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PETER, Laszlo - Forbidden Football in Ceausescu Romania
PETER, Laszlo - Forbidden Football in Ceausescu Romania
PETER, Laszlo - Forbidden Football in Ceausescu Romania
SPORT SERIES
Series Editors: Stephen Wagg
and David Andrews
FORBIDDEN
FOOTBALL IN
CEAUSESCU’S
ROMANIA
László Péter
Global Culture and Sport Series
Series editors
Stephen Wagg
Leeds Beckett University
UK
David Andrews
University of Maryland
USA
Series Editors: Stephen Wagg, Leeds Beckett University, UK, and David
Andrews, University of Maryland, USA.
The Global Culture and Sport series aims to contribute to and advance
the debate about sport and globalization through engaging with various
aspects of sport culture as a vehicle for critically excavating the tensions
between the global and the local, transformation and tradition and same-
ness and difference. With studies ranging from snowboarding bodies, the
globalization of rugby and the Olympics, to sport and migration, issues of
racism and gender, and sport in the Arab world, this series showcases the
range of exciting, pioneering research being developed in the field of sport
sociology.
Forbidden Football
in Ceausescu’s Romania
László Péter
Babes-Bolyai University
Cluj-Napoca, Romania
v
vi PREFACE
Many people deserve credit for this book. In addition to the publisher and
the kind editors, I am exceptionally grateful for Professor Jarmo Valkola in
Tallinn, who came up with the idea at University of Jyväskylä, Finland.
The advice received from Professor Miklós Hadas was extremely useful, as
were the professional observations of my colleagues Zsombor Csata,
István Horváth and Nándor László Magyari.
I owe a debt of gratitude to all the participants of the research: the
subjects, interlocutors, helpers, and to my enthusiastic, ingenious research
assistant Sarolta Veress, as well as to other experts, and friends, with whom
I had the chance to carry out constructive and inspiring conversations and
productive debates. Thanks are due to the inspiring sociologist colleagues
from whom I received important guidance and directives after my presen-
tation at the EASS conference in Copenhagen (2016) and also in the pro-
cess of writing this book.
The support of my friend, Emőd Farkas, was again priceless.
This book could never have been written without the self-denying assis-
tance, constructive criticism, professional support and encouragement of
Gyöngyi Pásztor.
Cluj/Kolozsvár/Klausenburg
August 2017
vii
Contents
7 Lessons and Conclusions 123
ix
x Contents
References 153
Index 159
CHAPTER 1
Introduction to the Ethnography
and Research of Football Gatherings
in Romania
at all. Perhaps they could join another group with an already installed TV
set, but they could surely not see too much from the last row.
Climbing on the side of the hill called Lomb, people become more and
more relaxed and louder, and occasionally swear like sailors as they reach
the top. They make unambiguous and plain remarks about their misera-
ble situation… they say things they would not say so openly elsewhere.
From up here there is a good view on the city down below, stretching
along the valley of the Someș River. It is Cluj, the historic capital of
Transylvania, to which the name of Napoca, meant to evoke the times of
the Roman Empire, was attached by the dictator visiting here exactly
10 years previously.
Nick is also here with his group of friends; in this multitude of people,
he is also eager to watch the match. If he is lucky and “the signal comes
in” (intră semnalul), he will be able to see the opening game of the
1987/1988 season of the European Champion Clubs’ Cup. Steaua
București will play against the champion of the Hungarian football league,
MTK. As an ethnic Hungarian and a Hungarian-hearted person, Nick will
not have an easy task rooting in this particular match. He now cannot sup-
port Steaua, the football team of the army, the quasi-national team of
Romania, yet cannot manifest his real feelings in this group of mainly
Romanians, either. There are many others like him in the crowd. He is
impatiently waiting for the match, just like at every previous match he had
seen on the hills surrounding the city in the past years, together with many
other people. The good many members of the group express their indig-
nation more and more loudly for having been forced to come out here to
watch a football match: it can be heard quite clearly—as Nick vividly
recalls—that they openly criticise the system, saying that “It’s such a shame
that we are playing at home and yet we must come out in the fields to fol-
low the game!” (In original Romanian: “Este o rușine, că jucăm acasă și noi
trebuie să vedem meciul pe câmp!”).
It is the 16th of September, 1987, a few minutes before five o’clock in
the afternoon. The sun shines beautifully—Nick remembers—which is not
necessarily good news. According to experienced “movie masters” and
those “with antennas”, overcast but not yet rainy weather is the most
adequate for the TV waves coming from the neighbouring country to
produce the best possible image quality. Viewers are of course convinced,
more or less with reason, that the authorities also “jam” (bruieaza) the
programme. Most of them are not here for the first time; they come out
frequently to take part in “football gatherings”. The location is widely
4 L. PÉTER
known as one of the most suitable places to watch the games. From here
on, in a crow’s flight westward, there is an unobstructed strip towards
Hungary, which makes a relatively large area suitable for enjoyable recep-
tion. That’s why there are so many people here, at least 150–190 in num-
ber, with at least 30 cars parked, because one can be “almost certain” here
to come through with the antennas and amplifiers made at home from
components stolen from the factory. This is never sure, of course, and an
unexpected blast of wind can sweep the signal away for minutes, destroy-
ing the image, with the result that the viewers are unable to see anything.
This September football game watching is a strange one from many
perspectives. It is not accidental that a dissident audience (Mustat ̦ă 2015),
which was vexed and irascible anyway, started to curse state leadership
much more loudly than usual. On the one hand, RTV, the state-owned
public television gave up its good habit, and in spite of the expectations of
the optimistic rooters, decided not to broadcast the match with MTK. Until
now they transmitted at least the decisive matches in which a Romanian
team was playing. Now the authorities decided that this was not a decisive
game, and a smooth victory could be expected. With this argument they
now “forbade” (ne-au interzis) the match of the Romanian star team from
being broadcast. Apparently, the former state of rarity became a state of
lacking in the fall of 1987. The account of Dumitru Graur (2010)—a later
leader of the sports department of the television—given in connection
with the Romanian championship in an interview after the change of the
political system, is expressive. After 1985, the TV staff had regularly gone
out to the local stadiums with the broadcasting van, and had waited at the
location for the telephone approval of the Central Committee of the Party
to start live transmission, but later on they gave up this pointless practice.
FC Steaua won the European Champion Clubs’ Cup in 1986 in Seville,
against FC Barcelona. Steaua was exclusively the showcase team of the
system, and was formally under the direct supervision of the army.
However, its true leader was Valentin Ceaușescu, who was the elder son of
the dictator. He had a degree in physics and was a person who carefully
shunned publicity. As a recognition of the European success in 1986, on
the 12th of May, the dictator himself awarded the members of the heroic
team the highest state decoration of the Romania, the Star of the Romanian
Socialist Republic First Class, as they had contributed to the glory of the
country and the international success of Romanian sports.
The match that day started at 16:00 CET (Central European Time), as
the stadium of Steaua did not have a system of illumination necessary for
INTRODUCTION TO THE ETHNOGRAPHY AND RESEARCH OF FOOTBALL… 5
joint feeling of success that they could watch the game together, in spite
of the “interdiction”.
While the characters of the story above—and many others like them in
Cluj, on Feleacul hill or the Făget, and other football fans in Central-
Transylvania—were able to eventually watch the match on Hungarian TV,
mostly in similar conditions, Steaua defeated MTK by 4-0 in Bucharest, in
front of 30,000 viewers, thanks to the ethnic Hungarian László Bölöni,
the Aromanian Gheorghe Hagi (two goals), and Marius Lacătus, who is of
a Csángó origin…(both Aromania and Csángó are ethnic subgroups living
in Romania).
Looking back, this was just the beginning. Steaua qualified for the semi-
finals in that season. Of the matches played abroad in the 1987/1988 season
of the European Champion Clubs’ Cup none were broadcast by the TVR
(the ones played at home were transmitted only in the later rounds). The
evening news programme relayed the results in just three minutes, showing
only the most important, decisive moments of the matches. I vividly remem-
ber the return match of the semi-finals on the 20th of April 1988, between
Benfica Lisbon and Steaua to which I listened on a SOLO 100 pocket radio,
received as a gift. The match ended with a 2-0 victory of the Portuguese and
resulted in the qualification of Benfica to the next round. I would have liked
to see it, but it was not possible. I was angry, too…
But if I were to define precisely, I must underline that the event taking
place in connection with the Steaua match was not the beginning of some-
thing, but rather the logical consequence and extension of the similar ear-
lier “forbiddance” of football, something that reached domestic club
teams in 1987. By no means was that the beginning. Cases like this and
other, similar ones occurred regularly after the seventies, completely inde-
pendently from each other, spontaneously, organised voluntarily and
freely. Romanians watched media contents from neighbouring countries
en masse, particularly sports programmes, and especially football matches.
The luckier ones, who happened to stay closer to the edge of the country,
could, from their homes, watch the TV programmes broadcast across the
borders (Mustat ̦ă 2015), but those residing in the interior of the country
had to fight for the opportunities to watch at least part of the games. This
was a situation born from constraint, yet resulting in unintended but very
important social implications and consequences.
According to the results of the research, the social practice of collective
football match watching was born out of constraint, and it became an
unequivocal mass phenomenon after 1982, when the football World
INTRODUCTION TO THE ETHNOGRAPHY AND RESEARCH OF FOOTBALL… 9
examined time, never got in touch with each other, were embedded in
different micro-community cultures, and structures of local relationships,
and contexts were also different. In short, the field and the site(s) of the
research did not coincide, and the subjects lived in different locations and
watched the games in quite numerous geographical-physical locations—
albeit all in central Transylvania. The solution for the problem during the
research process was a continuous reflexivity upon site and field, as well as
subjects and themes. What do I mean by that?
In his study, Marcus (1995) establishes that the objective conditions of
classical anthropology and, I add, those of ethnographic field studies had
radically changed by the eighties. The wide-ranging variety of (post)mod-
ern social reality and the complexity of its functioning does not make it
possible any more for a field researcher to carry out research on a well-
delimited site, studying a highly conscious and relevant issue in the lives of
the people living there, as had happened in earlier times. In the classical
setup—opines Marcus (1995)—research site and research field are the
same, subjects can be clearly and unequivocally delimited, and the exam-
ined questions are the ones the subjects consider relevant, upon which
they are spontaneously highly reflexive in their everyday lives. The rela-
tionship between researcher and researched is unambiguous: the subjects
are at home; the local context of the research is given. The subjects them-
selves mark its boundaries, as the researcher examines something that is
unknown to him/her, whereas the subjects are totally aware of it. To put
it simply, all this means that for the researcher carrying out field research
these elements (subjects–site–theme) are given facts, and together they
form the objective reality of the field, upon which even (critical) reflection
is unnecessary, by no means do they have to be “constructed”, defined, or
clarified according to previously determined theoretical and methodologi-
cal points of view. In other words, everything “becomes clear in the field”.
In my present case, the “fuzzy field” problem, namely, the issue of
“where do we examine?” as raised by Marcus (1995) or Nadai and Maeder
(2005) is valid. The theme of the research (football gatherings) cannot be
localised at a certain site (albeit it can be said that the location is Inner-
Transylvania, but Inner-Transylvania is big, its boundaries are not clearly
defined as it does not constitute a legal administrative entity, and it is
characterised by important internal differences and variations). Several
sites together make up the field (multi-site), but these sites have already
been chosen during the research, according to theoretical and social-
historical aspects. The field is not given by itself, but must rather be
INTRODUCTION TO THE ETHNOGRAPHY AND RESEARCH OF FOOTBALL… 13
esignated by the researcher (Nadai and Maeder 2005). In this case the
d
following sites of Inner-Transylvania were chosen during the research:
Szeklerland (Gheorgheni-Basin, Bălan); Region of Cluj (and its surround-
ing areas); and Southern-Transylvania (Alba Iulia and the surroundings,
Deva). These sites have been delimited by myself, or I have “constructed”
them according to my own theoretical-conceptual and practical consider-
ations. Obviously, not each and every single locality of Inner-Transylvania,
completely covering it geographically, could be researched.
Thus, the above sites all together give the research field, whereas the
researched subject is implicitly fragmented in space (i.e. cannot be found
at a concrete location, being dispersed in space). According to Marcus
(1995), under such circumstance, the researcher must argue as to why
he/she started his/her research at a certain location rather than in con-
nection with the above, in addition to personal experience and preliminary
information elsewhere. When defining the research strategy, I took social-
historical, cultural and demographic aspects into consideration. The
Szeklerland (in the eastern part of Transylvania) appears as a standalone
cultural region culturally and mentally, as well as in the Romanian political
discourse. A considerable number of the ethnic Hungarian minority live
here and the majority of them self-identify as Szekler/Székely (Csata and
Marácz 2016). From a social-history perspective, it can be said that the
Szeklers had been free people in premodern society (to which an idea of
self-reliance, a high level of adaptability and the talent for survival are
attached, in addition to wit and pride). Hungarians form a majority in the
two main counties that form the region. Cluj is the economic and cultural
capital of Transylvania, a region with a Romanian majority, yet multicul-
tural. Cluj is the largest locality of Inner-Transylvania, and it has always
been an important urban centre. Southern-Transylvania, with Alba Iulia as
its centre was a region with heavy industry and a large working class (espe-
cially in the eighties) far from the state borders. Naturally, in all three
regions the practice of gatherings was extensive. When planning the design
of the research I thought it was important that none of these different
regions, yet connected by the subject of the research, be left out of the
analysis. The selection of the sites within the regions was done according
to the viewpoints of the research. They are sites where either the phenom-
enon was known to be very widespread, or several subjects recommended
during the research process to be included as strongly linked to the spatial-
ity of their personal networks and also appeared on the maps of collective
remembering.
14 L. PÉTER
References
Balla, B. (2001). Szűkösség. Budapest: Osiris.
Blumer, H. (1975). Social problems as collective behavior. Social Problems, 18(3),
298–306.
Boia, L. (2016). Strania istorie a comunismului românesc (și nefericitele ei
consecint ̦e). Bucharest: Humanitas.
Burakowski, A. (2016). Dictatura lui Ceaușescu 1965–1989. Geniul Carpat ̦ilor.
Iași: Polirom.
Clifford, J. (1986). On ethnographic allegory. In J. Clifford & G. E. Marcus
(Eds.), Writing culture: The poetics and politics of ethnography (pp. 98–121).
Berkeley: University of California Press.
Csata, Zs., & Marácz, L. K. (2016). Prospects on Hungarian as a regional official
language and Szeklerland’s territorial autonomy in Romania. International
Journal on Minority and Group Rights, 23(4), 530–559.
Csedő, K., Ercsei, K., Geambașu, R., & Pásztor, G. (2004). A rurális bevándorlók.
Cluj: Sciencia.
Deletant, D. (2012). Romania sub regimul comunist (decembrie 1947-decembrie
1989). In M. Bărbulescu, D. Deletant, K. Hitchins, S. Papacostea, &
T. Pompiliu (Eds.), Istoria României (pp. 407–480). București: Corint.
Geertz, C. (1973). The interpretation of cultures: Selected essays. New York: Basic
Books.
INTRODUCTION TO THE ETHNOGRAPHY AND RESEARCH OF FOOTBALL… 17
Men and women dressed for autumn weather are standing beside Dacia
1300 vehicles, the hardy, people’s cars of the era, respectively a few Skoda
S120s, Lada 1200s and rare Moskvitches. Not long ago they had climbed
a poor surfaced road to reach the clearing. Some are already pounding
pine stakes into the ground, suitable for securing antennas, or taking out
smaller-sized TV sets from the boots of the cars. Others move portable TV
sets into the previously mounted tents. A few people seem to have arrived
with the intention to stay for several days, a number of tents are erected, a
shepherd shows up to pry… everything is tangibly centred on and around
the sets. The people gathering near a white Lada car placed their TV on an
improvised bracing, leading the cables of at least two batteries to the TV
set packed in plastic bags, with only its small screen visible. Just to be on
the safe side, they may have thought, to protect it from rain. They put the
simpler antenna on the top of the car, which gives an “official” look to the
Soviet-made vehicle. Although it is still afternoon and the clearing is not
yet full either, they are watching the television with great interest, appar-
ently there is some programme on. The matches will begin towards eve-
ning. Further on, a professionally looking multi-element antenna is just
placed on the ground under a TV set with a white plastic frame. Later on,
a large company will follow the football match on this, too.
