THOUGHTS ON THE DACIANS OF THE ROMANIAN HISTORICAL IMAGINARY

Thoughts on the Dacians of the Romanian Historical Imaginary. The paper is presenting some of the main issues concerning the “public image” of the Dacians in Romanian common thought and knowledge and is aiming to identify the sources of this vulgate set of representations of ancestors. The collective imaginary of the general public concerning the Dacians is partially fuelled by the scholarly literature and thus reflects some aspects of the archaeological discourse. However, archaeological research today is defined by a methodological approach which has an opposite direction, whereby the reconstruction of the past starts at the level of the micro-communities, of particular facts and regional features instead of levelling generalization. This seems to represent the essence of the divergence between the scientific approach characterized by a critical disposition and moderate scepticism on the one hand, and profoundly subjective traditionalist representations of the collective imaginary on the other.