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Prizes

SRS awards three prizes: the annual Graduate Student Essay Prize, the biennial Book Award, and the biennial Keith Hitchins Dissertation Prize. Please scroll down for the winners of the three prizes.

The Seventh Biennial SRS Book Prize

The Society for Romanian Studies invites nominations for the Seventh Biennial SRS Book Prize awarded for the best scholarly book published in English in the humanities or social sciences, on any subject relating to Romania or Moldova and their diasporas. 

To be eligible, 

  • books must have been published between 1 January 2021 and 31 December 2022 as indicated by the copyright date
  • books may be in any academic field, with a predominant focus on Romanian or Moldovan subject matter (including subjects relating to the activities of non-Romanian ethnic groups on Romanian or Moldovan territory). Edited books, translations, reprints or new editions of works published before 2021, and non-scholarly books are not eligible 
  • the author of the submitted book must be an SRS member.

The prize carries with it an award of $500. Either authors or publishers of books may make submissions. Submissions should be sent to the SRS prize committee by 1 September 2023

Three copies of each submitted book should be sent by mail, one copy directly to each committee member at the addresses below. Questions or inquiries can be sent to the committee chair, Cristian Cercel, via email at cristian.cercel@idgl.bwl.de. The award will be announced in December 2023.

The SRS Book Prize call in pdf format

SRS Book Prize Committee Members:

Cristian CERCEL Camelia CRĂCIUNRaluca GROSESCU
Researcher
Institute for Danube Swabian History and Regional Studies
Mohlstr. 18, 72074, Tübingen, Germany 
Associate Professor
New Europe College
Str. Plantelor 21, 023971, Bucharest, Romania
Lecturer
National University of Political Science and Public Administration
Department of Political Sciences
Str. Povernei 6, 030167, Bucharest, Romania 

The Fifteenth Annual Graduate Student Essay Prize

The Society for Romanian Studies (SRS) is pleased to announce the Fifteenth Annual Graduate Student Essay Prize competition for an outstanding unpublished essay or thesis chapter. The submitted single-author work must be written in English by a graduate student in any social science or humanities discipline on a Romanian or Moldovan subject, broadly and inclusively understood.

The 2023 prize consists of $150 plus an individual, one-year membership to SRS that includes a subscription to the journal, valued at $75. The second-place award of honorable mention includes a one-year subscription to the journal.  

The competition is open to current MA and doctoral students or to those who defended dissertations in the academic year 2022–2023. The submitted work should have been completed within the last two academic years and should not have been published yet. If the essay is a dissertation chapter, it should be accompanied by the dissertation abstract and table of contents. Expanded versions of conference papers are also acceptable if accompanied by a description of the panel and the candidate’s conference paper proposal. Candidates should clearly indicate the format of the essay submitted. Essays/chapters should be up to 10,000 words double-spaced, including citations.  

Candidates should clearly indicate their institutional affiliation. Include as well your current e-mail and postal addresses so that you may be contacted.  Questions can be directed to the chair of the committee, Dr Aleksandra Djuric-Milovanovic, at saskadjuric@yahoo.com

Please send a copy of the essay, any accompanying documentation (as both Word and PDF please) and an updated CV to iploscariu@gmail.com.

Applicants are not required to be members of SRS in order to apply.

Deadline for submissions is Friday 18 August 2023.  The winners will be announced on 17 November 2023.

The Essay prize call in pdf format

SRS Essay Prize Committee Members:

Valentina Glajar
Professor of German Studies
Texas State University
glajar@txstate.edu
Iemima Ploscariu
Independent Scholar
iploscariu@gmail.com
Aleksandra Djuric Milovanovic
Senior Research Associate
Institute for Balkan Studies, Serbian Academy of Sciences and Arts
aleksandra.djuric@bi.sanu.ac.rs 

2022 Keith Hitchins Dissertation Prize

In 2021 Professor Keith Hitchins passed away after retiring from a long and rich career at University of Illinois, Champaign-Urbana. Soon thereafter, the Society for Romanian Studies established a prize to honor his legacy for the study of Romania and Romanian related topics.  A major figure for the development of interest in Romania in the United States in the second half of the twentieth century, Professor Hitchins worked with several generations of scholars, now themselves active in universities across North America and in Europe. His own research gravitated around questions about nationalism, religion, and intellectual history, but his generous mentorship enabled his students to develop expertise on many other topics. 

The Keith Hitchins Prize is to be awarded for the best dissertation completed in English or Romanian by a scholar in any social science or humanities discipline on a Romanian or Moldovan subject, broadly and inclusively understood. This may encompass focus on themes related to Romania (as it currently exists and in its various past iterations), to the people who have lived in or currently inhabit Romania, or those who self-identify as Romanian but reside beyond Romania’s borders. Studies connected to ethnic minorities in Romania are also eligible.

For the inaugural competition, the committee received dissertations completed in five different countries, in fields ranging from sociology and art history to history of science. Their breadth in topics and methods are testimony to the cultural richness that Romania presents for scholars all over the world.

The selection committee (Maria Bucur, Călin Cotoi, and Radu Vancu) is pleased to announce the co-winners of the inaugural competition for best dissertation in Romanian studies (2022): Cosmin Koszor-Codrea and Rucsandra Pop.  In the spirit of our organization and in recognition of the languages in which these two projects were completed, we offer a brief description in the language of each dissertation.

Cosmin Koszor-Codrea, “The Word of Science: Popularising Darwinism in Romania, 1859-1918,” 2021, Oxford Brookes University

Cosmin Koszor-Codrea’s doctoral thesis places Charles Darwin’s evolutionary theory within the Romanian cultural context of the second half of the nineteenth century, a period of great activity in the area of science research and writing. In doing so, he presents a fascinating case study of the twin political and scientific construction of knowledge, and of the ways in which cultural hegemonies have been challenged and created. The research focuses on both the written and spoken word of the leading voices of Romanian nineteenth-century naturalists. The impact of Darwinism is followed in a comparative way, secular and religious. In addition, a closer look is reserved to the ways in which scientific ideologies served different political and racial local and transnational ideologies. Koszor-Codrea provides an original and rich contribution to the field of history of sciences, to East European studies, and, more broadly, to the social history of scientific ideas.

Rucsandra Pop, “Mihai Pop de la școala sociologică la școala etnologică—o biografie intelectuală,” 2020, Universitatea din București

Biografia intelectuală a lui Mihai Pop, așa cum a fost ea proiectată și realizată de către Rucsandra Pop, reprezintă considerabil mai mult decât o anunță titlul ei: ea nu e doar reconstituirea unui destin individual – ci reconstituirea metonimică, pars pro toto, a destinului științelor umaniste din România inter- și postbelică. Fiindcă Rucsandra Pop alege să vadă (și justifică admirabil această alegere) în persoana și opera lui Mihai Pop unul dintre agenții modernizatori esențiali ai umanioarelor românești: intelectual arhetipal al Europei Centrale, cu o poliglosie acoperind nu doar limbile uzuale ale culturilor majore, ci și pe cele ale culturilor din întreaga Mitteleuropă, participant direct la constituirea școlii de la Praga, acceptat inter pares de Roman Jakobson & co., activ deopotrivă și în mediile intelectuale care construiau sociologia română, în interiorul cărora transferă seminal și în timp real ideile occidentale, Mihai Pop mediază ideal prin opera lui (prin care Rucsandra Pop subînțelege nu doar opera scrisă, ci și întreaga acțiune instituțională și personală) circulația ideilor între “estul și vestul științific”, sincronizând decisiv câmpul științific autohton cu centrele relevante de cercetare din întreaga lume. Întemeiată pe 15 ani de interviuri și de muncă de teren, coagulând cantități masive de informație din domenii dintre cele mai diverse, originând într-o mobilitate intelectuală extraordinară (comparabilă cu a subiectului lucrării), teza Rucsandrei Pop articulează strălucitor o istorie socială a întregului câmp intelectual românesc din ultimul secol. 

