent to the author (and a whole class of other cadres), which had been obvious to most non-Communists all along, did Kornai realize that the regime was a most repulsive police state. Kornai became a supporter of Imre Nagy’s ‘New Course’ for a reformed Communism. Together with other young cadres of the Szabad Nép, Kornai organised a conference where criticism of Stalinist leaders was voiced. This rebellion led to the dismissal of the group from the Party paper. After being obliged to undertake some humiliating ‘self criticism’ in 1955, Kornai enrolled as a postgraduate student in the Institute of Economics of the Hungarian Academy. (He had begun to study economics at university in 1953). He then abandoned Marxist economic theories on the grounds that they were contradictory in themselves and, moreover, had no empirical basis. Kornai nonetheless still believed that socialism could be reformed and he remained a ‘naïve reformer’ (p. 81). His first academic work, his PhD thesis, Overcentralization in Economic Administration, was circulated in September 1956. It was an instant success among fellow economists and the public. This detailed, accurate description of the planning system and the economic management laid the foundations for the New Economic Mechanism introduced much later in 1968. During the 1956 revolution Kornai worked on a draft policy for the Imre Nagy government, aimed at the dismantling of the system of planning instructions and developing a market economy. But the draft did not envisage the denationalisation of state owned enterprises. (It is possible that I may have missed the reference in this long book, but it remains unclear to me when Kornai accepted the view that a free market requires private property rights for its operation). After the Russian army ended the revolution and Nagy was imprisoned and later executed, Kornai faced a difficult time. His work, devoted to the demonstration that the command economy was failing to achieve its purposes, was denounced by the Party’s economists as anti-Marxist and by the press as ‘counter-revolutionary.’ Kornai declined an offer to work for the Kádár government. He also refused to apply for reinstatement in the Party or to submit himself to the ‘self-criticism’ that that would have involved. He was then expelled from the Institute and harassed by the police. Meanwhile Overcentralization in Economic Administration was translated into English and published by the Oxford University Press in 1959. It enjoyed considerable popularity in the West. Kornai now ‘became receptive to the mainstream economic thinking’ (p. 124) and, with the help of Tamás Lipták, began to apply mathematical methods in his economic analysis. The Kornai-Lipták study on ‘Two-Level Planning’ attracted a great deal of interest among economists in the West. After 1962 political repression eased and Kornai began to work for the National Planning Office apparently free from political interference. If the authorities had understood the significance of mathematical modelling and game theory for the assessment of Hungarian economic management, they might have been less relaxed about his work. As it was, Kornai’s work was acclaimed by economists in the West. The Kádár regime, eager to break out of its

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international isolation, allowed Kornai to travel to Cambridge in 1963 where he was able to discuss his work with leading economists. Although the secret police were still collecting information on his anti-Marxist views, Kornai’s work was no longer obstructed and he was allowed to travel abroad. In 1967 he was invited back to the Economic Institute. In the tolerant atmosphere of the Institute, Kornai and his ‘group’ flourished. No longer a ‘naïve reformer’ but a critical analyst, his research led to books and studies which were translated into English and other languages and his international reputation grew rapidly. He was offered a chair in Cambridge, which he declined. After being elected a member of a number of foreign academies he was also invited to join the Hungarian Academy. In the 1980s he worked for extended periods as a professor at Princeton and Harvard, but he never thought to emigrate. What gives this somewhat long and repetitive book its freshness and interest is the author’s willingness and ability to confront his political past with great honesty and his penetrating understanding of his own intellectual development. Emeritus Professor of Hungarian History, University of London

