“Deșteaptă-te, Române!” The Social Life of the Hymn of the

Romanian Revolution of 1989 during the Communist Era

MA Thesis in European Studies

Graduate School for Humanities

Universiteit van Amsterdam

---

Author: Matthias Ruijgrok

Student number: 10461639

---

Main Supervisor: dr. Sudha Rajagopalan

Second Supervisor: dr. Artemy Kalinovsky

June, 2015

1

Contents

Preface...................................................................................................................................... 2

Introduction.............................................................................................................................. 4

Chapter 1: Awakening; the popular narrative............................................................................ 9

Chapter 2: “Deșteaptă-te, Române” and nationalism................................................................. 16

Under Communism........................................................................................................ 19

Chapter 3: “Deșteaptă-te, Române” and public temperament.................................................... 25

The Brașov revolt of 1987............................................................................................... 28

Chapter 4: “Deșteaptă-te, Române” and sociability.................................................................... 35

Chapter 5: “Deșteaptă-te, Române” and education.................................................................... 43

Conclusion................................................................................................................................. 51

Bibliography.............................................................................................................................. 54

Appendix................................................................................................................................... 57

2

Preface

When exactly my own “journey” with Romania’s present day national hymn “Deșteaptă-te, Române”

commenced, I cannot pinpoint. Already when I started studying History at the University of Utrecht

in 2010, Romania had attracted my specific interest. This only deepened when I took the opportunity

to study Romanian at the University of Amsterdam and subsequently enrolled twice in the Romanian

summer school program organised by the Romanian Cultural Institute, aimed at education in

Romanian language and culture. Somewhere along this string of events I had become acquainted

with “Deșteaptă-te Române” as the hymn of the Romanian revolution. I thought of it as an

interesting feature of the revolution, a song that proved such a strong symbol.

Continuing my studies at the University of Amsterdam in the MA program East European Studies, I

was determined to pursue a thesis research with a subject relating to Romanian history. It was not

until I enrolled in a course on cultural pastimes in (Soviet) Russia, given by Sudha Rajagopalan, that

“Deșteaptă-te Române” came into sight as a possible subject. From the way I knew the song by then

– as a revolutionary song that was forbidden in Communist Romania – I started to wonder how

Romanians had learned about it, and how it had been popularly remembered despite its official

prohibited status. This thesis is the result of that one simple question and the ensuing flow of

information resulting from the research, which often challenged the ideas I had prior. The song

proved to have passed through an interesting trajectory during the Communist era, which differed

vastly from my initial expectations. I can quite honestly say it was an exciting and highly rewarding

journey to uncover the life of “Deșteaptă-te Române” during the Romanian Communist period.

Acknowledgements

For the realisation of this research, I was very fortunate to have received the assistance of many

people, both friends and persons which were (previously) unknown to me. Hence I wish to express

my sincere gratitude towards all those who helped me with the project. First of all, I want to thank

my fantastic supervisor Sudha Rajagopalan for her advice, assistance and encouragement

throughout the project. My work could also not have been realised without all the people with

whom I had the pleasure to conduct an interview, so my sincere thanks to Silvano Budacea, Maria

Bucur, Ionel Piruscă, Valer Rus, Daniela Ulieriu, Vlad Ulieriu, Mihail Avramescu and Cristina

Madgearu. I have been reliant on a lot of others too, who were prepared to do a lot of networking

for my project, helped me with identifying the right direction for my research, or were involved with

the surveys. Even though their efforts did in some cases unfortunately not lead to actual results, my

3

gratitude nevertheless goes to Camelia Crăciun, dr. Alex Drace-Francis, Ion Caramitru, Mirela

Balaban, Ana Borca, Monica Budacea, Yvonne Helmich, Bart van Rossum, Nicole van Rossum,

Rucsandra Pop, Alina Floroi, Marius Stoianovici, John Bucur and Mihaela Miroiu. I would furthermore

like to thank my former Romanian teacher Dana Niculescu for helping me with some translations,

and I am especially grateful to my friend and colleague Matthew Signer, who put great effort into

proofreading my final work and provided me with countless useful comments and corrections. Last

but not least, I want to thank my family for their support throughout the years.

- Matthias Ruijgrok, June 29, 2015

4

Introduction

“Deșteaptă-te, române,

din somnul cel de moarte,

În care te-adânciră barbarii de tirani!

Acum ori niciodată croiește-ți altă soartă,

La care să se-nchine și cruzii tăi dușmani!”

(Awaken, Romanian,

from the sleep of death,

Into which you have been sunk by the barbaric tyrants!

Now or never, create a new fate for yourself,

To which even your cruel enemies will bow!) 1

Quoted above is the first strophe of the current Romanian national anthem, ”Deșteaptă-te,

Române!” (“Awaken, Romanian!”), a song with strikingly strong ties to the revolutionary events of

December 1989, and the toppling of Nicolae Ceaușescu’s Communist regime. These first four bars

bear a particular importance. These were the very lines sung repeatedly during the revolutionary

uprisings that started in the city of Timișoara on 16 and 17 December of that year, and which would

spread all over the country in the following days.2 These events I will refer to as the “revolution”,

despite ongoing debates whether it actually was a revolution,3 as this does not concern my research.

”Deșteaptă-te, Române!”, as a poem originally titled “Un Răsunet” (an echo), was written in 1848 by

Andrei Mureșanu. The composer Anton Pann is generally credited for the music, though the melody

used for the song had a great popular circulation at that time.4 During the revolution of 1848 in

Romania, which aimed at independence and unification of the Romanian regions, it was first sung

1 The first strophe of ”Deșteaptă-te, Române!”, quoted from Vasile Oltean, Imnul Național „Deșteaptă-te

Române!” – scurt istoric (Brașov, 2005). All translations from the Romanian are my own, except where mentioned otherwise. 2 Mihail Ionescu & Dennis Deletant, "Romania and the Warschaupact: 1955-1989" in Cold War International

History Project (2004), p. 53-54; Peter Siani-Davies, The Romanian Revolution of December 1989 (Ithaca/London, 2005), p. 61. 3 See for example: Siani-Davies, The Romanian Revolution of December 1989.

4 Vasile Oltean, Imnul național "Deșteaptă-te române!" - scurt istoric (Brașov, 2005), 29-37; Valer Rus, Povestea

Imnului National (online on the site of the Muzeul Casa Mureșenilor site) http://muzeulmuresenilor.ro/2013/09/03/povestea-imnului-national/ (retrieved: 4 June 2015).

5

publicly. The song bore already clearly revolutionary and patriotic connotations in its original

incarnation. When the Communist regime came to power after the Second World War, it initially

held a distinctive internationalist stand, and was thus uneasy with anything decidedly nationalist.5

”Deșteaptă-te, Române!” certainly fell under these definitions, and as such, singing the song in

public was forbidden under Communism in Romania. It is generally held that the song was sung for

the first time in public again at a workers uprising in the industrial city of Brașov in November 1987.

These events are nowadays heralded as a first sign of the regime’s decline, and sometimes named a

first, premature spark of revolution as well. During these events it was that ”Deșteaptă-te, Române!”

first re-emerged in public.6 As Ion Caramitru, an important opposition figure in the late Communist

period, told me about this event: “When we first heard Deșteaptă-te Române was being played [sic]

during the protests in Brașov, we were shocked.”7

Despite allusions to the forbidden status of ”Deșteaptă-te, Române!” in the Romanian

Communist era, in academic writing on the events no definite answer is given about this. Standard

works on the Romanian revolution and the Communist era in Romania often mention the song

shortly and without many further references. In Peter Siani-Davies’ detailed work on the Romanian

revolution, The Romanian Revolution of 1989, ”Deșteaptă-te, Române!” is mentioned shortly as “the

old patriotic anthem”.8 In another important volume, Romania under Communist Rule, the historian

Dennis Deletant mentions the song first when he describes the uprising in Brașov, to later re-

introduce it when the events in 1989 are narrated. He notes that it was first sung in public during the

Brașov uprising in 1987, but other than mentioning that it is a “Romanian national song” and the

“anthem of the revolution of 1848”, he grants no further illumination.9 One of the few writings in

which clarity is given about the status of “Deșteaptă-te, Române”, is a short history on the national

anthem on the site of the Casa Mureșenilor Museum, written in Romanian by its director Valer Rus,

a historian himself. In his words “the coming to power of the Communists in Romania brought this

old symbol of freedom of the Romanian people *Deșteaptă-te, Române] in the ungrateful position of

a banned song.”10

5 Lucian Boia, History and Myth in Romanian Consciousness (Budapest, 2001), 70-73.

6 Dennis Deletant, Romania Under Communist Rule (Iași/Oxford, 1999), 135.

7 Personal communication with Mr. Caramitru at a conference on the Romanian revolution in Amsterdam,

December 11th

2014. 8 Peter Siani-Davies, The Romanian Revolution of December 1989 (Ithaca/London, 2005), p. 61.

9 Deletant, Romania under Communist Rule, 135, 162.

10 Valer Rus, Povestea Imnului National (online on the site of the Muzeul Casa Mureșenilor site)

http://muzeulmuresenilor.ro/2013/09/03/povestea-imnului-national/ (retrieved: 4 June 2015). Venirea comuniştilor la putere în România aduce acest vechi simbol al libertăţii românilor în postura ingrată de cântec interzis.

6

In the existing academic framework, “Deșteaptă-te, Române” is only illuminated whenever it

is shows up, and always with the connotations it bears at these precise moments. This alone justifies

questions about what happened to the song in the Communist period, or how people have

remembered it over time. What was the “life” of “Deșteaptă-te, Române” when it was not of

central, but of marginal importance? As the musicologist Sabina Păuța Pieslak has argued in multiple

publications, the nationalist ideology to which the Romanian Communist Party especially later under

Ceaușescu paid tribute to, had far-reaching implications for music performance and composition.11

The role of music was to foster the construction of the Romanian nation-state, and performances by

musicians, such as the world famous Madrigal choir, had to propagate a Romanian national identity.

Officials were, however, also extremely cautious not to allow exposure of the Romanian populace to

any potential musical triggers for protests against the regime.12 The principal connotations of

“Deșteaptă-te, Române” certainly suggest national identity as among its most prominent themes.

Further complicating the issue, as writer and historian Lucian Boia has elaborated, the leading

discourse in Communist Romanian politics shifted over time from an initial anti-nationalist phase,

towards exacerbating nationalism from the 1970s onward.13

With all these factors in play, it seems that “Deșteaptă-te, Române” can be understood

neither a solely “patriotic” or “revolutionary” song, nor as just a “symbol of freedom.” It is therefore

my intention in this research not to endow meaning or value on the song beforehand, as this in the

case of “Deșteaptă-te, Române” mostly relates to the moments it was of central importance (and

even then, its meaning might have been altered over time). Much as the anthropologist Arjun

Appadurai has shown in his study The Social Life of Things, I intend to follow the song as a “thing”

itself. It is through the analysis of its trajectory that one can interpret and illuminate the social

context in which this “thing” operates.14 “Deșteaptă-te, Române” is, in this sense, a “thing” best

followed through discourse and framing. The way in which people interacted with the song and how

they frame it in narratives will be used to reconstruct its “social life” in the Communist era. As

Communism in Romania ended 25 years ago, this is by default retrospective framing. Memory, as

famously put by oral historian Alessandro Portelli, “is not a passive depository of facts, but an active

process of creation of meanings.”15 The story on “Deșteaptă-te Române” is affected by the

11

For these examples, see: Sabina Păuța Pieslak, “Romanians Madrigal Choir and the Politics of Prestige”, Journal of Musicological Research (2007), 26:1, 215-240; and: Sabina Păuța Pieslak, “Waves in the ‘Iron Curtain’: An Introduction to Music and Politics in 1960s Romania”, Musicology Australia (2010), 32:2, 227-242. 12

Păuța Pieslak, Romanians Madrigal Choir and the Politics of Prestige, 215-217, 230. 13

Boia, History and Myth in Romanian Consciousness, 77. 14

Arjun Appadurai (ed.), The Social Life of Things – Commodities in Cultural Perspective (Cambridge, 1986). 15

Quoted in Alistair Thomson, “Memory and Remembering in Oral History” in The Oxford Handbook of Oral History, (Donald Ritchie ed.), (Oxford, 2010), 77.

7

retrospective nature of people’s account on the song, as they tend create narratives. On the other

hand, just because people make sense of their memories through narration and connecting of their

experiences with its social context, their retrospective accounts could be all the more useful.16 That

these memories are layered narratives should be kept in mind nonetheless.

For my research I am reliant on deep interviews I have conducted with Romanians living

inside and outside of Romania between April and May 2015. In my methodology regarding research

and interviewing, I lean on the principles of oral history, as famously outlined by Paul Thompson’s

groundbreaking study “The Voice of the Past”.17 All interviews have been recorded on tape with the

explicit consent of those interviewed. I have been observant not to force the answers, instead

providing interviewees with open and clear questions, and interfering as little as possible while they

elaborated their thoughts on the subjects about which I asked. The duration of the interviews

differed between one and one-and-a-half hours, with mostly about five minutes of talking off-record

before and after the interviews. The interviews have mostly been conducted in English and

Romanian, with one exception in Dutch, and the recordings have been kept for documentation

purposes.18 In the search for interviewees, I have mostly been reliant on the snowball-effect and

personalised introductions. I had three primary sources of connections, émigrés living in the

Netherlands who connected me to their parents in Romania, connections with the Romanian

Cultural Institute in Bucharest, and connections through the academic world. As a result, two of my

interviewees have an academic background in history, and were well-versed in Romanian history.

Their wider knowledge on the subject was taken into consideration and their answer critically

assessed, as their backgrounds might colour their memory narratives. My other interviewees (have)

had occupations in the industrial sector (three of them), IT, in one case the aforementioned cultural

institute and a last one in journalism. Their backgrounds were likewise taken into consideration. My

main criterion for selection was, nonetheless, that people had lived in Romania during the

Communist period and were old enough to have conscious memories of this period. To further

embolden the findings of these deep interviews, I used written surveys and e-mail communication,

albeit ultimately on a small scale. The surveys contained fifteen questions that touched upon the

same subjects as those that were the fundamental issues for the interviews, and in most cases

(though not all), I have been able to ask through on the answers given.19 The years of birth of my

16

Alistair Thomson, “Memory and Remembering in Oral History” in The Oxford Handbook of Oral History, (Donald Ritchie ed.), (Oxford, 2010), 80. 17

Paul Thompson, The Voice of the Past – Oral History (3rd

ed; Oxford, 2000) 18

Contact the author for consent of consultation of these records. 19

The English form of the survey is to be found in the appendix of this paper.

8

informants varied between 1942 and 1976, thus providing a broad scope to encompass the entire

Communist era in Romania, which lasted from 1947 to 1989.

The “social life” of the song has many different facets that show overlap with each other at

times but which are best to be illuminated one by one. Based on the interviews I have identified five

frames of discourse wherein the song has a function. These are the themes within which I found

answers on how people remember the song, and how they remembered it in the Communist era.

The first frame concerns the popular narrative of “awakening” where I mean “popular” in the sense

that this is a narrative related to the events in which the song was central. The academic discourse,

as far as it exists, overlaps with this popular discourse. The theme is followed by nationalism in

relation to “Deșteaptă-te, Române”. As I already implied above, this frame is especially compelling

with regard to the Communist regime’s changing attitudes towards patriotism and nationalism. The

next frame of public temperament is close to the former, but serves to identify how the song

(re)gained its revolutionary connotations. Before finally turning to education, which had an

unsuspected role in remembering the song, I turn to social practices such as singing, and how

“Deșteaptă-te, Române” has appeared in that sense.

