November

2009

CENSORSHIP!

Ideological censorship in theater in

communist Romania

Based on a text by Liviu Malia1

The artists that left the country on time are the ones who, in
fact, saved themselves. They are the only ones which, for not
having been touched by censorship, remained pure. We all the
others have been, to varying degrees, tainted by it.
(argues director Mihai Mniuiu, whose staging of Blagas Water
Turmoil was banned and never reached the audience)
The pressure exercised on artists was immense, ubiquitous
and continuous: it touched all existential and creative sectors and it knew multiple, proliferant forms. It reinforced
the idea that the system was eternal, that another form of
political existence in Romania, except for that of communism, was impossible to imagine.
The ideological censorship of the arts in Romania possessed an incontestable model the Bolshevik censorship
but also a native origin: the military censorship from the
war period and from those few years which preceded official domination by the communist government, with Stalinist affiliation, in Bucharest, a censorship which the new
regime of pretended democracy continued. Both of these
sources strengthened its negative character. They partially
explain the severity of the communist censorship in Romania, which, during the long period of almost 45 years, had
been subjected to a permanent re-adaptation according to
the regimes ideological shifts.
Immediately after 1947-1948, the role of the newly created
censorship body was to ensure a virulent propaganda that
was imported with the Soviet tanks. Adherence to socialist
realism, implementation of the new values of the proletariat, and strict observance of ideological purity were part
of the censorships concerns. In the 60s, attention focused
on issues of civic morality, with censors dealing with sexual
representations on stage or with counteracting possible
hippie influences. In the 80s, the stage had to be protect-

ed by reality itself, which had degraded to such an extent

that even allusions to it would not be allowed; words such

as dark, meat, or cold had become prohibit.

Yet, precisely because of this extreme degradation of reality, and in a context where truth could not be told and social
action was impossible, theater had become (over)charged
with a representational mandate depict, speak of or at
least hint at the real through the fictional. Going to theater
became, towards the mid and late 1980s, almost a dissident

act. The theater experience allowed a sense of community,

of secret complicity, between audience and performers,
which fraternized against them (the regime). It is, in
fact, mostly a splendid illusion of both participants in the
theatrical communication, that of conventionally agreeing
on some hidden meanings and of producing this way some
sort of a justified catharsis, simulating the opposition.
(Miruna Runcan)
As Cipriana Petre argues, the regimes harsh oppressiveness had insidiously developed a predisposition of the
audience to read subversiveness in any gesture. It explains the audiences complicity with the performers when
going to theater ready to burst into applause at any literal
blinking of an actor (you know what I mean) or at any
render-potentiality of the dramatic text to be understood
other than literally. 2
But this representational mandate and sense of a shared
complicity was crucially linked to the new direction that
had developed in Romanian theater in the 1970s, the socalled RE-THEATRICALIZATION OF THE THEATER.
It marked a profound shift of focus from the text towards
the directing, a new directorial vision that moved away
from the bourgeois theater towards more innovative and
radically performative theatrical experiences. In a context
where the ideological discourse was overly present, this
new direction allowed reality to be conveyed through a
channel of metaphor and elusive meanings.
This enriched text, structured at multiple levels of interpretation, became much more difficult to supervise and control.
It made the censors task much more complicated they
needed to balance personal mechanisms of the imaginary,
while assuming and anticipating not only the potential reactions of the public but also the reactions of their superiors.
In Ceauescus Romania there was officially no censorship. The censorship bureau had been abolished in 1977

to give a human face to his regime. In practice, however,

the re-ideologization that started in 1971 made censorship
insidious, pervasive, and less permissive, in a more complicated multi-layered system whose criteria and procedures
were unclear, leading to the rule of the arbitrary and a toxic
environment for creativity.
This complexity behind the deceiving simplicity of the
official faade, the lack of all written proof, and the
ephemeral nature of theater itself make it impossible to
recreate today with precision the censorship mechanism
(as literature, for instance, could allow). What follows
is a brief attempt at reconstruction based on the testimonies partial and often contradictory of those that
witnessed, endured, and harnessed it and are willing to
talk about it.

This text is an abridged version of The Dark Stage by Liviu

Malia introduction to the volume Theater during and after
communism [Viaa teatral n i dup comunism], Liviu
Malia (ed.), Efes Publishing, Cluj 2006. It also references the
articles Wasted Morning: from text to performance by Anca
Haiegan, and Mecanisms and institutions of censorship
by Miruna Runcan from the same book. Translated from the
Romanian by Julie Dawson.

Cipriana Petre: Twice-Mapping Romania: Towards a

Performative Gridding of Politics and a Political Cartography
of Theater in communism and Post-communism, PhD Dissertation, UC Irvine-UC San Diego Joint Doctoral Program in
Theater and Drama, 2008

CENSORSHIP!

General Department for Press

and Publications
(officially closed in 1977, with its responsibilities taken over by the
Council for Culture and Socialist Education)

Department for Theaters

within the Ministry of Culture
(Council for Culture and Socialist Education)

County Committee for Culture

and Socialist Education
Culture Department of
the Peoples Council
(local government)

Workers Committee / Director of a

Publication or Publishing house / Theater

Secretary General
of the Romanian
Communist Party
[since 1965: Nicolae Ceauescu]

Political Bureau
(Department of
Propaganda) of the
Central COMMITTEE
of the Romanian
Communist Party
Secretariat for
Regional / County
Propaganda of
the Romanian
Communist Party
LEGEND

Editor of a magazine or publishing house /

Literary Secretariat of a theater

RECONSTRUCTION OF THE
CENSORSHIP MECHANISM
C professional and administrative instances
C political instances (of the Communist Party)

Author / Artist
(playwright, stage director, actor, stage designer, etc.)
2

(Following the Soviet model, a system of double structures with overlapping responsibilities
existed in the administration and the communist party, in order to allow for a complete
oversight and decision by the party.)
Note: Modifications of the institutes specializing in the supervision of art, culture, and
information, and of the mechanisms occurred in time, but they are insignificant and do not
alter the core mechanism described.

