András Kányádi
The Survival Discourse: The ”Kriterion” Case
Our study aims to understand how minority cultures, assumed by institutions, can strengthen themselves and survive despite the political pressures exerted by the communist state. Exploring the twenty-year activity of the Romanian publishing house for minorities Kriterion (1970-1990), our research focuses on the discourse it provided during communism, and sheds light on the various roles that the institution and its leader had to perform. This cultural study also intends to analyse cultural phenomena from the communist period, attempting to bring together discourse analysis and institutional practice.
Minority cultures, and minority literatures in particular, can undergo a two-stage affirmation process. First, they have to be strengthened by their own representatives, through the help of an institution. Then, they will have the possibility of becoming known to and accepted by the majority culture. The contribution of the majority is in both cases decisive: on the one hand, its economic and social power will legitimise the creation of the institution – in our case the publishing house; on the other hand, its cultural development prepares the ground for an enlargement of the ‘cultural horizon,’ acting as a hidden legitimising argument.
Before we start to dissect the gap between the ‘legal’ and the ‘real’ activity of our publishing house, a few words about its director and about the first institutional clash related to the foundation of Kriterion. As early as in 1963, the president of the Cultural Committee in Romania assigned Géza Domokos, at that time working as an editor for Editura pentru literatură, with the urgent drafting of a project for a minority publishing house[1]. Two years later the new directives of the Romanian Communist Party’s Ninth Congress brought changes into the cultural state policies. Given the increasing number of Pen Club members, as well as the high interest in world literature or in discovering forgotten national literature, an important freedom project was adopted, permitting the development of the publishing activity throughout the entire country. In the summer of 1968, during a meeting between the General Secretary of the Party and a hundred Hungarian intellectuals from Romania, the necessity for creating a minority publishing house arose again. The decisions of the Ninth Congress concerning ‘the democratic development of the culture, which has become an internal and organic social necessity,’[2] met the interest of the minorities. Domokos, warned in October 1969 that the decision to create a minority publishing house was a happy one in the context of this maturation process, was appointed by the Party to become its director. Since the Minister of Culture, Pompiliu Macovei, needed a name for the house, Domokos proposed an international one, the same in Romanian and in any other minority language: Kriterion.
The word, of Greek origin, marks the point where value separates from non-value – it means ‘measure.’ Although accepted, the name underwent many trials, because the director of the governmental bureau had written it down, from hearsay, with a C. It also appeared spelled in this manner in the governmental order, and Domokos did everything to rectify it. His argument – K came from the Greek Kappa – raised suspicion; people saw here a sign of Hungarian specificity rather than cultural exactitude. Rectification could be made in the Official Gazette, but the censorship might have considered it a ‘challenge to the authorities,’ while the procedure itself could have lasted for weeks even after the heavy tax of 500 lei had been paid.
Domokos then adopted a different strategy: he called the chief of the cultural section of the Communist Party organ, Scânteia[3], suggesting that an article should be written about the new publishing house. That article, entitled A New Cultural Workshop – KRITERION, written by Domokos, came out a few days later on the front page of the newspaper. Thus, the Romanian readers could quickly get familiarised with this unusual spelling, while satisfaction could come for both the publisher (for having published an article on the Party politics) and the author (for having eluded the administration). In the Gazette, the rectification was also operated very rapidly.
This action initiated by the director was a proof of his tenacity, his mark during his entire editorial activity. It also evinces a technique for evading social control, without hurting the national sensibility of the majority, while remaining faithful, at the same time, to his own minority identity. The risk was high: as director of the publishing house, he had to represent not only the Hungarian community he was a native of, but also the other minorities; his task was to bring together the roles deriving from his social status with his professional and extra-professional requirements. It was a multiple engagement: a political, a social and a moral one.
Since our main method is discourse analysis, we shall start with a confidential document about the head of this institution. “Domokos Geza. In the circle of his relations, he makes seditious statements regarding our party politics, which he stigmatises as ‘nationalist, dangerous and doomed to failure.’ In his activity, he evinces himself as the ‘defender of the Hungarians’ cause in Romania,’ and pretends to have ‘retreated’ in the Kriterion publishing house in order to bring, ‘without too much small talk,’ a bigger contribution to ‘serving the Hungarian cause.’ He has relationships with accredited Hungarian diplomats in Bucharest, to whom he has declared that he will continue his activity of ‘defending the Hungarian cause in Romania.’”[4] This ‘description,’ taken from the White Book of the Securitate, was made on the occasion of the proposals for the Writers’ Union, where Domokos acted as vice president for a period.
