In the light of the sun there is tall buildings arose on the ruins of the old residential quarters, ie exaggerated avenuesthe almost obscene pomp of the house of the people. In the heart of the inhabitants of Bucharestremain however wounds never heal d trauma never out of date for it Revolution “that never was”. Bucharest. Dust and Blood (Keller Editore, 18.5 euros) from Margo Rejmer is a reportage into the soul of the citizens of the Romanian capital, a journey into which they are immersed a past never erased and that returns inexorably in the memories, utterances and dialogues, even the unspoken, of those who lived Romania from 1967 to 1989, in the Age of the Bloodthirsty Nicolae Ceausescu.
Rejmer’s book, which professes in its pages the attraction and the bond built up over years of travel with this city as lush, exaggerated, elegant as it is harsh, raw and violent, cannot be considered as a simple reportage: it is a journey to the present. , who cannot hide a past that insists on staying there, intrusive, in front of the eyes of those who live in Bucharest every day. A past that many no longer want to have anything to do with. The symbol of those years deprivation, force and Suffer is perfectly represented by the Casa del Popolo wanted by the communist dictator: a flood of mumble, crystals, forest and fabrics precious, while people in the capital were forced into tiny houses with virtually no light or heat and food rationing. A giant that was even more unwieldy in the minds of the residents of the Romanian capital than the 5,100 rooms that make it up, which watched menacingly from above as the dictator’s subjects. There are those who wanted to destroy this building, those who opposed its sale and those who finally still avoid going close to avoid the risk of seeing it.
In the stories collected by the author, we perceive a memory that cannot be erased, a grief never worked out: young people jailed and tortured for a grievance unsupported by any evidence, families disintegrated, women forced into it clandestine abortions often fatal. But there are also those who regret those years or who do mock trial to Nicolae and Elena Ceaușescu, with the subsequent execution he never accepted, an indelible mark on the history of the new Romania, a showdown that ended in the way most contemplated dishonorable. A Romania, as artists, scholars, historians and even ordinary citizens explain, which killed its dictator without ever having carried out its own revolution.