Martyrs and Memory: The Politics of Memorialising Anti-Communist Spiritual 'Resistance' in Romania

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My thesis examines 'spiritual memory' in post-socialist Romania, as a case study of a global phenomenon of memory politics in which histories of suffering under communism are repurposed for a new radical right populist politics. Within this new configuration, religion has played a key - but understudied - role in articulating ideas of spiritual resistance, moral crisis and martyrdom of the nation. This thesis will focus on the case study of Romania in both local and transnational context to explore the production of memory of spiritual resistance and its role in shaping post-communist politics, especially through the Romanian Orthodox Church. It will also focus on Romania as one of a number of centres for the circulation of anti-communist ideas, whihc have shaped new right-wing political formations, highlighting links particularly with France and the US.Research questions1. What stories of anti-communist spiritual resistance have become memorialized in Romania and how?I analyse the emergence, through memoirs and oral history, of accounts of religious suffering, and the selective memorialisation of political prisons and Orthodox nationalism. Focussing on a few case studies, I examine how such stories have become martyrologies embedded in public culture and the political field, harnessed by political parties in an exclusionary nationalist Orthodox rhetoric, promoted by BOR and opposed by anti-fascist organisations. This will highlight distinctive Orthodox memory production, and how the Romanian radical right uses the church to produce new forms of memory and identity (Andreescu 2015).2. How does memory of anti-communist spiritual resistance interact with European populist memory politics?I focus on the strong links between Romania and France, examining French and émigré communities' involvement in developing Romanian martyrologies, and French intellectuals and politicians who draw on Romanian discourse. I show how de-individualised martyr memory contributes to European discourses comparing communism and the Holocaust (Neumayer, 2019), and how sacred memory legitimizes the challenge of 'true spiritual Europe' against liberal transition narratives. I thereby place the current moment within longer-term claims of Eastern Europe as spiritually superior to the West. 3. How does this case study contribute to a transnational study of spiritual memory?Finally I consider how Romanian martyrologies reflect and contribute to radical right populist movements globally. I analyse the anti-liberal, anti-communist critiques of prisoners-turned-priests who moved to the US, and their embrace by US ultra-conservative evangelical organisations involved in Romania. I explore how spiritual memory provides a powerful political language that draws on collective identity and affect to express victimization and active witness to a model critical of both socialist and liberal politics, a language now used by populists worldwide for the defence of the West against Islamism or 'gender ideology'. MethodologyI employ oral history archives, memoirs and my own interviews, focussing on case studies of several 'prison saints', to explore the power of selective memory to shape political consciousness. Besides moving beyond the methodological nationalism still dominant in memory studies (De and Rigney 2014), an original aspect of my approach will be incorporating theological material into the interdisciplinary study of political memory.