CENSORSHIP!

START

3
In order for a theater to stage a play, it needed to either
be a published play (which had already passed all censorship filters in order to reach publication) or be considered
favorable by the General Department for Press and Publications, a body that, between 1949 and 1977, played the role
of the specialized body of censorship. Subsequently, its
duties were carried out by less visible administrative bodies
though they were not any more tolerant.

4
However, the EXTERNAL APPROVALS that followed were
truly the crucial ones, to be provided in an official written
form. An analysis by specialty instructors, followed by
discussions between the director of the national Department for Theaters and the director of the theater (or a
delegation thereof ) were required before obtaining the
approval. Approvals could also follow a thematic, regional
and/or national conference.

The approval of a text did not guarantee access to the stage. It only created the possibility
for the play to be proposed for a project of repertoire, which would be, in turn, approved by
specialized bodies, both local and central. The right to propose a text alone was awarded late
to the theater. In the years 1948 and 1949, a Bureau of Repertory from the Ministry of Arts
and Information dictated to every theater the plays which were to be played within a season.
Not only were changes to titles nonnegotiable, but also the order of the presentation over
the course of the season. In the following years, due to the impossibility of following these
rigid principles and to the chaos created, this nomination from the center was replaced by
a different method.The General Department for Press and Publications elaborated lists
of approved texts from which a theater was allowed to choose. After 1956 the possibility
for playwrights to submit plays to theaters or for the literary secretariat of the theater to
propose a play was added. Teatrul magazine, as well as other cultural periodicals which
published original or translated dramatic texts (such as Steaua, Tribuna, Gazeta Literar,
Romnia literar, Contemporanul, Viaa Romneasc, Secolul XX) constituted a potential
reservoir of selection.

...

11

10

For the productions that were perceived as ideologicallyproof and non-problematic, one preview could clear them
for public performance and the premiere would follow. For
the problematic ones, however, subsequent previews and
committees were set up, requesting changes and cuts, and
then re-evaluating the productions. The more contentious
the production, the more prominent the members of the
ideological committee, up to though rarely representatives of the Department of Propaganda of the Central Committe of the Communist Party.

The inclusion of a play in the list of a theaters repertoire and its approval to enter into rehearsal did
not close, but instead, opened a series of new mutilating
operations before it could become a theater performance.
Staging a play was subjected to other ideological rigors and
was forced to travel its own path of the censorship process. The ENTIRE CYCLE was obsessively repeated until
exhaustion: previewing commissions succeeded each other
within a hierarchic multi-level system of censorship before
approving the shows premiere.

8
7

It was then necessary for the repertoireproposal, along

with a detailed justificatory memo drawn up by the literary
secretariat, to obtain the internal approval, from
the Workers Committee of the Theater, with the obligatory
approval of the director.

The internal preview by the theaters Workers Committee. Although compulsory and constituting in itself a
guarantee, this internal preview represented, by and large,
a formality. Professional problems were, with mediocrity,
discussed and, in fortunate cases, even a strategy to protect
the show would be established. Other times, however, this
was turned into an arena for settling accounts and for expressing old frustrations or rancor.

The IDEOLOGICAL PREVIEW was the only one able to give a

decisive verdict. In one preview or numerous subsequent ones,
this external ideological commission was composed of the head
or delegates of the myriad of institutions at the local, regional
and national level, belonging both to the cultural administration
and the party instances: the local government (Culture Department of the Peoples Council); the regional County Committee
for Culture and Socialist Education; the secretary for propaganda of the Partys County Office; one or more specialized
inspectors of the national culture authority (Council for Culture
and Socialist Education) in charge with the respective region.
The ideological commission would also include members of the
theater staff who had political, union, or professional responsibilities; sometimes, depending on higher orders or interests, it
would also include various guests: cultural and artistic figures,
journalists from party newspapers, editors of cultural magazines, university professors, or workers.

The complicated path of censorship was part of a policy of discouragement,

erosion and exasperation, intended to produce the capitulations required to
create an acceptable performance in the increasingly weary eyes of the party.
3

CENSORSHIP!

AS THE IDEOLOGICAL PREVIEW UNFOLDED, THE CENSOR

was installed in an obscure box, protected from
the indiscreet looks of the actors but attentively
watched by the director (who, as Valeriu Moisescu
recalls with humor, follows the entire performance
through a small hole in the curtain, watching
the face of Dumitru Popescu God). This upsets the
rapport of the shows forces: Throughout the
preview, the dark box of the censor became the
true stage of the theater.
The discussions on the artistic quality of the performance that followed were nothing else but a tedious session
of meaningless talk; bored, the censors themselves had
given up within the last years: They werent following
the show anymore, recalls Victor Rebengiuc, except
from the ideological perspective: if anything is said
against the Party, if there is anything dangerous there,
[], ifanything is said about the head of the state, if the
central committee is attacked or not, things like that. The
rest didnt interest them.
Minutes from the sessions conducted by the ideological previewers prove that there existed, for the most
part, two sorts of oxymoronic observations: on the one
hand, those which stemmed from the CENSORS FEAR
OF METAPHOR AND SYMBOLS. These observations
most often sent shivers down their spines, because
they werent completely sure how they were to be
interpreted or, more precisely, how they would be
interpreted by the moguls from the higher echelons
of the party.

