I have just read two novels, back to back. The first was Raised from the Ground by Portuguese writer José Saramago, who died in 2010. The second was The Land of Green Plums by German-Romanian novelist Herta Müller. Both authors won the Nobel Prize for Literature, in 1998 and 2009 respectively.
Saramago’s novel was first published in 1980, six years after the peaceful Carnation Revolution toppled the fascist dictatorship of António de Oliveira Salazar. Müller’s was published in 1993, four years after the violent overthrow of Communist dictator Nicolae Ceauşescu.
Both novels are fascinating because they are a reminder of Europe’s not-too-distant past when democracy was but a dream.
They are a reminder, too, of the EU’s extraordinary value and importance in supporting democracy in Portugal and Romania after the countries’ citizens rebelled against their brutal dictators.
It is easy to forget how these dictatorships damaged the fabric of society and degraded the individual. To this day, they have left scars on both countries.
Raised from the Ground tells the story of the Mau-Tempo family, which tries to eek out a living on the large, feudal estates of the Salazar era. The daily grind, the miserable labor conditions, and the poverty are relentless. The reader gets an unsentimental glimpse into how the estates were run and how people’s fear of Communism provided Salazar’s secret police with even more power to suppress the peasantry.
Not that the peasants would have had any idea about Communism or could disseminate left-wing pamphlets. Salazar, a university professor, did everything possible to perpetuate illiteracy. That was one of his methods of maintaining control and power.
Any peasant who had basic reading skills was viewed with suspicion and often interrogated. Any peasant who dared to question the long hours and poor pay was deemed to be a Communist and therefore a traitor to the regime.
Salazar, a staunch believer in God, also could depend on the Catholic church. Saramago does not hide his contempt for the well-fed, unctuous local priest who turns a blind eye to poverty, cruelty, and torture of his flock while dining with the local police chief and the owners of vast agricultural estates.
Yet, typical of Saramago’s novels, his main characters manage to keep their integrity. He writes with a humanity, warmth, and even humor that conveys a sense that dignity will eventually prevail. That is what happened when Salazar was finally ousted in 1974.
Müller’s depiction of Romania under Ceauşescu could not be more different.
Largely autobiographical, The Land of Green Plums is about a group of young students: Kurt, Edgar, Georg, and the narrator herself. They live in cramped and filthy student hostels, six to a room. Food is scarce, Communist officials are ubiquitous, and the atmosphere is hostile. What you also glean from early on in this raw, humorless novel is the intense sense of dislocation felt by students who have moved from rural areas to the big city.
Urban migration did not only concern students. During the 1950s and 1960s, Romania’s Communists—unlike Portugal’s fascists—embarked on a massive modernization (and literacy) program, which uprooted millions of people from the countryside to the cities.
Müller gives a fascinating and bleak account of the effects of the social upheaval, the widespread shortages—especially during the 1980s—and the enormous presence of the Securitate, or secret police. She conveys a sense of ennui, hopelessness, and atomization. People cheated and stole and informed on one another in a corrupt, shabby, and humiliating system.
The narrator and her friends, Kurt, Edgar, and Georg, who long to emigrate, keep running up against the system and the Securitate. When two of them do leave Romania, they find loneliness and alienation in their new home country, too. Müller herself emigrated to West Germany in 1987, after refusing to cooperate with the secret police.
Post-Salazar Portugal and post-Ceauşescu Romania have taken different paths in their transition to democracy.
In a short space of time, Portugal managed to build strong institutions and a vibrant democracy. What is revealing about today’s Portugal is how the population, by and large, has accepted the austerity measures imposed by the EU, the International Monetary Fund and the European Central Bank. Demonstrations have been infrequent and peaceful. Perhaps one reason for that is that the Salazar era created a deference toward authority.
Romania’s transition to democracy is still marred by widespread corruption and abuse of power by national and regional officials. The media are prone to hyperbole and backstabbing. The political discourse is dominated by recriminations that often hinge on which officials collaborated with the Securitate. The Ceauşescu regime has left a big scar on the country’s society.
Time is a healer. As these two novels illustrate, it is remarkable how people try to rebuild their lives in freedom and with dignity. This is a universal lesson, but one that also underlines the role of Europe’s values.
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