Lászlò Péter

Roumanian Stories Online Thanks to the University of Washington’s Center for Advanced Research in the Arts and Humanities, Roumanian Stories, first published in 1921 and reprinted in 1971, is now available on the web at: http://depts.washington.edu/cartah/text_archive/byng/toc_pag.shtml. These tales about the dispossessed and the forsaken epitomize what Mircea Eliade calls ‘the terror of history’.1 Now in the public domain and translated in a colloquial style by Lucy Byng, these stories will delight those who seek a fine introduction to Romanian literature.2 Constantin Negruzzi’s ‘Alexandru Lapushneanu, 1564-1569’ is about a brutal Moldavian prince. First published in 1840, the story illustrates Lord Acton’s famous saying ‘power tends to corrupt; absolute power corrupts absolutely’3 and reveals the deep roots of Romanian totalitarianism. Using foreign mercenaries, Lapushneanu regains the Moldavian throne and consolidates his power through terror. He burns towns, executes subjects on the slightest pretext, and despoils the boyars, the powerful nobles whose large estates might enable them to challenge the prince. Lapushneanu assembles the boyars in a church, urging them to live in peace and love one another. He then invites the boyars to dine at court, where his soldiers massacre them. In the end, Lapushneanu, who cannot trust even his own lackeys, dies poisoned by his wife. Ioan Alexandru Bratescu-Voineshti’s ‘The Fledgling’ is a fable about a mother quail living with her seven chicks near a plantation. Endowed with anthropomorphic traits, the mother quail teaches her brood the art of survival. The eldest chick tends not to heed to his mother and gets into trouble. One day, the chick fails to react in time to his mother’s call, and a boy catches the chick under his cap. Although an old peasant makes the boy release him, tragedy later befalls the wayward chick. A hunter approaches with his dog, Nero, whose name recalls the Roman emperor who persecuted Christians. The hunter is so close that the chicks can see an ant crawling up his boot. When the dog spots the chicks, the mother quail instructs them to remain still. She attempts to distract the dog by pretending to be injured and flying low. Just when the chicks appear to be safe, the eldest chick suddenly takes flight. The hunter turns and shoots; and the chick falls to the ground, its wing broken. The hunter does not even bother to 1 2

Mircea Eliade, Ordeal By Labyrinth. (Chicago; University of Chicago Press, 1982) p. 128. I did not provide page numbers for story quotations since this review refers to a web resource. The original print edition is Roumanian Stories. Tr. Lucy Byng. (London: John Lane, 1921). This book was reprinted by the Books for Libraries Press (Freeport, New York, 1971) and by Ayer Co. Publishing (New York, 1974). Quoted in Stephen L. Baehr, The Locomotive and the Giant: Power in Chekhov’s ‘Anna on the Neck’. Slavic and East European Journal 39.1 (1995) p. 29.

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search for the little chick, which survives only for the time being. As days pass, the injured chick watches his siblings learn to fly, unable to join them. Winter arrives, and the mother quail is torn between her desire to protect her injured chick and the need to migrate with her brood. When the cold intensifies, the mother quail flies off with her healthy chicks as the injured fledging pleads not to be left behind. The story ends with the image of a lonely figure in the shadow of death: On the edge of the plantation lay a young quail with a broken wing and stiff with cold. After a period of great suffering he had fallen into a pleasant state of semi-consciousness. Through his mind flashed fragments of things seen – the stubble-field, the leg of a boot with an ant crawling upon it, his mother’s warm wings. He turned over from one side to the other and lay dead with his little claws pressed together as though in an act of devotion.

