Marginal Spaces and Cultures of Dissent in Socialist Romania's Black Sea

Download or read book Marginal Spaces and Cultures of Dissent in Socialist Romania's Black Sea written by Ruxandra-Iuliana Canache and published by Springer Nature. This book was released on 2023-09-05 with total page 276 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book analyzes two Romanian villages – 2 Mai and Vama Veche – as spaces of relative freedom during the last decades of socialist rule. This microhistorical study refutes simplistic views of the communist past which focus on political figures and events, and instead explores ordinary people and everyday life. Taking a multidisciplinary approach, it considers a broad range of sources, including official Communist Party documents, secret police files, personal memoirs, oral history interviews, ethnographic films, songs, and artistic performances. This book intertwines three narrative threads: that of the visitors (mainly members of the Romanian intelligentsia, young people, and hippies); that of the local inhabitants; and that of 'authority' (local and central state agents actively engaged in surveillance and supervision). In doing so, it interrogates the spectrum of consent/dissent and resistance/collaboration hitherto neglected in scholarship.