Nicolae Ceauşescu. The personality cult in Galatz County's Party Press

Abstract

The aim of the article is to discover the specificalities of the local journalistic discourse through the view of Nicolae Ceauşescu's personality cult. We aimed at determining the level of journalistic autonomy in the process of editorial decision making. If at a national level some conclusions have been drawn over Nicolae Ceauşescu's personality cult, at the level of the local press in Galatzi everything is yet to be discovered and analysed. A pertinent and historical analysis cannot develop without a look at the context in which the Communist regime settled in Galatzi. In order to understand the mass mentality (not only inside the city, but in the county and the region as well) we need to give a proper look to archive documents. Through the records of the General-Administrative Inspectorate of the IV District, Galatzi, we discovered a state of rebellion amongst the local rural population. This in the context in which the methods of installing and consolidating the Communist regime were applied. Political and ideological propaganda needed to convince the classes to accept unconditional submission. In the first stages of collectivisation, incidents were visible in Galatzi. As a record states: “people applauded without heart”. The press in Galatzi made use of the city's and the region's ideological characteristics, on the fact that it was a siderurgical city and am agricultural region. Taking advantage of this, the articles and the reportages of the Viața Nouă Daily always underlined the servilism and the ideological submission of the Galatzi working class. Another aspect to take into view in the articles was the nautical nature of the portuary city, a pawn in the Socialist economy.