‘The Fledgling’ conveys the vulnerability of those who stray from the herd. This fable about the fragility of life, and about cruelty, as reflected in the barbaric sport of hunting, silently invokes God’s compassion and our own. Ioan Slavici’s ‘Popa Tanda’ is about a priest who preaches in vain until he sets an example. Transferred from a prosperous parish for his candour, Father Trandafir is sent to Saraceni, an impoverished village.4 There, people were unemployed, homes were thrown together with straw and pieces of wood, and the church was nothing but ‘a heap of old tree trunks piled one on the top of the other’. The sad state of Saraceni, where priests did penance, seemed immutable: ‘Fish in the water, birds in the air, moles in the ground, and the people of Saraceni in poverty!’ Realizing that he would have no baptismal or burial fees so long as the villagers remained idle, Father Trandafir scolds the villagers so much that they nickname him Popa Tanda’.5 His sermonizing only confirms the truth of this Romanian proverb: ‘Water flows, but rocks remain’. With a sick wife and a newly born fourth child to support, Father Trandafir proceeds to plaster the walls of his house, mend the roof, fence his yard, plant a vegetable garden, and plow the strip of land behind his house. The villagers marvel as the priest prospers, proving the wisdom of another Romanian proverb: ‘Either act as you speak, or speak as you act’. Years later, Saraceni is bustling. The villagers have built a lovely church with bells and white walls. True to his name, which means ‘rose’ or ‘flower’, Father Trandafir has spread his spiritual fragrance gradually, for as Slavici observes, The ant cannot overthrow the mountain. It can, though, change its position; but slowly, slowly, bit by bit’. At once endearing and despairing, Ion Popovici-Banatzeanu’s bittersweet Out in the World is about a shy workman unsuited to a materialistic and callous world. After three years of military service, Sandu longs to resume his trade as a tanner. He fantasizes that he will work hard, save money for his own workshop, and marry the girl he loves. The dreariness around Sandu prefigures not only the coming heartbreak of this character, but also the early death of the author of this story at the age of twenty-four: It was late autumn, the fields were bare and road dreary. Buffeted by the wind, the poplars along the side of the road were shedding their leaves, and sadly swaying their pointed tops. The country lay barren and dead, while voiceless hills were glowing in the light of the setting sun like a man who, on the point of death, tries to save himself by some final remedy. The outlines of solitary fountains prolonged themselves mournfully against the horizon, as though they regretted the life and gaiety of other days. A flight of crows, frightened by I know not what, rose from the dark marshes and alighted upon the tops of the poplars, beating their wings and cawing above the waste. But Sandu saw and heard nothing; he walked absorbed in himself and communing with his own heart.

When Sandu finds work, his master’s domineering wife insists on offering Sandu a paltry wage which he accepts, grateful just to be employed. Though Sandu is competent and hard working, Mistress Veta misses no opportunity to find fault in what he does. The other workmen join in 4 5

The toponym ‘Saraceni’ appears to be derived from ‘sarac’ or ‘saraci’ which mean ‘poor’ in Romanian. The nickname ‘Popa Tanda’ appears to be derived from a Transylvanian regionalism, ‘tandalitura,’ which means a person who chaffs or banters. I am indebted to Fevronia Novac for this information.

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the ridicule, which Sandu bears good-naturedly. Sandu is attracted to Master Dinu’s pretty daughter, Ana, who sometimes sews for the workmen. Ana in turn loves Sandu. Alone in the workshop on a cold Christmas Eve, Sandu remembers how for the past nine years he had envied the joy of strangers during Christmas. Suddenly Ana opens the door, bringing wine. The two are drawn to one another. Sandu briefly holds Ana close before she pulls away. Unfortunately, a jealous workman observes them. Mistress Veta is aghast when she hears that Ana and Sandu were seen together. She orders her husband to dismiss Sandu immediately. Master Dinu reluctantly does so, and Sandu is thrown ‘out in the world’.6 Mihail Sadoveanu’s ‘The Wanderers’ concerns an elderly Polish couple, Vladimir and Ana Savicky, who have been in exile in Romania for the past forty years. They live with their adopted daughter, Magdalena, a name thats biblical resonance suggests spiritual renewal. When their natural son, Roman, returns home from Warsaw after ten years abroad, he embraces his parents and greets their visitors, two elderly Polish friends. In a prophetic voice, Roman describes the despair of the Polish people after the demise of their commonwealth and the death of their leader, Thaddeus Kosciusko. The Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth collapsed at the end of the eighteenth century, after being invaded by Sweden and after repeated wars with Russia. Kosciusko led a failed revolt in 1794 against the Russian Empire, but was wounded and taken prisoner. Ostensibly about Poland, ‘The Wanderers’ evokes the tragedy of Romania, at which the son’s name, ‘Roman,’ seems to hint. After its independence from the Ottoman Empire in 1877, Romania found itself drawn into conflicts in a region dominated by great powers such as Germany, Russia, and the Austro-Hungarian Empire. Roman personifies the endurance and patience of the both the Polish and Romanian peoples, dramatizing the belief expressed by Mircea Eliade that the ‘trials and humiliations of the Rumanian nation are perhaps the price it must pay for its subsequent spiritual alteration’.7 The story ends with Roman transfigured by the rays of a fiery sunset as he gazes into Magdalena’s tearful eyes in the fading light. In Marcu Beza’s ‘The Dead Pool’ two wayfarers pause to rest near a hidden pool into which they peer as if into an abyss of primordial time: The silence extended indefinitely; it was as though the world here had remained unchanged since its creation. Hardly a breath of wind reached us. It always carried with it at this spot the same odour of dank weeds, of plants with poisonous juices; everything told of the neighbourhood of water — not fresh water, but water asleep for centuries

