Papers by Claudia-Florentina Dobre
Balkanistic Forum, vol. 2, ‘Ambivalent Legacies’, pp. 120-142, 2024
After Nicolae Ceaușescu's execution on December 25, 1989, Romania faced an important issue to dea... more After Nicolae Ceaușescu's execution on December 25, 1989, Romania faced an important issue to deal with: What was to be done with the 44 years of a quasitotalitarian system, based on continuous political violence?! How should Romanians relate to it? What was to be remembered and what was to be forgotten? How it should be passed on to the next generations, those who were born before, around or after the fall of the regime? The answer to these questions has varied over the 35 years since the fall of the communist regime in Romania. Numerous factors contributed to the way in which Romanians related to their communist past, how it was represented in the public space, how it was and is passed on. The actors involved have also changed and the official public memory has known many avatars. In the subsequent pages, I propose an analysis of all these aspects, resulting from my research of the last 21 years on the memory of Communism.
4.www.kunsttexte.de, 2024
My article deals with several case studies from Bulgaria and Romania in order to pinpoint two dif... more My article deals with several case studies from Bulgaria and Romania in order to pinpoint two different approaches towards these monuments. I argue that these two ways of dealing with the Soviet memorials have been fashioned not only by historical memory and political heritage, but also by civic actions and a new perspective on public space. Furthermore, in the aftermath of the Russian 2022 invasion of Ukraine, these monuments became the main catalysts for the feelings and opinions of the people in both countries towards the war and its participants.
Revista Arhivelor, nr. 2, pp. 36-46. , 2010
En 2003, j'avais commencé une recherche sur la mémoire des persécutions politiques communistes en... more En 2003, j'avais commencé une recherche sur la mémoire des persécutions politiques communistes en Roumanie postcommuniste. L'absence d'un discours au féminin sur la répression m'a frappé toute de suite. J'ai décidé alors d'entamer une enquête d'histoire orale auprès des anciennes détenues politiques roumaines. Familiarisée déjà avec la méthode biographique grâce à ma participation dans un projet d'histoire orale, Vivre ensemble. La mémoire dans les sociétés posttotalitaires 2 , je me suis investie à fond dans l'enquête. Écouter quelqu'un/une qui raconte sa vie bouleversée par une expérience traumatisante permet de mieux comprendre l'impact que cette expérience a eu sur le parcours de sa vie. Les soupirs, les silences, la liberté d'expression, l'absence des contraintes imposées par l'écriture, s'avèrent significatifs pour la compréhension des témoignages. De surcroît, en utilisant les récits de vie on peut mieux saisir le fonctionnement de la mémoire, le rôle de l'oubli et les manières de mise en discours de celles-ci pour construire une identité personnelle. Cet article se propose de rendre compte des étapes et de la méthodologie de recherche. Il met en évidence les difficultés et les réussites d'une enquête d'histoire orale. Qui plus est, j'y réfléchis sur l'utilité d'une telle enquête pour la compréhension de la mémoire individuelle, mais également collective des anciennes persécutées politiques roumaines.
22.Cosmin Budeancă, Dalia Báthory (ed.), Histories (Un)Spoken. Strategies of Survival and Social-Professional Integration in Political Prisoners’ Families in Communist Central and Eastern Europe in the ’50s and ’60s, Lit Verlag, Berlin - Münster - Wien – Zürich – London: 262-280., 2018
Daily life in the second circle of suffering, although less violent and tragic than the life in t... more Daily life in the second circle of suffering, although less violent and tragic than the life in the first circle, i.e. prisons and labour camps, was just as tormenting, marked by uncertainty, fear and anxiety. For those who had to live through it, this life was a sort of purgatory, and the only ways out were personal exile or the fall of the regime. Our study emphasizes the means used by authorities to destroy the old, 'bourgeois' world and create a new man, whose capacity for agency was significantly curtailed through terror, lack of basic necessities and indoctrination. On the other hand, it demonstrates what Michel de Certeau stated, namely that despite all the constraints imposed by authorities, 'complete colonisation of daily life by the system' remains practically impossible.
29.Cosmin Budeancă, Florentin Olteanu (ed.), Identităţi sociale, culturale, etnice şi religioase în comunism , Polirom, Iasi: 155-167., 2016
Studiul nostru îşi propune să investigheze identitatea socială şi de gen a fostelor deŃinute poli... more Studiul nostru îşi propune să investigheze identitatea socială şi de gen a fostelor deŃinute politic din România comunistă. Pornind de la ipoteza că aceste doamne sunt "beneficiarele" unor identităŃi diferite de modelul oficial, încercăm să înŃelegem care au fost alternativele "oferite", dar şi "inventate" de acestea, atât în perioada comunistă cât şi în postcomunism.