There are some people eating with relish, a lady offers around food
brought from home, further on meat is barbecued. A hairy guy wearing
jeans, most likely one of the organisers, is smiling contentedly, just like his
companion; they are visibly satisfied and happily looking forward to seeing
“the event”. They are rightfully proud; they are here, “they could make
it”. Watching the cars from afar, they are quite numerous already, and
there will be even more before the match begins.
On one side of the trough-shaped clearing, on the Pângărat ̦i-peak, the
highest of the Giurgeu Mountains (1256 m) about 45–50 cars are parked.
On the eastern side the Red Lake and one of the most visited tourist spots
of Romania, the Bicaz-Gorge can be seen, whereas in the south-east the
CIUMANI: THE SPORT TAKES THE COMMUNITY TO THE MOUNTAINS 21
river heads of two of the longest rivers of the country, Olt and Mureș, and
the mountain range of the Hășmașul-Mare is distinctly visible. The
Giurgeului-Basin is situated to the west. Those present came from here,
but by no means are they tourists. As the evening sets in, they will watch
a football match. On the higher side of the saddle-back, people gathered
around TV sets placed near cars or tents will try to see as much as possible
of the transmission. The football gathering is about to start soon; until
then they talk to each other, tell jokes, consider the prospects of the game,
or lament over everyday difficulties. The atmosphere is sensibly intimate;
they know each other well. They could not be here without one another,
without the power of the community. A long and complicated road led up
here. The European Championship organised in 1988 in Germany was
also watched from here, the Pângărat ̦i-peak, by the football lovers of the
Giurgeului-Basin with the inhabitants of Ciumani among them, just as the
1986 World Cup (based on the photographs by Árpád Kémenes).
In the case study I shall point out the community embeddedness of
gatherings. I draw attention to the conditions and changes of the gather-
ings formed along the lines of civic-voluntary sport (Hallmann and Petry
2013), built on the cooperation patterns of the community, organised
quasi-autonomously. I argue that the initiating and innovating role of the
critical elites is unquestionable in the formation of the mass phenomenon,
but the contribution of technical experts to the creation of technical con-
ditions was capital. Furthermore, the community capital and the trust and
network background, created and multiplied in the seventies by the mass
sports movement, were indispensable factors. After the sketch of the local-
ity I shall depict the preconditions, and the evolution of community
watching, and the dynamics of their turning into a mass phenomenon.
Twenty-four interviews were made in the field and I carried out spontane-
ous conversations with a further 32 members of the community. Data
registration took place in July 2015, during a fieldwork that lasted two
weeks on site.
Ciumani as “Field”
Ciumani is situated in the centre of Romania, in the Eastern-Carpathians,
in Harghita. The locality lays on the bank of the Mureș River, at a distance
of 50 km from Miercurea-Ciuc, the county capital. Until 1989 many of
its inhabitants commuted to the factories in Gheorgheni, while others
worked on the collective farms, in the units of consumer cooperatives.
22 L. PÉTER
Ice hockey got a boost and legitimacy from the conceptions of the party
leadership related to physical training, formulated by the Central Committee
of the RCP in 1976. The state organisation for sports life followed the pat-
terns of the five-year plans in the economy (Necula 2001). In 1977, the
Daciada sports series began like the Soviet Spartakiad, a framework of the
mass sports movement of national communism. Emphasising 2000 years of
statehood and the Daco-Roman continuity, Daciada was a patriotic
Romanian amateur Olympics that existed for six editions (Bogdan 2014).
The aim of the mass sports event meant to serve public health and physical
exercise was in fact to take possession and control of the bodies of the citi-
zens and their political socialisation. It provided opportunities for the colo-
nisation of leisure time and the etatization of time (Verdery 1996). The
sports movement under the aegis of the National Centre for Physical
Education and Sport (Centrul Naţional pentru Educaţie Fizică și Sport,
abbreviated CNEFS) was one modality to create the “new man” (Kligman
1998). The official competitions organised within its framework took place
among the teams affiliated to schools and state companies (Péter 2017).
The series of events also had positive unintended consequences. Ice
hockey in the villages of the Szeklerland gained ground in the era of social-
ism; however, it did not mean biopolitical control over the body or a
means of indoctrination for its participants and the rooters. According to
the amateur ice hockey players:
We rather lived it as a game of child mass sports, but even in the best village
team of the country there was less pressure for performance in the rink than in
the school. Besides, it carried the possibility of escape; and of a more liveable
alternative career for teenagers and young adults, which meant greater free-
dom and less control.
—Sociologist Zsombor Csata
The organising elites used their connection networks and capital in order
to achieve local goals: even the idea of the Előre Cup came up in Ciumani.
The school principal, the editor of the Előre daily newspaper, and the
person in charge of the pioneers in the county (all ethnic Hungarians),
using the benefits of the Daciada, “invented” a regional contest series.
The official reports connected to the Daciada are deconstructed in the
course of the practices of the competition series and in the light of local
contexts. They are filled with local, community and ethnic meanings.
They create a “new social playground” which becomes one of the scenes
of silent resistance. In this case the interdependent dynamics of power
figurations was shaped and utilised by the community, for its own sake.
The organisers of the ice hockey movement mobilised their networks of
connections acquired at the university and at various professional train-
ings and postgraduate courses for the benefit of ice hockey.
These connections were used within the community in order to mobil-
ise and reproduce, or even to strengthen available resources. The profes-
sional knowledge was used to create the lighting equipment, the scoreboard
or to train the team. Acquaintances were used to obtain a transportation
vehicle that could be available for the team and the rooters; creating the
prestige to make ice hockey accepted locally. These practices mobilised
further capital: financial capital was pooled by private individuals of their
own free will to build the stand, cultural capital to shape up rooters’ cul-
ture, and newer connection network capital for the collective accommoda-
tion for the guest players, and all of these together created prestige, a
positive collective self-image, ethnic and cultural identity and community
capital available for other purposes. It’s not a mere chance that the practice
of gatherings was organically built on the ice hockey movement and used
its organisational and connection infrastructure in the eighties character-
ised by deteriorating living conditions and narrowed ethnic conditions of
existence. In the beginning it was subsisted by the accumulated commu-
nity capital, and after that it also greatly contributed to its reproduction.
In Huedin the Hungarian television was also clearly visible, and before a
match of the Hungarian national team the queues on the road were similar to
the ones between Budapest and Lake Balaton on Fridays. Seven or eight of us
settled to watch the game as a family; we brought cakes and wine, as it is cus-
tomary when paying a visit to someone. It was a powerful feeling of belonging
together that even as I am speaking about it right now, tears are coming to my
eyes. The cursed Argentina–Hungary match in ’78, when Törőcsik and Nyilasi
were sent off the field, was a Huedin experience, too. We were leading by one-
nil, and I got so excited that I could not watch the TV; I had to go out to the
street. There was a church there on the square; I walked around it, and I even-
tually even went inside to pray for victory. And then at the end of the match,
when I saw all those faces tormented by defeat, one could not imagine anything
worse than that… (Csillag 2015)
Kercsó was the gym teacher at the school in Ciumani between 1977
and 1982, then he moved to Hungary in 1985, accomplishing a successful
career; he even worked as the trainer of the ice hockey teams of the
Ferencváros and later the national team of Hungary.
Beyond the difficulty of acquiring a car, transportation and mainte-
nance costs meant further problems. According to later estimations one
return trip could cost as much as 100–200 lei per person (which was 5–10
per cent of the average monthly salary of 2011 lei in 1978), because the
30 L. PÉTER
participants did not only have to pay for fuel and food, but also the pos-
sible repairing costs of the car, the continuous patching of poor quality
tyres. Accidents also happened, bringing further expenses. After the 1979
oil crisis the price of fuel got drastically expensive in Romania. It was get-
ting more and more difficult to buy it, and later on it was rationed. Finally,
as part of forcible austerity, cars with odd and even numbers could only
run alternately on Sundays (cars with an odd number plate were allowed
to circulate on one Sunday and those with an even number plate on the
next one). This situation narrowed down the number of employable cars,
and the collective pooling of fuel also meant efforts. This was either done
by bribing an employee at the petrol station in order to get a larger quan-
tity of fuel, or saving up from other travels. Car owners in a higher posi-
tion sometimes received extra fuel in exchange for certain favours or
simply bought gasoline from the flourishing black market, and kept them
in metal drums. This strategy had to be followed until the change of
regime anyway, as the economic situation in Romania continued to
deteriorate.
A further problem was the scarcity of free time. Intellectuals and profes-
sionals in higher positions had larger degrees of freedom, but for the sim-
ple workers, often working in three shifts, it was a lot more difficult task to
get enough free time. Thus it was not rare that the match watchers left
right from work and returned directly to the factory at the end. The issue
of scarce free time was further aggravated by the six-day working week,
causing conflicts appearing within the family on such occasions. As watch-
ing the game in this period was an entirely “male issue”, the objections of
the wives left at home also had to be handled. All these impediments were
increased if the football fan worker had to change shifts with someone else
in order to get away from work, because the favour of switching the shift
had to be properly returned twice.
A further acute problem was the relationship with the authorities. The
relationship between the police and the match watchers was contradictory
right from the very beginning, but with the rapid increase of the phenom-
enon it turned into a hostile and conflicting one, which necessitated specific
strategies of defence. With the introduction of the county system in 1968,
car plates also included a reference to the county of origin. Before impor-
tant matches the authorities expected a large number of cars from the coun-
ties of the Szeklerland to depart for the cities close to the border. Due to its
mass character, this raised more serious questions, because these “motor-
cades” were done in the public space, and in the eyes of the power they
were quite close to spontaneous demonstrations and protesting gatherings.
CIUMANI: THE SPORT TAKES THE COMMUNITY TO THE MOUNTAINS 31
So John left with four bad tyres, without a spare tyre, without a lever, without
anything. On the way home we repaired quite a few flat tyres before the Bucin
Peak (…). Around 22 on our way home, like every 5–10 kilometres. All the way
from Huedin…. he did not have an inner tube, I gave one, an inner tube that
was not exactly the size needed for the Dacia, but it had to work somehow, then
he had cold patches, but this was in the fall, and the weather was quite wretched.
So they placed that cold patch, which came off after a few kilometres, then they
put it back again. We were standing and waiting. We did the distance from
Huedin to Cluj all in a row. 40–50 cars!
—Luke
32 L. PÉTER
From the above it can be seen that in spite of the increasing numbers,
“exhausting commuting” only remained available for the more privileged
and better-schooled, as the matches were not watched in Ciumani.
Although it was not a mass phenomenon, still it permitted access to the
matches of Hungarian and European cups for a considerable number of
people. And what was even more important: it thematised on a wider scale
a relevant issue for the community: the question of “forbidden football”.
The solution in this stage was not yet satisfactory for the entire commu-
nity, but the collective need was already there, and urging for some kind
of a local solution. This aim was consciously formulated by the end of the
seventies, yet the human intelligentsia fulfilling a pioneer and innovative
role was not able to find a solution for it. This necessitated a technical
knowledge, which was soon successfully provided by the enthusiastic and
persevering representatives of the technical sciences. Without them the
phenomenon would have only remained a marginal one (not only in
Ciumani but all over Inner-Transylvania).
3. The stage of technical innovations. The third stage could also be seen
as a transitional or a hybrid one. By this I do not mean that some contin-
ued to commute to Huedin and Izvorul Crișului, in spite of the growing
difficulties (“travelled to the TV signal”), but the technical experts around
Ciumani were already trying to “catch the TV signal on the spot”.
According to pieces of information a few people already watched matches
on the top of the surrounding mountains as early as in 1977, but the true
breakthrough only came later. The news that in 1980–1981 the Chișinău
TV programme from the Soviet Republic of Moldavia was successfully
received in neighbouring Mureș County, gave a strong impetus to the
“signal hunting”. As a consequence, many from the region, including
from Ciumani went to the spot in Sovata. However, the police were
already waiting for them there and chased them away by saying that the
location belonged to an area of nature protection, therefore it was not
allowed to be there. According to the accounts the breakthrough came
with the help of TV professional, Noel (whose name was still remembered
and respected by all the interviewees after so many years). Noel, a true
hero, saw the building of the antenna and the finding of an appropriate
location for catching the signal as a professional challenge. According to
those who knew him, he enjoyed hiking and spent a lot of time in nature.
He walked the surrounding pastures and higher peaks for months, either
alone or in the company of the local forest ranger. As the former ranger
told us, Noel also studied geographic maps, in order to find an adequate
CIUMANI: THE SPORT TAKES THE COMMUNITY TO THE MOUNTAINS 33
between power factors, just like in the two earlier cases. In other words,
the “innocent” organisers activate the existing personal relationships
between the local educational and economic institutions and the leaders of
the ice-hockey movement (rooters, sports fans) against the police repre-
senting the State and the local representatives of the Party. The latter
bided their time in the beginning, and then remained passive when seeing
the mass phenomenon unfold and only retaliated against the flagrant cases
that came to their knowledge.
The organisers simply activated and adapted the earlier existing organ-
isational logic. The issue of the antenna was sorted out by Noel and his
companions, and the transportation of the viewers was undertaken by the
worker transporters of the named “Onedin” vehicle (dog catcher car-
riage). The name of Onedin was borrowed from a popular seafaring drama
series, The Onedin Line, produced by the BBC and also broadcast by TVR
in the seventies. The name stuck because of the permanent rocking of the
vehicle. The transportation means of the capitalist seafarer trade route and
its four-wheeled socialist equivalent self-ironically represented the radical
difference between the two worlds. When needed, the Onedin covered
the route several times, so that all the interested people could reach the
scene of the football gathering. The batteries were transported on the
same vehicle, and in the final distance of almost two kilometres the partici-
pants took turns in carrying them to the top of the mountain. The organ-
isers mostly arrived in personal cars, which also carried the first TV set,
which belonged to Cole.
The architecture of the location formed around the TV set placed
under the pine tree with the antenna. At this point there were only one or
two sets to watch for approximately 150–200 people. The most people
gathered to see the world cup matches of the national team of Hungary.
Most of my interviewees remembered from this period the Hungary vs. El
Salvador match, resulting in 10-1 (06.06.1982), as well as the semi-finals
and the finals. The audience regularly arrived at the scene early, and after
the match, if the quality of the reception permitted it, some of them
watched movies or other broadcast programmes (Moldavian TV transmit-
ted programmes in Romanian, so they could understand them). The best
places were taken by the organisers, the transporters and those coming
earlier. Interestingly enough, according to the accounts not everyone was
attracted by the match; many people came for the good company and
atmosphere, for the community experience. The screens of the small TV
sets could often hardly be seen by those sitting farther; sometimes they
36 L. PÉTER
even had to inquire from the others about the results or the outcomes of
chances to score.
Football gatherings in Ciumani were primarily the world of men.
