Ion Manolescu

Universitatea Bucureşti, România

imanol@opensys.ro

 

 

Erasing the Identity of the Past.

Effects of the “Systematization” Process in Nicolae Ceausescu’s Communist Romania

 

 

Abstract: The present study focuses on the totalitarian aspects of one of communist Romania’s most destructive social and political phenomena: Nicolae Ceausescu’s “systematization” process. It establishes a political chronology of the “modernization epoch” and relies on social statistical data describing the constant destruction of the private, individual habitat during the seventies and the eighties years of the 20^th century. Its main goal resides in presenting the full scale of social damage and dislocation generated by Nicolae Ceausescu’s anti-human, anti-democratic internal policy of general “urbanization”. Official political documents and encomiastic literary texts of the pre-1989 communist time, which emphasize the presumably “humanist” role of the “systematization” process, are being put in contrast with post-1989 historical recollections and photographic memories of the destructive effects of Ceausescu’s “modernization” age.

Keywords: Romania; Communist regime; Nicolae Ceauseşcu; Rural ”systematization”; Collective memory.

 

 

During the so-called communist “Golden Age” (1965-1989), vast projects involving the geographic dislocation of the Romanian population are being put to work, under the apparently appealing flag of the “modernization process”. In reality, these projects, to which Ceausescu referred in terms of “urbanization” (of rural areas) and “systematization” (of towns and cities) broke the most basic individual and collective human rights. For instance, one’s right to own his or her private propriety was violated, while the right to have access to the cultural past of the community was utterly denied. In no uncertain terms, Nicolae Ceausescu’s plan to “modernize” socialist Romania, especially during the seventies and the eighties, was the equivalent of a criminal plan to erase what was still left of the people’s identity after 30 years of communism: houses were demolished, churches and cemeteries were wiped out from the face of the country, while entire districts and villages were obliterated.[1]

On March 22, 1977, the totalitarian ruler of the country presided a session of his main political instrument of power, the Central Committee of the Romanian Communist Party. Under the pretext of repairing, consolidating or reconstructing the buildings which were affected by the strong earthquake of March 4, Ceausescu decided to begin the “urbanization” of Romania’s capital, Bucharest. His decision was based on a law previously issued by the Parliament (called Marea Adunare Nationala) he controlled and manipulated, which stipulated the necessity of the “urban and rural systematization of the national territory”.[2] In a hypocritical political discourse, the national program of systematization was officially connected to the democratic concepts of “progress” and “modernization”: “In the process of systematization of towns, several factors will be taken into consideration: the necessity of obtaining an optimal density of constructions, the need to organize in a rational, economical way the work and transportation of the people, the need to achieve a general modern urban look.” (Programul PCR, 1975: 86)[3]

As far as historical facts are concerned, the reality of “urbanization” in the seventies and the eighties looked quite grim. Historian of art Dinu C. Giurescu notices that the process of “systematization” meant, on the one hand, “the almost complete destruction of tradition urban constructions and their replacement with blocks of flats” and, on the other hand, “the displacement of the entire rural population of more than 11 million people from their individual, privately owned houses and cottages to state-owned apartments in collective blocks of flats” (Giurescu, 1994: 71). At the end of Ceausescu’s ruling, in December 1989, the communist “modernization” of the country had left behind devastating results: 29 cities destroyed up to 85 % – 90%; 37 towns on the brink of urban collapse; between 7000 and 8000 villages (from a total of more than 13 000) “doomed” (Giurescu, 1994: 9).

In the particular case of Bucharest, statistics depict an even harsher reality: at least 20 churches wiped out from the face of Romania’s capital between 1977 and 1989 and a cemetery obliterated and turned into a lake – the Crangasi Cemetery, destroyed in 1986 and covered by the waters of Lake Ciurel (see: Anania; Luminea; Melinte; Prosan; Stoica; Ionescu-Ghinea, 1995: 110-13; 202-06). In the name of socialist “progress”, the historical central district of Bucharest is demolished 4.5 km in length and 2 km in width, in order to give way to the “new Civic Centre” demanded by Ceausescu, designed by his communist architects and inspired by North Korean buildings of huge proportions (see: Leahu, 1995: 187).

