University of Bucharest Review. Literary and Cultural Studies Series (Apr 2011)
POSTCOLONIALISM /POSTCOMMUNISM: SIMILARITIES AND DIFFERENCES: THE ROMANIAN CASE
Abstract
The paper starts by showing that the liminality and hybridity that Bhaba finds characteristic of the postcolonial subject also perfectly illustrates the situation in postcommunist states. An awareness of both similarities and differences between colonialism and communism leads to categorizing the situation of the Central and East European satellite countries of the Soviet Union as semi-colonies, whereas the Baltic states, the Republic of Moldova and all the other non-Russian republics of the “union”(administrative units of the “Empire” with Russian as their official language) could be regarded as colonies. The paper sets out to demonstrate that none of the countries of the socialist bloc were really independent politically or economically: The military Pact of Warsaw and the Council for Mutual Economic Assistance – CMEA – were the tools that enforced the total control of Moscow and the dependence of the satellite socialist countries on Moscow was unconditional, at least in the first period, including the 1950s. As in all colonies, there was resistance against the enforced political, economic and ideological colonisation in Romania. And the paper dwells on partisan resistance in the Carpathians against the communist regime and the prisons were crammed with people who did not approve of the line of the Communist Party. Then the process of mimicry is analyzed and Ceauşescu’s national communism. Postcolonial studies depicting nationalism as the defining feature of decolonization, the period after 1960 could be ranked as one of partial decolonization, initiating the process that was to culminate with the toppling of the communist regimes in the former satellite countries in 1989 and the implosion of the USSR in 1991. The paper also draws a brief parallel between the double colonization, oppression and marginalization of women in both spaces under discussion and concludes with aspects of neocolonialism in postcommunist countries.
