30 Years after the Fall: Narratives on the Communist Past in Postcommunist Romania. A Brief Overview
30 Years after the Fall: Narratives on the Communist Past in Postcommunist Romania. A Brief Overview

Summary/Abstract: Stricken with anomie, lacking any civic abilities and experience, but also transformed into a spectator by the two camps (neo-communists/anti-communists) struggling for controlling the different fields of power (les champs du pouvoir, in the sense of Bourdieu), after the fall of Ceausescu, the Romanian society was not capable to produce coherent debates on communism. 30 years after the fall of Ceausescu, nuances of interpretations, although much needed, are scarce and do not find their place in the public space. Communism was demonized and eventually rejected by all actors of the public space. Its symbols like statues and memorials were destroyed and/or reused and reinterpreted to fit the new anti-communist paradigm. Conversely, anticommunist endeavours were put on display and heavily promoted through mass-media. The official anticommunist memory as well as the various grades of nostalgia define the remembrance of communism in Romania.

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