Quest for a Suitable Past

by Claudia-Florentina Dobre (Editor), Cristian Emilian Ghita (Editor), Lucian Boia (Foreword by)

Overview

The past may be approached from a variety of directions. A myth provides a sense of direction: it reunites people around certain values and projects and pushes them in one direction or another. The present volume brings together a range of case studies of myth making and myth breaking in east Europe from the nineteenth century to the present day. In particular, it focuses on the complex process through which memories are transformed into myths. This problematic interplay between memory and myth-making is analyzed in conjunction with the role of myths in the political and social life of the region. The essays include cases of forging myths about national pre-history, about the endorsement of nation building by means of historiography, and above all, about communist and post-communist mythologies. The studies shed new light on the creation of local and national identities, as well as the legitimization of ideologies through myth-making. Together, the individual contributions show that myths were often instrumental in the vast projects of social and political mobilization during a period which has witnessed, among others, two world wars and the harsh oppression of the communist regimes.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9789633861363
Publisher:	Central European University Press
Publication date:	11/01/2016
Pages:	162
Product dimensions:	6.40(w) x 9.00(h) x 0.60(d)
Age Range:	18 Years

About the Author

Claudia-Florentina Dobre has a doctorate in history from Laval University, Québec (2007). She is currently the director of Centre for Memory and Identity Studies and an associate researcher at the Regional Center of Advanced Studies in Social Sciences (CeReFREA), University of Bucharest. She has published extensively on the memory of Romanian communnism and political persecution, museums, monuments, and memorials, and on everyday life under communism. Cristian Emilian Ghiţă has a PhD in classics and ancient history from the University of Exeter. His interests include Hellenistic studies, Asia Minor, and ancient warfare, Asiatic mythologies, cultural memory. He is the editor-in-chief of MemoScapes: Romanian Journal of Memory and Identity Studies. Lucian Boia is Professor of History at the University of Bucharest,

Table of Contents

Foreword Lucian Boia vi

Introduction Claudia-Florentina Dobre 1

An Obscure Object of Desire: The Myth of Alba Iulia and its Social Functions, 1918-1940 Gábor Egry 11

Croatia between the Myths of the Nation-State and of the Common European Past Neven Budak 29

Deconstructing the Myth of the "Wicked German" in Northern and Western Parts of Poland: Local Approaches to Cultural Heritage Izabela Skórzynska Anna Wachowiak 51

Mythologizing the Biographies of Romanian Underground Communists: The Case Study of Miron Constantinescu Stefan Bosomitu 67

Women in the Communist Party: Debunking a (Post-)Communist Mythology Luciana-Marioara Jinga 85

Avatars of the Social Imaginary: Myths about Romanian Communism after 1989 Claudia-Florentina Dobre 101

Post-Communist Politics of Memory and the New Regime of Historiography: Recent Controversies on the Memory of the "Forty-Five Years of the Communist Yoke" and the "Myth of Batak" Liliana Deyanova 119

The Phenomenon of "Parahistory" in Post-Communist Bulgaria: Old Theories and New Myths on Proto-Bulgarians Alexander Nikolov 135

Note on contributors 149

Index of names 151

Editorial Reviews

—Keith Hitchins

—Lucian Boia

From the Publisher