9

Chapter 1: Awakening; the popular narrative

As a starting point for the analysis of the narrative frames in which “Deșteaptă-te, Române” appears,

I will first elaborate on the narrative in which the song is of central importance. What I have dubbed

the ‘popular’ narrative, should be read as the narrative that relates to the meaning “Deșteaptă-te,

Române” gained in the revolution of 1989. As noted in the introduction, the academic discourse on

the subject is not very broad, and in that sense mostly overlaps with the popular linkage of the song

with the revolutionary events. The framing of “Deșteaptă-te, Române” as a revolutionary song

connected with uprisings against the Communist regime is the very reason its history before that

moment is necessarily problematic.

It is worthwhile to take into deeper consideration the lyrics of the first strophe of

“Deșteaptă-te, Române,” which are the main verses concerned when it comes to the public singing

of the song. As has been remarked already, during the two important revolts in the late 1980s when

the song appeared, these were the lyrics sung.20 The lyrics stand open for a wide array of

interpretations, hence a deconstruction of the text is necessary for understanding the various

meanings that are bestowed on it. The first bar, “Awaken Romanian, from the sleep of death”, can

be aptly employed in numerous situations, as long as the recipient feels addressed as a Romanian.

One might ask who a Romanian is, whether it is all people identifying ethnically Romanian, or

whether it encompasses those who live within its boundaries and possess for instance a Romanian

passport. The ‘sleep of death’ may denote passiveness, as well as unawareness, as if one is asleep

whilst coming events are heralded by omens, “death” certainly suggests a strong negative

implication. Moreover, the following line of “In which you have been sunk by the barbaric tyrants”

suggests that a force from outside implemented this ‘sleep of death’ on the Romanian, whereby

‘from outside’ does not necessarily mean from outside the land borders. It means outside of ‘us’,

from what ‘we’ identify as an ‘other’. Needless to say, depending on how one would read these two

lines, the ‘barbaric tyrants’ could for instance mean foreign Russian occupants, indigenous

Communist oppressors, or an ethnic minority perceived a threat. Who is identified as the ‘barbaric

tyrant’ also defines who should be seen united as Romanians: in these examples, Romanian

nationals, all anti-communists fighting the regime, and ethnic Romanians. The enemy defines the

group of the self. The next two lines, “Now or never, create a new fate for yourself / To which even

your cruel enemies will bow,” explore this idea further and add a new dimension to the first two

lines. It is in these lines that a definite revolutionary tone enters. There is a need for change and it

must be implemented now, urging action and unity in this effort. The ‘cruel enemies’, having to

20

Deletant, Romania und er Communist Rule, 162.

10

‘bow’ to the new fate created for the, however loosely defined, Romanians also creates a sense of

fighting or struggle in the creation of this new fate.

However potent the connotations that come with the lyrics of this first strophe, it is left to

interpretation who the enemy is, not unlike the ambiguously defined Romanian that has to stand up

and create a new fate. Later in the original poem, in the 8th strophe, the original enemies envisioned

enter the scene through subtle references, namely the Turks and the Russians,21 and the Romanian

nation is more directly named in the 4th strophe. However, these explicit references in the original

lyrics, I suspect, did not have much resonance at the moment it was sung during the revolts in 1989.

It is of course hard to verify, but most sources state that just the first bars of “Deșteaptă-te,

Române” were sung at these events, or make no statement about which verses were sung. These

verses were also the original lyrics, with no adaptations.22 The ambiguity in the words I have

demonstrated above, is most probably what made them so apt for the revolts against the

Communist regime. In other words, the additional strophes were not so much needed for the

meaning it was supposed to bear at that moment. Moreover, it might as well be for practical

reasons, as a crowd of demonstrators is unlikely to memorise multiple strophes. The first strophe is

enough to encourage people joining in, and transmits the message just as good.

The ambiguity in these verses, and the multitude of interpretations it allows, are further

demonstrated by a 2009 article by Ion Boboc, who compares hidden meaning in European national

anthems. He lists opinions on the national anthem held by a number of Romanian cultural

personalities (including primarily prominent historians and former dissidents). One of them held the

opinion that the song “is not a hymn, but a fight song, which wants to wake up the Romanian softy

(mămăliga românească)”. Another is noted for calling it “inappropriate” for this era, as a song about

national awakening that was only relevant for the time in which it was written. The awakening

theme also re-enters more loosely, as a third one calls it still relevant, as awakening “back to reality”

is a message that always possesses a certain resonance.23 Boboc himself groups “Deșteaptă-te,

Române” along anthems expressing “nostalgic heroism,” but notes this is bivalent in nature in the

21

"Didn't we have enough of the yatagan of the barbaric crescent / Whose fatal wounds we still feel today / Now the knout is intruding in our ancestral homes". (N-ajunge iataganul barbarei semilune / A cărui plăgi fatale și azi le mai simțim / Acum se vâră cnuta în vetrele străbune). The Turks are the ‘yatagan of the barbaric crescent’, the Russians are the ‘knout’ that is now intruding. They are represented by their weapons. 22

Ion Boboc, “Haideți, fii ai patriilor, zuia gloriei a venit... pentru schimbarea imnurilor naționale!” The Sphere of Politics (Sfera Politicii) (2009), 135:1, 80; ”Ne aducem aminte că la Revoluţia română din 1989, imnul naţional „Deşteaptă-te Române”, deşi nu mai fusese intonat de multă vreme, era cântat de cetăţeni pe străzi, cu versurile originale. [We remember that during the Romanian revolution in 1989, the national hymn “Deșteaptă-te Române’, that had not been sung for a long time, was sung by citizens on the streets with the original verses.] 23

Ibidem, 90.

11

Romanian anthem.24 These stances are expressed years after the revolution, and are taken by

people who most probably have knowledge of the entire poem, but nonetheless it is telling how

different the associations are that people have expressed in relation to “Deșteaptă-te, Române”.

Foremost, many of the different ideas that are expressed about the song revolve around the theme

of awakening. In that sense it is highly applicable.

Among my respondents, I have also noted these ideas about “Deșteaptă-te, Române” in

connection to the revolutionary events of 1989. When asked plainly about the revolution and the

meaning of the song during those days, most of them would start from the theme of awakening. This

question was intended to be straightforward, so that the respondents would pick up this particular

link. One of them for instance expressed the theme of awakening as follows:

Ionel: “Deșteaptă-te, Române” was an old hymn. It was the memory of the Romanian people.

People sang it... the meaning of the hymn was very important to awake the national virtue of

every man. Awaken, Romanian, it means, don’t stay asleep. Get up and fight against the

Communists. That was the meaning of it.25

Ionel (1954), who has no academic background, knows the origins of the song, and when asked later

on about it he elaborated on its original author and the setting in which it was originally written. In

connection to the revolution, however, other connotations are more obvious. In calling “Deșteaptă-

te, Române” the memory of the Romanian people, he expresses the song to have a sort of ageless

meaning. Its importance was to awaken the Romanians from their sleep induced by the Communist

regime, to stand up and fight against repressive forces. In connection to the uprisings against the

regime he identifies “Deșteaptă-te, Române” as a song of protest.

In connection to the theme of awakening, this thread of protest is one of the most prevalent

in what academics have written about the song. Deletant formulates this most clearly, when he

describes the events of 16 December 1989 in Timișoara. From this city in the west of Romania, close

to the Hungarian border, the revolutionary atmosphere soon spread all over the country. The revolts

initially started with a small vigil organised by a Hungarian dissident priest, who was facing his forced

eviction from his church. Enticing the strong popular support of his parishioners, this vigil grew out

to a protest against his eviction, which in turn was joined by Romanians.26 After the Romanians

24

Ion Boboc, “Haideți, fii ai patriilor”, 88, 90-91. 25

Ionel Piruscă, interview by the author, tape recording, Houten, the Netherlands/Sfântu Gheorge, Romania, April 15, 2015. “Deșteaptă-te Române a fost un imn vechi. Era memoria poporului român. Oameni îl cântau... Semnificația Imnului era foarte importante pentru că trezea valoarea națională a fiecare om. Deșteaptă-te Române, adică, nu mai dormi, ridică-te și luptă contra comunistilor. Ăsta a fost semnificația.” 26

Siani-Davies, The Romanian Revolution of December 1989, 60-63.

12

joined, “Deșteaptă-te, Române” first made its appearance. Deletant mentions about the song:

“Unknown to the Hungarian community, the song was an anthem of resistance to oppression and a

sign that the Hungarian protest had now become a Romanian revolt.”27 He furthermore adds that

“After the anthem came the first, bold cries of ‘Down with Ceaușescu!’, ‘Down with the regime!’ and

‘Down with Communism!’”28 This is an interesting sequence of events, as it ties the singing of

“Deșteaptă-te, Române” directly with chanting unequivocal anti-regime slogans. The appearance of

the song alongside such exclamations easily places it into the role of a protest song, which is the way

it is mostly viewed when related to the turmoil of December 1989.

There also exist some particular stories about “Deșteaptă-te, Române” that boosted its

gravity as a song of protest and opposition during the revolutionary period. Valer (1976), the

museum manager who also wrote the short history of the song quoted in the Introduction, recalled

the following story about the events in Timișoara. It was apparently told around during those days

and afterwards, further strengthening the symbol that the song had become during these days:

Valer: In 1989 in Timișoara, when people were on the streets and everybody was shouting,

okay, down with communism, down with Ceausescu, people started to sing Deșteaptă-te,

Române. There were people shot in the front of the Orthodox cathedral in Timișoara during

their singing. They were singing Deșteaptă-te, Române and they were shot by militia and

army. There were more than 15 deaths on the stairs of the Orthodox cathedral, and

everybody knew that they were singing Deșteaptă-te, Române. So that is one of the most

strong reasons why this song transformed into the Romanian national anthem.29

Just as Deletant has remarked, in Timișoara people sang “Deșteaptă-te, Române” alongside their

shouting of anti-regime slogans, which in itself endows strong meaning to the song. In this story, the

singing of “Deșteaptă-te, Române” becomes a sacrifice as well. Blood had been shed, and the reason

for that is identified as the singing of this particular song. There is no doubt that during the revolts in

Timișoara, numerous casualties had fallen on the side of the protesters due the fighting with pro-

government forces. Siani-Davies mentions that the grisly carnage had taken twenty-one lives around

the Cathedral alone, in the city of Timișoara.30 He does not mention the singing of “Deșteaptă-te,

Române” there, however. Valer himself, as a historian, has also written on these events, and he

27

Deletant, Romania under Communist Rule, 162. 28

Ibidem, 163. 29

Valer Rus, interview by the author, tape recording, Houten, the Netherlands/Brașov, Romania, April 27, 2015. 30

Siani-Davies, The Romanian Revolution of December 1989, p. 68.

13

quotes the writer and journalist Rodica Palade in reference to them.31 More than whether it was the

singing that was the reason for the shootings in Timișoara to occur, what is important when

reconstructing the popular narrative on the song was that “everybody knew that they were singing

*it+”, as Valer added. This is the most striking aspect of the link created between the singing and the

shooting. With a tale about the conjunction of shooting and singing “Deșteaptă-te Române” going

around and being believed by people, the song gathered a sense of sacrifice and martyrdom around

it. Indeed, it is not for nothing that the “Deșteaptă-te, Române” was adopted as the national anthem

afterwards, as Valer believes. This fact adds more to the strong sense of resistance to the communist

regime the song bears in the perspective of the revolutionary events.

The sense of sacrifice present in this narration of “Deșteaptă-te, Române”, was especially

strong in the weeks directly after the revolution, which is logical given the high number of casualties.

The official death toll of the events in all of Romania has been established at around 1000, but at the

time the most commonly cited figure of deaths was 60,000.32 More in the sense of commemoration,

the song was also important in efforts to remember those killed during the revolutionary events all

over Romania. Maria Bucur (1968), also a historian, recalled in our interview her visit to a large

meeting at the Bucharest’s Victory Square, on January 12, 1990. This day had been officially declared

a day of national mourning for the victims of the revolution, hence demonstrators had thronged

together on the streets and in churches, to end the day with a march to Victory Square, where the

provisional government headquarters were.33 My interviewee recalled that:

Maria: Okay, in Victory Square, it is a very large space. It was very cold, and there were

thousands of people there, but they were in pockets. So, what the media reported about the

12th of January was that a bunch of drunk people came and took over and vandalized the

government building, right. None of the reality I saw around me was that, although when we

were leaving we could see there were a lot more bottles trashed around. Which means,

either people brought a lot of alcohol with them, or it was delivered there, you know what

I’m saying. I don’t know how the alcohol made it there because there was a lot of it. But

clearly there were people who were drunk, because... you can’t have that much alcohol

without people being drunk. [laughs] But I didn’t see the action that they were talking about,

so it was very localized, and it was very far from where I was, standing kind of in the middle

of the square. However, there were people who were singing among that crowd, “Deșteaptă-

31

Valer Rus, Povestea Imnului National (http://muzeulmuresenilor.ro/2013/09/03/povestea-imnului-national/) (retrieved: 5 June 2015). 32

Siani-Davies, The Romanian Revolution of 1989, 280. 33

Ibidem, 244.

14

te, Române”. It wasn’t my crew, it wasn’t the people I was sitting with, but there were some

people who were singing around that. So that was the one incident that, towards the end, I

didn’t participate, but it was definitely there. [...] My memory of that moment is that it was

so cold that, I think of singing in that moment is, well, trying to keep warm. And at the same

time making a political statement, because, “Deșteaptă-te, Române” at that moment was, I

think, not just ‘let’s sing a song everybody knows’. It had a very clear political resonance in

terms of what was happening around us, right. The notion that the NSF [National Salvation

Front – Frontul Salvării Naționale+ was meeting inside, and they were making decisions that

people were starting to fear were stealing the revolution, I remember people talking that

already at that time. It was kind of a trigger to not let this moment slip away from the hands

of [the protesters]. [...] The people that gathered on the 12th of January on the Victory

Square, and that were connected to singing “Deșteaptă-te, Române”, were people that had

been marching, some of them. [...] So the tail end of this day and the singing of “Deșteaptă-

te, Române” was not out of nothing. It was all out of talking and marching and having a

more religious style of commemorating. Like a ritual. [...] Singing of “Deșteaptă-te, Române”

at that point was kind of turning from the dead to the living and saying, look, you were

asleep at the wheel. These people died, what did they die for? If we don’t do anything now,

and we let these people steal the revolution, it is as if we are dishonouring our dead.”34

The first thing Maria remarks about the gathering at the large square was that it actually was rather

disorganised, with people cluttered in different smaller groups. These pockets of people had

assembled in the same spirit, but were acting more or less independently from each other.

Moreover, the atmosphere of uncertainty during this period, a few weeks after the revolts, is clear

through what she tells about the media depiction of the street movements. In a recent article by her

hand, in which she relates to her personal experiences during the revolution, she explains that the

media did not show the marches earlier that day and the largely peaceful protests on the square, but

instead aired images of drunken people fighting.35 The National Salvation Front (NSF) which acted as

a provisional government, initially with popular legitimacy, had by that time given more and more

the impression that it was detached from the protesters and used the situation to advance its own

political influence. It used the means to manipulate the news output on the sole Romanian TV

channel and the main newspaper Adevărul.36 Maria suggests that the alcohol, too, might have been

34

Maria Bucur, interview by the author, tape recording, Houten, the Netherlands/Washington D.C., United States of America, April 15, 2015. 35

Maria Bucur, “Being There. An Authobiographical Perspective on the 1989 Revolution in Romania”, The Romanian Journal of Society and Politics (2015), 10:1, 19. 36

Siani-Davies, The Romanian Revolution of 1989, 244-248.

15

brought in deliberately for this kind of manipulation (the double meaning of it being delivered there

is emphasised by the added interjection ‘you know what I’m saying’). It underlines the atmosphere

of distrust towards the supposed representatives of the revolution, the NSF, by the protesters that

had gathered on the square. That “Deșteaptă-te, Române” had been sung by some groups among

those in the Victory Square, was partly for this reason, as Maria remarked. There was a clear feeling

that the revolution had been stolen by the NSF, or was in risk of being stolen by them, as she

remarks people spoke about that in those weeks already. Returning to the theme of awakening, the

people had to “stay awake.” In addition to this, “Deșteaptă-te, Române” also followed on a day of

commemorating the dead of the revolution. Singing the song at this partially commemorative event

thus consolidated the place of the song at the heart of the revolution. It had become part of the

ritual surrounding the revolution, and it was a symbol.

