Marius Babias

The old technocratic elite that overthrew Ceauşescu and took power did relatively easily, culturally speaking, by instituting the beginning of a post-Communist identity that would re-imagine Romanians as Europeans. The ease with which they made this transition was due in no small measure to the fact that they could fall back on a nationalist discourse, the deep-seated and powerful mechanism that had already been well developed under Ceauşescu, who linked the affirmation of Romania’s Latin origins with aggressive sovereignty and security policies. The cultural elite in today’s Romania has blended these already-existing mechanisms into a strange, anti-modern cultural ideology that has ironically re-implemented the old Communist tools. Indeed, before 1989 Romanian culture refused modernity, preferring traditionalism, nationalism, and racial mythologies. In the post-1989 Romania, these positions have not gone away but have instead proven all-too-easily Europeanized. The protofascist 1930s, with intellectuals like Constantin Noica, Mircea Eliade, and Emil Cioran as its protagonists, are now exclusively considered to be the foundational moment of Romanian culture. Romanian anti-Semitism, now as before, is taboo. Neo-spiritualism and eclecticism blur the boundaries of an unresolved Communist past, at the same time recalling the fascist entanglements of Ion Antonescu’s time. Now is the moment for a critical genealogy to relate the dominant mechanism of anti-modernism to Romania’s own communist history, and to exposed this anti-modernism as a discursive form of national discourse. Now is also the moment, so long delayed, for Romania and its intellectuals to reshape the nation’s own history into a discourse about the history all of Europe holds in common.

Michael M. Thoss

Between Paris and Pyongyang

Before the advent of the socialist era, Bucharest was a melting pot of different architectures and aesthetic styles originating from the Balkans and the old Central Europe (ranging from the Bauhaus to Neo-Byzantine Art Nouveau). Ceausescu’s megalomania meant that this cosmopolitan diversity disappeared behind the facades of the totalitarian state. Today, Bucharest therefore numbers among the post-utopian cities where the cityscape reflects the ambivalence of contemporary history. Trust in progress initially brought social emancipation, only to disenfranchise the individual shortly afterward in a spirit of collectivism. This is where Public Art Bucharest takes the initiative: interventions by artists highlight the internal contradictions of this city and give them meaningful expression. They achieve this aim by taking an inclusive approach to the citizens and joining forces with them to create a new public space. The challenge will be to permanently locate and anchor this temporary third space within the cityscape.