The Social Life of the Hymn of the
Romanian Revolution of 1989 during the
Communist Era
MA Thesis in European Studies
Graduate School for Humanities
Universiteit van Amsterdam
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Author: Matthias Ruijgrok
Student number: 10461639
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Main Supervisor: dr. Sudha Rajagopalan
Second Supervisor: dr. Artemy Kalinovsky
Contents
Preface... 2
Introduction... 4
Chapter 1: Awakening; the popular narrative... 9
Chapter 2: “Deșteaptă-te, Române” and nationalism... 16
Under Communism... 19
Chapter 3: “Deșteaptă-te, Române” and public temperament... 25
The Brașov revolt of 1987... 28
Chapter 4: “Deșteaptă-te, Române” and sociability... 35
Chapter 5: “Deșteaptă-te, Române” and education... 43
Conclusion... 51
Bibliography... 54
Preface
When exactly my own “journey” with Romania’s present day national hymn “Deșteaptă-te, Române” commenced, I cannot pinpoint. Already when I started studying History at the University of Utrecht in 2010, Romania had attracted my specific interest. This only deepened when I took the opportunity to study Romanian at the University of Amsterdam and subsequently enrolled twice in the Romanian summer school program organised by the Romanian Cultural Institute, aimed at education in
Romanian language and culture. Somewhere along this string of events I had become acquainted with “Deșteaptă-te Române” as the hymn of the Romanian revolution. I thought of it as an interesting feature of the revolution, a song that proved such a strong symbol.
Continuing my studies at the University of Amsterdam in the MA program East European Studies, I was determined to pursue a thesis research with a subject relating to Romanian history. It was not until I enrolled in a course on cultural pastimes in (Soviet) Russia, given by Sudha Rajagopalan, that “Deșteaptă-te Române” came into sight as a possible subject. From the way I knew the song by then – as a revolutionary song that was forbidden in Communist Romania – I started to wonder how Romanians had learned about it, and how it had been popularly remembered despite its official prohibited status. This thesis is the result of that one simple question and the ensuing flow of information resulting from the research, which often challenged the ideas I had prior. The song proved to have passed through an interesting trajectory during the Communist era, which differed vastly from my initial expectations. I can quite honestly say it was an exciting and highly rewarding journey to uncover the life of “Deșteaptă-te Române” during the Romanian Communist period.
Acknowledgements
For the realisation of this research, I was very fortunate to have received the assistance of many people, both friends and persons which were (previously) unknown to me. Hence I wish to express my sincere gratitude towards all those who helped me with the project. First of all, I want to thank my fantastic supervisor Sudha Rajagopalan for her advice, assistance and encouragement
throughout the project. My work could also not have been realised without all the people with whom I had the pleasure to conduct an interview, so my sincere thanks to Silvano Budacea, Maria Bucur, Ionel Piruscă, Valer Rus, Daniela Ulieriu, Vlad Ulieriu, Mihail Avramescu and Cristina
Madgearu. I have been reliant on a lot of others too, who were prepared to do a lot of networking for my project, helped me with identifying the right direction for my research, or were involved with the surveys. Even though their efforts did in some cases unfortunately not lead to actual results, my
gratitude nevertheless goes to Camelia Crăciun, dr. Alex Drace-Francis, Ion Caramitru, Mirela Balaban, Ana Borca, Monica Budacea, Yvonne Helmich, Bart van Rossum, Nicole van Rossum,
Rucsandra Pop, Alina Floroi, Marius Stoianovici, John Bucur and Mihaela Miroiu. I would furthermore like to thank my former Romanian teacher Dana Niculescu for helping me with some translations, and I am especially grateful to my friend and colleague Matthew Signer, who put great effort into proofreading my final work and provided me with countless useful comments and corrections. Last but not least, I want to thank my family for their support throughout the years.
Introduction “Deșteaptă-te, române,
din somnul cel de moarte, În care te-adânciră barbarii de tirani! Acum ori niciodată croiește-ți altă soartă, La care să se-nchine și cruzii tăi dușmani!”
(Awaken, Romanian,
from the sleep of death,
Into which you have been sunk by the barbaric tyrants! Now or never, create a new fate for yourself,
To which even your cruel enemies will bow!) 1
Quoted above is the first strophe of the current Romanian national anthem, ”Deșteaptă-te, Române!” (“Awaken, Romanian!”), a song with strikingly strong ties to the revolutionary events of December 1989, and the toppling of Nicolae Ceaușescu’s Communist regime. These first four bars bear a particular importance. These were the very lines sung repeatedly during the revolutionary uprisings that started in the city of Timișoara on 16 and 17 December of that year, and which would spread all over the country in the following days.2 These events I will refer to as the “revolution”, despite ongoing debates whether it actually was a revolution,3 as this does not concern my research. ”Deșteaptă-te, Române!”, as a poem originally titled “Un Răsunet” (an echo), was written in 1848 by Andrei Mureșanu. The composer Anton Pann is generally credited for the music, though the melody used for the song had a great popular circulation at that time.4 During the revolution of 1848 in Romania, which aimed at independence and unification of the Romanian regions, it was first sung
1
The first strophe of ”Deșteaptă-te, Române!”, quoted from Vasile Oltean, Imnul Național „Deșteaptă-te Române!” – scurt istoric (Brașov, 2005). All translations from the Romanian are my own, except where mentioned otherwise.
2
Mihail Ionescu & Dennis Deletant, "Romania and the Warschaupact: 1955-1989" in Cold War International History Project (2004), p. 53-54; Peter Siani-Davies, The Romanian Revolution of December 1989
(Ithaca/London, 2005), p. 61.
3
See for example: Siani-Davies, The Romanian Revolution of December 1989.
4 Vasile Oltean, Imnul național "Deșteaptă-te române!" - scurt istoric (Brașov, 2005), 29-37; Valer Rus, Povestea
Imnului National (online on the site of the Muzeul Casa Mureșenilor site)
publicly. The song bore already clearly revolutionary and patriotic connotations in its original incarnation. When the Communist regime came to power after the Second World War, it initially held a distinctive internationalist stand, and was thus uneasy with anything decidedly nationalist.5 ”Deșteaptă-te, Române!” certainly fell under these definitions, and as such, singing the song in public was forbidden under Communism in Romania. It is generally held that the song was sung for the first time in public again at a workers uprising in the industrial city of Brașov in November 1987. These events are nowadays heralded as a first sign of the regime’s decline, and sometimes named a first, premature spark of revolution as well. During these events it was that ”Deșteaptă-te, Române!” first re-emerged in public.6 As Ion Caramitru, an important opposition figure in the late Communist period, told me about this event: “When we first heard Deșteaptă-te Române was being played [sic] during the protests in Brașov, we were shocked.”7
Despite allusions to the forbidden status of ”Deșteaptă-te, Române!” in the Romanian Communist era, in academic writing on the events no definite answer is given about this. Standard works on the Romanian revolution and the Communist era in Romania often mention the song shortly and without many further references. In Peter Siani-Davies’ detailed work on the Romanian revolution, The Romanian Revolution of 1989, ”Deșteaptă-te, Române!” is mentioned shortly as “the old patriotic anthem”.8 In another important volume, Romania under Communist Rule, the historian Dennis Deletant mentions the song first when he describes the uprising in Brașov, to later
re-introduce it when the events in 1989 are narrated. He notes that it was first sung in public during the Brașov uprising in 1987, but other than mentioning that it is a “Romanian national song” and the “anthem of the revolution of 1848”, he grants no further illumination.9 One of the few writings in which clarity is given about the status of “Deșteaptă-te, Române”, is a short history on the national anthem on the site of the Casa Mureșenilor Museum, written in Romanian by its director Valer Rus, a historian himself. In his words “the coming to power of the Communists in Romania brought this old symbol of freedom of the Romanian people *Deșteaptă-te, Române] in the ungrateful position of a banned song.”10
5
Lucian Boia, History and Myth in Romanian Consciousness (Budapest, 2001), 70-73.
