Silencing the archive – a methodological insight into the research for the study “A day in the life of an inspector for religious denomination”
Silencing the archive – a methodological insight into the research for the study “A day in the life of an inspector for religious denomination”

Summary/Abstract: The politics of remembrance in present day Romania and the lingering communist behaviour make a strong argument for the hide behind documents of fellow researchers. Writing contemporary history is a complicate undertaking. The researchers have to distance themselves from a past that they had first-hand experience of. Their position towards the research subject has to account themselves and the inner reflection about the subject and thus is complicated by what the researcher knows or thinks he/ she knows what they remember or think they remember. This article describes a personal escape from the perils of archival research in post-communist Romania, how one surpasses the silence of the document, the problematic authorship, the lack of access in various archives or the multitude of archival material that was left unprocessed.

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