ABSTRACT

Photographers were part of the staff in many socialist enterprises in Romania, in the 1970s and 1980s, but few direct testimonies and photo archives are available today for research. In this paper I wish to present a few aspects about photographers’ activities within enterprises, the kind of photography that was produced in the socialist enterprise, and its purpose within the historical context, starting from an interview with former enterprise photographer Niculae Bota and the visual material he provided.

Introduction

In the 1990s, many press and company photo archives in Romania were abandoned, destroyed, or sold, being seen as less important documentary sources. Today, there are several research projects that emphasize the importance of these archives for various fields of research. One of the first projects drawing attention to press photography in the 1960s-1990s, including enterprise photography, is the one carried out by the Minerva Association^[1] in Cluj Napoca, which recovered the photo archives (discovered in 2010) of the two newspapers Făclia and Igazság.

Recently, the type of photography done in socialist enterprises has been discussed in a research project carried out in Iași, after the discovery and digitization of the photo archive of the former furniture factory of the Woodwork Enterprise (Întreprinderea de Prelucrare a Lemnului) in Iași. “The primary role of photography within this archive was to document the factory’s activity and production process, but also to present the pieces of furniture for commercial purposes (…) to record accidents and to show correct and incorrect work procedures.”^[2]

Also in Iași, a different research project^[3] showcased the photographic activity of Ioan-Matei Agapi, a documentary photographer who was also employed (1965-1968, m.n.) as a photographer at the Construction and Assembly Enterprise (Întreprinderea Construcții Montaj), Iași. https://ioanagapi.com/archives/.

Within the projects I have mentioned there are no direct testimonies of the photographers who worked in the enterprises, only the result of their labor.

A few years ago, in Sibiu, I met Niculae Bota, an enterprise photographer, whose story I had the chance to hear in the winter of 2021 at Cisnădie, illustrated with a series of photographs and personal documents from his private collection. Niculae Bota was a photographer in the 1970s and 1980s, employed by the Mârșa Mechanical Enterprise (Întreprinderea Mecanică Mârșa) in Sibiu County, Romania.

Brief context

Photography in cultural centers, enterprise clubs, tourist clubs, and schools

Photography in Romania took off in the 1970s, when multiple amateur clubs (called photo-clubs) were founded throughout the country.

In 1976 the idea of initiating mass art activities was first officially brought up at the Congress for Political Education and Socialist Culture, and it was to be fostered by developing art circles and organizing a national festival-competition, as a form of popular cultural enrollment, called “Cântarea României.”^[4] Photography was part of it, starting with the 1979-1981 edition.^[5] In 1982, there were 69 photo-clubs affiliated with the Association of Photography Artists in Romania, and their number would continue to grow till the late ’80s.^[6]

Photography styles in the communist period

In 1972, there was a phenomenon of enlisting photography, using it in to meet national political cultural needs, by promoting engaged photo reporting. Later, in 1976, photography became a mass cultural activity. In the 1970s, besides photo salons, a series of popular contests were organized, directed at amateur photographers, transforming photography into a mass activity.

“In Romania, the period of cultural liberalization ends with Nicolae Ceauşescu’s delivery of the ‘17 theses’ in July 1971.”^[7]

In the mid-1970s, two aesthetic trajectories appeared: artistic photography, edited in the lab, which was politically uninvolved, and communist propaganda photography, or the “pseudo-reportage.” In the 1980s, outside the official space, a new generation of artists emerged, the eighties generation. It was a small group of visual artists,^[8] such as Iosif Kiraly in Timișoara and the members of Atelier 35 in Oradea, who used experimental photographic styles that were ideologically uninvolved.

Enterprise photography

In the 1970s, photography became one of the instruments for “culturing the new man” in an enterprise. Others were cultural, artistic, and sport activities. Through the practice of displaying photos from companies or portraits of lead workers on the “wall newspaper,” enterprise photography became, in the communist period, the prime manifestation of the system’s visual propaganda.^[9] Photos were also used for the practical purposes of documenting activities, work accidents, or for commercial purposes, to promote products. Additionally, photos were used in socialist enterprises to combat and discipline absenteeism, which had been an issue since the 1950s.^[10]