Resuming to the narrative frame in which “Deșteaptă-te, Române” is placed when related to

the revolution of 1989, the theme that stands out especially is that of ‘awakening’. It is the most

literal representation of the song, given its title and very first words. Connected to the theme of

awakening in the revolutionary events is the sense of protest, sacrifice and commemoration. This

meaning is mostly acquired just because it was sung at those pivotal moments in the revolution, it

seems. The coupling of singing “Deșteaptă-te, Române” with shouting anti-regime slogans out on the

street, the tales of blood offer around the song, all made the song a logical symbol of the revolution.

In the weeks afterwards, commemorating the fallen “awakened” Romanians with this song was an

obvious thing to do. It kept the spirit going, to not let the revolution be stolen. All these themes fall

logically in place and rhyme with the lyrics. However, it is in this narrative that the song’s history in

the Communist era is problematic. A song of such value, and bearing such seemingly clear

revolutionary undertones, could be a potential threat for the regime, at least insofar as one speaks

of its meaning in the phase wherein it was (and arguably still is) central. Yet, the song had for a

sustained part of its life not been so illuminated; this phase will be elucidated in the upcoming

chapters.

16

Chapter 2: “Deșteaptă-te, Române” and nationalism

As has become clear in the preceding chapter, the lyrics of “Deșteaptă-te, Române” can be aptly

interpreted in ways wherein the distinction between “us” and “others” plays a central role. One

obvious narrative in which this function is central, is that of nationalism. “Deșteaptă-te, Române”

has a distinct nationalist undertone, as explained previously, and it has also obtained other social

meanings throughout its life. By nationalism in connection to the song, I mean the many different

kinds of loyalties that could be grouped under a “national idea”. In the same manner as I have

demonstrated with the ways in which the lyrics of “Deșteaptă-te, Române” can be interpreted,

different “others” may bring about different group identities. Hence the national idea, at least the

“us” people adhere to under this banner and the loyalties that go with it, is not a static concept.

Even the narrative the Romanian state maintained regarding national identity, was subject to

different interpretations throughout the Communist period. As Boia has written on the subject, the

concept of the national state in Romanian society has been influenced by both the Stalinist idea of

economic unification and the mystic idea of Romanian primordialism of the late Communist period.37

The state, though it assumes to have a monopoly on nationalism, is not the only entity that defines

it. People hold different loyalties under that banner, and it is within the resulting fluid definition that

I use it here.

When I discussed the role of “Deșteaptă-te, Române” during the revolution, in many of my

interviews participants quickly shifted to the origins of the song. In that way, the narrative frame

shifted from the central meaning the song had relating to the revolts of 1989, to a more historical

understanding separated from those events. Most interviewees defined it as a song that

accompanied the independence struggle, a song that sought to unify Romanians. In that sense it was

a nationalistic song. During one interview, with a woman and her husband, a discussion ensued

when we talked about the initial meaning of the song. The husband, Vlad (1967), an IT worker, first

explained how for him even in its initial meaning, the song employed symbolic nationalism,

combining icons such as kings who were never really united. The couple continued that:

Vlad: As such, it has no relevance historically, it is not built on historical truth. And you have

to understand that the song was composed framed within the revolution of 1848.

Daniela: Yes, and with that related to the fight for independence.

Vlad: It is related to the wish of national unity of the Romanians. You know, nationalism, it

was a universal movement in the 19th century. For example Germany, it is very close with

37

Boia, History and Myth in Romanian Consciousness, 33-34.

17

Romania, because the national state of Germany was founded in 1871. And, for Romania,

the full Romania, the big Romania was in 1918. After seventy years from revolution.

Daniela: Romania is usually the last! [laughs]38

By saying it had no historical relevance, Vlad and Daniela meant that the “people” addressed

beforehand were named together in a specific strophe of the song to suggest the unity of the

Romanians. The poem made use of historical figures in a way which also occurred in the nationalist

discourse of the time.39 Vlad addresses the unification of Romanians from Transylvania, Moldavia

and Wallachia as the initial purpose of “Deșteaptă-te, Române.” These three historical regions, now

all part of Romania, were at that time still under different rulers: Transylvania was a part of the

Austrian Empire while Moldavia and Wallachia were vassals of the Ottoman Empire.40 The revolution

of 1848 was in the spirit of the struggle for independence and the purpose of national unification,

and “Deșteaptă-te, Române” was written amidst the events. Initially, the song was meant as a

symbol of Romanian national unification along the lines of 19th century nationalism elsewhere in

Europe. It is telling that Vlad names the example of Germany, as this was also a case of nationalism

which sought to unite a people living apart. After the First World War, Romania’s unification was

finally brought about in the form of Greater Romania (România mare), encompassing also other

historical regions like Bessarabia and Bucovina. The wording Vlad uses at first but then later corrects,

‘the full Romania’, shine on the fact that this Greater Romania did indeed bring all ethnic Romanians

together in one country.41 Daniela responds to her husband’s explanations by saying Romania is

usually the last. This refers to a quite common self-identification of passivity,42 but also denotes that

this unification is understood by them as strictly related to 19th-century European nationalism.

We might see this unifying nationalism as the original context in which “Deșteaptă-te,

Române” emerged. In the year of 1918, when unification was becoming reality, the song is said to

38

Vlad Ulieriu & Daniela Ulieriu, interview by the author, tape recording, Houten, the Netherlands / București, Romania, May 15, 2015. VU: “Adică n-are nicio relevanță nici istorică, n-are în spate nici vedere adevăr istoric. Și trebuie să înteleg că acest cântec a fost compus împrejmuia revoluția pașoptistă” DU: “Da, și cu care legătură cu război de independențe.” VU: “Are legătură cu dorința de unitate naționale a românilor.” [continued in English] 39

See: Boia, History and Myth in Romanian Consciousness, 39-42; Boia discusses the myth of Michael the Great here, one of the historical kings Vlad also addressed. This king is often perceived a unifier of Romanians, for he was the only one to rule over the three regions, be it for just one year. The years around the 1848 revolution, this king transfigured from a Christian hero to a symbol of Romanian unity. This happened through the work nationalistic writers, such as Nicolae Bălcescu, a leader of the 1848 revolution in Wallachia. 40

Kurt W. Treptow (ed.), A History of Romania (New York, 1996), 255. 41

Greater Romania also included a range of other ethnic groups, most notably Hungarians and Germans. The actual percentage of ethnic Romanians in Greater Romania was only 71.9% in the 1930 census. 42

Boia, History and Myth in Romanian Consciousness, 145-146, 156.

18

have again been sung at various occasions.43 However, when “Deșteaptă-te, Române” returned to

prominence in nationalist discourses near the end of the interwar period, it became employed for

other reasons, as Valer notes in our interview that:

Valer: So in 1940... started this Nazi dictatorship, from October 1940 to January 1941 in

Romania was abolished democracy, and we had this dictatorship ruled by legionaries, the

Nazi wing of the Romanian political parties. It was the legion of Archangel Mihail, Michael,

and Romanians know these guys as the ‘legionări’. We know that every morning the national

radio in Bucharest started its news broadcasting with “Deșteaptă-te, Române”. So it was very

challenging and provocative, but in that period probably this rise up was against Russians,

against Bolsheviks, against Jews... Romanians have had this very unfortunate history of anti-

Semitism, and this, “Deșteaptă-te, Române” was against everybody else.44

Valer spoke about these events from the position of a historian, which is why he uses phrases as ‘we

know that *...+’. The legionary government he spoke about was an alliance of the fascist Iron Guard

party and the army, under the formal leadership of the young king Michael, though the latter had no

actual power. This might be why the legion was named after Archangel Michael, to endow it with

legitimacy. The legionary government was backed by Nazi Germany, as was the military dictatorship

that later emerged when the army put down the legionaries and took over complete control in

1941.45 Nonetheless, as Valer remarks about the usage of “Deșteaptă-te, Române” in the radio

broadcasts, the message it sent to the Romanian populace was certainly tainted with the idea of

fighting against the threat from the East and the perceived threat from within. In Romanian politics

at the time, fighting against domestic communists was in a sense also fighting “others”. The

Romanian Communist Party, which existed in the interwar period, was especially successful in

attracting members among the minorities in the country, notably Jews and Hungarians.46 Valer

himself bestows emphasis on this connection by remarking that the song was played ‘every

morning’, and that this move was challenging and provocative. “Deșteaptă-te, Române” was against

everybody else, he said, and at that time it certainly was. I think we can read this as well in the sense

that it could be against everybody else, depending on who uses it. The usage of “Deșteaptă-te,

Române” by the legionary government can be rather clearly seen as a move to call people to stand

up and fight against their enemies; Bolsheviks, Jews, and national minorities.

43

Valer Rus, Povestea Imnului National, (http://muzeulmuresenilor.ro/2013/09/03/povestea-imnului-national/) (retrieved: 10 June 2015). 44

Valer Rus, interview by the author, april 27, 2015. 45

Robert R. King, History of the Romanian Communist Party (1980, Stanford), 13-14. 46

Ibidem, 33-38.

19

Though it is improbable that all people adhered this interpretation even at that time, it adds

to the different nationalist connotations of the song. Another interviewee, Cristina (1963), told me

about an event that shows clearly how ambiguous nationalist interpretations of the song could be:

Cristina: I didn’t know in those days [under Communism], but later on [after 1989] I heard it

was also sung after the Nazi’s were... on the 23rd of august, when Romania turned *its+ back

against the Nazi’s, you know, in 1944. They said that the Romanians also sang this song. But

I’m not sure if that is right or not. So when another change happened. A major change.47

After the fall of Communism Cristina had heard that “Deșteaptă-te, Române” was sung when the

Romanian government switched sides in the war after a coup d’état against the military dictatorship.

This dictatorship under Marshal Antonescu was collaborating with Nazi Germany more than it was

fascist in itself.48 Nevertheless, with the toppling of Antonescu’s government, the Romanian state

turned its war effort against Nazi Germany, in alliance with the Allied Powers, including the Soviet

Union. This places “Deșteaptă-te, Române” in an antagonistic interpretation within the same frame

of nationalism. Another part of the populace could sing this song as well with a meaning far removed

from when the legionaries used the song three years prior. Even if the story Cristina mentions is not

based on facts (the English and Romanian Wikipedia entries do mention it, though lacking any

further reference), this is a way that some people remember the song. “Deșteaptă-te, Române”

could in a nationalist narrative also be framed as national liberation from fascists, as well as national

awakening for a fascist cause. Its use is highly ambiguous in that respect.

Under Communism

Valer: And after that... that’s why I suspect it is one of the reasons why this song was not

very much enjoyed by the Communists. Because they remember that during this legionary

government everyday somebody sang “Deșteaptă-te, Române” with a very specific target:

Communists, Russians and Jews. And probably somebody made this parallel between

“Deșteaptă-te, Române” and extreme nationalist wing in Romanian political history.49

When the communists within three years after the Second World War seized complete control of

Romania, “Deșteaptă-te, Române” became most probably completely marginal. In the quote above,

47

Cristina Madgearu, interview by the author, tape recording, Houten, the Netherlands/București, Romania, May 28, 2015. 48

King, History of the Romanian Communist Party, 13-14. 49

Valer Rus, interview by the author, April 27, 2015.

20

Valer suggests that the anti-Communist stance which was expressed through the song at the time of

the legionary government was one of the main reasons to ban it from the public sphere. The parallel

he talks about is certainly easily made. The Communists in Romania had been the very enemies of

the legionaries, and additionally, communism stood ideologically for internationalism, which meant

anti-nationalism in Communist Romania’ early years.50 Cristina also remarked on the ban in an

interesting way:

Cristina: You know when, the Russians came in the forties, and they stayed until the fifties, 58

I think. And the politics, the Communist politics was anti-national. It was all nationalist, it

was after Ceausescu came and this was his idea. But during all those years, these old

patriotic songs were forbidden, I remember that my mother told me. They weren’t even

allowed to learn Romanian literature. My mother was studying, at Romanian, when they had

Romanian classes and studied literature, they studied Russian literature in Romanian. And

then, they had to learn Russian, and they studied it again in Russian! [laughs] Yes, it must

have been forbidden until the early sixties.51

Like some other interviewees have explained, Cristina names the anti-national phase of the

Romanian Communist government as the main reason for the ban on the song, alongside other

patriotic songs. More compelling is that she links the ban strongly with Russians. I have encountered

the idea of a Russian occupation of Romania during the first years after the war numerous times

during my interviews. It is certain that the Soviet Union dominated Romanian politics immediately

after the war, and that it sought, with success, to implement a Stalinist Communist state in the

country.52 There were indeed Red Army troops present on Romanian soil, though Romania was the

first Warsaw Pact country to arrange their withdrawal in 1958.53 Nevertheless, Russia makes a

striking appearance in the ban on “Deșteaptă-te, Române.” Cristina provides another example of

what kind of national expressions were forbidden in that era. Here she consistently frames

Romanian expressions as opposed to Russian ones. The underlying theme seems to be that

“Deșteaptă-te, Române” could not be sung because it would offend the Russians. In other words, in

this framing, Russia is the enemy against whom the song is directed. I should stress that she has not

lived in that period herself, so it is a narrative she builds on things her mother told her, and her

supposition of what the song is about.

50

Boia, History and Myth in Romanian Consciousness, 72-73. 51

Cristina Madgearu, interview by the author, May 28, 2015. 52

Deletant, Romania Under Communist Rule, 55-59. 53

Johanna Granville, “Dej-a-vu: Early Roots of Romania’s Independence”, East European Quarterly (2009) 42:4, 365, 387-388.

21

Regardless whether it was Russian implementation or an ideological constraint, it took until

the 1960s for “Deșteaptă-te, Române” to resurface, which was most likely linked to the return of

national factors to the centre stage. At this point, however, the song was only partially rehabilitated,

for it seemed to remain absent from the public domain (to which I return in the following chapter). I

asked Valer about his interpretation as a historian on changes in the status of the song:

Valer: I don’t know specifics... but as far as we know, until 1965, the year when Ceaușescu

became the leader of the communist party, this communist movement had a stronger

internationalist character, more than after that. In 1965, and in the last years of Gheoghe

Gheorghiu-Dej already started this idea of communism with a Romanian flavour. And of

course, this Romanian flavour was given by our national identity. So in this context, I suppose

that until 1965, this song was strictly forbidden, and after that, as I told you, [...] people were

allowed to speak about this figure, Andrei Mureșanu. He was part of Romanian old literature

history.54

When Valer said he knows no specifics, was referring to “Deșteaptă-te, Române” in particular, so he

relates it to what is known about the character of Communist politics in Romania for his answer. He

mentioned earlier the anti-Communist connotations the song could carry, and here suggests that the

internationalist character of early Communist Romania added to its prohibition. More importantly,

he thinks the exaltation of the Romanian national identity in state politics drew “Deșteaptă-te,

Române” out of its strictly forbidden position. As I mentioned at the start of this chapter, the

nationalist discourse of the state shifted to a recovery of the national history or, as Valer put it,

Romanians were allowed to learn about historical Romanian figures unrelated to communism.

Internationalism had been abandoned publicly in a statement on Romanian independence in 1964.55

In this light, Romanian historical figures were rehabilitated, like the author of the poem “Deșteaptă-

te, Române”, Andrei Mureșanu. It is thus likely that the same kind of rehabilitation took place for his

work. This remains a rather vague point, though, as only about half of my interviewees actually

learned the song in a non-clandestine way, through state education. Valer only learned about Andrei

Mureșanu, for instance, and not “Deșteaptă-te, Române” itself. Nonetheless, the changed state

attitude on nationalism lifted the ban on the song at least in part, marking the other way around its

nationalistic connotations.

