INSTANCES OF MICRORESISTANCES AND OTHER POACHING STRATEGIES
(Abstract)

The present study is the outcome of research I’ve been conducting over the past ten years on the archives of a family of intellectuals (D. Popovici – Ioana Em. Petrescu – Liviu Petrescu, former professors at the University of Cluj, as well as reputed writers). The archives, brought under public ownership, document essential areas of daily life in communist Romania, the circulation of ideas and books in a closed world, etc. I intend to reflect on the ways such intellectuals countered the discourse of Power with the daily constructs of a subversive and antiheroic “microresistance”. Confronted by the impositions of communist dictatorship, they would find resources to put up a semblance of “public intimacy”. By their attempt to locate themselves constantly outside the statutory context, they provide a good example of “low-key life”, consisting of materially poor elements (both figuratively and literally). Ioana and Liviu Petrescu’s  correspondence,  recently edited, supplies the texts to support such reconstruction.

Keywords: letters, microresistance, practice of everyday-life, Ioana Em. Petrescu, Liviu Petrescu, Michel de Certeau, communism.