Collective memory and national identity in Romania: Representations of the communist past in Romanian news media and Romanian politics (1990 - 2009)

Abstract

My dissertation situates at the intersection of communication studies and political sciences under the umbrella of the interdisciplinary field of collective memory. Precisely, it focuses on the use of the communist past by political actors to gain power and legitimacy, and on the interplay between news media and politics in shaping a national identity in post-communist Romania. My research includes the analysis of the media representations of two categories of events: the anniversaries of the Romanian Revolution and the political campaigns for presidential/parliamentary elections. On the one hand, the public understanding of the break with communism plays an important role in how the post-communist society is defined. The revolution as a schism between the communist regime and a newborn society acts like a prism through which Romanians understand their communist past, but also the developments the country has taken after it. On the other hand, political communication is operating on the public imaginary of the past, the present and the future. The analysis of the political discourses unfolded in the news media shows how the collective memory of the communist past is used to serve political interests in the discursive struggle for power and legitimacy. Such an investigation allows for a deeper understanding of the identity formation in transitional societies in Eastern Europe. The historical discourse analysis of 5378 texts, selected from four national Romanian newspapers during the first two decades of post-communism (1990 - 2009), shows how the emergent corrupted political class which replaced the communist nomenclature shaped the understanding of communism that would characterize all members of the Romanian society as victims, thus impeding an effective investigation of personal and collective guilt. It also shows that the lack of clarity regarding the Romanian Revolution (as the starting point of a new society) contributed to a crisis of legitimacy in post-communist Romania so that the Romanians neither could forget the past, nor resolved its problems twenty years after the fall of communism.