A second interesting note, composed seven years later, draws up a ‘top secret’ annexe on the Pen Club members, ‘co-authors of a letter with an inappropriate content, or those who have agreed to this initiative.’ The ‘inappropriate’ document was addressed to the First Secretary of the Party, urging for radical changes; therefore, the participants were dangerous: ‘Domokos Geza, born in Braşov in 1928, party member, writer, director of the Kriterion publishing house. Known for his nationalist-irredentist conceptions; he has relationships with Hungarian diplomats and journalists, to whom he expresses his hostile convictions. Visited at home by diplomats and other foreign citizens to whom he delivers information with disparaging content. Participates without permission in protocol activities organized by the foreign embassies.’[5]
Both of these ‘notes’ are conceived under the same ideology: calumny against the party, contact with foreigners, defense of the Hungarian cause, and nationalism. As a party member and director of a publishing house, his activity is obviously contradictory to the expectations of the party: instead of being an ideologist, shaping the intelligentsia of the minority, he acts as a potential secret agent for the foreign countries. The discourse of the notes is representative for the beginning of the eighties, when the Romanian politics towards the minorities supported a tendency of homogenisation. In the context of such politics, the shift from ‘enemy of the party’ to ‘enemy of the nation’ is particularly interesting: losing ground, the communist ideology dug out the nationalistic rhetoric, starting with the flood of historical texts about Transylvania till December 1989, when the discourse about the attacking enemy (Hungary) fell little short of successful.
But why should the Party have chosen such an unreliable ‘agent’? Because at that time, Domokos’ origins recommended him, since he had studied for five years at ‘Maxim Gorki’ Literary High School in Moscow. Returning to Bucharest in 1954, he became a reporter for Előre (Forward), a Hungarian-language daily in the capital. A member of the Communist Party, he was also a deputy member of the Central Committee and, for a while, he acted as vice president of Pen Club. Between 1961-1965, he was editor of Editura pentru Literatură (The Literature Publishing House) and starting with December 1969, director of Kriterion.
As head of the institution, he had to manage a large enterprise, which included around 44 employees. Inside the huge Scânteia House in Bucharest, Kriterion had three editorial offices: Hungarian (6 members), German (4 members) and Serbian (who also supervised the rest of the Slavic languages). A separate office in Hungarian was operating in Transylvania, at Cluj (4 members). Later (after 1981) it was completed with an ‘editorial committee’ comprising three reliable members of the Communist Party, performing a censorship role. To understand the challenge of the task, it is important to see the institutional agenda.
The profile of Kriterion was very complex. Initially, the house published in five languages: Hungarian, German, Ukrainian, Serbian and Yiddish. In 1978, they also started an edition in Slovak and in Russian, while two years later, an edition came out in Tartar and in Turkish[6]. An important section was reserved to the books of minority authors, translated into Romanian, a collection entitled Biblioteca Kriterion. A few statistical dates show how rich the production of the house was. During two decades, 1987 books appeared in Hungarian (a total of 22 987 273 copies, 623 in German (1 866 258 copies), 206 in Serbian (103 838), 154 in Ukrainian (66 807) and 53 in Yiddish (19 050). The Slovaks were represented by 27 books (27 510), the Turks and Tatars had 7 (12 745) and the Russians only 3 (4100). The collection in Romanian totalised 151 titles with 1,112,981 copies, an important outcome for the minorities who could thus address the majority readership.
Beside the multiplicity of languages and literatures, Kriterion also promoted the social sciences, history, philosophy, ethnology, linguistics, art history, cultural history, science history, music, most of them integrated in a collection. As for literature: classics and moderns, both from abroad and from the country were published, together with a huge number of translations from Romanian into the rest of languages or from Hungarian into German and vice-versa. The literary production particularly targeted here was domestic, especially from the Transylvanian area, where the two largest communities had been living and cultivating a very rich cultural heritage. Some of the most famous Hungarian-language collections were: Téka, which provided educational readings, Horizont – world literature, Forrás (Spring), which gave free scope to young poets and writers, Magyar Klasszikusok, which included classical Hungarian literature, but also developed a series for Hungarian Writers from Romania, Romanian Writers and Romanian Poets, leading to a considerable number of cultural exchanges. Anthologies were published in Slovak (Variácie), in Ukrainian (Obrij) in Turkish (Renkler) and in Yiddish (Bukarester Sriftn); the Germans also had several collections. This is quite a complex and significant program, symbolized already by the name of the institution.
If Domokos had been only a defender of the Hungarians, he would not necessarily have supported the other minorities, especially those who had not been included from the very beginning under the umbrella of the publishing house. Yet his professional identity was strongly interwoven with his collective identity and experience, that of the minorities. Being the head of the institution, he decided to enlarge the number of the languages by degrees, publishing Slovak, Turkish, Tartar and Russian (Lippovan) writers. Such a decision could not have been taken, of course, without the assent of the higher forums; he proceeded therefore with caution. A few Slovak-language writers used to publish in Czechoslovakia: at the advice of a Romanian professor, very familiar with the Slovaks of Nădlac, he published a review where, together with the already recognised authors, young or as yet unpublished writers could appear. After a few numbers, he published them in a book-anthology, Variations (Variáce). The same strategy was deployed with the Turks and the Tartars, their books being printed in their mother tongues in Colours (Renkler), later to be edited on a yearly basis.
