Nr. 2 (19) anul VI / aprilie-iunie 2008 - ROMDIDAC

samizdat drawings and poems could not have taken place without Secret
Police knowledge. Does this mean that the Secret Police used Stanescu by
allowing him to entertain the people and by making life more bearable because
it provided people with something to laugh at? Does this mean that, at least
part of the Secret Police tacitly acknowledged that Stanescu’s caricatures
might contribute to the ignition of a popular rebellion? Only with access to
the Secret Police archive will future researchers answer these questions
definitively. Irrespective of further scholarship Stanescu’s art has become
part of communist history. He himself admitted that during communism he
had more material to work with.
“When you live in a dictatorship, when you live furiously, ideas come easier.
Now, freedom has made me appeased me. I have sporadically sent drawings
to newspapers.” 10
Stanescu’s art was a product of communism, it became popular because
of communist censorship, and paradoxically lost its fascination precisely he
no longer had the communist oppressor to work against.
Both Gopo and Stanescu practiced their art in an ideologically controlled
environment. They chose what truth to present, and more importantly, whose
truth to deal with. They both stuck with their own artistic truth when to have
a different opinion about “truth” was the least desirable thing. Through their
different artistic decisions Gopo and Stanescu pushed the limits, at least
created greater elbow room, in the artistic realm that censorship was trying
to keep under its strict aegis.
Works Cited
Vianu, Lidia. Censorship in Romania. Bucharest: Central European University
Press, 1998.
Momente ale revoluţiei culturale din Romania [Moments from the cultural revolution
in Romania]. Bucharest: Ed. Stiintifica, 1964.
Congresul al III-lea al educaţiei politice şi culturii socialiste [The Third Congress
of the Political Education and Socialist Culture]. Bucharest: Ed. Politica, 1987.
Eugen Negrici. Literatura română sub communism [Romanian Literature under
Communism]. Bucharest: Editura Fundaţiei Pro, 2003.
Corneliu Baba. Însemnări ale unui pictor din est [Notes of the Painter from East].
Bucharest: Fundaţia Culturală Română, 1997.
Duma, Dana. Ion Popescu Gopo. Bucharest: Meridiane, 1996.
Manolescu, Nicolae and Dumitru Micu. “Poezia – expresie a demnităţii umane”
[Poetry – expression of the human dignity]. In Secolul XX, 5/1964.
Stănescu, Mihai. Acum nu e momentul [It is not the right moment now]. Bucharest:
Editura Uniunii Artiştilor Plastici, 1990.
Ex Ponto nr.2, 2008
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