The thesis examined the structure and functions of political festivals in communist Romania, between 1948 and 1989, having focused especially on their roles in mirroring the official communist ideology and its shifts between the Marxist-Leninist doctrine and nationalism, as well as in shaping a new type of culture for members of the working-class and peasantry. The analysis illustrated political festivals as instruments of institutional and mass control, and as means of self-representation for the communist regime, with the purpose of providing political legitimization. The research was developed on two levels: a chronological one – between youth and workers festivals in Romania, during the 1950s and 1960s, and the so-called National Festival of Socialist Education “Song to Romania”, during the 1970s and 1980s – and a structural comparison – between the official image of festivals in propaganda, at a general level, and that of festivals as perceived by ordinary people, at a case-study level.

A full-length study is available here.