Visages de l'utopie dans la par abole roumaine contemporaine: Le Cimetière des héros (2017) par Adrian Lesenciuc

Abstract

The emergence of globalization, the economic and political crisis of the postcommunist transition, the cultural and identity challenges of the integration in the European Union have modeled – within the Romanian social and cultural imaginary – a dynamics that is relevant for the incorporation of »social dreaming« or »utopianism« (L T Sargent) Connected to the »deep contradiction between universalism and particularism« (Ph Wegner) that is conceived of as a constant characteristic of modernity and that is illustrated by the Romanian opposition between »localism« and »Occidentalism«, and also related to the »memo- rial conflicts« (J Candau) regarding the recent past, this dynamics has been integrated in the narratives of contemporary Romanian novels Without adopting all the conventions of narrative utopia (its negative varieties included), the Romanian novels of the 2000s reveal the mutations of »social dreaming« either in realistic, or in allegorical or parabolic forms tributary to the utopian / dystopian imaginary It is also the case of the novel The Cemetery of Heroes (2017) by Adrian Lesenciuc, in which both the utopian satire and the dystopia are contrasted against a cultural-pedagogic utopia within a parable of multiple semantic levels The subjects, the narrative strategies and the elements of vision that are characteristic for (anti-)utopianism are here instrumented in a complex narrative architecture which includes a political novel, a parable of civilizations and a parable of the human condition