Cultural Liminality and Hybridity: the Romanian "Transition"
Cultural Liminality and Hybridity: The Romanian "Transition" Monica Popescu, University ofPennsylvania In Tarrying with the Negative, Slavoj Zizek discusses the fascinating image of the Romanian flag with its national emblem cut out as a most "salient index of the 'open' character of a historical situation in its becoming," which is characteristic of "that intermediate phase when the former Master-Signifier, although it has already lost the hegemonical power, has not yet been replaced by the new one" (1993:1). With this image, Zizek opens up a discussion not only about a brief "intermediate phase" (as his own interpretation would read), but also about an indeterminately long period of cultural, political, and economic ambiguity, a time of hybridity which most Eastern European countries have termed "Transition."1 There has to be something inherently appealing about the term and the promises of its semantic configuration since, more than a decade after 1989, most postcommunist countries still admit to be in Transition. In transition to what, one could legitimately ask. The answer seems to have been lost somewhere along the way, or it seems so obvious (to a Western democratic system and a capitalist economy) that it can be easily left implicit. Transition stands for cultural uncertainty, for economic or politic blunders that are easier to forgive because the "true order" has not yet been achieved. This cultural "inbetweenness" is prolific and seductive since Transition also stands for cultural ventures with new expressive vocabularies that include grotesque, violent language or imagery, and nudity. In short, Transition has become a rhetorical strategy, a magic word in postcommunist countries-a word that is hardly expected to explain the status quo, but which provides a convenient label that can excuse negative aspects of the society.
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