“MUTE WEDDING”
SILENCE CONDEMNATION
AND RESILIENCE RITUALS
DURING COMMUNISM
ILEANA & MARIUS RADU
DIANOIA – INSTITUTE OF FAMILY THERAPY AND SYSTEMIC
PRACTICE
INTRODUCTION - PREMISES
 COMMUNISM – under researched and
non-assumed experience
 Herta Muller - Nobel Price for
Literature 2009
 Awareness for communist experience
 Authors experience with oppression
and freedom
 From underground to restitution
 Cage and Chains, Then and Now
 Reflexive analysis invitation
Transgenerational transmission of
communist trauma:
the Romanian experience
“Living under communist regime is a
trauma, one that permeates every level of
one’s being, families and society as a hole,
a trauma that is transmitted
transgenerationally so that it continues to
affect people’s lives even though the
actual threat, communism, is already
history”.
COMMUNIST CONTEXT
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POLITICAL
IDEOLOGICAL
ECONOMICAL
RELIGIOUS
SOCIAL
CULTURAL
POLITICAL
 THE GREAT DEPRESSION (1929 -33)
 THE SECOND WORLD WAR
 THE NEED FOR SAFETY, SECURITY,
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HEALING
SOVIET DOMINATION
HOPE FOR AMERICAN INTERVENTION
IRON COURTAIN
DISTORSION OF NATIONAL HISTORY
IDEOLOGICAL
 TOTAL REVOLUTION, COLLECTIVE
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SALVATION, UNIVERSAL HAPPYNESS,
MILENARISTIC UTOPIA,
NEW ERA, NEW WORLD, NEW MAN, NEW
LANGUAGE
PATERNALISM – ANIHILATION OF
AUTHONOMY, SOCIETAL INFANTILIZATION
DIALECTIC MATERIALISM VS. RELIGIOUS
ASSUMPTIONS
SLOGANS: EQUALITY, SOLIDARITY,
FRATERNITY
ECONOMICAL
 INFORCED INDUSTRIALIZATION,
AGRICULTURAL DESTRUCTION, INFORCED
URBANIZATION
 TOTAL ABOLITION OF INDIVIDUAL
PROPERTY
 NATIONALIZATION AND COLLECTIVIZATION
 “SCIENTIFIC PLANNING” AND FAKE
STATISTICS
 INSTITUTIONALIZED POVERTY AND
MISERY
RELIGIOUS
 ATEISM AS RELIGION
 BELIEVING AND BELONGING –
CHRISTIANITY AND “CHURCHIANITY”
 COMPROMISE FOR SACRAMENTSEMPEROR AND PATRIARCH – FAKE
BIZANTYNE SYMPHONY
 RELIGIOUS DISIDENCE AND COMMUNISM
RESISTANCE
 RELIGION AND ANTI-COMMUNIST
REVOLUTION
SOCIAL
 SOCIAL LEVELING
 INTELLECTUAL ELITE COMPROMISED
 OMNIPREZENT SURVEILLANCE –
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INTERNALIZED CONTROL
“CONTROL AND IMPERA”, “SPYONITE”
MASS PSYCHOSYS
ABSURD DEMOGRAPHIC POLICYABORTION BANNED
FAKE TRIALS, DISIDENCE SUPRIMATED
FEAR, FRUSTRATION, FESTIVISM (3F)
“… all Romanians were
imprisoned – in
their bodies, in their homes, in
every
institution. The whole country
was a
prison, isolated and enclosed in
itself.”
CULTURAL
 ANIHILATION OF INDIVIDUAL
CREATIVITY
 MILITANT ART (ONLY) – PROPAGANDA
 ARCHITECTURE AS IDEOLOGICAL
WEAPON
 USED TO DOMINATE NOT TO PARTICIPATE
IN LIFE
 SURVIVING CENZORSHIP – LINGVISTIQUE
DUPLICITY
RESILIENCE RITUALS
 BIRTH – BAPTISM AS CHURCH CITIZENSHIP
 WEDDING – LIFE AND CONTINUITY
CELEBRATION
 DEATH
 MOURNING (FOR NON-LIVED LIFE)
 TRANSCENDENT REALITY CELLEBRATED
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NATIONAL TRADITIONS AND CHRISTIAN
RITUALS AS SURVIVAL SKILLS AND OPPOSITION
TO COMMUNIST IDEOLOGY
“MUTE WEDDING” –
EXCERPTS
DIRECTED BY: HORATIU MALAELE (2008)
CONCLUSIONS
 COMMUNIST IDEOLOGY, PRACTICES AND
CONSEQUENCES NEED TO BE RESEARCHED
AND ASSUMED AS A COMPLEX
FENOMENON
 FAMILY RITUALS ARE INGREDIENTS OF
HUMAN RESILIANCE AND VEHICLES FOR
RESTUTITION/RESTAURATION
 LIVING WITH / IN OPPRESSION AND LIVING
WITH IN / FREEDOM, INTEROGATES
HUMAN CONDITION AND RESILIANCE
CHEMISTRY
 UNHEALED, UNADRESS TRAUMA
THANK YOU…
AND
ENJOY YOUR