SELECTIVE
TIMELINE
of Key Events in Politics, Arts and
Culture in Romania 19701989.

What follows is an attempt to provide snapshots of the last two decades of the communist regime in
Romania, and to offer a background of the pervasive ideologization of arts and culture and the endeavors
of resistance (with a focus on the performing arts, as well as, given their symbolical importance,
on literature and cinema). Their choice is aimed at presenting not just landmark events, but also at
introducing relevant institutions, mechanisms, phenomena, and it is neither extensive, nor exemplary.

Conversely, other observations hinted at LOCALIZATION: the same fear was, this time, activated by precise
space-time directions, which evoked too directly, in text or
performance, the immediate Romanian reality, the communist context, etc. And in this case they would require
damping, de-contextualization, ambiguity. There were two
different ways of forbidding, in the end, the same thing:

nothing about Romania

or communism was
allowed to go outside
the boundaries of the
proscribed communist
legend
THE CRITERIA, well known, however imprecise, did nothing but create confusion and increase the discouragement
anticipated with this sort of preview; rarely were these sad
expectations contradicted. They fluctuated depending on the
synapses of the ideology (Gabriela Adameteanu), on the
caprices of the censors, but also the metamorphoses of reality:
common words, such as meat, coffee, cold, darkness
became forbidden on stage simply because in daily life meat
was absent from the market, while cold and darkness invaded
homes. Thus, something which could be tolerated in the 70s
because it was considered simple critical realism became,
one decade later, explosive and dissident. It could be said that

the progressive
degradation of reality
had ideologically
radicalized the fictitious.

(1970s)
The 70s marked the birth of a new direction in Romanian theater, the so-called
re-theatricalization of the theater, a new directorial vision that moves away
from the bourgeois theater towards more innovative and radically performative theatrical experiences. In a context where the ideological discourse was
overly present, this profound shift of focus from the text towards the directing
allowed reality to be conveyed through a channel of metaphor and elusive
meanings. It also marked a change in the censorship process, which became
insidious and overly present, particularly after the scandal that followed
the banning of Lucian Pintilies staging of The Inspector General in 1972.
The increasing pressure of censorship leads or forces many of the leading
directors of the 70s to emigrate or work abroad: Liviu Ciulei, David Esrig, Radu
Penciulescu, Lucian Pintilie, Andrei erban.

(Jul 1971)
Ceauescu visits China, North
Korea and North Vietnam, and takes
great interest in the idea of a total
national transformation, decreeing
upon his return the launch of a
mini cultural revolution for a total
national transformation (The July
Theses). This annulled the relative
cultural liberalization that followed
1965 and led to an exacerbation
of ideological propaganda fueling
Ceauescus cult of personality.
New forms of ideology-charged
spectacle emerge, with a propensity for gigantic scenographies,
having the population as both a
captive audience and a forced
participant, celebrating the Party,
its leader, and the golden age of
Romanian communism.

CENSORSHIP!

The ideological purity whatever remained of it was certainly

defended: there were unapproachable subjects and forbidden
topics. However, as the dogmas themselves had fallen into
ridiculousness and were visibly shattering, censorship was
functioning more and more according to CAPRICES AND FEAR
(Irina Petrescu).
The rise of personal whims to the level of criteria for political
evaluations consolidated the leadership of the arbitrary (Everything is potentially dangerous, thus everything can be censored), just as the ineptitude and ruin of the
system produced an involuntarily subversive literature.
Previews balanced predictably between mind-boggling
stupidity(Ion Besoiu) and the super-realist absurd. The
censors projected themselves into the mind of the dictator,
trying to anticipate the most minute element which could
cause his displeasure.

Except that Nicolae Ceauescu never

attended the theater.

Almost all testimonies nowadays speak of the abnormal

FEAR of the final soldiers of the system as
it entered dissolution: They were afraid for their
skin, says Magdalena Boiangiu; They were sick with fear,
remembers Ion Besoiu, Once bitten, twice shy. Prisoners of an (anti)Kafka-ian world atrocious, occult, and
faceless in which you could never know from whence the
peril comes but you can sense it everywhere, the censors
themselves appear to the witnesses as some poor victims:

they were the bosses

of a world which they
themselves feared.
Fear explains, to an extent, their paradoxical behavior.
Asperity and intolerance grew proportionally with it.
(Magdalena Boiangiu lays the blame: censors hated and
detested each other because they were witnesses to their
reciprocal humiliations.) Here also lies the explanation
and their desire of complicity with the true victims: some
things, declares Gabriela Adameteanu, would not have
been possible without there having existed, somewhere, a
complicity with censors. They did eliminate something in
order to prove they had done something, to demonstrate
they had done their duty, but neither did they stop the
show. Magdalena Boiangiu speaks, in her turn, about the
evident efforts to suggest that they were on our side.

(1975)
Authorities revoke the Romanian
citizenship of novelist Dumitru
epeneag, which had become director of the French magazine Cahiers
de lEst. He is considered guilty of
inciting Romanian writers to write
works hostile to the cultural policy
of our party and to illegally transmit
them abroad.
Writer William Totok, member of the
Banat Action Group (Aktionsgruppe
Banat) in Timioara is arrested and
accused of propaganda against
socialist order. This literary group of
Romanian-German writers seeking
freedom of expression dissolves at
the pressure of the Securitate.