6 Dennis Deletant, Romania Under Communist Rule (Iași/Oxford, 1999), 135. 7
Personal communication with Mr. Caramitru at a conference on the Romanian revolution in Amsterdam, December 11th 2014.
8
Peter Siani-Davies, The Romanian Revolution of December 1989 (Ithaca/London, 2005), p. 61.
9 Deletant, Romania under Communist Rule, 135, 162. 10
Valer Rus, Povestea Imnului National (online on the site of the Muzeul Casa Mureșenilor site)
http://muzeulmuresenilor.ro/2013/09/03/povestea-imnului-national/ (retrieved: 4 June 2015). Venirea comuniştilor la putere în România aduce acest vechi simbol al libertăţii românilor în postura ingrată de cântec interzis.
In the existing academic framework, “Deșteaptă-te, Române” is only illuminated whenever it is shows up, and always with the connotations it bears at these precise moments. This alone justifies questions about what happened to the song in the Communist period, or how people have
remembered it over time. What was the “life” of “Deșteaptă-te, Române” when it was not of
central, but of marginal importance? As the musicologist Sabina Păuța Pieslak has argued in multiple publications, the nationalist ideology to which the Romanian Communist Party especially later under Ceaușescu paid tribute to, had far-reaching implications for music performance and composition.11 The role of music was to foster the construction of the Romanian nation-state, and performances by musicians, such as the world famous Madrigal choir, had to propagate a Romanian national identity. Officials were, however, also extremely cautious not to allow exposure of the Romanian populace to any potential musical triggers for protests against the regime.12 The principal connotations of “Deșteaptă-te, Române” certainly suggest national identity as among its most prominent themes. Further complicating the issue, as writer and historian Lucian Boia has elaborated, the leading discourse in Communist Romanian politics shifted over time from an initial anti-nationalist phase, towards exacerbating nationalism from the 1970s onward.13
With all these factors in play, it seems that “Deșteaptă-te, Române” can be understood neither a solely “patriotic” or “revolutionary” song, nor as just a “symbol of freedom.” It is therefore my intention in this research not to endow meaning or value on the song beforehand, as this in the case of “Deșteaptă-te, Române” mostly relates to the moments it was of central importance (and even then, its meaning might have been altered over time). Much as the anthropologist Arjun Appadurai has shown in his study The Social Life of Things, I intend to follow the song as a “thing” itself. It is through the analysis of its trajectory that one can interpret and illuminate the social context in which this “thing” operates.14 “Deșteaptă-te, Române” is, in this sense, a “thing” best followed through discourse and framing. The way in which people interacted with the song and how they frame it in narratives will be used to reconstruct its “social life” in the Communist era. As Communism in Romania ended 25 years ago, this is by default retrospective framing. Memory, as famously put by oral historian Alessandro Portelli, “is not a passive depository of facts, but an active process of creation of meanings.”15 The story on “Deșteaptă-te Române” is affected by the
11
For these examples, see: Sabina Păuța Pieslak, “Romanians Madrigal Choir and the Politics of Prestige”, Journal of Musicological Research (2007), 26:1, 215-240; and: Sabina Păuța Pieslak, “Waves in the ‘Iron Curtain’: An Introduction to Music and Politics in 1960s Romania”, Musicology Australia (2010), 32:2, 227-242.
12 Păuța Pieslak, Romanians Madrigal Choir and the Politics of Prestige, 215-217, 230. 13
Boia, History and Myth in Romanian Consciousness, 77.
14 Arjun Appadurai (ed.), The Social Life of Things – Commodities in Cultural Perspective (Cambridge, 1986). 15 Quoted in Alistair Thomson, “Memory and Remembering in Oral History” in The Oxford Handbook of Oral
retrospective nature of people’s account on the song, as they tend create narratives. On the other hand, just because people make sense of their memories through narration and connecting of their experiences with its social context, their retrospective accounts could be all the more useful.16 That these memories are layered narratives should be kept in mind nonetheless.
For my research I am reliant on deep interviews I have conducted with Romanians living inside and outside of Romania between April and May 2015. In my methodology regarding research and interviewing, I lean on the principles of oral history, as famously outlined by Paul Thompson’s groundbreaking study “The Voice of the Past”.17 All interviews have been recorded on tape with the explicit consent of those interviewed. I have been observant not to force the answers, instead providing interviewees with open and clear questions, and interfering as little as possible while they elaborated their thoughts on the subjects about which I asked. The duration of the interviews differed between one and one-and-a-half hours, with mostly about five minutes of talking off-record before and after the interviews. The interviews have mostly been conducted in English and
Romanian, with one exception in Dutch, and the recordings have been kept for documentation purposes.18 In the search for interviewees, I have mostly been reliant on the snowball-effect and personalised introductions. I had three primary sources of connections, émigrés living in the Netherlands who connected me to their parents in Romania, connections with the Romanian Cultural Institute in Bucharest, and connections through the academic world. As a result, two of my interviewees have an academic background in history, and were well-versed in Romanian history. Their wider knowledge on the subject was taken into consideration and their answer critically assessed, as their backgrounds might colour their memory narratives. My other interviewees (have) had occupations in the industrial sector (three of them), IT, in one case the aforementioned cultural institute and a last one in journalism. Their backgrounds were likewise taken into consideration. My main criterion for selection was, nonetheless, that people had lived in Romania during the
Communist period and were old enough to have conscious memories of this period. To further embolden the findings of these deep interviews, I used written surveys and e-mail communication, albeit ultimately on a small scale. The surveys contained fifteen questions that touched upon the same subjects as those that were the fundamental issues for the interviews, and in most cases (though not all), I have been able to ask through on the answers given.19 The years of birth of my
16 Alistair Thomson, “Memory and Remembering in Oral History” in The Oxford Handbook of Oral History,
(Donald Ritchie ed.), (Oxford, 2010), 80.
17 Paul Thompson, The Voice of the Past – Oral History (3rd ed; Oxford, 2000) 18 Contact the author for consent of consultation of these records.
19
informants varied between 1942 and 1976, thus providing a broad scope to encompass the entire Communist era in Romania, which lasted from 1947 to 1989.
The “social life” of the song has many different facets that show overlap with each other at times but which are best to be illuminated one by one. Based on the interviews I have identified five frames of discourse wherein the song has a function. These are the themes within which I found answers on how people remember the song, and how they remembered it in the Communist era. The first frame concerns the popular narrative of “awakening” where I mean “popular” in the sense that this is a narrative related to the events in which the song was central. The academic discourse, as far as it exists, overlaps with this popular discourse. The theme is followed by nationalism in relation to “Deșteaptă-te, Române”. As I already implied above, this frame is especially compelling with regard to the Communist regime’s changing attitudes towards patriotism and nationalism. The next frame of public temperament is close to the former, but serves to identify how the song (re)gained its revolutionary connotations. Before finally turning to education, which had an unsuspected role in remembering the song, I turn to social practices such as singing, and how “Deșteaptă-te, Române” has appeared in that sense.
