SILVIU-GABRIEL LOHON, Comunismul dantelat. Infrastructura economică românească văzută prin stampele jubiliare (Rouletted Communism. Romanian Economic Infrastructure Represented in Jubilee Stamps)

SILVIU-GABRIEL LOHON
Cercetător ştiinţific III, dr., Institutul de Cercetări Socio-Umane „C. S. Nicolăescu-Plopşor” din Craiova, al Academiei Române;
E-mail: gabilohon@gmail.com

Abstract
Communism has never afforded the opportunity to cultivate sadness. Whatever melancholy meant, it was exorcised from daily life, whereas the future was employed to glorify the industrialisation and mechanisation of agriculture. What made me embark on such an adventurous trip to explore the Romanian stamps was the fact that stamp collecting or philately provided a necessary support not only for the professional or amateur stamp collectors, but also for all individuals who got in contact with these stamps in various ways in their to attempt to explain the thematic stereotypes emblematic of Romanian communism: socialist ethics, the struggle of the Communist Party to attain its ideals, communist patriotism, and industrialisation. All these political emblems can be found in “commissioned” stamp emissions; they sometimes entail that kind of involuntary humour produced against the background of the becoming-popular of socialist ideology. At the same time, the fact that these stamp emissions backed up and endorsed the utopian discourse of Romanian communism indubitably demonstrates the manipulative interventions of the Communist Party.

Keywords
Romanian communism, stamps, totalitarian art, communist industry, philately.