CARAGIALE VU PAR LES ÉLITES TOTALITAIRES TCHÈQUES DES ANNÉES 50
CARAGIALE FROM THE PERSPECTIVE OF THE TOTALITARIAN CZECH CULTURAL ELITE OF THE ‘50’S

Summary/Abstract: Caragiale from the perspective of the totalitarian Czech cultural elite of the ‘50’s. At the time of the centenary of Ion Luca Caragiale’s death (commemorated in 2012), the article addresses an unprecedented topic: the reception of the great Romanian classic’s work by the Czech cultural milieu in the context of the socialist realism of the ‘50’s. The analysis focuses on the reception of the centenary of Caragiale’s birth in the Czech cultural press of 1952. The Czech propaganda machine chose to rise to the occasion by reinterpreting the message of Caragiale’s literary achievement from a Stalinist perspective. The new totalitarian elite turns the playwright into a fellow traveller of the proletarian movement, devoted to the “class struggle”. Read in this key, the author’s satire loses its socially-aware moralizing function, being attributed instead a doctrine-supporting function.

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