Reconstructing the History of Early Communism and Armed Resistance in Romania

This article examines the role played by the armed resistance in Romania during the period of Sovietisation and Stalinisation (1944-1962) and its significance within the politics of memory and justice after 1989. One conclusion of the analysis is that opposing interpretations by political actors each in search of legitimacy correspond to attempts to manufacture plausible narratives of the specific historical discontinuity posed by the revolutionary break of 1989. A second conclusion reveals how memory and identity conflicts at group and individual levels can easily result in the translation of historical myths into enduring historical facts.