Ceauşescu, Barthes and a Few Boring Hippies: May and August 1968 in Romania

Abstract

ABSTRACT This article offers an overview of the Romanian echoes of the French social turbulence of May 68. It also explains the conservatism of Romanian cultural and political institutions at that moment. The article addresses the question of why Nicolae Ceaușescu’s nationalist communist regime prevented Romanian May 68 upheavals from taking place. It argues that the events of May 1968 cannot be separated from August 1968 (the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia) and from the two previous decades of Soviet control over Romanian culture. In such a context, nationalism was perceived as an emancipation compared to the previous Stalinist era, and any favourable echo of the French 1968 social movements would have challenged it. The article argues that the view of Romania’s 1968 that emerges in periodicals challenges the perspective that May 68 represented youthful revolt against capitalist systems. Instead, a more nuanced picture is required, one that is specific to Romania at that time.