Women also attended, mostly young unmarried girls coming with their
boyfriends, but that was not the norm. The social situation (Spradley
1980) created on the mountain in connection with the match had a mark-
edly masculine character (Hadas 2003). Under the notion of a social situ-
ation, Spradley (1980) understands the “triangle” formed by the
physical-geographical location, the actors being present there and the
activities/actions carried out. The location (the woods, nature in general,
and the vicinity of the high peak far from the village) in the local cultural
tradition was primarily the space of men and of the works carried out there
by men. The place of dangerous woodcutting and logging, where wild
animals could appear, difficult to reach, far from home. The people who
watched the matches were mostly men and a few teenage boys, and the
activities could be typically related to traditional masculinity (Connell
1995): everything related to painful rooting (Hornby 2012). The dense
cigarette smoke, the smell of home-brew brandy, the loud remarks and
vulgar swearing, the cynical comments on women or the rude jokes, the
card-playing (they played sixty-six, mostly with German playing cards,
sometimes making bets in drinks) all evoked a stifling manlike atmosphere.
Comic situations were frequent. Cole (a teacher) told of one occasion
when he had to stand behind the TV and hold the TV cable and the
antenna bar the whole time, as the wind kept moving the antenna.
Meanwhile, he was watching the game in a mirror held by someone else,
and he could not even drink without assistance: “Once I watched a match
in the mirror, ‘cause I had to keep and move the antenna, so that we could
see something. Even the brandy was poured into my mouth by somebody
else.”
They obviously also ate on the mountain, they barbecued lard, sausages
and grilled meat, “rinsed” or “hallowed” with beer, but mostly with
brandy. They made the fire with dry wood gathered on the spot. Some
brought along axes to cut firewood or to clean the location of the gather-
ing. In the spontaneously formed but later on strictly observed division of
tasks the protection of the fire and the prevention of littering were the task
of the forest ranger. He marked out the spot for the fire and he personally
checked that the remains of the fire would cause no problems. Fire protec-
tion rules were strictly observed; especially as many of the participants
belonged to the group of volunteer firemen themselves.
CIUMANI: THE SPORT TAKES THE COMMUNITY TO THE MOUNTAINS 37
This became some sort of a third place (Nylund 2007) built up by men,
beside the workplace and family, which at the same time also meant a
quasi-conscious withdrawal from everyday socialism. One of my subjects
(Adam) gave a very plastic explanation: “We went out in the free nature to
become free”. In this formulation the term “free nature” is understood as
opposed to social reality (the expression of going out into the free nature
was frequently used in the region to denote the outside space as opposed
to the closed inside space). Freedom simply meant the desired freedom,
the freedom from the constraints of the dictatorial regime, and the free
will. In this striking formulation there is a sharp contradiction between the
everyday reality of the society and the state of freedom created by the
gatherings and found on the mountain. In this interpretation the matches
watched are secondary, and only play some role in the creation of the
natural state of freedom.
Out there, in the free nature—much freer than the stand of the ice hockey
rink—they played cards, drank, had conversations and also sung. They rooted
in Hungarian for the Hungarian national team, and although the strictly for-
bidden national anthem of Hungary was only sung rarely, on special occa-
sions, when the anthem was played before the official matches by the official
orchestras of the hosting countries, they listened to it standing up. Eventless
everyday life, “Szekler wit” prevailed: they did not start singing; they “simply”
watched and listened. As the match was broadcast by the television of the
“friendly” Soviet Socialist Republic of Moldavia, while humming the “song”
heard there, they could avoid possible problems. Yet there were cases when
they effectively sang it, on their own initiative. In 1977, for instance, trainer
Árpád Kercsó was among the singers at one of the matches, and for that he
was called to the Securitate (someone denounced him), where he denied
everything and so he escaped. “Of course it was true, but I denied every-
thing.” The interrogation had a huge stake, as two of his acquaintances had
sung the Hungarian national anthem at a house party earlier, for which they
received seven years of imprisonment, of which they served five. In 1982, after
the match won against Salvador, during the celebration afterwards in a pub,
the rooters sang the equally forbidden Szekler anthem, and the next day they
all denied it, saying that they were drunk (based on the accounts of Sean and
Cole). The system obviously tried to follow the events. It was a good idea to
prevent all possible danger; therefore, it became a practice before the matches
to have all known suspicious persons, the ones “with blue eyes” (as potential
informers were denoted in private conversations) thoroughly drunk, so they
are not able to see or hear anything.
38 L. PÉTER
In this male dominated social space the presence of young boys was also
natural. They, too, were frequently taken to the mountain, especially when
important world competitions took place in the summer holidays, pro-
vided that they “deserved it”, and were already capable of looking after
themselves. In other words, when they were mature enough to obey the
rules—that they did not walk far away from the scene of the gathering,
they kept away from the fire and especially if they “could keep their mouths
shut”; that is, they did not divulge sensitive information at home or to
others (about women, the wives, or drinking, and especially about political
jokes, or critical remarks about the system). The ability for secrecy repre-
sented a quality that was a precondition of participation, recognised by the
boys spontaneously. This also meant a type of complicity between grown-
up men and children, who were in fact supervised together, and watched
that they suffer no harm, especially when going home in the dark. For that
matter, the difficulty of travelling home on a cold, dark and rainy night
were the main sources of inconveniences. From the later interviews it
turns out that the children saw the events as a stage of introduction into
adult manhood, as occasions of admission and acceptance, a kind of rite of
passage.
5. The stage of regional level football gatherings. After 1982 the phenom-
enon became region-wide in the Giurgeului Basin. The technicians made
significant achievements in designing the adequate forms and the place-
ment of reception antennas. Progress was also due to a magazine printed
in Hungary under the title of Ezermester (Jack-of-all-trades), in which
useful television-related tips were published mainly for those living in
Eastern-Transylvania, but the experience, knowledge related to match-
watching, the types of aerials used in the various localities of Inner-
Transylvania—this kind of “knowledge sharing” accumulated a common,
freely accessible set of information, by which reception became possible in
several locations in Ciumani, too. Martin remembers this as follows:
Yes. There was an interesting issue here. I went to Hungary that year, and
found an antenna in a shop, suitable for long distance reception; I think it was
sold under the name of “Szaliton”. I don’t remember its exact price, more than
ten thousand of Forints, which was quite an amount [of money] back then in
the 80s. I bought one because that was exactly what I wanted: long distance
viewing. (…) Then we tried to make some measurements. We started in the
Mórisz curve. Then we came back to Basa, and then to the bridge of the Mureș,
and the Linen Factory in Joseni. There was a relatively good signal everywhere,
CIUMANI: THE SPORT TAKES THE COMMUNITY TO THE MOUNTAINS 39
it could be seen. Still, the image was not as good as we had hoped. And then we
went up to the foundry. Near the foundry sometimes there was a signal, some-
times there wasn’t. Then we gave up going to Borzont on this side. Then the
thought came to go on the Pângărat ̦i Peak, where the signal was excellent, we
went back towards Lamanc, and it was OK there, too, only along the road it
was weaker, and then one more mountain before it. I don’t remember exactly
who discovered it that back towards the Víg havas there is a place called Vinkli,
where it worked perfectly. Hats off! There was a direct, open corridor towards
Moldavia, towards Chișinău.
The majority of the viewers arriving from the different localities of the
Giurgeului Basin followed the 1986 World Cup on the Pângărat ̦i-Peak. By
that time the Pângărat ̦i-Peak had become the scene of a regular football
festival for a complete month. Although it is located a bit further but more
accessible, thanks to the better road conditions. It was possible to get
there by a vehicle. A regional sized event took place here, to which people
came to watch matches from all over the neighbourhood. Some camped
there and stayed there for days or weeks, forming a regular tent camp.
In comparison with 1982, the additional events on the scene changed
only a little, yet the watching of the matches occurred in smaller groups of
25–30 people. The groups sitting or standing around the cars were organ-
ised along friendly and family relations; the TV sets were placed on the top
of the cars or on their engine compartments. The practice of watching the
match organised around smaller circles had several reasons. The number
of available portable sets increased in the mean time, and the rooters tried
to obtain them in time. Since 1982 it became clear to everyone that the
TVR would not broadcast the football event taking place in Mexico,
either. Besides that, the antennas also became more widespread, and
became easier to make. Furthermore, as we are speaking about a larger
mass of people at this location, it would have been technically impossible
to solve the issue without fewer sets. I have heard of experiments like that,
too. In Harghita-Băi, close to Miercurea-Ciuc, the owners of holiday cot-
tages built a semicircular stand out of boles, from where a lot of people
could follow the matches. But in Harghita-Băi 220 Volt electricity was
available; therefore, they could use a larger TV. Besides, due to a TV relay
station nearby, Moldavian TV could be received at several places in the
locality. In a similar way a stand was built also near a forest in Sângeorgiu
de Pădure (Mureș County), and the TV set was placed on a stilted table
with long legs, at the same level as the back rows of the stand (as seen on
40 L. PÉTER
So we went out there… We sang, and we did in fact do even more than that…
we only sang what we were not supposed to sing! What was forbidden…! What
was the year when we sang Stephen, the King? In 88. Yes! All of a sudden
everybody knew what their role was. Yes–yes, we learned the whole rock opera, as
amateurs. We stayed there.
—Brad
42 L. PÉTER
The story is true; I still teach the trick series of the Soviet Makarov, shown at the
1983 world championship, in the match against Czechoslovakia. I remember, it
was early spring and the weather was sleety, dirty. Three of us, my brother, a
friend and me were travelling in a Dacia and it was difficult to proceed on the
forest road, at one point we even had to cut a tree fallen across the road with a
saw, in order to be able to go on. Up there among the trees we caught the Soviet
channel on our Yunost TV set with much difficulty, but the reception was so
poor that sometimes it was only possible to recognise that there was not a football
CIUMANI: THE SPORT TAKES THE COMMUNITY TO THE MOUNTAINS 43
or a handball match being played on the screen, but ice hockey. The performance
of the Makarov, Larionov, Krutov trio still fascinated me; the result was 1–1.
(Csillag 2015)
It was a constraint that made us climb the mountain, because there had been
no matches on TV. And as Hungarians we could sustain the Hungarian team.
—Adam
To sum up, this case exemplified that the local sports movement con-
tributed to the strengthening of the collective local ethnic identity in the
community. Furthermore, the football gatherings were built on the infra-
structure of the ice hockey movement, becoming some kind of a freer
extension and replacement for it in the late eighties. The gatherings grew
into a social institution in which the protest character was also expressed.
References
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Connell, R. W. (1995). Masculinities. Berkley and Los Angeles: University of
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ceausescu-romaniajaban-2433939
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CHAPTER 3
Abstract This chapter presents the way in which the football gathering
was organised in a typical socialist mono-industrial mining town with spe-
cific workers’ culture due to the copper mine and hardship. The inter-
ethnic context—Romanian majority and Hungarian minority—influenced
the special setting of football consumption. However, the supporters left
the ethnic differences behind, based on the commonly shared workers’
culture formed alongside hard and dangerous work. The chapter shows
how the football played a bridging role. It argues that the football gather-
ings placed all the inhabitants of Bălan, irrespective of their jobs, on the
same side. As the borders and the social differences between physical and
intellectual workers disappeared on the mountain, both the “lads” and the
“eggheads” became active members of the same dissident public. All of
them were concerned and angry because of the hard economic situation
and struggle to survive, so the football gathering provided a common
basis to express a certain form of protest and gave them a unifying force.
Although the equipment was ensured by the intellectuals, the role of the
blue-collar workers and regular miners was not unimportant either, in set-
ting up. This chapter underlines the role of technical knowledge in the
economy of football gatherings, as it was described in connection with the
antenna designs and organisation of the collective events.
Thus the underground world shared with comrades, and the over-
ground world resulted in a divided form of existence. Free time and enter-
tainment spent together with working colleagues intermediated between
the two, taking place in pubs or in the public spaces in front of the blocks
of flats, where people had conversations, drank, played backgammon or
listened together to the radio transmissions of the domestic football
matches. They also took care of the animals kept in cages built behind the
blocks, a practice that got quite widespread after the 1981 introduction of
the rationing system. In sheds built against the mountainside called cotet ̦i,
poultry and pigs were kept as a result of food shortage. Animal husbandry,
widespread behind the blocks of flats by 1986, grew into an agricultural
type of activity system in the “new town”, remaining without heating or
hot water. Besides drinking—an important tool in coping with stress in
the absence of any kinds of psychological assistance—dirty jokes and
coarseness, frequent rusticity and bravado, speech full of oppressive sexual
allusions, and the deep disrespect and occasional ridiculing of non-physical
labour, the cult of brute force constituted the defining elements of this
hybrid working class culture (of factory workers, but at the same time,
because of the cotet ̦i, showing accented rural features). Violence and fight-
ing was not strange either for the true lads; however, this was already
under tighter control, especially by the elder masters and other specialists.
Serious assault and battery occurred only very rarely.
The large numbers of employees certainly did not create a homoge-
neous mass. We are talking about a hierarchically structured population,
where social layers of rightfully defiant and sometimes angry men (per-
forming tough jobs), were segmented to a large degree according to dif-
ferent geographical origin, ethnicity, social background (workers or
peasant origin, intelligentsia), and habitation (in the Northern or the
Southern part of the town), as well as age, or job and profession. Older
blasters, experienced electricians and carpenters were at the top of the
hierarchy, followed by the pitmen. The auxiliary personnel (trammers,
heavers, workers in the flotation process) provided the essential support.
The younger and the less experienced stood on the lowest levels of this
hierarchy. Intellectual work was uniformly despised and they were out-
right distrustful of the engineers, as they descended the mine every day,
whereas the engineers went down only twice a week. The miners had to
work in literally close-to-death conditions, which was even worsened by
the fact that after 1985, investments in development were drastically
reduced; the technology put in place in the seventies became gradually
obsolete, causing regular workplace discontentment in the eighties.
BĂLAN: ANGRY MEN IN THE NIGHT 51
The roots for forcibly strengthened solidarity were given, as the grounds
of the mining profession are strong solidarity, continuous interdependence
and mutual assistance (Erikson 1982), something that defined the every-
day life. These feelings were intentionally cultivated by the mining com-
pany by other means as well: on the occasions of common miners’ days,
May Days, a shared identity was built. Other social support was provided,
too: it tacitly contributed to the private use of the tools and other instru-
ments by the employees for their own purposes. The company overlooked
the fact that certain items were being taken home, as objects of personal
use were manufactured in the workshop. In this setting the mine fulfilled
a strong role of redistribution, and created some sort of a knot and aid
(Kideckel et al. 2000), deeply entering into the handling of everyday
problems (Péter 2006).
Sports life was developed in the town by means of the mine, which
unequivocally fulfilled an integrating role and significantly contributed to
survival in critical times, becoming an organic part of worker culture. The
football team established in 1951, Minerul Bălan, played in the third
league, the hockey team established in the eighties played in the county
championship, just like Avântul, the male and female handball teams.
After 1977, in accordance with the patriotic spirit of the age, the employ-
ees of the mining company participated in the mass sports events of
Daciada. Besides, there existed an extremely strong community sports
movement: the voluntarily organised amateur five-a-side football champi-
onship that functioned all across the town. On the pitch of School no. 1
of the town, teams created on grounds on working place networks or
friendly circles competed with each other every year, regularly playing in
front of several hundred viewers. This initiative was embraced by the mine
and supported, with the aim of promoting a healthy lifestyle and commu-
nity spirit, but also to cover up worsening problems.
June), yet walking back was impossible on the dark forest road. Especially
when the second match took place at one o’clock in the morning
(Moldavian television did not broadcast all the matches either, and some-
times it happened that only those of the team matches could be seen,
which were transmitted after midnight). In Bălan in 1986 there were rela-
tively few cars in circulation. Because of the scarcity of the available “car
fleet”, the majority needed other solutions. According to Eric, the solu-
tions were the worker transportation vans of the mining company, which
usually transported the shifts of workers to and from the various entrances
of the mine dispersed geographically. The drivers—most likely football
fans themselves—could be easily convinced to “help out” with a little
detour for those 600–650 people that needed a lift. Most probably the
management of the mine was also aware of this, but the unwritten agree-
ment with the employees could bear the one-month “burden” every sec-
ond year.