(1976)
Ode to Romania (Cntarea
Romniei) is inaugurated as a
national festival of socialist culture.
Its declared aim is to involve and
promote the working class in an
artistic program of music, poetry
and dance. Overnight, performing
companies, music bands, and
artistic brigades are established
in factories and schools all over
the country. This general and
forced mobilization, year round,
to the creation of a popular
art becomes an increasingly
greater vehicle for a nationalistpatriotic ideology and Ceauescus
personality cult. Its celebration of
amateur arts, verging at times on
kitsch, aimed at downplaying the
professionalized elites.

(1976)
Psychiatrist Ion Vianu publishes an article denouncing the use of psychiatric
abuses in Romania, and is later forced to emigrate. From outside of Romania,
he contributed at raising the awareness of the international community in
regard to these practices. The abusive use of psychiatry for the persecution of
the dissidents of the regime, formalized in 1965, is just one of the many faces
the communist oppression took in Romania, which boasted between March
1945 and December 1989 over three hundred institutions of political repression (political prisons, forced labor camps, deportation centers, headquarters
for inquiries, psychiatric asylums with political character, and execution sites),
and over two million victims (at a population of 23 million in 1989). It has been
argued that the cruel repression and terror that characterized the Romanian
communist regime at different stages has erased, after the last figures of
the armed resistance had been annihilated at the beginning of the 60s, any
chance not only of revolt, but even dissent.

(feb 1977)
Writer Paul Gomas public letter
calling for respect for human rights
in Romania and for Romanians to
sign Charter 77 was read on Radio
Free Europe. As a result, he was
repeatedly followed, arrested, and
tortured by the Securitate. In Nov
1977, he and his family were revoked
the Romanian citizenship and
forced into exile in France.

(mar 1977)
A devastating earthquake hits Bucharest, and becomes the pretext
for the extension of the urban planning program of systematization
launched in 1974 that will go on till
1989. Entire neighborhoods, historical monuments and churches are
erased, in some cities up to 90%,
and its inhabitants forced to move.
The construction of new working
neighborhoods of generally
low-quality apartment buildings
(blocuri) intensifies, including
in the rural areas (with a declared
aim of 90% of peasants lo live in
blocuri). Internal and international
protests, in the 80s in particular,
helped the safeguarding of a few
monuments by moving and hiding
them within the new constructions.

CENSORSHIP!

The complicity of the censors was, however,

selective: with some yes, with others no. At the
Teatrul Mic (Small Theater), led by an activist, Dinu
Sraru, they didnt come to previews too often,
affirms Victor Rebengiuc. Because he was a party
person, he didnt have his hands tied. In the opposite
situation, the testimony of Mihai Mniuiu can be
quoted; desperate to see his show Water Turmoil
by Lucian Blaga banned, Mr. Mniuiu is said to have
requested a meeting with top official Mihail Dulea
to negotiate the shows approval: I would have been
willing to cut from the text or the performance
because I was aware there would have been enough
remaining anyway. I was not given this right. The
meeting was refused.

This is an example of radicalization. In general, however,

the censors were preoccupied with imposing modifications
and with approving the performance.

These changes were not

asked for only in order to
protect the ideological
purity of the text or
performance.
They represented part of a ritual of subjugation and
functioned as symbolic acts verifying the fact that
the author, the director, the actor the artist in general caught in the jaws of a mechanism without any
escape, would accept censorship.

They were equivalent to

the feudal exercises of
the vassal.
Moreover,although always concentrated in the hands of
a single person who at that time momentarily embodied
the inflexible will of the party, the decision was shown
as collective, which, according to the party propaganda,
granted it inherent authority. The absence of one nominal RESPONSIBILITY subsequently became a pretext
for claiming lack of culpability and a source of investigative difficulties.
Its promoters were also careful to ERASE ANY RECORD.
Not one written act, with the exception of the minutes of
the ideological commissions meetings, drawn up by inside
people and kept in the archives of the theater, in a regime
of confidentiality, was produced. The approval was verbal,
allowing it to be, therefore, easily rescinded at any point
in time. The same applied to banned performances, which
became, as a result, more difficult to dispute.

(aug 1977)
The strike of the Jiu Valley coal
miners, protesting against a
new pensions law and poor and
dangerous working and living
conditions, was one of the largest
protest movements of the communist period, gathering 35,000
miners. It climaxed in the miners
holding the prime minister captive
for a day until Ceauescus arrival.
After giving the appearance of
acquiescing to the workers demands, a campaign for capturing
its ringleaders ensued, sending
them away or imprisoning them,
and reneging on concessions.

(1977)
Literary critic and journalist Monica Lovinescu, detested and feared by the
regime for her critical contribution as a cultural commentator for Radio
Free Europe, is severely beaten up outside her Paris home on the orders
of the Romanian communist authorities. Radio Free Europe remained
until 1989 a crucial source of alternative information to the official allpervasive propaganda.
Following the earthquake, ndric (Puppet) Theater is closed down
for renovation a blow for the contemporary dance community which
had found here, since late 1960s, a unique venue allowing a continuous
presentation of contemporary dance. The movement at ndric Theater
had been an initiative of pioneer choreographer Miriam Rducanu, who
was also the professor of an entire generation of choreographers (among
whom Gigi Cciuleanu or Raluca Ianegic). Contemp Group (choreographers Adina Cezar, Sergiu Anghel and others) is established in 1974,
remaining till 1989 the only organized form of contemporary dance in the
country. After 1977 they performed sporadically in various theaters or museums, as well as bars or private apartments. By mid-1980s, contemporary
dance declines on account of the compulsory involvement of Romanian
dancers and choreographers in the large propaganda events.

