Material Religion

The Journal of Objects, Art and Belief

ISSN: 1743-2200 (Print) 1751-8342 (Online) Journal homepage: https://www.tandfonline.com/loi/rfmr20

the political religion of ceauşescu’s national-

communism as exhibited by the county museum
of arad

To cite this article: (2018) the political religion of ceauşescu’s national-communism

as exhibited by the county museum of arad, Material Religion, 14:4, 567-569, DOI:
10.1080/17432200.2018.1486587

To link to this article: https://doi.org/10.1080/17432200.2018.1486587

Published online: 19 Oct 2018.

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 the political religion of
ceauşescu’s national-
communism as exhibited by
the county museum of arad
Stalin’s death and the condemnation of his
crimes in Khrushchev’s secret speech in 1956
caught Romanian communists on the wrong foot.
Communist parties from Eastern Europe faced the
problem of reforming the system, an imperative
requirement of their traumatized societies. Should
a reformation be allowed? And if so, to what
extent?
The answer of Romanian communists was a
categorical “no.” Gheorghiu-Dej and his henchmen
were incorrigible Stalinists and the denuncia-
tion of Stalin’s crimes was no doubt a shock to
them. However, in order to preserve the Stalinist
foundation untouched, an aesthetic operation was
needed. Because classical Marxist/Leninist rhetoric
had little appeal to Romanian public opinion, the
national identity theme was resurrected. For a
young nation, it was the most important thing. As
historian Vladimir Tismăneanu (2005, 48) put it,
Romanian intellectuals (especially in the interwar
era) manifested a veritable obsession with the ideas
of national identity and historical predestination,
whether they were communists, non-communists
or anti-communists. The national identity theme,
mixed with the Leninist dogma, was skillfully
appropriated by Gheorghiu-Dej and achieved its
maximum success with Ceauşescu, who created
an ideology with many of the characteristics of a
religion.
The history museum was to play a special
role in this facelift operation by its use of many
of the materialities of religion. The accent shifted
from class struggle and the workers’ movement to
the heroic battles defending the Fatherland. The
uninterrupted habitation of the present territory
of Romania by Romanians was also stressed. But
most important was the uninterrupted continuity
567
of heroic figures, the providential messengers of
Marxist history, who replaced God.
Revista muzeelor şi monumentelor (Journal of
Museums and Monuments), the official publica-
tion of Romanian museology, was full of articles
during the 1970s and 1980s concerning the
ideological and patriotic education of the young.
The set of measures adopted in 1976 by the
plenary session of the Central Committee of the
Material Religion volume 14, issue 4, pp. 567–569
© 2018 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group
Romanian Communist Party (RCP) is very clear in
this respect: “The museums will intensify the edu-
cational activity within the ranks of the working
class, acting for the masses to acknowledge the
multi-millennial existence of our people, its heroic
struggle for independence, unity and progress, its
contributions to the development of human civili-
zation, and its work and achievements in building
Socialism.”1 The patriotic message should act
upon the young visitor “starting from the external
objective attitude to reach to the deep strata of his
being” (Ivanof 1979, 1101–1108). “Deep strata of
being”—Communist pedagogy just took off into
the mystical realm.
The County Museum of Arad was a pioneer in
this “new science” of humankind. On 29 March 1977
it was reorganized “based on a new format” and its
inauguration was attended by Nicolae and Elena
Ceauşescu themselves (Figure 1).2
This was the pilot project that served as a
model for the reorganization of all museums
in the country; the “new format” meant that
the heroic national-communist saga was to
be displayed everywhere from now on. Every
historical age, starting from the Stone Age down
Outlook
to the “Golden Age”—the Ceauşescu era—had
to be represented. An uninterrupted “national”
history had to be promoted, to the detriment
of local particularisms. The visitor had to come
out with the strong impression of a common
historical destiny of all territories inhabited by
Romanians, in spite of some of them belonging
to different cultural areas and political entities for
long periods. Continuity was the magic word, the
red line that ran throughout the newly organized
Volume 14
exhibition.
Issue 4
It was first of all a continuity of heroes and
essential trends. “The centralized independent
Dacian state” from the second hall of the ancient
history exhibition prefigured the centralized sov-
ereign national-Stalinist state. The imposing statue
of Burebista, the unifier of the Dacian tribes was
just the first of a long series of embodiments of the
Volksgeist, passing into the great medieval voivods,
the revolutionary leaders of 1848 and finding its
resting place in Ceauşescu “the Carpathian genius.”
National history replaced local history. A whole wall
of the medieval exhibition is covered by the figures
of the medieval voivods who fought the Turks, but
none of them had anything to do with Arad and
local history. Similarly the 1821 rebellion of Tudor
Vladimirescu (Wallachia) or the revolutionary 1848
events from Wallachia or Moldavia occupied large
Material Religion
sections of the exhibition. Local particularism had to
stay in the background to make room for the great
spectacle of the nation’s history.
Protochronism, the pseudo-historical the-
ory of Ceauşescu’s propaganda that claimed the
 FIG 1
On the right one of the museum’s employees dressed in popular costume gives Ceauşescu the traditional greeting with bread and salt. On the left in the
background Elena Ceauşescu. Photograph courtesy of the County Museum of Arad.

568

FIG 2
Vlad Ţepeş (the Impaler) and Stephen the Great, voivods of Wallachia (1456–1462) and Moldavia (1457–1507) respectively. They were known for their
battles with the Turks, but had no connections with the medieval history of Arad. Photograph by Ioan Scripciuc, courtesy of the County Museum of Arad.
 Outlook
FIG 3
The 1784 “revolution” (called “the rebellion” [răscoala] since 2013) of Horia, Cloşca and Crişan—a sample of Ceauşescu’s protochronism. Photograph by
Ioan Scripciuc, courtesy of the County Museum of Arad.

anticipation of major European trends by Romanian Notes and References

achievements, was also at home in the museum.
The tribes’ union led by Burebista is re-baptized
as a “centralized independent state,” an absolutist
monarchy avant la lettre; the 1784 peasant revolt 1

Volume 14
Scânteia, official newspaper of the Romanian Communist
becomes “the revolution of Horia, Cloşca and Party, 19 September 1976, 4. Author’s translation.

Issue 4
Crişan,” a discreet suggestion that the 1789 French 2
It has remained largely in place although a reorganization
Revolution came only second place.3 took place in 2013.
The visitor to the museum thus enters a 3
sacred place where the saga of the nation is These inscriptions were removed in 2013.
Ivanof, Eduard. 1979. Aspecte ale aportului muzelului la
illustrated from prehistory to the present. The
formarea sentimentului patriotic al tinerei generaţii [Aspects of
visitor’s footsteps are guided from one historical
the museum’s contribution in molding the young generation].
period to another by the great personalities of Ziridava: Annuary of the County Museum of Arad, XI.
national history, looking down severely from
above. Young people should feel themselves Tismăneanu, Vladimir. 2005. Stalinism pentru eternitate.
569 O istorie politică a comunismului românesc. Iaşi: Polirom
part of this epic unfolding, convinced by its
Publishing House.
logical conclusion in communist millenarianism.
A millenarianism that lost its universal vocation bogdan ivascu
but found its ideal host in the nation guided by museum of arad, romania
visionary ideology. DOI: 10.1080/17432200.2018.1486587
Material Religion