THE POST-COMMUNIST ROMANIAN NOVEL – NAVIGATING THE POLITICAL AND SOCIOGRAPHIC DIMENSIONS
THE POST-COMMUNIST ROMANIAN NOVEL – NAVIGATING THE POLITICAL AND SOCIOGRAPHIC DIMENSIONS

Summary/Abstract: The Post-Communist Romanian Novel – Navigating the Political and Sociographic Dimensions. The transition from communism to capitalism in Eastern Europe has been profoundly destabilising, reshaping economic, social, political, and ideological structures. This upheaval not only amplified the uneven development of the Soviet era but also replicated its harshness through neoliberal economic shock therapy, underscoring systemic inequalities between Western centres and Eastern peripheries. Drawing on Wallerstein’s world-systems theory, this relationship symbolises an unequal structural power relationship, with the periphery’s cultural and economic output subjugated to the demands of the centre (WReC, 2015). In literature, these dynamics have triggered a significant genre shift, particularly in the Romanian novel. The memorial and biographical forms increasingly dominate, marking a dissolution of traditional novelistic structures in favour of fragmented, introspective, and hybrid narratives. These forms align with broader trends of precariousness and cultural commodification, mirroring the destabilising effects of transition (Adriana Stan, 2020). Before Romania’s 2007 EU accession, post-communist novels primarily adopted a historiographical approach to document systemic trauma (Vasile Ernu, Lucian Dan Teodorovici, Dan Lungu). Post-accession, these works shifted to a commodified exploration of (post)communist memory, with narratives addressing economic disparities and minority identities (Tatiana Țîbuleac, Liliana Nechita, Adrian Schiop). This shift reflects the master-slave dynamic of centre-periphery relations, where the West’s exoticisation of communist experiences reinforces systemic inequalities. The dissolution of the Romanian novel into memorial and biographical forms symbolises a dual response: a critique of transitional instability and a capitulation to Western frameworks of cultural consumption.

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