COURAGE

connecting collections

This photograph, selected to demonstrate the photographic dimension of the Andrei Partoş–Radio Vacanţa-Costineşti Private Collection, shows the soloist Alexandru Andrieş during a live broadcast, alongside Andrei Partoş and one of his radio colleagues, Lilian Zamfiroiu, director of the Romanian Cultural Institute from 2013 to 2015 and currently Romanian ambassador in Luxembourg. Together with the discussions held in real time, it was mainly the music played on Radio Vacanţa-Costineşti that marked out the coordinates of a youth culture that did not align itself with the rigid demands of the age. This is emphasised by Andrei Partoş: “When I was talking to the microphone, live, I tried to be as free as I could. Of course, self-censorship operated. But I said many things in a two-edged way. And above all, I let the music speak instead of me. Music seemed to me the best way to transmit subliminal messages and, basically, to be subversive.”

The image in the photograph epitomises the live and implicitly uncensored concertos, which Radio Vacanța Costinești used to broadcast during the entire summer holiday season. Taking into account that the young people represented the exclusive audience in this resort of the Union of the Communist Youth in Romania, these concerts featured those pop singers who were the most popular among people with ages between fourteen and thirty. From among the recurrently invited guests at Radio Vacanța Costinești before 1989, Alexandru Andrieş was one of the most pleasing presences on Radio Vacanţa-Costineşti. He used to sing a genre of music which was improperly called muzică folk (in verbatim translation – folk music) and usually promoted as a phoney alternative music through the so-called Cenaclul Flacăra (in verbatim translation – The Flame Literary Circle). It is worth noting that Cenaclul Flacăra, which court poet Adrian Păunescu initiated as a non-conformist literary circle, had become by the late 1970s a frame for organising, under the disguised tutelage of the party, allegedly subversive song-and-poetry performances for young people, which were in fact meant to manipulate their rebellious nature (Petrescu 2010, 304–307). Unlike other soloists of muzică folk who used to perform during the Cenaclul Flacăra shows, Andrieş was not favoured in official circles, due to the really subversive political message of his songs (which he wrote and sang himself). He sang live for hours on Radio Vacanţa-Costineşti, although many of the pieces he composed and performed were banned. Among other songs, he performed live the famous “Today again, on the News,” a satirical song about those times of severe shortages: “Today again / On the News / I saw cheese. / I watched / The programme too / But it didn’t appear again / Although I waited / Till the end. / But no matter, / Tomorrow again / On the News / I’m going to see cheese.” This was a harsh satire directed at the pre-1989 regime, in a period when Romania faced serious economic problems and basic foodstuffs were rationed.

The photograph shows another dimension of “alternative” musical culture. Like the group Phoenix, which was also very popular among young people because of their ethno-rock with subversive messages, Alexandru Andrieş illustrates the “unofficial,” alternative element of Romanian musical production before 1989. Especially urban educated young people, who were capable to grasp the encrypted critical messages of the verses, preferred this type of music, alongside clandestinely recorded Western music. 

The “Festivals of the Sea” were the quintessence of the artistic and sporting programmes organised in the Costineşti resort before 1989. They represented a sort of festival of festivals and competitions that lasted continuously for forty-eight hours. Without exception, they took place in the last weekend of August, in order to mark the end of the summer holiday and the inevitable return to “real” life until the next season of “alternative” events. The Andrei Partoș – Radio Vacanța-Costinești Private Collection includes a consistent corpus of photographs taken during the extremely popular “Festivals of the Sea,” from among which several samples can be seen on this registry.

One of the most appreciated moments of the programme consisted of the Rock Galas, a marathon rock concert (quite an uncommon event in those times) in which the most famous groups of the day took part. Rock music had a marginal status in communist society, being perceived as a substratum that was subversive towards the regime. The “Book of Records,” which is another featured item of this collection, also played a role in these festivals. This document was continually being added to during the summer season, but the “Festivals of the Sea” marked the culminating moments of these unconventional competitions. Both the competitions themselves – which were unusual and very engaging – and their presentation on Radio Vacanţa-Costineşti enjoyed a high level of interest on the part of young people in the Costineşti resort.

