De la misère de l’utopie dans le théâtre postmoderne de l’absurde: L’histoire du communisme racontée aux malades mentaux par Matéi Vişniec

Abstract

Published in France, in 2000, almost a decade after the Communist regime has died out in the
East-European countries, the book entitled The History of Communism Told for the Mentally Sick People
proves to be, as the author himself frequently declared, a trial of the totalitarian ideologies as utopias
promised to the societies involved in the re-education process. This type of tragic farce, which ironically and
nostalgically re-reads the strategies and themes of the absurd theatre (as Postmodern paradigm asks for),
overtly deconstructs both the Communist clichés and the mental strategies allowing the taking over of the
Stalinist utopia and its devastating effect, the dissemination of the totalitarian evil – all of these within a
literary text easily to be defined as dramatic and comic fable.