Anecdota politică, între literatură și paraliteratură

Abstract

The concept of „paraliterature” often has a negative connotation, focusing, somehow, on marginal literary creations. It, also, conveys one basic meaning: that of an unconventional literary creation, without questioning its lack of value. The anecdote is a small species of the epic genre, sometimes preachy, sometimes including
historical figures, evoking a funny episode. A thousand years old, anecdotes of this type and subsequent political jokes include, discover and embrace a richly colored world. The political joke of the communist era, for example, works by pulling the hypocritical mask of ʺa multilateral developed communist societyʺ, a recurrent
formula during Ceausescuʹs times, representative for the stereotyped language. Surprisingly, the political anecdote sometimes succeeds in ciphering the message, ambiguity being revealed rather to the initiates. Anticommunist humor calls up for the collective mind: people vs. masks, lies vs. truth, reality vs. dreams. The universe of political jokes is funny and tragic, realistic and fabulous, predictable and unexpected, thus, connecting to the mechanism of literature.