Within the confines of this text, I will explore the history of the deaf community in Romania during state socialism (1947-1989). The primary reason for focusing on Romania is the scarcity of historical research that delves into the experiences of non-Western deaf communities and the prevalent perceptions of deaf people among the hearing majority in Eastern Europe. The objective of this blog post is thus to discuss previously unexplored sources that provide insights into an understudied minority group. Still, one might ask why a case study on yet another Eastern European country is necessary? An incorporation of lesser-studied cases such as Romania has the potential to challenge the longstanding Cold War narrative of Eastern Europe as a monolithic block and underscores the need for differentiated perspectives. Certainly, in the post-war era, several domains, including disability research, special education, or the state-controlled associations of the deaf and the blind in socialist countries, were initially shaped by Soviet blueprints, fostering commonalities across the socialist world. However, upon closer examination, distinctions emerge that were influenced by local traditions. Romanian psychologists and special educators acknowledged their indebtedness to domestic traditions from the interwar era and combined them with Soviet models (Dinu 2022b). In other socialist countries, such as Czechoslovakia, approaches to disability also merged autochthonous traditions with Soviet influences (Henschel and Shmidt 2019).
Article published January 22, 2024, on the blog website All of Us, published by the Disability History Association.