ARGUMENTUM
DANIEL BARBU,
Spiritul împotriva politicii. Despre intelectuali, Biserică şi integrare europeană (The Spiritual Against the Political. On Intellectuals, the Church, and European Integration)(pp. 9-24)
Abstract The
paper provides the ideal-typical narrative of European integration
manufactured by Romanian intellectuals and the official national Church
(Greek-orthodox), that could be summarized as follows: in the realm of
the spirit, Europe would have survived mainly in the East, shepherded by
such intellectuals as the Romanian ones and by the spiritual legacy of
the Orthodox Church; in political and economic terms, European Union is
monitored according to secularist and relativist guidelines by the
bureaucracy in Brussels. Whatever the latter, together with their
Romanian counterparts, may have realized in the course of European
enlargement is of little concern for the former. Both the Church and the
mainstream intellectuals are engaged now in an operation that should
have defined them long before the fall of state socialism: to boost
intellectual non-conformity with respect to the political dominant
discourse as a way of refusing the debate by taking it seriously. And
they do it by means of the same narrative device that kept them silent
under communism: they tell the story of the prevalence of culture and
the spiritual over everything political.
Keywords European spirit, European integration, intellectuals, Church, post-secularism
ARTICULI
ALEXANDRA IONAŞCU, Les élites politiques en Roumanie postcommuniste 1990-2008. Les voies d’accès au pouvoir exécutif (Political Elites in Post-communist Romania 1990-2008: Pathways to the Executive Power) (pp. 27-50)
Abstract The
political regime change that occurred in Romania, along with the
dismissal of communism, elicited a process of emergence of new political
elites and of new patterns in the functioning of the country’s
political institutions. But new political elites do not emerge ex nihilo
and institutional changes are slower in practice than the ambition of
change. Given the extensive absence of decision-making or technical
expertise among the political actors, the new parties in government
conducted a policy of cooption of personnel instituting new patterns of
selection. The paper will emphasize the fact that, in the Romanian case,
the process of professionalization of governmental personnel took the
form of a long process, and that the protocols of the reconfiguration
implied divergent strategies in what concerns the governments’ ministers
and the secretaries of state. It will be shown that although the
ministerial careers suggest the institutionalization of recruitment
procedures similar to other European parliamentary democracies, the
junior ministers’ level remained dominated by forms of cooption from
outside the political realm.
Keywords Governmental elites, political recruitment, professionalisation, nomenklatura, postcommunism
ION ENACHE, Independents in the Local Politics of Post-Communist Romania (pp. 51-104)
Abstract Aiming
at filling a gap in the existing literature, this paper advances the
analysis of available alternatives to party representation, namely
independent candidatures. For that reason, we consider the context of
Eastern Europe, and particularly the last decade when a considerable
number of independent candidatures have been advanced. Particularly, the
Romanian political system provides one viable example for the
examination of independent candidacies, with numerous independents
running in the national and local elections which were held after 1989.
Therefore, the focal objectives of this text are to identify the
peculiarities of this particular breed of politicians, what stimulates
them to run independently in elections, and also why certain parts of
the electorate choose to vote for independent candidates.
KeywordsIndependent politicians, post-communist elections, local-level politics, party systems, Romanian politics
DRAGOŞ DRAGOMAN, Ethnic Groups in Symbolic Conflict. The ”Ethnicisation” of Public Space in Romania (pp. 105-121)
Abstract Although
Romanian-Hungarian ethnic relations have been improved during the last
two decades, they are still marked by recurrent crises that are rather
symbolic. They range from the public use of Hungarian to the
requirements for the Romanian citizenship and the special ties between
the Hungarian diaspora and the kin state, but they encompass other
issues, as the naming of localities in Transylvania, statues evoking
national heroes and street names. Although generally overlooked, ethnic
symbolism is a major obstacle in generating a neutral public space and a
threat for a complete ethnic reconciliation in Transylvania for the
decades to come.
