Laughing Matters: the Cultural Dynamics of Political jokes in Communist Romania

Despite the lack of critical consensus regarding the social/cultural role of political jokes, a close investigation of their status in Romanian clandestine popular culture during communism can be a relevant initiative from many perspectives. A coherent approach of the subject must nevertheless target the complex network of cultural phenomena developed during the repressive communist regime while it should also aim at identifying the specific place of the genre of political jokes in this framework. Both as oral and written texts, the literature of political jokes can be regarded as an indicator of isolation from the official cultural canon, a means of "silent protest" and implicit subversion, a "weapon of the weak." Published abroad before 1989, circulating underground as private texts in communist Romania, then printed freely early in the '90s, political jokes establish a particular type of literature in Romanian popular culture. The anonymous authors, their heroes and narrative structures draw on the vast domain of folklore, but their impact goes further than immediate comic relief. The present 'article tries to explore the anatomy and dynamics of this particular genre as a parallel system of thought and creation in Romanian communism from the vantage points of popular culture, literature and cultural history.