2022 Graduate Student Essay Prize

The Fourteenth Annual Graduate Student Essay Prize 2022 is awarded to Leah Valtin-Erwin, PhD Candidate, Department of History, Indiana University Bloomington, for her submission entitled Professional Customers: German Cash & Carry Wholesale in Romania (1996-1999). The entry examines, based on the case study of Metro Cash and Carry, the transformation of the retail industry in Romania under the entrance of foreign competitors. The analysis is going behind the common discourse on the benefits of foreign investments, looking to the ways foreign companies appealed “economic anxieties and historically-situated ideas about culture and commerce to make customers of Eastern European entrepreneurs – and their clients – in the 1990s.” The investigation proposed by Leah Valtin-Erwin received appreciation based on the interesting approach that question the civilizational discourses and the savior position foreign companies, as Metro, promoted itself. The entry caught reviewers’ attention by drawing a rich literature, a wealth of sources (from periodicals to interviews), a coherent chronological structure, and a well written paper. 

An honorable mention is extended to Irina Nicorici, PhD, for the entry The Curious Case of Soviet Citizenship for Sale. It was a very close runner-up for the prize given Irina’s unique contribution on citizenship for sale phenomenon (the investor citizenship) in late Soviet Moldova.  The entry contributes to a reconsideration of the welfare socialist state, based on a rich literature and on recently opened archives from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in the Republic of Moldova.

With many thanks to the prize committee, consisting of Rodica Milena Zaharia (chair), Iemima Ploscariu, and Marius Wamsiedel.

2021 Book Prize

Winner: Roxana-Talida Roman, The Edge of Europe – Heritage, Landscape and Conflict Archaeology: First World War Material Culture in Romanian Conflictual Landscapes (Oxford: Bar Publishing, 2020).

Honorable Mentions: Péter Berta, Materializing Difference: Consumer Culture, Politics, and Ethnicity among Romanian Roma (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2019), and Călin Cotoi, Inventing the Social in Romania, 1848–1914: Networks and Laboratories of Knowledge (Paderborn, Germany: Ferdinand Schoeningh, 2020).

2021 Graduate Student Essay Prize

Winner: Alexandra Ciocănel (University of Manchester)

Honorable Mention: Iemima Ploscariu (Dublin City University)

2020 Graduate Student Essay Prize

Winner: Cosmin Koszor Codrea (Oxford Brookes University)

Honorable Mention: Cosmin Tudor Minea (University of Birmingham)

2019 Book Prize

Winner: Bruce O’Neill, The Space of Boredom: Homelessness in the Slowing Global Order (Duke University Press, 2017).

Honorable Mention: Irina Marin, Peasant Violence and Antisemitism in Early Twentieth-Century Eastern Europe (Palgrave Macmillan, 2018).

2019 Graduate Student Essay Prize

Winner: Adela Hîncu (Central European University)

Honorable Mention: Elena Radu

2018 Graduate Student Essay Prize

Winner: Alexandra Chiriac (University of St. Andrews)

Honorable Mentions: Nicoleta Simonia Minciu, Iemima Ploscariu (Dublin City University), and Matthew Signer (Stanford University)

2017 Book Prize

Winner: Roland Clark, Holy Legionary Youth: Fascist Activism in Interwar Romania (Cornell University Press, 2015).

Honorable Mentions: Virginia Hill and Gabriela Alboiu, Verb Movement and Clause Structure in Old Romanian (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2016), Dennis Deletant, British Clandestine Activities in Romania During the Second World War (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2016), and Ştefan Ionescu, Jewish Resistance to Romanianization (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2016).

2017 Graduate Student Essay Prize

Winner: Dana Mureşan

Special Mentions: Kathryn Grow Allen (University of Buffalo), Alin Rus (University of Massachusetts, Amherst) and Karin Steinbrueck (Northwestern University)

2016 Graduate Student Essay Prize

No prize awarded.

2015 Book Prize

Winner: Sean Cotter, Literary Translation and the Idea of a Minor Romania (Rochester, 2014).

Honorable Mention: Moshe Idel, Mircea Eliade: From Magic to Myth (Peter Lang, 2013).

2015 Graduate Student Essay Prize

Winner: Matei Costinescu (University of Bucharest)

Honorable Mentions: Madalina Vereş (University of Pittsburgh) and Zsuzsanna Magdo (University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign)

2014 Graduate Student Essay Prize

Winner: Roxana Cazan (Indiana University, Bloomington)

2013 Book Prize

Winner: Gail Kligman and Katherine Verdery, Peasants under Siege: the Collectivization of Romanian Agriculture, 1949-1962 (Princeton University Press, 2011).

2013 Graduate Student Essay Prize

Winner: Florin Poenaru (Central European University)

2012 Graduate Student Essay Prize

Winner: Jonathan Stillo (City University of New York)

2011 Book Prize

Winner: Tom Gallagher, Romania and the European Union: How the Weak Vanquished the Strong (Manchester University Press, 2009)

2011 Graduate Student Essay Prize

Winner: Cristina Onose (University of Toronto)

2010 Graduate Student Essay Prize

Winner: Anca Mandru (University of Illinois)

2009 Graduate Student Essay Prize

Winner: Roland Clark (University of Pittsburgh)

Under preparation

The SRS-Polirom Romanian Studies series has a number of translations and original manuscripts under consideration. The following titles are scheduled to be published in 2020 and 2021:
 
 

Grama, Emanuela. Socialist Heritage: The Politics of Past and Place in Romania. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 2019.

The book is the winner of the 2020 Ed Hewett book prize offered by the Association for Slavic, East European, and Eurasian Studies for “an outstanding monograph on the political economy of Russia, Eurasia and/or Eastern Europe.”

 

Focusing on Romania from 1945 to 2016, Socialist Heritage explores the socialist state’s attempt to create its own heritage, as well as the legacy of that project. Contrary to arguments that the socialist regimes of Central and Eastern Europe aimed to erase the pre-war history of the socialist cities, Emanuela Grama shows that the communist state in Romania sought to exploit the past for its own benefit. The book traces the transformation of a central district of Bucharest, the Old Town, from a socially and ethnically diverse place in the early 20th century, into an epitome of national history under socialism, and then, starting in the 2000s, into the historic center of a European capital. Under socialism, politicians and professionals used the district’s historic buildings, especially the ruins of a medieval palace discovered in the 1950s, to emphasize the city’s Romanian past and erase its ethnically diverse history. Since the collapse of socialism, the cultural and economic value of the Old Town has become highly contested. Bucharest’s middle class has regarded the district as a site of tempting transgressions. Its poor residents have decried their semidecrepit homes, while entrepreneurs and politicians have viewed it as a source of easy money. Such arguments point to recent negotiations about the meanings of class, political participation, and ethnic and economic belonging in today’s Romania. Grama’s rich historical and ethnographic research reveals the fundamentally dual nature of heritage: every search for an idealized past relies on strategies of differentiation that can lead to further marginalization and exclusion.