Chapter 1: Awakening; the popular narrative
As a starting point for the analysis of the narrative frames in which “Deșteaptă-te, Române” appears, I will first elaborate on the narrative in which the song is of central importance. What I have dubbed the ‘popular’ narrative, should be read as the narrative that relates to the meaning “Deșteaptă-te, Române” gained in the revolution of 1989. As noted in the introduction, the academic discourse on the subject is not very broad, and in that sense mostly overlaps with the popular linkage of the song with the revolutionary events. The framing of “Deșteaptă-te, Române” as a revolutionary song connected with uprisings against the Communist regime is the very reason its history before that moment is necessarily problematic.
It is worthwhile to take into deeper consideration the lyrics of the first strophe of
“Deșteaptă-te, Române,” which are the main verses concerned when it comes to the public singing of the song. As has been remarked already, during the two important revolts in the late 1980s when the song appeared, these were the lyrics sung.20 The lyrics stand open for a wide array of
interpretations, hence a deconstruction of the text is necessary for understanding the various meanings that are bestowed on it. The first bar, “Awaken Romanian, from the sleep of death”, can be aptly employed in numerous situations, as long as the recipient feels addressed as a Romanian. One might ask who a Romanian is, whether it is all people identifying ethnically Romanian, or whether it encompasses those who live within its boundaries and possess for instance a Romanian passport. The ‘sleep of death’ may denote passiveness, as well as unawareness, as if one is asleep whilst coming events are heralded by omens, “death” certainly suggests a strong negative
implication. Moreover, the following line of “In which you have been sunk by the barbaric tyrants” suggests that a force from outside implemented this ‘sleep of death’ on the Romanian, whereby ‘from outside’ does not necessarily mean from outside the land borders. It means outside of ‘us’, from what ‘we’ identify as an ‘other’. Needless to say, depending on how one would read these two lines, the ‘barbaric tyrants’ could for instance mean foreign Russian occupants, indigenous
Communist oppressors, or an ethnic minority perceived a threat. Who is identified as the ‘barbaric tyrant’ also defines who should be seen united as Romanians: in these examples, Romanian nationals, all anti-communists fighting the regime, and ethnic Romanians. The enemy defines the group of the self. The next two lines, “Now or never, create a new fate for yourself / To which even your cruel enemies will bow,” explore this idea further and add a new dimension to the first two lines. It is in these lines that a definite revolutionary tone enters. There is a need for change and it must be implemented now, urging action and unity in this effort. The ‘cruel enemies’, having to
20
‘bow’ to the new fate created for the, however loosely defined, Romanians also creates a sense of fighting or struggle in the creation of this new fate.
However potent the connotations that come with the lyrics of this first strophe, it is left to interpretation who the enemy is, not unlike the ambiguously defined Romanian that has to stand up and create a new fate. Later in the original poem, in the 8th strophe, the original enemies envisioned enter the scene through subtle references, namely the Turks and the Russians,21 and the Romanian nation is more directly named in the 4th strophe. However, these explicit references in the original lyrics, I suspect, did not have much resonance at the moment it was sung during the revolts in 1989. It is of course hard to verify, but most sources state that just the first bars of “Deșteaptă-te,
Române” were sung at these events, or make no statement about which verses were sung. These verses were also the original lyrics, with no adaptations.22 The ambiguity in the words I have demonstrated above, is most probably what made them so apt for the revolts against the Communist regime. In other words, the additional strophes were not so much needed for the meaning it was supposed to bear at that moment. Moreover, it might as well be for practical reasons, as a crowd of demonstrators is unlikely to memorise multiple strophes. The first strophe is enough to encourage people joining in, and transmits the message just as good.
The ambiguity in these verses, and the multitude of interpretations it allows, are further demonstrated by a 2009 article by Ion Boboc, who compares hidden meaning in European national anthems. He lists opinions on the national anthem held by a number of Romanian cultural
personalities (including primarily prominent historians and former dissidents). One of them held the opinion that the song “is not a hymn, but a fight song, which wants to wake up the Romanian softy (mămăliga românească)”. Another is noted for calling it “inappropriate” for this era, as a song about national awakening that was only relevant for the time in which it was written. The awakening theme also re-enters more loosely, as a third one calls it still relevant, as awakening “back to reality” is a message that always possesses a certain resonance.23 Boboc himself groups “Deșteaptă-te, Române” along anthems expressing “nostalgic heroism,” but notes this is bivalent in nature in the
21
"Didn't we have enough of the yatagan of the barbaric crescent / Whose fatal wounds we still feel today / Now the knout is intruding in our ancestral homes". (N-ajunge iataganul barbarei semilune / A cărui plăgi fatale și azi le mai simțim / Acum se vâră cnuta în vetrele străbune). The Turks are the ‘yatagan of the barbaric crescent’, the Russians are the ‘knout’ that is now intruding. They are represented by their weapons.
22
Ion Boboc, “Haideți, fii ai patriilor, zuia gloriei a venit... pentru schimbarea imnurilor naționale!” The Sphere of Politics (Sfera Politicii) (2009), 135:1, 80; ”Ne aducem aminte că la Revoluţia română din 1989, imnul naţional „Deşteaptă-te Române”, deşi nu mai fusese intonat de multă vreme, era cântat de cetăţeni pe străzi, cu versurile originale. [We remember that during the Romanian revolution in 1989, the national hymn “Deșteaptă-te Române’, that had not been sung for a long time, was sung by citizens on the streets with the original verses.]
23
Romanian anthem.24 These stances are expressed years after the revolution, and are taken by people who most probably have knowledge of the entire poem, but nonetheless it is telling how different the associations are that people have expressed in relation to “Deșteaptă-te, Române”. Foremost, many of the different ideas that are expressed about the song revolve around the theme of awakening. In that sense it is highly applicable.
Among my respondents, I have also noted these ideas about “Deșteaptă-te, Române” in connection to the revolutionary events of 1989. When asked plainly about the revolution and the meaning of the song during those days, most of them would start from the theme of awakening. This question was intended to be straightforward, so that the respondents would pick up this particular link. One of them for instance expressed the theme of awakening as follows:
Ionel: “Deșteaptă-te, Române” was an old hymn. It was the memory of the Romanian people. People sang it... the meaning of the hymn was very important to awake the national virtue of every man. Awaken, Romanian, it means, don’t stay asleep. Get up and fight against the Communists. That was the meaning of it.25
Ionel (1954), who has no academic background, knows the origins of the song, and when asked later on about it he elaborated on its original author and the setting in which it was originally written. In connection to the revolution, however, other connotations are more obvious. In calling “Deșteaptă-te, Române” the memory of the Romanian people, he expresses the song to have a sort of ageless meaning. Its importance was to awaken the Romanians from their sleep induced by the Communist regime, to stand up and fight against repressive forces. In connection to the uprisings against the regime he identifies “Deșteaptă-te, Române” as a song of protest.
In connection to the theme of awakening, this thread of protest is one of the most prevalent in what academics have written about the song. Deletant formulates this most clearly, when he describes the events of 16 December 1989 in Timișoara. From this city in the west of Romania, close to the Hungarian border, the revolutionary atmosphere soon spread all over the country. The revolts initially started with a small vigil organised by a Hungarian dissident priest, who was facing his forced eviction from his church. Enticing the strong popular support of his parishioners, this vigil grew out to a protest against his eviction, which in turn was joined by Romanians.26 After the Romanians
24
Ion Boboc, “Haideți, fii ai patriilor”, 88, 90-91.
