The present article aims to offer a synoptic picture of communist Romania's relations with Third World countries during the Ceaușescu regime. Within these relations, economic and geopolitical motivations coexisted along with ideological ones, thus making the topic one of the most interesting and relevant key for understanding RSR's complex and cunning international strategy. However, I intend to prove that mere pragmatism is not enough to comprehend the drive behind Ceaușescu's diplomatic efforts in post-colonial Africa; ideological factors need also to be taken into account.

Our article focuses on an instance of cross-media content convergence in state-socialist cultural economies. We deliver a cultural studies intervention addressing the hybrid nature of the cultural economies of the former Soviet Bloc. We show that this instance of convergence was not the effect of a top-down imposition of a policy of state-socialist power, but rather a bottom-up phenomenon, triggered by artistic and economic interests and more specific to capitalism. These interests respond to consumer demand, competition, and box-office success. We borrow the concept of convergence from the writings of Henry Jenkins. Our case study explores a synergy of content between cinema and rock music in 1970s Romania, generating evidence by means of close readings and exploration of reception and production information. Under scrutiny are the adventure film The Immortals (Sergiu Nicolaescu, Romania, 1975) and the music and public presentation of the Romanian band Phoenix. We argue that the inclusion of Phoenix’s music into the soundtrack of the film is a key testimony to bottom-up convergence, marking a synergy of discourses that independently developed the same story universe. We show that this synergy took place because the two discourses had the potential to boost each other’s artistic and economic performance.

Using Freud and Lacan, this article proposes a psychoanalytic approach to the thrash metal band Slayer. It particularly focuses on the band’s engagement with violence and perversion. The article starts by analysing Slayer in Freudian terms, as a symptom of the discontent existing in western civilization and it advances further to using Lacan, taking into account concepts like expression, conceptualization, repression and signifying chains, among others, in order to reach the conclusion that Slayer’s revolt against present-day society is not so much a revolt as an unconscious expression of its symbolic order.

This short piece represents an evocation of professor Reisz’s generous personality. He was a wonderful and supportive colleague, and he will surely be missed. His professional and moral legacy will nevertheless continue to grow.

Drawing from the latest findings in Romanian archives and also from recent works in Romanian historiography, beside several important international bibliographic resources, this essay is centered around the Sino-Soviet conflict and its immediate aftermath in the communist world from three major perspectives, already announced in the title: development, security and strategy.