Philo-Germanism Without Germans. Memory, Identity, and Otherness in Post-1989 Romania
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Durham E-Theses Philo-Germanism without Germans. Memory, Identity, and Otherness in Post-1989 Romania CERCEL, CRISTIAN,ALEXANDRU How to cite: CERCEL, CRISTIAN,ALEXANDRU (2012) Philo-Germanism without Germans. Memory, Identity, and Otherness in Post-1989 Romania, Durham theses, Durham University. Available at Durham E-Theses Online: http://etheses.dur.ac.uk/4925/ Use policy The full-text may be used and/or reproduced, and given to third parties in any format or medium, without prior permission or charge, for personal research or study, educational, or not-for-prot purposes provided that: • a full bibliographic reference is made to the original source • a link is made to the metadata record in Durham E-Theses • the full-text is not changed in any way The full-text must not be sold in any format or medium without the formal permission of the copyright holders. Please consult the full Durham E-Theses policy for further details. Academic Support Oce, Durham University, University Oce, Old Elvet, Durham DH1 3HP e-mail: [email protected] Tel: +44 0191 334 6107 http://etheses.dur.ac.uk 2 Philo-Germanism without Germans. Memory, Identity, and Otherness in Post-1989 Romania Cristian-Alexandru Cercel PhD School of Government and International Affairs Durham University 2012 3 Abstract The recent history of the German minority in Romania is marked by its mass migration from Romania to Germany, starting roughly in the immediate aftermath of the Second World War and reaching its climax in the early 1990s, following the fall of Communism. Against this background, the present thesis investigates a phenomenon that can be termed “philo-Germanism without Germans”, arguing that the way the German minority in Romania is represented in a wide array of discourses is best comprehended if placed in a theoretical framework in which concepts such as “self-Orientalism”, “intimate colonization” and other related ones play a key role. This dissertation departs from the existence of predominantly positive representations of Germanness in Romanian society. Furthermore, by examining a series of post-1989 Romanian identification/memory discourses, originating from three different discursive fields (politics, mass-media, historiography), it argues that the underlying reasons for this prestige are strongly connected with Romanian Europeanizing endeavours. In other words, the dissertation maintains that “loving the Germans” in post-1989 Romania is strongly connected with the production and reproduction of symbolic geographies aiming to discursively insert Romania into what is perceived to be the “civilized” Western/European World. Thus, Germans in Romania, former 12th and 18th century colonists, become actually a resource for Europeanness, a way of emphasizing Romania’s European belonging. They are “cultural Others”, possessing “all that we lack”, embraced in Romania with “love, ardour, and desire”, a clear case of discursive “self- colonization”. 5 Statement of Copyright The copyright of this thesis rests with the author. No quotation from it should be published without the author’s written consent and information derived from it should be acknowledged. 7 Acknowledgments My primary supervisor, Dr. Ruth Wittlinger, deserves my deepest gratitude for her ongoing intellectual, academic, and personal support during my doctoral studies. Without her, producing this dissertation would have surely taken much longer. My second supervisor, Dr. Stephen Welch, was kind enough to assist me through my theoretical, linguistic and presentational meanderings. I immensely thank him for that. I feel obliged to emphasize that the financial support granted by the University of Durham through the Durham Doctoral Fellowship Scheme provided me with the lack of financial constraints needed in order to undertake the research for this thesis. In part or as a whole, drafts of this dissertation have been read by several people, whose feedback was more than welcome. I therefore have to thank first and foremost Annemarie Weber, and Gruia Bădescu, but also James Koranyi, John Gledhill, Alex Drace-Francis, and Natalia Bănulescu- Bogdan for their time and suggestions. Their input has been highly appreciated and has hopefully led to an improvement of this dissertation. Of course, its failures and shortcomings, hopefully not many, are my fault only. Georg Aescht, Hannelore Baier, Paul Philippi, Paul-Jürgen Porr, and Wolfgang Wittstock have been more than ready to help with hints, suggestions, and insights from within the Romanian German community: Vielen Dank dafür. A special thanks should go to Gerald Volkmer, for his readiness to suggest a map of former German settlements in Romania. Lucy Abbott, Mathias Beer, Dario Brentin, Emanuela Grama-Neamțu, Konrad Gündisch, Henio Hoyo, Kristel Kaljund, Anca Militaru, Klaus Richter, Monica Stroe, Tibor Toro, and Smaranda Vultur made my research easier by helping me to get access to various studies and articles, often on very short notice. Some of them are good friends of mine, some I don’t actually know, yet all of them have been eager to help. I highly regard their intellectual comradeship. Writing this dissertation would not have been possible without the help of my parents, Nicoleta and Vasile Cercel. They should be thanked not only for their support during these years, but for so much more: for having confidence in me, for constantly finding how to nourish this confidence, and, 8 last but not least, for pushing me to learn German when I was a child who was far from finding this language in any way attractive. My deepest and warmest thanks go to Raluca, for constantly being next to me, in all possible and impossible ways, although I very well know how difficult this was at times. Mulțumesc din suflet, frumusețe! 9 Table of Contents 1. Introduction ...................................................................................................11 2. Conceptual and Methodological Context.................................................19 2.1. “Collective”/”Social Memory”. Conceptual History and Distinctions ........................................................................................................19 2.2. Memory, Identity, and Otherness .........................................................33 2.3. Western Representations of Eastern Europe. Romanian Identity and the Quest for “Europe” ....................................................................................39 2.4. Linking Memory Studies and Studies on Otherness. Methodology and Sources ........................................................................................................49 3. Germans in Romania. Historical and Political Context ........................63 3.1. Taxonomy and Lexical Complexity......................................................63 3.2. Before 1918: “Loose” Germans ..............................................................68 3.3. Germans in Romania. History, Memory, and Identification Discourses ..........................................................................................................74 3.4. Conclusions ..............................................................................................84 4. Research Context...........................................................................................85 4.1. A Romanian Tradition of Appreciating the Germans. German and Saxon Views of the East and of Romanianness ............................................85 4.2. Representing the Germans in Romania after 1989. Physical Absence and Mnemonic Presence ..................................................................................94 4.3. A Wider Network of Representations. Other “Others” in Romania98 4.4. Conclusions ............................................................................................101 5. Romanian Authorities and the German Minority after 1989. Memory Discourses and Minority Politics....................................................................103 5.1. Romanian Minority Politics after 1989 ...............................................103 5.2. The German Minority and the Democratic Forum of Germans in Romania after the Fall of Communism........................................................110 5.3. Romanian Memory Discourses about the Germans. Acknowledging German Victimhood .......................................................................................120 5.4. Political Discourses about “Germans” ...............................................126 5.5. Romanian-German Relations, Memory, and Identity......................137 10 5.6. Cultural Heritage...................................................................................156 5.7. Conclusions ............................................................................................160 6. Representations of the German Minority in Post-1989 Romanian Print Media....................................................................................................................162 6.1. Sources ....................................................................................................162 6.2. Germans Leaving, Staying in or Returning to Romania..................167 6.3. Nostalgia, Lastness, and Cultural Heritage.......................................183 6.4. Germans - the Good Neighbours. A Comparative Perspective .....196 6.5. Conclusions ............................................................................................203 7. Post-1989 Romanian Historiography and the German Minority.......206 7.1.