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Rewriting and remembering Romanian communism: some controversial issues

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 November 2018

Monica Ciobanu
Monica Ciobanu*
Affiliation:
Department of Sociology and Criminal Justice, Plattsburgh State University of New York, New York, USA
*
*Email: [email protected]
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Abstract

This article examines the dynamic relationship between the two major dimensions of memory and justice in the context of post-communist countries: truth-telling and retroactive justice. This interdependent and uneasy relationship is illustrated by recent attempts at constructing a new historical narrative of the communist past in Romania in the wake of the de-secretization of the files of both the Communist Party and the communist secret police (Securitate). A systematic analysis of the activity of institutions that have been directly involved in research and public education about the recent past – the National Archives, the National Council for the Study of Securitate's Archives, and the Institute for the Investigation of Crimes of Communism – is undertaken. The work of these three institutional actors shows a direct relationship between truth-telling in its various forms (access to archives, opening the files and exhumations) and any subsequent retroactive justice and restitution. The main argument of the paper is that while deep-seated dichotomies between former communist and anti-communists in addressing the past still persist, a more nuanced way of seeing the regime that explores the ambiguous line that divides outright repression from cooptation is emerging.

Keywords

history of Romanian communismremembering communismretroactive justice
Type
Articles
Information
Nationalities Papers , Volume 39 , Issue 2 , March 2011 , pp. 205 - 221
Copyright
Copyright © 2011 Association for the Study of Nationalities 

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