Chapter 1
26 December 1989 –TimiÈ™oara, Romania
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A story that takes place right after the death of former communist dictator Nicolae Ceaușescu as a result of the Romanian Revolution in 1989.
Ceaușescu is dead!
His wife is dead. They showed it all on national television yesterday and the square erupted in cheers. It was like nothing I’ve felt before – a nation hungry for the freedom it was denied for decades, chanting with the force of a million pairs of lungs. After all the bloodshed - and I don’t just mean the protests - no tears will be shed for those monsters.
Hell, they wiped entire communities off the face of the Earth, and no one was there to hear those cries.
My mother’s parents – my grandparents – lived modestly, not unlike others in their community, in a village called Ogradena. You won’t find this place on any maps. It was blown to bits and flooded to make room for the communists’ newest technological marvel: the Iron Gates dam. My grandmother taught at the local school, my grandfather worked the land. It wasn’t much, but it was their home.
The displacement command was exacting: villagers were to be moved, without exception, to make room for the new dam. The houses in which they were born, had grown up and had started families of their own were to be either bulldozed or swallowed by the Danube. And just like that – a piece of paper signalled the death of a community.
My grandparents don’t talk much about the relocation period. My grandfather might be the most forgiving of them, thinking it was a necessary evil that gave way to a wonder of modern engineering. I tend to think he just doesn’t have the courage to argue this in front of my grandmother, who breaks down crying every time she recounts how they dug up the cemetery to move their families, bone by bone. I think the loss of their local church hit them the most, however.
Baptisms, weddings, funerals and weekly Sunday services – their lives were intrinsically linked to that building. It was the beating heart of Ogradena, and it was ruthlessly blown up.
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They spent the winter after their house was destroyed in a makeshift tent, fighting cold and disease, and awaiting relocation. They eventually moved with my mother in TimiÈ™oara, once she finished her studies and got her first job – teaching. They begged me not to go to the square when the protests first started – yesterday we were dancing together in the streets of TimiÈ™oara.
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Communism was a nightmare that seemed to have no end. But now we’ve woken up, we’ve escaped. So what comes next?
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Azi în TimiÈ™oara, mâine-n toată È›ara!
(Romanian: “Today in TimiÈ™oara, tomorrow the whole country!”)
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- Entry by Mihai, 20 y.o. student
Researcher's Notes.
Prior to the fall of communist regimes and the introduction of market-based economies that gave way to housing markets in CEE countries, gentrification as seen in most Western cities was virtually impossible. Thus, urban renewal projects were predominantly state-sponsored and were more often than not executed through the violent displacement of residents. Beyond the physical destruction of property, mass displacements also emotionally scarred communities and subsequent generations, as they were ripped from their homes. Mihai's account of the displacement of Ogradena village between 1966-1972 displays how the trauma of displacement during communism often has intergenerational impact spanning beyond those directly displaced.
displacement command:
The storyteller's grand-parents experienced direct displacement through the immediate impact the command for relocation had on the residents living there at the time. The storyteller, however, is in turn also "post-remembering" the violence and traumatic aspects of the displacement progress, an example of intergenerational memory of the events.
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wonder of modern engineering:
This memory is evidently one of satisfaction with the relocation and the hydropower works by the grand-father that experienced the displacement directly. In the case of the relocation regarding the Iron Gates, this type of memory (one of satisfactory nature) is the rarest one. For most of the directly displaced residents, the primary memories during the relocation period were those of physical suffering and nostalgic memories for local
traditions and customs specific to the former village that were lost.
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dug up the cemetery:
Contrary to the grand-father's satisfactory memory, the grand-mother's recount of the graveyard relocation is one of apocalyptic / traumatic nature. It relates directly to the period during the displacement process when the village was destroyed. Recounting this type of memory in such a graphic fashion creates very strong intergenerational memories and facilitates more detailed "post-remembering" for her grandson.
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loss of their local church:
Aspects such as the local church added to the development of place attachment in the former long-term residential area of the storyteller's grand-parents. The sudden and destructive loss of this both physical but also contextual sign of belonging and community added to the violence of the un-homing process and the trauma experienced by the displaced residents.
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fighting cold and disease:
This memory is one of physical suffering, again giving way to stronger intergenerational memories.