INDEX ON CENSORSHIP 1/1991
Romania
Ana Blandiana
A sense of solidarity
One of Romania's most celebrated poets, Ana Blandiana spoke to Ursula Ruston in London in October 1990
about her personal experiences of censorship under Ceausescu and about the continuing problems in
Romania
Under Ceausescu, my work was completely
banned three times — the more minor
interdictions are too banal and too
numerous to mention — and in my case, as
with other writers, the form of censorship
which was imposed progressed from the
banning of a word to that of a line, then of
a poem, then of a book, to the total erasure
of my signature as author: an eradication of
identity. The first occasion was shortly after
my debut when it was realised, although 1
had used a pseudonym, that I was the
daughter of a priest who was a political
prisoner. The second ban lasted for a few
months in 1985 after four poems were
printed by an independent publisher, and
the last time from August 1988 until
December 1989, after I had published a
poem in a children's book, in which the
central character was interpreted by
Ceausescu as a reference to himself. (See
'The most famous tomcat in town', Index
8/1989p34.)
Who or what supported you at that time?
First, my husband. We were very close at
that time. We helped each other to survive,
since we had the same feelings about what
was happening. Second, the international
solidarity shown by writers abroad. For
instance, the petition signed by Italian
writers; radio programmes like RFE and
Voice of America. Since we could not
obtain foreign newspapers, these things
showed us that people were supporting us
abroad.
Perhaps more than anything, however, I
was encouraged by the feeling of solidarity
inside the country, a collective dissidence.
People recognised me in the street, and made
their support known by leaving flowers and
other gifts at the house, often anonymously
because they were afraid. In the light of
events since December 1989,1 think I
probably exaggerated this feeling of
solidarity, but it gave me great strength at
the time.
The hardest thing to endure in years gone
by was the fact that everyone was afraid.
Everyone. This meant that you never knew
whether the person with whom you were
talking felt like you and shared your
opinions, or whether it was a Securitate
agent. My inner freedom was assured by a
decision I took around 1980, a personal one
rather than as a writer. I decided to be
outspoken and say what I thought at the
risk of becoming a victim myself, rather
than suspect a possibly honest person. This
opened my communication with others: by
becoming known as someone who spoke
her mind, and who had obviously never
collaborated with the regime or the
Securitate, people were sincere and trusted
me.
Do you think this decision had a significant
effect upon your writing?
Very much so. At first it kept me sane, and
then it helped me to be a normal writer,
relatively free of self-censorship. This was
the strongest form of censorship under
Communism in the last 10 or 15 years, and
was much more refined and subtle than the
official censorship.
How would you describe writing under
such a total form of censorship?
As a writer I was really liberated. I was
much freeer than before the ban, since I
existed in a pure state of uninterrupted
creativity. In fact, it was during this period
that I started writing a novel which I would
have finished had the revolution come two
months later. Providing that there is
enough peace in the coming months in
Romania, I hope to finish it.
There were other problems, however. I
was not only banned, but my house was
under surveillance. I could not receive
visitors, my telephone was listened to and
my mail was opened. A car was
permanently parked in front of my house
and Securitate people came to see me
regularly.
Have any of these problems continued
beyond December 1989?
It is actually worse than before, because the
rules of the game are no longer clear.
Before, the people in the car in front of my
house were known to me and I was never
afraid that they might come into the house
and kill or beat me, but the calumnies that
are promoted in the government
newspapers nowadays have created a
climate of hate against myself which I can
no longer control. This is a totally new
experience for me and in this sense,
perhaps, my feeling of solidarity was
misplaced. I had no idea of the existence of
this hatred, nor the potential for it. I have
no idea to what extent it is personal or
organised. For example, since December
1989 I have received a lot of threatening
letters, some of which were handwritten,
and some carbon copies. At one point, I
had both the copies and the original in my
possession at the same time. The only
explanation was that the original had come
from some official institution which had
paid someone to write it.
How did the pro-government press treat
you at the time of the events of 13-15 June
1990, when the miners broke up anti-
government demonstrations in University
Square?
