Cristina Bucur, The weight of historical patterns,collective memory and historical legacies over the evolution of the Romanian democratization process Cover Image
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Cristina Bucur, The weight of historical patterns,collective memory and historical legacies over the evolution of the Romanian democratization process
Cristina Bucur, The weight of historical patterns,collective memory and historical legacies over the evolution of the Romanian democratization process

Author(s): Cezar Stanciu
Subject(s): History
Published by: Editura Cetatea de Scaun
Keywords: democratization; Romania; patterns; collective memory

Summary/Abstract: REVIEW. The subject approached by author Cristina Bucur is as fascinating, as it is anfractuous. The overthrow of the Communist regime in Romania in December 1989 had raised a countless number of questions regarding the existence or non-existence of democratic traditions in Romania, about the anti-Communist or anti-Ceausist character of the December 89 events. Especially historians had indulged in apologetic assessments of the interwar period, as the flow of scientific and memorialistic literature about the establishment of Communism grew stronger. Descriptions of Soviet abuses, of the Romanian gulag and the inhumane experiences it hosted made the interwar period seem to the public opinion as a “Golden Age” of democracy and prosperity. The intense Communist critique of the interwar “bourgeois” political system from Marxist-Leninist positions, for so many decades, made it look “unfashionable” to speak about the inherent weaknesses of the political regime in Romania. There were also radical voices that strongly condemned every past evolution, either hoping to start all over again or to just leave everything behind, abandoning all hopes in a process of democratic construction in Romania. There were, nonetheless, authors who – starting from profound scientific insight – tried to find explanations for the present evolutions and for the difficulties encountered in democratization, like Tom Gallagher or Florin Abraham. Cristina Bucur’s work comes as an analytic extension of such preoccupations, focusing mainly on historical patterns.

  • Issue Year: 2008
  • Issue No: 09
  • Page Range: 127-130
  • Page Count: 4
  • Language: English