The intellectuals from the various minorities could not merely cultivate their mother tongues, but also become members of a privileged institution, the Romanian Pen Club, enjoying both symbolical and economic advantages. Their slow promotion guaranteed not only a safety buffet from the Central Committee, but it averted the suspicion of the community itself (the Tartars especially were very silent, because, during the Stalin era, a lot of refugees from Crimea had found shelter in Dobrudja and the suspicious eye of the Romanian authorities watched them closely)[7]. Sometimes, the institution was not powerful enough to defy the authorities: for instance, in the eighties, the Tulcea secretary of the department committee did not allow the presentation of a certain book in Russian, saying that in Romania this minority simply did not exist (although the greatest canoe champions were Lippovans and they had brought enough glory to the country[8]). Domokos intervened using his party status (as deputy member of the Central Committee) and the presentation took place. Later, these presentations became scarce and took place in the absence of the director, because any event had to gain prior approval from the departmental committee, and Domokos’ name was always cancelled from the list. Sometimes, after long hesitations, the institution could not take any high diplomatic risks: the Bulgarian case is relevant.
In Romania, there is a little community of Catholic Bulgarians in Banat. A huge folklore material was collected, ready to be published in Kriterion. The main problem was that the Bulgarian Catholics had used a Latin alphabet since the eighteenth century. Seeing this published, sister Bulgaria – which completely ignored the Catholic minority living abroad – could have interpreted it as an insult coming from Romania – since they wrote in Cyrillic – and this might have triggered diplomatic tensions. Domokos attempted negotiations at Sofia, hoping also to export the book, but ideological and practical reasons brought down the initiative.[9]
In what follows, we shall examine a few institutional strategies in order to see to what extent Domokos managed to build up a powerful institution, both safeguarding the minority cultures and values and remaining ideologically safe from an increasingly oppressive authoritarian power.
Kriterion was not the only institution in Romania which published in the language of the minorities, but by the end of the eighties it had remained desperately alone. In fact, two antonymous periods are to be noticed in the Romanian institutional activity. The first started with a central decision on the new cultural politics: many of the newly created houses, both in Bucharest and in the provinces, were to open a section for the numerically most significant minorities in the country, the Hungarians and the Germans[10]. Their specialization, for instance, Albatros for teenagers, or Ion Creangă for children, aimed to attract the spiritual resources of the various literatures and also to open a prosperous field to the competition. But this creative beginning was running out towards the end of 1979, when a new central conception concerning editorial policies prevailed.
The year of 1981 meant the beginning of the Cultural Revolution in Romania. State control over society increased, titles and copies diminished sensibly. Using the slogan of the ‘world-wide oil crisis,’ paper grew very expensive and editing was decreased. The Central Committee established a new system for determining the number of copies, and authorisation depended on those institutions which supervised the houses, depending on the nature of the publication.
An important Party conference was held in 1983, when it was decided that the ‘homogenisation of the nation’ was to be put into practice. This program targeted a rapid assimilation of the ethnic minorities and its results were noticeable in the discourse of the central organ, Scânteia. A couple of years before, a host of nationalistic books had been promoted, with the purpose of strengthening the national identity of the majority. Books about Transylvania appeared with biased presentations of the minorities and with loud overtones of anti-Semitism.[11] Schools or classes where education was conducted in the languages of minorities were suppressed or ‘unified’ (where the majority language prevailed), and even the juridical accepted term ‘naţionalităţi conlocuitoare’ (cohabiting minorities) was replaced by ‘Romanians of Hungarian, German, Serbian, etc. origins’ or ‘Hungarian, German, etc speaking Romanians.’ The native-language teaching institutions of the small minorities, such as the Turks, Tartars, or Bulgarians, had been abolished as early as in 1956, while one secondary school was left to the Ukrainians, Slovaks and Serbians; by now the larger minorities were also endangered.
Parallel to these external factors, an internal crisis emerged among the minorities as well. At the beginning of the eighties, a huge emigration wave of Germans and Jews began, supported by the countries of both origin and destination.[12] More and more Hungarians also chose to emigrate, but the Popular Republic of Hungary was not an ideal choice; therefore most of the emigrants went to Austria or Sweden. Of course, an important number of the young Hungarian generation, amounting to a hundred writers and scientific researchers, left the country, after having been formed in the workshop of Kriterion, breaching a considerable gap in the spiritual activity of the community (in this respect, the Germans were in the worst situation, they lost almost everybody). Their names were completely erased from dictionaries, newspapers, and were strongly forbidden by the censorship.
The main weapon for Kriterion in the fight for survival – a weapon forged by its leader – was a well-formed editorial team, familiar with the official discourse. If several collaborators had left the country, especially from the German editing team, those who remained managed to face the difficulties very skilfully. The most convincing arguments can be read in the official documents presented to the Council of Education twice a year: the annual reports. The head of the institution wrote them, with some brilliant contributions from the members of the editorial board. Remarkable cultural performance was concealed behind a communist ideological discourse, aiming at eliminating every possible suspicion. The reader may have the impression that in this publishing house the only activity was that of helping the party to fulfil the greatest achievement in human history: the construction of a new, perfect system, called the multilaterally developed socialist society, and of a new type of actor, the New Man.[13] Kriterion showed a fruitful practice of the official and constitutional texts, which showed a ‘democratic spirit of collaboration and cohabitation between several minorities and the Romanian majority.’
