A Theatre for the Workers, Protest as Performance, and the Political Police as (Art) Historian. A Plea for the Rediscovering of Interwar Peripheries

Authors

  • Iulia Popovici Independent Researcher

Keywords:

proletarian theatre, Agit-Prop, interwar Romania, political performance, archives, Communist Party of Romania

Abstract

The article argues the importance of a renewed approach of the proletarian and Agit-prop theatre in interwar Romania, as well as forms of political proto- performances, as sociological and political phenomena, more than as aesthetical ones, based especially on the research of primary sources. Due to the  specific political context of the period and the harsh censorship, these primary sources are mainly to be represented by the files of the political police of the  time, Siguranţa. Taken over by its communist successor, these files were manipulated and reinterpreted according to occasional political needs: any  research of the original documents is an archaeological process dealing with both the analyzed activity per se and the politicization of archives during the 1948-1989 period.

Author Biography

Iulia Popovici, Independent Researcher

Iulia Popovici is a performing arts critic and curator. Her writing focuses on alternative Romanian and  Eastern European performing arts scene, documentary theatre, and the social challenges of  contemporary arts. She edited two books, commissioned by the Sibiu International Theatre Festival, on  New Performing Arts Practices in Eastern Europe (Cartier, 2014) and The End of Directing, the  Beginning of Theatre-Making and Devising in European Theatre (Tact, 2015). Her latest book: Elefantul  din cameră. Ghid despre teatrul independent din România (Idea/Colectiv A, 2016).

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Published

2022-01-28

How to Cite

Popovici, I. (2022). A Theatre for the Workers, Protest as Performance, and the Political Police as (Art) Historian. A Plea for the Rediscovering of Interwar Peripheries. Studia Universitatis Babeș-Bolyai - Dramatica, 62(2), 69–86. Retrieved from https://dramatica.ro/index.php/j/article/view/203