The article evokes the atmosphere of a traditional Romanian village in southern Oltenia, with customs and traditions kept for centuries and inspired by the faith of the Church. By the early 50s of the last century, this village still had an archaic atmosphere, bearing vestiges of the interwar era. By the late 50s, in that part of Oltenia, people`s hopes of deliverance from communism attained mythical dimensions. Their anticommunism attitude was organic and it was to remain so. At Stalin`s death, in March 1953, entire villages were drunk out of joy. People confessed openly their resentment against the new order and the foreign occupier. Those who have joined the new rule were few, subject to disapproval of their own relatives and their "actions" were often proved ridicule. Until 1962, when, after several failed attempts, the village was - among the last - collectivized, people lived there with their old customs and the mystical hope in the fall of communism.

Keywords: Oltenia, the interwar period, communism, Romanian village

DAN CIACHIR