(1978)
Securitate General Ion Mihai Pacepa,
the acting chief of the espionage
service, defects to the US. Its disclosures played in the 80s a huge role
in revealing the criminal nature
of the regime and the oppressive
Securitate and gave a crucial blow
to Ceauescus image as the maverick Eastern European.

(marapr 1979)
The Romanian Free Union of Workers is established in various cities
throughout the country, marking
perhaps the most important
workers movement since the 1977
miners strike and up to the 1987
revolt in Braov. Its leaders (Vasile
Paraschiv, Ionel Can and Gheorghe
Braoveanu) and its members
are arrested and isolated, and the
movement is annihilated.

(jul 1979)
In response to the deepening of the
economic crisis that followed 1973,
decisions on rationing electricity
and gas consumption are issued,
marking the start of the power
shortages that will accentuate particularly after 1984. Although 90%
of power consumption is engulfed
by the heavy industrial complex
developed in the 70s and 80s as
part of a campaign of national
self-sufficiency, it is the population
that is asked to bear a continuous
cut in electricity, heat and water
supplies, verging towards the end
to the inhuman.

CENSORSHIP!

WHAT PERFORMANCES PUT THE CENSORS ON ALERT? Regardless of

the artistic quality, from the perspective of the censors, all
theater performances represented a subversive potential for the
communist regime. Moreover, the degradation of the system was
so advanced by the 80s, the final stage of its existence, that art had
become in and of itself suspect in the eyes of the Party, regardless
of the topic. There existed, thus, performances which were
rejected simply because they were artistic, since the
apolitical in theater (and not only in theater) was considered
a (condemnable) form of evasion.
Then, there were also two other categories that raised the
censors attention. On the one hand, those which sent messages whether transparently so, or by means of allegory
and/or allusions, resembling the novels with a hidden
message on political or social reality, to which they
were trying to provide a response. On the other hand, great
productions based on texts of high artistic quality (Here are
to be mentioned masterpieces of universal and Romanian
theater Shakespeare, Caragiale, Greek tragedies, classics
in general), also associated with and amplified by the force
of a great director and virtuously performed by excellent actors. Thematically, this sort of production was not tangible
to immediate reality, but the vitality given by its artistic
quality and its force gave it the ability at any time to act as
dynamite in the conscience of the spectators.
Generally speaking, the stagings of the texts of contemporary authors, especially Romanians, were meticulously
analyzed in fear of what the jargon of the period called
oprle (lizards) which these texts sometimes cultivated
(oprle referred to the Aesopian language used in jokes

(nov 1979)
At the 12th Congress of the
Communist Party, Constantin
Prvulescu, the oldest member
of the partys Central Committee,
protests against the accumulation
of power by Nicolae Ceauescu
and the undemocratic means of its
reelection as secretary general of
the party. Prvulescu is evacuated
from his house the same night.

(feb 1980)
Marin Predas novel Cel mai
iubit dintre pmnteni (The Most
Beloved Man on Earth) is published,
a month before the suspect death
of its author. A critique of the
absurdity of the regime, the book
registers a huge audience success,
people standing in line to purchase
it. After a few short weeks, the novel
is withdrawn from all libraries and
bookshops. A thirst for a dissident
voice, as metaphorical as that may
be, makes reading and the search
for books an extremely important
part of survival, with other popular
authors whose books are highly
sought and revered.

(1980)
Rationing and quotas for food are
introduced, marking the start of the
food shortages that will become
endemic through the 80s, turning
the securing of basic food into an
all-consuming daily ordeal.

(1980)
2050 years from the creation of
the first centralized state in Dacia
are celebrated, just one example
of the ideology of self-sufficient
nationalism and the pervasive
subordination of history to the
politics of the day.

or in order to create comic situations, conveying a hidden

meaning that usually referred to the hardships of everyday
life, which functioned like a salvation vent). This could also
have been the case for mediocre plays which had an explicit
degree of subversiveness. Their success with the public
depended almost exclusively on parading this arsenal (in
the end, quite minor). This kind of production was able to
send tremors to thepolitical spectators designated with
supervision censors and party activists due to its transparency and thematic accessibility. Even if, in reality, many
of these (like the dissident poems of Adrian Punescu)
represented nothing other than the security valves of the
system encouraged, when not outright created by people
from the inside they created concern, thanks to thecomplicity the author had with his public, over the heads of
the censors. Condemned to be understood, and especially
tasted, only by contemporaries, many of these texts (as well
as performances) have become forgotten today.

(1981)
Lucian Pintilies movie De ce
trag clopotele, Mitic? (Carnival
Scenes) is banned, and will be
released only in 1990, and Pintilie is
pressured into leaving the country.
Pintilies previous encounter with
censorship his remarkable 1969
film Reenactment brought
him the interdiction to produce
a film for the next 12 years. Liviu
Ciuleis internationally-recognized
movie Forest of the Hanged (1964)
resulted in Ciulei never having
directed a film afterwards. While
censorship encompassed all
creative disciplines, cinema had
become Ceauescus propaganda
toy and was particularly hit by
censorship.

(feb 1981)
The publishing of the collective
poetry book Air with diamonds
marks the official birth of the
Eighties literary movement
(Optzecism) of a post-modernist
vein, which extends outside of the
literary world. It marks a national
phenomenon of the young generation, dubbed the jeans generation,
that reacts to the oppressive
conformism of the official culture
by developing an underground
movement in literature, music and
visual arts in unconventional settings (such as Club A or Atelier 35).
Though not openly opposing the
regime, its creating of an alternative to the suffocating propaganda
is in itself seen as subversive.