This hatred was mostly generated by
attacks in the government press. Liiceanu
(director of the independent publishing
house Humanitas) and I were even accused
of having organised the violence which was
instigated by the government. Every time
someone had to be accused, our names
would appear. I was abroad during the
events with the miners, and when I returned
I gave an interview to Expres newspaper in
response to which Adevarul published an
article containing the closest thing to an
actual threat of physical harm. It began
with a reference to the interview, and then
went on to develop a biological metaphor,
saying that it was natural that the miners
should have come, because the country was
like a sick organism in which the miners
were the healthy cells, while the intellectuals
represented the cancerous cells whose
elimination was a healthy response. It was a
veiled death threat.
A nd were you accused of any specific
things?
Yes, of taking part in demonstrations and
so on, which is fair enough because I did
take part in such demonstrations. Other
things, though, included giving a bad
impression of the country, through
interviews with foreign journalists.
It is not just that isolationist trends are
reasserting themselves; many people in
Romania are isolated by not being
informed. They have only the government-
controlled television, and no foreign
newspapers. Rumours are replacing
information. This is difficult because
rumours become fixed with such a strong
sense of certainty in people's minds. The
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 INDEX ON CENSORSHIP 1/1991
Romania A sense of solidarity
former repressive structures which
controlled people's minds are being
replaced by these, giving people a sense of
security in a very insecure situation.
Romania today is a country where you can
be sure that something is a rumour as soon
as someone assures you, 'I've seen it with
my own eyes'.
As everybody now knows, the kind of
isolation which Romania experienced
under Ceausescu is continuing, especially
after the events of June 1990. The political
situation before seemed as fixed and
immovable as an iceberg and the evil was
solid. Now that things are changing rapidly
and the iceberg is melting, we can see just
how dark and dirty the water that
constituted it was. My only hope is that it
will not be such an all-embracing isolation
as before. Precisely because this is a chaotic
and insecure situation, there is optimism
that it will not last forever, as people
Ana Blandiana
thought under Ceausescu.
How has the change in atmosphere since
December 1989 affected you as a writer?
I'll explain by telling you the story of a
book of mine which came out during 1990,
having waited two years at the publishers
because I was banned. I was finally able to
publish it. The editor asked me if I wanted
to revise it before publication. I felt that it
had been overtaken by recent events — it
was so bleak that I was afraid that people
would not be able to identify with it — and
so I wrote a foreword saying that although
the events described were no longer actual,
I hoped the book itself would have
sufficient literary merit to survive as a
document of its time. The proofs came
back from the printer after two and a half
months and by then so much had changed
that the events described had regained their
timeliness. Now the foreword seemed
outdated. I had the choice of giving up the
foreword or of putting a date on it. I
decided to add the date, 28 December 1989,
so that people would recall just how naive
and excited they had been at that moment
in believing that things really could change.
When the book came out, I gave an
interview on Romanian TV in which I told
the story I am telling you now. The
interview was censored. It was cut at the
moment when I was saying how happy we
were at the time of the 'revolution'.
Immediately afterwards, I wrote an article
protesting against this censorship which
was published in Romania Literara.
Eventually, you see, the situation has
turned full circle.
The newspapers have been really
outspoken since December 1989, and the "
younger generation of writers working for
papers like Romania tibera, Guverntul,
Contrapunct and Romania Literara write
about all sorts of things. To the extent that
you may now choose for which newspaper
you want to write, there is no censorship,
except in television which remains state-
controlled. In the past, things were so
divided that one would never write for
papers that represented the government.
Yet there has been little published in terms
of new or previously banned literature since
December 1989.
The problem both for the press and
publishers is not censorship, but the lack of
paper which itself functions as a type of
censorship. Because the lack of paper is a
real problem it is obvious that most of the
paper goes to the government press, leaving
little for the opposition and the
independent press and publishers.
Is it a problem created by the government
to serve its political purposes in any way?
It is true that paper factories, like most
factories in Romania, no longer work, either
because they do not have the raw material or
because they are on strike for higher wages.
But because the National Salvation Front
has inherited a centralised system of
government, it has the power and the
responsibility to distribute fairly what little
paper exists. Ceausescu never accepted
responsibility for lack of freedoms in
Romania, and in this and in many other
respects there are similarities between him
and the present government. All the
opposition papers have the same problem,
worrying from week to week that they will
not be able to publish because of the lack of
paper. And corruption compounds the
difficulties, because people secretly
stockpile paper supplies to ensure that their
publication will continue. •
The Hour of Sand, the first collection of
Ana Blandiana's poems to appear in
Britain (translators Peter Jay and Anca
Cristofovici), was published in October
1990 by the Anvil Press (104pp, £6.95)