CEU Electronic Theses and Dissertations, 2007
| Author | Oancea, Claudiu Constantin |
|---|---|
| Title | When Forgers of Steel Become Creators of Art: The National Festival "Song to Romania", 1976-1989 |
| Summary | The focus of this research is The National Festival “Song to Romania”, which comprised seven editions between 1976 and 1989. The festival integrated artistic competitions at a mass level and it was designed and used by the communist regime led by Nicolae Ceauşescu as a propaganda tool, in order to provide political legitimacy for the regime and to create a mass identity for ordinary people, for the purpose of conferring total control to the Party and to its leader. Furthermore, “Song to Romania” aimed at incorporating all forms of artistic and scientific activity at a mass level, integrating folklore as a primary means of appealing to the social unity of the Romanian people under the communist regime. This thesis analyzes “Song to Romania” from the perspective of political festivals. It aims at including it into a theoretical framework of political rituals and festivities, used for creating mass identity and for constructing Nicolae Ceauşescu’s personality cult. Moreover, apart from construing the structure and the functions of “Song to Romania”, as mirrored by official sources, the thesis explores with the aid of oral history interviews the ways in which ordinary people reported themselves to the festival, as well as their subjective reconstruction of past memories, influenced by collective memory and by the historical memory rupture of 1989. |
| Supervisor | Iordachi, Constantin; Rev, Istvan |
| Department | History MA |
| Full text | https://www.etd.ceu.edu/2007/oancea_claudiu.pdf |
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