But let us see some quotations from the annual reports, proving the skill of Kriterion. In order to motivate the need for editions of criticism and literary history, the importance of underlining the leading party’s contribution was inevitable: ‘the party documents assign a special role to literary history and criticism in providing guidelines for literature.’[14] The necessity for literary biographies was backed up by the Marxist dialectic perspective: ‘to investigate not only the surface aspects of the subject, avoiding more complex problems, but to deploy a truly scientific analysis, to contribute to revealing the contradictions of the creation act and thus, to a deeper understanding of the work.’[15] It was not easy to publish works of history and of cultural history; therefore, what was stressed was the fraternity between Romania’s populations: ‘the historical, cultural and scientific study of the past, of the specific spiritual heritage of the cohabiting minorities, emerges in all the volumes of this kind, in close interdependence with the research into and the highlighting of the life experiences and moments shared by the cohabiting minorities with the Romanian people, of their common fight for social and national justice,’[16] and further, the importance of patriotic education: ‘through these publications, self-knowledge, an indispensable element in the patriotic, socialist education is harmoniously combined with an esteem for the progressive values of the minorities, as an integral part of the cultural and scientific patrimony of socialist Romania.’[17] Terms like ‘progress’, ‘patriotic education’, ‘science’ were among the most frequent key-concepts of the party documents, slowly but surely invading every written document with educational content and, as such, were extremely useful for the discourse of Kriterion.
The annual reports offer also a short description and commentary of the published works, trying to point out their ideological content, even if that was absent. For instance, the best phrase used to qualify a poetical universe is ‘everyday realism’ or ‘actuality’ (even in the excellent poetry written by sworn enemies to the regime). The poet’s objective is to achieve ‘a real and multilateral spiritual and artistic community of the Romanian people and the cohabiting minorities.’[18] Following the same logic, the Ukrainian writer Vasili Klim ‘attempts to build up human individualities by bringing characters closer to everyday life, that is history, in the wider sense of the word.’[19] We can see that the phrasing is sometimes very confused, handling concept-clichés, conveyed through a communist vocabulary. Thus, ‘work meetings’ are essential for deepening ‘the contacts of the publishing house with the literary and scientific building site.’[20]
If we look at the tenth anniversary of Kriterion, we can see in the mirror of the annual reports how the major achievements are closely and cleverly related to the Party’s achievements. A celebration always has to be linked to national and political anniversaries; the existence of a minority will be approved if it shows a deep respect to the majority. Therefore, the tenth year anniversary of Kriterion is a forecast for the thirty-fifth anniversary of the ‘liberation of our country’ and, at the same time, for the twelfth congress of the Communist Party. The activity of Kriterion has been ‘well planned, carefully controlled, periodically verified in the light of the party documents, of the ideological, scientific and aesthetic commandments we are following,’[21] and it takes place in the spirit of ‘comradeship and collaboration, deepening the sense of responsibility due to the role of the party organisation, in order to answer the current social demand.’[22] Yet the proofreaders of the institution are forewarned ‘to explain some outdated positions and concepts of certain writers from the interwar period.’[23] We can see the value of the word ‘outdated’: nothing but an ideological euphemism for ‘forbidden’.
The Serbian, Ukrainian and Yiddish literatures have in common ‘a strong rooting in the socialist reality, the presence of revolutionary traditions, patriotic accents, a constant increase of the artistic level.’[24] Together with the majority, the minorities will register ‘ever greater successes,’ in the ‘creative effervescence of our entire society,’ opening new horizons for the socialist construction. The enlargement of the minority languages has its ingenious motivation, considered to be a generous gesture coming from the Party: ‘here is new proof of the national, Marxist Leninist politics of the Communist Party, which offers equal chances for every creator of beauty, irrespective of nationality, and supports in a generous way the expression of the specific cultural heritage.’[25] At the same time, major achievements cannot be denied: ‘from an almost exclusively literary publishing house we have become a complex one, embracing domains like history, philosophy, ethnography and folklore, cultural history and popularisation of sciences, the arts, which were previously lacking from the editorial programs in the languages of the cohabiting minorities.’[26]
In order to fully please the authoritarian power and to meet the official requirements of self-criticism and constant development, the annual reports contain critical remarks and promises for future improvement: ‘we have not published books with political, ideological errors, but we cannot say that we have not made concessions to the artistic and scientific level of several of our publications, that we have not at times been content with half measures.’[27] This rather ambiguous passage could reveal both an acceptance and a refusal of the official ideology.