54

Valer Rus, interview by the author, April 27, 2015. 55

Boia, History and Myth in Romanian Consciousness, 73; This move was mainly directed against the dominance of the Soviet Union, see: Dennis Deletant, “’Taunting the Bear’: Romania and the Warsaw Pact, 1963-89”, Cold War History (2007), 7:4, 495-507.

22

For some more interpretations on the nationalist ideas carried out in “Deșteaptă-te,

Române”, I asked the interviewees who brought up this topic for their thoughts about it. There

seems to be a subconscious understanding that the song has a nationalist meaning. One respondent

explained that “unfortunately besides the revolutionary context, for some Romanians the song was

an inspiration for nationalism. It is still strong in the sense of intolerance to minorities.”56 Minority

issues entered in the discussion with Vlad and Daniela. In a continuation of their discussion on the

original meaning of the song, they told me:

Vlad: From a historical point of view... I really don’t know because I have never studied or I

never was interested in this hymn, but I think this hymn is related to Romanians who live in

Transylvania. I know very well the subject related to relations between Romanians and

Hungarians, because I am from a mixed [family]. For example, my grandmother from my

father’s side, who was born in 1905, told me that in 1848, her grandfather was shot by

Hungarians. That was very... He was shot in this way. The Hungarians came in the village,

and took all the [Romanian] men... all men above 14 years of age (toți bărbați mai în vârstă

de, mai mare de 14 ani). They took them in the forest and shot, all [of them], independent of

the age, and all that. And my grandmother was very nationalistic and very against the

Hungarians... [...]

M.R.: And she used to sing it?

Vlad: No, but I think the song was related to the relations between Romanians and

Hungarians in Transylvania.

Daniela: I don’t think it is related to the Hungarians. It is related to the Turks. It says [Daniela

reads the 8th strophe]: ‘Didn’t we have enough of the knives of the barbaric crescent

(semilune)’. Semilune is the Ottoman Empire. So, you see? Because my husband is from

Transylvania, he has all the time an obsession when something about the Hungarians shows

up. I think it was more about the Turks than about the Hungarians.57

Both Vlad and Daniela express their own opinions about it, in Vlad’s case even admitting that he has

not studied the subject. Actually, the absence of background knowledge makes the feeling on the

meaning of “Deșteaptă-te, Române” all the more pure when Vlad explains his thoughts on the

relations between Romanians and Hungarians. It is based on the stories told to him by his

grandmother, his mixed background, and ideas about the nature and origin of the song. The song

56

Ioan (surname known by the author, undisclosed), personal communication based on survey. 57

Vlad Ulieriu & Daniela Ulieriu, interview by the author, May 14, 2015: Daniela: “Nu cred că e legată de Unguri... E legat de Turci. Zice; N-ajunge iataganul barbarei semilune. Semilune e imperiul Otoman. Deci, vezi? Pentru că soțul meu fiind din Transilvania, are tot timp o obsesie ca veni ceva Unguri. Cred că era pentru Turci mai mult pentru Unguri.”

23

seemingly has a strong suggestion of nationalism, which is why he frames it in a narrative of conflict

between Romanians and Hungarians in Transylvania, including a striking example. Daniela, though

rebutting his statement, also frames “Deșteaptă-te, Române” in a narrative of conflict. She identifies

another enemy, however. Her argument focuses more on the text and the past context than Vlad’s,

which possesses a present dimension, namely the fact that there is still a sizable Hungarian minority

in Transylvania, which from time to time is a factor of conflict.58

The Hungarian minority was named with regard to the forbidden status of “Deșteaptă-te,

Române” as well. One interviewee from Vaslui, Moldavia, responded on my assumption that the

song had been forbidden in the following way:

Silvano: Who told you it was forbidden? From which region? [I explained I spoke with people

from Transylvania] There is a national problem with Hungarians here. Magyars, it is a

problem here. Maybe it was [forbidden] in the respective zone.59

Silvano (1956) not only expressed surprise when I told him I thought the song was forbidden, he also

related this to regional factors. It is especially telling that he asked me first from which region the

people came, as apparently the idea that this might play a role was not a strange or sudden thought.

In saying that it could have been forbidden in the region where these problems are, that is

Transylvania, he also indicates that he does not know whether it actually was that way. It is a

suggestion, something he thinks logical, hence his answer points at the suggestion of nationalism in

“Deșteaptă-te, Române”. There is another layer of thought beneath the song, linking it to

nationalism, which could explain why people understand “Deșteaptă-te, Române” as being

necessarily in conflict with minorities.

Valer summed this unconscious knowledge up in the following way:

Valer: When Romanians have problems, they remembered: ‘okay, we have this song,

stronger than all other songs, and it’s about us, about awakening, about fighting. Bellum

omnium, war against everybody else, against enemies. It is a very political myth, the myth of

the besieged fortress. Every politician needs some enemies, and this song is very useful in this

kind of context. That’s why we have a lot of voices, specifically in the civil society, they claim

58

See for example the 1993 publication by Human Rights Watch: Helsinki Watch (ed.), Struggling for Ethnic Identity: Ethnic Hungarians in Post-Ceausescu Romania (1993, New York/Washington/Los Angeles/London). 59

Silvano Budacea, interview by the author, tape recording, Houten, the Netherlands/Vaslui, Romania, April 14, 2015: “Cine te-a spus că era interzis? Din ce regiune?” [...] “La noi este o problemă națională cu Ungurii, maghiari, e o problemă aici. Poate era [interzis] la zona respectivul.”

24

that it is not anymore time for this kind of national anthem. As, of course, when you hear it,

your first impulse is to grab a gun and shoot some enemies. [laughs]60

In the way he spoke about the song, he put a strong emphasis on its rhetoric of fighting along with

the sense of awakening. As before, he frames the song in a way that it was against all enemies, and

here he indicates explicitly that this means possibly all enemies. The song is very useful for politicians

in need of enemies, and it fits that narrative all too well. The remarks he makes about how

politicians use the song, to fuel the fires of a ‘besieged fortress’ myth, begs the question of whether

this is just politics or whether it is in a sense present in the song itself. From his remarks about civil

society it can be deduced that the presence of a narrative of national conflict is most probably

perceived by people voicing their doubts about “Deșteaptă-te, Române”. Valer’s last remark is

especially strong, though there might be a touch of irony in it. Nevertheless, he seems adamant that

“Deșteaptă-te, Române” allows for a strong feeling of opposition against essentially any kind of

enemy.

The point of view held by Valer coincides with what I have found in statements of other

respondents. In different ways, “Deșteaptă-te, Române” is framed in a narrative of conflict on the

basis of nationality. The manner in which some of my interviewees linked “Deșteaptă-te, Române”

to an enemy narrative against Russians or Hungarians, seems to imply that the song is necessarily in

conflict with perceived “non-Romanians”. It is as if “Deșteaptă-te, Române” needs, even seeks

enemies. There is what I would dub a ‘nationalist suggestion’ present in the song, the suggestion

being that it represents a nationalist sentiment in more than one strict definition. From what I have

found in the answers quoted in this chapter, it is more that people presume that the song is about

nationalism and nationalist conflict. That they would understand it in such a way is comprehensible

from the usage of “Deșteaptă-te, Române” in the pre-Communist past. As easily as it fits the

nationalist aims of politicians, it is also interpreted by people who would, on basis of their own

knowledge of or experience with such national problems, combine the two. That the song bears

these strong nationalistic connotations, was certainly problematic before internationalism was

rejected in 1964. The seemingly ambiguous stance of the state after that point might denote that it

had more apt or, secure means to transmit its nationalist imagery. In that light, people would

probably feel no need for yet another nationalist song. That is, until “Deșteaptă-te, Române” would

gain meaning to rally people together against another type of enemy.

60

Valer Rus, interview by the author, April 27, 2015.

25

Chapter 3: “Deșteaptă-te, Române” and public temperament

“Singing had a nationalist meaning in the public. In the private *“Deșteaptă-te, Române”+ was about

Ceausescu's tyranny and in the public it has a historical meaning.”61

The above quote by one of my respondents segues nicely from the topic of nationalism to what I

have dubbed ‘public temperament’. Under this term I group such sentiments as anti-authority and

anti-communist temperament, or more loosely defined populist feelings which go against authority.

“Deșteaptă-te, Române” appears in different ways within this frame. What I intend to enlighten in

this chapter is the subversive uses of the song, from singing it secretly to utilising it in revolt and

dissent. As the above quotation suggests, different meanings could co-exist, but the song’s meaning

in different contexts could also easily undergo radical shifts. Before I turn to probably the most

striking shift of meaning in the life of “Deșteaptă-te, Române”, we must first revisit the early

Communist years. The forbidden status of the song returns in the frame of public temperament as a

song which bore several meanings, above all in secrecy.

The older interviewees, from the generation that grew up in the late 1940s and 1950s, had

specific recollections about “Deșteaptă-te, Române”. When asked if they knew the song before the

revolution, or when it appeared before 1989, the older respondents all indicated to have learned it

from their parents, and in one case their grandparents. For example Mihail (1943), a Romanian

émigré living in the Netherlands since 1982, shared his childhood memories about the song:

Mihail: Yes, *I knew it+ from my mother, she knew about *“Deșteaptă-te, Române”+. She knew

the melody and the words. I did learn some of the words, but... the melody too, but, you

know, children...

M.R.: So, when you were young?

Mihail: Yes, young. And it was like, you should not sing that in public, and you may not speak

about it. And Free Romania [Radio Free Europe], that were the broadcasts of the Germans, in

Romanian. You heard all kinds of news, yes, that was not known in Romania, but it was in

Germany, and that radio program told everything. And about that, you also was not allowed

to talk with others. [...] Shut up and move along. It was a reign of terror, actually... But apart

from that, well, I have not suffered much from it. Yes, shut up and move along...

M.R.: “Deșteaptă-te, Române” was a kind of secret song?

Mihail: Yes, let’s say, it was a voice in the dark days.

M.R.: Did you sing it solely with your family?

61

Mihaela Miroiu, written survey and personal communication, April 2015.

26

Mihail: Only at home, not with others. I cherished the freedom... But oh, that is so long ago,

young man!62

Mihail learned both the lyrics and the melody of “Deșteaptă-te, Române” from his mother during his

youth. One day after the interview I met him again in person, and he told me he had since looked up

the song on the internet, and that he had remembered the lyrics correctly after all. His assumption

that he had probably forgotten because he was a child (‘but you know, children...’, and his last

remark in the quotation above) might indicate that he did not hear much of the song later on, when

he was older. I had asked him whether had had sung “Deșteaptă-te, Române” himself as well, to

which he replied “ah, I did not have a voice for singing, so I did not. No, it would be disastrous if I

were to sing!”63 Though he said this jokingly, the singing of “Deșteaptă-te, Române” could have had

for himself a less prominent meaning than it had for his parents. It was not worth risking his freedom

for. This “voice in the dark days” was for him probably a cherished childhood memory, but without a

profound understanding of for what the song stood. What he made very clear, however, was that it

was a strictly private and secret practice. He brings up Radio Free Romania (Europe) as a

comparison. The song was as secret as the broadcast, as one could not talk about it without risking

his or her freedom. Mihail frames having learnt “Deșteaptă-te, Române” to the secrecy of the early

years of Communism, but also in a sense to freedom. That the song was like a “voice in the dark

days” signifies this aspect.

Another older interviewee, Ionel (1954) also talked about the meaning the song had for him

when he learned it as a child. I asked him if he had heard “Deșteaptă-te, Române” before the

revolution, to which he responded that:

Ionel: Before the revolution there was, of course, the repressive system. It was very strong. I

have heard the hymn, personally I have heard it from my parents... from the older people. In

general, I heard it most in my own family. When I was young, I did not know the meaning. I

was in kindergarten, in school, the first class... I could not realize what it meant. When I

62

Mihail Avramescu, interview by the author, tape recording, Houten, the Netherlands, May 22, 2015. All translations from the Dutch are my own, except where mentioned otherwise. “Ja, door mijn moeder, die wist *kende+ het al. Die wist het, de melodie en de woorden. Ik heb wat woorden geleerd maar..., ook de melodie, maar ja... kinderen.” *...+ “Ja, jong. En dat was van, ja, dat moet je niet in het publiek zingen, en je mag ook niet praten over *Deșteaptă-te, Române]. En Vrij Roemenië, dat waren uitzendingen van de Duitsers, in het Roemeens... En daar hoorde [je] allerlei nieuws. Ja, dat was in Roemenië niet bekend, maar wel in Duitsland, en die [zender] vertelde alles. En daar mocht je dus ook niet over praten met anderen. [...] Mond houden en doorlopen, het was schrikbewind eigenlijk. Maar verder, ach, ik heb er weinig last van gehad. Ja, mond houden, en doorlopen.” *...+ “Ja, een stem in de donkere dagen, laat ik maar zeggen.” *...+ “Alleen thuis, niet met een andere. Ik had de vrijheid lief. Maar dat is lang geleden jongeman!” 63

Ibidem, “Ah, ik had geen stem voor zingen, dus dat heb ik niet gedaan. Nee, dat was een ramp als ik ging zingen! *lacht+”

27

heard it, from parents, from the old people, I did not realize the meaning until much later

when I had become older. The older people have got through the First World War or the

Second World War. They have suffered very, very much.64

Like Mihail, Ionel heard the song initially within his own family circle, naming more specifically his

parents among other old people, most likely other family members. He starts his answer by

commenting on the repressive system. He does not mention explicitly the forbidden status of the

song, but the way he connects these themes implies that singing this song was indeed something

with which one had to be careful with, due to the Communist regime. The meaning was beyond his

grasp then, but he later understood that it was about suffering. He lays emphasis on this aspect as

he speaks of the old people from whom he heard “Deșteaptă-te, Române” and who had gone

through two wars, having suffered greatly. This connection reminds of what some interviewees

mentioned about the linkage of the song with nationalism, and the specific moments after, before

and during the war in which they said it had been sung. This suffering could imply that the song had

a meaning of solace, a means of getting through a new period of hardships, like Mihail had

mentioned.

From some respondents on the surveys, with whom I also had written contact afterwards, I

have received similar stories. The oldest of them, Ioan, born in 1942, had heard “Deșteaptă-te,

Române” from his elders as well, and was warned not to sing it in public. It was just sung in settings

that would ensure no one would report on you, he added.65 Mihaela, who was born during the mid-

1950s, heard the song from her grandparents when she was a child. She remembers also to have

heard it from a vinyl disc with patriotic songs, which included “Deșteaptă-te, Române”.66 She did not

seem to remember at what age she heard the songs on the disc, but it seems to denote a sense of

nostalgia, a recording of the past as played by older people. For Ioan, this was also the kind of

meaning the song had. He remarked that “people sang it just as a remembering of the old ways.

Against the expectation of the people Americans did not come. So...what was left was this song

without much hope for awakening.”67 In addition to nostalgia, or remembering the old, pre-

communist ways (which could include many historical possibilities), the song represented hope. This

64

Ionel Piruscă, interview by the author, April 15, 2015. “Înainte de revoluția era, bineînțeles, sistemul represiv. Era foarte puternic. Imnul am auzit, eu personal l-am auzit de la părinții mei... de la bătrân. În generală, am auzit mai mult în familie. Când eram mic, nu știam semnificația. Eu eram la grădiniță, la școală, la clasele primare... Nu puteam să realizez ce înseamnă. Când îl auzeam, de la părinți, de la bătrân, nu mi-am dat seamă de semnificație decât mult mai târziu când am câștit mai mare. Oameni bătrân care a făcut și prima război sau doua război mondial. Ș-au suferit foarte, foarte mult.” 65

Ioan, written survey and personal communication by the author, April 2015. 66

Mihaela Miroiu, written survey and personal communication by the author, April 2015. 67

Ioan, personal communication, April 2015.

28

was a hope in vain, at least as Ioan would later understand it, since against their hopes, no (external)

relief for the Romanians under Communism arrived.