Glimpsing what appear to be supernatural ‘flickering points of fire’ in the pool, one wayfarer tells to his companion the following legend. A handsome stranger followed a beautiful girl, Virghea, to the mountains, living there as a shepherd. The stranger would play the flute to delight Virghea, who would steal away from home to listen. One day, during a fierce storm, the mountain peaks began to rattle with the thunder of warring gods. When the shepherd emerged from his fold, he beheld a phantom turning a spit over hot coals. The spit held the heart of a mountain guardian spirit who had been overthrown. The phantom asked the shepherd to turn the spit while he rested, warning him that he would die if he tasted the heart. The curious shepherd tasted the heart, found it pleasant, and ate it all. On a cruel impulse, he killed the sleeping phantom and took its heart. Feeling drawn to the water, the shepherd left his flute with a companion and asked him to play it in case of danger. After the shepherd disappeared, Virghea took to bed in grief. The companion went to the pool, and when he had finished playing the flute, bells tolled, followed by the sobbing rhythmic words, ‘Virghea is dead — is dead!’. Arising from the pool, the 6

The Romanian title of ‘Out In The World’ is ‘In lume’. ‘Lume’ has many meanings, including ‘world’, ‘people’, ‘humanity’, ‘society’, all of which enrich our sense of Sandu’s disenchantment and social rejection. Mircea Eliade, Journal III. 1970-78. Tr. Teresa Lavender Fagan. (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1989) p. 55.

REVIEWS

grieving shepherd-spirit carried Virghea down to his palace where points of fire lit the head of the deceased woman — those mysterious lights in the dead pool. A masterpiece of irony, Ion Luca Caragiale’s ‘The Easter Torch’ is about a Jewish innkeeper, Leiba Zibal, who lives with his wife, Sura, and their child in a dangerous and remote place. Zibal hires a servant, Gheorghe, who proves dishonest and violent, and who refuses to leave when Zibal dismisses him. Before Zibal has him forcibly removed from the premises, Gheorghe threatens to return on Easter Eve to ‘crack red eggs together’. Soon afterwards, Zibal learns that Gheorghe is wanted for a crime. He unsuccessfully seeks protection from the authorities. On Easter Eve, Zibal, who is suffering from malaria, dozes off. He dreams that a hirsute madman approaches his inn, accompanied by an excited crowd. Soldiers unbind the madman who suddenly dashes towards Zibal’s wife and child, and crunches their heads together. At this moment in the nightmare, Zibal is awoken by the mocking laughter of a customer. Soon, two coach passengers bring news that a Jewish innkeeper has been murdered. When the sun sets, Zibal closes the inn and orders Sura to go to bed early. Sitting near the door, he listens anxiously. After a long time, Zibal hears horses approaching the inn, and then men outside speculating whether Zibal was asleep. A man – Gheorghe -- begins to saw through the door, as Zibal awaits in the dark, thinking of his wife and child. When Gheorghe breaches the door, he finds his arm caught in a noose sprung by Zibal. Sura awakes that morning to the sound of moaning. She finds Zibal at the door, burning an arm with a torch. When the moans cease, Zibal swings open the door with a body hanging on it, as villagers with Easter torches look on. Zibal has lit Gheorghe’s arm as a grotesque torch for Christ. Zibal is converted: he is a Christian and a Jew no longer. Caragiale reminds, like William Faulkner, that ‘the basest of all things is to be afraid’.8 Ultimately, the suffering of the outcasts and outsiders in these tales is cathartic. Like the lights at the bottom of the dead pool in Beza’s tale, these stories portend the spiritual regeneration and cultural survival of the Romanian people. The tales yearn for a future more compassionate than the age in which they were written and are the finest expression of a persistent collective memory. State University of New York at Canton