25 Ionel Piruscă, interview by the author, tape recording, Houten, the Netherlands/Sfântu Gheorge, Romania,
April 15, 2015. “Deșteaptă-te Române a fost un imn vechi. Era memoria poporului român. Oameni îl cântau... Semnificația Imnului era foarte importante pentru că trezea valoarea națională a fiecare om. Deșteaptă-te Române, adică, nu mai dormi, ridică-te și luptă contra comunistilor. Ăsta a fost semnificația.”
26
joined, “Deșteaptă-te, Române” first made its appearance. Deletant mentions about the song: “Unknown to the Hungarian community, the song was an anthem of resistance to oppression and a sign that the Hungarian protest had now become a Romanian revolt.”27 He furthermore adds that “After the anthem came the first, bold cries of ‘Down with Ceaușescu!’, ‘Down with the regime!’ and ‘Down with Communism!’”28 This is an interesting sequence of events, as it ties the singing of “Deșteaptă-te, Române” directly with chanting unequivocal anti-regime slogans. The appearance of the song alongside such exclamations easily places it into the role of a protest song, which is the way it is mostly viewed when related to the turmoil of December 1989.
There also exist some particular stories about “Deșteaptă-te, Române” that boosted its gravity as a song of protest and opposition during the revolutionary period. Valer (1976), the museum manager who also wrote the short history of the song quoted in the Introduction, recalled the following story about the events in Timișoara. It was apparently told around during those days and afterwards, further strengthening the symbol that the song had become during these days:
Valer: In 1989 in Timișoara, when people were on the streets and everybody was shouting, okay, down with communism, down with Ceausescu, people started to sing Deșteaptă-te, Române. There were people shot in the front of the Orthodox cathedral in Timișoara during their singing. They were singing Deșteaptă-te, Române and they were shot by militia and army. There were more than 15 deaths on the stairs of the Orthodox cathedral, and everybody knew that they were singing Deșteaptă-te, Române. So that is one of the most strong reasons why this song transformed into the Romanian national anthem.29
Just as Deletant has remarked, in Timișoara people sang “Deșteaptă-te, Române” alongside their shouting of anti-regime slogans, which in itself endows strong meaning to the song. In this story, the singing of “Deșteaptă-te, Române” becomes a sacrifice as well. Blood had been shed, and the reason for that is identified as the singing of this particular song. There is no doubt that during the revolts in Timișoara, numerous casualties had fallen on the side of the protesters due the fighting with pro-government forces. Siani-Davies mentions that the grisly carnage had taken twenty-one lives around the Cathedral alone, in the city of Timișoara.30 He does not mention the singing of “Deșteaptă-te, Române” there, however. Valer himself, as a historian, has also written on these events, and he
27 Deletant, Romania under Communist Rule, 162. 28
Ibidem, 163.
29 Valer Rus, interview by the author, tape recording, Houten, the Netherlands/Brașov, Romania, April 27,
2015.
30
quotes the writer and journalist Rodica Palade in reference to them.31 More than whether it was the singing that was the reason for the shootings in Timișoara to occur, what is important when
reconstructing the popular narrative on the song was that “everybody knew that they were singing *it+”, as Valer added. This is the most striking aspect of the link created between the singing and the shooting. With a tale about the conjunction of shooting and singing “Deșteaptă-te Române” going around and being believed by people, the song gathered a sense of sacrifice and martyrdom around it. Indeed, it is not for nothing that the “Deșteaptă-te, Române” was adopted as the national anthem afterwards, as Valer believes. This fact adds more to the strong sense of resistance to the communist regime the song bears in the perspective of the revolutionary events.
The sense of sacrifice present in this narration of “Deșteaptă-te, Române”, was especially strong in the weeks directly after the revolution, which is logical given the high number of casualties. The official death toll of the events in all of Romania has been established at around 1000, but at the time the most commonly cited figure of deaths was 60,000.32 More in the sense of commemoration, the song was also important in efforts to remember those killed during the revolutionary events all over Romania. Maria Bucur (1968), also a historian, recalled in our interview her visit to a large meeting at the Bucharest’s Victory Square, on January 12, 1990. This day had been officially declared a day of national mourning for the victims of the revolution, hence demonstrators had thronged together on the streets and in churches, to end the day with a march to Victory Square, where the provisional government headquarters were.33 My interviewee recalled that:
Maria: Okay, in Victory Square, it is a very large space. It was very cold, and there were thousands of people there, but they were in pockets. So, what the media reported about the 12th of January was that a bunch of drunk people came and took over and vandalized the government building, right. None of the reality I saw around me was that, although when we were leaving we could see there were a lot more bottles trashed around. Which means, either people brought a lot of alcohol with them, or it was delivered there, you know what I’m saying. I don’t know how the alcohol made it there because there was a lot of it. But clearly there were people who were drunk, because... you can’t have that much alcohol without people being drunk. [laughs] But I didn’t see the action that they were talking about, so it was very localized, and it was very far from where I was, standing kind of in the middle of the square. However, there were people who were singing among that crowd,
31
Valer Rus, Povestea Imnului National (http://muzeulmuresenilor.ro/2013/09/03/povestea-imnului-national/) (retrieved: 5 June 2015).
32 Siani-Davies, The Romanian Revolution of 1989, 280. 33
te, Române”. It wasn’t my crew, it wasn’t the people I was sitting with, but there were some people who were singing around that. So that was the one incident that, towards the end, I didn’t participate, but it was definitely there. [...] My memory of that moment is that it was so cold that, I think of singing in that moment is, well, trying to keep warm. And at the same time making a political statement, because, “Deșteaptă-te, Române” at that moment was, I think, not just ‘let’s sing a song everybody knows’. It had a very clear political resonance in terms of what was happening around us, right. The notion that the NSF [National Salvation
Front – Frontul Salvării Naționale+ was meeting inside, and they were making decisions that
people were starting to fear were stealing the revolution, I remember people talking that already at that time. It was kind of a trigger to not let this moment slip away from the hands of [the protesters]. [...] The people that gathered on the 12th of January on the Victory Square, and that were connected to singing “Deșteaptă-te, Române”, were people that had been marching, some of them. [...] So the tail end of this day and the singing of “Deșteaptă-te, Române” was not out of nothing. It was all out of talking and marching and having a more religious style of commemorating. Like a ritual. [...] Singing of “Deșteaptă-te, Române” at that point was kind of turning from the dead to the living and saying, look, you were asleep at the wheel. These people died, what did they die for? If we don’t do anything now, and we let these people steal the revolution, it is as if we are dishonouring our dead.”34
The first thing Maria remarks about the gathering at the large square was that it actually was rather disorganised, with people cluttered in different smaller groups. These pockets of people had assembled in the same spirit, but were acting more or less independently from each other.