According to Alan those better off drove to Covacipeter with their own
vehicles, often carrying one or two of the smaller boys back in the boot of
the car. Mostly these were the organisers, too, who transported the batter-
ies, TV sets and antennas to the location. Those with cars and the ones
needing a lift could only be separated with regard to the division of labour;
as far as the matches are concerned, they obviously watched them together.
Both sides in the peculiar relationship between these two segments—
“lads” and “eggheads”—tried to loosen up a little: among the car owners
the majority belonged to the technical personnel (technicians, topogra-
phers, geologists, engineers and teachers) deeply scorned by the simple
worker lads. Those arriving on foot or rather with the worker transporter
vehicles called “moving toilets” were the majority of the company employ-
ees, the “ordinary workmen” doing the bulk of the physical work, looking
for acquaintances with a TV set on the spot. They were simple watchers,
who did not bring batteries, nor sets or antennas. Yet the actual location
had to be approached on foot by both groups, because neither the van,
nor the automobiles were able to reach the location where the TV signal
could be received. They all had to walk for the last few hundred metres. As
Liam remembers, the “free riders” of the worker transporters usually
offered to carry the equipment (batteries and sets), successfully trying to
equalise and turn an unequal situation to their benefit. The undertakers
carried the batteries to the scene in a spectacular way, without stopping, by
which they did not only want to prove the necessity of physical power (and
brag in front of the others with this performance of strength), but also
BĂLAN: ANGRY MEN IN THE NIGHT 55
Why, those (batteries) were heavy enough and staggering in the dark with two
of those in your hands was quite something. Sometimes they ran races to see who
gets there first. They even fell down, but it was some sort of a championship, they
took it very seriously, they were strong and young at the time.
—Steve
We had agreed a long time before, where we will watch it. We went up earlier,
so we did not even have to look for the place. We knew where they were, they had
a house up there; they had everything prepared. We did not bother with others.
Everything was ready. The drinks, too, of course, we also took with us, and
offered to the others.
The core of this group was formed by the basic people of the same five-
a-side football team, most of them Hungarians. They rooted together
there loudly, but the defeat of 6-0 and the counter-rooting nearby gener-
ated a strong feeling of frustration and anger (everywhere all my ethnic
Hungarian interviewees reported with a high degree of reflexivity and in
detail about this unpleasant feeling). No physical assault and battery
occurred there, because of the case of a local mate, who had been known
to everyone present. He had been “taken away” less then a year before and
condemned to seven years of imprisonment because their group had lis-
tened to forbidden speeches recorded on tapes and someone denounced
them to the Securitate. On that night walking home, at someone’s initia-
tive they unexpectedly started to sing a widely known song, the “Sparrow-
bird of Harghita” (Hargitai fecskemadár), a song that may seem innocent
at first, yet with a double meaning, just by way of appeasement. But it had
another significance in that context. It was some sort of an answer
addressed to the counter-rooters, and a satisfaction, a subtle snap at the
system that “forbade” the audience to watch the game in normal settings.
The song was known by the general public in the interpretation of Gábor
Tamás, a singer from Cluj, who had emigrated to Sweden in the seventies.
Tamás was a well-known singer from a programme of Radio Free Europe,
in which those who had defected abroad frequently sent, or dedicated
songs to “console” their relatives and friends “stuck” in Transylvania. The
lyrics include two lines full of pathos: “A flock of crows has covered the whole
landscape/At home all Szekler homes are plunged into mourning”. In this
interpretation, according to the feelings of the Hungarian rooters, grief
BĂLAN: ANGRY MEN IN THE NIGHT 57
was general in every “orderly Szekler” house, while the flock of crows
symbolised the Romanian majority settled in the region, who were the
counter-rooters of the Hungarians, the cause of minority problems.
We sang; what else we could have done… Hungarian people always sing, but
this time we were singing out of sorrow, because we had been beaten, and the
others made us upset. I remember well (…), there were many of us up there, it
was darkness, we could not even see who was happy, but we were angry indeed
while all those many goals were scored. Yet, there were no other problems, really.
—Hugo
The Hungarian team, in spite of the expectations, quickly fell out and
thus the ethnic dimension of the world championship also came to an
end. This, (at least in the interpretation of the account of Liam) opened
the gate to the emotions felt against the common enemy. Many of those
who were present at that time have moved away or died, and a portion of
the interviewees obviously only remembered the events that were relevant
for them. Often it is difficult for the interlocutors or the researcher to
distinguish among the events and the meaning attached to them later on.
Yet the messages of a few well-remembered statements in my view evoke
well the suppressed feelings characteristic of 1986, which were brought to
the surface by the experience of a collective event that moved so many
people. Particularly if they are placed in the context in which these state-
ments had been uttered. Here I quote a sentence, formulated by someone
in the passenger section, separated from the driving compartment of a
crowded, illegally used worker bus, traveling home at dawn, full of tired
people, many of whom were heading to work. As it is remembered, after
one of the Argentinian team’s matches, an exhausted rooter (an electri-
cian) said loudly: “Ceaușescu ne este președinte și noi trăim ca Kunta
Kinte” (translated into English: “Ceaușescu is our president and we all
live like Kunta Kinte”). Our man is not original, perhaps only brave or
outright irresponsible, putting himself and the others, the driver illegiti-
mately transporting them, in danger. He did not make up the rhyming
statement, he must have heard it somewhere, but said it there and then,
because he felt that the statement was true for that situation, in which
they all were in.
Kunta Kinte was known to the Romanian general public as the black
and exploited slave hero of an American TV series entitled Roots, trans-
mitted by television at the very end of the seventies. The main character
58 L. PÉTER
References
Erikson, K. T. (1982). Everything in its path. Destruction of community in the
Buffalo Creek flood. New York: Simon and Shuster.
Florescu, M. (1986a). Antene speciale. Tehnium, 185(4), 16–17.
Florescu, M. (1986b). Antene colective TV. Tehnium, 187(6), 16–17.
Florescu, M., & Tritoiu, V. C. (1986). Antene TV de mare eficacitate. Tehnium,
184(3), 10–11.
Hunya, G., Réti, T., Süle, R. A., & Tóth, L. (1990). Románia 1944–1990.
Gazdaság- és politikatörténet. Budapest: Atlantisz.
Kideckel, D., Botea, B. E., & Nahorniac, R. (2000). A new “cult of labor”: Stress
and crisis among Romanian workers. Sociologie Românească, 1, 142–161.
BĂLAN: ANGRY MEN IN THE NIGHT 59
Abstract The fourth chapter presents the big city versions of the football
gatherings in the eighties. The Cluj ethnographic case study shows the
widespread consumption of forbidden football. As in Eastern-Transylvania,
the dissident football consumption became a mass phenomenon, a signifi-
cant community event, and a powerful social institution. The chapter deals
with the case of one of the largest cities in Inner-Transylvania, and argues
that the football gatherings functioned depending on the local and rapidly
changing complex social relationships. It was primarily embedded into the
workplace relations of the first-generation working class moving to the
residential districts during forced socialist industrialisation and urbanisa-
tion. The chapter highlights that older neighbours’ relationships also
played a major role in the development of football gatherings. The phe-
nomenon, which was related to the local sports life and leisure activities,
showed several variants as follows: the commercialised/marketed version;
the closed version of nomenclature; the workplace version; and the mass
version of open air match-viewing on the surrounding hills. The latter
reached large scale in 1982 and was constantly developing throughout the
eighties. The chapter also focuses on the influence of the inter-ethnic envi-
ronment, but concludes that the nature of the phenomenon showed very
strong universal features, leaving behind the Romanian-Hungarian ethic
differences. The chapter concludes that the need and constant curiosity
concerning the forbidden football matches also brought to life a
phenomenon far beyond itself: it became a means of escape from socialist
realities and a form of social resistance.
spatial connotations. The new urban dwellers were living in the peripheral
residential districts, which had been developed over the years through the
demolition of old neighbourhoods of houses. However, these under-the-
surface tensions eased due to the general economic problems. The former
tensions gave way to oppositions like the oppressive power vs. the impov-
erished people. According to the memories of the subjects, Cluj in the
eighties was characterised by shortages and cold, lack of food, long lines,
unheated homes, deteriorating infrastructure, unlit streets, bad public
transportation, and a lack of interesting social events.
In my view these have three significant aspects: the institutions defining
the patterns of relationship; the free-time activities; and in particular the
links between the workers’ culture and sports life.
singular blocks of flats have become semi-private areas jointly used by the
inhabitants. These became spaces for socialising and free-time activities:
conversations, board games, playgrounds for the children, spontaneous
meetings or discussions on the common issues regarding the flats. The
entrances soon became symbolic areas expressing the unity of the block
(Mihăilescu et al. 1994). The entrances with benches replaced the village
home gate and the demolished garden, as life in the flats was boring and
uniform for the new residents.
Although we are speaking of a heterogeneous population—a significant
portion of which lived in blocks—the formation of local social relations
leads through the flats as living areas. The housing stock was allocated by
the employing units (Pásztor 2013); thus, the people who received apart-
ments in a block of flats were employed at the same company. So, there
was a great chance that people who worked together also became neigh-
bours. Moreover, if the people moving to the city were hired jointly or
through family relations, then there were not only work relations, but also
family relations within the residential districts. The residential area’s rela-
tions were interwoven with the patterns of workplace relations, which
were reproduced and strengthened.
The older Gheorgheni district in the eastern part of the city has some
houses with gardens left in the regions that are closer to the centre.
Here the inhabitants still lived in historically developed communities
(Pillich 1984), as the former inhabitants of the demolished city areas
were given quarters in the blocks of flats built in the neighbourhood.
Former neighbours probably became neighbours in the new living
places as well, which somewhat reproduced former community relation-
ships. Others are located alongside the railway, which was left untouched.
In these old house districts, local small-community relations persisted,
which were strengthened by workplace relations and had strong ethnic
implications (Pillich 1984). From the beginning of the twentieth cen-
tury, the inhabitants of these districts have traditionally worked in the
railway plants. The compact Zorilor district is located close to the
Feleacu hill.
Despite the structural differences and the different sociocultural pro-
files of the inhabitants, life in blocks of flats in Cluj, that is the lifestyles of
the inhabitants, have shown strong similarities. Bad public transporta-
tions, poor heating of apartments, chronic food shortages, long queues
(Câmpeanu 1994), regular power outages, and the gradual deterioration
of urban infrastructure and the blocks, have generated similar experiences
CLUJ: BIG CITY VERSIONS OF THE FOOTBALL GATHERINGS 65
for the people. To many, the “antidote” for the bleak, routine-like, repeti-
tive activities (Lungu 2004), the two-hour-long daily TV programme and
the eventless days was sports and later the related football gatherings.
Sporting life in Cluj began to unfold in the second half of the nine-
teenth century. At first, only aristocrats and the haute bourgeoisie played
sports, but this practice quickly trickled down to the level of the working
class during the modernisation. After the turn of the last century, the
growing working class established independent sports clubs and associa-
tions. The highly significant Cluj Athletics Club (KAC) in 1885 (Kilyeni
2006). Football quickly became popular. The breakthrough came in
1907 when the predecessor to CFR 1907, the KVSC was founded. In
1919, the Universitatea sports club (Péter 2014: 142–170) was founded.
Covering a large spectrum, the Universitatea determined the sports life
(Ilieș et al. 2015).
Under the auspices of the industrial units a variety of sporting associa-
tions operated under trade union administration, some having their own
sports centres, and football teams as well. For example, Clujana shoe fac-
tory, which had its own stadium, or the CFR team having its own stadium
built in 1973. In the eighties, football, basketball and handball attracted
the most spectators, but fencing, orienteering, water sports and athletics
were also well developed and popular. The Daciada has brought sports
closer to the people.
I don’t intend to outline the history of sports in Cluj, but only to
emphasise the diversity and development of local sports life (see Lupu
2012), run by schools, universities and industrial units. There were also
other facilities with free entry that allowed the population to practice
sports. The sporting events available in Cluj had a socialising impact on a
large segment of the population, creating a demand and a need for sports
consumption, especially for football among men. Football was the most
popular among industry workers worldwide (Goldblatt 2006) and this
was the case in Cluj as well—the fans were workers, alongside students,
technical specialists, sportsmen and intellectuals. It was a common and
cheap form of entertainment. Reports have shown that sporting activities
were a priority among leisure activities. Many of those whom I interviewed
regularly watched football matches in stadiums. This sports consumption
was embedded in the work, friendship and occasionally neighbourly rela-
tions, and was a popular form of entertainment.
To sum up: just as the city itself, the new residential districts were inter-
nally stratified both regarding the population and the type and situation of
66 L. PÉTER
This section presents the versions of football gatherings in the largest city
of Inner-Transylvania, tackling the structure of the presented versions and
the underlying social factors. I believe that the local forms of forbidden
football consumption were determined by the social structure of Cluj, the
institutions defining relationship systems, and free-time activities, as well
as the spatial and geographic structure of the city. The versions can be
placed along a continuous scale. Next to the cases in Cluj we can also find
cases in the surrounding areas, some of which were the destinations of the
commuting “sports tourism” of the Szeklers. From February to April
2017, I conducted 31 interviews in the city, which were completed by a
near hundred discussions, involving visits to the sites (twice accompanied
by the interviewed subjects).
The studied phenomenon was widespread in Cluj; people climbed the
hills surrounding the city. The location of Cluj was favourable because, by
the eighties, in several places there was good reception of the broadcast
from Hungary’s television (MTV). This became widespread in 1982, and
although it had earlier roots, it was relatively easy to watch MTV in certain
areas. It is unclear when people came to realise this, but from the late six-
CLUJ: BIG CITY VERSIONS OF THE FOOTBALL GATHERINGS 67
ties in certain areas of the Făget forest, which is located on the south-
western side, and in the districts along the railroad the reception of MTV
was reasonable, but this did not have a mass character at the time. In any
case, the common element of the narratives is that some people were
already watching matches in the late sixties in the cabin at the St. John’s
Well area in the Făget forest, and in the yards of the houses/holiday houses
scattered along the road to Ciurila, especially in districts along the rail-
road. In the sixties, there was no massive spread of television sets in
Romania, yet up to the end of the seventies, the TVR’s programming was
competitive at European level (Matei 2013); it is understandable why
there wasn’t greater interest for the MTV. However, at the end of the six-
ties, there were some young students, fanatical football fans, “old inhabit-
ants” of Cluj were interested in MTV broadcast. I found that this practice
had become massive by the eighties.
In Cluj people used antennas sensitive to the MTV frequency, the
designs of which could be obtained easily. One just needed to buy an
antenna that worked in the eastern part of Hungary. The antenna was
purchased in the neighbouring country, where it was still easy to travel in
the seventies for visiting. It was enough to draw the antenna on a piece
of paper, and it was not even necessary to buy it. This was the starting
point for adapting antennas to meet local conditions. In the eighties, the
Ezermester magazine also presented plans of antennas, as because of the
changes to the technical parameters, the antennas had to be constantly
changed, next to on-site fine-tuning. The drafting of the basic plans, their
distribution, adaptation and implementation were similar to the example
of Bălan. Engineers and technicians were working on it. The situation in
Cluj was somewhat simpler than in Szeklerland; as there were more pro-
fessionals whose knowledge and creativity helped solve issues, more pro-
fessional know-how was accumulated. Moreover, there were several
factories where the necessary components or the antennas themselves
could be manufactured—illegally, of course, but it was tolerated—and
more information was available for the technicians. An advantage was
that they knew the source of the signal, and did not need to adapt it
depending on which country’s channel they were receiving and there
were many more places on the hills surrounding the city where one could
experiment.
By the end of the eighties, several versions of football gatherings devel-
oped in Cluj. These were practiced at the same time, but there were also
crossovers between them. In the following, I will outline the ethnographic
68 L. PÉTER
the activities of the football fans, most of whom were men. The rules on
behaviour were more stringent: the presence of young children and the
wife had to be taken into account, and the loudness of the supporters had
to be reduced. “It was not as much fun” (Cain) as later, on the Lomb hill.
