Children of the Revolution

The national flag after the communist escutcheon was cropped.

It’s been 22 years. Between the 16th and the 22nd of December 1989, the Revolution that put an end to communism in Romania claimed over 1100 dead and more than 4000 wounded and constituted the only blood-shedding regime change in the Autumn of Nations.

As a child of that time, the personal film of my Revolution is a broken one, and the magnitude of the events is reflected in meaningless details of my daily life, just like a tsunami can be reflected in a single drop of water. Like all my generation, I had to learn the facts from history books. The painful images came to me via television, and, later, via youtube videos.

I witnessed history in the making when I was too young to understand what was going on. I’m no Marjanne Satrapi, and my memory is nowhere nearly that precise. Had I been a few years older, I would have registered many more details. Maybe that is why, even now, when I am approaching the dreaded 30 and getting bummed at every new gray hair or hint of a wrinkle, I still feel a bit of envy at those who are old enough to have a clearer picture of the 5 days of turmoil.

I was only six years old then, still in kindergarten. Ceausescu, the Dictator, was somewhat of a mythical figure for me and children my age. The heavily-airbrushed face we saw at the beginning of every schoolbook. The idealized portrait in every classroom. The name uttered emphatically at every school event. He was as real and unreal to us as Santa: we all knew that he existed and that he was almighty, but he was removed from the realm of our everyday existence.

One year, I think in ’88, I remember that the school was being turned upside down in preparation for his birthday. Every corner was cleaned and polished, broken furniture was replaced, the garden was manicured and the walls were painted. One of our teachers, an exotic beauty with artistic skills, covered the walls with colorful images of fairytale and cartoon characters. She even painted our lockers – I had Snow White on mine. We were rehearsing patriotic songs and speeches round the clock. I didn’t know what all the fuss was about, until, overwhelmed with joy, I understood: they were coming! The Beloved Leader and his formidable consort, Elena! With her perfect hair-do, like an impenetrable helmet, and her pastel suits, she seemed the most beautiful woman in the world to me. In retrospect, she looked more like a tamed Gorgon, with the snakes neatly swept around her head. But, hey, I was six, don’t judge me.

They stood us up. I remember standing on the stairs and singing Happy Birthday with the other children, but there was no birthday boy. I couldn’t understand why they hadn’t come, and where they had to go that was more important than the festivities at my small-town kindergarten. Later that day, an older girl came to our class with a tray of fruit; we each got half of a banana and a quarter of an orange. Some children wouldn’t eat, because they didn’t know what the fruits were. I knew the oranges, but I wasn’t sure about the bananas; I suspected they were some sort of sausages.

I loved my communist kindergarten uniform – the Patriot Hawks would be the roughly translated name for kindergarten pupils. The uniform was a hideous orange-navy-red combo, and the thick, synthetic fabric made us itch and sweat. Older kids, the Pioneers, wore nicer uniforms: white shirt and red tie, with navy pants or accordion skirt. Ahh, that was the dream! I never made it that far, because the Revolution came and ruined my fantasy of becoming a Pioneer and twirling around in the accordion skirt.

Ripped off from latrecut.ro, with many thanks, and only because my own parents didn't bother taking my photo in uniform.

I don’t remember having heard the word “revolution” before. One day, I heard my parents and neighbours talking heatedly about people “going out on the streets” in Timisoara, the starting point of the uprising. I thought, “what’s the big deal, I go out on the street every day!” The next day, looking out the window of my class, I saw groups of soldiers marching. “It’s a war!”, I shouted in excitement, “they’re going to war!”. I was hoping they would win – little did I know that they were being sent out to shoot civilians! My kindergarten teachers let us play freely and gathered in a corner, whispering in agitation. We turned the classroom upside down, and, by the end of the day, we were throwing chairs and chanting profanities. War could go on forever, as far as we were concerned.

At home, we went to visit my neighbour, an insufferable moron with a loud mouth, and watched the uprising on TV. I saw people running from police, and lots of street fires. A rumour spread that the water reserve had been poisoned and that only bottled mineral water was safe to drink. I remember being very thirsty and waiting for my mom to boil the tap water and cool it before letting me drink. Words like “revolution”, “freedom”, “terrorists”, “hooligans” were swarming in my head, and I wasn’t sure which one was bad and which one was good. The catchy revolutionary songs made me happy, because it made grown-ups laugh when I sang them.

News came that Ceausescu and his wife had been arrested, then tried and executed, right on Christmas Day. By then, I knew that they were bad and that it was they who wouldn’t let us have enough cartoons on TV, so I was happy that they died. Revolution-schmevolution, but Tom & Jerry was a serious issue! I also remember seeing carols being sung on TV, something I had never seen, because religious expression had been banned in the media.

Other than that, there was a lot of agitation and excitement. People were gathering everywhere, trying to predict what would happen next, discussing the news and the rumours. I recall loud voices, heated political debates, words too big for me, and an overall feeling of joy and hope. Teenagers wished they had had the chance to go out and stand up to the bullets, like the youths in the big cities where altercations had taken place; they were old enough to have actually done it and too young to understand how lucky they were that they didn’t have to. A few old people expressed pity for Ceausescu and his wife, or for the three children that survived them. I looked at those people in disgust; obviously, they did not get what the Revolution was about (Tom &… I mean, freedom).

After the winter holiday was over, I went back to kindergarten. The senior teacher, the one who had been the most ardent and vocal supporter of the Dictator, sat us in a circle and held a long and pompous speech about how we were now free of the atrocious regime of the tyrant who had sucked our nation’s blood. I’m sure she was equally honest both before and after, because that’s just how some people are.

Sometimes I wonder what the children of the Arab Spring will remember, and if this age of communication will help them register more details. Speaking of, I would be curious to hear what my Romanian friends remember about those days, if they haven’t deserted this blog completely.

A wish of peace to all the families who lost loved ones at the Revolution. I am afraid to imagine how our life would have turned out without their sacrifice.

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