The connotations that came with “Deșteaptă-te, Române” in the early Communist period

are not necessarily anti-authoritarian, though they were directed against the Communist

government in a deeper way. Judging from these testimonies, the song was not sung as dissent per

se, but it was rather meant to remember pre-Communist way and to encourage people during their

hardships. The song, which had been forbidden and was sung in secrecy, stood for different

sentiments by the public. Words as freedom, longing, hope and solace are apt to describe meanings

of the song, based on these testimonies. In essential meaning, these words all relate negatively to

the situation at hand. These particular sentiments in relation to “Deșteaptă-te, Române” only apply

to the early period of Communism. From the period after this, the song is remarkably absent in the

frame of public temperament. This can be explained by both the nationalist sentiment that was of

growing importance in the state narratives (as written in the preceding chapter), as well as that of a

new generation. All the people I spoke with who had these memories about the song related to it in

a different way than their parents, only coming to understand it later. This likely diminished the

gravity of the meaning attached to “Deșteaptă-te, Române” for them. I will return to this line of

argument in the fifth chapter about education, where this same dynamic appears in a clearer way.

Within the frame of public temperament, it is only in the late 1980s when the song assumed a new

and strongly subversive meaning.

The Brașov revolt of 1987

Valer: I want to tell you this, it is a particular story about Brașov. Here was an earlier riot in

1987, on 15 November 1987 there was this famous ‘revoltă de la Brașov’, of the workers

from those large plants of Brașov. A factory for tractors and a factory of large trucks, Steagul

and Tractorul. And when the column of people, rioters, they were going from their plant that

was like now, too, quite outside of the central city. They were coming to the central part of

the city, to the front of the Communist Party Headquarter. During their march, somewhere

near nowadays county hospital, there, one of the labourers started to sing “Deșteaptă-te,

Române”, in 1987. And everybody knew this story, because right after the riots, there were

these very harsh enquiries, people were beaten and asked on and on and on, ‘who started to

sing “Deșteaptă-te, Române”?’ So the Securitate... the militia were very interested in the

name of the guy who started during the marching the singing of “Deșteaptă-te, Române”.

29

And nobody confessed. So, until now... We are in 2015, and nobody knows who started to

sing “Deșteaptă-te, Române”! It was something very natural, instinctual. People knew only

the first four lyrics, like nowadays [laughs]. And in that riot, they sang on and on those first

lyrics of the song.68

As Valer’s story indicates, during the 1987 uprising in Brașov, “Deșteaptă-te, Române” was first sung

publicly again. Deletant mentions that rioters also chanted anti-regime slogans, such as “Down with

the dictatorship”, alongside messages such as “We want bread”. These riots had broken out in

response to newly implemented heating restrictions, that came on top of chronic food shortages

and a second wage cut in a short period for the workers of the Steagul Roșu factory. The workers

from the Brașov Tractor Plant (Tractorul) joined them on the streets. In addition to singing, chanting

and marching, the rioters eventually also ransacked the Party Headquarters, throwing portraits of

Ceaușescu on the square.69 Valer meticulously remarks the location where the group of protesters

started to sing “Deșteaptă-te, Române”. He probably told this because he knew I have been in the

city twice, and assumed I would recall this place. He could have known this exact location from the

Securitate archives (the Romanian secret police under Communism), from reports about this event

and subsequent arrests which have been sighted by historians. He mentioned these archival reports

a little later on, in relation to the absence of knowledge about who started to sing “Deșteaptă-te,

Române”. He emphasises the singing later on as well, framing it as a kind of ritual: ‘they sang on and

on those first lyrics of the song’. It conveys a very strong image of the revolt, and a sort of mystique.

Valer further mystifies the story by calling the singing something natural and instinctual. In this

revolt, the song had a strong meaning of collective resistance against the regime. The notion that no

one wanted to tell who started to sing “Deșteaptă-te Române”, denotes a feeling of unity.

In a sense, singing the song might have really been spontaneous and instinctual when

related to a certain Romanian film screened in the 1980s, which Maria Bucur mentioned when

interpreting how people could have come to sing “Deșteaptă-te, Române” during the Brașov revolt:

Maria: There was a movie made about 1848, I think it was in the seventies, that featured the

song. I’m trying to remember the name of the movie and I can’t right now. But I do

remember that it features a mass crowd singing “Deșteaptă-te, Române”. And I think that

that sort of exposure to the song being sung outdoors with a lot of people could’ve been a

way in which even those who couldn’t sing very well felt empowered to sing it when they

were called on to sing it. You know, you have seen it done, it can be done, you’re doing it.

68

Valer Rus, interview by the author, April 27, 2015. 69

Deletant, Romania Under Communist Rule, 134-135.

30

That’s the best I can explain that. *...+ It was on TV, that is why I think everybody saw it. You

know, it was one TV station, everybody watched the same thing.70

The film she meant, was probably La rascrucea marilor furtuni (also known in English as At the

Crossroads of Great Storms), a film by the Romanian director Mircea Moldovan about the 1848

revolution, released in 1980.71 Her memories about the film are rather accurate: about half an hour

into the movie, a large crowd of gathered people does cheer and celebrate after a speech,

accompanied by a choral version of “Deșteaptă-te, Române” in the background.72 For some people,

this scene could very well have been an inspiration, granted that is was shown in TV as Maria states.

It could very well represent hope and encouragement to achieve desired changes collectively. That

would make it appropriate for some people to start singing “Deșteaptă-te, Române.” The ambiguous

meaning of the song makes it apt for appropriation in a struggle against a new barbaric tyrant, that

which had just implemented new heating restrictions.

The strong image Valer sketched of the Brașov revolts might have had an actual dimension

back in those days as well. I have obtained stories from himself and other interviewees in which this

revolt was as a kind of figurehead. The revolt of 1987 may have obtained an iconic significance, and

with its use during the riots, “Deșteaptă-te, Române” may have shared this importance. Through this

revolt, the song obtained the meaning of a revolutionary song against the Communist regime in the

first place. The song represents the collective sentiments of contempt of and resistance against the

regime. Another story told by Valer, when he dwelled on other moments in which the song

appeared, points towards this connection:

Valer: We also have another particular fact about this song. The former manager of this

museum [the Casa Mureșenilor Museum], he was also a member of the family. The nephew

of the nephew of Andrei Mureșanu. And he had this very important event in our museum

about the Transylvanian gazette, the newspaper made by the Mureșanu family. And they

were forced in that period to give to higher authorities the entire description of the event. So,

who will speak, what will [he] speak, and when. And in that program, he proposed a

moment, a musical moment, with the singing of “Deșteaptă-te, Române”. And of course the

communist authorities came up upon him, ‘okay man, what are you trying to do, you are

mad! It’s not allowed!’ But we knew, it is an oral history fact, everybody knows in this

70

Maria Bucur, interview by the author, April 15, 2015. 71

Mircea Moldovan (director), Petre Salcudeanu (writer), La rascrucea marilor furtuni, 8 December 1980, Romania. See the IMDb page on the film: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0174845/ (retrieved 14 june 2015). 72

At the moment of writing, the film (in Romanian, though it is unclear whether it was the original viewing) has been uploaded in its entirety on Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ku65KfAsPwk (retrieved 14 june 2015).

31

museum that they tried to sing in a public event to sing “Deșteaptă-te, Române”, and the

high authority forbid to sing the song.

M.R.: Do you know when that was?

Valer: The newspaper appeared in 1838... so in every decade in the year with an 8 in the end,

we have nowadays these larger events dedicated to history of the Transylvanian Gazette. So

this event was in 1988, 150 years from the year that the Transylvanian Gazette appeared. It

was an anniversary event. Okay, everybody tried to bite a small bite from this large system,

very strong system. Everybody tried to do little by little, to do something against the system.

This information was confirmed to me by many of his colleagues. Mircea Gherman is the

name of this man.73

This story is not mentioned anywhere in academic literature or by other people I spoke to, but given

its small scale this is not surprising. Valer later clarified that he had heard this story from other

colleagues at the museum, who actually worked with the former manager he told about. He stressed

that this is an oral history fact, naming some other people who knew about it.74 The situation was

caused simply by proposing to sing “Deșteaptă-te, Române” at this anniversary, which was in itself a

provocation, even though they did not actually sing it. It connects logically, as the museum is in

Brașov, so those working at the museum likely knew about the revolts one year prior, and this

suggestion in this city would have been especially defiant. Suggesting to sing “Deșteaptă-te,

Române” in itself would be easily explicable as well, since Mureșanu was the author of the poem.

It should be noted that such an action was in retrospect quite bold and meaningful, though

at the moment itself it could not have had much resonance. Knowledge of the action remained with

the ones who were aware of the proposal. It was closer to what Valer said, as something little

against the regime, with a small provocation. Still, however small this action was, it highlights the

connotations “Deșteaptă-te, Române” had gained after the revolt of 1987. This is visible in the way

the director used the song, as well as in the response by the authorities in prohibiting the act of

singing. The underlying concern seems to have been that people hearing the song again might very

well revolt again. This story signifies that “Deșteaptă-te, Române” had probably become linked with

anti-regime revolt by this time, which also made it an apt symbol to disseminate feelings of rebellion

towards the state.

73

Valer Rus, interview by the author, April 27, 2015. 74

Unfortunately I could not contact them myself, so I have to take just his word here.

32

The revolts in Brașov certainly also had a larger resonance in Romania, on which Cristina

commented with an interesting story. When our talk drifted towards resistance against the regime,

she mentioned something she witnessed herself:

Cristina: And then in the late 80s, I witnessed some outbursts of fury where I worked, in those

villages. And I saw people being even taken to the police, miliția, se cheama [militia, they are

called]. And when they protested and... but it was something spontaneous, it wasn’t...

[organised]. But yes, I saw something like that. And even after this guy... This was a guy who

quarrelled in the middle of the street with the officials on such a subject. And then they took

him to the police and sent him to jail, and everbody who witnessed this was called to the

police. I was staying in this town, Mangalia, by the sea, and I didn’t register myself

anywhere.[...]1988, it must have been. Because this guy who was arrested referred to

Brașov, and he said, it will be even worse than in 1987 in Brașov when we all... *...+ when

we’ll stand for... And I thought, well, now if I go to the police, and they beat me, I’ll say that I

didn’t hear him saying those things, because his wife was a teacher, and she was a colleague

of ours, and she asked us to help him, and pretend that he didn’t say those.75

Before she brought up this particular incident, Cristina had mentioned the revolts in Brașov as well,

to which she related to reconstruct when this happened. What she saw was not exactly an uprising,

but more of a spontaneous outburst of anger against some officials as representatives of the system.

The importance in this story lies in the fact that this man brought up the events in Brașov against the

authorities. Cristina emphasised afterwards the role of the police. She told about her own struggle

whether to go to the police when she was called or not, in fear of violent reprisal. She also

mentioned that this man was released later that year, “but he had some broken bones... something

here”, pointing at her face and jaw.76 From her account, and the response by the state, it is clear

how harsh this provocation was, and how fear would usually prevent people from referring to events

such as the revolt in Brașov. The background of the incident is all the more compelling:

Cristina: And this guy, well, what was the reason of his revolt. Now I’ll tell you in a few words

to understand what it was about. This guy was from the... let’s call it county’s administration,

there are some... counties here, județe. And they were coming to have a... they tried to have

statistics of the animals. Everyone had, you know, because everybody who had an animal

had to give. If you had, let’s say, three sheep, one of them had to go to them, it had to be

taken from you. And there was an old woman who only had a cow, and they tried to... and

75

Cristina Madgearu, interview by the author, May 28, 2015. 76

Ibidem.

33

she was quite poor. And this guy was a veterinarian, a technician. And when he went with

the officials to this old woman, he was very touched because these officials tried to take this

cow from her. Then he burst into anger, you know. Yes, something like that. It was about...

not about ideas, it was just about survival. [...] People, somehow they felt like they couldn’t

take any more.77

This man brought up Brașov in a burst of anger, after being touched by the situation he

witnessed. From this, it seems that in his powerlessness and frustration these events represented a

symbol of resistance that he used to ventilate his distrust towards the regime. He might not be able

to fight the officials himself, but ‘the people’ would, and that kind of message was is transmitted in

this small outburst of fury. “Deșteaptă-te, Române” does not figure at all in this incident, but as I

argued earlier, it was strongly connected to the events in Brașov and could very well represent

resistance in the same way. The revolt in Brașov was certainly known through different channels.

Cristina herself mentioned that people heard of these events through Radio Free Europe, but also

that she would hear a lot from what other people told her. Silvano, who worked in the industry in

Vaslui, Moldavia, told me he learned in a rather particular way of the revolts in Brașov:

Silvano: In ’87, it was in Brașov... at some large factories. There were some ‘bad’ people

arrested and deported to other parts, in other parts [of the country]. For example, Brașov is

somewhere in the centre of Romania, you know? Then... they began to come, to Vaslui,

where there was a fabric of the same profile as the one in Brașov. They were brought here,

without family.78

The transfer of some demonstrators to other parts of the country was a practice commonly used in

communist Romania. In this case, sixty-two protesters were transferred, most of them to the region

of Moldavia.79 The disadvantage of punishing people by dispersing them, was that knowledge of the

events spread. The way Silvano talks about the event signifies that it did not go unnoticed by the

factory workers from his region. He recalls that they ‘began to come to Vaslui’ without their families,

and it is probable that discussion would spread regarding these particularities, combining with what

people may have heard on Radio Free Europe. The revolt in Brașov became very meaningful this way

during the late 1980s in the sense of public temperament, and “Deșteaptă-te, Române” seems to

have simultaneously gained the same connotations. How well known the connection between the

77

Cristina Madgearu, interview by the author, May 28, 2015. 78

Silvano Budacea, interview by the author, April 14, 2015. “În 87, a fost la Brașov. La niște fabrici mari. A fost arestat și deportat niște rău oameni din alte parte, în celelălte parte. De exemplu... Brașov e undeva în centrul României ca posiționa, înțelegi? *...+ Atunci... A începa să aducă, la Vaslui era o fabrică care avea același profil cu e de la Brașov. S-au fost adus aici, fără familie.” 79

Deletant, Romania Under Communist Rule, 135.

34

song and the revolt was at the time remains unverifiable, but as I have demonstrated there are hints

that “Deșteaptă-te, Române” attained a bearing of resistance through this coupling. The song could

represent a feeling of rebellion and contempt towards the Communist regime. When it represented

hope, which could have been the reason why it was initially sung during the Brașov revolt, it only did

so in a collective. This also made the song a symbol of unity in the context of collective resistance.

35

Chapter 4: “Deșteaptă-te, Române” and sociability

The following chapter explores “Deșteaptă-te, Române” in a social context, which does in the case of

this song relate to the social dimension of singing and music, for example singing or playing music in

groups. As I had from the outset of my research expected that “Deșteaptă-te, Române” would

appear within the framework of singing and music, I have spoken with many of my interviewees

about the social role of music, singing and socialising during the Communist era. The song, however,

proved remarkably absent in this kind of context. Against my expectation that people would have

mostly learned “Deșteaptă-te, Române” through these kinds of practices, quite the reverse is true.

Its absence in this context is striking, especially as music and singing have had a particular

significance in dissent as well as in a sociocultural context.80 Highlighting this theme consequently

tells a lot about “Deșteaptă-te, Române” through its absence. Through an exploration of this frame,

the importance of these kind of social activities will be discussed.

