Istorie, literatura si realism socialist. Consideratii asupra romanului Descult

The novel Descult written by Zaharia Stancu is published in 1948, in the times of complete affirmation of the socialist realism in the art of the People's Republic of Romania. Using the historiographical myths of the propaganda, the author describes the life of the peasants from the South part of Romania, at the beginning of the XXth century. His novel becomes very popular in the 50's: it is published in fifteen Romanian editions and studied in school textbooks. The regime sees Zaharia Stancu's novel as an achievement of the new type of littérature promoted under communism. Using aspects of the past in order to give some legitimacy for the present, Zaharia Stancu manages to find the recipe for success: he puts together in a novel the directions of the propaganda in order to be published, along with his vivid descriptions of an rural universe of the first years of the XX th century. [PUBLICATION ABSTRACT]