Moreover, the atmosphere of uncertainty during this period, a few weeks after the revolts, is clear through what she tells about the media depiction of the street movements. In a recent article by her hand, in which she relates to her personal experiences during the revolution, she explains that the media did not show the marches earlier that day and the largely peaceful protests on the square, but instead aired images of drunken people fighting.35 The National Salvation Front (NSF) which acted as a provisional government, initially with popular legitimacy, had by that time given more and more the impression that it was detached from the protesters and used the situation to advance its own political influence. It used the means to manipulate the news output on the sole Romanian TV channel and the main newspaper Adevărul.36 Maria suggests that the alcohol, too, might have been
34 Maria Bucur, interview by the author, tape recording, Houten, the Netherlands/Washington D.C., United
States of America, April 15, 2015.
35 Maria Bucur, “Being There. An Authobiographical Perspective on the 1989 Revolution in Romania”, The
Romanian Journal of Society and Politics (2015), 10:1, 19.
36
brought in deliberately for this kind of manipulation (the double meaning of it being delivered there is emphasised by the added interjection ‘you know what I’m saying’). It underlines the atmosphere of distrust towards the supposed representatives of the revolution, the NSF, by the protesters that had gathered on the square. That “Deșteaptă-te, Române” had been sung by some groups among those in the Victory Square, was partly for this reason, as Maria remarked. There was a clear feeling that the revolution had been stolen by the NSF, or was in risk of being stolen by them, as she remarks people spoke about that in those weeks already. Returning to the theme of awakening, the people had to “stay awake.” In addition to this, “Deșteaptă-te, Române” also followed on a day of commemorating the dead of the revolution. Singing the song at this partially commemorative event thus consolidated the place of the song at the heart of the revolution. It had become part of the ritual surrounding the revolution, and it was a symbol.
Resuming to the narrative frame in which “Deșteaptă-te, Române” is placed when related to the revolution of 1989, the theme that stands out especially is that of ‘awakening’. It is the most literal representation of the song, given its title and very first words. Connected to the theme of awakening in the revolutionary events is the sense of protest, sacrifice and commemoration. This meaning is mostly acquired just because it was sung at those pivotal moments in the revolution, it seems. The coupling of singing “Deșteaptă-te, Române” with shouting anti-regime slogans out on the street, the tales of blood offer around the song, all made the song a logical symbol of the revolution. In the weeks afterwards, commemorating the fallen “awakened” Romanians with this song was an obvious thing to do. It kept the spirit going, to not let the revolution be stolen. All these themes fall logically in place and rhyme with the lyrics. However, it is in this narrative that the song’s history in the Communist era is problematic. A song of such value, and bearing such seemingly clear
revolutionary undertones, could be a potential threat for the regime, at least insofar as one speaks of its meaning in the phase wherein it was (and arguably still is) central. Yet, the song had for a sustained part of its life not been so illuminated; this phase will be elucidated in the upcoming chapters.
Chapter 2: “Deșteaptă-te, Române” and nationalism
As has become clear in the preceding chapter, the lyrics of “Deșteaptă-te, Române” can be aptly interpreted in ways wherein the distinction between “us” and “others” plays a central role. One obvious narrative in which this function is central, is that of nationalism. “Deșteaptă-te, Române” has a distinct nationalist undertone, as explained previously, and it has also obtained other social meanings throughout its life. By nationalism in connection to the song, I mean the many different kinds of loyalties that could be grouped under a “national idea”. In the same manner as I have demonstrated with the ways in which the lyrics of “Deșteaptă-te, Române” can be interpreted, different “others” may bring about different group identities. Hence the national idea, at least the “us” people adhere to under this banner and the loyalties that go with it, is not a static concept. Even the narrative the Romanian state maintained regarding national identity, was subject to different interpretations throughout the Communist period. As Boia has written on the subject, the concept of the national state in Romanian society has been influenced by both the Stalinist idea of economic unification and the mystic idea of Romanian primordialism of the late Communist period.37 The state, though it assumes to have a monopoly on nationalism, is not the only entity that defines it. People hold different loyalties under that banner, and it is within the resulting fluid definition that I use it here.
When I discussed the role of “Deșteaptă-te, Române” during the revolution, in many of my interviews participants quickly shifted to the origins of the song. In that way, the narrative frame shifted from the central meaning the song had relating to the revolts of 1989, to a more historical understanding separated from those events. Most interviewees defined it as a song that
accompanied the independence struggle, a song that sought to unify Romanians. In that sense it was a nationalistic song. During one interview, with a woman and her husband, a discussion ensued when we talked about the initial meaning of the song. The husband, Vlad (1967), an IT worker, first explained how for him even in its initial meaning, the song employed symbolic nationalism,
combining icons such as kings who were never really united. The couple continued that:
Vlad: As such, it has no relevance historically, it is not built on historical truth. And you have to understand that the song was composed framed within the revolution of 1848.
Daniela: Yes, and with that related to the fight for independence.
Vlad: It is related to the wish of national unity of the Romanians. You know, nationalism, it was a universal movement in the 19th century. For example Germany, it is very close with
37
Romania, because the national state of Germany was founded in 1871. And, for Romania, the full Romania, the big Romania was in 1918. After seventy years from revolution. Daniela: Romania is usually the last! [laughs]38
By saying it had no historical relevance, Vlad and Daniela meant that the “people” addressed beforehand were named together in a specific strophe of the song to suggest the unity of the Romanians. The poem made use of historical figures in a way which also occurred in the nationalist discourse of the time.39 Vlad addresses the unification of Romanians from Transylvania, Moldavia and Wallachia as the initial purpose of “Deșteaptă-te, Române.” These three historical regions, now all part of Romania, were at that time still under different rulers: Transylvania was a part of the Austrian Empire while Moldavia and Wallachia were vassals of the Ottoman Empire.40 The revolution of 1848 was in the spirit of the struggle for independence and the purpose of national unification, and “Deșteaptă-te, Române” was written amidst the events. Initially, the song was meant as a symbol of Romanian national unification along the lines of 19th century nationalism elsewhere in Europe. It is telling that Vlad names the example of Germany, as this was also a case of nationalism which sought to unite a people living apart. After the First World War, Romania’s unification was finally brought about in the form of Greater Romania (România mare), encompassing also other historical regions like Bessarabia and Bucovina. The wording Vlad uses at first but then later corrects, ‘the full Romania’, shine on the fact that this Greater Romania did indeed bring all ethnic Romanians together in one country.41 Daniela responds to her husband’s explanations by saying Romania is usually the last. This refers to a quite common self-identification of passivity,42 but also denotes that this unification is understood by them as strictly related to 19th-century European nationalism.
We might see this unifying nationalism as the original context in which “Deșteaptă-te, Române” emerged. In the year of 1918, when unification was becoming reality, the song is said to
38
Vlad Ulieriu & Daniela Ulieriu, interview by the author, tape recording, Houten, the Netherlands / București, Romania, May 15, 2015. VU: “Adică n-are nicio relevanță nici istorică, n-are în spate nici vedere adevăr istoric. Și trebuie să înteleg că acest cântec a fost compus împrejmuia revoluția pașoptistă” DU: “Da, și cu care legătură cu război de independențe.” VU: “Are legătură cu dorința de unitate naționale a românilor.” [continued in English]
39 See: Boia, History and Myth in Romanian Consciousness, 39-42; Boia discusses the myth of Michael the Great
here, one of the historical kings Vlad also addressed. This king is often perceived a unifier of Romanians, for he was the only one to rule over the three regions, be it for just one year. The years around the 1848 revolution, this king transfigured from a Christian hero to a symbol of Romanian unity. This happened through the work nationalistic writers, such as Nicolae Bălcescu, a leader of the 1848 revolution in Wallachia.
