András Mink and Attila Ara-Kovács: Life in Ceaușescu’s Romania

András Mink and Attila Ara-Kovács: Life in Ceaușescu’s Romania

Discussion and analysis using guest texts

October 15, 2025, 6:00 p.m.

In connection with the exhibition The Tactless Photojournalist. The Archive of Lajos Erdélyi from the Ceaușescu Era, and as the sixth event in the eight-part program series titled From a Certain Distance, András Mink, a researcher of the Cold War era, and Attila Ara-Kovács, a Transylvanian philosopher, journalist, and editor, evoked and analyzed the period from 1965 to 1989 using film excerpts, photographs, newspaper articles, and literary passages. What were the conditions of everyday life in Ceaușescu’s Romania? What characterized the political and social relations of the era, and what led to the collapse of the regime? How did the generation before World War II—such as that of Lajos Erdélyi—experience this period, and how is all of this reflected (or not) in the pages of Új Élet, the journal edited by András Sütő, and in the reportage photography of Lajos Erdélyi?