Hidden Figures: African American Performers in Romania, 1920-1960

• In Event: Reclaiming Race Narratives in Romania: Archives, Memory and Reckoning

Abstract

This paper examines the presence of African American performers in Romania from the height of the jazz age in the 1920s to the post-World War II socialist regime. Now absent from historical memory, these performers lived and worked in the country for decades, participating in its social and political life. The paper argues that the study of their activities and reception throughout changing political regimes can shed light on the positionality of Romania, and Eastern Europe more broadly, within global racial hierarchies and formations, drawing on recent scholarship in this growing field (Baker et al. 2024, Turda 2024, Pârvulescu & Boatcă 2022, Rucker-Chang & Ohueri 2021, Matusevich 2012). While some information about the careers of Black performers can be found in the press of the period, the most comprehensive archival data often comes from government organisations charged with the control of foreign nationals or from surveillance documents of the socialist-era secret police. Addressing the challenges of using sources that act as instruments of repression, the paper interrogates the (im)possibility of recovering traces of the Black experience in Romania, while nonetheless advocating for a reckoning with the spectres of past histories (Gordon 2008, Stoler 2009).

Author

• Alexandra Chiriac, Leibniz Institute for the History and Culture of Eastern Europe (Germany)