Ali Zaidi

The New Right in the New Europe: Czech Transformation and Right-Wing Politics, 1989– 2006 by SEÁN HANLEY. Pp 274, Routledge: London and New York, 2008. Hbk. ISBN10: 0-41534135-3 Seán Hanley’s study sets itself the task of tracking down, in the author’s own words, “the origins, development, and success since 1989 of one national case, that of the centre-right in the Czech Republic” (p. 8). Even if his research is primarily intended as a case study, its conclusions are envisioned to have a wider resonance for the study of the emergence of right wing politics in post-Communist Central and Eastern Europe. Such research is motivated by the relative paucity of literature on this topic when compared to the studies on left-wing parties and on the extreme right. Hanley’s study begins by delimitating the object of his research and distinguishing the moderate or centre-right from the far right and the various populist nationalist projects in the CEE area (Chapter 1). It moves on to a detailed description and analysis of the main centreright party in the Czech Republic after 1989, the Civic Democratic Party (ODS). It also briefly discusses smaller groups representing the Czech right-wing in the aforementioned period, largely in connection with or as alternatives to ODS. The analysis unfolds according to a predominantly chronological pattern from Chapter 2 to 6, followed by a more theoretical 8

William Faulkner, The Portable Faulkner. Ed. Malcolm Cowley. (New York: Penguin, 2003) p. 649.

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interpretation of the party’s ideology (Chapter 7), and finally by an examination of its response to the process of European integration (Chapter 8). The chronological account can also be divided into two main parts. The first (Chapters 2 to 4) commences by evaluating the role of historical legacies in the advent of the Czech right. It takes into account the origins of post-communists elites and their position during the ‘normalization’ period following the Prague Spring and the emergence of the Civic Forum and its role in the ‘Velvet Revolution’ of November-December 1989 up to its break-up and transformation into the Civic Democratic Party in 1991. The second (Chapters 5 and 6) deals with the party’s history between 1992 and 2006. It is divided between the party’s dominance of Czech politics until 1996 and its subsequent decline and redefinition during the last decade. Throughout the study the author engages with existing theoretical interpretations of the right-wing phenomenon in Central and Eastern Europe, and the Czech Republic in particular, providing a close historical analysis that helps nuance or even challenge them. The main value of his research lies precisely in this approach. Its attention to detail and historical context allows Seán Hanley to argue against excessively deterministic interpretations of the right in terms of historical legacies, or arguments regarding the ‘anti-political’ nature of Czech dissidents and counter-elites. In response to these, Hanley argues convincingly for the relative autonomy of elites to make strategic alliances, and qualifies such general dividing lines as the one between reform communists and dissidents by identifying a wide range of sub-groups within the latter category. Such divisions are in turn important for understanding political dissensions within the Civic Forum which, coupled with other disputes (over organizational structures, for example), led to its eventual break-up. The same attention to detail allows Hanley to make a credible argument regarding the pivotal role played by Václav Klaus and a group of neo-liberal technocrats around him in the establishment of a broad-based ‘successor party’ to the Civic Forum. In Hanley’s view, the party’s initial success was due to its focus on two key-issues for the Czech public, radical economic reform and decommunization. However, this policy eventually contributed to the party’s loss of popularity. Hanley argues that the party’s inability to adapt an essentially transformative program to later realities that called less for sweeping reform than for everyday political management eventually led to its decline. The importance of Klaus as party leader and his unwillingness to compromise are further demonstrated by the change observable in the party line after his replacement. While Hanley’s study represents a valuable monograph of the Civic Democratic Party and its significance within post-communist Czech politics that helps qualify grand theories on party formation and development in Central and Eastern Europe after 1989, this approach necessarily contains its own limitations. To a large extent, the comparative perspective that the author proposes in the introduction is fragmentary and limited to occasional references to developments in Hungary and Poland. The particularity of the Czech case underlined by the author is helpful in contesting general interpretations that address the CEE area as a unitary block and in highlighting its heterogeneity. However, it is precisely because of this peculiarity itself that his analysis appears to have little applicability beyond its Czech context, particularly given the absence of a general conclusion about the meaningfulness of this case-study for Central and Eastern Europe. It is nevertheless possible that such an endeavour lies beyond the author’s intentions. Furthermore, the author’s preference for an excellently researched and well-documented examination of the inner dynamics of party politics in a specific case study will probably reveal its broader meaning when the new grand narratives on the region are written. University College London