40
Kurt W. Treptow (ed.), A History of Romania (New York, 1996), 255.
41 Greater Romania also included a range of other ethnic groups, most notably Hungarians and Germans. The
actual percentage of ethnic Romanians in Greater Romania was only 71.9% in the 1930 census.
42
have again been sung at various occasions.43 However, when “Deșteaptă-te, Române” returned to prominence in nationalist discourses near the end of the interwar period, it became employed for other reasons, as Valer notes in our interview that:
Valer: So in 1940... started this Nazi dictatorship, from October 1940 to January 1941 in Romania was abolished democracy, and we had this dictatorship ruled by legionaries, the Nazi wing of the Romanian political parties. It was the legion of Archangel Mihail, Michael, and Romanians know these guys as the ‘legionări’. We know that every morning the national radio in Bucharest started its news broadcasting with “Deșteaptă-te, Române”. So it was very challenging and provocative, but in that period probably this rise up was against Russians, against Bolsheviks, against Jews... Romanians have had this very unfortunate history of anti-Semitism, and this, “Deșteaptă-te, Române” was against everybody else.44
Valer spoke about these events from the position of a historian, which is why he uses phrases as ‘we know that *...+’. The legionary government he spoke about was an alliance of the fascist Iron Guard party and the army, under the formal leadership of the young king Michael, though the latter had no actual power. This might be why the legion was named after Archangel Michael, to endow it with legitimacy. The legionary government was backed by Nazi Germany, as was the military dictatorship that later emerged when the army put down the legionaries and took over complete control in 1941.45 Nonetheless, as Valer remarks about the usage of “Deșteaptă-te, Române” in the radio broadcasts, the message it sent to the Romanian populace was certainly tainted with the idea of fighting against the threat from the East and the perceived threat from within. In Romanian politics at the time, fighting against domestic communists was in a sense also fighting “others”. The
Romanian Communist Party, which existed in the interwar period, was especially successful in attracting members among the minorities in the country, notably Jews and Hungarians.46 Valer himself bestows emphasis on this connection by remarking that the song was played ‘every
morning’, and that this move was challenging and provocative. “Deșteaptă-te, Române” was against everybody else, he said, and at that time it certainly was. I think we can read this as well in the sense that it could be against everybody else, depending on who uses it. The usage of “Deșteaptă-te, Române” by the legionary government can be rather clearly seen as a move to call people to stand up and fight against their enemies; Bolsheviks, Jews, and national minorities.
43 Valer Rus, Povestea Imnului National,
(http://muzeulmuresenilor.ro/2013/09/03/povestea-imnului-national/) (retrieved: 10 June 2015).
44 Valer Rus, interview by the author, april 27, 2015.
45 Robert R. King, History of the Romanian Communist Party (1980, Stanford), 13-14. 46
Though it is improbable that all people adhered this interpretation even at that time, it adds to the different nationalist connotations of the song. Another interviewee, Cristina (1963), told me about an event that shows clearly how ambiguous nationalist interpretations of the song could be:
Cristina: I didn’t know in those days [under Communism], but later on [after 1989] I heard it was also sung after the Nazi’s were... on the 23rd of august, when Romania turned *its+ back against the Nazi’s, you know, in 1944. They said that the Romanians also sang this song. But I’m not sure if that is right or not. So when another change happened. A major change.47
After the fall of Communism Cristina had heard that “Deșteaptă-te, Române” was sung when the Romanian government switched sides in the war after a coup d’état against the military dictatorship. This dictatorship under Marshal Antonescu was collaborating with Nazi Germany more than it was fascist in itself.48 Nevertheless, with the toppling of Antonescu’s government, the Romanian state turned its war effort against Nazi Germany, in alliance with the Allied Powers, including the Soviet Union. This places “Deșteaptă-te, Române” in an antagonistic interpretation within the same frame of nationalism. Another part of the populace could sing this song as well with a meaning far removed from when the legionaries used the song three years prior. Even if the story Cristina mentions is not based on facts (the English and Romanian Wikipedia entries do mention it, though lacking any further reference), this is a way that some people remember the song. “Deșteaptă-te, Române” could in a nationalist narrative also be framed as national liberation from fascists, as well as national awakening for a fascist cause. Its use is highly ambiguous in that respect.
Under Communism
Valer: And after that... that’s why I suspect it is one of the reasons why this song was not very much enjoyed by the Communists. Because they remember that during this legionary government everyday somebody sang “Deșteaptă-te, Române” with a very specific target: Communists, Russians and Jews. And probably somebody made this parallel between “Deșteaptă-te, Române” and extreme nationalist wing in Romanian political history.49
When the communists within three years after the Second World War seized complete control of Romania, “Deșteaptă-te, Române” became most probably completely marginal. In the quote above,
47
Cristina Madgearu, interview by the author, tape recording, Houten, the Netherlands/București, Romania, May 28, 2015.
48 King, History of the Romanian Communist Party, 13-14. 49
Valer suggests that the anti-Communist stance which was expressed through the song at the time of the legionary government was one of the main reasons to ban it from the public sphere. The parallel he talks about is certainly easily made. The Communists in Romania had been the very enemies of the legionaries, and additionally, communism stood ideologically for internationalism, which meant anti-nationalism in Communist Romania’ early years.50 Cristina also remarked on the ban in an interesting way:
Cristina: You know when, the Russians came in the forties, and they stayed until the fifties, 58 I think. And the politics, the Communist politics was anti-national. It was all nationalist, it was after Ceausescu came and this was his idea. But during all those years, these old patriotic songs were forbidden, I remember that my mother told me. They weren’t even allowed to learn Romanian literature. My mother was studying, at Romanian, when they had Romanian classes and studied literature, they studied Russian literature in Romanian. And then, they had to learn Russian, and they studied it again in Russian! [laughs] Yes, it must have been forbidden until the early sixties.51
Like some other interviewees have explained, Cristina names the anti-national phase of the Romanian Communist government as the main reason for the ban on the song, alongside other patriotic songs. More compelling is that she links the ban strongly with Russians. I have encountered the idea of a Russian occupation of Romania during the first years after the war numerous times during my interviews. It is certain that the Soviet Union dominated Romanian politics immediately after the war, and that it sought, with success, to implement a Stalinist Communist state in the country.52 There were indeed Red Army troops present on Romanian soil, though Romania was the
first Warsaw Pact country to arrange their withdrawal in 1958.53 Nevertheless, Russia makes a striking appearance in the ban on “Deșteaptă-te, Române.” Cristina provides another example of what kind of national expressions were forbidden in that era. Here she consistently frames Romanian expressions as opposed to Russian ones. The underlying theme seems to be that
“Deșteaptă-te, Române” could not be sung because it would offend the Russians. In other words, in this framing, Russia is the enemy against whom the song is directed. I should stress that she has not lived in that period herself, so it is a narrative she builds on things her mother told her, and her supposition of what the song is about.
50 Boia, History and Myth in Romanian Consciousness, 72-73. 51
Cristina Madgearu, interview by the author, May 28, 2015.
