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

我的论文考察了后社会主义罗马尼亚的“精神记忆”，作为记忆政治全球现象的一个案例研究，在这种现象中，共产主义统治下的苦难历史被重新用于新的激进右翼民粹主义政治。在这种新的结构中，宗教在表达精神抵抗、道德危机和民族殉难等思想方面发挥了关键作用，但研究不足。本文将着重于罗马尼亚在本地和跨国背景下的案例研究，以探索精神抵抗记忆的产生及其在塑造后共产主义政治中的作用，特别是通过罗马尼亚东正教。它还将重点关注罗马尼亚作为反共思想传播中心之一的地位。反共思想形成了新的右翼政治形态，尤其突出了罗马尼亚与法国和美国的联系。研究questions1。哪些反共精神抵抗的故事在罗马尼亚被纪念？如何被纪念？我通过回忆录和口述历史分析了宗教苦难的出现，以及对政治监狱和东正教民族主义的选择性纪念。​这将突出突出独特的东正教记忆生产，以及罗马尼亚激进右翼如何利用教堂生产新形式的记忆和身份（Andreescu 2015）。反共精神抵抗的记忆如何与欧洲民粹主义记忆政治互动？我关注的是罗马尼亚和法国之间的紧密联系，考察了法国和移民团体在发展罗马尼亚殉道者学方面的参与，以及借鉴罗马尼亚话语的法国知识分子和政治家。我展示了去个性化的殉道者记忆如何有助于比较共产主义和大屠杀的欧洲话语（Neumayer, 2019），以及神圣的记忆如何使“真正的精神欧洲”挑战合法化，反对自由主义转型叙事。因此，我将当前时刻置于东欧在精神上优于西方的长期主张之中。这个案例研究对精神记忆的跨国研究有何贡献？最后，我考虑了罗马尼亚的殉道者如何反映并促进了全球激进右翼民粹主义运动。我分析了对移居美国的囚犯出身的牧师的反自由主义、反共主义批评，以及参与罗马尼亚活动的美国极端保守的福音派组织对他们的支持。我探索精神记忆如何提供一种强大的政治语言，利用集体身份和情感来表达受害者和积极见证社会主义和自由主义政治的批判模式，这种语言现在被世界各地的民粹主义者用来捍卫西方反对伊斯兰主义或“性别意识形态”。方法：我采用口述历史档案、回忆录和我自己的访谈，重点研究几个“监狱圣人”的案例，探索选择性记忆塑造政治意识的力量。除了超越在记忆研究中仍然占主导地位的方法论民族主义（De and Rigney 2014）之外，我的方法的一个原创方面将是将神学材料纳入政治记忆的跨学科研究中。

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.