The massive dislocations of constructions taking place during the “systematization” process resulted not only in the abolishing of the private propriety, but also in the elimination of entire families’ identity. Several million people were officially moved from their houses in precariously built communist blocks of flats, where, on the one hand, they became dependent on the State’s economical will (the former owners now had to pay a rent to the State who provided their new, poorer lodgings), while, on the other hand, they could be more easily kept under political surveillance. In some cases in Bucharest, such as those included in the central area around Unirii Square (especially Matei Basarab, Romulus and Labirint Streets), the demolition of individual houses and the forceful displacement of their legal owners followed the patterns of the arbitrary selection: the first house was brought down to the ground during the night, the following house was not; and so on and so forth, at the scale of the entire street or district, in a political attempt to break down the will of the neighboring owners and to determine them to willingly abandon their homes. “Disposes, watch and control!” – these may have well been the unspoken, unwritten Orwellian political slogan of the communist “systematization” phenomenon.

The destruction of the architectural patrimony (including buildings or churches under the protection of reputed international organisms, such as UNESCO) remains one of the most tragic consequences of Ceausescu’s national “modernization” process. Most likely motivated by Ceausescu’s egocentric attitude, as well as by his systematic attitude of rejecting tradition and its values, arbitrary demolitions became the perfect political pretext for Romania’s ruler to replace the architectural legacy of the past with the monotonous present of communist constructions, such as those on the so-called “Victory of the Socialism” Avenue in Bucharest, near Unirii Square. Political orders were being issued during unannounced “visits of work”, which allowed Nicolae and Elena Ceausescu to trace large imaginary concrete boulevards over the historical districts of the capital. At the same time, the president dictated his orders from huge conference halls inside administrative buildings, where he was shown a large scale plastic replica of the city. Up on a rotating platform, Ceausescu easily switched houses and churches from one place to another or simply removed them from the city’s replica, while his architects and engineers wrote down his every moves and indications. In a political climate of fear and obedience, none of his activists made any attempt to question the communist leader’s orders.

After the fall of the Ceausescu’s totalitarian political regime in December 1989, the full scale and horror of the demolition process initiated by the former General Secretary of the Romanian Communist Party was revealed to the public. Historians, architects, photographers, as well as researchers in anthropology and cultural studies combined their efforts in order to preserve and transmit to further generations what might be called the photo-memorial testimony of the past.[4]

Nowadays, an ample bibliography documents Ceausescu’s step-by-step anti-democratic measures of urban and rural “modernization”. For example, the phenomenon of “systematization” of houses and churches and the ways in which it violated human rights is presented to final year college students in a manual edited by the Institute of Investigation of Communism’s Crimes in Romania and coordinated by historians and political science researchers (see: Stamatescu; Raluca Grosescu; Dobrincu; Muraru; Plesa; Andreescu, 2008 : 120). The same phenomenon is analyzed in terms of educational clichés of the communist epoch by cultural studies author Ion Manolescu, in his study Clisee tematice ale manualelor scolare comuniste de clase primare (see: Cernat; Manolescu; Mitchievici; Stanomir, 2005 : 308-09).

Architect Gheorghe Leahu testifies to the destruction of traditional houses in Bucharest (dictated by Nicolae Ceausescu), in an album which gathers photographic pictures taken and color drawings made by the author himself (1995: 11-106; 137-187). Fiction writer and amateur photographer Bujor Nedelcovici documents the demolition of the Antim district in Bucharest during 1980 and 1987, in a photographic album which insists on the barbaric devastation of churches (2006: 41-88). Architect and professional photographer Andrei Pandele provides a photographic memory of both communist everyday life and Ceausescu’s urban demolition and relocation process in the ’80’s, in a bi-lingual album [2008: 40-42 (within the section City Life); 130-150 (the section Demolition, Relocation, Wasteland)]. Pandele’s 2008 album was an enhanced edition of his 2007 album Fotografii interzise si imagini personale, which dealt mostly with the changes in the social life of people in cities affected by the “modernization” process.

One of the most impressive contributions to the photographic revealing of the urban destruction process ordered by Nicolae Ceausescu is to be found in construction designer Cristian Popescu’s album (2007). Popescu’s work turns out to be more than a testimonial to the urban past erased during the communist age, as it also reveals post-1989 photographs of places that do not exist anymore, but are populated with new, aesthetically inappropriate capitalist buildings. In the act of taking photographs or making drawings in the streets, all these contributors to the preservation of the past’s identity took serious risks, since Ceausescu’s repressive political structures (the Militia and the Securitate) used to confiscate and destroy any such testimonies to the true nature of the official “modernization” policy.

