Civil Society and Post-communist Transitional Justice in Romania

Making and contesting far right sites of memory. A case study on Romania

“…Lastly, I will analyse its contestation, which aims at neutralising the work of the memory entrepreneurs. I choose to focus on Romania, a country in which the demise of the communist regime has engendered a competition between multiple, competing state and private memory entrepreneurs to spatialise a profitable memorialisation of the past in street names, memorials, statues and crosses (Ciobanu, 2014; Stan, 2013; Verdery, 1999: 39–40). Since 1990, several groups of radical continuity and radical return (Shafir, 2010: 213–215), often backed by far right politicians and intellectuals from the late Ceauşescu regime (Shafir, 2007, 2014), have tried to exploit the collective anxieties by proposing vengeful solutions against the communist elites, proposing antisemitic and xenophobic scapegoating visions (Tismăneanu, 1999: 154).…”

“…Undisturbed, the legionaries hijacked, one by one, the discourses developed by the emerging civil society: those on communist crimes, on anti-communist resistance and on dissidence (Stan, 2013). The legionary memory entrepreneurs placed themselves in the service of these communities of remembrance to help them to present a coherent account of those neglected pages of Romanian history (Ciobanu, 2014).…”

“…The making of the site dates back to the early 1990s, once the first sites of memory for commemorating the victims of communism were established. The use of Christian crosses, aimed at symbolising the victims of communism’s death, religiosity and anti-communism, became a common strategy for marking public spaces by private initiatives organised by several groups of the emerging non-state civil society seeking justice (Ciobanu, 2014; Stan, 2013). The legionaries were among them.…”

Representing Mass Violence

“…I sought to interview at least one journalist from each paper, one representative of the Sudan desk at each foreign ministry, and one Darfur expert each from the national sections of the two NGOs. Logistics of interviewing were Europe," held in Minneapolis in March 2015, provided evidence (see, e.g., Cercel 2013;Stan 2013;Nedelsky 2013;Czarnota 2015) 7. See Alexander 2004b:16-17;Osiel 1997.…”