Nevertheless, the star element of the “Festivals of the Sea” was the comedy troupe Divertis, led by Toni Grecu. This group made a name for itself with humorous sketches at the limits of what could be accepted by the communist regime. The memory of their performances of that time still endures today. They were also the organisers of a parade in which the god Neptune, with features and speech that were explicitly ironic and modernist, arrived in the resort and directed the proceedings.

In 1989, there was even a very serious Securitate investigating in connection with certain aspects of the programme of the “Festivals of the Sea.” Silviu Petcu, a member of the Divertis troupe, who played the role of the god Neptune every year, recalled this episode in a public intervention after 1989: “We were putting on the ‘Festivals of the Sea’ at Costineşti. There was a tour by Neptune that was broadcast from the beach. Mr Andrei Partoş was witness to this event; he made programmes on Radio Vacanţa. And an hour or two before Neptune arrived, we presented the journey of Neptune by sea. Some short texts, of four or five minutes, had to be written. It happened that that summer Ceauşescu was away abroad, and we chose to transmit precisely from the countries where he had gone, countries in Asia and Africa. Neptune was a sort of Ceauşescu. We talked about African rituals, etc. And someone let on about it. The Securitate people came the next morning to take the tapes. But Partoş got a tip-off by phone and he recorded folk music over the sketches. We always had someone protecting our backs. The people from the UTC [Uniunea Tineretului Comunist – Union of Communist Youth], the police, and even the Securitate, who were more open, realised it was stupid to be heavy-handed with us, because we were just making some jokes.” The episode is confirmed by Andrei Partoş: “That’s how it was. We had to destroy some cassettes. Something very nasty could have come out of that episode.”

There was also a winter version of these cultural-artistic programmes: the “Festivals of the Snow” in Izvorul Mureșului/ Marosfő resort in Harghita county. Their format was largely inspired by that of the “Festivals of the Sea.” At several of them, the star presenter was also Andrei Partoş.

The poster gives details of two extraordinary concerts held on 10 and 11 May 1985 by some of the most appreciated rebel artists and rock groups of that period. Among the participants were the bands Roșu și Negru (“Red and Black”), Hardton, Post Scriptum, Celelalte cuvinte (“The Other Words”), Compact, Progresiv TM, Vali Sterian și Compania de Sunet, (“Vali Sterian and the Sound Company”), and the soloists Florian Pittiș and Alexandru Andrieș. All these participants were in the grey zone of tolerance admitted by the communist regime in Romania, and numbered among those that the younger generation considered nonconformist in comparison with the musical landscape of the period. The poster is not spectacular: on a white background, the text is printed in two colours, red and blue. The rock concerts announced by this poster were held in the Polyvalent Hall. Completed in 1974 and inaugurated under the name of “Palace of Sport and of Culture,” this hall was the largest performance space in Romania at the time, with a capacity of over 5,000 places. At both concerts, the auditorium was completely packed, due to the fact that they brought together an unusually large number of stars of nonconformist music. Such concerts with a very large audience posed a particular problem for the communist authorities, who were afraid that any crowd gathered at a performance might turn into a collective protest against the economic crisis, which was weighing more and more heavily on the population of Romania. The moment at which the concerts took place is also significant, because 1985 marked a turning point. On the one hand, for fear of revolt, such shows with large numbers of stars were not organised again after this event. On the other, the years that followed up until 1989 were the most difficult for the majority of people in communist Romania, who saw the growing discrepancy between their daily lives and those of people not only in the West but also in all the other communist countries.

The concert poster giving details of the concerts that were to be held as part of the first Jazz Festival in communist Romania is one of the earliest in the Mihai Manea collection. It is almost half a century old; it dates from 1969 and is preserved in very good condition. The poster provides concert information for the days of 4, 5, and 6 April 1969, when a series of jazz performances took place in the Philharmonic Hall in Ploieşti. Among the participants were a number of prestigious groups and artists in the genre from various places in Romania, who gathered for an exceptional show at a jazz festival that was very well-known and appreciated in communist Romania. Among them were the Richard Oschanitzki quartet and the Ștefan Berindei sextet, both from Bucharest, Jazz Club from Roman, Big Band from Cluj-Napoca (at the time simply named Cluj), the Choralys octet from Constanţa, the Robert Kovacs trio and the Robert Movsessian trio, both from Ploiești, the Free Jazz trio from Timișoara, and the soloists Elena Constantinescu and Aura Urziceanu. The concert poster is printed on thick paper and has a white background on which horizontal yellow lines are discretely traced. The text is placed within a well marked frame and is in the two colours that are most common in the Mihai Manea collection: red and blue. The quality of the poster, even if it is not extraordinary, contrasts with that of those from later years, which were printed on paper of worse and worse quality and became less and less elaborate from an aesthetic point of view.