As mentioned in the preceding chapter, during the early years of communism “Deșteaptă-te,

Române” was certainly sung, a practice that was mostly confined to the family circle. Outside of that

safe and trustworthy circle it mostly did not venture. One respondent to the written survey, for

instance, was quite ardent in his response on the question whether singing collectively was

important in general: “Not very important. We were made to sing collectively a lot of songs. Not

“Deșteaptă-te, Române”, are you kidding?”81 His answer is quite clear in pointing out that the

incentive to sing collectively lay not with themselves, as they were made to sing. The suggestion that

“Deșteaptă-te, Române” would be sung at such an occasion would be outrageous. This notion fits

the overall view that my interviewees sketched of the early years of communism in Romania, which

was also the period during which this respondent was raised. The older people I interviewed

reminisced how “everything was communist” when it came to music and organised collective

singing. However, people successfully sought ways to evade this:

Mihail: Well, if you were smart, you had Hungarian music. It was better, maybe it was also

about the Communists, but it was Hungarian, so you wouldn’t understand anything! *laughs+

Well, everything, all melodies were [communist]. Or about childhood, that it was so beautiful

and good. And there were all kinds of reunions [meetings], at the palace of the scouts, and

sure, all kinds of singers came, but they also only sing about communism, socialism. You

wouldn’t get rid of it. Other music was for instance of the nations from Africa. You wouldn’t

80

See for instance: Madigan Fitcher, “Rock ‘n’ roll nation: counterculture and dissent in Romania, 1965-1975”, Nationalities Papers: The Journal of Nationalism and Ethnicity (2011), 39:4, 567-585. 81

Ioan, written survey, April 2015.

36

understand it either, but it was something different. It was on the Romanian channels, but I

don’t remember so much...82

When Mihail recalled that all music was communist in content, he mostly referred to his childhood

in the late 1940s and the 1950s. He hints at this period when he speaks about meetings at the palace

of the scouts (pionieri), these pionieri being the Romanian equivalent of the Soviet youth

organisation of pioneers that led up to the Komsomol.83 In this sense, the communist music played

at those youth meetings served a social meaning. Music was clearly an important vehicle for

ideology, but the state had no firm control on how people responded to it. The ideology in music

was but a thin layer, and people like Mihail found their own way to deal with it, preferring not to

understand the message that came with the music. From the manner he spoke about other music, it

seems that he would prefer music with no understandable meaning over no music at all, be it even

from the Hungarian Communists. Hearing something different, which lacked the clear communist

overtones due to linguistic or cultural barriers, was at least for Mihail enjoyable. Revisiting the

findings of the preceding chapter, people singing “Deșteaptă-te, Române” and other non-communist

songs at home could serve a social meaning as well, along the with anti-regime connotations and

sentiments of nostalgia that have been discussed.

From the preceding chapter, it seemed that the clandestine singing of “Deșteaptă-te,

Române”, among other patriotic songs, disappeared during Communism’s later years. For the social

aspect of this singing in a closed group, from the 1960s on there was more and more music available

to escape rigid communist-themed songs. This is linked to the atmosphere of increasing

liberalisation due to reforms made when Ceaușescu came to power in 1965, when relative openness

enabled especially youth music culture to flourish in response to Western youth subculture.84 The

importance of music, like some of my interviewees also commented, did not diminish. Vlad, who

grew up in the 1970s and 1980s, even held that his relationships with friends were primarily based

on music sharing:

82

Mihail Avramescu, interview by the author, May 22, 2015. “Nouja, als je slim was dan had je Hongaarse muziek. Dat was beter, misschien ook wel over de communisten, maar het was Hongaars, dus je snapt er niks van [lacht]. Maar ja, alles, alle melodietjes waren.. [communistisch]. Of [over] de kindertijd, dat het zo mooi was en zo goed... En er waren wel allerlei reünies, bij het paleis van de padvinders, en zeker, er kwamen allerlei zangers en zangeressen, en die gingen ook alleen over het communisme, het socialisme [zingen]. Je kwam er niet vanaf. Andere muziek was bijvoorbeeld van de volkeren in Afrika. Ook niet te snappen, maar het was wel anders. Dat was op de Roemeense zenders. Ik weet er niet zo veel [meer]...” 83

Ştefania Ciubotaru, “De la palat regal la palat al pionierilor (1949-1977) - o filă din istoria Palatului Cotroceni”, Historia (online): http://www.historia.ro/exclusiv_web/general/articol/palat-regal-palat-al-pionierilor-1949-1977-o-fil-istoria-palatului (retrieved 16 June 2015). 84

Mihail Ionescu & Dennis Deletant, "Romania and the Warschaupact: 1955-1989", Cold War International History Project (2004), working paper #43, 25; Madigan Fitcher, “Rock ‘n’ roll nation”, 568.

37

Vlad: Music was important in the free time. There were two categories. One category is the

classical music form, the people who listen only classical music. And the other, the young,

listen selected music. For example in Romania, there was at the top Pink Floyd, Vangelis,

Deep Purple, Metallica up there in the ‘80s. So, it was very important when you knew

somebody, to know which are his musical preferences, because you can position it. If he or

she listens for example ABBA, it was from the middle, low middle. If he or she listens Pink

Floyd, it was at the top.

Daniela: *interrupts+ “No it wasn’t!” *laughs+

Vlad: There was some chance, because somebody from the West send an LP in Romania, and

there, that person alone for the money, would record this LP on audio cassettes. So it was an

underground economy of the music. You paid for listening to music. So in that way, all your

relationships were related to provide music and get music for nothing. My father was in this

network of underground distribution of music, so I had access to new music.85

According to Vlad, there was a lively black market in music that was provided from the West. The

music that played such an important role in his free time was a scarcity, hence its spread depended

on networks. Vlad was lucky as he was positioned near a source of new music. That music was an

essentially social commodity derives as well from the remarks he made about the positioning of

someone’s musical tastes. The category of people listening to classical music seems to have been at

the bottom of interest, whereas certain Western rock formations such as Pink Floyd were at the top.

The interruption by Daniela was jokingly in nature, but from her remark it seems that the hierarchy

in music as described by Vlad was not necessarily rigid, as tastes differed. However, Western icons of

pop and rock music were the most interesting overall. As has been written about the hippie

subculture in Romania some years before the period of which Vlad spoke, Western musical culture

could carve out an individual sphere contrasting to the Communist regime’s rigid cultural values.86 A

song like “Deșteaptă-te, Române” would have had no place at all in this respect, as even for older

generations, such as Vlad’s father who was part of an underground music network himself, Western

music had a much stronger potential social and cultural meaning.

Western music did not just appear in the form of records and social networks aimed for its

distribution. More importantly, young people would get together to share their music and other

Western things, much like Vlad’s comments on how personal friendships were based on providing

and getting music for free. Singing together was also an important part of these get-togethers of

85

Daniela Ulieriu & Vlad Ulieriu, interview by the author, May 14, 2015. 86

Fitcher, Rock ‘n’ roll nation, 570-572.

38

young people pursuing their own cultural interests. Cristina, a few years older than Vlad,

commented on singing culture in the following way:

Cristina: Yes, at parties, yes, we sang! But you know, we sang Pink Floyd, Led Zeppelin, things

like that you know. [laughs] So we gathered, and our parties in my group of friends, were

mainly with guitars. We had three guitars, three boys that sang very well. And some of us

sang poorly, but it didn’t matter so much. *laughs+ And we joined and talked about books,

and we tried to get to... get films from abroad on video, you know. So we got cassettes, and

we copied them, and we saw the latest films, the best films that we could fetch. And maybe

we watched film, something like, I don’t know, “One Flight over the Cuckoo’s Nest” [sic], or

something like that. And then we talked about the film, and we sang, and some of the people

drank... too much. [laughs] And in the morning we played something. I think. Just to be a

little bit more cheerful, because somehow, we felt that there were not so much opportunities

for us. Somehow, even if we were young and we were somehow optimistic, we knew that we

didn’t have many choices, and the future was closing in. Somehow you could feel that all the

time.87

Music played a central role in the parties Cristina had with her friends, that furthermore revolved

around discussing books and movies from abroad. They would themselves sing the music that they

liked, the kind of rock bands from the West that Vlad also named. It was essentially a social practice,

as it would make less sense to sing and play such music it on one’s own, and the notion that all of

Cristina’s friends would sing together even if they sang poorly gives strong meaning to the activity.

The overall atmosphere of the parties Cristina described is creating a kind of alternative for what

was found in Romania’s Communist sociocultural life. She speaks even of a sort of hope, that these

parties within their own social circle would cheer them up as an antagonist against the dominant

form of society that would diminish their choice. They felt that the future was closing in, which

signifies a strong aspect of escapism as well. In all, the role the music they sang at these occasions is

somewhat reminiscent of what “Deșteaptă-te, Române” represented in the early 1950s, only instead

of remembering a more glorious past it looked at a strong projection of an alternative world,

embodied by the West.

The music people played at such get-togethers did not only emulate the style of the West.

Maria, partly answering the question on the importance of music and singing in Communist Romania

in her profession as a historian, named some other types of music people would play when they got

together:

87

Cristina Madgearu, interview by the author, May 28, 2015.

39

Maria: The other thing is, my parents grew up in the sixties, and that was the generation

when people started to have guitars, and more young kids because they were going to

college would get on vacation together. And then you get into the whole folk hippie singing

culture. And so people would be singing these either folk songs, folk as in not like folkloric

folk but in the US sense of folk, not the grandmother singing in her village folk. And then

drinking songs. I mean, there were so many drinking songs. It was crazy. I grew up basically

learning my mum and my dad’s friend’s drinking songs, which I know all of them now. That

was one of the things we did.. you know, the other thing is... the stuff on the radio kind of

sucked... a lot. Most people didn’t have back then tape players, forget about it, no tape

players. We had records. And to get a cool music record was the big deal. You know you

could find classical music stuff, but not singing... kind of pop stuff. And so, a lot of what we

did was just sing our own songs. But that was the kind of singing you did. I mean it might be

in public because you might be at a garden or on a beach, or in the mountains, but it wasn’t

performative, like, here we are performing in front of you. It was more like, here is a circle of

people communicating, and I would call that a kind of closed group singing, not for an

audience.88

As mentioned earlier, Maria comments on the generation of the 1960s which enjoyed a bit more

cultural freedom due to a more liberal atmosphere. It is from this period on that these (in a sense)

freer forms of expression emerged, as the hippie culture she mentions which, it should be noted,

had much in common with the Western hippie culture, but had its own unique aspects too.89 Maria

named different forms of music which were important in the youth culture that existed from that

time. People would play and sing drinking songs, along with Western-style folk and pop songs. Most

of these forms were based on music from the West, though drinking songs were a more local

phenomenon, as these were learned from the older people, in Maria’s case her parents’ friends.

What these forms of musical expression have in common, is that they deviated from what was

played on the radio. Unlike Vlad, Maria remembers no taping and distributing of records, but she

does also speak about classical music as not really the interesting music that people were looking

for. Cultural value in music was more present in that which was hard to find. This value increased as

people were not actually performing their music, but rather keeping it in their closed group, and in

that way creating something of their own.

88

Maria Bucur, interview by the author, April 15, 2015. 89

Fitcher, Rock ‘n’ roll nation, 567-568.

40

Political meaning, on the other hand, was according to my interviewees mostly absent, or at

least was of lesser importance. As Maria added when I asked her whether songs like “Deșteaptă-te,

Române” or other songs of protest against the regime would be sung:

Maria: We never sang anything that was connected to politics in that way. You might sing

“everybody must get stoned”, and that was political in a certain way. Or you might sing “ob-

la-di ob-la-da”, I’m mentioning things you might know, because somehow singing the Beatles

and saying some of those things was deviating from what normal pop music was the Party

allowed.90

The songs her friends would sing were as such not about politics. As she remarks, it might have had a

political meaning because it was deviant, but this was not the intention. It is difficult to completely

disengage these practices from politics, as in a way they were reacting to a society shaped by the

very same politics. However, more than a form of protest or dissent, singing music together seemed

more about creating or maintaining a group identity than about the politics-laden culture upon

which it was reacting. Breaking away from that possessed an aspect of escapism as well, according

to Cristina’s answer on the same question about songs of protest:

Cristina: It was mostly flower-power, you know. *laughs+ You know, we didn’t... I don’t

remember, songs of protest... no, I don’t think so. In school... In school there were those

terrible Communist songs, I don’t know if you have ever heard them. “Mulțumim din inimă

partidului”, “we thank the party with all our hearts”, you know. And it was worse and worse,

because in the early seventies, and even until the early eighties, things were a little bit better,

you know. There was a bit of freedom, you couldn’t feel the darkness of the regime so much.

But starting from 84 I think... 83, 84, things got worse and worse, and this propaganda that

was going on was harder and harder. [...]

M.R.: You would want to escape that?

Cristina: Yes. It was.. In fact, we pretended that it didn’t exist you know. Maybe we joked

about it. But, we tried not to.. Yes, we tried to escape.91

After answering that she found it unlikely her group would have sung songs of protests, she began a

commentary about the communist songs and propaganda they were bombarded with during the last

years of Communism. It is clear nonetheless that she spoke in very strong terms about this, such as

‘those terrible communist songs’, ‘the darkness of the regime’, and her repetition of the words

‘worse’ and ‘harder’. Given she was telling this in relation to singing songs of protest, I got the

90

Maria Bucur, interview by the author, April 15, 2015. 91

Cristina Madgearu, interview by the author, May 28, 2015.

41

impression it was more about the aspect of escape, hence my straightforward question. That she

mentions they pretended it did not exist, and rather tried not to speak or even joke too much about

it, is significant for what her musical meetings with friends meant for her.

Indeed, judging from these answers, a song with the connotations of “Deșteaptă-te,

Române” was rather ill-fitted for this social role which other music could better fulfil. The song never

appeared in the group singing activities of the people with whom I have spoken, which were meant

to deviate from what was officially sanctified. It rather appeared on the wrong side, as the regime

had seemingly embraced the song. Daniela, who told me she did not sing in her free time, but did

enjoy listening music with friends all the same, illuminated the other side of singing in Communist

Romania:

Daniela: Oh it was important, but we laughed about it. We made jokes. I mean, don’t

imagine we were stupid, and that we sang from our souls [with ardour] “Deșteaptă-te,

Române”, or “Trei culori cunosc pe lume”. It was not all joking in the same time, but exactly

because of that [joking], in high school, nobody would let us sing. I was in a high school at

the Calea Dorobanți, which was a boulevard. It was in that time an important boulevard

because every day, Ceaușescu passed by on that boulevard on the way to his home. *...+ The

regime had arrived at a state of madness, nearly. At the hour Ceaușescu passed by, there

were people who entered the school building and monitored. All the rooms were full of

Securiști [members of the Securitate], so that no one could shoot, to try to kill Ceaușescu.

And then, just because of that they prevented embarrassing moments, at least at our high

school we never sang, they did not let us sing. Because we did not take that seriously. It was

not like we were dissidents, we weren’t dissidents. *...+ It was all different, I think, in my

mother’s time, who took those things way more serious. She had told me many times how

she, when Stalin died, had cried for two days. For us those things did not happen anymore,

no never for us.92

92

Daniela Ulieriu & Vlad Ulieriu, interview by the author, May 14, 2015. “Măi, era important, dar noi râdeam de asta. Noi făceam glume. Adică, nu-ți imagina că eram tâmpiți, și că cânteam din tot sufletul “Deșteaptă-te, Române”, sau “Trei culori cunosc pe lume”. Nu-l luam tot în glumă pe vremea aceeași, tocmai, din acest motiv, în liceu, nici nu ne mai puneau să mai cântăm. Eram într-un liceu pe Calea Dorobanți, care este un bulevard, era în vremea un bulevard important, fiindcă în fiecare zi Ceaușescu trecea pe acest bulevard ca să mergă la casa lui. [...] regimul ajunsese la o stare de demență, aproape. De câtă ore trecea Ceaușescu era oameni care intrau în liceu și supravegheau. Toate locuri erau pline de Securiști, ca nu cumva cineva să tragă, să încerce să omoare pe Ceaușescu. Și atunci, tocmai pentru a se evita momente penibile, cel puțin la noi în liceu nu numai cânteam, nu ne mai lăsau să cântăm. Pentru că nu luăm în serios asta. Nu ca am fi pus disidenți, nu eram disidenți. *...+ Altfel cred că era în vremea mamei mele, care a luat lucrurile asta mult mai în serios, și care m-am povestit de multe ori ca atunci când a murit Stalin a plâns de două zile. La noi nu mai se îmtâmpla asta, la noi nimeni nu.”

