Die Rolle der Presse und Zensur für die Literaturkreise in der kommunistischen Vergangenheit Rumäniens

Abstract

The study takes on the role of the press, publishers, writers’ associations for the German literary circles in Romania in the period 1949-1989. These institutions endeavored to support young authors by publishing their literary creation but only under certain conditions which are detailed in the article. Another focus is on how censorship and self-censorship worked. The examples given show different effects of censorship on writers and poets. When some authors dared to slip texts with a subversive message, other writers preferred to stay away from the literary scene because they thought it was better to write literature for the desk drawer (Schubladenliteratur) and wait for better times to publish it. The result of these constraints referring to the writing process finally determined the authors to encode criticism in their texts, readers being forced to read between the lines.