CENSORSHIP!
In contrast, classics texts, but also notable works of
contemporary Romanian authors playwrights (Marin Sorescu, Teodor Mazilu, Iosif Naghiu and others) or novelists
(Gabriela Adameteanu) , operating with a subversive potential which was non-thematic, ambiguous, non-explicit,
were leading to performances which, apparently paradoxically so, sometimes carried the ideological vision more
easily than others; the easier they did, the less accessible
this was to the censors.
Conversely, a too accentuated abstruseness could be fatal
for the performance. Terrified by his own inability to understand, the censor preferred to forbid the performance in
order to avoid the risk which could never be completely
eliminated. In the absence of precise criteria and under
pressure from a tyrannical and merciless hierarchy, while
also unsure of itself,

no one could ever be

certain that the decision
made was the correct one.
Indeed, many lines, eliminated in the preview but replaced
on stage by performative and visual means, sent shivers
through the censors, hidden like agents of the Dark in plush
theater balconies, from where they watched, horrified, to
see the explosive and contaminating, electrifying reaction
of the audience.
Other performances were deliberately allowed to be performed. Difficult to be deciphered by the censors themselves, it was assumed that they would not be appreciated by
the greater public either. Most occasions, these predictions
were not only delusional but indeed violently contradicted.

Once brought to the

audience, they succeeded
in conveying a sense of
dissent, along with a
cathartic experience.
This was no longer about
oprle but rather
about articulating, by
the most authentic and
profound means, a voice,
a revolt of conscience
which would produce
a true shock in the
spectator. The impact on
the public was enormous.
The beauty unfortunately extremely fragile, as it always
appears in theater of such performances left a sense of
the miraculous with many generations of spectators, who
sensed, with greatly enhanced intensity, an experience destined to remain that which was also intended by their great
creators: a perennial opera of art.

(1982)
Ceauescu launches his
autarchic campaign of no foreign
debt, that will lead to the extreme
shortages of food and the most
basic commodities.

(1982)

(1982)

(1982)

(1982)

The Transcendental Meditation

scandal erupts, a vast ideological
repression of intellectuals. Hundreds of writers, artists, scientists
that took part to classes presenting
an oriental technique of relaxation
are destituted, on account of having
carried out subversive activities
against the state.

Dan Pias movie Sandcliffs is

withdrawn from cinemas three
days after its release, with no
explanations, and the lucky few
that managed to see it spread the
word about it.

Rock band Timpuri Noi is formed, set out to write a politically charged mix of
new wave, rock & roll, and hard rock. Timpuri Noi stood out by the subversive
lyrics of their songs, which soon got them banned from public radio and
television. Rock bands like Phoenix (whose members left the country illegally
in 1977), Mondial, Sfinx, Rou i negru, Iris, Compact, or Holograf had been
providing since the 60s and 70s an alternative to the conformism of the
official culture, and had often encountered difficulties with the censorship.
For many of them, particularly in the 80s, their public exposure was limited
to very small venues, such as Club A the student club of the Architecture
University in Bucharest, and one of the outposts of Romanian underground
music in the 80s.

Doina Cornea, a professor at the

University of Cluj-Napoca, starts
her series of open letters addressed to Nicolae Ceauescu and
read at Radio Free Europe that will
continue till 1989. Persecuted by
the Securitate, she became one of
the most known dissidents.

CENSORSHIP!

Any ideological preview was repeated as many times as necessary,

and nothing impeded a censor from BANNING A PERFORMANCE on
the threshold of its premiere if they considered it politically
opportunistic to do so. The production expenses incurred by the
theater, never negligible, were considered

SCHEDULED
LOSSES
(1982)
Emigration reaches a record high,
with more than 19,000 people
leaving Romania for the USA, West
Germany, or Israel. Illegal defection
many times met by death coexists with legal emigration following
years of red tape. The majority of
the German and Jewish communities, in particular, are allowed to
leave the country, many times in
exchange for the economic help
of their countries of destination
(particularly West Germany).

(Jan 1983)
Mircea Daneliucs movie Glissando, a parable about totalitarianism and intolerance, is forbidden
from public release by censorship.
In a letter addressed to several magazines, Daneliuc protests
against the practice of movies improvement by scissors. The movie
is released only in September 1984
in a censored version.

(1983)
Gabriel Liiceanus Pltini Diary,
evoking the paideia approach of
philosopher Constantin Noica, is
published. The safeguarding
through culture approach is met
with wide interest, becoming a creed
of resistance for many intellectuals.
In hindsight, Liiceanu observed that
this model created professionals
or even virtuosos of culture, but
inhibited any overt opposition.

(1983)
Mihai Mniuius staging of Lucian
Blagas Tulburarea apelor (Water
Turmoil) was banned and never
reached the audience.

(1984)
Forced gynecological control to
detect early pregnancies is established in factories, to counteract
the decrease of birth rates that
followed the initial surge brought by
the famed 1966 Decree forbidding
abortion. The latter is estimated
to have cost the life of more than
10,000 women.

(1984)
The construction of the House
of People (to become the 2nd
largest building in the world) and
the surrounding complex begins in
Bucharest, leading to the erasure of
a large part of the city.

CENSORSHIP!

