Small comrades as historians and ethnographers: Performativity, agency, and the socialist pedagogy of citizenship in Ceaușescu's Romania, 1969-1989

Abstract

Beginning with the state's successful promotion of purposeful and patriotic tourism for children in Ceaușescu's Romania, this article argues that we should move beyond traditional representations of the relationship between citizens and the socialist state in oppositional terms that emphasize resistance, subversion, and indifference, leaving historical subjects strangely disconnected from their socio-political context. Children and teachers who engaged in summer expeditions, for example, found self-fulfillment not only by opposing the regime or escaping into alternative lifestyles, but also by pursuing the socialist and national values the regime promoted and by activating forms of youth agency that were built into the socialist pedagogy of citizenship, which encouraged activism, voluntarism, and leadership in youth. To investigate young people's engagement with the socialist state, this article proposes a performative approach that has the potential to not only contribute to studies of late socialism, but also invigorate studies of nationalism and histories of childhood and youth under authoritarian regimes.