“Victimizing Romania” A Fictional History Of German Expansion Toward East Revisited  Cover Image
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“Victimizing Romania” A Fictional History Of German Expansion Toward East Revisited
“Victimizing Romania” A Fictional History Of German Expansion Toward East Revisited

Author(s): Mihai Chioveanu
Subject(s): Jewish studies
Published by: The Goldstein Goren Center for Hebrew Studies

Summary/Abstract: In Eastern Europe, the collapse of communism brought about a beginning of memory and a compensatory glorification of the pre-Communist age. In some cases, and from the narrow perspective of several politically sensitive topics from the national past, subjects on which the Communists were typically as silent as the nationalists, the process started before 1989. During the last two decades, many historians simply followed the previous mainstream and remained attached to the national-communist mythology and paradigm that outlived the regime. This paper is a critical overview of the Romanian historiography concerned with the extremely sensitive, nonetheless of an utmost centrality, issue of the German expansion in Eastern Europe between 1938 and 1944, and the Romanian response to it, a theme for which the historical facts, at least in the traditional sense, though not scarce, are often obliterated and kept at the mercy of ideological conflict and dogma. The aim is to describe and comment on some of the most significant Romanian historical writings on this issue, on several articles and monographs elaborated at different moments and from different ideological perspectives, to underline their content, identify the theoretical backgrounds and genuine ideas of the authors, and critically analyse their message. In addition, I will reconsider from a different perspective the validity of their claims and highlight their interpretative and explanatory gulfs. This kind of approach might help us understand why even some western scholars, though familiar with Romanian history, in the attempt to avoid the logic of the nativists, the ideological frame, and the proposed ready-made images, while confronting the influent and persuasive Romanian second literature, fall into the trap, and accept the canon, perspectives and explanations provided by Romanian historiography.

  • Issue Year: 2007
  • Issue No: 7
  • Page Range: 123-141
  • Page Count: 19
  • Language: English