Resistance through culture (also called cultural resistance, resistance through the aesthetic, [1] or intellectual resistance) [2] is a form of nonconformism. It is not open dissent, but a discreet stance. [3]
A revolt "so well hidden that it seems nonexistent", [4] it is a quest "to extend the boundaries of official tolerance, either by adopting a line considered by authorities to be ideologically suspect, or by highlighting certain contemporary social problems, or both." [3] Criticized for being "utopian, and thus inadequate to the realities of that age", [5] during the time of the Communist regimes in Europe, it was also a surviving formula, a modality for writers and artists to cheat Communist censorship without going the whole way into open political opposition. [6] [7]
One of the most sharply criticized phrases in post-revolutionary Romania, [8] considered to be not much more than "blowing in the wind" by Romanian-born German Nobel literature prize winner Herta Müller, [9] and "not only resignation [...] but complicity with the terrorist communism" by Romanian exiled writer Paul Goma, [10] so-called "resistance through culture" has often been linked to Constantin Noica's so-called "Păltiniș School". [11]
In the fine arts, Corneliu Baba, among others, is sometimes considered to be an example of a painter who was nonconformist in this way. [12]
Constantin Noica was a Romanian philosopher, essayist and poet. His preoccupations were throughout all philosophy, from epistemology, philosophy of culture, axiology and philosophic anthropology to ontology and logics, from the history of philosophy to systematic philosophy, from ancient to contemporary philosophy, from translating and interpretation to criticism and creation. In 2006 he was included to the list of the 100 Greatest Romanians of all time by a nationwide poll.
Andrei Gabriel Pleșu is a Romanian philosopher, essayist, journalist, literary and art critic. He has been intermittently involved in politics, having been appointed Minister of Culture (1989–91), Minister of Foreign Affairs (1997–99) and presidential counsellor for external affairs (2004–05).
Leonard Oprea is a Romanian novelist, poet, and essayist. In the late 1980s, he wrote two books of fiction that were banned by the Communist regime and gained him repute among dissidents. Following the 1989 Revolution, the books were published but did not attract significant notice during the political upheaval of the time. He left Romania for the United States in 1999, after which the pair of previously banned works was once again released. In the 2000s, he wrote the fictional series Theophil Magus, and by 2020 this series included 17 separate titles. Piero Scaruffi considers his work "Cele Nouă Învățături ale lui Theophil Magus despre Magia Transilvană/ The Nine Teachings Of Theophil Magus On Transylvanian Magic" (2000) among the ten best novels in the Romanian language.
Vladimir Tismăneanu is a Romanian American political scientist, political analyst, sociologist, and professor at the University of Maryland, College Park. A specialist in political systems and comparative politics, he is director of the University of Maryland's Center for the Study of Post-Communist Societies, having served as chairman of the editorial committee (2004–2008) and editor (1998–2004) of the East European Politics and Societies academic review. Over the years, Tismăneanu has been a contributor to several periodicals, including Studia Politica, Journal of Democracy, Sfera Politicii, Revista 22, Evenimentul Zilei, Idei în Dialog and Cotidianul. He has also worked with the international radio stations Radio Free Europe and Deutsche Welle, and authored programs for the Romanian Television Company. As of 2009, he is Academic Council Chairman of the Institute for People's Studies, a think tank of the Romanian Democratic Liberal Party. Between February 2010 and May 2012, he was also President of the Scientific Council of the Institute for the Investigation of Communist Crimes in Romania.
Gabriel Liiceanu is a Romanian philosopher.
Doina Ruști is a Romanian writer and novelist.
Mircea Aurel Vulcănescu was a Romanian philosopher, economist, ethics teacher, sociologist, and politician. Undersecretary at the Ministry of Finance from 1941 to 1944 in the Nazi-aligned government of Ion Antonescu, he was arrested in 1946 and convicted as a war criminal.
The Romanian anti-communist resistance movement was active from the late 1940s to the mid-1950s, with isolated individual fighters remaining at large until the early 1960s. Armed resistance was the first and most structured form of resistance against the communist regime, which in turn regarded the fighters as "bandits". It was not until the overthrow of Nicolae Ceaușescu in late 1989 that details about what was called "anti-communist armed resistance" were made public. It was only then that the public learned about the several small armed groups, which sometimes termed themselves "hajduks", that had taken refuge in the Carpathian Mountains, where some hid for ten years from authorities. The last fighter was eliminated in the mountains of Banat in 1962. The Romanian resistance was one of the longest lasting armed movements in the former Eastern Bloc.
Theodor Cazaban was a Romanian anti-communist writer.
Dorin Tudoran is a Romanian poet, essayist, journalist, and dissident. A resident of the United States since 1985, he has authored more than fifteen books of poetry, essays, and interviews.
Zigu Ornea was a Romanian cultural historian, literary critic, biographer and book publisher. The author of several monographs focusing on the evolution of Romanian culture in general and Romanian literature in particular, he chronicled the debates and meeting points between conservatism, nationalism, and socialism. His main early works are primarily dedicated to the 19th and early 20th century cultural and political currents heralded by Junimea, by the left-wing ideologues of Poporanism and by the Sămănătorul circle, followed independently or in relation to one another. Written as expansions of this study were Ornea's biographical essays on some of the period's leading theorists: Titu Maiorescu, Constantin Dobrogeanu-Gherea and Constantin Stere.
Arsenie Boca was a Romanian priest, theologian, mystic, and artist. He was persecuted by the Romanian Communist Party.
Mircea Nedelciu was a Romanian short-story writer, novelist, essayist and literary critic, one of the leading exponents of the Optzeciști generation in Romanian letters. The author of experimental prose, mixing elements of conventional narratives with autofiction, textuality, intertextuality and, in some cases, fantasy, he placed his work at the meeting point between Postmodernism and a minimalist form of Neorealism. This approach is illustrated by his volumes of stories and his novels Zmeura de cîmpie, Tratament fabulatoriu, and by Femeia în roșu, a collaborative fiction piece written together with Adriana Babeți and Mircea Mihăieș.
Igor Cașu is a historian from the Republic of Moldova.
Olimpiada Bodiu (1912–1971) was a Bessarabian activist and member of an anti-communist resistance group in the former Moldavian Soviet Socialist Republic.
Gabriel Andreescu is a Romanian human rights activist and political scientist born on 8 April 1952 in Buzău. He is one of the few Romanian dissidents who openly opposed Nicolae Ceaușescu and the Communist regime in Romania.
Ion Gavrilă Ogoranu was a member of the fascist paramilitary organization the Iron Guard, who between 1948 and 1955, after the Soviet occupation of Romania and the establishment of the Romanian People's Republic, became the leader of an underground far-right anti-communist paramilitary group in the Făgăraș Mountains.
Mihai Șora was a Romanian philosopher and essayist.
Miron Radu Paraschivescu was a Romanian poet, essayist, journalist, and translator.
Dan Deșliu was a Romanian poet.