This podcast was originally published at podcasts.ceu.edu as part of the Sound Relations Project based at Central European University, Budapest, and is done in collaboration with the Blinken Open Society Archives.
What did Nicolae Ceausescu have in common with Romania’s most famous radio DJ, Cornel Chiriac? In Episode 1 of ‘Five Senses of Austerity’ we explore this and how it relates to the invasion of Prague in 1968. This was a period before austerity, the so-called ‘golden age’ of Romanian socialism. And yet, it is a period in which austerity was already slowly creeping in, especially through the politics surrounding ‘Western’ rock music.