64
Popular Culture Review
A revealing example of Romanian communist mass-culture could be the yearly
performance-contest “Ode to Romania,” most probably the largest form of im
posed mass manifestation, designed for everybody within the range of pre-school
children to retired people. School groups of various age, factory teams, village
people, the whole Romanian population, irrespective of their age and profession,
was compelled to take part in the several stages of this huge popular manifestation
and compete with each other in the attempt to win the final. It covered almost all
areas of culture: theater, film, music, choreography, sports, the arts, architecture,
etc. Any influence from abroad was banned in search of 'Romanian originality’
and ‘local authenticity’ which were supposedly promoted. Obviously, with few,
notable exceptions, the final products were not only highly ideological but also
poor in quality, usually dissonant or reiterating old boring patterns. And this was
not due to the fact that Romanians lacked originality, but to the fact that any pro
posal was carefully scrutinized and drastically censored before being approved of.
This kind of mass culture completed by the censoring of any form of western
culture and by the constant growth of ‘top-down’ ideology produced a lot of kitsch
and pseudo-pop culture which most Romanians accepted formally, as they also did
with the communist ideology.
Under the circumstances, considering the fact that popular culture in commu
nist Romania was not exactly ‘popular,’ subversive forms emerged as early as the
1970s. They manifested both in live performances through actors’ gestures, words,
and innuendoes, which would go unnoticed to non-Romanians or to high party
officials, but which survived in jokes, myths, and allusions meant to ease the pres
sure of the regime through laughter. One of the most popular forms during the
communist regime were the political jokes, which, paradoxically, in spite of the
top-secrecy rule under which they were told, would soon gain a very large audi
ence. In music, on the other hand, the imposed musical forms (mainly folkloric)
were completely inauthentic in point of lyrics, as they were compelled to express
the ‘joy’ of living on state farms in repeated stereotypical tune-patterns. They were,
however, opposed by young music bands who adapted (or merely appropriated)
American jazz, Dixie, and country music to which they added their own lyrics in
Romanian. They were allowed to spread and became popular because this was
seen by some party officials as a ‘genuine’ Romanian adaptation of non-Romanian
popular music. Yet, American jazz, Dixie, and country also functioned as ‘subver
sive’ to communist ideology both in the eyes of some communist culture special
ists, who did everything to ban them, and in the eyes of Romanian musicians and
fans, who made use of ingenious ways to promote them.
A second response to the communist pressure, which manifested mainly after
the fall of the regime, was the will to reject any forms, to which an even stronger
will to change was added. The change drive went in two directions: to import non-