Performing the Past: Post-Communist Poland and Romania, Poznan, Instytut Historii UAM, pp. 27-53., 2014
This article deals with a case study of the process of building a collective memory of communism ... more This article deals with a case study of the process of building a collective memory of communism and examines the role that a museum can play in promoting a representation of Romanian communism as an illegitimate and criminal regime. It will be argued that the Memorial to the Victims of Communism and to the Anticommunist Resistance of Sighetul Marmaţiei attempt to create a historical memory of communism as a top-down enterprise. Furthermore, it will be hypothesized that the creators of this museum play an important role in the way communism is “museumized” there and that this type of museum blurs the boundary between museum and memorial. Thus, this article explores a series of key questions, such as: What “vision” of communism is “museumized” at “Sighet Memorial”? Is it a marginal or a consensual perspective? Can we speak about a museum transformed/or about to be transformed into a Memorial?
Destine individuale și colective în comunism, 2013
et femmes ont décidé de lutter contre le régime qui se mettait en place à la fin des années '40 d... more et femmes ont décidé de lutter contre le régime qui se mettait en place à la fin des années '40 du siècle passé. L'anticommunisme devient un idéal de vie pour eux, un idéal brutalement détruit par les autorités.
Insceniyacje Pamieci (Staging memory/Mettre en scène la mémoire, 2007
Le musée de Sighetul Marmaţiei , qui constitue, avec le Centre International des Études sur le Co... more Le musée de Sighetul Marmaţiei , qui constitue, avec le Centre International des Études sur le Communisme, le Mémorial des Victimes du Communisme et de la Résistance rangé, en 1998, par le Conseil de l'Europe parmi les «hauts lieux de conservation de la mémoire de l'Europe», se situe au nord de la Roumanie près de la frontière avec l'Ukraine. Il s'agit d'une ancienne prison, l'un des principaux sites de la terreur communiste, la tombe des élites politiques du pays de l'entre-deux-guerres, transformée en un musée dédié aux victimes des persécutions politiques. Je me pencherai ici sur la mise en scène de la mémoire au musée de Sighet. Ma proposition est que celle-ci est conçue pour illustrer une vision du communisme, à savoir qu'il était un régime étranger à la nation roumaine, imposé par l'URSS grâce à la trahison de «Grands Pouvoirs» à la fin de la Deuxième Guerre Mondiale. Cette représentation, élaborée par les intellectuels de droite, pose le peuple en victime du régime auquel il voudrait rendre justice par le biais de la mémoire.
“Looking for Specificity: The Anticommunist Resistance as an Element of a New Romanian Identity”, 2006
Situated in a frontier region, in a space that belongs at the same time to Central Europe, to Eas... more Situated in a frontier region, in a space that belongs at the same time to Central Europe, to Eastern Europe and to the Balkan area 1 , but deeply wanting to become part of European Union, Romania has to built a new economic, social, political and cultural environment but equally to redefine its national identity 2. The long transition from communism to a democratic regime inspired by the Western European model was the beginning of a questioning period on the Romanian identity. The red dictatorship left a complicated legacy to Romania: not only a quasi-disastrous economical environment but also a very "sensitive" national identity. Constructed throughout the last two centuries but getting its final shape during the nationalistic communism, the Romanian identity made difficult not only the relationships with its own minorities but also the economic transition (one could here in 1990 slogans like "We do not sell our country"). A short outline on the building process of the nation state will clarify our point of view.
Martor, 2012
The everyday life in a communist prison was characterized by terror, repression, harsh living con... more The everyday life in a communist prison was characterized by terror, repression, harsh living conditions. Nevertheless, women, former political detainees, struggled to overcome all the difficulties in order to survive and to tell their story. This is the story of their faith in their victory over unfortunate and unpredictable historical events.
Les Cahiers du CARDOC, 2009
En 1979, le Parlement issu des premières élections européennes au suffrage universel direct a app... more En 1979, le Parlement issu des premières élections européennes au suffrage universel direct a apporté un changement important en ce qui concerne la représentation des femmes dans l'agora. 66 femmes ont ainsi trouvé leur place dans le premier parlement international de l'histoire européenne. Leur nombre ne va pas cesser de croître d'une législature à l'autre! Cette augmentation a été un phénomène constant avec deux pics en 1979 et 1994 pour arriver en 2007 à plus de 31%, suite à la cinquième vague d'adhésion à l'Union européenne.
Conserveries mémorielles, 2006
Mon étude porte sur la création d’une héroïne féminine par les médias et sur sa place dans la mém... more Mon étude porte sur la création d’une héroïne féminine par les médias et sur sa place dans la mémoire collective des Roumains d’aujourd’hui. Cette femme, une paysanne montagnarde, fut présentée dans les médias, premièrement comme victime du régime communiste roumain. Ensuite elle fut glorifiée en tant que témoin d’une expérience extrême pour devenir le symbole de la résistance anticommuniste et un possible lieu de mémoire pour les Roumains.