This version was not restricted to the districts located along the rail-
road. In the 10-story blocks of flats closer to the Someș River, there were
also people who initially watched the matches at home, thanks to rooftop
antennas. For example, at the end of the seventies, Carl, a construction
craftsman and Teo, a technician, have seen a number of international foot-
ball matches on MTV in the apartment of their engineer colleague, who
lived in the same district. According to them, in the 50-square-metre
apartment of the engineer, as many as 35–40 men watched matches
together. Sometimes an unexpected neighbour would come over but this
could mess up the atmosphere of confidence. Carl, a TV repairman, tried
to use a reproduced antenna in his home, but gave up after a while and
started going to the Lomb with several others.
In the Zorilor district reception of TV signals could also be found.
Several people attempted to watch the matches at home as well, following
the pattern presented by Carl and Teo. Mike’s employer allocated him a
three-room apartment here. Having acquired a great deal of experience in
the “field” by then, in the mid-eighties Mike tried the home version. He
built two antenna models that had previously been used successfully and
he also acquired a TV, but he gave up after a while for technical reasons,
and returned to the commercialised version of Făget.
This version was widespread throughout the city in the seventies; many
used it until the eighties, but as a substitute for the TVR, to expand the
palette. I consider that this version differed greatly from the pattern
embodied by the Pângărat ̦i-Peak. It functioned in private settings, not in
public spaces and it was available for a limited number of people. The
circle of match-viewers was not an open one; most of the organisational
tasks were taken care of by the host.
Yet, this private version points to some important aspects. It highlights
the different bases on which the viewers’ groups were formed: some “old”
inhabitants organised their viewing groups based on neighbouring rela-
tions, while newcomers like Carl or Teo, joined the increasingly expanding
circle of the gatherings based on workplace relations. In turn, Mike tried
experimenting individually, just as he individually took part for nearly 20
years in the next versions of football gatherings, which are called “com-
mercialised versions”.
70 L. PÉTER
The audience was ethnically mixed; a yard could fit 25–30 people. The
official language used here was Romanian, given that the host and the
majority of the people were Romanian. However, the second language
was Hungarian, because the television commentary was in Hungarian,
which the majority understood at a basic level. If necessary, the Hungarian
speakers would translate, but everybody talked to each other in their
mother tongue. According to interviews, this dual language use did not
generate any problems. Sam also felt this openness when he spoke of the
lack of bickering.
Over the years the circumstances changed. Part of the seating area was
covered, after the mid-eighties there were colour TVs (the purchasing of
which could not have been easy, as Romania and Hungary had different
broadcast systems; one in SECAM other in PAL), and the host purchased
a generator. This was due to the fact that power failures were quite fre-
quent in the eighties. Over the years, Mike became friends with the host,
helping his children in learning, teaching them chess, or playing football
with them. After a while he did not have to pay and he had a higher posi-
tion among the viewers. He recalls that sometimes uniformed policemen
would sit among the viewers. At these times, the atmosphere was some-
what restrained. During my research, I went back to the venue with Mike,
where we talked to the host, who had aged in the meantime. On the same
spot, his family operates a grocery store founded in 1991, which has been
working well ever since. The yard has also changed, but Mike recognised
the basic features of the place’s former architecture. During the conversa-
tion, the entrepreneur (David), who ran the marketed version of the gath-
erings, spontaneously said that “only decent and honest people came
here”, “he never had any issues because of it, and everyone was happy”
and “in those times it was the only way”. Does this mean, that others did
have problems elsewhere because they were not “decent”? From his point
of view or rather that of the system?
It was an important feature of this version that TV-watching was strictly
confined to football matches. The host handled the TV set; he switched it
on shortly before the match, and switched it off immediately after it. Thus,
no other topics were debated beside sports. In my opinion, this was a
deliberately used defensive strategy. Replying to my question, David firmly
stated that his guests never caused him any politically related problems,
even though they came from Brașov as well. This means that they were
total strangers. David provided his service of watching football matches as
a “legitimate” business: he produced profits, he sometimes invested in the
72 L. PÉTER
business, he kept personal, but distant relations with the viewers, and pos-
sibly made an agreement with the official bodies as well. After the change
of regime, he opened a shop, part of his capital being created in the afore-
mentioned way. If I assess the phenomenon from the “capitalism in social-
ism” point of view, then a marginal, but existing new function of illicit
football-watching has been discovered, which could have occurred else-
where in the country too. It is, however, a fact that the lack of media
generated a demand and a need to the serving of which the marketed form
has (slightly) contributed, and which later provided the financial basis for
a capitalist enterprise.
Although the above version was one of the ways to watch football
matches in the Făget area, there were few houses in the region; hence it
was an important, but not the dominant version. This was also a quasi-
private situation and was suitable for a limited number of viewers. It was a
marketed and profit-oriented “socialist enterprise”, which provided a
ready-made form for the viewers, almost entirely men, who paid a fee in
return. Thus, viewers were merely clients, which generated restraint, self-
moderation and conscious self-censorship. The importance of self-
censorship was underlined by the occasional presence of a uniformed
policeman. He could have been a sincere football fan, but his presence did
not only have symbolic meaning to the viewers: it also reminded the host
of their probably mutual economic agreement.
The role of the “commercialised version” in the later spread of football
gatherings is, however, not negligible. It made the matches watchable,
even though it did so on a small scale. If we consider the average number
of viewers and the number of houses that provided this service, we are
talking about 400–450 people per match, which is not few. Then it was
socialiser for the consumption of forbidden football. It was also comfort-
able because the host took care of the organisation and also had the
responsibility. However, in terms of its character and nature, it was unsuit-
able for providing access to forbidden football to the masses. Perhaps that
is why the entrance fee became 10 lei by 1982, for which in return the son
of the host gave one a paper “ticket”, the benches were covered with blan-
kets and so on. Compared to the pure version on the Pângărat ̦i-Peak, the
viewers in the Făget houses did not form an active viewers’ group, they
hardly had any ancillary activities, and because of the self-censorship, their
on-site manifestations and activities were related exclusively to sports con-
sumption. Nevertheless, this placed the Făget forest on the mental map of
inhabitants as a suitable place for watching football. Moreover, as Sam
CLUJ: BIG CITY VERSIONS OF THE FOOTBALL GATHERINGS 73
in-group, the events here actually strengthened and reproduced the power
consciousness and esprit de corps of the ruling nomenclature. They didn’t
need anyone’s approval: football consumption was done literally “among
themselves”. Compared to the rest, this exclusive version is entirely
unique, although it systematically occurred in other locations as well,
depending on the local facilities. In Târgu-Mureş, for example, the Party’s
lunchroom on the Platoul Cornești was “booked” for similar purposes for
the party comrades in 1986 where, of course, the average person could
not get in, as Adam experienced. In Deva, the party leaders watched the
matches at the television relay station, from where at those times ordinary
people were simply sent away.
4. The workplace version is also an exception to the rule and an atypical
form. This does not mean that someone had illicit football consumption
as a job or a workplace obligation, but rather that people used work facili-
ties, offices, electricity, TV set, and furniture provided by particular jobs
for the purpose of watching a forbidden football match. The tall building
stands behind the train station, on the banks of the Nadăș River. The
research institute set up in 1971 operated in this venue. The building had
a strategic location: the staff realised that there was easy reception of
MTV in the building and the broadcast was of enjoyable quality. After
work, the white-collars organised veritable football watching “séances”
here. Although it was a closed group, one could get in through friendly
relations. Thanks to one of his neighbours, Paul saw international matches
here between 1984 and 1985. The institute staff worked in a sole shift,
because it wasn’t a production unit. Matches of club teams began in the
evening, so “workplace match-viewing” was disguised as “voluntary over-
time”. To reduce the growing crisis of the Romanian economy, on 13th
September 1983, the supreme party leadership Plenary Assembly of the
Party introduced the regulation known as “acord global”; that is, “gen-
eral agreement”. Its provisions concerned workers’ performance-related
wages, but in fact it was aimed at curbing expenditure and wage costs. It
was thus easy to stay in the building for overtime, and the 20–25 people
who gathered together on such occasions watched football matches. The
organisation of these events was built entirely on workplace relationships
and maximised the use of workplace infrastructure. The group of viewers
was made up of staff members and their close friends. Due to its private
nature, this version is closer to the private, home-version, because the
employees’ friends could also attend. One of the key elements for this
CLUJ: BIG CITY VERSIONS OF THE FOOTBALL GATHERINGS 75
version to work was strict confidentiality and full compliance with the
rules set up by the organisers. The friends had to arrive on time, with a
previously discussed pretext; one could not drink alcohol, had to help in
arranging the venue and had to care for order and cleanness.
Despite the fact that this version was also atypical and did not spread
widely, it says a lot about the work relations of the era. In fact, nothing else
happened here than in any other business unit: employees appropriated
and temporarily took possession of the workplace, more specifically its
tools for their own purposes. Here, the suitable location of the building
led to the consumption of illicit football. The employees of the
Telecommunication Centre operating in Gheorgeni district did the same,
as the technological equipment allowed the reception of foreign television
broadcasts. According to Dan, at the end of the eighties, he and some of
his friends “begged” for admission to see a Champion’s Cup semi-final.
They were initially refused access, but as they did not leave, at the begin-
ning of the second half they were finally let in. It was humiliating, so he
remembered the score of the AC Milan-Real Madrid match in the spring
of 1989 quite well (19th April, 5-0). One of his neighbour’s friends
worked there; otherwise they would not have allowed anyone in, accord-
ing to the rules.
5. Open-air match-viewing. In 1982, the massively widespread ver-
sions have taken the phenomenon out to public places, similarly to the
case of the Pângărați-Peak “Open-air match-viewing”. In 1982, football
fans in Cluj were also shocked to find out that the TVR would not
broadcast the World Championship. Just like in Cluj, this news gener-
ated great outrage around the country. In his study on the history of
Romanian television Mustaţă notes that several thousand people called
the TVR’s public relations office vehemently complaining about this
unfortunate situation. Both the government and the dictator himself
have been blamed by anonymous calls (2011: 52). The piquancy of the
situation was that the party and the state leaders had already considered
not broadcasting the championship in 1978. At that time, however, due
to a strange turn of events, the TVR broadcast some of the matches of
the Argentinian Championship, as Romania’s qualification was certain
up to the last round. The Argentinian television provider had all the
broadcasting royalties paid out in advance because, due to prestige rea-
sons, the military junta did everything in its power to broadcast the
championship in colour to the outside world, thus beautifying the image
76 L. PÉTER
of the dictatorship (Kuper 1994). Romania, however, lost its last match
(on 15th November 1977, 4–6 for Yugoslavia). The national team thus
stayed home, but Argentina did not return the broadcasting royalties.
Thus, it had to broadcast some matches according to the pre-signed
contract. The former intention became a reality by 1982: none of the
matches were broadcast due to the highest order. Some funny situations
have also occurred. Electronica, a manufacturer of technical goods in
Bucharest, recognised the “shortage” and started producing TV antenna
amplifiers. When the party leadership found out with the help of the
Securitate, they furiously banned their production (Mustaţă 2015), just
like Electromures’s “capitalist” initiative in Târgu-Mures.
Hence, in 1982, the people of Cluj were forced to seek solutions. Three
main venues developed, where people started watching football matches:
on the Feleacu, in the Făget area, mostly along the road, and on the Lomb,
on the north-western side of the city.
Ralph and his family lived in the Gheorgheni district and in 1982 it still
had an area with houses and gardens. The local communities were made
up of old-time garden-working people, traditional workers’ families, and
first-generation inhabitants. By the early eighties, the organically function-
ing local community successfully integrated the newcomers who moved
here. In 1982, there were communities organised along neighbourly and
family relations (Pillich 1984), the so-called “quarters”. Ralph and his
family lived near a local school, having neighbours who also belonged to
the well-respected skilled workers. This was an ethnically mixed neigh-
bourhood. The young men in the nearby blocks of flats created autono-
mously organised amateur football teams and ran a mini-championship
every Sunday. Following this pattern, the smaller children also created
teams and regularly played with the supervision of the older children. The
middle-aged men, who already played third-league football or in the more
successful amateur teams, trained the younger ones and the children.
Football played an integrating role in the changing and expanding resi-
dential district. Older people were also present at the matches as specta-
tors, so different generations could be together. According to Ralph, the
fact that a small sports newspaper was issued on the parallel running
matches that engaged several age groups showed the “seriousness” and
the role of the community-sporting phenomenon. The newspaper
reported on the “Gheorgheni football”; it was sold for 2–3 lei and the
money was spent on buying balls. Although the newspaper failed, the ini-
tiative signalled the existence and strength of the local community capital.
CLUJ: BIG CITY VERSIONS OF THE FOOTBALL GATHERINGS 77
The sport was embedded in the local connections linking families and
neighbours, ranging from workplaces to residents’ communities.
The sport contest has a socialising role: the young adults and teenage
boys were integrated in the peer group society (Gans 1962) that devel-
oped around local football. They went to the Feleacu hill together to
watch the matches in 1982. According to Ralph’s memories, their small
group consisted of people who fit into 4–5 cars and they watched the
football matches on the eastern side of the Feleacu hill, in a platform-like
area because there “there was good reception of the ‘good stuff’”. Others
also joined the group of approximately 25 people on the spot, but the
groups watched the match on their own sports TVs next to each other.
The groups were ethnically mixed. They simply wanted to watch the foot-
ball matches—it never occurred to them that they could have problems
because of it. They simply didn’t want to feel problems because the con-
tradictory legal status of the events. They were determined.
It was never an issue if this was forbidden or not. It was never the topic of dis-
cussion among the adults that this was semi-illegal or there will be a scandal
because of it. Nothing of the sort was discussed.
—Ralph
And then that little sport TV was brought out, everybody was trying to hold
it, the camping chairs, some drinks for the adults, a bit for the kids… but this
was not the main feature. Interestingly enough, it was not drinking-centred
at all. Interestingly, it was not like today, that we are sitting in a sports bar
and that’s it.
78 L. PÉTER
These events had a solemn atmosphere beyond the cheering for the
teams. This was apparent in the preparations, in the tense expectation, in
the known and recognised hierarchies, in the seating order:
It all had a ritual: as they connected the TV to the car battery, as they did it,
and at some level there was a seating order. The one who got the full picture
from the middle was the doge or, at least, the TV was his. The car owner also had
to be somewhere in the front and then the others found their places.
One thing was certain, that everybody had everything against the rain. They
had all the equipment, there was no surprise, like the rain is coming and you
can’t watch it. And totally stoically, so if there was a shower, there was no prob-
lem. Just let the picture be clear!
—Ralph
Now that we were considered adults as well, that feeling that they included us
[in the groups of males]. But it was natural that they included us. The issue
was never that there was no place [in the car], but they were trying to do it in
some way so that everybody, who was old enough to see it could be taken to the
hill. This was by all means a positive memory, then there were such old quips,
such remarks by the experts, I cannot quote them now, but they all had such a
flavour, there was a feeling to it. Or as they got angry if something was not
working and how they commented on it.
—Ralph
This is not the way Mary, who went to see the matches with her father
in the eighties, remembers:
I was bored, I didn’t like the matches. It was cold, it was raining, and they sent
me into the woods. I got sick, they had to take me to the doctor.
