The communist
\nregime in Romania imposed harsh regulations in all the social spheres and
\nculture was no exception to the rule. These regulations, called canons at that
\ntime, were being established by the communist activists in charge of culture
\nand censorship. These canons were targeting the high culture but the cultural
\nforms coming from under the printing press were being marginalized and mostly
\nmaterialized themselves into what we know as counterculture. <\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
\n
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\n
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Besides
\nclassical and opera music, counterculture chiefly manifested itself in rock,
\njazz, blues and folk music. Pop music proved to be the most conformist back in
\nthe communist time, strictly keeping with the canon, but artists who tried to
\nembrace styles from outside of the canon were quite few due to the difficult
\naccess to the sources of inspiration. For this reason, attempts to convey
\nthrough music messages not complying with the official cultural directions were
\nquite scarce back then. <\/p>\n
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\n
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\n
\n
<\/p>\n
Nevertheless,
\nthe counterculture stemmed out of the people’s need for freedom in the creation
\nprocess. Its inspiration sources, such as beat music, rock, blues and jazz
\nproduced in the West were being smuggled in Romania together with other Western
\nproducts that were really hard to find on the communist market such as
\ngarments, cosmetics and jewels. Besides all these goods, foreign students used
\nto smuggle in Romania vinyl records with music, which wasn’t produced in this
\ncountry. <\/p>\n
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\n
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<\/p>\n
Another source
\nof inspiration for Romania’s musical counterculture were the jazz and rock
\nmusic programmes made by Willis Conover and Cornel Chiriac and aired by Voice
\nof America and Radio Free Europe respectively. <\/p>\n
\n
<\/p>\n
Even more
\nimportant than music was poetry and the verses proposed by the Romanian
\ncounterculture of that time had irony as their main characteristic in a bid to
\nstimulate ideas and critical thinking. The severe food shortage and the
\nextremely gloomy atmosphere of the 80s served as a major source of inspiration
\nfor the nonconformist poets of the time. Although the communist regime
\neventually made a couple of concessions allowing the jazz festivals of Sibiu
\nand Costinesti, the grim reality was visible everywhere. Historian Sorin Antohi
\nis recalling that gloomy period in Romania’s history. <\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
\n
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Sorin Antohi:I remember an episode
\nfrom the severe food shortage that was plaguing Romania back in the communist
\ntime. I had just come back from the Jazz festival in Sibiu back in 1980 with a
\ncouple of friends. We were bound for Iasi in northeastern Romania and we had to
\nchange trains in Ploiesti in the south. While crossing the city in our attempt
\nto move to another train station we saw people close to one of the largest
\ncommunist supermarkets pushing and shoving each other in an attempt to purchase
\nbutter. We saw small white packages flying in the air and didn’t know what were
\nat first. Then we realized that the communists used to cut 200 gr. packages of
\nbutter in two so that they may sell to as many customers as possible. So the
\npeople we saw were actually fiercely fighting over 100 grams of butter.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
\n
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<\/p>\n
In communist
\nRomania, censorship imposed certain forms of musical expression, which prompted
\nsome of the artists to try to avoid them. One of those artists was architect
\nand singer-songwriter Alexandru Andries, a figurehead of musical counterculture
\nin the 1970s and 1980s. Two of his songs were resounding hits, namely What a
\nbeautiful city and On the TV newsreel. <\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
\n
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In the first
\nsong, Andries hinted at the existence of plants and factories which could be
\nseen everywhere, simply stepping out of the line as against urban trends and
\nprinciples. Concurrently, the lyrics of the song included barbed comments
\ntargeting the privileged ones, who lived in neighborhoods that were very well
\ntaken care of. The second song, On the TV newsreel, was not a subversive song,
\nbut a pastiche. The song became subversive later on, in the 1980s, when the
\nfood crisis hit Romania’s population. In a recent conference, Andries recalled
\nhow he developed a passion for the music that challenged the mainstream,
\nofficially accepted one. <\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
\n
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<\/p>\n
Alexandru
\nAndries: I must admit that on one hand,
\nit was sheer fat luck as my mother’s sister, my genuine aunt, left for the USA
\nin 1966, by marriage. And that’s how’s I had access to books and LPs that were
\nbeyond reach, here. I remember that the Smithsonian Museum edited some sort of
\nvinyl edition of American traditional music, encyclopedia, there were
\nrecordings from 1900 to this day, with the music of African -Americans who sang
\nblues, with the music of the Redskins. I wanted that encyclopedia for myself quite all right, I didn’t realize
\nthat in fact, it was a box with vinyl LPs that were very heavy. Little wonder
\nthen that the authorities summoned me, to tell them what was that about that
\nbig box I received from the USA.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
\n
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English was a
\nkey component of musical counterculture. Andries recalled that when they had
\nmusic classes, the teacher used to bring a turntable with her quite often, and
\nplayed the music of Rolling Stones. However, for Andries, the fact that English
\nwas the language of the songs caused a lot of dissatisfaction and that had a
\nstrong bearing on his artist’s progress. <\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
\n
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<\/p>\n
Alexandru
\nAndries: As far as I’m concerned,
\nthe most important thing was that I could not listen in Romanian, what I was
\nlistening to in other languages. And I got peeved because of that. Of course I
\ndidn’t have any interest in Romanian entertainment music whatsoever, with all
\nits dull lyrics and with all those people who made a living writing such songs,
\nsongwriters and singers who did not have problems with the censorship. There
\nwere only two versions for that: there were either lyrics that did not convey
\nanything special, or there were poems written by classical Romania poets, whose
\nwork had been published. And that was the main reason why I said to myself why
\nshouldn’t I write some songs the way I would like to hear them. I never
\nimagined I would sing them live, in front of an audience.<\/p>\n
\n
<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
The products of
\nmusical counterculture in the 1980s have also had their own public after 1989.
\nAnd that, not for the relevance they may have today, but for the value they had
\nback then. <\/p>\n
\n
\n
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\n
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Music and counter-culture in communist Romania<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":127,"featured_media":83019,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[41141],"tags":[42850,30492,29826,42849],"coauthors":[],"class_list":["post-130746","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-the-history-show","tag-andries","tag-sibiu","tag-usa","tag-vinyl"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n