Ceterum censeo... Relaţiile arhivistice ruso-române în perioada 1990-2014
Ceterum censeo… The Archival Russian-Romanian Relations from 1990 to 2014

Summary/Abstract: This study uses the considerable documentary evidence recorded in the National Archives of Romania regarding the efforts of Romanian officials during the early 1990’s to reinitiate the institutional collaboration with the Federal Archival Agency of the Russian Federation (ROSARHIV). Premising that no other neighbouring country holds as many Romanian vestiges as the archives, libraries and museums in Russia, my research endeavours gradually unveil the relations established during the past quarter century between the National Archives of Romania and ROSARHIV, placing them in the sinuous context of the political affairs conducted by the two countries. The dialogue between the Romanian and Russian archivists had an auspicious start in the first years of the pro-Soviet regime of the National Salvation Front, in unison with the democratization and openness displayed by the Soviet state/Russian Federation. The impetuous dynamics of the bilateral contacts in 1990-1991 had an impact on the archival field as well. The political connections got increasingly complicated, concurrently with the strengthening of the conservative forces in Moscow and with the aligning of the Romanian strategy to NATO and EU, the result being the archival restriction. Old and sensitive matters have been redisclosed: the nonratification of the Romanian-Soviet Treaty from April 1991, the situation in the Republic of Moldova, the issue of the Romanian treasure evacuated to Moscow, the condemnation of the Ribbentrop-Molotov Pact, archives retrocessions. Linguistic barriers, prejudices, reluctance and fluctuations of the Archives decisional factors obstructed the expected evolution of the relations between the archivists' forums, making necessary the unlocking of the interinstitutional communication, frozen since 2002.

• Details
• Contents