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III. EAST CENTRAL EUROPE
LUCIAN BOIA: DEMYTHOLOGIZATION OF THE
ROMANIAN HISTORICAL DISCOURSE AFTER 1989
——o> —
EUGEN STANCU
ABSTRACT
In the 1990s the demythologizing scholarly efforts of Lucian Boia directed
towards the Romanian historiography steered a rather fierce debate about
the way the national historical discourse was constructed in the 18 and the
19% centuries and the manner in which it was understood in the present. In
this article I concentrate on the intellectual origins of this demythologizing
endeavour undertaken by Boia and I explore his main arguments concerning
his analysis of the Romanian historical discourse.
Keywords: Lucian Boia, historical mythology, demythologizing turn, post¬
communist historiography
After the fall of the communist regime in 1989, Romania embarked upon a
‘new’ process of modernization meant to lead towards political democracy, a
market economy and finally European integration. Although the actions of
the Romanian political leaders were not always consistent with these aims,
there was, however, a direction towards the future to be followed. The same
could not be said about the way the past was historically reconstructed. The
last decades of the communist regime in Romania, that is, the national¬
communist period with its protocronist phase! have influenced the shape
of historical studies. After a period (the 1950s and the 1960s), in which the
1 Katherine Verdery: National Ideology under Socialism: Identity and Cultural Politics in
Ceausescu’s Romania, Berkeley, University of California Press, 1991.
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