Engineering the Human Soul Science Fiction in Communist Romania 1955
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ENGINEERING THE HUMAN SOUL SCIENCE FICTION IN COMMUNIST ROMANIA 1955-1989 By Eugen Stancu Submitted to Central European University History Department In partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy Supervisor: Professor Marsha Siefert CEU eTD Collection Budapest, Hungary 2010 i I hereby declare that this work is entirely my own, except where otherwise indicated, and that it does not contain materials accepted for any other degrees in any other institutions. Eugen Stancu CEU eTD Collection ACKNOWLEDGMENTS First and foremost I am deeply indebted to my supervisor professor Marsha Siefert for her stimulating suggestions and encouragement which helped me in all the time of research and writing. I would like to thank Sorin Antohi, with whom I started this project, for all inspiration he provided. I am also indebted to a number of persons and institutions that in many different ways facilitated my research. First of all, to the OSI/FCO Chevening Scholarship that enabled me to spend an academic year at Lincoln College in Oxford. I would like to thank professor Catriona Kelly, who supervised me during my stay in Oxford, for her guidance, enthusiasm and openness in discussions that remained an inspiration to me ever since and kept me going through many stages and difficulties after the visit. The Center for Advanced Studies in Sofia where I was a fellow for one year was an excellent place to develop some of the ideas presented in the thesis. I am grateful for this to Diana Mishkova, Alexander Kiossev and to all my Sofia colleagues for the various types of support and friendship. I would also like to thank professor Leonid Heller from Lausanne University and professor Lucian Boia from Bucharest University for their inspiring suggestions. Family and friends, often unwillingly perhaps, have made me reassess and improve my work. I am grateful to them all. CEU eTD Collection ABSTRACT In this dissertation I investigate the place of science fiction within Romanian communist literature and its social role during communism. My analysis comprises several layers. First the political, social and ideological transformations of the Romanian communist state represent the necessary background against which science fiction is analyzed. Second, science fiction is placed in the literary dynamic of the Romanian communist period. How science fiction emerged in Romania, what were the institutional structures, who were the persons involved, and how the development of the genre is related with the development of literature in general, mainly as a consequence of the political transformations, are some of the questions that were addressed in this thesis. Moreover, as they are an essential link between the writers and the readers, the system of publications from financing, circulation, print run, and distribution, through censorship, was also tackled. Third, an analysis of the science fiction literary discourse - yet without applying aesthetic criteria - is an important aspect in assessing the social functions of science fiction. The narrative elements and structures so much blamed by mainstream literary critics for their lack of literary merit are nevertheless valuable since they may uncover the type of message delivered by the genre to its readers. Fourth, the science fiction community is also investigated. A literary genre for children and youth without a significant tradition in Romania before communism, science fiction developed following the Soviet model especially as an active pedagogical and propagandistic instrument meant to build the new communist man. However, during communism it evolved from a didactic medium meant to disseminate CEU eTD Collection scientific knowledge among its readers into a ‘catalyst’ for ‘alternative and rather free’ spaces of socialization. Magazines, fanzines, novels, and almanacs constitute the primary sources for the investigation. Moreover, works on literary criticism, social and political articles published in the newspapers and in the literary journals, memoirs, and historical works are extensively drawn upon for background information. Last but not least, perhaps the most important place in the economy of the sources is granted to oral history investigation. Existing scholarship has neglected this topic. Literary critics considers science fiction as having a meagre aesthetic value and do not deserve attention while historians have not considered placing the genre it its historical context relevant for the history of communism. Yet, as I demonstrate in my thesis, the analysis of science fiction, both its literature and community, offers important insights into the intellectual, political and social history of this period contributing also to the analysis of