 (from the publisher’s web page)

 

Reviews:

“This is an impressive piece of scholarship. The strengths of this book are the breadth of the data sources, which have enabled the author to uncover in detail how change in a particular historic urban landscape is shaped by broader issues of power and identity (in both socialist and post-socialist contexts). Socialist Heritage will be of interest to postgraduate students and academic researchers in disciplines such as history, anthropology, human geography, urban studies and sociology. For anybody wanting to understand Bucharest’s Old Town there is no better source available.” Duncan Light (Bournemouth University Business School), Eurasian Geography and Economics

“Bucharest is not a historic city, but it is rich in history. The distinction turns out to be important not just for our understanding of Romania, but of politics and historiography more generally. Emanuela Grama uses the politics that surrounded the Old Town of Bucharest over the past century to force us to reconsider the constitution of the state, the relationship between identity and ideology, and the balance in historical development between grand narratives and incremental change. Moreover, she does all this by demonstrating that the study of history and the stuf of history are rarely, if ever, the same. […] Grama does a brilliant job bringing [this] story to our attention and explaining why we should care about it. Her book deserves to be widely read.” Erik Jones, Survival: Global Politics and Strategy

Socialist Heritage represent an outstanding contribution in the field of anthropology of heritage, retracing the transformation of Lipscani street and the central district of Bucharest, the Old Town, from a socially and ethnically culturally diverse place in the early 20th century, into a benchmark of nationalist rewriting of local history during socialism, finally morphing again, beginning with the 2000s, into the historic center of an European capital. […] Grama’s monograph is a gripping and intensive lesson on the fluidity and plasticity of heritage, the multiple uses of the past in shaping urban spaces, the intricacies of (un)making heritage and the political states that bound and throw local communities against the state, the state against its history, and political time against spatial politics.” Dana Domșodi, Studia UBB Sociologia

“There are important lessons thus taken from Grama’s monograph […] on the malleability of heritage and the strategic use of the past to push forward narratives in the present comes across. Moreover, the clear political use of heritage is expertly and vividly analysed throughout the monograph, as Bucharest’s Old Town and its residents became targets and victims to the authorities’ manipulations of time and their reinterpretations of place. […] Emanuela Grama gracefully moves across different areas through with her use of secondary sources, bringing together urban planning, political studies, economic and social analyses.” Cristina Clopot, International Journal of Heritage Studies

 

About the author:

Emanuela Grama is Associate Professor in the History department, Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, USA. She specializes in the history of 20th century Central and Eastern Europe, with a focus on urban politics, processes of state-making, property, memory and cultural change in 20th and 21st century Romania. She received her PhD from the Interdisciplinary Program in Anthropology and History of the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. She has conducted extensive archival and ethnographic research in different locations in Romania, and has published on a range of topics, including 1) the politics of archaeology and nationalism under socialism 2) urban planning, state-making and material practices, 3) petitions, intertextuality, and citizenship in socialism, and 4) plagiarism in post-socialism. She is also a recipient of fellowships from the Wenner Gren Foundation for Anthropological Research (dissertation research grant), the American Council for Learned Societies (dissertation writing grant), and the Max Weber Postdoctoral Program of the European University Institute, Florence, Italy.

 

More information about Dr. Grama is available at:

https://www.cmu.edu/dietrich/history/people/faculty/grama.html

Tateo, Giuseppe. Under the Sign of the Cross: The People’s Salvation Cathedral and the Church Building Industry in Postsocialist Romania. New York: Berghahn Books, 2020.

Based on extensive ethnographic research, this book delves into the thriving industry of religious infrastructure in Romania, where 4,000 Orthodox churches and cathedrals have been built in three decades. Following the construction of the world’s highest Orthodox cathedral in Bucharest, the book brings together sociological and anthropological scholarship on eastern Christianity, secularization, urban change and nationalism. Reading postsocialism through the prism of religious change, the author argues that the emergence of political, entrepreneurial and intellectual figures after 1990 has happened ‘under the sign of the cross’.

 (from the publisher’s web page)

What people are saying about it:

“This is an interesting, informative and topical book that makes a significant contribution to the anthropological literature on urban built spaces, lived religion, and post-communist Romania.” Lavinia Stan, St. Francis Xavier University

“The book significantly advances our understanding of Orthodox Christianity and its post-socialist revival, contemporary East European society, the social life of architecture, and urban spatial symbolism and contestation.” Christoph Brumann, Max Planck Institute for Social Anthropology

“Drawing upon detailed ethnographical research, leavened with an impressive command of theoretical literature on the social life of architecture and urban special symbolism, the author examines the development of religious infrastructure in Romania […]. At the same time, Tateo’s book offers an analysis of secularization and urban change, and their impact upon the course of nationalism in the country. In doing so, he provides signposts for the study of these phenomena within eastern Christianity as a whole. In reading postsocialism through the lens of religious practice, the author argues that political and cultural discourse has been conducted ‘under the sign of the cross’”

Dennis Deletant, UCL SSEES

“The volume brings an important contribution […] by closely deconstructing the “religious revival paradigm” without downplaying the role of religion and religious organizations in the public sphere. Focusing on the spectacular “church-building industry” and the material and symbolic religious interventions […] in the urban environment in present-day Romanian cities, the volume convincingly pleads for a more subtle scalar understanding of “new modes of coexistence” between religious identification, secular sentiments and anti-clericalism, individualized and institutional spiritual practices, personal ambitions, economic stakes and sacerdotal careers, religious and political authority and organizational rearrangements.” Simion Pop, Central European University

About the author:

Giuseppe Tateo is senior research fellow in the Multiple Secularities project hosted by Leipzig University. He earned his PhD in Social Anthropology from the Max Planck Institute for Social Anthropology and held postdoctoral fellowships from the New Europe College, Bucharest, Romania and the Institute of Sociological Studies, Charles University Prague, Czech Republic. Giuseppe Tateo specializes in the anthropology of postsocialist Romania, Eastern Christianity and urban anthropology. While in Leipzig, he will frame the Romanian case in a broader context, considering the expansion of religious infrastructure throughout eastern and central Europe since 1991.

More information about Dr. Tateo is available at: https://www.multiple-secularities.de/team/giuseppe-tateo-phd/

Books published to date


Cristian Cercel, Romania and the Quest for European Identity. Philo-germanism without Germans, London and New York, Routledge, 2019.

Exploring the largely positive representations of Romanian Germans predominating in post-1989 Romanian society, this book shows that the underlying reasons for German prestige are strongly connected with Romania’s endeavors to become European. […] Cercel argues that representations of Germans in Romania, descendants of twelfth-century and eighteenth-century colonists, become actually a symbolic resource for asserting but also questioning Romania’s European identity. Such representations link Romania’s much-desired European belonging with German presence, whilst German absence is interpreted as a sign of veering away from Europe. Investigating this case of discursive “self-colonization” and this apparent symbolic embrace of the German Other in Romania, the book offers a critical study of the discourses associated with Romania’s postcommunist “Europeanization” to contribute a better understanding of contemporary West-East relationships in the European context.”

