Acasă Articole RTR Geographies of Capitalism in Romanian Postcommunist Literature and Film: Villages, Cities, Markets
Geographies of Capitalism in Romanian Postcommunist Literature and Film: Villages, Cities, Markets
Rezumat
Geographies of Capitalism in Romanian Postcommunist Literature and Film: Villages, Cities, Markets
Abstract: This article analyses the ways in which the rural – understood in its double nature, of traditional mythological space, and of degraded periphery of the urban – was both instrumentalized by the cultural and political discourses within Romanian postcommunism, and revealed as a symptomatic field in which the harsh economic realities of the post-1989 implementation of neoliberal capitalism in Eastern Europe became evident. The first part of the article describes how misplaced public policies during 1980s’ communism favoured the underdevelopment of the rural. Later, the process of transition encouraged both external migration, which depopulated Romanian villages, and the internal migration of the urban middle-class to an economically more secure rural area. The second part of the article analyses – from a materialist viewpoint – corresponding topics developed in Romanian contemporary literature and films (authored by Adrian Șchiop, Lavinia Braniște, Bogdan Mirică, and Radu Muntean). These works envision the rural/periurban as an asymmetrical geography, where violence toward the vulnerable is enacted, where the loss of community values leaves black markets flourish, and the capitalist dismantling of social ties becomes striking.
Keywords: ruralism, peripheral geography, Romanian transition, anticommunism, postcommunist capitalism.
Citation suggestion: Stan, Adriana, and Turcuș, Claudiu. “Geographies of Capitalism in Romanian Postcommunist Literature and Film: Villages, Cities, Markets.” Transilvania, no. 5 (2022): 90-94. https://doi.org/10.51391/trva.2022.05.12.
Bibliografie
Ban, Cornel. Dependență și dezvoltare. Economia politică a capitalismului românesc [Dependency and Development. The Political Economy of Romanian Capitalism]. Translated by Ciprian Șiulea. Cluj-Napoca: Tact, 2014.
Braniște, Lavinia. Interior zero [Interior Zero]. Iași: Polirom, 2017.
Braniște, Lavinia. Sonia ridică mâna [Sonia Raises Her Hand]. Iași: Polirom, 2017.
Brass, Tom. Peasants, Populism and Postmodernism: The Return of the Agrarian Myth. London: Routledge, 2000.
Chitnis, Rajendra A. “A Need for Greater Openness: The Countryside in Czech Fiction since 1989.” The Slavonic and East European Review 91, no. 3 (2013): 431-464.
Dobrincu, Dorin, and Constantin Iordachi, eds. Transforming Peasants, Property and Power: The Collectivization of Agriculture in Romania, 1949-1962. Budapest and New York: Central European University Press, 2009.
Giurescu, Dinu C. The Razing of Romania’s Past: International Preservation Report. Washington, D.C.: Library of Congress/The Preservation Press, 1989.
Guran-Nica, Liliana, and Michael Sofer. “Migration Dynamics in Romania and the Counter-Urbanisation Process: A Case Study of Bucharest’s Rural-Urban Fringe.” In Translocal Ruralism: Mobility and Connectivity in European Rural Spaces, edited by Charlotta Hedberg and Renato Miguel do Carmo, 87-102. Springer: Geo Journal Library, vol. 103, 2012.
Győri, Zsolt. “Ruralising Masculinities and Masculinising the Rural in Márk Kostyál’s Coyote and Bogdan Mirică’s Dogs.” In Postsocialist Mobilities: Studies in Eastern European Cinema, edited by Hajnal Király and Zsolt Győri, 101-123. Newcastle upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2021.
Ilis, Florina. Cartea numerilor [The Book of Numbers]. Iași: Polirom, 2018.
Lăzărescu, Florin. Ce se știe despre ursul Panda [What There Is to Know About the Panda Bear]. Iași: Polirom, 2003.
Lungu, Dan. Raiul găinilor (fals roman de zvonuri și mistere) [Chicken Heaven (A False Novel of Rumors and Misteries)]. Iași: Polirom, 2004.
Mungiu-Pippidi, Alina. A Tale of Two Villages: Coerced Modernization in East European Countryside. Budapest and New York: Central European University Press, 2010.
Pasti, Vladimir. Noul capitalism românesc [The New Romanian Capitalism]. Iași: Polirom, 2006.
Petreu, Marta. Acasă, pe Câmpia Armaghedonului [At Home, on the Fields of the Armageddon]. Iași: Polirom, 2011.
Rizescu, Victor. Tranziții discursive. Despre agende culturale, istorie intelectuală și onorabilitate ideologică după communism [Discursive Transitions: On Cultural Agendas, Intellectual History and Ideological Respectability after Communism]. Bucharest: Corint, 2012.
Rotariu, T., E. Mezei. “Asupra unor aspecte ale migrației interne recente din România” [On Some Aspects of the Recent Internal Migration of Romania]. Sociologie Românească, no. 3 (1999): 5-38.
Schiop, Adrian. Soldații. Poveste din Ferentari [Soldiers. Story from Ferentari]. Iași: Polirom, 2013.
Teodorovici, Lucian Dan. Circul nostru vă prezintă [Our Circus Presents]. Iași: Polirom, 2002.
Terian, Andrei. “Communality: Un-Disciplining Race, Class, and Sex in the Wake of Anti-‘PC’ Monomania.” In Theory in the ‘Post’ Era, edited by Alexandru Matei, Christian Moraru, and Andrei Terian, 107-120. New York: Bloomsbury, 2021.
Turnock, David. “Romanian Villages: Rural Planning under Communism. Rural History 2, no. 1 (1991): 81-112.
