Collective Memory and National Identity in Post-Communist Romania: Representations of the Communist Past in Romanian News Media and Romanian Politics (1990 - 2009)
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COLLECTIVE MEMORY AND NATIONAL IDENTITY IN POST-COMMUNIST ROMANIA: REPRESENTATIONS OF THE COMMUNIST PAST IN ROMANIAN NEWS MEDIA AND ROMANIAN POLITICS (1990 - 2009) A Dissertation Submitted to the Temple University Graduate Board In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY by Constanta Alina Hogea May 2014 Examining Committee Members: Carolyn Kitch, Advisory Chair, Journalism Nancy Morris, Media Studies and Production Fabienne Darling-Wolf, Journalism Mihai Coman, External Member, University of Bucharest © Copyright 2014 by Constanta Alina Hogea All Rights Reserved ii 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 iii 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. iv ACKNOWLEDGMENTS This dissertation brings a long journey to an end. My professional development within the doctoral program in Media and Communication at Temple University was challenged by significant changes in my life: I got a new family and two wonderful children, I lost my father, I moved between two continents, four countries and seven cities especially in the last four years. Under these circumstances, the doctoral project had a successful outcome only because of the permanent support and guidance of my professors, my family and my friends. I first want to express my gratitude to the members of my doctoral committee: Dr. Carolyn Kitch, Dr. Nancy Morris and Dr. Fabienne Darling-Wolf. I am grateful to Dr. Kitch for introducing me to the fascinating field of memory studies and for giving me strength and motivation to navigate through this process. It was the class of Media and Social Memory taught by Dr. Kitch which allowed me to place my dissertation within a systematic framework. I am grateful to Dr. Morris for her enthusiasm and patience to listen to my never-ending stories on the Romanian issue and for her challenging questions and suggestions. I am indebted to Dr. Darling-Wolf who agreed to join my doctoral committee at a peculiar moment which could otherwise have delayed my graduation. I am grateful to Dr. Mihai Coman from the University of Bucharest who agreed to be my outside reader and evaluate my work on short notice, providing insightful comments. My life as initially a doctoral student and then a doctoral candidate also had a positive impact on my personal relations. I feel blessed to have met the people in my cohort as well as the professors of Temple with whom I worked at different moments v during the program. I am especially grateful for the invaluable support of my friends Chiaoning Su and Mike Schuyler who were always available to listen to my worries and help me find solutions every time I encountered difficult situations. I am also grateful to Byron Lee who never hesitated to help me even if this meant to babysit my son or to deal with administrative issues on my behalf until the last moment of my doctoral program. I also need to acknowledge my best long-time friends, Anca Czifra and Claudiu Gamulescu, who bore with me through all this process and became so emotionally involved so that my success is also theirs. I am also grateful to my family. In fact, this dissertation is dedicated both to my children, Karl and Katharina, and to the memory of my father. My parents moved across the world to babysit my children every time I asked for their help so that I can have enough time to work on my project. I know that my father would have been so proud of my achievement, but nevertheless his absence shadows my happiness. Last, but not least, I am grateful to my husband, Matthias, who has been and probably will always be the most acute and acerb critic of my work. He witnessed the development of my project from its incipient form, read different versions of my chapters, and helped me sharpen my research during the endless discussions about communist and post-communist Romania. vi TABLE OF CONTENTS ABSTRACT .................................................................................................................................... iii ACKNOWLEDGMENTS ............................................................................................................... v LIST OF TABLES ........................................................................................................................ viii LIST OF FIGURES ........................................................................................................................ ix PART I: EXPLANATORY NOTES ............................................................................................... 1 CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION ................................................................................................ 1 CHAPTER 2: OVERVIEW OF THEORY AND METHOD .................................................... 11 CHAPTER 3: THE ROMANIAN PATH FROM COMMUNISM TO DEMOCRACY ........... 38 PART II: THE (OPEN) BORDERS OF COMMUNISM .............................................................. 66 CHAPTER 4: “WE ARE THE PEOPLE!” FROM TOTALITARIANISM TO FREEDOM TO DISAGREE AND STREET DEMOCRACY ............................................................................ 67 CHAPTER 5: THE ROMANIAN REVOLUTION: FROM HEROIC MOMENT TO TRAGEDY AND THEN TO FARCE ..................................................................................... 131 PART III: THE POLITICAL USE OF COLLECTIVE MEMORY ............................................ 182 CHAPTER 6: THE DISCURSIVE END OF COMMUNISM ................................................ 190 CHAPTER 7: FROM COMMUNISM AND NATIONALISM TO LEGITIMATION CRISIS ................................................................................................................................................. 248 CHAPTER 8: CONCLUSIONS .................................................................................................. 302 REFERENCES ............................................................................................................................ 320 PRIMARY SOURCES ............................................................................................................ 320 SECONDARY SOURCES ...................................................................................................... 354 vii LIST OF TABLES Table Page 1. Event/time-period selection …………………………………..……….…….. 34 2. Data distribution …………………………………………………..…………. 37 3. Political distribution …………………………………………..…………….. 59 4. Representations of communism ……………………………………........… 128 5. Data distribution for the Revolution anniversaries ………………………… 132 6. Binary oppositions in the political discourses………………………..…….. 210 7. The representations of the recent past in relation to the national identity …. 211 8. Struggle for legitimacy: FDSN vs. FSN ………………………………...…. 213 9. Binary oppositions in the 1996 political discourses ……………………….. 226 10. Two official versions on the Romanian Revolution ………………………. 244 viii LIST OF FIGURES Figure Page 1. The evolution of the political parties in the Romanian Parliament ……….......... 225 2. Party representation in the Romanian Parliament (1996 - 2004) ………………. 265 ix PART I: EXPLANATORY NOTES CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION “when the sublime mist of the velvet revolutions was dispelled by the new democratic-capitalist reality, people reacted with an unavoidable disappointment that manifested itself, in turn, as nostalgia for the ‘good old’ Communist times; as rightist, nationalist populism; and as renewed, belated anti-Communist paranoia” (Slavoj Žižek, 2009) Personal introduction: from soybean salami