A constant argument of the discourse is the insistence on the excellent relationship between the majority and the minorities. The published works ‘are targeted at the man of our days, contribute to the modelling of his moral profile, an objective answer to the past, the rediscovery of authentic spiritual values, in close relationship with the Romanian people.’[28] The main role of the institution, from an official point of view, of course, is ‘the modelling of the socialist conscience of the readers, the deepening of the unity and the fraternal cooperation between the Romanian people and the cohabiting minorities on the ground of the national policy of the party, a policy of full equality, of mutual respect between every son of the homeland, irrespective of nationality.’[29] Kriterion assimilated very attentively every ‘democratic’ passage of the Party documents and of the country leader’s discourse, so that ideologically it became irreproachable. Its activity, according to the annual reports, was nothing but ‘contributing to the general effort of our socialist culture.’
This activity, however, was regarded as suspicious by the highest state forums, and several attempts were made to depose Kriterion’s charismatic leader. Ceauşescu’s wife was informed that the Kriterion institution nourished the ‘idea of separatism and Hungarian nationalism’; therefore, she ordered a complex inquiry aiming to collect evidence that might allow a changing of leadership or even a complete suppression of such an ‘irredentist’ institution. The commission found enough proofs and the ‘shadow cabinet’ (Elena Ceausescu) was ready to make the results of the investigation public and enforce the sanctions, but the ‘official cabinet’, her husband, was much more careful. He declared that changes needed time and due consideration, because this was a problem pertaining to the politics towards the Hungarian community in Romania. In addition to that, the leader of Kriterion was also a writer, so the situation had to be handled carefully. Elena got therefore angry and accused her husband of pacifism.[30]
The initiative to put the ‘rather separatist institution’ out of order was also a consequence of the new directives from the beginning of 1980. That summer, the first Kriterion Camp held at the castle of Lăzarea was stigmatised for transforming a literary event into a political forum, and its subsequent sessions were forbidden. Furthermore, the chief editor of Hét was fired, because in his journal, the cliché of Mihai Viteazu’s seal was turned upside down[31] and the chief editor of Utunk was also forced to retreat. Given these measures, a concentrated attack against Kriterion was not unexpected, but the amplitude of the operation struck by its sheer volume.
In 1984, a ‘commando’ descended in the two editing headquarters of the publishing house, led by the propaganda secretary of the party leadership. The aim of the investigation consisted in a ‘comparative study’ of the proportion between, on the one hand literature, dictionaries, and natural sciences, and on the other hand linguistics, history and ethnology. The hypothesis was that the unique goal of the house was limited to demonstrating the ‘Hungarian cultural supremacy.’ Therefore, two major sets of questions were raised: the former, why Kriterion avoided the problems of the ‘man of the present’ or the theme of ‘socialist fraternity’, having its program turned exclusively towards the ‘past’: to history, ethnography and language. The latter: why the book editors allowed such-and-such conclusion, statement or argument in such-and-such books, neglecting the role performable in that institution, that of a party activist, instead of correcting the authors, showing them the ‘right way’.
For weeks on end, the institution changed into a huge statistical office, where every editor calculated and developed firm argumentations during the interrogations, which lasted several hours daily. Statistics confirmed: the institution was working on the basis of a balanced program. And the commando retreated without doing any harm to the members of Kriterion, failing thus its goal; eventually, the institution did not have to exert ‘public self-criticism,’ which would have made its suppression or transformation possible. But the pressure over the publishing house was maintained.
This scandalous control action, performed in the spring of 1984, is very covertly rendered in the annual reports. The first, written in July, alludes very softly to it: ‘the experience of the first half of this year has shown, we think, to every worker of our publishing house, that the growing plan requirements impose to each of us new multiple tasks and a greater demand concerning our work discipline.’[32] Those who had been subjected to the investigation may have taken it with a smile. Another subtle allusion shows its result: ‘as a result of the new orientations, the division for valorising the literary-cultural heritage has been considerably reduced in our plan, compared to the previous years.[33] The lesson of these events strengthened the alertness of the team: ‘we have paid closer attention than ever before to the current ideological and political requirements deriving from the party documents and from the directives and instructions of comrade Nicolae Ceauşescu… in the period under analysis.’[34] The emphasis on ‘closer attention than ever before’ is a covert reference to the scandal. But suddenly the discourse moves to a counter-attack: ‘we wish to have a discussion with the forums leading us into the concrete problems of the book, in order to understand clearly the reason of their decision’; in order to understand the requirements: ‘we solicit from the specialised division of the Council a closer collaboration in order to conduct a calm and principled discussion of our problems, in concrete terms, looking at our books and manuscripts. Thus we could draw edifying conclusions for our work.’[35] The lack of the ‘calm and principled discussion’ as well as the rather general invectives failed to dismantle the institution, whose head was left in position.
