THE COLD WAR AND THE JUSTICE AS POLITICAL SHOW IN ROMANIA
THE COLD WAR AND THE JUSTICE AS POLITICAL SHOW IN ROMANIA

Summary/Abstract: One of the most persistent manifestations of the Cold War was the paroxysmal recurrence of the old medieval "witch hunt" story. The real and imaginary enemies of the communist regime were subjected to actual political exorcism operations. Among the most insistently and efficiently used tools, was the framing of political trials to famous people, which were turned into real shows, where the crowds were invited on the scene and metamorphosed into accusers. This technique had been experienced by the ritual of the famous Stalinist political trials, and later exported, together with the much needed expertise, to the communized countries after the Second World War. Our survey analyzes the framing technique used in two of the most important political trials that occurred in early communist Romania, that of Iuliu Maniu and Lucreţiu Pătrăşcanu. We did not chose the two figures by change, since their bringing together has a ludic side to it, belonging to the “game-hunter” or “accuser-accused” metaphor. According to the information in the press of that time and in the studies dedicated to the matter, this paper recreates the political background of the period, from the standpoint of the subtle evolution of the complicity between Power and crowds. The expressly assumed metadiscourse was not meant as a challenge to the classical one, but a ludic attempt to reach an agreement between the people, ideas and obsessions of that period.

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