The Traumascapes of Bărăgan and Siberia: Identity, Place Attachment and Resilience in the Deportees’ Life Stories
The Traumascapes of Bărăgan and Siberia: Identity, Place Attachment and Resilience in the Deportees’ Life Stories

Summary/Abstract: In this article, we examine the relationship between traumatic memory, identity and place attachment through two case studies of deportation: from North Bukovina to the Soviet Union (in 1941) and from Banat and Western Oltenia to Bărăgan region of Romania (in 1951). Starting in the 1990s and continuing to present, the cultural trauma of deportation has been constructed discursively by the former deportees themselves, as well as by social groups such as Asociația Foștilor Deținuți Politici din România (AFDPR) [Association of Former Political Prisoners from Romania] and Asociația Deportaților din Bărăgan, Timișoara [Association of Deportees from Bărăgan in Timișoara], and researchers dealing with this problematic. This cultural trauma construction draws on the collective memory of a shared painful past. Trauma is an essential dimension of the identity formation in the case of former deportees seen as a community who shares it. Their collective identity is built on trauma discourse; confessing negative affect that burdens them. In this study, we explore Romanian deportees’ experiences in space and related emotions within the system of communist oppression, both in Romania and the Soviet Union. Our research proposes a cultural perspective on memory and identity, and on individuals’ attachment to places and resilience during traumatic experiences of their lives, such as deportation.

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