Nostalgia or Something Else?: How Communism is Remembered in Romania

• In Event: Of Nostalgia and Rebellion: Re-visiting (post-)Communism through the Lens of Cultural Memory

Abstract

My paper analyzes the contribution of the popular press and advertising industry to the remembrance of communism in Romania and to fostering a reflective nostalgia (Svetlana Boym) after the communist period. The first part explores the chronological framework in which nostalgia for communism appeared and developed. Employing the results of the opinion polls published during the last 30 years, the second part of my paper will examine the positive memories Romanians put forth about the political regime that ended in December 1989. Besides underling that nostalgia after communism had mainly social grounds concerning the negative consequences of the disappearance of paternalist state and of its protective measures, my analysis will also disentangle how this type of nostalgia is performed among different generations, including the youth that had never experienced communism.
The last part will focus on the images about the communist past conveyed by the Romanian press and advertising industry. To this end, I employ the case study of the national newspaper, Libertatea (The Liberty). Lastly, I will analyze how the advertising industry took advantage of the nostalgic feelings after the communist period and devised several advertising campaigns to sell rebranded goods coming from the communist past.

Author

• Manuela Ana-Maria Marin, National Museum of Transylvanian History/ Babes-Bolyai U (Romania)