ASPECTE METODOLOGICE PRIVIND INVESTIGAREA FRICII ÎN ROMÂNIA COMUNISTĂ (1948-1965)
Methodological Aspects Regarding Investigation of Fear in Communist Romania (1948-1965)

Summary/Abstract: The article analyzes the insertion of fear and terror into collective consciousness during the communist rule in Romania, especially between 1948-1965. The police inquiries, prison and deportation fostered fear among inmates and outside population, being perceived as fear releasing zones within the collective psychology. Although the cultural history perspective regarding fear has not been previously applied to this period, the interdisciplinary approach and the historiography upon fear within other historical contexts significantly contributed to the development of our research. Fear becomes an institution during the communist regime, perceived both physically and psychologically by the political deteinees and the population outside prison walls. The physical level of the terror emerges into the psychological level and violently contaminates society, providing long-term consequences that shaped people`s social attitudes. We focused on retrieving the violent insertion of fear and terror, rather using particular aspects than general knowledge, aspects restoring the violent contamination of fear, but also suggesting the complexity and the ambiguity of this feeling. The fear becomes the feeling that gives rise to the story, which is also a cure to fear itself. The inextricable ways in which this feeling is acting out is being reflected by story`s structure, narrative strategies used by the authors, the manner of investing words and facts with meaning etc. – actions reflecting the fear pattern that has been created by the communist regime in Romania. We do also pay great attention to fear images and representations, and to associations used in the mental production of reality.

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