THE COMMUNIST IMAGINARY IN STELIAN ŢURLEA’S NOVEL ÎN ABSENŢA TATĂLUI
THE COMMUNIST IMAGINARY IN STELIAN ŢURLEA’S NOVEL ÎN ABSENŢA TATĂLUI

Summary/Abstract: As widely known, literature plays an important part in the cultural dynamics, many postcommunist novels reflecting the recent past as a form of remembrance. Literature fulfills a critical function in the cultural memory. Literature represents a background/environment of the culture of memory in the post-communist age in both the Eastern European and Romanian space. Stelian Ţurlea’s novel În absenţa tatălui (Father Absence), published in Bucharest in 2009, explores the memory of childhood in the period of Dej’s communism and can be classified in the same category as Băiuţeii (Little Boys) novels by Filip and Matei Florian, or Noapte bună, copii! (Good Night, Kids!) by Radu Pavel Gheo, the latter novels evoking childhood during the communist twilight. Stelian Ţurlea avoids to transform the novel into a moralizing book and an anti-communist political manifesto, having a completely different stake. Father Absence aims to go midway between the substance of a marked childhood and an adult world traumatized by the cruel history. Stelian Ţurlea’s novel captures “the great history” through the individual history and redesigns it on the background of childhood. The horrors of communism and its injustices are somewhat “tamed” since they are viewed with childhood innocence and charm. Based on these assumptions, this paper aims to monitor how the communist imaginary is built in Stelian Ţurlea’s novel, its interweaving timelines, the individual’s relation with history developed within the narrative fabric.

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