52 Deletant, Romania Under Communist Rule, 55-59.
53 Johanna Granville, “Dej-a-vu: Early Roots of Romania’s Independence”, East European Quarterly (2009) 42:4,
Regardless whether it was Russian implementation or an ideological constraint, it took until the 1960s for “Deșteaptă-te, Române” to resurface, which was most likely linked to the return of national factors to the centre stage. At this point, however, the song was only partially rehabilitated, for it seemed to remain absent from the public domain (to which I return in the following chapter). I asked Valer about his interpretation as a historian on changes in the status of the song:
Valer: I don’t know specifics... but as far as we know, until 1965, the year when Ceaușescu became the leader of the communist party, this communist movement had a stronger internationalist character, more than after that. In 1965, and in the last years of Gheoghe Gheorghiu-Dej already started this idea of communism with a Romanian flavour. And of course, this Romanian flavour was given by our national identity. So in this context, I suppose that until 1965, this song was strictly forbidden, and after that, as I told you, [...] people were allowed to speak about this figure, Andrei Mureșanu. He was part of Romanian old literature history.54
When Valer said he knows no specifics, was referring to “Deșteaptă-te, Române” in particular, so he relates it to what is known about the character of Communist politics in Romania for his answer. He mentioned earlier the anti-Communist connotations the song could carry, and here suggests that the internationalist character of early Communist Romania added to its prohibition. More importantly, he thinks the exaltation of the Romanian national identity in state politics drew “Deșteaptă-te, Române” out of its strictly forbidden position. As I mentioned at the start of this chapter, the nationalist discourse of the state shifted to a recovery of the national history or, as Valer put it, Romanians were allowed to learn about historical Romanian figures unrelated to communism. Internationalism had been abandoned publicly in a statement on Romanian independence in 1964.55 In this light, Romanian historical figures were rehabilitated, like the author of the poem “Deșteaptă-te, Române”, Andrei Mureșanu. It is thus likely that the same kind of rehabilitation took place for his work. This remains a rather vague point, though, as only about half of my interviewees actually learned the song in a non-clandestine way, through state education. Valer only learned about Andrei Mureșanu, for instance, and not “Deșteaptă-te, Române” itself. Nonetheless, the changed state attitude on nationalism lifted the ban on the song at least in part, marking the other way around its nationalistic connotations.
54
Valer Rus, interview by the author, April 27, 2015.
55 Boia, History and Myth in Romanian Consciousness, 73; This move was mainly directed against the
dominance of the Soviet Union, see: Dennis Deletant, “’Taunting the Bear’: Romania and the Warsaw Pact, 1963-89”, Cold War History (2007), 7:4, 495-507.
For some more interpretations on the nationalist ideas carried out in “Deșteaptă-te, Române”, I asked the interviewees who brought up this topic for their thoughts about it. There seems to be a subconscious understanding that the song has a nationalist meaning. One respondent explained that “unfortunately besides the revolutionary context, for some Romanians the song was an inspiration for nationalism. It is still strong in the sense of intolerance to minorities.”56 Minority issues entered in the discussion with Vlad and Daniela. In a continuation of their discussion on the original meaning of the song, they told me:
Vlad: From a historical point of view... I really don’t know because I have never studied or I never was interested in this hymn, but I think this hymn is related to Romanians who live in Transylvania. I know very well the subject related to relations between Romanians and Hungarians, because I am from a mixed [family]. For example, my grandmother from my father’s side, who was born in 1905, told me that in 1848, her grandfather was shot by Hungarians. That was very... He was shot in this way. The Hungarians came in the village, and took all the [Romanian] men... all men above 14 years of age (toți bărbați mai în vârstă de, mai mare de 14 ani). They took them in the forest and shot, all [of them], independent of the age, and all that. And my grandmother was very nationalistic and very against the Hungarians... [...]
M.R.: And she used to sing it?
Vlad: No, but I think the song was related to the relations between Romanians and Hungarians in Transylvania.
Daniela: I don’t think it is related to the Hungarians. It is related to the Turks. It says [Daniela
reads the 8th strophe]: ‘Didn’t we have enough of the knives of the barbaric crescent
(semilune)’. Semilune is the Ottoman Empire. So, you see? Because my husband is from Transylvania, he has all the time an obsession when something about the Hungarians shows up. I think it was more about the Turks than about the Hungarians.57
Both Vlad and Daniela express their own opinions about it, in Vlad’s case even admitting that he has not studied the subject. Actually, the absence of background knowledge makes the feeling on the meaning of “Deșteaptă-te, Române” all the more pure when Vlad explains his thoughts on the relations between Romanians and Hungarians. It is based on the stories told to him by his
grandmother, his mixed background, and ideas about the nature and origin of the song. The song
56 Ioan (surname known by the author, undisclosed), personal communication based on survey. 57
Vlad Ulieriu & Daniela Ulieriu, interview by the author, May 14, 2015: Daniela: “Nu cred că e legată de Unguri... E legat de Turci. Zice; N-ajunge iataganul barbarei semilune. Semilune e imperiul Otoman. Deci, vezi? Pentru că soțul meu fiind din Transilvania, are tot timp o obsesie ca veni ceva Unguri. Cred că era pentru Turci mai mult pentru Unguri.”
seemingly has a strong suggestion of nationalism, which is why he frames it in a narrative of conflict between Romanians and Hungarians in Transylvania, including a striking example. Daniela, though rebutting his statement, also frames “Deșteaptă-te, Române” in a narrative of conflict. She identifies another enemy, however. Her argument focuses more on the text and the past context than Vlad’s, which possesses a present dimension, namely the fact that there is still a sizable Hungarian minority in Transylvania, which from time to time is a factor of conflict.58
The Hungarian minority was named with regard to the forbidden status of “Deșteaptă-te, Române” as well. One interviewee from Vaslui, Moldavia, responded on my assumption that the song had been forbidden in the following way:
Silvano: Who told you it was forbidden? From which region? [I explained I spoke with people
from Transylvania] There is a national problem with Hungarians here. Magyars, it is a
problem here. Maybe it was [forbidden] in the respective zone.59
Silvano (1956) not only expressed surprise when I told him I thought the song was forbidden, he also related this to regional factors. It is especially telling that he asked me first from which region the people came, as apparently the idea that this might play a role was not a strange or sudden thought. In saying that it could have been forbidden in the region where these problems are, that is
Transylvania, he also indicates that he does not know whether it actually was that way. It is a suggestion, something he thinks logical, hence his answer points at the suggestion of nationalism in “Deșteaptă-te, Române”. There is another layer of thought beneath the song, linking it to
nationalism, which could explain why people understand “Deșteaptă-te, Române” as being necessarily in conflict with minorities.
Valer summed this unconscious knowledge up in the following way:
Valer: When Romanians have problems, they remembered: ‘okay, we have this song, stronger than all other songs, and it’s about us, about awakening, about fighting. Bellum
omnium, war against everybody else, against enemies. It is a very political myth, the myth of
the besieged fortress. Every politician needs some enemies, and this song is very useful in this kind of context. That’s why we have a lot of voices, specifically in the civil society, they claim
58 See for example the 1993 publication by Human Rights Watch: Helsinki Watch (ed.), Struggling for Ethnic
Identity: Ethnic Hungarians in Post-Ceausescu Romania (1993, New York/Washington/Los Angeles/London).
