Scînteia Tineretului
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Scînteia Tineretului ("Youth Spark"; originally spelled Scânteia Tineretului) was a central organ of the Union of Communist Youth (UTC), which was itself a youth branch of the Romanian Communist Party (PCR). Appearing daily between November 1944 and December 1989, it served as a companion to the main PCR newspaper, Scînteia. It was founded during the last stages of World War II, in what was then still a Kingdom of Romania. Its publication was facilitated by the August 1944 Coup, which ended Romania's alliance with the Axis Powers, brought her under the influence of the Soviet Union, and legalized communist organizations. Scînteia Tineretului was founded by journalist Mihnea Gheorghiu, and, during its first months, hosted numerous political articles by the future PCR leader, Nicolae Ceaușescu. The newspaper played a part in the country's re-foundation as a people's (later socialist) republic, becoming a vehicle for diffusing the tenets of Marxism-Leninism and socialist patriotism into the masses. Into the 1950s, it mounted campaigns against real or perceived "class enemies" among the youth, and openly celebrated victories against the anti-communist resistance.
Proletari din toate țările, uniți-vă! | |
Type | Daily newspaper |
---|---|
Format | Broadsheet |
Owner(s) | Union of Communist Youth |
Founder(s) | Mihnea Gheorghiu |
Publisher | Scînteia |
Staff writers | 92 (1983) |
Founded | 5 November 1944 (1944-11-05) |
Political alignment |
|
Language | Romanian |
Ceased publication | 21 December 1989 (1989-12-21) |
Headquarters | Scînteia Palace |
City | Bucharest |
Country | Kingdom of Romania (1944–1947) Romanian People's Republic/Socialist Republic of Romania (1948–1989) |
Circulation | 300,000 (as of 1970) |
Readership | ≈300,000 |
OCLC number | 1412839456 |
Around the scheduled onset of de-Stalinization, Scînteia Tineretului's staff was populated by liberals or generic nonconformists—examples include Teodor Mazilu, Fănuș Neagu, Iosif Sava, and Radu Cosașu. The latter pushed the boundaries by openly questioning the role of communist censorship. The Hungarian Revolution of 1956 was received with alarm by the regime, including at Scînteia Tineretului; in its wake, Cosașu was sacked, and the editorial line was more strictly reinforced by a new editor, Dumitru Popescu-Dumnezeu. While censorship was overall reaffirmed, the PCR renounced the dogmas of Socialist Realism. This move gave young writers more creative freedom, which the newspaper proceeded to explore during the early 1960s. Ceaușescu's arrival to power in 1965 further enhanced this liberalization, which went as far as to formally renounce censorship (though editors were still expected to police content for any ideological transgressions). Embracing market socialism, the regime tried but largely failed to make Scînteia Tineretului genuinely popular with the youth, especially in rural areas; the lasting result of such policies was that the newspaper diversified its content and earned respect inside the writers' community.
The early 1980s brought Scînteia Tineretului under the influence of deputy editor Ion Cristoiu and reporter Cornel Nistorescu. While the latter established new criteria for authenticity in journalism, Cristoiu focused on encouraging young literature, setting up a literary salon. At this stage, Scînteia Tineretului acquired its own cultural supplement, the SLAST, which alternated between honoring the regime's new national-communist ideology and hosting outsiders from the Optzeciști generation. The PCR and UTC intervened more directly to ensure that Scînteia Tineretului was taking part in Ceaușescu's personality cult, thus pushing contributors to adopt a standardized wooden language for much of the content. During the Romanian Revolution in December 1989, the newspaper hosted a cryptic message that fueled conspiracy theories; it did not survive the fall of the regime, but was immediately replaced by an non-communist newspaper, Tineretul Liber (itself closed down in 1995).