A Securitate report contains information about a bunch of leaflets which were found somewhere near the Timpuri Noi (Modern Times) factory in Bucharest. The Securitate report says that the manifestos were found on 10 May 1977, in fact four days after Goma’s release. However, the date it is not randomly chosen because this was Romania’s National Day before communist rule, which was significant because it symbolised the Royal Family of Romania, which was forced into exile by the communist authorities. The Securitate officers noted that the pieces of paper were found by some workers in a small perimeter, between two factories situated quite close to the city centre. The report states very clearly that manifestos like these were not found in other neighbourhoods or out of the city. The little hand-made manifestos contained the following text: “To the Romanian state: We ask for the release of Paul Goma and those who are under arrest. We ask for respect of Human Rights! Respect the Constitution of Romania in accordance with the Helsinki Final Act. We want freedom!” Two of these leaflets have been preserved in the original in the CNSAS Archives. These leaflets illustrate that the impact of the Goma movement on Romanian society was more significant than the statistics compiled by the Securitate indicate (ACNSAS, Informative Fonds, File I 2217/10, f. 337-338).

Judging from the level of difficulty of the twenty-two questions contained in it, the target group of the document identified as a questionnaire included the most sophisticated members of the Hungarian elite in Romania, who did not necessary work in the cultural sphere, but who had presumably been selected as a result of previous inquiries. The questionnaire, made up of three major sets of questions, first assesses the social status, qualification level, and general culture of the subject, then examines the subject’s sense of identity, and finally investigates, also out of a need for identifying a solution, the nature of the connections and relationships between Romanians and Hungarians, as well as experiences regarding coexistence.

I. The first set of questions focuses on the subject’s social status. It begins by examining the social background of the subject – family, origin – and then inquires about his/her age to further turn to a direct reference to the “small Hungarian world” in Northwestern Transylvania during the Second World War (Sárándi and Tóth-Bartos, 2015), which suggests that the questionnaire focuses primarily on mature individuals holding well-defined views on the Transylvanian issue. Questions four and five address the length and possibilities of past education in the mother tongue in the family of the subject, respectively, in his/her “range of vision.”

The Questions:

1. What kind of family do you come from?

2. What type of social environment do you come from? (rural, urban, peasant, worker, bourgeois, aristocrat, etc.)

3. How old are you? Were you alive between 1940 and 1944?

4. How long and what were you able to study in your mother tongue?

5. What about your family and /or “range of vision”?

II. The second set of questions – questions 6 to 14 – is directed at the subject’s sense of identity. The assessment of collective memory is followed by a nostalgic question, which, beside the inventory of violations of human rights experienced in the present, makes the subject draw a comparison with the rights undoubtedly held in the past. The question about general knowledge of Hungarian history is followed more emphatically by that about self-declared knowledge of post-1918 Transylvanian history and of the public figures related to it. Then the author of the questionnaire moves on to the mapping of reading habits and needs in the mother tongue, of cultural life and religion. The question referring to the level of Romanian language skills is still relevant. As the knowledge of language represents a prerequisite for social integration, this also means that as long as the coexisting nations are unable to eliminate language barriers, their cultures cannot get closer to each other, cannot coexist in harmony. Radio listening habits provide answers regarding the need for information of Hungarians in Transylvania, but also about their possible resignation and indifference. The inquiry about connections in Hungary presupposes the existence of a current network of contacts in the “mother country,” including relatives, friends, and acquaintances. The thirteenth question, about the new situation in Hungary – which offers a clue about the date of the document – presumably hints at the changes that took place during the official mandate of the moderate reformer Károly Grósz, appointed president of the Council of Ministers in June 1987. On May 1988, the reform wing of the Hungarian Socialist Workers’ Party (MSZMP) obtained the long-awaited goal of removing the old and ill János Kádár from the party leadership and elected Grósz as his successor upon a programme of transition to a market economy and political decentralisation. However, it cannot be excluded that allusion was made to symbolic events of 1989 relating to the commemoration of the Revolution of 1956, such as the reburial of Imre Nagy and his comrades, or the radio speech by the senior party official Imre Pozsgay about the re-evaluation of this tragic event in Hungary’s recent past (Romsics 2013). The last question in this section, referring to a “prominent Transylvanian personality” takes into consideration the greater political events and perhaps it looks ahead in allowing for an unpredictable political turn in Romania.