59 Silvano Budacea, interview by the author, tape recording, Houten, the Netherlands/Vaslui, Romania, April
14, 2015: “Cine te-a spus că era interzis? Din ce regiune?” [...] “La noi este o problemă națională cu Ungurii, maghiari, e o problemă aici. Poate era [interzis] la zona respectivul.”
that it is not anymore time for this kind of national anthem. As, of course, when you hear it, your first impulse is to grab a gun and shoot some enemies. [laughs]60
In the way he spoke about the song, he put a strong emphasis on its rhetoric of fighting along with the sense of awakening. As before, he frames the song in a way that it was against all enemies, and here he indicates explicitly that this means possibly all enemies. The song is very useful for politicians in need of enemies, and it fits that narrative all too well. The remarks he makes about how
politicians use the song, to fuel the fires of a ‘besieged fortress’ myth, begs the question of whether this is just politics or whether it is in a sense present in the song itself. From his remarks about civil society it can be deduced that the presence of a narrative of national conflict is most probably perceived by people voicing their doubts about “Deșteaptă-te, Române”. Valer’s last remark is especially strong, though there might be a touch of irony in it. Nevertheless, he seems adamant that “Deșteaptă-te, Române” allows for a strong feeling of opposition against essentially any kind of enemy.
The point of view held by Valer coincides with what I have found in statements of other respondents. In different ways, “Deșteaptă-te, Române” is framed in a narrative of conflict on the basis of nationality. The manner in which some of my interviewees linked “Deșteaptă-te, Române” to an enemy narrative against Russians or Hungarians, seems to imply that the song is necessarily in conflict with perceived “non-Romanians”. It is as if “Deșteaptă-te, Române” needs, even seeks enemies. There is what I would dub a ‘nationalist suggestion’ present in the song, the suggestion being that it represents a nationalist sentiment in more than one strict definition. From what I have found in the answers quoted in this chapter, it is more that people presume that the song is about nationalism and nationalist conflict. That they would understand it in such a way is comprehensible from the usage of “Deșteaptă-te, Române” in the pre-Communist past. As easily as it fits the nationalist aims of politicians, it is also interpreted by people who would, on basis of their own knowledge of or experience with such national problems, combine the two. That the song bears these strong nationalistic connotations, was certainly problematic before internationalism was rejected in 1964. The seemingly ambiguous stance of the state after that point might denote that it had more apt or, secure means to transmit its nationalist imagery. In that light, people would probably feel no need for yet another nationalist song. That is, until “Deșteaptă-te, Române” would gain meaning to rally people together against another type of enemy.
60
Chapter 3: “Deșteaptă-te, Române” and public temperament
“Singing had a nationalist meaning in the public. In the private *“Deșteaptă-te, Române”+ was about Ceausescu's tyranny and in the public it has a historical meaning.”61
The above quote by one of my respondents segues nicely from the topic of nationalism to what I have dubbed ‘public temperament’. Under this term I group such sentiments as anti-authority and anti-communist temperament, or more loosely defined populist feelings which go against authority. “Deșteaptă-te, Române” appears in different ways within this frame. What I intend to enlighten in this chapter is the subversive uses of the song, from singing it secretly to utilising it in revolt and dissent. As the above quotation suggests, different meanings could co-exist, but the song’s meaning in different contexts could also easily undergo radical shifts. Before I turn to probably the most striking shift of meaning in the life of “Deșteaptă-te, Române”, we must first revisit the early
Communist years. The forbidden status of the song returns in the frame of public temperament as a song which bore several meanings, above all in secrecy.
The older interviewees, from the generation that grew up in the late 1940s and 1950s, had specific recollections about “Deșteaptă-te, Române”. When asked if they knew the song before the revolution, or when it appeared before 1989, the older respondents all indicated to have learned it from their parents, and in one case their grandparents. For example Mihail (1943), a Romanian émigré living in the Netherlands since 1982, shared his childhood memories about the song:
Mihail: Yes, *I knew it+ from my mother, she knew about *“Deșteaptă-te, Române”+. She knew the melody and the words. I did learn some of the words, but... the melody too, but, you know, children...
M.R.: So, when you were young?
Mihail: Yes, young. And it was like, you should not sing that in public, and you may not speak about it. And Free Romania [Radio Free Europe], that were the broadcasts of the Germans, in Romanian. You heard all kinds of news, yes, that was not known in Romania, but it was in Germany, and that radio program told everything. And about that, you also was not allowed to talk with others. [...] Shut up and move along. It was a reign of terror, actually... But apart from that, well, I have not suffered much from it. Yes, shut up and move along...
M.R.: “Deșteaptă-te, Române” was a kind of secret song? Mihail: Yes, let’s say, it was a voice in the dark days. M.R.: Did you sing it solely with your family?
61
Mihail: Only at home, not with others. I cherished the freedom... But oh, that is so long ago, young man!62
Mihail learned both the lyrics and the melody of “Deșteaptă-te, Române” from his mother during his youth. One day after the interview I met him again in person, and he told me he had since looked up the song on the internet, and that he had remembered the lyrics correctly after all. His assumption that he had probably forgotten because he was a child (‘but you know, children...’, and his last remark in the quotation above) might indicate that he did not hear much of the song later on, when he was older. I had asked him whether had had sung “Deșteaptă-te, Române” himself as well, to which he replied “ah, I did not have a voice for singing, so I did not. No, it would be disastrous if I were to sing!”63 Though he said this jokingly, the singing of “Deșteaptă-te, Române” could have had for himself a less prominent meaning than it had for his parents. It was not worth risking his freedom for. This “voice in the dark days” was for him probably a cherished childhood memory, but without a profound understanding of for what the song stood. What he made very clear, however, was that it was a strictly private and secret practice. He brings up Radio Free Romania (Europe) as a
comparison. The song was as secret as the broadcast, as one could not talk about it without risking his or her freedom. Mihail frames having learnt “Deșteaptă-te, Române” to the secrecy of the early years of Communism, but also in a sense to freedom. That the song was like a “voice in the dark days” signifies this aspect.
Another older interviewee, Ionel (1954) also talked about the meaning the song had for him when he learned it as a child. I asked him if he had heard “Deșteaptă-te, Române” before the revolution, to which he responded that:
Ionel: Before the revolution there was, of course, the repressive system. It was very strong. I have heard the hymn, personally I have heard it from my parents... from the older people. In general, I heard it most in my own family. When I was young, I did not know the meaning. I was in kindergarten, in school, the first class... I could not realize what it meant. When I
62 Mihail Avramescu, interview by the author, tape recording, Houten, the Netherlands, May 22, 2015. All
translations from the Dutch are my own, except where mentioned otherwise.
“Ja, door mijn moeder, die wist *kende+ het al. Die wist het, de melodie en de woorden. Ik heb wat woorden geleerd maar..., ook de melodie, maar ja... kinderen.” *...+ “Ja, jong. En dat was van, ja, dat moet je niet in het publiek zingen, en je mag ook niet praten over *Deșteaptă-te, Române]. En Vrij Roemenië, dat waren
uitzendingen van de Duitsers, in het Roemeens... En daar hoorde [je] allerlei nieuws. Ja, dat was in Roemenië niet bekend, maar wel in Duitsland, en die [zender] vertelde alles. En daar mocht je dus ook niet over praten met anderen. [...] Mond houden en doorlopen, het was schrikbewind eigenlijk. Maar verder, ach, ik heb er weinig last van gehad. Ja, mond houden, en doorlopen.” *...+ “Ja, een stem in de donkere dagen, laat ik maar zeggen.” *...+ “Alleen thuis, niet met een andere. Ik had de vrijheid lief. Maar dat is lang geleden jongeman!”
63 Ibidem, “Ah, ik had geen stem voor zingen, dus dat heb ik niet gedaan. Nee, dat was een ramp als ik ging