After this experience, the annual reports became more frequent, stressing the ideological importance. Here are some of them: ‘a stronger orientation towards works more directly linked to the tasks of revolutionary, patriotic education’; ‘spreading the Communist Party concept among our readers, concerning history, philosophy, the history of culture’; ‘a continuous development of the spirit of abnegation, order, zeal and discipline for the application of the ideological and moral principles’; ‘modelling the new man’; ‘transposition into life of the social commandment’; ‘enlargement of the theoretical horizon’; ‘formation of a progressive concept about the world and life’ (the more the economic situation worsened, the more theory was stressed). A book becomes a ‘basic instrument in the cultural propaganda, for the augmentation of the political-ideological level.’[36]
The new thesis gained ground on a strong ideological basis: the revolutionary materialist-scientific theory works for the accomplishment of a multilaterally developed socialist society and for the progress of Romania towards communism. To this end, a ‘new conception about the editor-writer relationship’ was needed. With even more pathetic insouciance, it was decided that ‘our books will continue to serve the brotherhood between the Romanian people and the cohabiting minorities, our unity and friendship built on the common effort to build up a country and a world of freedom, that of full equality, of peace and prosperity on the Romanian soil.’ Starting with 1985, the name of Ceauşescu was included in the opening of every document.
The threat of extinction became more and more evident in the annual reports, which gave voice to protestations, as far as protestation could be tolerated by an authoritarian regime: ‘what can be noticed is a certain tendency to narrow the profile of our books, the variety and thematic richness… we feel compelled to stress that the tendency to reduce the number of progressive and valuable works from our cultural heritage, with valid messages for today’s reader, tends to condemn to passivity a series of prestigious researchers from the field of historiography, folklore, ethnography and linguistics.’[37] It was becoming clear that the party expectations had been deceived by Kriterion’s former activity and that the institution was being forced to withdraw onto the field of the literature, the original idea of its foundation. The new orientation produced also a dwindling in the translations, because of the rigidity of delays.
An interesting debate took place on February 14, 1986 in the offices of Kriterion, with an external participant, delegated by the Book Council. Domokos, whose qualification at the end of the year was merely ‘good’, launched an open attack against the comrades who were making life in his institution intolerable. The discourse had an impetuous start: ‘what of late has been looked for has increasingly been what is not in the manuscript’ (p. 7). Then, it focused on the dichotomy between the ‘legal’ and the ‘real’; individual identity, in the director’s opinion, should not have greater weight than the quality of one’s writing: ‘Lately the person of the author has gained an exaggerated importance: who he is, what he does, with whom he has conflicts. We believe that the manuscript, its value should be decisive as to its publication.’ Therefore, institutional manipulation could seriously damage the creation, the core of the publishing activity: ‘Recently a volume of literary criticism has been returned with the contention that the author, an appreciated writer, has not expressed, in one of his studies included in the volume, the official meaning. But what is the official meaning? We don’t have any information in this regard… we must express our fear that these “official meanings” are only the personal opinions of some comrades.’[38]
In the final report of the same year, which is also a feed-back on the fifteen years of activity (and, of course, on the forty years of freedom), emphasis is laid on the roles that the house had to play: editing the minority writers who ‘contribute to enriching and diversifying the common cultural patrimony’; therefore, if it is obvious that the Romanian reality has to turn towards future, it is also necessary to ‘valorise everything that was progressive, constructive in the culture of the past, [which] is part of the spiritual patrimony, common to the whole country [and which] instils in the readers the same love of the homeland, strengthening one’s faith and commitment to the land were they and their ancestors were born.’[39] In clear terms, the historical past of the minorities strengthens their attachment to the land, where they continue to live – a very ambiguous, though ideologically strong argument.
The second half of the eighties went by under the sign of terror, the traditional endeavours of the house falling on deaf ears. Its proposals were refused most frequently with remarks such as ‘too bulky,’ ‘not topical,’ or ‘there is no Romanian reference in the book.’ In 1987 alone, 36 books were cancelled, despite the fact that their authors were prominent representatives of the minority culture in Romania, having already published other books at the same institution. The collection Forrás (Spring), dedicated to launching young authors, was suspended, almost every book dealing with history, cultural history or the history of the arts in Transylvania being banished. The second volume of the ‘Literature of the Transylvanian Saxons’, ‘Ukrainian Folk Tales from Maramureş’ fell victim to the censors; so did ‘The History of the Theatre in Oradea’, ‘Electromechanical Dictionary’ or ‘Folksongs from Aranyosszék’ (Arieşu). State funding was minimal, the number of copies diminished and the choice of books was poor. Yet the number of titles of the translated Romanian classical and modern literature increased, as did that of patriotic anthologies (titles like ‘Ode to the Republic’, ‘High-Relief in August’), of collective report volumes (‘Builders of the Future’, ‘Thoughts and Acts in the Revolutionary Spirit’), of thematical volumes of studies (‘Socialist Patriotism’, ‘The Party at the Helm of Social Progress’) or of celebratory volumes (‘We Celebrate the President of Romania’, ‘Words of Respect’). Those publications tried to create a new political profile for the institution, banishing creative work.
Despite the authoritarian power exerted by Ceauşescu’s communist state, aiming to achieve a homogenisation of the nation, the Kriterion led by Géza Domokos managed not only to strengthen the national identity of the Hungarian minority, but also to maintain (Serbian, German, Jewish, Ukrainian), to re-appropriate (Slovaks) or to give birth to overshadowed cultural identities (the case of the Turks, the Lippovans, or the Tartars), preparing the ground for the emergence of others (Roma, Albanian and Armenian). This was fostered by the promotion of the creative values of each group living on the territory of Romania. Moreover, due to a remarkable skill of manipulating official discourse, it became feasible through its tacit acceptance by the Romanian majority, without hurting national feelings, or the ideology of the leading communist party.