Along the Făget road, in 1982, 1986, or 1988 there were long lines of
parked cars with groups of 20–25 people standing and watching TVs on
CLUJ: BIG CITY VERSIONS OF THE FOOTBALL GATHERINGS 79
the bonnets or tables of some kind. In 1982, it was reported that the lines
were several kilometres long. The antennas were put up on the eastern
side, and at every four–five metres there was a small group watching the
match, just like on Pângărat ̦i-Peak. The people sat on the higher grounds
next to the road, others stood behind them. Some TVs were packed in
plastic bags that protected them against the rain and from possible damage
during transport on the bad road. In 1982 the antennas were made in local
factories. We can say that this was the golden age of illegal antenna pro-
duction. In Bucharest, antennas for reception of Bulgarian television were
also mass-produced in factories, during working hours. Naturally, anten-
nas were sold on the black market as well, at prices between 400 and 600
lei, according to some accounts.
Yeah, from these factories! From these socialist companies. They made some
inventions with everything, all kinds of elements and stuff, to get better recep-
tion and things like that and I’ve seen antennas that had, I’ve seen antennas
with 24 elements! So, it was that long and the elements, I don’t know how the
guy sized it. So, he said: “Hey, I get reception like hell with this one!
—Lucas
The antennas were brought out of the factories in pieces; quite often
the gatekeepers were bribed. There was a spontaneous competition to cre-
ate the best antennas. Thus, there was a wide scale of models, some of
which have improved the image quality. According to the antennas the
respondents flicked: we “got them from the factory”, just like everything
else that they could get hold of.
Like in Ciumani, these gatherings were associated with the feeling of
freedom. Feelings of escape, “even if it was not necessarily consciously done.
You could not manifest yourself as a human being in any other way. There
was nothing else where you could withdraw. And since there were many,
many of us, this was perfect for it” said Lucas, currently the head of a
national TV network. In the circle of people, where he watched the matches
in 1986, people often criticised the regime and told anti-system jokes:
There were these resistance jokes, so to say. There were huge amounts of jokes
about Lenuţa and Ceaușescu! Yeah! It was like a kind of valve, you know? For
unloading, for doing away with frustrations, but you were not consciously
doing it, you know? Let me tell you what joke I just heard! That Lenuţa was
going somewhere… It was liberation! Freedom. There were jokes about her and
what a whore she was, you know? And her glorious past. She was the main tar-
get, but Ceaşcă and the whole thing were also aimed at.
80 L. PÉTER
I got the car in ’78 and then we travelled by car, and we heard that one could
watch it here on the Lomb road too, but only in a three to four hundred meters’
area. The stables were there. There, above the cemetery, and you have to go fur-
ther, and there is a right turn and there 400 meters straight on. Then we stood
next to the car, one side or the other. The antenna was next to the car, the little
TV on the front of the car, a blanket on it, or something. Then, in the evening,
the crowd gathered around us. So, we went at the times when there were matches.
Then, when there were world championships and European championships,
everyone came.
world competitions there were usually many people there, and they formed
spontaneous and open audiences around a television set:
Many came by car, but they parked and came to us. They looked for a place
where they could see better, where they could stand, and there was no problem,
they didn’t need to ask, “Can I stand here?” They just stood somewhere; they did
not bother us, not at all.
So, for example, we were out here at the Lomb hill, and a villager, so the car was
stopped and the antenna was about two meters away from the car, and the wires
were just hanging there, and one night, a villager let his cow go near the cars.
Now that tore out all the wires, but it happened only once. We did not bother
them.
And there was this neighbour, I had a neighbour, who had a Dacia with an odd
number. Mine was even. So, how do we go watch the match? Then he gave me a
license plate, an extra one he had and I put it on my car. My car CJ1AS, his car
CJ1AS, and then when we came home, he stood next to me. Two white Dacias,
CJ1AS, side by side! There was usually a policeman, he stopped cars, wrote down
the numbers, who went, who came… One of us started off sooner and then I
came down, not to come with the same number one after the other … They
didn’t notice it! There was some interesting stuff! We got away with it!
Next to the Făget, the Lomb attracted the most viewers. Calvin’s esti-
mate that there were thousands of people on this hill may be an exaggera-
tion. However, according to the sociologist Nándor Magyari, after such a
match, one could only descend extremely slowly by car from the two hills
surrounding the city in a semicircle, and the car lights that were shining
from the higher points of the dark city for hours on end, that equalled a
silent protest.
At city surroundings, the phenomenon flourished, too. Not only were
people watching matches, but it was also the destination of the “commut-
82 L. PÉTER
ing” version of “sports tourism”. From Cluj for instance, students of the
Protestant Theology Institute travelled to Huedin for matches in the
Reformed parish house. Izvoru-Crișului was one of the popular venues for
gatherings. The authorities paid close attention to this, which sometimes
involved direct conflicts and retaliations. In 1986 there was a conflict inci-
dent in Izvoru-Crișului, where such visitors arrived. This incident must
have left deep traces because even after so many years, several of my sub-
jects remembered it, but they subsequently overdramatised it and told the
story inaccurately. However, I was able to identify the family that was
directly affected. Ever since the seventies smaller and larger groups of fans
from Szeklerland often came here for forbidden football. At the end of
May or early June 1986, a roughly 30-people group came, which appar-
ently no one wanted to or could receive. They were too many, the locals
might have been afraid as they did not know them. Mathias decided that
if they travelled from such a long distance, they will fit in his yard. They all
camped in his garden, and, according to him, they had full camping equip-
ment and also had the “technology” needed for watching the matches. He
remembers five or six families, and there were children as well. They
accommodated themselves to the situation and behaved respectfully, but
when Hungary played one of its matches, they placed a large red-white-
green flag on one of the tents and started singing loudly. The house stood
(and still stands) next to the main road; the yard is perpendicular to the
road and one can see the back of the yard from the outside. The flag and
the loud singing prompted the attention of the local police and the civil
Securitate officer. Very soon, there was a police raid in the courtyard. At
first, the host was questioned as to why he did not report the presence of
his guests from Hungary at the police station, as he should have done,
according to the law. Then came the questions regarding the Hungarian
flag and finally, the singing. The viewers were threatened after strict inter-
rogations. According to Mathias, they all left the village on the next day,
and for some time he did not know what happened to them. After a few
years, one of the involved families transited the region and visited Mathias,
telling him that after some further persecution they got away with it thanks
to the intervention of a high-level prosecutor. After it became clear that
although they were Hungarian speakers, but did not come from Hungary,
the host was let off after a while of police harassment. According to
Mathias memories, the guests sang folk songs and presumably forbidden
military songs.
CLUJ: BIG CITY VERSIONS OF THE FOOTBALL GATHERINGS 83
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and everyday ethnicity in a Transylvanian town. New Jersey and Oxfordshire:
Princeton University Press.
Câmpeanu, P. (1994). România: Coada pentru hrană. Bucharest: Litera.
Csedő, K., Ercsei, K., Geambașu, R., & Pásztor, G. (2004). A rurális bevándorlók.
Cluj: Sciencia.
Gans, H. (1962). The urban villagers. New York: Free Press.
Goldblatt, D. (2006). The ball is round. A global history of football. London:
Penguin Books.
Granovetter, M. S. (1973). The strength of weak ties. American Journal of
Sociology, 78(6), 1360–1380.
Ilies, A., Deac, A. L., Wendt, J. A., & Bulz, G. (2015). Romanian university
sports-cultural landscape defined by the sportive space determined by national
competitions in team sports. GeoSport for Society, 3(2), 61–87.
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Ábel.
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(Ed.), Viat ̦a cotidiană în comunism (pp. 175–190). Iasi: Polirom.
Lupu, S. L. (2012). Pentru cine s-a cântat imnul? O istorie a sportului Românesc
1948–1989. Bucuresti: FEST.
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locuire. Revista de Cercetări Sociale, 1, 70–89.
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Mustat ̦ă, D. (2011). The Power of television: Including the historicizing of the Live
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Péter, L. (2014). Football and society in Romania. Issues and problems in soccer
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táról. Web Szociológiai Folyóirat, 13(11), 9–14.
CHAPTER 5
Southern-Transylvania—Further Faces
of the Extended Phenomenon
Abstract The present chapter presents the main results of the ethno-
graphic research carried out in Southern-Transylvania in order to find fur-
ther forms of football gatherings and to test the validity of the conclusions
based on the case studies carried out in Eastern- and Central Transylvania.
The chapter focuses on the cases of Alba Iulia, Galda, Ighiu and other
larger industrial cities like Deva and Hunedoara. The chapter examines the
way in which Southern-Transylvanian average football fans organised
themselves in order to watch the forbidden football matches and found
proper places in order to catch the Yugoslavian television broadcast with
home-made antennas. The chapter describes how the rooters organised
around the Roman Catholic Church tried to consume football using the
high tower of the episcopal cathedral as an antenna and the patterns in
which they commuted to the higher mountains in order to set up football
gatherings. The chapter concludes that the forbidden football strength-
ened the local identity and empowered community solidarity and eventu-
ally gave opportunity to express dissatisfaction toward the socialist political
order and oppressive dictatorship. The phenomenon was widespread in
Southern-Transylvania, also, which shoes once again the power of football
as mobilising factor during harsh times and opportunity to construct alter-
native and free social spaces.
Southern-Transylvania: The Location
The research here targeted the Alba and Hunedoara counties: Alba Iulia
and Deva and several surrounding villages. Both counties have a moun-
tainous relief, located in the vicinity of the Apuseni Mountains and the
Southern Carpathians. The region has a large majority of Romanians. Alba
County had over 409,000 inhabitants in 1977, of which 88 per cent were
Romanian, 6.6 per cent Hungarian, and 5.3 per cent other nationalities
(INS 2017). Alba Iulia, the largest city and county seat, is an administra-
tive, political and religious centre. Between the sixteenth and eighteenth
centuries it was the residence of the Transylvanian princes, where the
national assembly that legitimated the union of Transylvania and Banat
with Romania in 1918 was held. In 1922, the crowning ceremony of kings
Ferdinand I and Maria also took place here.
The city hosts the oldest Roman Catholic Archdiocese in Romania,
founded in 1009. The Roman Catholic Cathedral of St. Michael is the most
valuable monument of Romanesque architecture in Transylvania.
Construction started with the foundation of the ward. The population of
the city increased from 14,000 in 1956 to 71,000 in 1992 (INS 2017;
TEMPO 2017) due to industrialisation and labour migration. The produc-
tion of porcelain, leather and leather goods, dairy products and heavy indus-
try has attracted thousands of people from rural areas looking for income.
Hunedoara County in 1977 had 514,000 inhabitants, of which 90 per
cent were Romanians; their proportion continuously increased during the
eighties. Rich in mineral resources, the county has an important mining
and industrial history. It is one of the most industrialised counties in the
Ceausescu’s period. The town of Deva, the county seat, was the adminis-
trative centre of the mines. He also hosted factories and factories related
to the mining industry (steel works, metallurgy, mining equipment). The
population of the city grew almost five times (from 16,000 to 78,000
people) between 1956 and 1992 (INS 2017; TEMPO 2017).
The hard and routinised labour from factories and mines and life in a
block of flats becomes the daily reality of the cities of Southern-Transylvania
just like in other cities. The routine of daily work and living in a stan-
dardised urban environment have provided little leisure activity.
SOUTHERN-TRANSYLVANIA—FURTHER FACES OF THE EXTENDED… 87
Southern-Transylvanian Manifestations
of the Match-Viewing
This region has played the role of a “control group”. I was eager to know
whether there are any other forms that may have been radically different
from those found in the Szeklerland and Cluj. In Southern-Transylvania,
I conducted my research in the cities of Alba Iulia, Deva and the villages
of Ighiu and Galda in May 2017. Fourteen interviews were conducted,
but I also had spontaneous discussions with other locals about this issue. I
will highlight the particular features and the differences regarding previ-
ous variations. I found that football gatherings have been a widespread
phenomenon in Southern-Transylvania as well. In the regions studied, the
desire and curiosity for forbidden football was also built on the basic pat-
tern (“DNA”) already found. The main feature of the versions (mass phe-
nomenon), their nature (community and voluntary movement), their
purpose (watching matches) and manifestations (activities) were similar.
In the cities, the gatherings were organised on the basis of workplace and
friendly relations, while in the villages they were based on neighbourly and
family relations and the winegrowers’ networks.
Robin currently owns a large company. As a young man, he was already
a great football fan in the eighties, and because his family was well known
in the village, it was relatively easy for him to become a gathering initiator.
Since 1982, the football fans of Galda de Jos and the nearby Cricau as well
as those of Galda de Sus have gone to a higher hill in the Craca-valley,
located approximately 14 km away, and in 1986, to the Observator hill,
which was closer to Galda de Sus. The bad roads were a major impediment
and, according to the people’s memories, the cars always had to be repaired
afterwards. The people who were better off financially drove in their own
Dacias to the spot, or (interestingly, like in Ciumani) arrived on the work-
ers’ transportation vehicle of the local SMA. The Director of the
Agricultural Machine Station was a fan, so he organised the transport of
the villagers until the road facilities permitted it. It often happened that
the exhaust pipes of the passenger cars fell off before they reached their
destination. Due to the difficult access, by the time of the 1986 Mexico
Championship people looked for other alternatives; hence, trying to get
Yugoslavian TV reception on the Observator hill, where there was a better-
quality macadam road leading to the viewing place, but the Yugoslavian
TV reception was poor. The area is surrounded by large mountains, so it
was difficult to find good transmission from the southwest.
88 L. PÉTER
Because of the bad signal, the matches were only one of the attractions,
the free and community-like nature of the events and the intense experi-
ences were just as important. The evening campfires burning into the
night and the long conversations still mean a decisive experience for our
interview subject, Robin, who currently has several hundred employees:
“Of course, it was all surrounded by an extraordinary and pleasant atmo-
sphere, with a campfire, sometimes at night.” The pattern here was the
same as the one described before, there were about 20–30 people and
older children standing around a car, and although “it was night, it was
cold, we were cold, we made a fire, but there was a great atmosphere to
it”. One could hear the sound clearly, but there were serious problems
with the image. Due to the unfavorable geographic location, the reception
was never satisfactory, and very often the screen went blank. For this rea-
son, the antenna was a much bigger problem in this area than in previous
ones, the most important issue was having a proper antenna plan and its
subsequent adaptation to the local conditions. Logically, this was also the
cornerstone of the organisation. As this was a village community, thanks to
the intensity of the relationships between families and neighbours and
thanks to the intervention of influential sponsors, such as the SMA direc-
tor, the problems of transportation and of acquiring a television set were
easily resolved; the technical know-how was, however, scarce. Antenna
plans acquired from western areas, such as Deva, hardly worked locally,
which meant constant local innovations and trying out newer and newer
antenna designs. “It was a continuous innovation process. Yes, some peo-
ple were constantly working on this because we always needed a newer
antenna.” There were all kinds of antennas, and they said before each and
every one: “This is going to work, I’ve seen it, and we’ll have great recep-
tion.” This is how we managed to get some Yugoslavian TV reception,”
Robin stated.
These events were mainly a manifestation of the men’s world, and,
although some women were also present, the organisers and the consum-
ers of forbidden football were mostly men. For them this was a real adven-
ture, from organising to carrying out the events. They cut wood, fried
meat, told jokes, drank home brandy, but mainly wine, “because it was
ultimately an adventure. All the way from the preparations to its organisa-
tion, the way to the spot and the things that happened there, all an adven-
ture.” It was a source of pride as well, because one could get some
information about the “things of the outer world” there. “If you were
SOUTHERN-TRANSYLVANIA—FURTHER FACES OF THE EXTENDED… 89
informed, the next day everyone knew that you had been match-viewing.
You were closer to Western Europe,” he recalls.
