An invitation to look: the role of vernacular photography in scrutinising and understanding Romania’s communist past in the context of everyday life

Abstract

Photographs are more than visual representations of society and culture or evidence of historical documents and events. In their ubiquity, they reveal, illuminate or suggest ideas, mindsets and attitudes; they circulate on- and offline and influence and disrupt expected narratives. Photographs help reconstruct the everyday material cul-ture of the past, tell stories of ordinary people’s lives and shape the interpretation of history. Using a close reading of photographs, this paper examines vernacular pho-tography’s complexity in everyday life during Romania’s communist era (1947-1989).
Just over thirty years after the fall of the Soviet bloc, when we see the return of oppressive policy-making in Eastern European countries like Hungary and Poland, and an aggressive war in Ukraine, photography research on everyday life during Romania’s communist past remains an underexplored subject area. Contextualised within the broader understanding of decolonising the Western photography canon, this paper understands vernacular photography not through visual content in a semiotic setting alone but as an ongoing event entangled in webs of power, dialogue, resistance and agency. It involves mnemonic abilities, choices and participants.
This paper is divided into two sections. The first describes how communism manifested in Romania. This offers readers the context of people’s everyday lives under the tight grip of the communist regime. The second section explores photography during Romania’s communist era, first in a general sense to provide an overview of Romania’s photographic landscape, followed by an analysis of vernacular photography and its function as a collective memory of resistance. This article aims to extend dialogues of untold narratives, repressed histories and changing interpretations of the past, locating them in the present and orienting them towards the future.