Raul Carstocea

slovo, vol. 20, No. 1, 2008, 61–62

FILM REVIEW The Banishment (Nzghahne). Director: Andrei Zvyagintsev. REN Film, Russia, 2007. In many ways, The Banishment can be seen as a continuation of Andrei Zvyagintsev’s first film, The Return.1 In The Return the spectator left the cinema with some unsolved enigmas. What kind of relationship exists between the father and the mother? What is, or was, the way they feel about each other? What are they expecting when they are left together in the bedroom, after years of separation? Andrei Zvyagintsev does not give us any answer. In The Banishment, the director gives us the necessary tools to understand why the woman often looks absent, gazing at the depth of an unexplainable life. The film begins as a filmnoir. Alex, the father, takes care of his wounded brother’s arm. He has just been shot. This first scene suggests that both are involved in dodgy business. However, this is not the main theme of the film. The camera focuses on the life of Alex’s family, who leaves the city to spend time in the countryside. They go to Alex’s birthplace, an old and beautiful house, lost in heavenly nature. The day of their arrival, when the two children are in bed, Vera, Alex’s wife, confesses that she is pregnant but that he is not the father of the child. Hurt and humiliated, Alex does not know how to react or what decision to make. It appears that the couple is unable to discuss this; they are left with no other option but silence or a rushed decision. Vera will be forgiven if she has an abortion. Eventually, two suspicious doctors come to the heavenly lost house and leave the woman between life and death. The audience is outraged, witnessing the fatal consequences of human pride. However, this is only the first part of the story. Then the hidden part is revealed. The spectator, who already feels the need for further explanation, has to face an unexpected, intriguing, and confusing end. My aim is not to uncover the details of the film’s denouement. Nevertheless, the full meaning of the movie appears only at the end, when what Alex (the father) thought was a broken happiness reveals to be something much more complex. Having seen the end of the film, what did really happen? What was it really about? Andrei Zvyagintsev, during the film’s presentation in the 2007 London film festival, demonstrated once again his reluctance to interpret his own work. He prefers to focus on technical details and explain what he expects from his actors or the way he proceeded to create a timeless and spaceless atmosphere, shooting the film in different countries (France, Belgium and Moldavia). However, from my point of view, The Banishment is not, as some critics say, a meaningless aesthetic work. The burdensome silence of Alex and Vera after the confession and the fact that the drama seems to be suspended in time and hardly touched can be interpreted as a technique strengthening the question revealed at the end of the film: what is real happiness? Are we able to recognize and achieve it? The Banishment tackles the protagonists’ helplessness to grasp the meaning of life. As in The Return, their framework of action is limited: it defines the way men should be educated and behave, and provides guidelines to help them understand reality and act accordingly. One of Alex’s brother’s recommendations illustrates well this aspect of the movie: ‘If you decide to kill Vera, you are right. If you want to forgive her, you are also right’. However, there are characters who aspire to go beyond this reality. In The Return, the youngest son demands genuine familial relationships, based on trust and real love. In The Banishment we face a similar situation: Vera suffers from living in an alleged happiness, with an absent husband. According to her, despite the blood ties that unite them and the fact that he raises 1

The Return (Bozbpawehne), Director: Andrei Zvyagintsev, REN Film, Russia, 2003

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his children, Alex cannot genuinely be considered as their father. This aspiration to genuine happiness can appear to be against nature and the established conventions. Throughout the film Vera appears as a weak, depressed character, and sometimes flirts with madness. Her suffering and queries are taboo and will eventually be useless and endless. The film suggests that the genuine love and truth she is looking for are by essence biblical. Both aspirations may be, as the beautiful nature of the movie, an enigma impossible to solve. Nevertheless, the set of values that explains reality and supposedly rules the world is powerless when it comes to facing the world of doubts and aspirations to truth that inhabits Vera. School of Slavonic and East European Studies, University College London

Isabelle Cornaz