Political Hegemony Over the Public Intellectual in Communist Romania: Monica Lovinescu and Her Misrepresented Portrayal in the Print Press

Abstract

● In the last decades of the Romanian communist regime, a few leading propaganda newspapers and publications such as Luceafărul and Săptămîna violently targeted Monica Lovinescu. This article aims to briefly explore several texts written against her by nationalist supporters of the regime between 1979 and 1989. For example, Artur Silvestri and Eugen Barbu wrote a tremendous number of articles against Monica Lovinescu, brought together in the series “Pseudo-culture on Short Waves” and “The Strategies and Tactics of Radio Free Europe”. Also, various articles from Romanian newspapers would become topics for discussion in the Parisian broadcasts of Radio Free Europe. The Communist Party paid attention to Lovinescu’s criticism of the Romanian regime in her weekly radiophonic program. Press campaigns, particularly in the 1980s, forcibly misinterpreted her journalistic and literary career, portraying her as an enemy of Romania from the West.