Decommunizing the National Poet: Post-1989 Reading of Eminescu, Botev, and Petőfi
Keywords:
literature and ideology, East-Central European literatures, postcommunism, national poets, demythicizing, Eminescu, Mihai, Botev, Hristo, Petőfi, SándorAbstract
This article attempts to explain why de-mythicizing – and not mythicizing – the institution of the “national poet” illustrates more closely and more deeply the ideological, cultural and identity-related changes in post-communist East-Central Europe. As for the case studies, I have chosen the critical reception of Mihai Eminescu, Hristo Botev, and Sándor Petőfi, precisely because the aforementioned phenomenon is more frequent in countries such as Romania, Bulgaria and Hungary, whose self-portrayals in terms of identity are profoundly indebted to the East-West binary opposition. In order to demonstrate that de-mythicizing the national poet occurs predominantly after 1989, I analyze a series of critical and imagistic reconsiderations of Eminescu, Botev, and Petőfi, brought about by the fact that anti-communist, pro-Western intellectual elites regarded the cult of the national poet as a symptom of cultural and ideological backwardness, typical for the “uncivilized” East, scarred as it was by the trauma of national communism. Thus, it has become evident that breaking away from the Eminescu/Botev/Petőfi national myth is part of a larger decommunizing tendency, tributary to the capitalist transition.References
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