Five Senses Of Austerity

The last episode of the Five Senses of Austerity deals with the rationing of food in late Romanian socialism. It tells the story of the 1987 worker's revolt from the city of Brasov, which marked the beginning of the end of the regime, and then goes on to explore the final moments of Romanian socialism.

Austerity takes different forms. This episode of the Five Senses of Austerity explores one of the ways in which it was felt strongest in late Romanian socialism. This is the story of the fuel scarcity, which led to a lack of heating during winter and regular power blackouts.  

Money! You either have it, or you don't. Socialist Romania did not. Therefore, it had to borrow money from abroad in order to meet its ambitious development goals. This episode explores socialist Romania's failed crusade on the sea of global high finance starting from the late 1960s up until the 1980s, discussing the underlying reason for the turn towards austerity: the decision to pay off the accumulated foreign debt in its entirety. 

In 1977 Romania was hit by one of the most powerful earthquakes in its history. Episode two of the Five Senses of Austerity engages with the way in which the state dealt with the aftermath. On the one hand, the state saw the natural disaster as an opportunity for a particular kind of redevelopment, while on the other hand, for many Romanians, the earthquake marked the actual moment when things started to take a turn for the worse. The moment when austerity began. 

What did Nicolae Ceausescu have in common with Romania's most famous radio DJ, Cornel Chiriac? In Episode 1 of 'Five Senses of Austerity' we explore this and how it relates to the invasion of Prague in 1968. This was a period before austerity, the so-called 'golden age' of Romanian socialism. And yet, it is a period in which austerity was already slowly creeping in, especially through the politics surrounding 'Western' rock music. 

In recent years, most of us have become used to hearing about austerity. Following the 2007 financial crisis, it was said that austerity was the only viable cure. Today, more than 10 years later, the ghost of austerity still haunts Europe and much of the Western World. But this is not the first time that austerity was imposed on people in order to solve a financial crisis.  In Five Senses of Austerity, we will go back to socialist Romania in the 1980s: a textbook case of harsh austerity that ended, as some might know, in bloodshed and a coup d’etat.In each episode austerity will be explored through the lens of one of the five basic senses: hearing, seeing, touching, smelling and tasting. The podcast is part of the Sound Relations Project based at Central European University, Budapest, and is done in collaboration with the Blinken Open Society Archives.