Keywords Ethnic conflict, symbolic power, public space, post-communism, Transylvania, Romania
SONIA
CATRINA, L’imaginaire paysan comme «mémoire historique». Patrimoine et
construction de l’identité nationale par le biais des musées centraux
(Peasant Imaginary as ”Historical Memory”. Patrimony and National
Identity Construction through the Central Museums)(pp. 123-136)
Abstract In
this paper, we analyze the relation between the museum and the notion
of identity through a study of patrimonial logics which aim at forging
an official collective memory. We rely on a study of the mediation
function of central museums in building a national identity through an
endeavor to shape a ”nation-memory” (”mémoire-nation”, Pierre Nora)
which draws on peasant sources. The stake of this study lies in its
ability to bring to light institutional forms of patrimony in the era of
nationalist ideologies, of the formation and consolidation of the
nation state. In which ways is the relationship between patrimony and
national identity embodied in the scientific patrimonial projects of the
museums? In trying to answer this question, we set out to explore how
the patrimony is exploited in order to foster political projects.
Addressing the issue of central museums as a kind of ”surface” where the
collective identity is ”scratched” will help us shed lights on the
metamorphoses of a ”localizing memory” (”mémoire localisante”, M.M.
Carruthers) mobilized to build a shared identity.
Keywords Peasant, patrimony, identity, ”historical memory”, Nation-State.
ALEXANDRA ILIE, Holodomor, the Ukrainian Holocaust? (pp. 137-154)
Abstract The
Holocaust and the Great Famine in Ukraine are two man made catastrophes
set in the XXth century. While the first is the most documented
genocide in history, the latter tends to be dismissed by the
international community as an ”ineffective policy” of the Soviet Union.
Having managed to exclude political killings from the UN’s definition of
genocide, Russia continues to deny the Ukrainian people access to
information about the famine that left 6 million people dead of
starvation. Nevertheless, the Ukrainian community insists that Holodomor
was genocide and should be treated as such. By comparing these two
grave tragedies, similarities inevitably surface. These similarities,
along with other facts, like the ”cleansing” of the elites in the years
preceding and during the famine, Stalin’s letter to Kaganovich (in which
Stalin mentions his fear of losing Ukraine), the differential treatment
Ukraine received as opposed to the other Soviet republics, the measures
taken to worsen the famine and confine it to specific areas, paint a
much clearer picture of what really happened in Ukraine during the
Holodomor.
KeywordsGenocide, famine, communism, fascism, mass killings, crimes against humanity
RECENSIONES
IOAN STANOMIR,
Apărarea libertăţii. 1938-1947, Curtea Veche, Bucureşti, 2010 (RADU CARP), pp. 157-159
DAVID
A. BLUMENTHAL, TIMOTHY L.H. McCORMACK (eds),
The Legacy of Nuremberg:
Civilizing Influence or Institutionalized Vengeance?, Martinus Nijhoff
Publishers, Boston, 2008 (CRISTINA MANOLACHE), pp. 159-162
NORMAN M. NAIMARK,
Stalin’s Genocides, Princeton University Press, Princeton, New Jersey, 2010 (ALEXANDRA ILIE), pp. 162-166
BOGDAN
MURGESCU,
România si Europa. Acumularea decalajelor economice, Editura
Polirom, Iaşi, 2010 (DAN-ALEXANDRU CHIŢĂ), pp. 167-171
SERGIU
GHERGHINA, SERGIU MIŞCOIU (eds.),
Partide şi personalităţi populiste în
România postcomunistă, Institutul European, Iaşi, 2010 (CODRIN TĂUT),
pp. 172-174
NICOLETA IONESCU-GURĂ,
Dimensiunea represiunii din
România în regimul comunist. Dislocări de persoane și fixări de
domiciliu obligatoriu, Corint, București, 2010 (MONICA ANDRIESCU), pp.
174-176
GIOVANNI SARTORI,
Ingineria constituţională comparată.
Structuri, stimulente şi rezultate, Romanian transl. by Gabriela
Tănăsescu and Irina Mihaela Stoica, Institutul European, Iaşi, 2008
(DRAGOŞ DRAGOMAN), pp. 177-180
DANIELA PIANA,
Construirea
democrației la frontiera spațiului public european, traducere de Raluca
Popescu, Institutul European, Iași, 2009 (CORINA TURȘIE), pp. 180-183