(from the publisher’s web page)

What people are saying about it:

[The] book […] marks an important step forward in understanding complex processes such as Europeanization, cultural interaction, and social change. Beginning with the subtitle, Cercel put[s] forward a puzzling problem when it comes to explaining […] philo-Germanism without Germans in Romania. By emphasizing this issue, Cercel attempts to grasp a very broad perspective by moving from the peculiar electoral curiosity of ethnic Romanians electing a German candidate in a medium-size town in Transylvania, to the way westernization and Europeanization concur in shaping Romanian identity. The preference for an ethnic German candidate in a city almost deserted by its German-speaking citizens sheds light on the broader phenomenon of intimate self-colonization, fueled by a power discourse on the shaping of Romanian identity as forged by numerous interactions and representations in a very complex ethnic, social, and political environment. […] The current philo-Germanism without Germans is strongly connected with Romanian aspirations toward Europeanization, an effort to overcome cultural, social, and political dilemmas of being caught between east and west.” (Dragoș Dragoman, Slavic Review)

”The volume informs […] readers about the German–Romanian relationship in the turbulent postsocialist years. The richness of detail and their careful contextualization helps readers to form an accurate image of these relationships. […]Cercel argues that it was the treatment under communist rule that led Germans to acquire an exaggerated sense of victimhood, which after 1990 became the driving force of their ‘exodus’ from Romania. Deserted Saxon and Swabian villages in Southern Transylvania are proof of this, as is the acute nostalgia expressed in the media by many ethnic Romanian intellectuals. The latter is interpreted by Cercel, throughout the volume, using the theoretical framework of “self-orientalization.” With this concept Cercel aims to explain the intellectuals’ deep admiration for the Western model of modernization during the 19th and 20th centuries. This idolization then led, he maintains, to their rejecting any model that might have ultimately proven to be better suited to describe Romania’s society.” (Stelu Şerban, Südosteuropa)

”This is an original work which examines the political and cultural expression of a Romanian nostalgia for the German past and the former presence of Germans in Romania.“ (Margit Feischmidt, Centre for Social Sciences, Hungarian Academy of Sciences)

”[Cristian] Cercel pune cu succes în lumină aspectele subiective care au stat la baza reprezentării unei comunități generice a germanilor din România care în perioada ultimilor 30 de ani – de altfel epicentrul cronologic al studiului de față – s-a aflat, în mare parte, relocată în Germania, altfel spus o comunitate cu o existență diasporică, beneficiară a unei alterității idealist – pozitivate și ca urmare a opțiunii de a se salva prin exil într-un stat de același neam. Aspectele socio-economice care au stat în spatele recuperării nostalgice și eminamente pozitive a germanului au fost condiționate de această relocalizare a germanilor din România în acest puternic stat central european asociat de români cu prosperitatea, progresul și implicit cu proiectul european. În această constelație de factori trebuie înțeles „filo-germanismul fără germani” al românilor. Cum bine arată autorul acestui studiu, dubla asociere/afinitate simbolică a germanilor locuind cândva în teritoriile actualului stat român modern cu „patria” (Heimat), respectiv, cu statele germane central europene, a fost o trăsătură a imaginii de sine încă din discursurile promovate de către membrii acestor grupuri chiar din veacurile anterioare. Această dublă afiliere le-a conferit, mai mereu, un capital de imagine în mediul românesc chiar și în situații mai contondente (ca perioada postbelică marcată de deportări pe criteriul etnic) lucru confirmat de faptul că diverși decidenți politici români nu au fost adepții unor discursuri denigratoare de lungă durată.” (Marian ZăloagăAnuarul Institutului de Cercetări Socio-Umane „Gheorghe Şincai”)

About the author:

Cristian Cercel is currently a researcher with the Institute for Social Movements at Ruhr University Bochum. He has a BA in European Studies (University of Bucharest), an MA in Nationalism Studies (Central European University), and a PhD in Politics (Durham University). Before his current appointment, he held research positions and fellowships at several institutions, including New Europe College (Bucharest), the Centre for Contemporary German Culture at Swansea University, and the Centre for Advanced Study (Sofia). He has published in refereed academic journals such as Nationalities PapersEast European Politics and Societies and CulturesNationalism and Ethnic Politics, and History and Memory. He is also active as a translator from German and Italian into Romanian.

More information about Dr. Cercel is available at:

http://www.isb.ruhr-uni-bochum.de/mitarbeiter/Cercel.html.de


Maria Bucur, Eroi și victime. România și memoria celor două războaie mondiale, Iași: Polirom, 2019.

Heroes and Victims explores the cultural power of war memorials in 20th-century Romania through two world wars and a succession of radical political changes—from attempts to create pluralist democratic political institutions after World War I to shifts toward authoritarian rule in the 1930s, to military dictatorships and Nazi occupation, to communist dictatorships, and finally to pluralist democracies with populist tendencies. Examining the interplay of centrally articulated and locally developed commemorations, Maria Bucur’s study engages monumental sites of memory, local funerary markers, rituals, and street names as well as autobiographical writings, novels, oral narratives, and film. This book reveals the ways in which a community’s religious, ethnic, economic, regional, and gender traditions shaped local efforts at memorializing its war dead. Maria Bucur is John W. Hill Chair in East European History and Associate Professor of History at Indiana University Bloomington. She is author of Eugenics and Modernization in Interwar Romania and editor (with Nancy M. Wingfield) of Gender and War in Twentieth-Century Eastern Europe (IUP, 2006).

What people are saying about it:

“In this superbly researched book, Bucur juxtaposes state-sponsored commemorative activities with localized, private memories. […] The book’s source-base, its theoretical sophistication and its wide-ranging scope make it an invaluable study in the way that communities and states work together—and independently—in remembering the past.” (Roland Clark, Cultural and Social History)

Heroes and Victims demonstrates not only how individual, local, and national discourses of remembrance have operated in the complex geopolitical and ethnic world of 20th-century Romania but also how and why post-communist Romanians and others in the 21st century have moved to a post-memory discourse.” (Melissa Bokovoy, University of New Mexico)

“An important book by one of the major emerging voices in east European studies.” (Charles King, Georgetown University)

“[A] historical tour de force, compellingly written and powerfully demonstrated. … Bucur’s truly illuminating study explores the Romanians’ tortuously dramatic efforts to accomplish a long-delayed coming to terms with their past.” (Slavic Review)

“An engaging read, written in an elegant style accessible to both academics and non academics, this volume will be of interest to historians, scholars of Romanian history and politics, as well as anthropologists and sociologists alike.” (European Legacy)

“[Bucur] is to be congratulated on a superb piece of scholarship which both sheds light on existing questions and raises important new ones. As such it can be recommended to teachers and researchers alike.” (European History Quarterly)

“[T]this is an ambitious book that effectively straddles disciplines, historical eras, and analytical levels. The data are remarkably comprehensive for such a difficult theme. Bucur’s narrative tells a complex story that few historians of Eastern and Central Europe could handle in such a sophisticated manner.” (Canadian American Slavic Studies)

“This is an ambitious and important contribution to the field of European memory studies and the study of war and its commemoration in the twentieth century.” (Women’s Studies International Forum)


Diana Dumitru, Vecini în vremuri de restriște. Stat, antisemitism și Holocaust în Basarabia și Transnistria, Iași: Polirom, 2019.

Based on original sources, this important new book on the Holocaust explores regional variations in civilians’ attitudes and behavior toward the Jewish population in Romania and the occupied Soviet Union. Gentiles’ willingness to assist Jews was greater in lands that had been under Soviet administration during the interwar period, while gentiles’ willingness to harm Jews occurred more in lands that had been under Romanian administration during the same period. While acknowledging the disasters of Communist rule in the 1920s and 1930s, this work shows the effectiveness of Soviet nationalities policy in the official suppression of antisemitism. This book offers a corrective to the widespread consensus that homogenizes gentile responses throughout Eastern Europe, instead demonstrating that what states did in the interwar period mattered; relations between social groups were not fixed and destined to repeat themselves, but rather fluid and susceptible to change over time.