youth culture during communism. CEU eTD Collection CONTENTS LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS III iii INTRODUCTION 1 Analytical Framework 3 Current State of the Research 11 Sources and methodology 17 CHAPTER 1 SCIENCE FICTION: A NEW GENRE IN ROMANIAN LITERATURE 20 A new literary landscape - institutional and ideological context in the 1950s 22 Writers’ Union 24 Socialist realism 28 Literature for Children and Youth 31 Education in Communist Romania 34 Fictionalization of science and technology 38 Science fiction, a genre for children and youth 43 CPSF and the emergence of science fiction in Romania 43 The Soviet Model of science fiction 47 Romanian Science Fiction Writers 49 Conclusion 53 CHAPTER 2 ROMANIAN SF IN THE 1950S: LEGITIMATION AND THEMATIC UNIVERSE 55 Legitimation for a new literary genre. Mihail Sadoveanu’s case – archaeology of a fake science fiction novel 56 The past of a science fiction novel 59 An old story with a new meaning 64 Politics and Science Fiction 67 History and Spies 69 Who owns the Moon 74 Two American Stories 78 The synthetic gold 81 Conclusion 85 CHAPTER 3 THE AGE OF UTOPIA: CHALLENGING SOCIALIST REALIST NORMS IN THE LATE 1950S AND THE 1960S 87 Khrushchev’s architectural utopia 90 CEU eTD Collection Romania after Stalin’s death: politics and culture 97 Science fiction utopia and communism in the 1960s 103 Romanian science fiction in the 1960s. Features of science fiction communist utopia 107 Utopian hidden facet 115 Readers’ response to science fiction 119 Conclusion 124 i CHAPTER 4 SCIENCE FICTION AND ROMANIAN NATIONAL COMMUNISM IN THE 1970S 126 The 1971 July Theses and literary space 128 The Romanian national turn and science fiction 136 The mutations of the 1970s 142 From future to the past 143 Convergence of Systems and science fiction 148 Science and technology 151 Suppression of the magazine CPSF 153 CPSF aftermath – beginning of Romanian Fandom 156 Conclusion 163 CHAPTER 5 THE 1980S–ANTICIPA ŢIA AND THE ROMANIAN SCIENCE FICTION FANDOM 165 “Anticipa ţia” the re-branded Romanian science fiction 169 Fiawol – “Fandom is a way of life” 169 Anticipa ţia Almanac 179 The Romanian science fiction fandom – a controlled community 182 Science fiction ROMCONs – formal and informal 185 Science fiction fandom – access to resources 190 A new generation of writers 195 Warning science fiction 199 Conclusion 205 CONCLUSIONS 207 BIBLIOGRAPHY 215 Primary Sources 215 Archives Consulted 215 Oral history interviews 215 Periodicals 216 Romanian Communist Party documents 216 Secondary Sources 216 APPENDIX : A history of Romanian science fiction 1955-1989, in images 2276226 CEU eTD Collection ii LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS CC Central Committee CMEA Council for Mutual Economic Assistance CPSF Colec ţia Povestiri Ştiin ţifico-Fantastice (Science Fiction Stories Collection) CPSU Communist Party of the Soviet Union GDR German Democratic Republic RCP Romanian Communist Party (Called the Romanian Workers’ Party between February 1948 and July 1965) ROMCON Romanian National Science Fiction Convention RWP Partidul Muncitoresc Român (PMR) Romanian Workers’ Party (1948- 1965; thereafter called the Romanian Communist Party- Partidul communist Român ) UASCR Uniunea Asocia ţiilor Studen ţeşti a Tineretului Comunist , (Union of Students’ Associa ţions) UTC Uniunea Tineretului Comunist (Communist Youth Union) CEU eTD Collection iii INTRODUCTION Reading science fiction stories was a favorite pastime for many young people in communist Romania, a taste that was not significantly developed before that. With the advent of the communist regime, science and technology were granted a considerable ideological significance. Accordingly, their literary treatment became part of an active pedagogical and propagandistic process meant to build the new communist man. Science fiction, originally and ostensibly a genre for children and youth, was a part of this effort. However, until now no analysis of the reasons and the effects behind this ‘science fiction propaganda campaign’ has been undertaken. Therefore, the questions that most broadly sum up what I will investigate are the place of science fiction within the Romanian communist literature, and more important, its social functions during communism. Within this framework, the preliminary hypothesis of this study is that during communism, science fiction evolved from a didactic medium meant to disseminate scientific knowledge among its readers into a ‘catalyst’ for ‘alternative and rather free’ 1 spaces of socialization. Thus, in the 1950s and 1960s science fiction contributed to the creation, legitimation, and dissemination of the ‘scientific component’ of the social imaginary advocated by the communist regime. Later, especially after the mid 1970s, when with the advent of national communism the official legitimizing