When I visited Romania at the beginning of 1990, I scoured the newsstands for any and every shard of information about Romanian culture, the revolution, recipes, history, commi-nostalgia, concerts, life as lived and dreamed in the immediate post-1989 period. Imagine my surprise to discover that almost every newspaper or magazine boasted of its horoscope section. There was a horoscope available for every month, day, decade, and period. Horoscopes littered the dusty sidewalks of Bucharest, promising answers and explanations. My university-educated Romanian relatives would ask me quite seriously if I had consulted my horoscope before x and y.
In the post-communist period, the horoscope had become a reference guide in an unsure world and a source of revisionist history. Before the Romanian intellectuals settled into their desks to revisit the history of Romanian communism, the horoscopes had already published definitive guides to the truth about each and every important Romanian. The horoscopes were not burdened by Securitate files or ties to former leaders-- their information was pure as the night sky and powerful as the sun. Before Romanians could read revisionist history in the libraries, they could read it in the stars.
Does Romania's notorious and legendary fatalism explain why horoscopes gained such a following in the immediate post-communist period? Only for those who prefer the cosmos of cultural stereotypes to the cosmos of stars. In fact, Romanian fatalism is a facet of literary culture more than a facet of general culture (though one might argue that Romanians tend to be more Stoic, a philosophy which has its roots in fatalism). Romanian horoscopes, like Romanian legends, have the texture of a rich tapestry in which disparate colors and elements bind together as revelation.
Rather than the pithy American-style two-liner, Ceausescu's horoscope reads like an intimate portrait, a legend harvested from the stars. Among other salient details, the horoscope asserts that Ceausescu was supported by the US. I've heard this position expressed by a number of Romanians in hushed tones, but the horoscope sets it above rumor by relegating it to the realm of the stars.
It is alleged that Ceauşescu was supported overtly and covertly by the United States throughout the 1970s and 1980s. Romania gained "most favored nation" trading status in 1975, six years after a favourable visit by President Nixon. According to Noam Chomsky, it was partially due to Ceauşescu's divergent views on policy (such as the invasion of Afghanistan, opposition to Molotov-Ribbentrop, etc.), Ceauşescu garnered support from the Bush Administration, particularly George Herbert Walker Bush himself and then-Secretary of State George P. Schultz . There were negative comments regarding Romania during this time by both Schultz and Bush, but the former also called Ceauşescu a "good Communist" and the latter praised Ceauşescu's "respect for human rights" . This support, it is argued, was a major obstacle to the overthrow of Ceauşescu.
The horoscope is a superb historical vehicle in the dusk of the absurd. When unemployed dissidents would find work writing horoscopes for various journals, they were engaging in another form of dissent. Astrology, like religion, was not acceptable to the communist regimes grounded upon the predictive value of historical materialism and scientific socialism. In this environment, authoring a horoscope offered a subtle way in which to criticize communist leaders (for example, by predicting negative events in their future due to character traits like 'egoism'). When Czech writer Milan Kundera's work was banned in 1969, Kundera made a living by writing an astrology column under a fictitious name, which eventually got him and his friends in even more trouble.
It is no secret that Gorbachev, Ronald Reagan, and Adolf Hitler relied on astrology in making political decisions. The Kremlin seems to have star-gazed quite frequently. The stars, like palms, books, and coffee grounds, must be read as life is lived, with a smile to illuminate the darkness. To explore Poland's national horoscope, venture here. For more on the absurdist humour of communism.
