Informal operation, formal presence : the functioning of the friendship Art Camp in Gyergyószárhegy in the Ceausescu era (1974-1989)

Abstract

This case study is aimed at reconstructing everyday life at the Friendship Art Camp (Barátság Művésztelep, Tabără Artistică Prietenie) founded in Gyergyószárhegy (Lăzarea) in 1974.1 My objective to examine the functioning of the Camp, as an in stitution operating informally throughout the whole year, but formally an event organised just once a year by the Committee of Socialist Education and Culture (hereinafter, ‘Cultural Committee’).2 The camp was a comprehensive system of re cipro calness and trust, which vitalised economic, social and personal relations in particular. It included hidden practices, open secrets and unwritten rules,3 in other words areas that greatly determined everyday life of the era examined. In my view, quasipublicity could not only be created in a festive way (that is, making use of the representation of social publicity), but also through informal administration and by mobilising resources necessary to complete these administrative tasks.