CONTRIBUȚII LA ISTORIA FRONTULUI IDEOLOGIC ROMÂNESC. AVATARURI ALE CONCEPTULUI DE “FRONT” AL ISTORICILOR ÎN TIMPUL REGIMULUI COMUNIST (1948-1985)
CONTRIBUTIONS TO THE HISTORY OF THE ROMANIAN IDEOLOGICAL FRONT. AVATARS OF THE “HISTORIANS’ FRONT” CONCEPT DURING THE COMMUNIST REGIME (1948-1985)

Summary/Abstract: To examine the evolutions of Romanian “historians’ front” during Stalinism and Late Socialism in a short study might seem presumptuous, but the following pages do not pretend to offer a full-scale exegesis of the practices of doing and using the discours(es) of history in Communist Romania. Rather, I have chosen to discuss here the metamorphoses of this crucial concept between 1948 and 1985, by analyzing its origins, significance and manners into which it has been actively engaged into the Stalinist and Ceaușescuist broader ideological framework by different social agents. The first part of my study focuses upon the ways into which party propagandists and historians have publicly used the ‘historians’ front’ formula during Stalinist ‘cultural revolution’ and the following years. In the second section of my interpretation I present, by exploiting a wealth of previously inaccessible archival sources, the Romanian Communist Party’s plans and preparations to materialize this Stalinist concept by creating a single Central Institute for National History. I argue that, under Nicolae Ceaușescu, the party has constantly tried to bring the national history-production process under a more firmer political control.

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