The Negotiated Past: the Memory of the Second World War in Post-Communist Romania
The Negotiated Past: the Memory of the Second World War in Post-Communist Romania

Summary/Abstract: Soon after the collapse of communism in Romania the period of the Second World War became the focus of heated debates with two intertwined issues related to it, namely – the personality of the wartime leader Marshal Ion Antonescu and the topic of the Holocaust. The article traces the emergence and evolution of these debates, while also paying attention to the way in which the European and Euro-Atlantic perspective of the country affected the memory of these particular issues. It comes to the conclusion that the memory of the Second World War was somehow “negotiated” and suited to fit the present-day necessities of post-communist Romania and raises doubts whether the outside pressure on Romania’s revisiting this dark chapter of its history wasn’t in a way counterproductive, leaving the possibility of the existence of two parallel versions of the past – one for internal and one for external use.

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