Abstract
While there are a few significant studies on the varieties of populism in post-socialist Romania, little scholarly work on populists’ ethos of religious inspiration, as it appears reflected in popular culture, exists. This paper addresses this lacuna from a cultural studies perspective, exploring the cultural productions of religious inspiration employed by the radical right populist entrepreneur George Becali, and argues that the diversity of religiously encumbered cultural productions provide a significant insight in fleshing out the mechanisms of his messianic neo-populism. By employing critical visual analysis and hermeneutics, this paper aims to illuminate how a populist entrepreneur attracts potential supporters employing the rhetoric of nativism and “traditional, autochthonous culture and religion,” purporting to reveal a mutual cultural ground between the messianic leader and “the people.” His political strategies are often times packaged in cultural formats and discourses that emphasise local religious symbolism (in this case of Eastern Christian Orthodox descent) that turns him into a “Saviour of the Nation.” Against this background, this paper analyses an instance of Romanian populist entrepreneurs’ political visual rhetoric that reveals an Eastern Christian Orthodox symbolism infiltrated through popular culture productions. Yet, at the same time, the paper demonstrates that popular culture can also constitute a foundation for resisting the populist’s kit of religiously loaded visual rhetoric.
Presenters
Maria Alina AsaveiAssistant Professor, Russian and East European Studies, Charles University Jiri Kocian
Details
Presentation Type
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session
Theme
KEYWORDS
Religious Art, Religious Populist Entrepreneurs, Religious Representations, Popular Culture, Religious