What people are saying about it:

“Dumitru’s multifaceted, detailed description of the still under-researched events in Bessarabia and Transnistria is based on many previously untapped sources. Her attempts […] have unearthed a lot of facts about Jewish history in the region. The book is thus a pioneering comparative work that furthers research on a hitherto neglected part of the Shoah.” (Markus Bauer, H-Net Reviews)

“Can states school their citizens for genocide? Does valuing cultural diversity, by contrast, create a lasting buffer against state-organized violence? Diana Dumitru’s thesis is provocative: that the Soviet ideology of ‘friendship of peoples’ attenuated popular antisemitism. Using the Romanian-Soviet borderland as a kind of natural experiment, Dumitru finds substantial differences between how neighboring populations in Romania and the USSR viewed their Jewish neighbors. Dumitru’s work will open new debates about the power of political choice in determining the course of the Holocaust in different lands.” (Charles King, author of Odessa: Genius and Death in a City of Dreams)

”Dumitru’s history shows the incredible power of the state’s rhetoric and regulations to shape the attitudes and beliefs of its citizenry. This is a shocking and essential story for scholars of Central and Eastern Europe.” (Kate Brown, author of A Biography of No Place: From Ethnic Borderland to Soviet Heartland)

”The Holocaust in Bessarabia and Transnistria is much less familiar than that in Poland and the Baltic states, while by many accounts it was just as bestial. Diana Dumitru’s research explores an even less familiar reality: that Stalin’s totalitarianism fostered a climate that was relatively benevolent toward the Jews by comparison with the hostility fostered by the more traditional authoritarianism of Romania. In bringing to the surface this apparent irony, she demonstrates how the Holocaust remains an inexhaustible field of study, which continues to shed a revealing and troubling light on our present.” (Robert D. Kaplan, author of Balkan Ghosts: A Journey through History, and In Europe’s Shadow: Two Cold Wars and a Thirty-Year Journey through Romania and Beyond)

”Diana Dumitru’s important contribution to the burgeoning study of the Holocaust in the East demonstrates convincingly that Transnistrian Moldova, under Soviet rule from 1918 to 1940, witnessed far less collaboration than did Bessarabian Moldova, under Romanian rule. Her argument that Soviet internationalism explains this difference is an important challenge to both Holocaust Studies and Soviet history.” (Terry Martin, author of Affirmative Action Empire: Nations and Nationalism in the Soviet Union, 1923‒1939)


Cristina Văţulescu, Cultură şi poliţie secretă în comunism, Iasi: Polirom, 2018.

The documents emerging from the secret police archives of the former Soviet bloc have caused scandal after scandal, compromising revered cultural figures and abruptly ending political careers. Police Aesthetics offers a revealing and responsible approach to such materials. Taking advantage of the partial opening of the secret police archives in Russia and Romania, Vătulescu focuses on their most infamous holdings—the personal files—as well as on movies the police sponsored, scripted, or authored. Through the archives, she gains new insights into the writing of literature and raises new questions about the ethics of reading. She shows how police files and films influenced literature and cinema, from autobiographies to novels, from high-culture classics to avant-garde experiments and popular blockbusters. In so doing, she opens a fresh chapter in the heated debate about the relationship between culture and politics in twentieth-century police states.

What people are saying about it:

“Vatulescu insightfully draws upon archival material from both Russia and Romania to shed valuable light on the way the secret police informed—or in formed on, as the case may be—artists of the era . . . Although her subject matter lies in a shadowy, politicized realm located somewhere between ‘subversion and complicity,’ Vatulescu provides her readers with much needed illumination of that murky penumbral realm.” (Tim Harte, Slavic Review)

“In this fascinating and ambitious study, Cristina Vatulescu examines secret-police files, surveillance methods, and interrogation techniques in the Soviet era, and the impact of resulting ”police aesthetics” on writers and films directors. Like a good mystery novelist, Vatulescu draws us into rooms forbidden to the average reader – courtrooms, interrogation rooms, and secret police archives – creating and image of Soviet culture that is at odds, as herself asserts, with easy binary oppositions. Instead, she presents us with a complex network of imagery and associations that underlies texts from the Soviet period, ranging from police files to underground novels.” (Eric Laursen, Slavic and East European Journal)

“Police Aesthetics most deservedly received the Barbara Heldt Prize in 2011: Vatulescu opens up new lines of investigation (to stay within the police jargon) for a reading of the relationship between fact and fiction in Stalinist culture.” (Birgit Beumers, Studies in Russian and Soviet Cinema)

“Vatulescu’s outstanding book focuses on the fate of the unregimented creative intelligentsia in Stalin’s Russia and Stalinized Romania, the interplay between artistic creation and police supervision, coercion, and persecution. Drawing from secret police archives in Russia and Romania, this superbly researched and original book captures the tragic destinies of major artists caught at what Lionel Trilling called the bloody crossroads where politics and literature meet.” (Vladimir Tismăneanu, Kritika: Explorations in Russian and Eurasian History)

“This is a very important, groundbreaking book, one of the most original and illuminating works I have seen in recent years in comparative Slavic studies. Police Aesthetics will unquestionably position Cristina Vatulescu as one of the foremost scholars of Soviet culture.” (Catharine Nepomnyashchy, Columbia University)

“Rarely have I encountered a book that managed to incorporate original archival research (and what findings!), new work in history, literary, and film theory, and close analysis in such a clear and compelling way.” (John MacKay, Yale University)

“Sunt trei domenii, deci, convocate, pentru a intra, în sumă, cumva „prin la­te­ral“ într-o tematică deloc demodată (chiar dacă, aparent, ea aparține, istoric, mai degrabă de secolul trecut): literatura, filmul și narațiunile despre poliția secretă. Urmarea acestei atât de fecunde intersecții e un studiu și o carte așa cum, pentru mi­ne, nu e niciun dubiu, nu avem în ro­mâ­nește. Mai precis: nu aveam până la acest volum.” (Cristian Patrasconiu, 22)

“Volumul – impresionat și ca efort de documentare, și în privința liniilor de discurs atins, și ca ipoteze de cercetare propuse (și foarte bine argumentate) – sta la umbra unui citat oarecum misterios și, în orice caz, intrigant din ”Vorbește, memorie” a lui Vl. Nabokov … Foarte pe scurt: nu aveam un studiu pe această tematică de asemenea finețe, anvergură și cuprindeere. De acum îl avem – și este foarte bine că e așa. (Cristian Patrasconiu, Banatul Azi)


Lavinia Stan și Diane Vancea, coord., România postcomunistă: trecut, prezent, viitor, Iasi: Polirom, 2017.

2014 marked the 25th anniversary of the collapse of communist regimes in Eastern Europe. The events of 1989 are widely seen as having ushered in new all-encompassing reforms in almost all areas of life. In few other places were reforms more contested and divisive than in Romania, a country that suffered greatly under the sultanistic-cum-totalitarian dictatorship of Nicolae Ceausescu, faced the region’s only bloody anti-communist revolt, and as such had the longest to travel on the road from communism to democracy. We now have a generation’s worth of experience with these wrenching reforms that have deeply affected Romania’s political institutions and political culture, and ultimately allowed it to become a member of the coveted European Union club. This volume gathers key lessons for democratic theory and practice from Romania’s first twenty-five years of post-communist transformation. Written by leading experts in the field of Romanian Studies, the chapters focus on the most important factors that have shaped the country’s political transformation since 1989. The volume includes contributions written by Radu Cinpoes, Monica Ciobanu, Dennis Deletant, Tom Gallagher, Peter Gross, Ronald F. King, Duncan Light, Cosmin Gabriel Marian, Mihaela Miroiu, Csaba Zoltan Novak, Cristina Parau, Levente Salat, Lavinia Stan, Marius Stan, Paul E. Sum, Vladimir Tismaneanu, Diane Vancea, Katherine Verdery, and Craig Young. Dennis Deletant and Mihaela Miroiu presented their chapters as keynote speeches at the 2015 Conference of the Society for Romanian Studies.

