Socialist Modernism as Compromise: A Study of the Romanian Literary System
Keywords:
Romanian literature, socialist modernism, neomodernism, socialist aestheticism, late modernismAbstract
This study advocates the analytical and historiographic usefulness of the concept of “socialist modernism” in denominating and describing the paradigm that prevailed in Romanian and other Eastern European literatures between 1960/1965 and 1980. In doing so, the article follows a three-pronged line of reasoning. Firstly, I provide a diachronic overview of this period unraveling the motives behind writers and communist politicians’ conviction that modernism was a trend whereby they could effectively express their interests following the fall of socialist realism. Secondly, I define the concept of “socialist modernism” and explain how its usefulness in characterizing this period supersedes that of well-established Romanian concepts such as “neomodernism” and “socialist aestheticism.” Finally, I aim to uncover whether socialist modernism can be successfully integrated in a transnational modernist network (if, for instance, it aligns with the so-called “late modernism”) or if, conversely, it is limited to a local or, at the most, regional level.References
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