What do Romanians think about diversity?

Alexandru Ionașcu

In Romania, a significant part of nationalism has recently been making a fuss about the hope for the reunification of Romania with the Republic of Moldova. A party like the AUR supports the merger of the two countries on the grounds of greater security for Romania.

For how long has the leader of the AUR, Giorgio Simion, been talking about dreaming of a reunification of the two countries? I do not know, but the fact that he has been banned from entering the Republic of Moldova gives us a pretty good idea of the length and persistence of his nationalist obsession. The very name of this party – Alliance for the Unification of Romanians – seems to hint at an imaginary union between the two Romanian-speaking countries. Discourses about how a union between Romania and the Republic of Moldova would be beneficial for both countries, however, are not unique to the nationalist right. From time to time, articles appear in the Romanian press discussing how much Romania could develop, how much the Romanian economy would grow in the event of a union with the Republic of Moldova. Of course, such articles are presented as being completely neutral (surely that is what their authors think) from a political/ideological point of view, but one might ask why this insistence on uniting two independent states in a context where being a citizen of the world and crossing borders has never been easier.

I am interested in the following question: how are Moldovan Romanians represented in the culture north of the Danube? In particular, what do Bessarabian Romanians look like in central Romanian culture?

Surprisingly, there is not much research on this question. Romanian sociologists avoid doing such research, perhaps because mass culture is not taken seriously by social scientists. Institutional interest is usually focused on so-called official, high culture. But we are ordinary citizens and have access to various manifestations of mass culture. For example, to so-called telenovelas. And in them we can notice some oppressive tendencies that are in complete contradiction with patriotic discourses.

Quite by chance, I come across a current TV series – Ana, Mi-ai fost scrisă în ADN (Ana, you are written in my DNA). It features a heroine with a strong Hungarian accent. And here is my first observation – the producers of this telenovela seem to want to say that this is how all Hungarians speak in Romania. In the series, actress Reka Kovacs plays Enikö, a housewife and cook in the house of a family of good social status, around which the story revolves.

Besides the maid Enikyo, we see another female character, this time with a Bessarabian accent. Both heroines provide comic assistance to the others. In other words, we, the viewers, are made to believe that Hungarians and Moldovans are perceived by others only through their unusual accents, through the stiff or accented way in which the two female figures speak Romanian. It is stressed that these figures, who do not belong to the mainstream of the Romanian middle class, are objects for entertainment.

In other Romanian telenovelas it is also emphasised that Moldovan heroines are objects of entertainment. But what is “questionable” in this series is the social situation of the two female protagonists. Enicio and Sisi are cooks. The peculiarity of this telenovela is that it deals with themes that are not very current in our cultural space. For example, part of the plot concerns children adopted by foreign families after 1990 – probably one of the first such stories in a Romanian telenovela. Climate change is mentioned, however superficially. And here a number of secrets and mysteries emerge. It is inexplicable to me how a soap series that shows us successful families tells us that it is normal to be an environmentalist on the one hand, and that it is normal not to care about the exploitation of workers on the other. By the way, in the show the workers are always enthusiastic while their exploitation is going on (which is most of the time).

And if I focus on the minority characters, I don’t know exactly what bothers me more – such reactionary, almost revanchist notions about the Hungarian inhabitants of our country (I mentioned that in the series Enikö is something of a handmaiden of a rich Romanian family), the obsession with the distant brothers from Bessarabia, or the accentuation of the Bucharest skyline with the apartment blocks of the suburbs – which probably symbolizes the Romanian dream?

On the other hand, all this may be an exaggeration on the part of the scriptwriters. But I don’t think so.

“Ana…”is the latest Antena 1 branded soap opera from which we learn that the producers or the audience in their imaginings are not yet familiar with ideas like equal start in society. We see mockery of the pronunciation of fellow Hungarians who are assigned unprestigious domestic work. Businessmen and anyone with a privileged position are praised, and we learn this in the very first episode. And so on.

As everyone knows, since this is a soap opera, there will be no shortage of the toxic stuff that’s typical of this cultural product: fighting over your loved one, wondering if he or she chose someone else – but that doesn’t really matter, because all the characters do is obsessively harass that person. We should admire the rich, because one day we, too, may become financially powerful like them. But if we already are, it’s okay to mistreat those who haven’t reached our high status. Of course, “Ana, you’re written in my DNA ” tells us a bunch of other equally useful things, but I either can’t remember them or haven’t watched enough episodes to mention anything else here.

In any case, I’ll watch “Ana, You’re Written in My DNA” whenever time permits. It’s the only soap opera on Antena 1 that tells us that Romanians have begun to take climate change into account, though for now the characters here are trying to save the planet from a loft in the capital. We all know that entrepreneurship is the second religion in Romania – so we can agree that such details aren’t too important.eneurship is the second religion in Romania – so we can agree that such details aren’t too important.

Photo: The online poster of Antena 1’s TV series “Ana, you’re written in my DNA” (source: Facebook)

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