What people are saying about it:

“This new book… brings together timely contributions from younger and more established scholars from two continents that shed fresh light on the evolution of the fledgling Romanian democracy after 1989. It reminds us that Romania’s image and transition to democracy must be linked to the absence of market reforms and the lack of a vibrant civil society under communism. The book also demonstrates that the rapid proliferation of political parties after December 1989 brought about a weak form of pluralism that was not conducive to genuine political competition. The new political parties had weak constituencies, little grass-roots support, and lacked well-defined doctrines and internal discipline. The volume also points out several directions in which Romania must still make progress in order to catch up with its neighbors in the West. It will be of interest to political scientists, sociologists, and historians as well as to those studying Eastern Europe and transitions to democracy.” (Aurelian Crăiuţu, Indiana University, Bloomington)

“This timely volume marks the 25th anniversary of the collapse of the communist regime in Romania and explores the evolution of Romanian democracy by addressing the social and institutional development of the country since 1989. The editors have selected key themes which guide us on Romania’s democratic journey, and the contributors to the volume are some of the best scholars on Romania, providing important insights to the country’s political transformation. For anyone interested in understanding Romania’s democratic transition and the role that state, non-state and international actors have played, this is a must read.” (Steven D. Roper, Nazarbayev University, Astana, Kazakhstan)

“Scholars in transition and Europeanization will find plenty of useful data, and the book is highly informative, yet accessible enough for a wider readership. At the same time, for all its ambition of a symbolic (self-)assessment and critical reflection, I cannot imagine a potentially more interested audience than the Romanian public itself—for this book raises fundamental questions of interest to anyone who cares about democracy. “(Nicolae–Emanuel Dobrei, National University of Political Studies and Public Administration, Bucharest, Romania)

“A comprehensive view of Romania 25 years after the collapse of Ceausescu’s regime…The chapters present first-rate scholarship from some of the experts in this area and a great deal of methodological diversity as well. The diversity in methods and content is a definitive strength of the book…Though the focus of the book is on Romania, much is applicable to the other post-Communist countries in the region.” (J. R. Clardie, Northwest Nazarene University)

“Several of these chapters provide an original extension of the existing academic literature, and the volume itself yields probably the fullest picture of Romania’s post-communist evolution. It is an instructive read for anyone interested in the country’s recent past.” (Endre Borbath, European University Institute, Italy)

“O singură observație, sumară și în registru pozitiv, despre aceas­tă carte care ar merita multe serii și tipuri de dezbateri: alături de alte titluri cu tematică similară (dar nu foarte multe – și, semnificativ, bu­nă parte dintre ele rea­lizate de autori care sunt în SRS sau care gravitează în jurul acestei organizații), România post­co­mu­nistă – prezent, trecut și viitor e un re­du­tabil, rafinat, remar­ca­bil și, cred, de ne­ocolit manual de istorie con­temporană a României.” (Cristian Patrasconiu, 22)

“The book gathers an impressive list of well-known scholars of Romanian studies, mostly from universities and research centers in the USA, the United Kingdom, and Canada … The present volume exceeds the value of many other previous contributions from Romania.” (Florin Anghel, Analele Universitatii Ovidius din Constanta – Seria Stiinte Politice)


Alex Drace-Francis, Geneza culturii române moderne. Instituțiile scrisului și dezvoltarea identității naționale, 1700-1900. Iaşi: Polirom, 2016.

How do literacy and the development of literary culture promote the development of a national identity? This well-researched and readable book explores the rise of Romanian-language literary, educational and printing institutions in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, bringing out a story that has not been fully explored in English. He builds on and engages with current knowledge about print culture, modernization, national identity and state formation, to make an original contribution to ongoing debates in these areas. Alex Drace-Francis is an Associate Professor of Literary and Cultural History of Modern Europe at the University of Amsterdam.

What people are saying about it:

“An enormously erudite study… [F]or anyone interested in the origins of modern Romanian literary production and education in the context of the Enlightenment, modernization, and state-formation this is an indispensable book.” (Irina Livezeanu, Journal of Balkan and Near Eastern Studies)

“Alex Drace-Francis has produced a highly accurate and often outstandingly subtle piece of research. This British scholar observes things that his Romanian colleagues, being too familiar with them, have tended to gloss over.” (Ovidiu Pecican, Observator Cultural)

“Solid and extremely well informed, Alex Drace-Francis’s book not only brings together a great mass of information and hypotheses, but also asks important questions about a cultural legacy whose investigation is still plagued by stereotypes.” (Mircea Anghelescu, Romanian Review of Book History)

“Admirably balanced in its critical use of sources, perfectly mature in discussing a difficult topic, Drace-Francis’s book is an exceptionally insightful and stimulating analysis of emergent Romanian modernity and a model for future approaches.” (Doris Mironescu, Slavonic and East European Review)

“Drace-Francis has a knack of raising your intellectual game without leaving you fumbling for the ball. His occasional wit is dry but playful. If you know anyone who loves Romania enough to dig deep into its intellectual soil, the roots are here.” (Mike Ormsby, author of Never Mind the Balkans – Here’s Romania)


Roland Clark. Sfântă tinereţe legionară. Activismul fascist în România interbelic. Iaşi: Polirom, 2015.

Founded in 1927, Romania’s Legion of the Archangel Michael was one of Europe’s largest and longest-lived fascist social movements. In Holy Legionary Youth, Clark draws on oral histories, memoirs, and substantial research in the archives of the Romanian secret police to provide the most comprehensive account of the Legion in English to date. Clark approaches Romanian fascism by asking what membership in the Legion meant to young Romanians. Viewing fascism “from below,” as a social category with practical consequences for those who embraced it, he shows how the personal significance of fascism emerged out of Legionaries’ interactions with each other, the state, other political parties, families, friends, and fascist groups abroad. Official repression, fascist spectacle, and the frequency and nature of legionary activities changed a person’s everyday activities and relationships in profound ways. Clark’s sweeping history traces fascist organizing in interwar Romania to nineteenth-century grassroots nationalist movements that demanded political independence from the Austro-Hungarian Empire. It also shows how closely the movement was associated with the Romanian Orthodox Church and how the uniforms, marches, and rituals were inspired by the muscular, martial aesthetic of fascism elsewhere in Europe. Although antisemitism was a key feature of official fascist ideology, state violence against Legionaries rather than the extensive fascist violence against Jews had a far greater impact on how Romanians viewed the movement and their role in it. Approaching fascism in interwar Romania as an everyday practice, Holy Legionary Youth offers a new perspective on European fascism, highlighting how ordinary people “performed” fascism by working together to promote a unique and totalizing social identity.What people are saying about it:

“Roland Clark’s Sfântă tinereţe legionară is a truly remarkable book. … Without detracting from the movement’s criminal nature, Clark’s book brings to our attention their sincere idealism and thirst for spiritual fulfillment. In this way, he helps us better understand not only this movement’s appeal in the interwar and World War II periods but also the endurance of Legionaries’ myth in Romania today.” (Vladimir Solonari, H-Net, 3 March 2016 )

“Clark tries to immerse himself in the lives of the legionaries. He is interested in the Legionary “everyday,” in the experiences of Codreanu’s followers. The everyday is defined in such a way that the “willingness to make sacrifices for the national battle” against the “Jews” and the “system” lifts up the everyday and permanently exults it. If my reading is correct, one must affiliate oneself with the Legion as if it was a “drug”: activity replaces helplessness; building activities; demonstrations; only the unutterable can be uttered; music; lyrics; parades; discussions. Whoever wants to join the Legion cannot complain about lacking employment, excitement, or appreciation.” (Armin Heinen, H/Soz/Kult, 15 August 2015)

Holy Legionary Youth is more than just a book about the meaning of fascism for rank-and-file activists in the legionary movement; its achievement is a social history of the Iron Guard, an organization that is considered to be among “the biggest fascist movements in Europe (p. 15) in terms of the number of members per capita. Roland Clark is interested in how fascism transformed the lives of ordinary people, and it is no accident that the book begins with the funeral of a young girl from Craiova, Maria Cristescu, a teenage sympathizer of the legionary movement: her funeral mobilized hundreds of people in a ceremony with specifically legionary motifs, including political ones.” (Cristian Vasile, Contributors.ro, 13 September 2015)

“Clark quickly and distinctively differentiates his book from other histories of the Legion. For the first time we have a study that analyzes the legionary movement not just, or even primarily, in terms of its leaders or in terms of the major events that punctuated its birth, rise, and fall. We have in this book one of the most ‘colorful,’ nuanced, and dense works on the subject.” (Cristian Patrasconiu, Revista 22, 1 September 2015).