The Questions:

6. What can you recall, or how far back does your collective (family, workplace, etc.) memory extend?

7. Would you like to regain anything from the past? If yes, what?

8. Are you familiar with Hungarian history, and with the history of Transylvania in particular? (What do you know about the events following 1918? Are you familiar with the operation of the Hungarian National Party [Bárdi 2014, Horváth 2007, György 2003]? Are you familiar with figures such as Ct. Bethlen György [1888–1968, president of the Hungarian National Party representing the Hungarian minority in Romania in the interwar period (ACNSAS, I185019)], Jakabffy Elemér [1881–1963, Hungarian, later Romanian Hungarian politician, lawyer, publicist (Balázs 2012, Csapody 2012)], Makkai Sándor [1890–1951, Transylvanian Hungarian writer, pedagogue, Reformed bishop (Veress 2003)], Mailáth [Majláth] Gusztáv Károly [1864-1940, Transylvanian Roman Catholic bishop, member of the nobility, honorary archbishop (Marton and Jakabffy 1999)], Domokos Pál Péter [1901-1992, teacher, historian, ethnographer, one of the pioneers of research into the Csangos (Jánosi 2017, Domokos 1988)] etc.?

9. Do you own Hungarian books? Do you read in Hungarian? If yes, how much? How do you gain access to Hungarian books? Do you go to the theatre? Are you a church-goer? (Is the use of the Hungarian language or the fact that you are a believer behind church attendance?) 10. How well do you speak the Romanian language?

11. Which radio station do you listen to? That of Budapest or that of Bucharest? And which Radio Free Europe broadcast do you listen to: the Romanian or the Hungarian one?

12. Do you have contacts in Hungary?

13. What do you think of Hungary in this new situation?

14. Is there a prominent Transylvanian personality you know about and consider worth paying attention to?

III. The third set of questions – questions 15 to 22 – analyses the relationship between Romanians and Hungarians. Thus, beside inquiring about the nature of relationships maintained by the subject and his/her environment with his/her ethnic Romanian fellow citizens, these questions focus also on the ethnic characteristics of the coexisting population, whether the demographic balance in a given settlement, which was centuries ago favourable to the Hungarian community, has been subject to modifications by the communist regime by attracting inhabitants from other regions populated mostly by Romanians. Having future coexistence in view, question 17 is aimed at learning the “lacking needs” of the subject, so it inquires about the required minimum conditions in terms of human rights that allow him/her to live as a Hungarian there, in that given place. Amidst the measures aimed at the assimilation of the Hungarian minority in Transylvania, such as the continuous diminishing of educational opportunities in the Hungarian language, the closing down of Transylvanian Hungarian theatres, the potential destruction of villages, the phenomenon of emigration, which affected the Romanian citizens too, in the context in which the nationalism of Ceaușescu’s regime was become more and more radical, when politics-fuelled intolerance towards ethnic otherness was a daily presence, the question about individual views regarding the future of the minority community might have seemed surreal. Thoughts referring to the renewal of the indigenous minority were closer to utopia as the flagrant violation of human and minority rights provided no realistic grounds for this. The last two questions of the questionnaire – questions 21 and 22 – about positive experiences as a Hungarian living in Romania, positive experiences concerning the Romanian–Hungarian relationship – illustrate, even in their choice of words – “have you ever,” “accompany or would accompany” – the perspicacity with which the author of the questionnaire acknowledges the situation of the Transylvanian Hungarian minority of the period preceding the change of regime.

The Questions:

15. What is the nature of your (your personal and your community) relationship with Romanians?

16. Are you surrounded mostly by Romanians or by Hungarians in your living environment? If you live predominantly surrounded by Romanians, when was this situation installed? Is it a result of incoming settlement or is it the indigenous population?

