Boican, ADE; (2016) Rearticulating socialist subjectivities: class and gender in Romanian fiction during communism. Doctoral thesis , UCL (University College London).

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Abstract

This thesis proposes a socio-cultural analysis of the articulation of socialist subjectivities in Romanian fiction during the communist period. The question underpinning my research, therefore, concerns the way in which the literary articulation of subjectivity changed across two historical divides: from the inter-war period to Socialist Realism and from Socialist Realism to the literature of the troubling decade. This thesis will be argued over four chapters, two of which will examine the works of Mihail Sadoveanu while a further two will dissect the works of Augustin Buzura. Through the close reading of the works of Sadoveanu and Buzura, whose careers span the two aforementioned historical divides, this thesis will trace the complex rearticulating of class and gender subjectivities as they evolved throughout the communist period, as well as the importance of the communist regime’s social legacies as regards the understanding of post 1989 social developments in Romania. Central to the communist regime’s project of social transformation was the creation of an egalitarian society by default of the abolition of capitalist classes and gender inequalities. While the regime claimed that the material basis of these inequalities had been eliminated and social emancipation was well advanced, critics considered that the official egalitarian discourse had erased social and individual differences and engendered the so-called “faceless masses”. In contrast to these views, this thesis will argue that the communist regime did indeed transform social relationships in many ways, generating new class and gender inequalities, rather than eliminating them. Thus, far from being uniform, socialist societies were heterogeneous, fragmented and were straddled by social antagonisms. This thesis will thus argue that the changes that took place in the literary articulation of class and gender during communism are of significance to both the understanding of the communist regimes as well as their lasting legacies.

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