Abstract For most of the Cold War, the United States attempted to maintain friendly relations with the Communist nations comprising the Eastern Bloc, but with no other Soviet satellite was the relationship as close as it was with Romania. No other member nation of the Warsaw Pact took to the United States’ overtures so eagerly. Diplomatic relations between the United States and the Romanian Communist government were established relatively early, almost immediately following the end of the Second World War. However, it was not until 1968, when Romanian dictator Nicolae Ceauşescu denounced the Warsaw Pact invasion of Czechoslovakia, that the Romanians finally gained the Americans’ trust. Ceauşescu’s 1968 speech attacking the Warsaw Pact invasion of Czechoslovakia, and the diplomatic maneuverings surrounding it, was the pivotal moment in the relationship between the two nations, fostering an amicable relationship that would last well into the 1980s.

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L’avènement de la démocratie de type libérale a entraîné un reconditionnement des mythes et images du leader politique, en Roumanie. Les événements de 1989 ont entraîné un besoin endémique de créer une nouvelle scène et un véritable imagier des figures politiques roumaines. Cependant, la communication des leaders politiques postcommunistes est soumise à l’héritage de leur passé communiste et des traces laissée par Nicolae Ceausescu dans l’imaginaire collectif. Tributaire de ce lourd héritage, les leaders politiques roumains répondent à un mécanisme qui semble contradictoire au premier abord : ces leaders construisent le terrain politique de la Roumanie contemporaine en même temps qu’ils se construisent eux-mêmes. En cela, ils sont le produit d’une société dont ils semblent être, eux-mêmes, les architectes. Cette double participation à la vie du pays rend donc le cas des leaders politiques roumain très particulier. Toutefois, l’instrumentalisation des mythes et des images permet aux représentants politiques de forger l’archétype du leader démocrate roumain et contribuent à la construction d’un espace politique stable en Europe Centrale et Orientale. / In Romania, the rise of democracy has contributed to modifying political leaders’ myths and images. The 1989 events have led to the vital necessity of creating both a new political landscape and a new set of images attached to political leaders. However, political communication has been influenced and shaped by the Communist past of the current political leaders as well as by the image of Nicolae Ceausescu in collective memory. At first sight, such a heavy legacy seems to have had a contradictory influence on political leaders who have been constructing themselves while building Romania’s contemporary political area. They are both the products and architects of Romanian society. This dual involvement in the country’s life has placed them in a very complex situation. However, the instrumentation of myths and images has given them the possibility not only of building the archetype of Romania’s democratic leaders but also of creating a steady political environment in Central and Oriental Europe.

After the change of their country’s political and international statuses, post-colonial and respectively post-communist individuals and collectives develop feelings of alienation and estrangement that do not involve physical dislocation. Eventually, they start imagining their national community as a collective of individuals who share this state. Paraphrasing Benedict Anderson’s definition of the nation as an “imagined community,” this study identifies this process as “imagined exile,” an act that temporarily compensates for the absence of a metanarrative of the nation during the post-colonial and post-communist transitions. This dissertation analyzes and compares ten English Canadian and Romanian plays, written between 1976 and 2004, and argues that they function as expressions and agents of post-colonial and respectively post-communist imagined exile, helping their readers and audiences overcome the identity crisis and regain the feeling of belonging to a national community. Chapter 1 explores the development of major theoretical concepts, such as nation, national identity, national identity crisis, post-colonialism, and post-communism. Chapter 2 and Chapter 3 analyze dramatic rewritings of historical events, in “1837: The Farmers’ Revolt” by the theatre Passe Muraille with Rick Salutin as dramaturge, and “A Cold” by Marin Sorescu, and of past political leaders, in “Sir John, Eh!” by Jim Garrard and “A Day from the Life of Nicolae Ceausescu” by Denis Dinulescu. Chapter 4 examines the expression of the individual and collective identity crises in “Sled” by Judith Thompson and “The Future Is Rubbish” by Vlad Zografi. Chapter 5 explores the treatment of physical and cultural borders and borderlands in Kelly Rebar’s “Bordertown Café”, Guillermo Verdecchia’s “Fronteras Americanas”, Petre Barbu’s “God Bless America”, and Saviana Stanescu’s “Waxing West”. The concluding chapter briefly discusses the concept of imagined exile in relation to other investigations of post-colonial and post-communist dramas and reviews some of the latest perspectives of national identity, reassessing this study from a diachronic perspective.