Occasionally, wine competitions between neighbouring villages were
also held at the venue. Home winemakers took their best wines, and a
panel of “independent” winegrowers ruled on the quality of the wines,
which they naturally drank afterwards. Individual farmers’ wines or wines
representing neighbouring villages took part in the competition. The
events at this venue had a similar atmosphere to the system of activities in
Ciumani in 1982 (apart from the ethnic aspect, because here everyone had
Romanian nationality). These were events of “joy”, “foolishness”, “mas-
culine adventure”, “adrenaline”, “liberation” and the opportunity to
freely be together with others. This was especially due to the bad reception
of the TV signal (it could be seen, but the screen was very blurry) com-
pared to other venues investigated. The essence of the football gatherings
was stepping out into nature as well as the community experience organ-
ised together and by helping each other. Similarly to other small commu-
nities, these events used and reproduced community capital.
And this was not just in the case of Galda de Jos, but of the whole sur-
rounding region.
It was just for the joy of meeting many people, of talking, of being together with
the others, to have something to tell, that we were at the match, we saw it. Of
discussions, like how could you see over there? That this was here in Alba, I don’t
know, there, on the Straja, up at Sebeș, yeah. Each with his own hill, each with
his own antenna. To get an antenna, you had to know somebody, to give you
that, to tell you the material, to tell you the size. And everyone who was a bit
inventive put something to it. All in one place, it often turned out to be some-
thing nice, something free.
—George
The match was a pretext to go out. People had to find an alternative. In the
evening there was no power, you had a TV, and you had nothing to watch, and
we found these solutions that were pleasant, free. It was a complex activity
involving some earlier preparations, each did something out of those five. He
90 L. PÉTER
brought the TV set, the battery, the car, all put together, he looked for wood, he
lit the fire, he made the shelter, at least the TV had to be covered. All in one
place, and if we did something, in the end there was something. A community
with a capital.
—Robin
exceeds this by far. The Archdiocese and the Cathedral are the centre of
the Roman Catholic Church in Transylvania. The Theology is also here.
During this period, the bishop was Márton Áron, an iconic personality of
the Hungarian minority in Romania, who was enthroned in 1938, and has
stepped up against the oppression of minorities and the Holocaust from a
very young age, and has been in communist prisons after 1945. The
church leaders were also aware of the initiative. To my genuinely surprised
question as to what the supreme ecclesiastical leaders’ take was on the situ-
ation, the funny answer I received was that they were praying that every-
one would see the match… The symbolic link between the communitarian
meanings of football, the universally integrative values of the beautiful
game and the ecclesiastical “blessing” overwhelmingly reflect the social
role and significance of match-viewing that reaches far beyond sports!
After their “tower adventure”, our subjects found suitable locations for
TV reception in Deva and on the surrounding hills to the west. In 1982
and 1986 they watched the matches there, but, at the same time, they
sometimes travelled to Cluj until 1989, mostly watching the matches on
the Feleacu. So for the most significant matches they came by five to six
cars to Cluj. The team, which was organised around William, had a spare
battery, TV sets and an antenna suitable for reception in Cluj as well as one
for reception in Alba Iulia. The former was manufactured in the Metalul-
Rosu factory, the latter in a local plant.
So, in 1982, the phenomenon spread in Alba Iulia as well, which,
according to Robin and Henry, was due to commuting to the nearby Deva
and followed the patterns of the Făget and Lomb versions, just like in
Deva. Deva was one of the earliest centres of forbidden football watching.
It was here that people responded the fastest to the lack of the world
championship broadcast in 1982. One of the reasons was the location of
the city. The mountains and hills surrounding the city provided favourable
geographic opportunities for reception of the Yugoslav TV from the west.
A television amplifier tower designed for the TVR was close to the city.
Another reason was the large number of experts and thus, the accumu-
lated expertise (technicians, communications engineers). A division of the
ICE Felix computer manufacturing company was also in the city. With the
antennas produced here, the dissident public like the ones on the Pâgărat ̦i-
Peak, the Făget and the Lomb were soon formed in Deva as well.
Forbidden football watching spread not only here, but also in
Hunedoara and in other parts of Southern-Transylvania: fans from
Petroșani, Hat ̦eg, Brad, Orăștie went out in masses for forbidden football,
92 L. PÉTER
triggering the attention of the authorities as well. Here the masses went to
the Nucetului and Muncelului mountains; the Securitate was immediately
aware of this and made detailed reports (Mustat ̦ă 2015: 470), but did not
dare or could not act violently against it.
References
INS. (2017). Populat ̦ia la recensămintele 1958, 1956, 1966, 1977, 1992 și 2002.
Retrieved March 3, 2017, from http://www.insse.ro/cms/files/
RPL2002INS/vol1/tabele/t01.pdf
Mustat ̦ă, D. (2015). (Post)socialist television against the grain of politics: The case
of Romania. Caietele CNSAS, VIII.1(15), 461–482.
TEMPO. (2017). Data series. Retrieved April 3, 2017, from http://statistici.
insse.ro/shop/
CHAPTER 6
Abstract The chapter grasps the theory of forbidden football, more pre-
cisely the social-political significance of football gatherings as special form
of consumption of transboundary media transmission. The phenomenon
presented itself along three dimensions: sports consumption; the expres-
sion of ethnic/community identity; and resistance against the Romanian
political system of the time. Football gatherings created and alternative
social space characterised by volunteer co-operation (as opposed to the
compulsory activities imposed by the system), openness (as opposed to
closed society) and coercion-free discourse (as opposed to coercive dis-
course). The opposition of alternative expert networks and legitimate and
illegitimate counter-expert networks stood in the field of forces of the grass-
roots movement.
way of life in contrast with the living style of the working class (1988: 13),
which they devalued according to the censorship. In the light of these, in
the eyes of the Soviet power, the intervention against “information impe-
rialism” and “bourgeois propaganda” was completely justified and
reasoned.
At the same time, the flow of Western mass culture products in the
region was fluctuant. Their fluxes and persecution showed a great variance
in different countries, respectively even inside the same countries, depend-
ing on the current administration and on the possibilities and strength of
the oppressive machinery. The equation was also influenced by the diplo-
matic system of relations, so the enforcement of state control moved on a
very large scale. On the one hand, the socialist regimes were aware that
with the fast pace of technological development total prohibition would
simply not work for practical reasons. Therefore, in the periods of the de-
Stalinisation processes for instance, for the sake of the pacification of soci-
eties, their “appeasing” in a way, and in order to extort a new social
contract and an acceptable modus vivendi, they rather applied the tech-
niques of controlled accessibility (Massino 2012).
In Romania the second half of the sixties, between 1965 and 1968, in
the period of liberalisation (Tismăneanu 2006: 499), it was possible to
have access to the more neutral pieces of French and American media
products, usually in movie theatres, the television or in the theatres.
Important international sports events were also broadcast. This was an
organic part of the peculiar domestic socialist consumerism (Massino
2012), marking the fact that progress has reached Romania, and the
socialist political order is similar for the people to the Western one, or at
least it can ensure living standards and consumer goods comparable to
that. Massimo (2012) in his study about female roles, way of life and con-
sumption points out that the first years of the Ceaușescu era were charac-
terised by openness with respect to consumer goods and Western media
products, as evident proof of socialist modernity and quickly improving
way of life. The official image of the modern socialist citizen, the “new
socialist man” at that time could still include more colourful and lively
fashion items (socialist fashion), a peculiar adaptation of current Western
fashion. It could also accommodate the cult of physical beauty and the
legitimate consumption of Western music and blockbuster movies (in the
beginning in the cinemas, and later on more widely, via television). Relative
consumer abundance and widening leisure time activities were necessary
in the opinion of the author because with these the attention of the
98 L. PÉTER
retired persons watched more TV than the average (p. 143). In 1978, the
average time spent in front of the TV a day was more than three hours in
weekdays, and five hours on weekends (p. 152). According to the statisti-
cal conclusions of the researchers of the time, this pattern of watching TV
placed Romania into the European average; TV was watched to a similar
degree and proportion in Poland and England, exceeding by far Bulgaria,
Hungary or Yugoslavia data (p. 143). This situation, however, changed
radically by the beginning of the eighties, something that was the direct
reflection of political and cultural-political changes (Gross 1999).
In 1971 Ceausescu visited North Korea and China, where he was fasci-
nated by the “achievements” of the Cultural Revolution, urging him to
try these at home. At the meeting on the 6th of July of the Executive
Committee of the RCP the 17 clauses of the Neptun Principles were for-
mulated, declaring that culture must exclusively reflect the general direc-
tion of the Party (Deletant 2012). By this the melting period came to an
end and the process of Romanian “Small Cultural Revolution” started
(re-dogmatisation in culture, the exclusiveness of socialist realism and the
accomplishment of a nationalism) (Tismăneanu 2006). This could not yet
be seen in the programme policy of the television, because the position of
the dictator was not yet strong enough, and the professional bodies were
able to slow down the programme policy built on the cult of personality
for a while (Mustat ̦ă 2011). One year later, at the National Conference of
the RCP the basic principles of national homogenisation were formulated
(Hunya et al. 1990), the ground of political work and ideological educa-
tion was laid, and in 1974 The Media Law was adopted, which introduced
an even stronger censorship (Țiu 2013), although this has been officially
stopped earlier (Gross 1999).
As part of his endeavour to become independent from the Soviets,
Ceaușescu strived for energetic self-reliance and the development of large-
scale industry (Boia 2016). In the Five-Year Plan between 1971 and 1975,
a dominant proportion of the investments was oriented to the industry,
especially the areas of mining, heavy machinery, petro-chemistry and met-
allurgy (Hunya et al. 1990). The aim was to develop a so-called multilater-
ally developed socialist society. In 1975 Romania was granted the status of
a Most Favoured Nation by the USA, which was seen by the system as
some kind of recognition, and the American movies in the programme were
still a sign of that. At the same time, in the seventies Romania started an
active international diplomatic offensive: it tried to mediate in the Chino-
Soviet conflict, put efforts in trying to move Chinese-American dialogue,
THE SOCIAL AND POLITICAL SIGNIFICANCE OF FOOTBALL GATHERINGS… 101
and several state visits took place in which the dictator also tried to assume
a mediating role in the Middle East. However, by the mid-eighties the
economic failure became complete; at a 1981 National Conference of the
RCP Ceaușescu announced that by 1985 Romania would pay back half of
its foreign state debts, and in the first three years of the following Five-
Year Plan it would pay back the rest. In 1985 power outages became
permanent. From the end of 1982 population power usage was restricted;
the energy necessary for public lighting was reduced to half, and power
was also switched off regularly in the homes of the population (127–140).
The brutal retrenchment in consumption and state spending, as well as
the increase of export, literally pushed the population into poverty.
Queues in front of shops became common, and food shortage chronic
(Lungu 2004). Beginning in 1981, the rationing of the food distribution
was introduced (rat ̦ia). Romania was literally ruled by cold and fear
(Neculau 2004), increased by the symbolic and often real intimidations of
the Securitate.
Following the mid-eighties, the official rhetoric of the system gravi-
tated within the triangle of the myth of a besieged fortress, the heroic past
and the cultivation of personality cult (Tismăneanu 2014). Former friendly
countries became in the first instance neighbouring countries only, then
hostile countries, and the openness somewhat characterising the earlier
decade disappeared altogether). The case of Romania is unique perhaps
because there were no capitalist countries among its neighbours. In spite
of this, by the mid-eighties—perhaps with the notable exception of
Bulgaria in the official interpretation of the regime all neighbours “aban-
doned the road of building a socialist society”; moreover, they “wanted to
interfere with the internal affairs of the country”. All information and TV
programmes coming from the outside were seen as dangerous and harm-
ful from the outset by the national-communist system of Ceaușescu.
These changes directly influenced TVR. Beginning on the 1st of
February 1982 airtime during weekdays is reduced by two hours. After
1983 TVR2 only broadcast two days a week, while in the case of TVR1
noon programmes were discontinued and the afternoon transmissions cut
to half. Then, after January 1985, the TV programme on weekdays
remained at two hours a day between 20:00 and 22:00 in the evenings,
and during the weekends it shrank to three hours on Saturdays and five
hours on Sundays. Hungarian and German language programmes were
completely discontinued concomitantly with the gradual reduction of
overall airtime. By this, the period of the so-called political scarcity became
102 L. PÉTER
consummate (Mustat ̦ă 2013: 57), and lasted until the 22nd of December
1989. After 1978 no important football matches were broadcast by RTV,
with the exception of the matches in one of the groups of the 1984
European Championship organised in France (with the participation of
Romania), respectively the final. Sports ceased to be acceptable pro-
gramme for the propaganda…
A peculiar situation came about in Romania, from the perspective of
media consumption. In the seventies, concomitantly with the expansion
of the media system and broadcast media contents and the equipment of
households with TV sets, a vigorous media socialisation also took place.
The system literally got the population into the habit of watching TV,
which was organically built into the everyday routine. The television of
the seventies produced a new need that was fulfilled by the broadcast
contents. With its abundantly transmitted programmes, television per-
formed an important entertaining function until the end of the seventies.
It is striking that whereas until the end of the seventies, RTV transmitted
serials also familiar to Western audiences, such as The Saint, Daktari,
Columbo, Lost in Space, Sesame Street, The Time Tunnel, The Invaders,
Mannix, Kojak and even the iconic Dallas, by the eighties viewers had to
be content with serials produced in Romania or at best in China, North
Korea, or perhaps Yugoslavia or Poland. The last episode of Dallas was
broadcast in 1981. In the eighties, the place of programmes fulfilling an
entertaining role was taken over by raw party propaganda and contents
cultivating the personality cult of the dictator (Țiu 2013). However, the
need to watch TV had been ingrained in the population by that time, and
did not disappear!
In spite of the restrictions, hidden forbiddance and symbolic or direct
reprisal, the consumption of foreign media contents still remained a social
fact in Romania. This had two main carriers: radio, and the TV pro-
grammes broadcast from neighbouring countries. After 1985 these were
completed by the consumption of video films in small groups, albeit to a
much more restricted degree. Satellite dishes appeared in 1988–1989.
According to estimations, there were approximately 300–500 satellite
dishes functioning in Romania in 1989 (Gross 1999: 73), while in con-
nection with the number of video players there are only very contradictory
estimates. There were reputedly 10,000 such pieces of equipment in
Bucharest and an estimated number of 100,000 elsewhere in the country;
and about 3000–5000 illegally copied and distributed VHS video films
may have been circulated.
THE SOCIAL AND POLITICAL SIGNIFICANCE OF FOOTBALL GATHERINGS… 103
The audience ratings of BBC, RFE, the Voice of America and Radio
Liberty have always been high in Romania, similarly to other socialist
countries. Although we have very few reliable data available, a media audi-
ence research carried out in 1971–1972 pointed out that the Romanian
language programmes of Radio Free Europe were listened regularly by 59
per cent of the adult population, of the BBC 18 per cent, and of Voice of
America 18 per cent (Paulu 1974 in Gross 1999: 75). A survey showed
that in 1982–1983 the audience rating of these radio stations further
increased: the rating of RFE reached 64 per cent (McIntosh 1986 in
Gross 1999: 75), whereas that of Voice of America 20 per cent
(Mainland 1986 in the same work). The magnitudes are expressive,
and show that Western stations gained dominance in providing infor-
mation, being listened by the masses. Just like the televisions of the
neighbouring countries.
Systematic research about television watching in the border areas is
entirely lacking, yet their factuality is beyond doubt, they were organic
part of local everyday knowledge. There is no research of a scholarly char-
acter about this topic. The phenomenon only appears sporadically in works
treating the history of public television in Romania (Mustat ̦ă 2011, 2013,
2015); thus the issue lacks scientific literature. In connection with TVR
Mustat ̦ă (2015) remarks that the total appropriation of television for polit-
ical purposes and its placement under the direct control of the Ceaușescus
resulted in negative consequences: it made dissident or resistant television
watching near the borders a mass phenomenon. In her view it is funda-
mental that this practice was a form of resistance at the same time (2015:
466); therefore, without any special definitions and justification she con-
siders the phenomenon dissident from the outset. She uses the notion of
dissident audience for the watchers, based on the CNSAS documents she
had analysed. In the reports of the Securitate about the issue, the practice
of watching television along the borders fell within the category of dissi-
dence, which means that the system defined the practice as a harmful phe-
nomenon, spelling danger on state security. Mustat ̦ă (2015) just mentions
the phenomenon I investigated to which she uses the term of defiant tele-
vision reception (2015: 470), which is a lot stronger than the notion of
dissident audience.
