Issue 19, 2013 - Balliol College - University of Oxford

features
Memories of a
Romanian childhood
By AleXAnDru PoPescu (1994) AND cArmen BugAn (2000)
Alexandru Popescu (1994) talks to Carmen Bugan
(2000) about her memoir, Burying the Typewriter. 1
AP: Thank you, Carmen, for speaking
to me about your memoir, Burying
the Typewriter. 2 The structure of the
book is suggestive of a triptych, of the
soul, if I may say so: you begin with
the poem ‘Visiting the Country of My
Birth’, written shortly after your visit to
Romania in July 2010; continue with
the prose memoir of your childhood,
which illustrates the poem; and end
the book with a small selection of
documents about your family from
the archive of the Secret Police. Your
father, the political dissident Ion
Bugan, had served many years in
Romanian communist prisons and
after his release was followed day and
night, along with your mother, because
of his opposition to the Ceausescu
government. At the time of
publication of this interview
you have obtained most
of your family archive
from the Romanian
Securitate,
documenting
your family’s
life from 1961
until your
emigration
to the US
in 1989.
While the book is
a straightforward,
truthful narrative
of my childhood
as I remembered
it from the
distance of almost
20 years of exile,
it is also a sort of
prayer that I may
understand my
place on earth.
CB: ‘Visiting the Country of My Birth’
was written in July 2010 when i had
seen my father’s files from 1961 until
his public demonstration against
Ceausescu in 1983 (the files from
1983 until 1989 arrived at the end
of 2012). As you say, the role of the
poem is to compress the actual and the
metaphorical returns to Romania and
to set up the complicated relationship
that i have with my native country. the
whole book illustrates, illuminates, and
interprets the images and meanings
of this poem. Metaphorically, the
book is the result of my ‘return’ to my
country. Another way to look at this is
through the prayer that ovid made at
the beginning of his long poem Tristia,
when he asked the book to return
to the places he loved; if he couldn’t
return to his homeland physically, he
tried to reach it ‘with what feet i may’.
My book is the ‘feet’ with which i
returned to Romania.
Chronologically, the poem
was written after i had
completed the memoir. i
wrote the book in 2006–
2007. the structure
of the book arose
from a need that was
poetic and spiritual
in equal measure.
While the book is
a straightforward,
truthful narrative of my
childhood as i remembered it
from the distance of almost 20
years of exile, it is also a sort of
prayer that i may understand
my place on earth. the role
of the documents at the back
is to provide a hard, factual
context to my memories, to
underline the truth i tell in
the book, but also, more
significantly, to show that
there is an historical
version of my family, a
biography, written by
someone else. in terms
of literary style the
presence of the files
provides a contrast to
the narrative voice. in
my own words i tell
the intimate story of
a child who grew up
while being followed and informed on.
the official government versions of
our lives and the events that took place
are sometimes true and sometimes
fabrications in order to create an
image of us, which suited their own
purpose of inflicting psychological
torture on us. For example, certain
information is correct, such as the
date of my father’s demonstration, the
days in which he was followed, or the
time when we woke up as a family.
However, the portrait of my parents is
not always correct: the secret Police,
with the help of various ‘informers’
who had created gossip and rumours,
constructed a public image of my
father as an enemy of the people, and
as an unstable human being.
AP: Do you know if there exists an
unedited version of the files
CB: i have only seen the documents
i was meant to see. By reading
the files i can infer missing years,
missing facts, the fact that there exists
secretly recorded video, audio, and
photographic material on my family
which was never given to me for
consultation. the material that i have
includes sections that were blotted out
in black ink; it had been well ‘cleaned’
before it reached me.
AP: Through your memoir you
make a public confession with the
voice of the child that you were; you
confess to readers who are aware
that memory is imperfect and faulty.
The prayer before confession in
our Orthodox tradition involves
asking forgiveness for things done
and undone, remembered and not
remembered, intended and not
intended, simply because we do not
know all the ways in which we sin.
The important thing is to express
our sense of repentance. In reading
your book I feel that you expressed
this sense of repentance for everyone,
including the Securitate who caused
suffering to your family.
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