In an almost complete contrast with the grim reality of Nicolae Ceausescu’s “systematization” process, many pre-1989 followers of the Romanian Communist Party’s policy praised the “glorious new reality” of “modern Romania”. Political activists, professors, poets or fiction writers expressed their utmost gratitude for the “clairvoyant” policy of the country’s ruler. For instance, in a collective volume edited by the Writers’ Union of Romania, Ion Dodu Balan declared Ceausescu’s urban civilization to be “more durable than the bronze evoked in Horatio’s poetry” (1988: 41). In the same volume, Vasile Baran praised the “high peaks of progress and civilization” reached under Ceausescu’s regime (1988: 59), while Ion Lancranjan identified the General Secretary of the Romanian Communist Party as “a founder, the very founder” of everything existing or being built in socialist Romania (1988 : 217). In a similarly encomiastic way, poet Victor Tulbure solemnly stated his admiration for the new modern aspect of Romania’s capital: Bucharest was called “the glorious City”, born out of “the communist will of the entire nation” (1988: 361). All these politically contaminated rhetorical contributions testify to the ideological mystification of the country’s social and economical reality, in an attempt to camouflage the destructive effects of Ceausescu’s “urbanization” policy.

Seen from anthropological perspective of the cultural studies authors, the “systematization” process led to massive changes in the mentality of the people. The displacement of houses and churches meant that entire families had to make changes in both their way of living and their relations with the community. The loss of private propriety resulted in the individual distrust in political rules, while, at the same time, determining a general feeling of social instability and psychological unease. Under such circumstances, no one can account for the true proportions of one of communist Romania’s most damaging totalitarian phenomena.

 

 

Works Cited

Anania, Lidia; Luminea, Cecilia; Melinte, Livia; Prosan, Ana-Nina; Stoica, Lucia; Ionescu-Ghinea, Neculai (1995) Bisericile osindite de Ceausescu, Bucuresti, Anastasia

Balan, Ion Dodu (1988) Un om intre oameni, o epoca de glorii si impliniri, in Lauri pe stema

Baran, Vasile (1988) Marea deschidere, in Lauri pe stema

Cernat, Paul; Manolescu, Ion; Mitchievici, Angelo; Stanomir, Ioan (2005) Explorari in comunismul romanesc, II, Iasi, Polirom

Giurescu, Dinu C. (1994) Distrugerea trecutului României, Bucuresti, Museion

Lancranjan, Ion (1988) Intemeietorul, in Lauri pe stema

Lauri pe stema (1988) Bucuresti, Cartea Romaneasca

Leahu Gheorghe (1995) Bucurestiul disparut, Bucuresti, Arta Grafica

Manolescu, Ion (2005) Clisee tematice ale manualelor scolare comuniste de clase primare, in Cernat; Manolescu; Mitchievici; Stanomir

Nedelcovici, Bujor (2006) Lectorul de imagini. Vandalism arhitectural in Bucuresti. 1980-1987, Bucuresti, Institutul National pentru Memoria Exilului Romanesc

Pandele, Andrei (2008) Martorul-surpriza. Fotografii necenzurate din communism. / Surprise Witness. Uncensored Photos from the Communist Years, Bucuresti, Compania

Paiusan, Cristina; Ion, Narcis Dorin; Retegan, Mihai (2002) Regimul communist din Romania. O cronologie politica (1945-1989), Bucuresti, Tritonic

Pandele, Andrei (2007) Fotografii interzise si imagini personale, Bucuresti, Compania

Programul PCR (1975) Bucuresti, Ed. Politica

Popescu, Cristian (2007) Bucuresti-Arhipelag. Demolarile anilor ’80 : stergeri, urme, reveniri, Bucuresti, Compania

Stamatescu, Mihai; Grosescu, Raluca; Dobrincu, Dorin; Muraru, Andrei; Plesa, Liviu; Andreescu Sorin (2008) O istorie a comunismului din Romania, Polirom, Iasi

Tulbure, Victor (1988) Bucuresti, cetate comunista, in Lauri pe stema

 

 

Notes