Diacronie. Studi di Storia Contemporanea (Sep 2014)
Beyond the iron curtain of historiography, between party canon and scholarly standard. A theoretical and methodological approach to the analysis of East European national-communist historiographies: the case of Romania
Abstract
This paper aims at elaborating a new theoretical framework and a new methodology in order to identify the location of history discipline endorsed by the East European communist regimes between scholarly production and propaganda. The case study considered is the historiography produced by the History Institute of the Romanian Communist Party (Isisp) during the Ceausescu regime (1965-1989). This highly ideological, but still polymorphic historiography is placed into the context of the 19th and 20th centuries’ professionalization of history in Europe. Since historiography has been the main mean to develop nationalist messages, this paper is also a contribution to the study of nationalism. Since history-writing is a myth-breaker but also a (national) myths-maker, the theory considers that the Isisp historians were elaborating an academic, scholarly standard while performing the mandatory metanarrative canon imposed by the communist Party, creating a double-set of coherence, for the party and for their own profession. The theory implies also a methodology of analysis which integrates the study of the history-writings, considered in diachronical perspective, together with the collective biographies of Isisp and of its historians.
