Becoming class enemy

: A countryside primary school teacher's re-education in communist Romania. A microhistorical view on the effects of collectivisation and expropriation on teachers

Abstract

This research paper aims to highlight the process through which an individual’s relationship with the state was altered during the years following the establishment of the communist regime in Romania. Having as starting point personal documents and correspondence found in the private archive of Dumitru Calciu, a primary school teacher from a village close to the Danube, it conducts a microhistorical study into how state control over the individuals’ private sphere artificially sought to change identities and mould them into the ‘new man’ ideological vision.

Through a focus on the exploration of the life of one individual, representative for a generational group of teachers, who graduated from one of the first teacher training colleges in Romania, the paper explores a new application of microhistory with a modern biographical angle. Drawing wider parallels to the macrohistorical context, the effects of the early collectivisation process and its ramifications on wider village communities that teachers were a part of, the paper argues the importance of the use and value of primary sources, specifically family archives, as method of studying ‘ordinary’ citizens perspective on being declared ‘class enemies’ and how small acts of omission can be interpreted as coping mechanism within the journey towards a new identity.

Date of Award	2025
Original language	English
Awarding Institution	Canterbury Christ Church University