Anticolonial protochronism and self-colonizing postmodernism: rethinking cultural strategies in late Socialist Romania

Abstract This paper proposes a counterintuitive reading of cultural production in late socialist Romania by reframing the ideological struggles of the 1970s and 1980s as part of a broader global dynamic of anticolonial and self-colonizing strategies. Challenging conventional associations of postcolonial critique with postcommunist liberalism, I argue that protochronism and ultranationalism under Ceauşescu can be understood as forms of anticolonial discourse—efforts to resist both Soviet influence and Western cultural imperialism. In contrast, liberal postmodern cosmopolitanism is interpreted as a self-colonizing trajectory, expressing a fascination with Western modernity that paradoxically reinforced dependency on global hegemonic cultures. Drawing on Aleksander Kiossev’s theory of self-colonization, the paper examines how Romanian intellectual movements navigated the tension between cultural exceptionalism and global integration. It further explores the unintended complicity of postmodernism with neoliberal logics, as Western cultural commodities and ideologies were embraced uncritically, undermining the subversive potential of postmodern critique.