17. What is it that you lack most in living there as a Hungarian?

18. What is your opinion about your own future, the future of your family, and that of Transylvanian Hungarians?

19. Do you see any possibilities of renewal?

20. If you are a church-goer, what do you know and what can you witness from the Greek Catholic movement?

21. Have you ever had any positive experiences as a Hungarian? If yes: when and what kind of experience was it?

22. List the positive experiences that accompany or would accompany the relationship between Romanians and Hungarians?

There is no doubt that Gyimesi is the author of this document. In numerous places her works include analyses of the given situation and sense of identity of the Hungarian minority in Transylvania (Gyimesi 1993). Most probably the document escaped the attention of secret police officers conducting the home search on 20 June 1989 due to the absence of title and date. The physical existence of a questionnaire examining minority life in the darkest days of Romanian Communist dictatorship is startling in itself. Research conducted in the form of questionnaires presupposes the subject’s right to free opinion and is interpreted as an accessory of democratic systems. However, the existence of the document does not mean that the intended survey was actually conducted. For Gyimesi, who was the subject of informative surveillance, in a world abounding in collaborators with the secret police, this questionnaire must have meant a handhold which should have helped her in identifying persons with similar views on whom she could have counted in the struggle against the violation of human and minority rights. This may have served as a basis – as a possible interpretation – for her efforts to recruit reliable colleagues for the editing and distribution of the Cluj-based samizdat paper known as Kiáltó Szó, which she conceived in the fall of 1988 together with Sándor Balázs, a philosopher and university professor. Out of the nine edited issues of the samizdat – which was little known even by the Securitate – only two were published, though this had nothing to do with the editors: the publishing of further issues was rendered unnecessary under the circumstances following the fall of the Ceaușescu-dictatorship.

The Hungarian Revolution of 1956 had a strong echo in Romania, especially among young people. As a result of the news about the revolt of the Hungarian students, there were student protests especially in the university centres of Timişoara, Cluj, and Bucharest, which were nipped in the bud by the repressive institutions of the communist state. These initiatives would not have happened if Voice of America and RFE had not broadcast detailed information about the Hungarian Revolution. The Mircea Carp Collection includes a black and white photo which illustrates the moment in the autumn of 1956 when Voice of America radio station became an alternative source of news to the official one concerning events in the Eastern Block. The photo was taken in the studio of the Romanian section of Voice of America during the Hungarian Revolution. In the foreground can be seen two employees of the radio station, Mircea Carp and Michael A. Hanu, reading typed materials live. In the background there is a map of the world covered by the motto: “The Voice of America – around the world ... around the clock”. On the back of the photo the creator of the collection, Mircea Carp, noted: “October 1956: Mircea Carp (commentator) and Michael A. Hanu (editor) commenting on the Hungarian Revolution”. In his memoirs, Mircea Carp mentioned about this moment that, although the Romanians who had emigrated to the West expected the USA to adopt a stronger position towards the Soviet intervention in Hungary in 1956, the American political class took a step back, thus disappointing the supporters of the Hungarian Revolution (Carp 2012, 169).

Libera lays down on the sidewalk next to a dead cat. He curls up, mimicking the position in which  the animal’s body froze.

The first impression of this black and white photo can be taking it as a dadaist jest or a nihilist stunt.
Especially that in the picture we see Libera as a young man, from the Pitch-in Culture milieu period. With a tousled crew cut (still not bald), in jean shirt and faux Ray-Bans, he has the rakish look of a New Wave band bass player, whom he used to be at the time, occasionally.

However, his face is serious, even reflexive. He has a defensive, embryonic pose expressing vulnerability.
Hommage is a tribute, an expression of recognition – one that is usually dedicated to the dead.
The artist meditates on the elusive life and the fragile bodily form of the animal. He brings it out of the negligible. Through a gesture of imitation, for a while, he levels the status of man and animal. He brings to attention the animalistic, corporeal and mortal qualities of humans as well, and of himself.

This interpretation gains gravity when we learn about Libera’s adolescent suicide attempt, about his episodes of identity crises and self-destructive acts of destroying artistic works. Furthermore, the themes of suicide, bodily practices, illnes and death are present in his other works as well.