“Highly interdisciplinary, analytically comprehensive, and informed by a prodigious array of both primary sources and secondary literature, Clark’s book is a much-awaited reading for researchers, university professors, and students alike.” (Ionut Biliuta, Hungarian Historical Review, 5/1 (2015): 194-196).

“Clark’s book offers a comprehensive reinterpretation of the interwar Legionary movement from the perspective of the history of everyday social life. Moving away from abstract paradigms of ‘the nature of Romanian fascism’, Clark tells us more about what the Legionaries actually did (and did not) do, using a large number of new archival sources…Especially impressive is the way Clark situates interwar Romanian political phenomena in the context of broader paradigms of international social, cultural, political and religious history; and brings the topic up to date with a closing reflection on the memory of Legionary activity in post-war and present-day Romanian society. For the breadth and depth of its analysis, its rich documentation and clear writing style, Clark’s work stands out against a very strong field.” (The 2017 SRS Book Award Committee)


Vladimir SolonariPurificarea națiunii: dislocări forțate de populație și epurări etnice în România lui Ion Antonescu, 1940-1944. Iaşi: Polirom, 2015.

In Purifying the Nation Vladimir Solonari shows that the persecution of Jews and Roma by the Antonescu regime had its roots in traditional Romanian ethnic nationalism that long preceded the 1940s. This ethnic nationalism was not completely compatible with national socialist German racism and its revolutionary agenda, but the Nazis’ emphasis on “biology” as the only “scientific” foundation of modern society resonated with Romanian radical nationalists who had long suspected all national minorities of disloyalty to the Romanian nation and who considered an ethnically pure state the only “natural” form of modern societal organization. Solonari follows the way in which the policy of “ethnic purification” was pursued during the war and explains why the treatment applied to different minorities was vastly dissimilar. He devotes about a third of the book to the analysis of this policy in two eastern provinces, Bessarabia and Bukovina, where “ethnic purification,” in the first place against Jews, was carried out with extraordinary brutality and without regard to any legal and moral constraints. He explains that these provinces were singled out by the regime as “models” for post-war Romania, which had to be ethnically cleansed and reeducated in the spirit of the “New Europe.” Solonari also shows how and why the deportation of the nomadic Roma as well as Roma with criminal records was part of the campaign of ethnic purification. The book is the fruit of years-long research in the archival collections of the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, DC, which holds copies of documents from Romania, Moldova, Ukraine, and Russia, as well as archives in Bucharest, Romania. It also reflects numerous recent publications of archival documents, memoirs, diaries, and other documents from the period. What people are saying about it:

“Solonari shows how in the southern border zone with Bulgaria, Bessarabia, and above all in the occupied southern Ukraine, the Romanian leadership shunted people around and massacred them with an energy that left even Germans astonished.” (Mark Mazower, Times Literary Supplement)

Purifying the Nation makes a major contribution to the literature on ethnic cleansing during World War II. … The Antonescu government consisted of personalities from a range of parties, not just the military. Antonescu himself and the number two man in his government, Mihai Antonescu, had been pro-western before becoming “realists” and seizing the Hitlerian moment in order to purify Romania and reclaim territories taken by the Soviets in 1940. Solonari’s argument is thus aimed at the Romanian right and public opinion more broadly, and not just at “Marshall Antonescu.” (Irina Livezeanu, Slavic Review)

“Carefully researched and exhaustively documented, Purifying the Nation is a fine piece of scholarship and an invaluable contribution to our knowledge of this dark period.” (Peter Sherwood, Holocaust and Genocide Studies)

“Vladimir Solonari’s book about Romania from the late 1930s to 1944 is a very major addition to the scholarship on the subject.” (Daniel Chirot, Journal of Modern History)

Solonari’s book “is by far the best account of genocide and ethnic cleansing under the Antonescu regime.” (Stanley G. Payne, The International History Review)

“Solonari’s work is exciting to read and his thesis is vigorously argued. The material is well organized into chapters, with a good narrative and excellent illustrations…” (Alex Drace-Francis, European History Quarterly)

“The conclusion of this book [that the Romanian program of ethnic purification had its roots in Romania’s own interwar radical nationalist thought rather than in Nazi doctrine] is memorable and worth our careful and honest reflection.” (Cristian Pătrășconiu, Revista 22, 1 September 2015).

“Vladimir Solonari’s book is more than a history of the Holocaust in Romania. This book makes a substantial contribution to our understanding of the way the modern Romanian nation was built in relation to its ethnic minorities…. It is a call to remember, and it is addressed not only to erudite professional historians but to all of us. Let’s listen to it with the attention and seriousness it deserves.” (Petru Negură, Observator cultural, May 13, 2016).

Mentoring Program

The Society for Romanian Studies is launching a new mentoring program that pairs scholars at different stages of their careers or in different parts of the world to facilitate mutually beneficial discussions and communication.  Junior scholars gain local information formally from their supervisors and informally from others they come into contact with. Informal mentorship is particularly important for students and scholars working in the West whose primary supervisors are not themselves specialists in Romania and Moldova. Similarly, students and scholars based in Eastern Europe will find it beneficial to establish informal relationships with their colleagues abroad, with whom they can discuss disciplinary trends and other questions of mutual interest. Mentoring also benefits senior scholars by helping them stay abreast of new literatures and trends in the field as well as providing insights into other universities and other countries.

 

The purpose of the SRS Mentoring Program is to provide SRS members with invaluable support and established scholars the opportunity to help shape the future of the field and support new research. Responsibility for making the mentoring relationship work rests with the individual mentor/mentee, but the SRS acts as a sponsoring organization that matches mentors and mentees and suggests parameters for the relationship. The SRS aims at facilitating formal mentoring initiatives in cases where mentors and mentees do not know each other, have no clear understanding of their current expertise areas, and need help to connect.

 

Mentoring relationships may either be established around specific, short-term goals, such as writing a book proposal or developing strategies for acceptance into graduate schools, or may involve a series of discussions career trajectories, publication plans, accessing libraries, archives, or fellowships, or other issues of mutual interest to the mentor and mentee. Individual pairs should agree on the nature and longevity of the commitment, but we envisage that most mentoring relationships will involve several informal conversations over a period of six months.

 

If you are willing to consider becoming a mentor, could you please fill out a short form here. Your bio (but not your contact details) will then be available online for potential mentees.

