The Burden of Creating: Artistry As Atrocity in Communist Romania

As World War II came to an end and the Russian troops receded from the territory, Romania rose from under the Soviet grip, unable, however, to shake the Communist regime.

In 1971 Ceausescu came out with his notorious July Theses which declared the forceful comeback of socialist realism, which precluded open expression and promoted pragmatic communist conducts. This movement had already swallowed the Eastern European art world, confining its creators to producing propaganda – music and paintings drilled the glory of the motherland’s fortitude and affluence into the people’s minds, an understated powerful delusion. The category “beautiful” now only referred to “real” - everything was merely a reflection of common life.

In Romania, red-tinged images of ecstatic peasants, lush fields, and grand portraits of Ceausescu were hung in main squares and started covering school walls, which echoed with national communist anthems made to invoke children and workers to perform and strive.

We’ll be loyal ’till we perish, to Romania, brave and true, [..]

Our work is hard and hearty, building Socialism its yield.

Education for pioneers was institutionalized – children were taught an abundance of knowledge about the communist regime and how they could support it. At the end of their training and after swearing an oath to fulfil their duty to their country they would receive a uniform with a red tricolor cravat, which became iconic as a symbol of the force of the party and resulted in the pioneers’ featuring in common socialism-promoting books and paintings.

In contemporary art this symbol still appears as a sign of remembrance, of nostalgia yet under the lens of disdain. 

Craftsmanship became a moral dead-end: you either bowed your head to the leader’s perception of socialist realism or openly opposed the regime. Artists who engaged in the latter risked the removal of their works from public records, restriction from creation, and incarceration.

They lived with the burden of the possibility of simply disappearing.

As culture became a mere agent for propaganda, creativity rose in hidden places. Artists began obscuring anti-communist symbols and icons in plain sight, and though creations had to be vetted by officials, the concealed revolt often went unnoticed.

Codrea’s Zamolxe, an opera whose build seemed to be in tune with the communist directive, told the story of an ancient pagan who grew his group of supporters by preaching a new religion, group which ends up being fooled into executing him by stoning, therefore contouring the nihilistic nature of the tale.

This piece heeded a closer reading of the text, which was loaded with a thick philosophical meditation on liberty and proposed a powerful dismissal of the setting in Romania. The piece was interpreted as a nationalist fable which was in line with the party’s fondness of stories that valued the country’s culture rather than people’s religious values.

However, disguised in the production’s central art piece in the form of an odd figure is a crucifix, discreet enough to remain concealed from the eyes of the Securitate – the state’s secret police force. These small yet powerful accents in operas such as this one created a sense of revival and protection between those who perceived them, a reminder that as a proletariat under the communist regime, we, as people, were still connected.

One of the final scenes is highlighted by the painted floor, covered in a pattern that induces an optical illusion which makes it appear undulated and disorienting. This peculiar accent fazed the ballerinas and made them easily lose their footing, a poetic apropos to what being an artist was like under the regime – the permanent inability to trust one’s perceptions and the prevailing incertitude.

You walked around with a weight balanced on the top of your head. You were afraid of your neighbor, that they would say something about you that could land you in jail.

Under socialist realism, every work of art was subjected to four criteria: simplicity, realism, support of the party, and proletarianism.

Many pieces would fail to meet these creativity-subsiding standards if they weren’t easily understandable or if they depicted the bourgeoisie rather than the average person; there had to be no room for interpretation, no possibility of denying full support for Ceausescu, which would otherwise be hailed as treason. In an ironic clash, paintings became the main vehicle for art and portraits – as Geta Bratescu puts it, painting is the most bourgeois artistic medium. Any communist representative would want to have a painting in his living room.

In 1980, Ciprian Muresan was commissioned to realize a portrait of the dictator in the typical dominant stance. Initially his work was rejected due to its allusion to utopia: the father of the nation had been painted with three faces, which although was clearly metaphorical and meant to convey strength and presence, was seen as an allusion to utopia and was therefore discarded.

Upon redoing the piece and presenting the novel version, it was once again rejected. In this second variant, the dictator’s depiction was too authentic: his veins protruded from his swollen arm, his skin was pale, and his advanced age was portrayed without retouches. Though the portrait closely followed visual dogma, it was seen as mockery.

The revolution of 1989 marked the end of the communist reign, but left unwavering pieces of itself behind, causing the nostalgic trend of an alive Ceausescu hiding in another country.

Interest in art had subsided, with other small freedoms becoming the central focus – buying jeans, chocolate, and all the foundational products that had not been available before then. However, among the cloud of melancholy, guerilla art began appearing on the streets and in squares in the form of sketches and graffiti, picturing the former leader with angel wings, or along with the words I will be back soon or misplaced.

Artist Ion Grigorescu through his painting Ceausescu Dead attempts to undermine the possibility of a resurgence by portraying him with gray and pallid skin and with his arms resting on his chest to signify his death, yet with his eyes wide open. Though lifeless, limp, and impotent, the empty stare marks his lasting presence as a permanent haunting memory.

The fear and suspicion of the dictator being alive lasted decades, and only finally concluded when DNA tests confirmed that his remains, which were exhumed, were indeed buried in a grave in Bucharest. In spite of the fact that the man himself is gone, the inexpungible stain of what he represented still lingers, and continues to influence contemporary art.