CEU Electronic Theses and Dissertations, 2016
| Author | Grec, Emanuel-Marius |
|---|---|
| Title | "The 1974 Moment" and the Romanian Communist Press: Nicolae Ceausescu's Leader Cult |
| Summary | The structural formation of the leader cult in Communist Romania has been subject to intense scholarly debates since 1989. Most studies analyse its development and relationship with the social in association with the creation of mythology within the Romanian context, the evolution of ‘nationalist’ ideas, and political structural changes that affected the regime down to its core. This thesis unravels its mission in two ways: on one hand, it analyses the development of the leader cult in Romania during the 1970s by insisting on the role of the written press on feeding the regimes proclivities; on the other hand, it contextualizes the social and temporal boundaries of that evolution by an introspection into the importance of the Election of Nicolae Ceaușescu as the first President of Romania. As such, the thesis argues that this event had the role of legitimizing the leader in front of the Romanian people, while at the same time enhancing the image of Ceaușescu as the incorporation of national will. Furthermore, this short study brings about the content changes within the press that were triggered by the Election, as well as an analysis on how all leader cult elements have been gradually constructed by the press in the 1970s. The empirical work done the subject is entwined with a short analysis of the main concepts dealing with the origins and evolution of Nicolae Ceaușescu’s cult. In this sense, the analysis of the main newspapers and magazines during the period is defined in accordance with target audiences, political impact on narration of events, and shifts within press coverage. One main research contribution is also based in theory, namely that in the second half of the 1970s the leader cult became a permanent feature of social life, together with the myth-based image of Ceaușescu. This work aims at analysing the role of the press in the construction of the cult, while at the same time contributing to the field of comparative history and politics by claiming a historical (re)examination of the main elements that have been used in Romania’s leader cult case. |
| Supervisor | Iordachi, Constantin |
| Department | History MA |
| Full text | https://www.etd.ceu.edu/2016/grec_emanuel.pdf |
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