The Post-Communist Afterlife of Dissidents: The Case of Herta Müller

• This chapter explores the role of the dissident intellectual in the post-dictatorship era. More specifically, it looks at the reaction in the Romanian cultural press and in the daily newspapers to the awarding of the 2009 Nobel Prize in Literature to Herta Müller, a Romanian-born German writer. Müller is known for her anti-Communist stance as well as her critique of those Romanian political and intellectual elites judged too shy in distancing themselves from the Communist past. I would suggest that the ambivalent attitude of the media towards Müller’s prize reflects the hesitation of both the public and elite to critically engage with the recent past. The effectiveness of Müller’s intransigent attitude is also questioned, that is, more broadly, whether former anti-Communist dissidents are still in a position to mobilize interest and reaction in the aftermath of authoritarian regimes.

Subject headings

HUMANIORA  -- Historia och arkeologi (hsv//swe)

HUMANITIES  -- History and Archaeology (hsv//eng)

Keyword

Post-communism

Herta Müller

dissidents

media analysis

Romania

Nobel Prize in Litterature

anti-communism

collective memory

Publication and Content Type

kap (subject category)

ref (subject category)