With respect to the football gatherings my raising of the question is simi-
lar; namely, I regard them as a mass, and a stronger form of resistance.
104 L. PÉTER
defining differences. In what comes, I will also reflect upon these differ-
ences, analytically separating the issue I am investigating from dissident
media consumption taken in a general sense.
The regular following of Hungarian, Soviet, Yugoslav and Bulgarian
TV programmes near the border can indeed be regarded as some sort of
successful lonely and silent resistance (Mustat ̦ă 2011). Although the power
would like that, it cannot liquidate it because of its mass character. Yet this
resistance was a fragmented, passive phenomenon implicating actors that
were isolated from each other in space, in spite of its widespread character.
TV watchers never shared the same physical space, only rarely interacted
with each other, did not collectively step into the public sphere from the
private space, and their words and voices were never heard. They rather
meant only a virtual audience; Mustat ̦ă briefly reflecting on the phenom-
enon is right in this respect (2011). They do not form an active public
from a sociological point of view, rather a large multitude of private
individuals.
I consider that the gatherings represented a greater challenge for the
system, because besides the mere consumption of the matches, the ele-
ments of resistance also appeared in an explicit form. The gatherings
spread in the inner part of the country are different in several ways from
the above pattern working in a private context. First of all, they did not
function in a private space, blocked off from the outside world, but out-
side, in the open space. The masses, the multitude of watchers were pres-
ent at a given geographic location; their connections were manifold,
intensive and frequent. The analysed phenomenon is locally deeply embed-
ded into the culture and the systems of relations of the local community.
It presumed a much higher level organisation and the much better syn-
chronisation and co-ordination of the activities. In fact, it did not only
mean a sole passive activity, but rather a group of activities appearing
within the same social situation. The location—in contrast with the family,
which was closed and resistant against intrusion—was receptive; potential
and effective participants were free to enter, even if not in an absolute
sense. Furthermore, trust and social capital had an important role to play
in the equation, just like volunteering and the division of labour. The
opportunity was not given for the watchers: it had to be created over and
over again from one occasion to the other. Locations suitable for the
reception of TV signals had to be found first, then the equipment had to
be transported to and from the location and the knowledge creating the
opportunities had to be made common. So, the entire event had to be
106 L. PÉTER
media consumption and (in the case of Hungarian respondents) the ethnic
dimension was more prevailing.
For example, in 1988, on the Pângărat ̦i-Peak, where the songs of the
forbidden rock opera, Stephen, the King, were sung at the location of the
gatherings. In the case of those with less schooling, the resisting and pro-
test character of the phenomenon was less deliberate, much more the
community characteristic and the ethnic feature, if it was about ethnic
Hungarians anywhere in Inner-Transylvania. In the case of communities
built from the very first on workplace solidarity—like in the industrial
mining town of Bălan—match-watching also had a collective professional
identity-preserving role, but connected to ethnic identity in the case of
those rooting for Hungarian team of in the Covacipeter in 1986. Beyond
the ethnic dimension, as they returned home in the night with the worker
wagon, the event heavily contributed to the strengthening of the profes-
sional identity of the participants here, and to the enforcement of solidar-
ity among them. Yet in connection with the “Kunta Kinte complaint” and
getting over the interethnic differences, the protest character also explic-
itly appeared. For the Hungarian match-watchers in Alba Iulia the matches
primarily played a role in the preservation of their ethnic identity, greatly
defined by the diaspora. In the other Southern-Transylvanian localities the
weights of the three dimensions changed in function of the schooling level
of the participants, their ages and ethnic backgrounds. In particular ver-
sions like the case of the post and communication station of Cluj, where
the young people were allowed to go in only at half-time to watch the
championship match, the situation interestingly highlighted the protest
dimension. The latter was entirely missing from the Făget camping ver-
sion operated by the nomenclature and for conflict avoidance, also from
the workplace taken over for the purposes of match-watching (“work-
place” version). However, it is a fact that these three dimensions can be
separated analytically in the narratives, and in what comes, I will focus on
these three.
1. Sports and media consumption. Undoubtedly the primary reason for
the appearance and the spreading of the phenomenon was the eagerness
to watch football on television. The more and more scarcely occurring
sport transmissions constituted the attractor that put the phenomenon
into shape. In the absence of transmissions, those affected sought for alter-
native solutions, which were not invented from “nothing”; they forcibly
turned to the early forms of the evolution of media consumption patterns.
In the sixties, electricity was introduced to a significant part of Romanian
THE SOCIAL AND POLITICAL SIGNIFICANCE OF FOOTBALL GATHERINGS… 111
the mother tongue was gradually reduced, and in the second half of the
decade the Hungarian names of settlements were forbidden in the press.
Cultural institutions were gradually deprived of their tradition-preserving
contents, and Hungarians were no longer officially considered a stand-
alone ethnic group, only being regarded as Hungarian-speaking
Romanians, while the policy of homogenisation and assimilation became
more powerful (Novák 2016: 41). According to the official propaganda,
the problems of the Hungarians (the minority issue) had been favourably
settled, solved once and for all by socialism. Under such circumstances
empiric results also proved that football gatherings spontaneously filled
the gap left there by the degraded system of cultural institutions. Sports
fans quickly discovered that in the free context of football gatherings, in
the middle of nature, their Hungarian-ness could also be expressed and
lived freely. The modalities for that moved on a wide scale in the investi-
gated area, yet this dimension appeared strongly everywhere.
The matches of the Hungarian national team were outstandingly
important for the rooters with a Hungarian background. It is characteris-
tic that in the accounts the events are always personal in nature: identifica-
tion with the team of the neighbouring country was complete. The players
of the Hungarian national team were/are not only known by the majority,
but considered as their own players. The ethnic Hungarian rooters rooted
for the Hungarian teams, and felt sorrow when they were unsuccessful.
One of the frames of interpretation of the narratives is constituted by the
sports history of the successes and failures of the Hungarian football. In
this reading the Golden Team and its captain, Ferenc Puskás, playing in
the finals of the 1954 World Cup, symbolised the entire Hungarian nation.
The name of Puskás often appeared, showing that the “Öcsi” of the nation
was a unifying force across borders and a substantial element of Hungarian
self-identification. Puskás’ success was seen by the speakers as their own
success, too, but he was above all the hero of all the Hungarians living in
the Carpathian Basin. Beside Puskás, the Hungarian football and nation,
into which Transylvanian Hungarians also included themselves, was repre-
sented by football players Flórián Albert, Zoltán Varga and Tibor Nyilasi.
Not only the players, but also club teams meant national-ethnic identifica-
tion points. Thus the most “incorrigible” and nationalist Hungarian root-
ers did not only follow the important world competitions on the mountains,
but also some of the matches of the Hungarian premier league. The masses
were obviously attracted mostly by the national team; its qualifying
matches were possibly never missed by the rooters in Cluj or Alba Iulia.
114 L. PÉTER
interviews that football gatherings were not only community events, but
rather the spaces of living and manifesting ethnic identity.
The other aspect of the ethnic dimension was personal. In an intereth-
nic surrounding the Hungarian rooters lived their Hungarian-ness indi-
vidually and introverted. In a Cluj context the fact that the viewers,
irrespective of their ethnic backgrounds, watched the same transmission of
the MTV and listened to the Hungarian language commentary, got an
ethnic connotation. Here in the relationship between the TVR and the
MTV, and between Romania and Hungary, many of the members of the
Hungarian minority felt a “moral victory”, which generated in them a
feeling of cultural superiority. By the broadcast coming from the economi-
cally better-off neighbouring country all the spectators could follow the
matches, while nothing was transmitted by the TVR. The national anthem
played according to the protocol before the official matches—which they
did not even have to sing, only listen to—gave an individual enforcement
and satisfaction to the ethnic Hungarian viewers. It was not by chance that
in the case of the marketed version of football gathering in the Făget, the
money collecting host was eager to turn on the television only in the
moment when the match effectively began, in order to avoid moments
that could have been sensitive and liable to prosecution for the regime,
and which purported financial risks for himself. Manifestations such as the
collective celebration on the streets of Feleacu in 1982 and the cheering of
“Ria-Ria-Hungária” were rather the exception than the norm here—this
was restricted to the free counter-public sphere, where it manifested itself
freely, albeit in a changing form.
The consumption of forbidden football also served the creation of
closer and stronger connections between the Hungarian communities in
Inner-Transylvania. It created an organic relationship between the rooters
arriving from the Szeklerland to the area of Cluj and the neighbouring
receiving localities families got and stayed in touch. These relationships
resulted in mutual friendships. They strengthened the cohesion of the
Transylvanian community.
The importance of the ethnic dimension is well shown by the example
of counter-rooting and the spontaneous reaction described in the Bălan
case study. Yet, in my opinion the following case connected to the Alba
Iulia field, is quite expressive. A part of the ethnic Hungarian rooters from
here watched the 1986 failure of the Hungarian team in Mexico from the
closely located Drâmbar-Peak. They had known that place earlier, because
before the 1948 nationalisation the area had been the property of the
116 L. PÉTER
activities into the same social situation. This explains why among the root-
ers there were regularly people for whom football was not attractive, but
the community experience, one of the three dimensions, and the “dense
event” itself, were. The symbiosis of humans and nature and the concomi-
tant occurrence of the activities created the success and the striking social
power of forbidden football consumption. All these together gave birth to
a complex force field or social field (Bourdieu 1978), in which the differ-
ent variations of forbidden football consumption were the resultants of the
figurations and the dynamics (Elias 1994) between the institutions and the
professional networks.
Forbidden football consumption functioned in the force field of three
professional networks. I call the first group the alternative network of
expertise. Among its members there was a high level and finely tuned divi-
sion of labour. We find the conceivers of the events among them, the
“project initiators”: they are teachers, trainers, doctors, agricultural engi-
neers, clergymen and sportsmen. Many of these people became politicians
and entrepreneurs after the change of the political system in Romania.
They had been the locomotives of the phenomenon; they legitimised the
practice of forbidden football in front of the audience. As the owners of
technical knowledge, technical professionals (engineers, TV mechanics,
radio amateurs) made the local versions of the match-watching possible,
intermediating between the “project initiators” and those manufacturing
the technical equipment (factory technical experts, technicians, skilled
labourers). A whole series of machinery park administrators, chauffeurs,
transporters, filling station attendants, and organisers contributed on the
logistic line, to make match consumption possible. Within this volunteer-
based, alternative network of expertise men were playing the key roles,
while women fulfilled secondary or complementary tasks, being present
sometimes but only marginally, performing the duties of cooks (packing
food), tending (offering food, cakes on the mountain), loving, nursing (in
cases of injury), communicating (they were better in dealing with the
police), and taking care of the children.
Among the members of the legitimate counter-network of expertise I
found policemen in uniforms, party activists and occasionally the direct
supervisor of the rooter at his/her working place. The illegitimate counter-
network of expertise included informers, secret service officers and their
collaborators, who played a role in preventing the occurrence of football
gatherings, or applying punishments. Between the two networks gravi-
tated the experts in a contradictory position, who occasionally served the
120 L. PÉTER
rooters, or the regime. Such expert were, for example, the employee of the
TV amplifying and relaying station, who either chases the rooters away
(sometimes in Deva), or occasionally lets the imploring rooters in (Cluj),
the indulgent road police officer or the rooting, respectively penalising
local party secretary.
The phenomenon unfolded along the oppositions, struggles and com-
petitions among these complicated networks of expertise, in which the
symbolic distinctions between the roles were significant. The power fre-
quently bid its time in this fight, only stepped up against the participants
individually, was squeezed out of the free, alternative social space invented
by the football gatherers, without wanting or perhaps even being able to
colonise it.
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CHAPTER 7
Lessons and Conclusions
Abstract The closing chapter contains the conclusions. I argue that the
consumption of forbidden football in the eighties in Romania illustrates
the power of football, and its role of social mobilisation. According to the
findings the oppressive regime made a mistake when it decided to remove
world competitions from the programme of the TVR and broadcast pro-
grammes of political propaganda instead, cultivating the cult of personal-
ity. Football gatherings did not only become widespread: they created
resistant, voluntarily organised alternative social spaces, from where the
state was driven out. After the rapid spreading of the consumption of for-
bidden football in Romania, the power was unable to control the phe-
nomenon. The several decades of the functioning of the football gatherings
disproves the atomised character of Romanian society and highlights the
liberating and democratising effects of the information broadcast by for-
eign media.
Quite a few years have passed since the narrated stories took place. In
December 1989 Romania rid itself of a dynastic regime bearing national-
communist marks and turned towards the path of liberal democracy and a
more rotten and weaker than the population would have believed or
thought. And the phenomenon of forbidden football was a sign of this
illness, of the metastasis of the oppressing regime that the society just
failed to realise.
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D
C Daciada, 25, 34, 51, 65
Ceaușescu, v, vi, 9, 57, 58, 79, 97, 98, Deletant, Dennis, 6, 100
100, 101, 117, 125, 128 Destabilisation, 95
Ciumani, 21–24, 26–28, 31, 32, 34, Deva, 13, 74, 86–88, 91, 107, 120
36, 38, 43, 68, 78, 79, 83, 87, Dissident, 4, 7, 10, 16, 28, 34, 44, 68,
89, 90, 107, 109, 112 73, 96, 103, 104
Cluj, v, vii, 2, 3, 6–8, 13, 14, 22, Dissident audience, 4, 44, 73, 103
26–28, 31, 33, 56, 62, 63, Dissident public, vi, 58, 91, 94, 104, 106
E J
Elias, Norbert, 119 Jokes, 21, 36, 38, 43, 50, 79, 88, 116
Escape, vi, 10, 25, 40, 117
Ethnic identity, vi, 16, 22, 23, 44,
109–112, 114, 116, 118 K
Ethnographic research, 11, 15 Kligman, Gail, 25, 128
Exit, vi, 10 Kunta Kinte, 57, 110
Expert, 53, 120, 125
L
F Local community, 11, 22, 26, 76, 105,
Figurations, 26, 34, 119 112
Forbidden fruit, 96, 111, 124 Local identity, 112
Freedom, 25, 30, 37, 42, 79, 95, 98,
117, 124
Free time, 30, 52, 109 M
Masculinity, 36
Mattelart, Tristan, 95, 96, 98
G Mobility, 7, 49, 63, 95
Galda, 87, 89, 90, 112 Moldavia, 32, 33, 37, 39, 117
Geertz, Clifford, 11 Movement, 21–27, 34, 43, 44, 51, 87,
Giulianotti, Richard, 6, 125 109
Goldblatt, David, 65 Multi-sited, 11
Gross, Peter, 95, 98, 100, 102, Mustat ̦ă, Dana, 4, 8, 33, 92, 94,
103 98–100, 102–105
H N
Hungary, 4–7, 29, 35, 37, 38, National-communism, 5, 25
41, 42, 55, 66, 67, 71, National team, 3, 9, 27–29, 34, 35,
80, 82, 95, 96, 104, 114, 37, 41, 42, 55, 76, 113, 114, 125
115, 117 Network, 21, 26, 34, 48, 52, 108, 119
Nylund, David, 37
I
Ice-hockey, 22–27, 29, 34, 37, 41, 42, O
44, 112, 118 Organic solidarity, 111
Ighiu, 87, 90
Industrialization, 62, 86
Inner-Transylvania, 9–14, 32, 38, 62, P
63, 66, 94, 110, 115, 124 Peer group society, 77
Interstitial, 126 Planned economy, 48, 96
INDEX
161