Digitalised Gendered Memories of Romanian Socialism: Intergenerational Trauma, Healing, and Nostalgia
Digitalised Gendered Memories of Romanian Socialism: Intergenerational Trauma, Healing, and Nostalgia

Summary/Abstract: The article examines current competing memories and gendered narratives of the state-socialist draconian pro-natalist policies in Romania in the current context of increasingly restricted reproductive rights. The focus of this analysis is the digital project Jurnalul Decretului (The Journal of the Decree) undertaken by a group of investigative journalists from 2019 to 2021. I distinguish two patterns of remembering, which illustrate two competing views regarding women’s reproductive rights. First, through women’s recollections on digital platforms of previously silenced memories of illegal abortions and their dire consequences for their families, such as imprisonment, physical ailments, and sometimes death, victims, their families, and activists promote women’s legal right to abortion. The second illustrates how these traumatic memories are challenged and weaponised by increasingly influential religious and conservative groups, which promote far-right, anti-globalist, and anti-genderist ideologies. The analysis concludes that while the first mnemonic trend could provide some grounds for considering the transformative potential of memory-making for women’s rights, the latter generated some serious scepticism about the possibility that the former may prevail.

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