More than a radio station punctuating the Iron Curtain

Visegrad Lecture Series

More than a radio station punctuating the Iron Curtain: RFE’s capacity to establish a sense of belonging and political freedom for Romanian audiences

by Dr Uschi Klein, Senior Lecturer, University of Brighton

Unlike other satellite countries of the former Soviet bloc, Romania did not have an organized or large-scale underground press or samizdat literature. Mainstream (state-owned) media, namely radio, television, magazines and newspapers, in Romania were highly censored and the mouthpieces of the Romanian Communist Party. However, Western radio stations reached Romania from the 1950s and their broadcast was particularly crucial during the 1970s and 1980s. Critical of the regime, Western stations’ cross-Iron Curtain communication provided their audiences with alternative views and information about Romania.

With a focus on RFE, this presentation aims to shed some light on the content of RFE programmes and discuss to what extent they were able to establish an understanding of political freedom and a sense of belonging for Romanian audiences living in an atomized and repressed society. While reports from the mid-1980s state that it was officially legal to listen to RFE programs, jamming was still practiced. Thus, this presentation argues that listening to RFE programs was an act of everyday resistance against the regime.