42

For Daniela, singing in Romanian culture meant forced singing, quite like the respondent in the

beginning of this chapter who held they were made to sing several songs. Among the songs she had

to sing at school was “Deșteaptă-te, Române”, alongside songs such as “Trei culori cunosc pe lume”

(I know three colours in the world). The latter was the Romanian national anthem from 1977, also

originally a patriotic song adapted to fit the communist ideology of the regime.93 For her “Deșteaptă-

te, Române” was at this point exactly one of those official communist songs about which she would

want to forget. It is clear from the way she frames the singing of these songs, that her peers at

school did not take it seriously at all, even to the extent that the school would not let them sing with

all the officials around to prevent them the embarrassment that the students only did so ironically.

This was no dissent, she repeats, but it was more a sign of the times, is the message that she

conveys in comparing it to the behaviour of her mother’s generation. But again, as in the early

Communist era, the regime had no control whatsoever on how people would respond to its

ideological music and how they handled it. “Deșteaptă-te, Române”, in her case, was in terms of

connotations on the wrong side to have the kind of social role other music did. The state had

embraced the song, and in doing so in a sense usurped the song of its meaning, a theme that will be

even more prominent in the next chapter.

93

See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trei_culori. (retrieved 17 June 2015). The original lyrics of the patriotic song (Tricolorul) and the communist adaptation, including English translation can be found here.

43

Chapter 5: “Deșteaptă-te, Române” and education

Education has proven a very compelling theme in connection with “Deșteaptă-te, Române”. It is a

frame ridden with discrepancy as well. Either people have told me they learned the song at school,

relating to this in a manner that it was a really common and normal thing, or they commented

vehemently that the song was strictly forbidden. These differences have been addressed throughout

the preceding chapters as well, and certainly within the framework of education they have had

important consequences for “Deșteaptă-te, Române”. That the song appeared at a time in school

curricula brought it within the realm of the state, which ultimately exercised control over the

educational system. From the conflicting testimonies I have collected, it is hard to establish an exact

point when the song became absorbed in the discourse of the regime, but most probably it followed

in the wake of the nationalist revival addressed in the second chapter. As also shown in that chapter,

the meaning of “Deșteaptă-te Române” is very open to different interpretations, which is likely the

reason why it could be absorbed so easily into the state’s narrative. Boia has identified the year 1971

as the starting point for the state narrative that drew excessively on nationalism and national unity,

while manipulating Romanian national history. The tendency towards this narrative slowly started

already in the late 1950s and early 1960s.94 It is unclear, however, when the point would be that

“Deșteaptă-te, Române” was seized by this narrative.

It can be unequivocally stated, however, that “Deșteaptă-te, Române” had no place in

education during the late 1940s and early 1950s. Though it may have been included in some cases,

this was certainly not via the incentive of the state, and not approved officially at all. Cristina

described a telling example of this. A couple of days after my interview with her, she contacted me

by e-mail after having verified a story told by her mother. We had been discussing, off the record,

about the ban on “Deșteaptă-te, Române” in the early years, and when this would have ended:

Cristina: One of my mother's uncles, who was also her teacher, used to teach the pupils this

song *“Deșteaptă-te, Române”] (and other patriotic songs, too) and they sang them on

celebrations, at school. In 1948,after one of these celebrations he was arrested for many

years. I just checked this information provided by my mother with her cousin, her uncle's

daughter and it is correct - she remembers fair enough everything. (He wasn't accused only

for that but also for that.)95

The backdrop of this story was Baia, a village near the Black Sea coast. The point she wanted to

illustrate by her account was that “Deșteaptă-te, Române” was banned in that period, and had only

94

Boia, History and Myth in Romanian Consciousness, 73, 77. 95

Cristina Madgearu, personal communication, June 2015.

44

become legal again after Ceaușescu placed great emphasis on national heritage. It shared the fate of

other patriotic songs and expressions in the early Communist period, which is also the way she

frames the song here. This story also clearly shows that there was an amount of official control over

the education system, at least enough to remove teachers not following the regime’s ideological

line. In the case of “Deșteaptă-te, Române” in education, the shift from internationalism to

nationalism was probably of pivotal importance.

The first thing many of my interviewees, except for those of the oldest generation, answered

when I asked them how they have heard “Deșteaptă-te, Române” before the revolution was that

they knew it from school. The oldest among those learning it at school, Silvano, born in 1956, was

quite adamant about this:

Silvano: I told you. In primary school I learned it, in the theoretical high school I learned it.

From the poet Andrei Mureșanu. We sang it... we studied it at school. It was never forbidden.

His answer is tinged with the kind of normality I named at the start of this chapter, as was his tone of

speaking when he said the above. He raised his voice sharply when saying it was never forbidden, for

instance. As mentioned in passing in the third chapter, he even ask me who had told me that the

song was forbidden. For him it was just a normal part of the school curriculum, naming both primary

school and high school, recalling singing and studying it, and adding explicitly that it was never

forbidden.96 The way he frames his answer seems to denote that it was indeed just a song they

learned at school, not really something of special interest. However, the appearance of “Deșteaptă-

te, Române” in education in the early 1960s is ambiguous; Ionel and Mihaela, both just a few years

older than Silvano, did not recall learning the song at school. They learned it, in fact, from their

parents and other older people in their family circle (both are quoted in chapter 3). It is safe to

assume that, coinciding with the regime’s embrace of nationalist discourse, there was a transition

period in which “Deșteaptă-te, Române” became part of this state discourse through education.

For the younger people with whom I spoke, the presence of the song in education seemed

far less ambivalent. Cristina’s account also signalled that the song was by her time common

knowledge. She commented on this already when I asked her how she thought “Deșteaptă-te,

Române” and the revolution of 1989 were connected:

Cristina: I can’t remember if I heard it after the revolution, but I think I heard it in the days of

the revolution or immediately afterwards. And then, I thought it... Of course we knew this

96

Silvano Budacea, interview by the author, April 14, 2015. “Eu t-am spus. În școală primară l-am învățat, în liceu teoretic l-am învățat. Din poet, Andrei Mureșanu. L-am cântat... l-am studiat în școală. Nu era interzis niciodată.”

45

song, I mean, we learned it. I remember that we learned it in school as a patriotic song, but

they didn’t mention very much about it. We knew that it was composed... the lyrics were by

Andrei Mureșanu, the music was by Anton Pann, something like that. It’s an old historical

song. [...]

M.R.: You learned it at school?

Cristina: We had music classes, you know, in the first eight years. And I think we learned it

there. I don’t remember if we sang it at celebrations maybe... I don’t know, I am not very

sure. But it was quite well known, I think. [...] Yes, I remembered it, and my parents knew it.

[...] Even when they taught us these songs, they changed the lyrics, you know. They took

some parts out from them, and put something about... what they wanted to say. I don’t

know, about the party, or they took God out of everything, and maybe said “mother” instead

of God. So, even the anthem of that time, “Trei colori”, that was also changed. You didn’t

have the original lyrics, not all of them. And I think that was also the case of this song, I can’t

remember very well. But I’m pretty sure it was not forbidden.97

Before she explained what she thought of the song when it appeared in the revolution, Cristina

added that she ‘of course’ knew the song. She learned it, seemingly just like everybody else as she

speaks in the plural consistently, indicating that it was a common thing to know. It was ‘quite well

known’ before the revolution, in her words. Learning this song, in her account, is framed in

patriotism, which would also explain the reappearance of “Deșteaptă-te, Române” in the state

discourse. The statements that she did not remember having learned very much about the song at

school, and that she was not sure whether the lyrics had changed comment on the relatively low

importance or meaning the song probably had for her. Certainly the regime changed lyrics to convey

their desired message at times, and in the case of “Trei culori (cunosc pe lume)” this practice seems

to be common knowledge nowadays.98 These kinds of practices also underline the fluidity in the

meaning “Deșteaptă-te, Române” could have, as it may have been subtly changed to fit other

schemes. This, again, is only a meaning on the surface.

Other interviewees commented in similar ways on learning “Deșteaptă-te, Române” in

school, mostly remembering it from primary school. Both Daniela and Vlad had similar recollections

as Cristina on the subject:

Daniela: Yes, we studied *it+ at school. Yes, but I don’t remember. It was a revolutionary song

from 1848. I don’t remember whether the verses were the same, because much of the 97

Cristina Madgearu, interview by the author, May 28, 2015. 98

See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trei_culori. (retrieved 17 June 2015). The original lyrics of the patriotic song (Tricolorul) and the communist adaptation, including English translation can be found here.

46

patriotic poems were a bit modified by the Communist regime. In the same era, “Trei culori

cunosc pe lume”, was rewritten by the Communist regime. The verses of the song were

rewritten. I don’t know if we heard “Deșteaptă-te, Române” in the initial variant or in a

rewritten variant. [...] I am not sure, because it was forbidden a time.

Vlad: No, we learned “Deșteaptă-te, Române” in school. I am older than Dana, four years

older. I have learned in primary school, during the first four classes I have learned

“Deșteaptă-te, Române”.99

Daniela comments accordingly on the possibly rewritten lyrics, the context of patriotic songs in

which “Deșteaptă-te, Române” was framed within schooling, and the fact that it was forbidden

before. On this last issue, Vlad reacted to add he had also learned the song at primary school. In this

context, mentioning his age respectively to Daniela is a means of saying that she had certainly

learned it because she is younger. This was also to say that “Deșteaptă-te, Române” was forbidden

longer beforehand, but that it certainly was not afterwards. Their account emboldens the idea that

the Communist regime had incorporated the song into its pantheon when it saw fit. On the issue of

the lyrics, Vlad added:

Vlad: When you are a child, you learn the song, not the lyrics. Okay, so... I remember that I

learned the song. The lyrics I don’t remember, but the song, the music. [sings a part of the

melody] In the primary school, between ‘74 and ‘78...”100

This struck me as an interesting observation, as remembering just the music detaches the actual

content of the lyrics from the song. In the same way as some people have commented on learning

“Deșteaptă-te, Române” without understanding its full meaning and its words, the memory of the

music lasted nonetheless. This is all the more significant as most interviewees recalled learning the

song in primary school, in other words, when they were at an age the when the song’s meaning

certainly did not stem from its lyrics. For young people remembering the song from their school

days, “Deșteaptă-te, Române” not just a song, but a song ‘from the Communists’:

99

Daniela Ulieriu & Vlad Ulieriu, interview by the author, May 14, 2015. Daniela: “Yes, we studied at school. Yes, but I don’t remember. It was a revolutionary song from 1848. [shifts to Romanian] Nu mai țin minte dacă versurile erau aceleași, pentru că multe poezii patriotice erau un pic modificate de regimul comunist. Și celălalt timp, trei culori cunosc pe lume, era rescris de regimul comunist. Versurile din cântec au fost rescrise. Nu știu dacă Deșteaptă-te, Române îl auzisem în varianta inițială sau în varianta *rescrise+ [...] Nu sunt sigură fiindcă a fost interzis o vreme...” Vlad: “Nu, “Deșteaptă-te, Române” se învăța în școală. Eu sunt mai mare decât Dana... de patru ani. Am învățat în clasele primare, în prima de patru clase am învățat “Deșteaptă-te, Române”.” 100

Ibidem. (answer in English)

47

Vlad: Because we learned this song at primary school, it wasn’t an emotional song, because

it was from the Communists. So, for me, Deșteaptă-te, Române wasn’t an emotional song.

This is my first impression from my childhood.101

The incorporation of “Deșteaptă-te, Române” in education thus certainly had the power to

diminish any kind of oppositional connotation the song might have had. It made “Deșteaptă-te,

Române” just another song from the Communists, at least in the eyes of Vlad, but most probably for

the other interviewees it was void of any other meaning, certainly of anything anti-Communist or

anti-regime. The Communist Party had in a sense usurped the song for its own purposes, which

became clear from Maria’s memories as well. Hers was quite an extraordinary history with the song

in the Communist era:

Maria: You know, I’ll be completely honest with you. So I have... my relation with “Deșteaptă-

te, Române” is a little particular because I attended a music school when I was in Bucharest,

and I was in the children’s choir. So, “Deșteaptă-te, Române” is something I sang since I was,

you know, whatever, seven, eight years old. It was one of those songs that we learned early

on, and, you know, we had to sing here and there. It wasn’t... not allowed to sing *it+, you

know, in the eighties. So I needed to tell... [...] the memory that [I have] is being in a uniform

in the fourth grade and singing in the little choir. It is not so revolutionary. *laughs+” M.R.:

Was that limited, did all children have musical education like that?

Maria: The school that I attended was a music school, an art school. So, everybody in the

school had to sing at one of the big choirs. It was... you had to take one primary instrument,

then piano, sing and do music theory, from grade one. That was it, like, first grade you start

singing. But they also selected from that choir a smaller choir, and I was in the smaller choir

as well, and that was the choir that didn’t just sing at school. [...] And then we would be one

of the staple choirs for, you know, the official shows that Ceaușescu put on, or the Party

wanted to organize. I sang at Sala Palatului [Palace Hall, a large concert hall in Bucharest], I

sang at the radio TV recording studios. They would take us and kind of parade us. [...] It was

mostly singing those stupid communist songs, but then, this was also one of the songs we

learned.102

For Maria, “Deșteaptă-te, Române” was far from a revolutionary song when she still lived in

Communist Romania. The school she attended was actually for special training in music, as she later

explained in detail. The children for the “selected” choir were “paraded,” as she said, to sing at

101

Ibidem. 102

Maria Bucur, interview by the author, April 15, 2015.

48

special occasions. Learning “Deșteaptă-te, Române” in such a context made it for herself back then

just one of those songs she learned, along with other “stupid communist songs”. The significance of

her acquaintance with “Deșteaptă-te, Române” at such a prestigious school lies more in that it was

part of the curriculum. As she was told to sing for the special events that the Party organised, it is

clear that the song was not offensive to the regime in any way. Moreover, it must have been

officially sanctified, another clear signal that “Deșteaptă-te, Române” had been embraced by the

Communist regime.

Despite these clear statements on the relation of “Deșteaptă-te, Române” with state

education, not all people of the younger generation reported to have learned it at school. Valer, who

was actually the youngest of my interviewees (born in 1976), was very sure not to have learned

“Deșteaptă-te, Române” in school. When asked if he knew the song before the revolution, he

answered:

Valer: Okay, this is a particular subject. Officially this song was forbidden in the Communist

period, because everybody understood that this song has some powerful meaning and

undermining power against the public regime. That’s why I didn’t hear this song in public

events or in school. But I knew about this song because there were some collections of

patriotic lyrics, and amongst others, there was this “Deșteaptă-te, Române”, rise up

Romanian. And I heard once, twice probably the music.103

In this answer, it should be noted that Valer frames “Deșteaptă-te, Române” in the meaning it would

actually attain with the revolution, or arguably since it first appeared as a song supporting protest in

1987. It is his interpretation why he did not hear the song before that time, either in school or in

public. His idea conflicts with what I have just concluded from the other interviews, that the regime

had incorporated the song. The existence of the song was known by him, however, and through a

particular way, which at least gives away that he was ‘allowed’ to learn about it:

Valer: But nobody knew the entire lyrics of this song, although, there is a conjunction with

another great Romanian poet from the 19th century, Mihail Eminescu. He had this very

famous Romanian poem, it is called “Epigonii”. He wrote in the 19th century this poem about

his generation’s ancestors. The most important public figures in Romanian culture before his

generation. Amongst others he spoke about Mureșan, “with his strong voice he broke the

chains of slavery”. [...]It is a very long poem, and one of these many strophes is about Andrei

Mureșanu. [...] This poem was mandatory [for anyone] who studied in Romania. In this poem

103

Valer Rus, interview by the author, April 27, 2015.

