Historical Changes and Generational Experiences

UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA Los Angeles Social mobility and social stratification in a Transylvanian village: historical changes and generational experiences A dissertation submitted in partial satisfaction of the requirements for the degree Doctor of Philosophy in Sociology by Călin G. Goina 2012 © Copyright by Goina Gheorghe Călin 2012 ii ABSTRACT OF THE DISSERTATION: Social mobility and social stratification in a Transylvanian village: historical changes and generational experiences by Călin G. Goina, Doctor of Philosophy in Sociology, University of California, Los Angels, 2012 Professor Gail Kligman, Committee co-chair Professor Jeffrey Prager, Committee co-chair This thesis offers an ethnographic exploration of social transformation: it explores the processes of (re)stratification as experienced in one rural community – Sântana, in western Romania – as a means to understand how macro changes impact everyday life at the local level. I explore the articulation between macro-social historical transformations and the opportunities and constraints that the resultant political and property regimes presented for villagers. I build on the ethnographic analyses of rural Eastern Europe by adding an historical analysis of the configurations and reconfigurations of life trajectories across three successive generations. The villagers I study lived a succession of property and political configurations: democratic and authoritarian regimes grounded in free market and private property until 1947, a totalitarian regime of state-socialism until 1989, and a liberal democracy re-building a free market economy from 1990 until today. This succession of regimes altered, configured and reconfigured the life trajectories of Sântana’s inhabitants. iii In contrast with quantitative studies on re-stratification this qualitative study focuses on the villagers’ own understandings of the changes they have experienced. I look at opportunities and resultant mobility (upward and downward) as experienced and accounted for by them. My approach toward social stratification is grounded in the classificatory schemes that my informants use in their life story narratives, which are classificatory schemes that position the subject with respect to others. My project is mainly informed by the ethnographic method, through which the researcher immerses him/herself in the ocean of meanings and practices which structure and constitute the day-to-day life of those he/she studies. As a researcher who returned to the village where he was raised, and who interviewed his co-villagers (many of them friends and relatives), I was placed in the position of the insider or “native” ethnographer. In addition to ethnography, my study builds on a burgeoning set of methods: life course or biographical studies. The villagers’ experiences with the three political and property regimes addressed are structured along generational lines: for each regime I collected five story accounts from the members of the same family, across three successive generations. The dissertation is organized according to the three generations’ experiences as these overlapped with the three political and property regimes. Chapter two offers an historical account of the site, introducing each of the three political and property regimes that constitute the background of my study. In chapter three I introduce a set of six life stories intended to give voice to the villagers’ own understandings and explanations of change in their lives (people who grew up in the pre-WWII village). Chapter four covers the life stories of five individuals who are the children of those introduced in the previous chapter, people who grew up and established their occupational careers under state socialism. In chapter five I address the third generation of iv villagers, those born in the 1970s, who negotiated their life trajectories in the context of post- communist Romania. I sum up my findings in chapter six, where I describe these three generationally distinct configurations of class, status, party, ethnicity, education and gender among the villagers of Sântana, specific to each property regime, highlighting the manner in which the three political and property regimes altered the set of opportunities and constraints within which the villagers had to negotiate their daily lives. My study allows me to make sense of how my co-villagers made their everyday lives meaningful as the world unfolded around them, and explore how they have navigated through the macro parameters of socio-political and economic change within their local possibilities to manage the ups and downs of their own and their families' lives. v The dissertation of Călin G. Goina is approved. Ivan Berend David Halle Gail Kligman, Committee co-chair Jeffrey Prager, Committee co-chair University of California, Los Angeles 2012 vi VITA / BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH Education: 1995 BA in Sociology, University of Timisoara, Romania 1996 MA in Political Science, Central European University, Budapest 1998 MPhil in Political Science, Central European University, Budapest 2000 MA in Sociology, University of California, Los Angeles Awards and Fellowships: 1995-1998 Central European University full scholarship. 2006-2007 Fellow of NEC (New Europe College), Bucharest. 2010 Konrad Adenauer Foundation grant for the “The German and Jewish Minority from Transylvania in the Immediate Postwar Years. (Hi)stories and Reconciling Memories.” (With Damiana Otoiu) Work: 2006- Assistant Professor, Sociology department, Babes-Bolyai University, Cluj- Napoca, Romania. Publications: Goina, Călin. 2000. "Romania esete: targyalasok: a forradalon utan" (The Case of Romania: negotiations after the revolution), in Andras Bozoki et al. (ed). A Rendszervaltas vii Forgatokonyve: kerekasztal-targyalasok (The Scenario of Transition: roundtable negotiations in 1989), volume VII, Budapest: Uj Mandatum Konvkiado. Goina, Călin. 2004. "Ce poti face azi nu lasa pe maine: cazul colhozului-model GAC ‘Viata Noua’ Sântana” (‘Do not leave for tomorrow what you can do today!’: an exercise on the birth of a kolkhoz-model” in Dorin Dobrincu, Constantin Iordachi (eds). Taranimea si puterea. Procesul de colectivizare a agriculturii in România, 1949-1962 (The peasants and the power: the process of collectivization of agriculture in Romania 1949-1962). Iasi: Polirom. Goina, Călin. 2005. "How the state shaped the nation: an essay on the making of the Romanian nation.” Regio: Minorities, Politics, Society, vol. 8, 2005. Goina, Călin. 2009. "The social history of a rural settlement from eighteen to the beginning of twentieth century: class and ethnicity in the modern era.” New Europe College Yearbook 2006-2007. Bucharest: New Europe College. Goina Călin, 2009. "Do not leave for tomorrow what you can do today!’: an exercise on the birth of a kolkhoz-model” in Dorin Dobrincu, Constantin Iordachi (eds). Transforming peasants, Property and Powers: the collectivization of agriculture in Romania: 1949-1962. Budapest: CEU Press. Goina, Călin. 2012. “Cine nu sare, nu vrea schimbare!” (He who’s not jumping does not cheer for change) in Stoica, Catalin and Vintila Mihailescu (eds)., Iarna vrajbei nostre: protestele din Romania, ianuarie-februarie 2012, (The winter of our wrath: the Romanian collective protests of January-February, 2012,” Bucuresti: Editura Paidea. viii Contents ABSTRACT OF THE DISSERTATION: ..................................................................................... iii VITA / BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH............................................................................................ vii Introduction ................................................................................................................................. 1 1.1 Setting ............................................................................................................................... 2 1.2 Literature review ............................................................................................................... 4 1.3. Methods.......................................................................................................................... 15 1.4. The structure of the work ............................................................................................... 18 Chapter 2. Three property and political regimes ...................................................................... 20 2.1. Sântana: the site, its geography and its history .............................................................. 21 2.2. A world of small farmers (from the 1920’s to the late 50’s) ......................................... 33 2.3. From the late 1950s to 1990: a village under state-socialism ........................................ 52 2.4. From 1990 to 2011: a European Union town................................................................. 65 Chapter 3 – The villagers before WWII ................................................................................... 80 3.1. Judit T. (b. 1930) ............................................................................................................ 80 3.2. Sali U. (b. 1931) ............................................................................................................. 94 3.3. Sena R. (b.1927) .......................................................................................................... 108 3.4. Mitru N. (1923-2010)................................................................................................... 121 3.5. Valeria M. (b. 1927 -2007) .........................................................................................

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