The 3rd Congress of the Writers’ Union of the MssR: Context, Debates, Consequences and Impact
The 3rd Congress of the Writers’ Union of the MssR: Context, Debates, Consequences and Impact

Summary/Abstract: This study contends that in Bessarabia, which had fallen under Soviet domination, towards the mid-1960s, a first generation of intellectuals, writers and literati had arisen, including Andrei Lupan, Nicolae Costenco, George Meniuc, Vasile Coroban, all educated at Romanian Universities until 1940, but also the younger Ion Druþã, Grigore Vieru, Petru Cãrare, Vladimir Beºleagã, Aureliu Busuioc, Emil Loteanu, Vlad Ioviþã, prose writers and poets of great talent, the leaders of the “sixties generation,” with a solid body of work already behind them, who tended to break with the schemes of socialist realism and who knew Romanian literature and were inspired by the great universal literature. They represented a generation prepared and determined to speak out regarding its literary creed, to assume a role in cultural life and to offer some valuable landmarks to an alienated Bessarabia, truly thirsty for books, culture and authentic literature. At the Third Writers’ Congress, held in Chișinãu on October 14–15, 1965, the writer Ion Druþã and other intellectuals called for a return to the Latin (Romanian) alphabet, being loudly applauded by the vast majority of those present, to the astonishment of the party leadership. That Writers’ Congress was not only an impressive linguistic debate, but also an outburst against Bolshevik oppression and an act of Romanian identity consciousness, foreshadowing the return to Romanian letters and language with the decline of the communist regime.

• Details
• Contents