À LA RECHERCHE DU COMMUNISME PERDU
In Search of Lost Time

Summary/Abstract: In the mountains, isolated localities, hard to access, the Czech community from Clisura Dunării (Sfînta Elena, Bigăr, Gîrnic, Eibenthal, Ravenska, Şumița) suffered in a lesser degree the rigors of the agrarian politics of the communist period. There was no collectivisation, but the agricultural association was experienced, and the quotas have stricken for years the peasants’ efforts for obtaining goods by exploiting some low productivity terrains. On the other hand, the relative well-being of some of the villagers attracted the reaction of a regime which punished the slightest diversion from the line drawn by the Romanian Working Party. The Czech peasant, with the perpetual example in his mind concerning the efforts of his ancestors to ascend, to make a living starting from scratch, he felt now obliged to give up his strife in change of his own freedom. The ones having moderate money savings were the first to be deported. In some of the cases, the intervention of some relatives, of some integrated friends in the „system” was shown to be providential. „When I had a separator, the separator which sorts the cream from the milk apart, it was ready to put me, to make me chiabur, you know, the way it was then. But I got away, because I had a cousin, who was in the party and he defended me. Others would have taken me away to Bărăgan, like they were taking the ones who had more money, the rich ones” (Francisc Mician, Şumița). Even if from a certain perspective, to be deported seemed less serious than being incarcerated, the imposed exile did not represent more than „an alternative to prison” (Dinu Gherman). Being sent to Bărăgan, the Pems were separated from their dear ones, their own goods and rights, of chances in a future that seemed uncertain at the moment. „I thought and this: after that I thought, man, if this lasts, if this regime will carry on like this, I will surely never escape from there. It will keep me there all my life! No, God did not let it happen, God is greater” (Carol Merhaut, Gîrnic).

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