Key Concepts of Romanian History: Alternative Approaches to Socio-Political Languages

On the Process of Writing the History of Romania: Methodological Issues

On the Process of Writing the History of Romania: Methodological Issues Armin Heinen Conceptual History, Discourse History, Historical Semiotics or, Perhaps, Political Culture History? Even if, thematically speaking, Romanian historiography has broadened its horizons, and contemporary Romanian history, in particular, has been the object of more in-depth analyses than in the past, Cristina and Dragoş Petrescu hold that, overall, post-1989 Romanian historiography has been less innovatory.1 Romanian Studies have made a modest progress in point of scientific results. Rather than aspiring to methodological innovations, the post-1989 Romanian historical science has aimed to free itself from ideological assertions by letting the sources speak for themselves and try to discover the “truth.” “What actually happened?” (Rilke)—historians have formulated this question as a reaction to dictators’ previous immersion in how to approach the past. The return to positivist traditions, to historicism and to a classical history of politics has represented an opportunity for the established historians of the Ceauşescu era to finally be able to freely express themselves. Nevertheless, Romanian public debates were still pretty heated in the aftermath of the 1989 Revolution, so that history thematized itself under other forms than might have been expected. Innovative outsiders and young scholars started to speak up and to employ new Western-inspired working methods. In this sense, it is worthwhile noting the debates around Lucian Boia’s studies on the myths of Romanian history2 and the debate around the school textbook of Romanian history ed1 Petrescu and Petrescu, “Mastering vs. Coming to Terms with the Past,” 311–408. 2 Pop, Istoria, adevărul şi miturile. See also Platon, “Despre istorie, adevăr şi mituri. O replică d-lui Lucian Boia,” available online at http://www.contrafort.md/2003/99/474. html (last accessed 24. 01. 2010). 28 Armin Heinen ited by Sorin Mitu.3 In both cases, the main questions were: How should we write history? Which are the facts and what should be the role of history for the present? In what follows, I will present a few methodological considerations regarding the study and knowing of history. “Suprastructure” determines individual fate and—like serious economic events—it is historically significant ; in Romania, it cannot be questioned given the socialist dictatorship that ruled on this territory. It proposes the understanding of the real as a “resistance force.” Meanwhile, having oftentimes been a subject of the power structure that can determine how the world is interpreted, the social field has had a long tradition and has been permanently reconfigured. Thought and speech thereby have become aspects of conscious or unconscious social action. Nevertheless, overly elaborated methodological approaches or the setting of too high methodological stakes should be avoided in the current stage of research on Romania; such is the conclusion of the first part of my study. Since this stage is devoted to the exploration of historiography’s research topics and to finding out the combatants , conceptual differences should not become criteria of exclusion. In this sense, “the methodological indeterminacy” characterizing “conceptual history” makes this research method useful for the Romanian case. Observing the basic, normative rules of a good historiography is more important than employing a rigorous methodology. This is why the studies in this collective volume resulting from the September 2009 International Conference on Romanian Conceptual History held at Timişoara will be thematically devoted to various problematizations and approaches. Romanian historiography asks similar questions to those of interest to German historiography. In the 1960s,4 when conceptual history was confronted with three established schools of historical research, German historians thematized similar issues to those concerning present-day Romanian historians. Going against the grain of common political history, which focused on events and intentions, conceptual history turned its attention to social change. It ran against the classical history of ideas, from Droysen to Meinecke, disagreeing with the latter’s faith in eternal reason. Conceptual history highlighted fissures and discontinuities; it opposed 3 Heinen, “Auf den Schwingen Draculas nach Europa?” 91–104; Murgescu, Istoria din ghiozdan; Ihrig, “Die kommunistische Vergangenheit,” 81–90; Schippel, Kultureller Wandel als Ansinnen, 77–100. 4 To date, several scholars have written surveys that trace the history of conceptual history. See Dipper, “Die ‘Geschichtlichen Grundbegriffe,’” 281–308. On the Process of Writing the History of Romania 29 social history5 by foregrounding structures and processes due to culture, as well as the need to understand circumstances and the role of language, concepts and...