The Mârșa Mechanical Enterprise

In Mârșa, Sibiu County, in 1939, a weapons factory was founded that produced grenades and warheads. In 1961, the factory was repurposed to produce tippers and trailers. In 1980, the enterprise produced heavyweight tippers (up to 120 tons) – DAC electric diesel tippers for mining sites –, drills and hydraulic equipment, and armored vehicles and tanks. After 1990, the factory was split into two, the Mârșa Mechanical Factory (Uzina Mecanică Mârșa), producing military vehicles, and Mecanica Mârșa SA, producing vehicles and trailers. Both enterprises were privatized in the 2000s.^[11]

Niculae Bota, from Franc to Flash – the path to enterprise photography in the 1970s

From Bucharest to Sibiu

Niculae Bota was born in Bucharest in 1949, at Polizu, on 3 May, around lunch time. At the age of 4, he left with his parents for Ișalnița and never came back, as he himself confesses.^[12] His teacher, Mr. Cornea, would turn him from a veritable lefty to a “semi-righty.” He went to the electrician school in Lupeni. At a youth cineclub at the Jiu Valley mines, city of Vulcan, “he took over the photo lab and learned the ABCs of photography.”

Niculae then left and remained in Sibiu, where he still lives today, feeling like “a man of the place.” He went to a technical school for film operators, which took one year, at the Sibiu Cultural Youth House, a school that he finished top of his class, in 1975, in Professor Aurel Plăiaș’s class. The school was not easy. Of the 15 students admitted, 6 graduated, the photographer recalls. He stayed behind to work at the Cultural House in his free time, having been offered work as an electrician at the Arsenal (the Artillery Arsenal Enterprise / Întreprinderea Arsenalul Artileriei, Sibiu, renamed Uzina Automecanica Sibiu in 1964, m.n.). People at the school nicknamed him “Franc,” because “he was a candid person who didn’t hide anything.”

At the Sibiu Cultural House, he was discovered by a secretary of the Union of Communist Youth who required the services of a photographer in an enterprise. So it came that Niculae Bota, operator and photographer in his free time, began to work “independently – photographs commissioned by the party, propaganda photos.” He was commissioned by the party to photograph “people who slacked off at the I.P.A.S. factory (Întreprinderea de Piese Auto Sibiu / the Car Part Enterprise Sibiu, m.n.).” He went around the factory with his flash camera and would photograph, for instance, “a woman, a storekeeper, who was knitting, a man who was sleeping on a bench during working hours.” His photos were displayed by the party in the overgrown park within the I.P.A.S. complex. Two weeks after the “photo exhibition,” there were no more weeds in the park. Everyone came to see the “wall newspaper.”

From Sibiu to Mârșa

After almost one year as a photographer at the I.P.A.S., his commissioner, Ilarie Munteanu, was appointed director of the Mârșa Mechanical Enterprise, becoming the youngest company director in the country at the time. Mârșa was a small commune (initially referred to as a colony, m.n.) located 30 km from Sibiu. Bota was invited by the enterprise’s new director to come and work there as a photographer.

Initially, he was assigned as an electrician, then as head technician. His biggest salary was 2,891 lei a month, the equivalent of 240 German Marks at the time. He was also offered a position as a photographer, but the pay was much lower, being classified under laborer, probably earning only 1,600 lei, according to Bota.

At Mârșa, he continued the work he began in Sibiu. He was an enterprise photographer from 1975 to 1987. The director, engineer Ilarie Munteanu, was summoned to Bucharest in the 1980s to work at the Ministry of the Car Manufacturing Industry (Ministerul Industriei Construcțiilor de Mașini), appointed general director and, later, deputy minister. This time, the enterprise photographer stayed in Mârșa. Shortly afterwards, in 1985, Ilarie Munteanu died under suspicious circumstances, at the age of 45. The rumor was that he had been shot at the order of Elena Ceaușescu. Niculae Bota filmed the funeral, but never saw the recording. After these events, which marked his entire life, he remained at the enterprise until 1988, but in 1987 he was demoted to workshop worker (his professional position was influenced by the passing of Ilarie Munteanu, m.n.). Then he took the enterprise to court in 1988, when he also quit. “In the county there was no position open to me: no work for comrade Bota. They sent me to Valea Jiului.” At the end of 1989 he began working as a rolling machine operator at an agricultural cooperative, but he received no pay, as there was no raw material available. In the summer of 1989 he quit the Romanian Communist Party.