49

Mihai Eminescu spoke about Mureșanu, in his short name Mureșan. And every teacher was

forced to speak about Andrei Mureșanu and his poem, *about+ the reason why he was

mentioned in this poem. Every Romanian that you speak with, will know at least two or three

lyrics from this poem. And amongst the many people mentioned in this poem was Mureșan.

[...] The last lyric in that strophe... “The priest of our awakening, the prophet of the signs of

our time”. So, when Romanian teachers tried to explain, they were forced to ‘translate’ to

everybody what it was about. So everybody knew about Andrei Mureșanu and his “Wake up

Romanian”, “Deșteaptă-te, Române”. That’s why I knew about this poem, but officially

nobody knew these lyrics because it was quite difficult to identify where they were.104

Valer had thus learned about “Deșteaptă-te, Române” and the poet Andrei Mureșanu through

another important poem in the framework of nationalism. The poet Mihai Eminescu is perceived by

many Romanians as a symbol of the nation, and his works have often been used by nationalists, as

they repeat the nationalist ideas from the cultural and political context of Eminescu’s time.105 In his

work, Mureșanu’s “Deșteaptă-te, Române” is framed in powerful words that can likewise be read in

more than just a nationalist narrative. Valer gave a translation of the first and the last bar of the

strophe he had mentioned to exemplify this. Mureșanu “with his strong voice broke the chains of

slavery”, and he is hailed as “the priest of our awakening, the prophet of the signs of our time”.

Especially in retrospect, these phrases can easily be linked to a revolution against the Communist

regime. Learning about “Deșteaptă-te, Române” in this framework gives the impression that it had

an undermining force against the regime per se.

From Valer’s account it seems at least that not everyone in the late Communist period in

Romania learned “Deșteaptă-te, Române” at school. However, from the emphasis he puts on the

importance of “Epigonii” in education by mentioning that it was mandatory and implying that

everyone who went to school in this period “knows at least two or three lyrics”, this poem might as

well have been meant by the Communist regime to teach young Romanians about the country’s

important historical figures. The teachers had to explain the poetic and cryptic writing of Eminescu

and in that they had to talk about “Deșteaptă-te, Române,” but this might have been the very

intention of teaching the poem. “Epigonii” could otherwise have easily met the same fate of

modification as patriotic songs like “Trei culori cunosc pe lume”, and the strophe about Mureșanu

could have been omitted. Nevertheless, the way Valer elaborated on his education signifies again

how the regime could not, through this practice, implement its own interpretation of meaning of the

song on its subjects. It is reasonable to conclude that “Deșteaptă-te, Române” was made part of the

104

Valer Rus, interview by the author, April 27, 2015. 105

Boia, History and Myth in Romanian Consciousness, 5.

50

national pantheon promoted in education by the Communist regime, though it was maybe not the

most important showpiece. The song’s incorporation in education had different implications for its

meaning. Most importantly, it made “Deșteaptă-te, Române” into one of the many songs connected

to the Communist regime for a considerably part of the Romanian population, albeit one that was

susceptible to radical shifts in its meaning.

51

Conclusion

The social life of “Deșteaptă-te, Române” in the Communist era, as I have explored it through

different themes, has been rather intricate and dynamic. Revisiting the important events in its life

can serve to make it comprehensible and draw conclusions from the complex interplay of factors

which influenced the meaning of the song. These moments are not necessarily points when the song

was of central importance, rather when the connotations it bore underwent significant shifts, nor is

it the case that when the connotations shifted they became static. “Deșteaptă-te, Române” had

different meanings at the same time, though certain interpretations were dominant over others at a

given time. For instance, a sense of fighting seems ever-present in the meaning of “Deșteaptă-te,

Române”, be it in a nationalist sense or against other types of perceived tyrants. The song seeks an

enemy, an “other”, against which it functions.

With the consolidation of the Communist Party in 1948, “Deșteaptă-te, Române”

disappeared from the public for years but was all the more stronger in private. Its marginalisation

from the public sphere by its banned status actually magnified its private meaning. During the initial

Communist years in Romania the song antagonised the new government, and it had for people

growing up in those years the meaning of remembering the past, of nostalgia and solace. This was

not necessarily linked to nationalism, although “Deșteaptă-te, Române” had in years prior to that

been played or sung in unison with nationalist messages. Whenever it was meant as nationalist in

the early Communist years, it would have been directed at Russians who have, it was perceived in

popular narrative, implemented communism in Romania. In this phase of its life, “Deșteaptă-te,

Române” had a social importance as people would sing it in closed settings, usually confined to their

family circles. The meaning it gained through these practices was subversive, as it related negatively

to the state, but it was not inevitably dissentious.

A major shift in the life of “Deșteaptă-te, Române” occurred when the state embraced

nationalist discourse and increasingly emphasised national symbols, which can be traced back as

early as the late 1950s. The song then started to appear in education, which judging on different

individual accounts was likely a gradual process. To which degree it was actively supported by the

regime remains uncertain, but it was clearly not shunned longer. For the people who learned

“Deșteaptă-te, Române” in the context of education, the song had nothing of the revolutionary or

subversive meanings it had before. It was learned as part of the official curriculum, usurped by the

state in its newly developed narrative, and as such it could not function in the same frame as it did

before. Its social meaning was strongly diminished. It is likely that, once “Deșteaptă-te, Române”

attained the connotation of being just another song of the state, it was no longer present in the

52

practice of singing together. It lacked the sociability that other forms of music and singing, especially

Western styles, obtained. The social meaning of music mostly deviated from the rigid cultural values

the that state upheld, creating a sense of escapism and of individual identity. “Deșteaptă-te,

Române” was perceived as part of the official culture, hence it did not resurface in such social

activities.

However, the state had no control ultimately on the way its people interpreted the symbols

it used, and could not implement a lasting meaning on a song like “Deșteaptă-te, Române”. That

became all too clear from the next important event in the life of the song, the Brașov revolt in 1987.

This event certainly had an iconic importance in the late 1980s, as it was quite well-known by the

Romanian population and, judging from some accounts, it was even used against the regime.

“Deșteaptă-te, Române” became coupled with revolt against the regime, which in a sense led to its

rediscovery. The connection of the song with the revolt caused it to spiral out of the hands of the

Communist regime. For people who knew about it, “Deșteaptă-te, Române” could have attained a

new meaning of anti-regime sentiment. Its past narrative as a revolutionary song written in response

to the 1848 revolution also reappeared here to reinforce its link with revolution. The strong enemy

narrative of fighting against a barbaric tyrant made the song very apt and susceptible for this kind of

reinterpretation. Thus it also made its return during the revolutionary events of 1989 in Timișoara

and later elsewhere in the country. The ultimate social meaning of “Deșteaptă-te, Române” during

the Communist era was a gathering of people for revolt.

In all, the social meaning of “Deșteaptă-te, Române” was strongest when it was hidden,

when its meaning was subversive and when it was privately directed against authority. The enemy

narrative and sense of fighting the song disseminates could be the main cause for this: it was

stronger when the enemy was real and not fictional or constructed. “Deșteaptă-te, Române” for the

most part lost its social meaning when it became incorporated into the state narrative and

consequently in education, only to resurface after it attained a new subversive meaning. These shifts

in meaning clarify the song has meant different things for different generations during the

Communist period, especially so since elder Romanians seemed unaware that younger generations

had learned the song in school. Only when “Deșteaptă-te, Române” became of central importance

during the 1989 revolution did an arguably all-encompassing narrative of the song emerge.

In a few final words I feel obliged to address the limits of the scope of my research. For the

conclusions drawn here to be emboldened, a couple of subjects would need more investigation.

Especially in the case of the Brașov events and its resonance in Romanian society, more witness

memories would be helpful. For instance, it remains obscure exactly how well-known the coupling of

53

“Deșteaptă-te, Române” with the Brașov revolt was in Communist Romanian society. Unfortunately,

after so many years since the events, this might never be entirely clear, as memories could be easily

coloured by later events such as the overall revolution two years later. Furthermore, as the accounts

on learning “Deșteaptă-te, Române” were ambiguous, more oral history research should be able to

provide alternative answers about why this occurred. As for the narratives and the social meanings

of “Deșteaptă-te, Române” in the Communist era, I believe to have been able to provide enough

workable and new information given the confines of this research. From what was in the scarce

academic narrative defined plainly as a hidden and forbidden song, a much more complex social life

and meaning has been unveiled. In a broader academic framework this research has shown how a

symbol utilised by both government and people can shift greatly in meaning through its active

reinterpretation. The meaning bestowed upon “Deșteaptă-te Române” has in no way been static

neither in the interpretation of the Communist regime, nor in that of the people. For historians of

communism it is significant that how people interpreted the symbols used by the Communist state,

was ultimately out of the state’s control. It shows the fluidity in the meaning of the symbols used,

the state could use symbols and endow it with a certain meaning that had a resonance in public, but

it is the social context wherein it operated which ultimately defined the meaning. This is also seen

from the perspective of popular anti-regime temperament. Even a symbol of such gravity as the

hymn of the Romanian revolution of 1989, had once been marginalised in popular meaning to the

point that it represented the same state which it would later function against.

54

Bibliography

Appadurai, Arjun (editor), The Social Life of Things – Commodities in Cultural Perspective (Cambridge,

1986)

Boboc, Ion, “Haideți, fii ai patriilor, zuia gloriei a venit... pentru schimbarea imnurilor naționale!”

(Arise, children of the fatherlands, the day of glory has arrived …to change the national anthems!)

The Sphere of Politics (Sfera Politicii) (2009), 135:1, 75-91

Boia, Lucian, History and Myth in Romanian Consciousness (Budapest, 2001)

Bucur, Maria, “Being There. An Authobiographical Perspective on the 1989 Revolution in Romania”,

The Romanian Journal of Society and Politics (2015), 10:1, 7-23

Ciubotaru, Ștefania, “De la palat regal la palat al pionierilor (1949-1977) - o filă din istoria Palatului

Cotroceni”, Historia (online): http://www.historia.ro/exclusiv_web/general/articol/palat-regal-palat-

al-pionierilor-1949-1977-o-fil-istoria-palatului (retrieved 16 June 2015)

Deletant, Dennis, Romania Under Communist Rule (Iași/Oxford, 1999)

– – –, “’Taunting the Bear’: Romania and the Warsaw Pact, 1963-89”, Cold War History (2007), 7:4,

495-507

Fitcher, Madigan, “Rock ‘n’ roll nation: counterculture and dissent in Romania, 1965-1975”,

Nationalities Papers: The Journal of Nationalism and Ethnicity (2011), 39:4, 567-585

Granville, Johanna, “Dej-a-vu: Early Roots of Romania’s Independence”, East European Quarterly

(2009) 42:4, 365-404

Helsinki Watch (editor), Struggling for Ethnic Identity: Ethnic Hungarians in Post-Ceausescu Romania

(1993, New York/Washington/Los Angeles/London).

Ionescu, Mihail & Deletant, Dennis, "Romania and the Warschaupact: 1955-1989", Cold War

International History Project (2004), working paper #43.

King, Robert R., History of the Romanian Communist Party (1980, Stanford)

Oltean, Vasile, Imnul Național „Deșteaptă-te Române!” – scurt istoric (Brașov, 2005).

Păuța Pieslak, Sabina, “Romanians Madrigal Choir and the Politics of Prestige”, Journal of

Musicological Research (2007), 26:1, 215-240

– – –, “Waves in the ‘Iron Curtain’: An Introduction to Music and Politics in 1960s Romania”,

Musicology Australia (2010), 32:2, 227-242

Rus, Valer, Povestea Imnului National (online on the site of the Muzeul Casa Mureșenilor site)

http://muzeulmuresenilor.ro/2013/09/03/povestea-imnului-national/ (retrieved: 4 June 2015).

55

Siani-Davies, Peter, The Romanian Revolution of December 1989 (Ithaca/London, 2005)

Thompson, Paul, The Voice of the Past – Oral History (3rd ed; Oxford, 2000)

Thomson, Alistair, “Memory and Remembering in Oral History” in The Oxford Handbook of Oral

History, edited by Donald Ritchie, 77-91. (Oxford, 2010) (accessed through Oxford Handbooks

Online)

Treptow, Kurt W. (ed.), A History of Romania (New York, 1996)

Interviews

Avramescu, Mihail, interview by the author, tape recording, Houten, the Netherlands, May 22, 2015

Bucur-Deckard, Maria, interview by the author, tape recording, Houten, the

Netherlands/Washington D.C., United States, April 15, 2015

Budacea, Silvano, interview by the author, tape recording, Houten, the Netherlands/Vaslui,

Romania, April 14, 2015

Madgearu, Cristina, interview by the author, tape recording, Houten, the Netherlands/București,

Romania, May 28, 2015

Piruscă, Ionel, interview by the author, tape recording, Houten, the Netherlands/Sfântu Gheorghe,

Romania, April 15, 2015

Rus, Valer, interview by the author, tape recording, Houten, the Netherlands/Brașov, Romania, April

27, 2015

Ulieriu, Daniela & Ulieriu, Vlad, interview by the author, tape recording, Houten, the

Netherlands/București, Romania, May 14, 2015

Surveys (quoted)

Ioan (surname undisclosed), written survey and personal communication, April 2015

Mihaela Miroiu, written survey and personal communication, April 2015

56

Other

Mircea Moldovan (director), Petre Salcudeanu (writer), La rascrucea marilor furtuni, 8 December

1980, Romania: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0174845/ (retrieved 14 june 2015)

La rascrucea marilor furtuni on Youtube (full): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ku65KfAsPwk

(retrieved 14 June 2015)

Wikipedia entry on “Trei culori cunosc pe lume”: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trei_culori

57

Appendix

Note on Surveys and Interviews

Below is the original English version of the survey I used for this research. A Romanian version was

also prepared, but no answers from the Romanian version have been quoted in this research, hence

I excluded it from the appendix. The questions in the interviews followed the same kind of trajectory

as in the surveys, starting with general questions and memories about the central event of the

Romanian Revolution of 1989 before delving deeper into different aspects of “Deșteaptă-te,

Române”. The interviews developed more or less on the answers my interviewees gave, though all

themes outlined below in the survey form have in any case been discussed. When I used an answer

based on a question deviating from the outline in my work, this has in all cases been indicated.

Survey form (English)

Name and birth year:

A:

This survey will be used for a Master Thesis research that will ultimately be published on a small

scale. Filling in this form automatically implies consent for the researcher to use the material in any

way that he considers suitable in the future.

Do you give permission to disclose your name, or would you rather remain anonymous?

A:

The following section contains 15 questions relating to the Romanian Revolution of December 1989,

and the current national anthem “Deșteaptă-te Române”. Please take your time for your answers. If

you feel there is something else you would like to share, please use the end of this document.

Q: Where were you born in Romania, in which area?

A:

Q: How long have you lived in Romania?

A:

58

Q: How do you keep in touch with Romania? (if applicable)

A:

Q: Where were you when the revolution of 1989 broke out?

A:

Q: How did you hear of the revolution?

A:

Q: What were your feelings about it?

A:

Q: What are your thoughts on Romania's national anthem "Deșteaptă-te Române"?

A:

Q: How do you feel the revolution and "Deșteaptă-te Române" are connected?

A:

Q: When did you hear "Deșteaptă-te Române" before the revolution?

A:

Q: What kind of role did the "Deșteaptă-te Române" have in society before the revolution?

A:

Q: In what context did you learn to sing "Deșteaptă-te Române"?

A:

Q: In what kind of settings was "Deșteaptă-te Române" performed?

A:

Q: Was collective singing in general important in Romania before 1989? And if so, when was it done?

A:

Q: How do you see the political significance of "Deșteaptă-te Române"?

59

A:

Q: Do you think "Deșteaptă-te Române" has meant different things to different generations? And if

so, how?

A:

Q: Do you have any further comments you would like to share?

A:

Thank you for taking your time.

- Matthias Ruijgrok, MA student East European Studies (University of Amsterdam, the Netherlands)