Analele Universităţii Bucureşti. Istorie, 2004
" L'étude ci-dessous porte sur la mise en discours de la mémoire des expériences extrêmes, en se ... more " L'étude ci-dessous porte sur la mise en discours de la mémoire des expériences extrêmes, en se penchant sur le témoignage des rescapés de camps d'extermination nazis, du Goulag soviétique et des prisons communistes roumaines. Elle se veut une analyse comparative des témoignages en essayant d'établir leur rôle et leurs fonctions surtout de la perspective du témoin, sans, néanmoins, se désintéresser de la perspective du chercheur en sciences sociales.
Balkanistic Forum
Communism everywhere it settled aimed to create a new society and the ‘new man’ in the shortest p... more Communism everywhere it settled aimed to create a new society and the ‘new man’ in the shortest possible time. In order to put into practice such social engineering, it was necessary that those social categories refractory to change to be annihilated. There-fore, the former politicians, the landlords, the wealthy peasants (the kulak), the bour-geois, the intellectuals, the artists were methodically and constantly repressed. Laws, institutions and people were summoned to effect change through repressive methods. The beginning of the process of building the communist society created many ‘enemies of the people’, as the communists described them, victims of the class struggle, but also of their own ideals. Belief in the ‘Arrival of the Americans’, and in the short duration of Communism led them directly to prisons, hard labor and deportation camps. Many perished, but most escaped and returned to the society that was reconfiguring itself on new bases and with new values. The fall of com...
Balkanistic Forum, 2023
In Romania, a hero was always considered to be a historical or cultural figure who fought for the... more In Romania, a hero was always considered to be a historical or cultural figure who fought for the union of all Romanians, for the preservation and transmission of the Romanian language, as well as for the Romanian traditions and values. A person who defied the state (considered as a national asset, Barbu (2004, p. 106)) and cherished values such as freedom, solidarity, communality was perceived as a negative charac-ter. However, the fall of communism in 1989 changed this perception and brought along a new perspective on this category of people. The anticommunist fighters, most of them former political detainees, were/are depicted as a new type of heroes, animat-ed by ideals and values which characterized the West to which Romanians wanted to adhere. My paper investigates this new category of heroes and its main symbols. It discusses the importance of the national myths and the cult of dead in the heroization process.
MemoScapes. Romanian Journal of Memory and Identity Studies, 2020
In June 1951, about 44 000 people were deported from the Banat-Oltenia region to the Bărăgan plai... more In June 1951, about 44 000 people were deported from the Banat-Oltenia region to the Bărăgan plain. Transported in cattle wagons in which people were crammed together with animals and goods, they crossed Romania from the southwest to the southeast , where habitation perimeters had already been established, most of them out in the fields. After disembarking from the trains, the "suspended citizens" of communist Romania were forced to build houses for themselves, as well as schools, the village hall, the police station, clinics, general stores and so on. During the summer and autumn of 1951, all these houses and administrative buildings sprang up from among the thistles of the Bărăgan. Eighteen villages would appear on the map of Romania in just a few months. The everyday life of the deportees was orchestrated by the authorities through work, education and leisure and through intrusion in their family life. Under constant surveillance, people submitted themselves to the demands and executed the chores established by the regime. However, from the very beginning they struggled to preserve their agency. This article, based on the memories of former deportees, underlines their capacity to resist repression, to overcome the social constraints and to create social groups parallel to the official ones.
MemoScapes. Romanian Journal of Memory and Identity Studies, 2019
Memory and Change in Europe, 2014
Immediately after the fall of the Iron Curtain, 'memory' became the key notion for approaching th... more Immediately after the fall of the Iron Curtain, 'memory' became the key notion for approaching the communist past. The 'rediscovered memory' of East Europe (Brossat et al.1990) became the subject of numerous articles and books. Scholars analysed the collective/individual/national/historical memory of communism from different angles: nostalgia versus amnesia
Studii şi materiale de istorie contemporană (SMIC), 2020
Cette étude porte sur trois monuments communistes et postcommunistes qui habitent au propre et au... more Cette étude porte sur trois monuments communistes et postcommunistes qui habitent au propre et au figuré l’espace public[ J’utilise ici le terme espace public dans le sens d’espace accessible à tous et non pas dans le sens d’un espace qui contribue à la formation de l’opinion publique. ] de Sofia : le mausolée de Guéorgui Dimitrov, le monument à l’honneur de l’Armée soviétique et le Monument à l’honneur « des victimes du communisme ». Elle se penche sur le sens, les significations et les conséquences des gestes d’exorcisation et/ou de réappropriation du passé récent de la Bulgarie.
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Papers by Claudia-Florentina Dobre