Bibliography
Cartea Albă a Securităţii – Istorii literare şi artistice 1969-1989 (The White Book of the Securitate), Bucharest: Presa Românească Publ. House, 1996
A Kriterion műhelyében (In the workshop of Kriterion), Budapest: Kossuth, 1988
Romanian press articles (România literară, Scânteia, Adevărul)
Annual reports of Kriterion (1970-1989)
Catalogues of Kriterion (1970-1994)
Interviews with Géza Domokos, Gyula Dávid and Helen Diatcu-Schmidt.
Domokos Géza, Igevár (Castle of Verb), Pallas-Polis, Miercurea Ciuc, Cluj, 2000.
Douglas, Mary, How Institutions Think, New York: Syracuse Univ. Press, 1986
Maingueneau, Dominique, Analyse du discours, Paris: Hachette, 1991
Verdery, Katherine, National Ideology under Socialism: Identity and Cultural Politics in Ceauşescu’s Romania, California University Press, 1991
Notes
[1] In my usage, ‘minority’ means ‘ethnic minority,’ referring to those citizens of Romania who are different from the Romanian majority by virtue of their language, culture, history, sometimes religion, and who may be located in the neighbourhood of an independent state.
[2] Quotations from the György Beke’s interview with Domokos, on January 20, 1988, in A Kriterion mühelyében (In the Workshop of ‘Kriterion’), Kossuth, Budapest, p. 154.
[4] Note no. 245, July 1981, published (in Romanian) in Cartea Albă a Securităţii– Istorii literare şi artistice 1969-1989 (The White Book of the Securitate), Bucharest: Ed. Presa Românească, 1996.
[6] After 1990, the new director maintained this principle in the beginning and published books in Armenian, Albanian and Romani, but the whole editorial policy was soon changed.
[7] In Romania, there are two Tartar communities: the Nogai and the Crimean Tartars. They live in Dobrudja, and according to the 2002 census, their number is around 24 000.
[8] The Lippovans – old-rite Russians – are the descendants of the Raskolniks, dissenters who opposed the reforms in the Orthodox Church in Russia and who fled to Moldavia and Dobrudja around 1720.
[9] The Catholic Bulgarians came to Banat at the beginning of the eighteenth century. The largest community lives in Dudeştii Vechi (around 3500), from a total of 8000 (according to the 2002 census). The folklore volume finally appeared in Timişoara in 1993.
[11] Two important names: Ion Lăncrănjan, Cuvânt despre Transilvania (1982) and Corneliu Vadim Tudor, Saturnalii (1984) triggered protests from the director of Kriterion and from Moses Rosen, the chief rabbi of Bucharest.
[12] A bilateral accord was set up between Romania and the Federal Republic of Germany, and between Romania and Israel, respectively. The ‘mother-countries’ paid a sum for each ‘returning member’ of the nation.
[13] In fact, this whole ideology was reviving the myth of the Golden Age, known since antiquity, a very useful political myth, lying at the foundation of several utopias.
[14] ‘Critica şi istoria literară cărora documentele de partid le atribuie un rol deosebit în orientarea literaturii’ in Annual Report (Dare de seamă) of 1978, p. 10.
[15] ‘Să investigheze nu numai laturile de suprafaţă ale subiectului, ocolind problemele complexe, ci să fie intr-adevăr analize ştiinţifice, să contribuie la dezvăluirea contradicţiilor creaţiei şi prin aceasta la înţelegerea mai profundă a operei’ (ibid., p. 12).
[16] ‘Studierea trecutului istoric, cultural şi ştiinţific, a moştenirii spirituale specifice a naţionalităţilor conlocuitoare apare în toate volumele de acest gen în strînsă interdependenţă cu cercetarea şi punerea în valoare a momentelor de convieţuire a naţionalităţilor conlocuitoare cu poporul român, de luptă comună pentru dreptatea socială şi naţională’ (ibid., p. 13).
[17] ‘Prin editarea lor se îmbină armonios autocunoaşterea, element indispensabil în educaţie patriotică socialistă, şi stima faţă de valorile progresiste ale naţionalităţilor ca parte integrantă a patrimoniului cultural şi ştiinţific al României socialiste,’ (ibid., p. 15).
[18] ‘Unei comunităţi sufleteşti şi artistice reale şi multilaterale între poporul român şi naţionalităţile conlocuitoare’ (p. 21)
[19] ’Urmăreşte constituirea unor individualităţi umane prin conlucrarea caracterelor cu viaţa cotidiană, adică istoria, în largul sens al cuvîntului.’
[21] ‘Bine planificată, controlată cu atenţie, verificată periodic în lumina documentelor de partid, a comandamentelor ideologice, ştiinţifice şi estetice după care ne ghidăm’ (1979).