 

For further details please contact Roland Clark (clarkr@liv.ac.uk) or any of the other members of the Mentoring Committee:

Margaret Beissinger (mhbeissi@princeton.edu)

Petru Negură (petru.negura@gmail.com)

Robert Ives (rives@unr.edu)

Cristina Plămădeală (montrealcp@gmail.com)

Anca Şincan (anca.sincan@gmail.com)

 

SRS Newsletter

The Society for Romanian Studies publishes a regular, semi-annual, newsletter to keep its members and associates informed of goings on in the field. The newsletter is distributed in electronic form only. Subscribers to H-Romania and our Facebook friends are notified once a new issue is published, usually in November and April each year.

Please send news of your publications, moves, graduations, advancement, conferences, and life events to the Newsletter editorial team:

To read current and past issues of the SRS Newsletter in PDF format, please click on the links below:

2023 Spring Summer Newsletter

2022 Fall Winter Newsletter

2022 Spring Newsletter

2021 Fall Newsletter

2021 Spring Newsletter

2020 Fall Newsletter

Special Supplement dedicated to Professor Keith Hitchins

2020 Spring Newsletter

2019 Fall Newsletter

2019 Spring Newsletter

2018 Spring Newsletter

2017 Fall Newsletter

2017 Spring Newsletter

2016 Fall Newsletter

2015 Fall Newsletter

2015 Spring Newsletter

2014 Fall Newsletter

2014 Spring Newsletter

2013 Fall Newsletter

2013 Spring Newsletter

2012 Fall Newsletter

2012 Spring Newsletter

2011 Fall Newsletter

2011 Spring Newsletter

2010 Fall Newsletter

2010 Spring Newsletter

2009 Fall Newsletter

2009 Spring Newsletter

Conferences

SRS is committed to organizing thematic international conferences in Europe every 3 years. See the links before for information on past and future conferences.

2022 in Timişoara

2018 in Bucharest

2015 in Bucharest

2012 in Sibiu

2007 in Constanţa

What we do

The Society for Romanian Studies is involved in a variety of activities and programs, and you can too. We offer two prizes, publish a book series in collaboration with Polirom as well as the Journal of Romanian Studies in collaboration with Ibidem Press, maintain a mentorship program, distribute our biannual Newsletter, maintain links with a number of other scholarly organizations, and organize an international conference in Romania every three years. The Society celebrated its 45th anniversary in 2018, a momentous event we marked with the “45 for 45” interviews series published in the acclaimed LaPunkt.

Please choose one of the links below to find out more!


Journal of Romanian Studies

Conferences

Newsletter

Prizes

Romanian Studies Book Series

H-Romania

Mentoring Program

45 for 45

SRS 2017 Graduate Student Essay Prize




Committee:


R. Chris Davis

(Lone Star College-Kingwood),


Valentina Glajar

(Texas State University),


Ron King

(San Diego State University),


Diane Vancea

(Ovidius University of Constanta)

The Ninth Annual SRS Graduate Student Essay Prize is awarded to the most outstanding unpublished essay or thesis chapter written in English by a graduate student in any social science or humanities discipline on a Romanian subject during the long academic year 2016–17. The prize committee received over twenty essays from a wide range of disciplines, submitted by graduate students and recent graduates from across North America, Europe, and Asia. The committee debated the merits of many prize-worthy essays. In the end, one essay stood above the others. It is with great pleasure that the committee awards this year’s Graduate Student Essay Prize to Dana Muresan for her essay “Brancusi: The Construction of a Romanian National Hero.”

Muresan’s well-researched and highly sophisticated essay examines through the lens of Brancusi the complex relationship of art and nationalism. It explores the role of Romania in the formation of Brancusi’s universal modern art and, in turn, the role of Brancusi and his art in the formation of Romanian identity and promotion of national culture. In particular, Muresan addresses the value the Romanian state derived from claiming Bransuci as a national hero, as a cultural symbol combining historic identity and contemporary sophistication. Yet this appropriation explicitly could not include full appreciation for the content of the work, given that Brancusi the émigré was producing art that was distinctly non-socialist in theme and format. The paper beautifully explores this contradiction, especially as it played out in official Romanian artistic discourse, highlighting both statements and silences of that official discourse. All at once, Muresan reflects on the legacy of Brancusi’s biography and art in both Romania and Paris; widens the analytical frame of Romanian identity discourses; and makes a significant contribution to an array of scholarly fields, including nationalism studies, identity studies, and art history, among others. Equally important to the committee, the essay showcases the field of Romanian Studies in an international context. Finally, Muresan achieves something very rare in academic writing these days, namely the ability to communicate ideas to specialists and non-specialists alike.

The committee felt three other finalists from this year’s competition deserved special mention: Kathryn Grow Allen’s “Migration, Conversion and the Creation of an Identity in Southeast Europe: A Biological Distance and Strontium Isotope Analysis of Ottoman Communities in Romania, Hungary and Croatia”; Alin Rus’s “‘Building’ Cultural Patrimony in Ceaușescu’s Neopatrimonial Romania”; and Karin Steinbrueck’s “Aftershocks: Nicolae Ceaușescu and the Romanian Communist Regime’s Responses to the 1977 Earthquake.” The quality and diversity of this year’s submissions certainly bodes well for the future of Romanian studies.

SRS Email Listserv

We want to encourage you to start using H-Romania exclusively. Please begin to migrate to H-Romania. In the meantime, we will keep this page to provide a smooth transition, but it will not remain forever.

You are invited to join the News from the Society for Romanian Studies E-mail List, which is made available through Google Groups. Anyone who is interested, SRS member or not, may subscribe to the list. The SRS List is used to send out news, information, or other notices in a more timely fashion between issues of the Newsletter. This might include conference announcements, calls for papers, funding information, etc.

If you have problems subscribing or unsubscribing to the list through Google Groups, please contact the SRS webmaster at webmaster@society4romanianstudies.org.

H-Romania

H-Romania is an international interdisciplinary academic forum promoting the professional study, criticism, and research of all aspects of Romanian history, politics, culture and society. It focuses primarily on the countries of Romania and Moldova but also attends to numerous other past and present political, ethnic and social groups, including minorities and diasporas, in terms of their significant connections to present-day Romanian territory. Its intended audience is scholars, professionals, and students who study, teach, and write about Romania, Moldova, and these countries’ cultures and diasporas. Since 2013, it has been affiliated with the Society for Romanian Studies (SRS), generally recognized as the major international professional organization for scholars concerned with Romania and Moldova. H-Romania’s editorial rationale is to facilitate the exchange of news, resources, and ideas about Romanian Studies. Specifically, it endeavors to create and strengthen scholarly and professional networks; to commission reviews and other scholarly discussions and debates on historical and contemporary issues important to Romania; to share ideas about teaching and researching; and more broadly to promote activities designed to foster advancement in these fields. H-Romania is currently edited by R. Chris Davis and Valentin Săndulescu.

How to Join H-Romania

To join H-Romania, first set up an H-Net account. To do so, go to https://networks.h-net.org, click on “Sign up to subscribe & contribute,” and follow the instructions there. Once you’ve created an H-Net account and profile, you can then go to the H-Romania page and click “Subscribe to this network to join the discussion.” Before allowing any contributions, we ask that you complete your H-Net profile, indicating your institutional affiliation, degrees, and areas of interest. You can do this by clicking on the accounts icon in the upper right, then selecting the “Profile” option from the drop-down menu.

How to Contact the Editors

We are interested in building our Reviews and Reports pages, including book and film reviews as well as conference and exhibition reports. If you have any questions please feel free to contact the editors at editorial-romania@mail.h-net.msu.edu. Please also let us know if you are interested in joining the editorial team or becoming a reviewer or blogger at H-Romania. Thanks, and please spread the word to colleagues and students!!