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The Real Romanian Revolution
| Article
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18641 |
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Section : |
BOOK WORLD
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| Issue
Date : |
8 / 1991 |
2,642 Words |
| Author
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Virgil Nemoianu
Virgil Nemoianu is professor of English and comparative
literature at the Catholic University of America. Among his
books are The Taming of Romanticism (Harvard, 1985) and A
Theory of the Secondary (Johns Hopkins, 1989). He and Robert
Royal have just edited a collection of essays, Canons at John
Benjamins (Amsterdam and Philadelphia).
|
LEVANTUL
(Levantine Realm)
Mircea Cartarescu
Bucharest: Cartea Romaneasca, 1991
224 pp., 45 lei
FEMEIA IN ROSU
(The Woman in Red)
Mircea Nedelciu, Adriana Babeti, and Mircea Mihaies
Bucharest: Cartea
Romaneasca, 1991
430 pp., 81 lei
ISTORIA LITERATURII ROMANE
(A History of Romanian Literature)
Nicolae Manolescu
Bucharest; Minerva, 1991
337 pp., 65 lei
Do not believe your TV set; the real Romanian revolution took place not in the bloodied streets of Bucharest but in the pages of books and journals and in the minds of a brilliant younger generation.
Except for insular Albania, Romania was the last Eastern European country to revolt against its Leninist regime. Its revolt was also the bloodiest: The world followed, stunned, as it unfolded on TV, culminating with the execution by firing squad of the Ceausescu husband and wife team on Christmas Day 1989. Although at least one thousand people loss their lives during this uprising, the political gains were paltry. Almost two years later, political power is still firmly in the hands of "reform communists," and, by all accounts, the dreaded Securitate system is still functioning. The Romanian economy is in terrible shape; violent disorder and corruption still reign. There is one area in which the situation has changed radically: Romanians are enjoying a new freedom of expression, both in the broadcast media and in publications.
Almost seven hundred new publishing houses are reported to have emerged, along with no less than two thousand new publications, mostly weeklies, according to one count. Most of these are shoestring operations; they are plagued by lack of paper, print, and equipment. But in their overwhelming majority, they are antigovernment, lively, witty, and iconoclastic. The government is doing its best to hinder and obstruct them, both by increasing the price of paper and
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