MODELELE CULTURALE ȘI IMAGINARUL LIVRESC ÎN SCRIERILE MEMORIALISTICE FEMININE. STUDII DE CAZ: ANNIE BENTOIU ȘI OANA ORLEA

Abstract

The present research proposes a figural reading of female memoirs about the totalitarian period, insisting on the aesthetic valences of the texts and less on their documentary value. The volumes signed by Annie Bentoiu and Oana Orlea are representative of the capacity of the memoir formula to amalgamate cultural models and previous aesthetic experiences, as proof of the fact that literature is based on a permanent cultural dialogue. In this way, memoir texts become cultural repositories that camouflage a cultural tradition, visible through the bookish imagination and cultural models. Both authors have as examples in adolescence heroes with masculine attributes, such as the heroes of Alexandre Dumas or Zoia, whom they transform into pillars of identity when faced with the intransigence of the communist regime. The experience of imprisonment, however, is presented from two different, complementary perspectives – Oana Orlea experiences it at the age of 16, while Annie Bentoiu presents it through the stories of others and through book sources that restore the truth to her. However, the two angles from which the prison is seen have in common the oblique recourse to other aesthetic objects, texts and authors, illustrating the capacity of literature to become a cultural, collective memory through the reunion of several individual histories. By inventorying the cultural references and the complexity of the imaginary of the two volumes of memoirs, one can see that they are not marginal texts, but valuable writings for the way in which the feminine writing of the period is articulated. Cuvinte-cheie