[22] Conlucrare tovărăşească, aprofundarea simţului răspunderii datorită rolului organizaţiei de partid, a răspunde comenzii sociale actuale (ibid., p. 12).
[23] ‘Să se explice unele poziţii şi concepţii depăşite ale unor scriitori din perioada interbelică’ (ibid.).
[24] ‘Puternica lor ancrare în realitatea socialistă, prezenţa tradiţiilor revoluţionare, accentele patriotice, creşterea constantă a nivelului artistic’ (p. 14).
[25] ‘Iată o nouă dovadă a politicii naţionale marxist-leniniste a PCR, care oferă şanse egale pentru toţi creatorii de frumos, fără deosebire de naţionalitate, sprijină în mod generos valorificarea moştenirii culturale specifice’ (1980, p. 26).
[26] ‘Dintr-o editură aproape exclusiv beletristică a devenit o editură complexă, îmbrăţişînd domenii ca istoria, filozofia, etnografia si folclorul, istoria culturii şi popularizarea ştiinţelor, arta care pînă atunci au lipsit din programele editoriale în limbile naţionalităţilor conlocuitoare,’ (ibid., p. 23).
[27] ‘Nu am publicat cărţi cu erori politice, ideologice, dar nu putem afirma că nu am făcut concesii nivelului artistic, ştiinţific al unora dintre ediţiile noastre, că nu ne-am mulţumit uneori cu jumătăţi de măsuri, (ibid., p. 24).
[28] ‘Se adresează omului zilei noastre, contribuie la modelarea profilului lui moral, răspuns obiectiv la trecut, redescoperirea valorilor spirituale autentice, în strînsă legătură cu cele ale poporului român’ (ibid., passim).
[29] ‘Modelarea conştiinţei socialiste ale cititorilor, aprofundarea unităţii şi conlucrării frăţeşti între poporul român şi naţionalităţile conlocuitoare pe baza politicii naţionale a partidului, politica a egalităţii depline, a respectului reciproc între toţi fii patriei, fără deosebire de naţionalitate,’ (ibid., passim).
[30] Constantin Mitea, one of those who were closest to the dictator in his quality of text-editor, publishes in the nationalist journal Totuşi iubirea, edited by Adrian Păunescu, in November 1991, no. 62 (45), a paper about Domokos and Elena Ceauşescu’s attempt.
[32] ‘Experienţa primei jumătăţi a acestui an a demonstrat, credem tuturor lucrătorilor din editura noastră, că exigenţele de plan crescînde impun fiecăruia dintre noi sarcini multiple şi exigenţa mărită în ceea ce priveşte disciplina de munca’ (in Annual Report for 1984, p. 21.
[33] ‘Ca urmare a noilor orientări, a fost redus simţitor în planul nostru, faţă de alţi ani, compartimentul valorificării moştenirii literar-culturale,’ (ibid., p. 5).
[34] ‘Cerinţele ideologice şi politice actuale care au decurs din documentele partidului şi din orientările şi indicaţiile tovarăşului Nicolae Ceauşescu… au stat în perioada analizată mai mult ca oricînd în centrul atenţiei noastre’ (p. 14).
[35] ‘Solicităm din partea direcţiei de specialitate a CCES o cît mai strînsă conlucrare, în sensul de a dezbate calm, principial problemele noastre, concret pe cărţi şi manuscrise. Astfel vom putea trage concluzii edificatoare pentru munca noastră.’
[37] ‘Se observă o anumită îngustare a profilului cărţilor noastre, varietatea, bogăţia ariilor tematice… sîntem obligaţi să semnalăm că tendinţa de a se reduce numărul unor lucrări legate de moştenirea culturală, progresiste, valoroase, cu mesaj valabil şi pentru cititorul de azi, tinde să condamne la pasivitate o serie de cercetători de prestigiu din domeniul istoriografiei, folclorului, etnografiei, lingvisticii’ (1986, p. 4).
[38] ‘În ultima vreme, începe să aibă o importanţă exagerată persoana autorului : cine este el, cu ce se ocupă, cu cine a avut conflicte. Credem că manuscrisul, valoarea lui trebuie să stea la baza deciziei de a fi tipărit sau nu. Recent ni s-a restituit un volum de critică literară cu obiecţia că autorul, un apreciat scriitor, nu exprimă în unele dintre studiile incluse in volum, părerea oficială. Dar care este părerea oficială ? Nu avem nici o informaţie în acest sens… ne exprimăm temerea că aceste „păreri oficiale” nu sînt altceva, decît părerea personală a unor tovarăşi,’ (p. 6).
[39] ‘Valorificarea a tot ce a fost progresist, constructiv in cultura trecutului, face parte din patrimoniul spiritual, comun al ţării, sădeşte în cititori acelaşi simţămînt de dragoste faţă de patrie, întăreşte sentimentul lor de credinţă şi devotament faţă de pămîntul pe care s-au născut ei şi strămoşii lor,’ (ibid., p. 7).