The pressure exercised on artists was

immense, ubiquitous and continuous:
it touched all existential and
creative sectors and it knew multiple,
proliferant forms. It reinforced the
idea that the system was eternal,
that another form of political
existence in Romania, except for that
of communism, was impossible to
imagine. This represents the true
great performance of the censorship.
From the other side, the DEFENSE STRATEGIES against
ideological censorship in theater reunited voluntary and
elaborate tactics, as well as spontaneous slyness.
The opposition of Romanian artists, in general, did not
surpass, with rare exceptions, the trench fighting level
(Magdalena Boiangiu), with doubtful and debatable victories. The very nature of theater brought about a specific
tension. The impossibility of using a strategy of expressive
and durable silence, such as that available to writers, was
permanently fueling a drive to get to the public presentation of the performance.
The same fear of not stifling creativity made possible
the much-mentioned SOLIDARITY OF THE COMPANY OF ACTORS. Solidarity and abnegation are extolled

(1985)
TV reduced to two hours/day,
mostly propaganda, making
the television of neighboring
countries (particularly Bulgaria
and Yugoslavia) an alternative
with a large following.

10

(jun 1985)
Following casualties at a concert,
Cenaclul Flacra is terminated.
Launched in 1973, this itinerant
event of poetry, folk and rock music
animated by poet Adrian Punescu
was unique in the era: instrumentalized by the regime, on the one
hand, with its patriotic poems
and orated songs; highly sought
by young audiences that fought
to get a ticket and filled stadiums
and halls, in search for a different
type of music. It was a compromise
accepted by both audiences and
musicians, since it allowed for a
rare openness towards the West
(the appropriation of Western
artists of the Woodstock generation), and for quality music to be
performed, conveying a perverse
illusion of freedom.

(1985)
Engineer and poet Gheorghe Ursu
is arrested and tortured to death
by the Securitate for sending
letters to Radio Free Europe and for
his criticism of the regime in his
personal journal. The difficult quest
for justice of his family after 1989
remains an indication of the slow
pace in revisiting the recent past
and assuming responsibility and
accepting guilt.

by David Esrig:For the production of Shakespeares

The Tempest, actors from the Bucharest National
Theater had rehearsed for two years without knowing
whether they would be allowed to perform the play. It
stood for the entire team as an act of faith in the agelessness of art. The show was forbidden and was never
publicly presented.
TODAY, decades away, the attitudes of the artists differ:
some, while wanting to maintain intact the sense of community and of mature artistic fulfillment of those days,
accept however the confession; others, by associating
their hardship and the unjust indignity suffered, would
prefer to bury them in the forgetfulness that, they believe,
should cover forever those terrible times and their monsters. The refusal to speak, the suspicions, whether justified or not, the fears and defacements show, moreover,
how twisted this period was and how little assimilated
and formed is our recent memory, still full of wounds.

The purity was not possible (director

Mihai Mniuiu firmly states), while an
outspoken opposition, publicly assumed,
did not exist. Romanian communism did
not tolerate a single form of direct
dissidence. It was brutally reprimanded,
always (and credibly) threatened by
extermination, expulsion, exile.
Only in the terminal phases of totalitarianism did it also
become possible for us, as everywhere, to express some
forms of dissidence to the dogmas, sacrosanct at the
beginning, now utterly ridiculous at the end. The imposed
collaboration ended by becoming inevitable and necessary
to the ones that didnt choose to save themselves by leaving the country.

(apr 1986)
Alexandru Dabijas staging of Conul
Leonida fa cu reaciunea at Youth
Theater in Piatra Neam premieres
after a painstaking process of
negotiating with censors during
17 ideological previews. Dabijas
contemporary reading of the 1880
play by Romanian classic playwright Ion Luca Caragiale (centered
on a republican pensioner and his
naive wife, who overhear a street
brawl and believe that a revolution
is imminent) was centered on the
pathological fear and suspicion
of its characters mirroring the
decaying atmosphere of the last
years of the communist regime.

(dec 1986)
Premiere of Wasted Morning, based on Gabriela Adameteanus eponymous
novel, adapted and directed by Ctlina Buzoianu at Bulandra Theater in Bucharest. Published in 1983 with a few cuts required by the censorship, Gabriela
Adameteanus novel Wasted Morning (Diminea pierdut) is a parable of
Romanias history as a continuum of historical cleavages that overwhelmingly
mark the destiny of the individual. In a puzzle-like structure that covered
almost the entire 20th century, it spoke with urgency and profound identification to its readers, making it one of the most important books of the 1980s. The
stage adaptation by Ctlina Buzoianu, which went as well through a long
censorship review process, not only wonderfully adapted the continuous
shifts of time and place in the book, but achieved to convey both the tragic
and the inter-dependency between history and the individual destiny.

CENSORSHIP!
In the last years, an interested complicity must be added
on the part of the censors, who appeared to have prepared even at that time their future positions of today.
This created, therefore,

other times had trembled for their lives and their art. We
didnt take an open and radical stand, confesses actress
Coca Bloos with extreme moral honesty, I never took
the straight path as a citizen, beyond the stage I didnt
know. In essence, nothing has changed. Those who had
doubts, dilemmas, a moral conscience, (more or less torn
to pieces) still have it today. Those who didnt dont.

A new and unjust paradox: it is easier

to prove (with documentation) how
The enlightened censor and the
censors rescued plays a fact which, culpable artist here is the brutal
many times, cannot be contested than sign of a normality turned on its head.
to show the plight confronting an
honest artist who merely wished to
practice his craft.
On the other hand, the strategies for protection did not
exclude false latch-ons, pseudo-conversions or tactical
yielding. Thus, a complicated zone of overlapping was created, which no longer allowed people to be categorized into
good and bad, even if a simple reminder of their situations clearly indicates the responsibilities (which the direct
censors always delegated to the upper level; note the fear of,
acted or real, or the threat represented by them never
present, omnipotent, yet invisible).

In the meantime, for the censor to

rid him or herself of all guilt, if not
outright assume the role of the victim,
has become a clich.
The activist without scruples and the inflexible censor
have remained immune. It is still only the artists who are
dealing with angst, issues of the conscience, those who in

(may 1987)
Mikhail Gorbachev visits Bucharest
and indirectly criticizes the lack of
reforms of the Ceauescu regime.