<p>The conditions for art in Romania have gone through big changes since the collapse of the regime in December of 1989. Under the Communist regime the artists had to work within a dualistic system completely unlike the one that developed in the West during the same period.</p><p>Similar to the other countries of the former Eastern block, the communist Romanian state had understood the great potential that art has as a form of propaganda. Thus the regime secured full control over the art that would be allowed into the public space. In response to the confines set on the artistic expressions, a non-official art began to develop alongside the official art of the state.</p><p>These two layers of Romanian art history were dissolved when Ceausescu’s regime finally came to an end in 1989. The underground art was suddenly available to an audience, while the official art was discredited. Out of the chaos that followed, a new Romanian art was born. During the 1990’s many Romanian artists started to process the past to try to understand their present situation, while others investigated Romanian identity as perceived from the outside.</p><p>The main focus of this paper has been to look at the conditions for contemporary Romanian art under Communism, and how they have changed since 1989.</p><p>My research has been based on literature such as The History of the Romanian People (1970), Primary Documents (2002) and Actionism in Romania during the Commuinist Era (2002), as well as on my own interviews with artists Constantin Mara, Ion Grigorescu, Matei Lazarescu, Kuki Constantinescu and Stefan Constantinescu.</p>

The conditions for art in Romania have gone through big changes since the collapse of the regime in December of 1989. Under the Communist regime the artists had to work within a dualistic system completely unlike the one that developed in the West during the same period. Similar to the other countries of the former Eastern block, the communist Romanian state had understood the great potential that art has as a form of propaganda. Thus the regime secured full control over the art that would be allowed into the public space. In response to the confines set on the artistic expressions, a non-official art began to develop alongside the official art of the state. These two layers of Romanian art history were dissolved when Ceausescu’s regime finally came to an end in 1989. The underground art was suddenly available to an audience, while the official art was discredited. Out of the chaos that followed, a new Romanian art was born. During the 1990’s many Romanian artists started to process the past to try to understand their present situation, while others investigated Romanian identity as perceived from the outside. The main focus of this paper has been to look at the conditions for contemporary Romanian art under Communism, and how they have changed since 1989. My research has been based on literature such as The History of the Romanian People (1970), Primary Documents (2002) and Actionism in Romania during the Commuinist Era (2002), as well as on my own interviews with artists Constantin Mara, Ion Grigorescu, Matei Lazarescu, Kuki Constantinescu and Stefan Constantinescu.

After the change of their country’s political and international statuses, post-colonial and respectively post-communist individuals and collectives develop feelings of alienation and estrangement that do not involve physical dislocation. Eventually, they start imagining their national community as a collective of individuals who share this state. Paraphrasing Benedict Anderson’s definition of the nation as an “imagined community,” this study identifies this process as “imagined exile,” an act that temporarily compensates for the absence of a metanarrative of the nation during the post-colonial and post-communist transitions. This dissertation analyzes and compares ten English Canadian and Romanian plays, written between 1976 and 2004, and argues that they function as expressions and agents of post-colonial and respectively post-communist imagined exile, helping their readers and audiences overcome the identity crisis and regain the feeling of belonging to a national community. Chapter 1 explores the development of major theoretical concepts, such as nation, national identity, national identity crisis, post-colonialism, and post-communism. Chapter 2 and Chapter 3 analyze dramatic rewritings of historical events, in “1837: The Farmers’ Revolt” by the theatre Passe Muraille with Rick Salutin as dramaturge, and “A Cold” by Marin Sorescu, and of past political leaders, in “Sir John, Eh!” by Jim Garrard and “A Day from the Life of Nicolae Ceausescu” by Denis Dinulescu. Chapter 4 examines the expression of the individual and collective identity crises in “Sled” by Judith Thompson and “The Future Is Rubbish” by Vlad Zografi. Chapter 5 explores the treatment of physical and cultural borders and borderlands in Kelly Rebar’s “Bordertown Café”, Guillermo Verdecchia’s “Fronteras Americanas”, Petre Barbu’s “God Bless America”, and Saviana Stanescu’s “Waxing West”. The concluding chapter briefly discusses the concept of imagined exile in relation to other investigations of post-colonial and post-communist dramas and reviews some of the latest perspectives of national identity, reassessing this study from a diachronic perspective.

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