Old Paintings (II)
The article evokes historical happenings from the post-Stalinist period of
Romania. The Bucharestn Hippodrome, so popular in the interwar period, was
demolished in 1960, and “Scânteia” House was built in its place. Until
demolition, the hippodrome was one of the few entertainments in a gray capital
marked by the rigors of the proletarian asceticism. His demolition was once
again the vision of the new age. Since the 1950s, Moscow and Leningrad had
become for the Romanians what Paris had once been for them. Romanians attended
Russian universities and returned home already married to Russian women. It was
a great professional and political advantage. That’s why Russian marriage had
become a fashion. During the de-russification, the Romanian-Russian marriage
had become a great handicap, one that blocked any prospect of political or
professional rise. The de-russification started by Gheorghiu-Dej culminated in
his speech at the April 1964 Plenum, considered by the West at the time a firm
“declaration of independence” towards Moscow. The de-russification initiated by
the Government, intensified in 1963-64, subsequently accelerated by Ceausescu,
met the Romanians’ Russian- and Soviet-Phobia.
DAN CIACHIR
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