(15 nov 1987)

The Workers Revolt in Braov:
thousands of workers from the two
main factories in Braov, joined
by other inhabitants of the city,
marched to the Romanian Communist Party headquarters, protesting
against the regimes catastrophic
economic policies. The army was
brought in to brutally repress the
revolt, with protesters arrested,
beaten and tortured.

(jan 1989)
Arrest of three journalists that had
prepared an illegal publication,
Romania, with articles against
Ceauescu, which, except for
their leader, Petre Mihai Bcanu,
are later released and forced to
leave Bucharest.

The brutal and intolerant methods of the system created paradoxical typologies: the (temporarily) banned artist-activist
and, conversely, the dissident actor or director structurally
hostile to the system is admitted to the stage. This sort of
perverse combination could certainly not be innocent.
Only a completely depraved organism, such as the defunct
communist system, could spawn such paradoxical situations. This is revealed as such, as soon as one tries to respond to the question of common sense: what was the role,
the reason that they existed, and from whom were these
enlightened censors protecting the performances which
they allegedly and sometimes actually did protect. Is it
that their sporadic pacts of nonaggression represented a
blank check for future and, at that time, improbable radical
changes? It would be an extra proof of their extraordinary
capacity to adapt. Contractually devoteed to the party,
former activists did not exclude, for themselves, an existence outside the party. However, for a possible existence
outside the party, they needed to create opportunities and,
instinctively, they did so, even if sometimes this involved,
on their side, walking on a tight rope.
On the other side of the barricade, no one imagined the
fall of the regime, not even when it proved imminent. The
behavior and choices of the artists need therefore be understood within this context. It was not only the individuals,
but the regime itself that had its weaknesses. In hindsight,
they appear obvious. Unfortunately, we were not able to
discover them on time.

(6 mar 1989)
Six Communist Dignitaries sign an
open letter displaying a left-wing
critique of Ceauescus policies
(The Letter of the Six). Their signatories, led by Silviu Brucan, are swiftly
arrested and interrogated, then
placed in house arrest.

(mar 1989)
French newspaper Libration
publishes a satirical letter to
Ceauescu written by poet Mircea
Dinescu, living in Bucharest under
house arrest. Three days later,
seven intellectuals sign a letter of
solidarity with Dinescu.

(16 dec 1989)

The human chain formed on Dec. 15
outside the house of Lszl Tks,
assistant pastor of the Reformed
Church in Timioara, to oppose its
evacuation, grows larger, with young
Romanians joining the Hungarian
parishioners and turns into a real
revolt directed at the regime. First
arrests take place.

11

CENSORSHIP!

This newspaper has been produced by

the Romanian Cultural Institute in New York
for the exhibition Revolutionary Voices: Performing Arts in
Central & Eastern Europe in the 1980s
presented by The New York Public Library for the Performing Arts.

Conceived by Oana Radu and Corina uteu

Editor: Oana Radu
Design: Carmen Gociu
Special thanks to Anca Haiegan, Liviu Malia,
Anca Mniuiu, Marie-Louise Paulesc, Cipriana Petre
and Miruna Runcan.
November 2009

(17 dec 1989)

Black Monday: Demonstrations in
Timioara continued and the army
fires into the crowd (provoking 93
deaths, though initial estimates
were far higher). By Dec. 20, when
tens of thousands of industrial
workers in Timioara peacefully
took up the protest, the city was
effectively in insurrection. The
army withdraws to barracks. The
media keeps initially quiet about
the events in Timioara, while
Radio Free Europe keeps the whole
country informed.

(21 dec 1989)

Ceauescu summons in Bucharest
a large public manifestation to condemn the hooligans and foreign
interventions in Timioara. During
Ceauescus discourse, broadcast
live on TV, the demonstration turns
into a revolt. The crowd initially disperses then regains. In the night of
21/22 December barricades are built
center town in Bucharest. Shooting
and tanks drive into the crowd,
leaving many dead, wounded, and
arrested. Demonstrations against
Ceauescu spring in other big cities,
and are met by the army.

(22 dec 1989)

The crowd grows larger and
larger, with workers from all
over the city heading towards
the city center. Dictator
Ceauescu and his wife flee
Bucharest with a helicopter,
and are later captured close to
Trgovite. The demonstrators
take over the Party headquarters and the National Television.
The power is taken over by the
newly established Provisional
Council of the National Salvation Front, which announces the
establishment of a democratic
and multi-party system.

(2225 dec 1989)

Confusion rules in Bucharest and
other cities, as shots are still being
fired by unidentified sources and
people speak of terrorists. The
final toll: 1,142 deceased and many
more injured, the majority of which
after December 22nd.

(25 dec 1989)

Nicolae Ceauescu and wife Elena
are briefly judged by an Exceptional
Military Court, sentenced to death
and executed. Their trial and execution is later broadcast on television.

The timeline is compiled by

Oana Radu, Romanian Cultural
Institute in New York, based on An
illustrated chronology of 80-90s
by Carola Chiiu, in cel ce se
pedepseste singur. Stefan Bertalan, Florin Mitroi, Ion Grigorescu.
arta i Romnia n anii 80-90, ed.
Erwin Kessler, Romanian Cultural
Institute & Centrul Cultural Palatele
Brncoveneti, Mogooaia/Bucharest 2009. Some data reference the
Final Report of the Presidential
Commission for the Analysis of
Communist Dictatorship in Romania, Humanitas, Bucharest 2007.