PEDAGOGICAL MERITS OF LITERARY TESTIMONIES: RADU CIUCEANU’S PRISON MEMOIRS
PEDAGOGICAL MERITS OF LITERARY TESTIMONIES: RADU CIUCEANU’S PRISON MEMOIRS
Author(s): Alexandru Daniel MagdalenSubject(s): Literary Texts, Cultural history, Studies of Literature, History of ideas, History of Communism, Philology, Theory of Literature
Published by: Editura Arhipelag XXI
Keywords: testimony; prisoner of conscience; memoirs; Romanian communism; reeducation;
Summary/Abstract: What pedagogical virtues can literary testimonies of repression reveal? What specific contribution may they bring to our knowledge of historical events? This paper attempts to find possible answers through exploring a memoir of Romanian political detention written by historian Radu Ciuceanu. His comprehensive work conveys truth-oriented pedagogical merits that facilitate the reader’s understanding of how a significant category of people went through political detention, including the so-called ‘reeducation’ process. A hermeneutic approach allows insight into the memoirs’ means of conveying objectives of knowledge mostly related to the context of the human condition besieged by systematic ill-treatment. The deep and surface structures converge to outline a broader picture of lived history, whose written expression bears essential qualities of an inherently pedagogical project.
Journal: Journal of Romanian Literary Studies
- Issue Year: 2020
- Issue No: 22
- Page Range: 486-494
- Page Count: 9
- Language: Romanian