Remembering Communism in Post-Communist Romania: Memorial Regimes and Individual Recollections
Remembering Communism in Post-Communist Romania: Memorial Regimes and Individual Recollections

Summary/Abstract: 27 years after the fall of communism in Romania, the public representations of the regime are still mythologically distorted! Nuances of interpretations, although much needed, are scarce and marginalized by the two dominant public narratives which depict communism either as a ‘good idea badly applied’ or as an „illegitimate, criminal regime“.This article provides these nuances by means of studying different approaches and levels of communist remembrance. It allows us to go beyond the two historiographical paradigms circumscribing the memory of Communism: that of victimisation by denouncing the regime’s crimes and abuses, and that of general culpability, suggesting that all Romanians are responsible for the existence and endurance of Communism.My aims is twofold: on the one hand to show how memorial regimes are instrumental in forging a cultural memory of communism in Romania, and, on the other, to understand how people (former detainees, deportees and ordinary people) relate to their communist past and experiences. The article emphasizes the importance of the official memorial discourse in shaping personal narratives on communism.

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