Marius Stan, lecture at Pavilion Center

Memorie si politici de memorie: instructiuni de folosire

Joi, 09 februarie 2012, 19.00

Memoria eticheteaza o mare varietate de fenomene. Iti aduci aminte cum sa joci GO dupa multi ani de inactivitate. Iti amintesti sa-ti suni parintii cu fiecare aniversare a lor. Iti amintesti maidanele pe care bateai mingea in copilarie. Iti amintesti un gust, o culoare, o traire… iti amintesti evenimentele din 1989 prin „ochelarii” unei varste si unei experiente anume. Si cu toate astea, foarte multe lucruri se intampla – cum spune Wittgenstein – atunci cand ne amintim.
Atunci cand amintirea este obtinuta pe calea mijloacelor politice, ea imbraca forma politicilor de memorie. Sau cand amintirea se intrepatrunde cu arta devenindu-i obiect, putem vorbi, in fine, de o arta a memorializarii. Toate aceste instrumentalizari lucreaza cu interpretari si reinterpretari ale unor simboluri din trecut, in vreme ce memoria, privita in ansamblul ei, nu înseamna altceva decat un proces complex in care selectia joaca un rol covarsitor. Fiind un act prin excelenta de selectie, memoria se poate raporta la sablonul celui care face selectia. Si cu toate acestea cine stabileste care elemente sunt de retinut ca memento public si care anume ar trebui eliminate si date uitarii? Ca memoria de un anumit fel si forma se poate naste din acest „laborator” fara a fi astfel intentionata de catre creator, este un alt lucru foarte posibil. Dar lucrurile pot fi atat intentionale cat si neintentionale in acelasi timp, in vreme ce anumite „memorii verna culare” ale unor evenimente majore ar putea ramane chiar diferite de comemorarea istorica oficiala.
„Memorie si politici de memorie: instructiuni de folosire”, ca discurs al oricarui narator obisnuit cu regresiile in trecut, isi propune sa repovesteasca tuturor celor cu „tinere de minte” cum anume a gasit de cuviinta Romania post-decembrista sa-si reaminteasca istoria recenta prin cele doua canale anuntate: politic si artistic! Cu alte cuvinte, sa raspunda la cel putin doua intrebari fundamentale: ce si cum anume ne-am amintit politic despre perioada comunista? Ce si cum anume ne-am amintit artistic despre perioada comunista? Vor fi asadar explorate evocarile politice si artistice ale trecutului, ca mijloace de intemeiere post-decembrista a unor tipologii de memorie.

Marius Stan este doctor al Facultatii de Stiinte Politice a Universitatii din Bucuresti (cu o teza despre administrarea trecutului in Republica Sarba si functionarea Tribunalului Penal International pentru Fosta Iugoslavie) si cercetator in cadrul Institutului de Investigare a Crimelor Comunismului si Memoria Exilului Romanesc, calitate in care a participat la elaborarea mai multor articole si lucrari despre istoria comunismului in Romania. A publicat studii despre sistemul penitenciar, reeducarea prin tortura si represiunea comunista in Romania si coordoneaza revista internationala History of Communism in Europe. Este co-autor al volumelor I si II ale Dictionarului ofiterilor si angajatilor civili ai Directiei Generale a Penitenciarelor. Aparatul Central: 1948 – 1989, Iasi: Polirom, 2009/ 2011.
Din 2006 este membru si purtator de cuvant al miscarii civice Militia Spirituala.
Printre domeniile sale de interes se afla proiectele educationale si de memorie: istoriacomunismului.ro; memoryofnation.eu, transformarile sociale si politice in Europa postcomunista si justitia de tranzitie.

Marius Stan, lecture

Memory and Politics of Memory: A Hang Tag

Thursday, 09 February 2012, 19.00

Memory labels a wide variety of phenomena. You remember how to play GO after many years of idleness. You remember to call your parents when every of their anniversaries. You evoke the maidans where you used to play ball in your boyhood days. You retrace a flavour, a colour, a feeling… you bethink the 1989 events through the medium of certain time and praxis. Nonetheless lots of things happen – as Wittgenstein would assert – when we recollect.
When the reminiscence is acquired through some political means, it takes the shape of the so-called politics of memory. Or when the reminiscence coalesces into art becoming its object, we can ultimately state something about an art of memorialisation. All these employments are using interpretations and reinterpretations of some past symbols, whilst the memory on the whole is nothing else than a complex process wherein selection plays a decisive role. Being a trial experience par excellence, the memory could retrospect to the cast of the one who makes the selection. Notwithstanding, who is to say which elements are retainable as public memento and whichever should be blotted out or forgotten? That memory of a certain kind and shape could unintentionally arise within this “lab”, is another plausible fact. But things can be intended and unintended at a time, whilst certain “vernacular memories” of some major events could remain quite different from the of ficial historical commemoration.
As oration of any common narrator used to facing the past, “Memory and Politics of Memory: a Hang Tag” tries to retell to the unforgetting ones how exactly the post-communist Romania has condescended to recollect its recent history in the aforementioned ways: politically and artistically! In other words, to provide answers to at least two fundamental questions: what and how exactly did we manage to politically recall in relation to the communist period? What and how exactly did we manage to artistically recall in relation to the communist period? Thus the political and artistic awakenings of the past as means to a post-communist establishment of some memorial typologies shall be explored.

Marius Stan holds a PhD in political sciences from the Faculty of Political Sciences – Bucharest University (with a thesis on the administration of the past in Serbia and the functioning of the ICTY), and currently works as a researcher within the Institute for the Investigation of Communist Crimes and the Memory of the Romanian Exile wherefrom he has published several articles and other writings on the history of communism in Romania. He has published many studies about the penitentiary system, re-education by means of torture, and the communist repression in Romania; he also coordinates the international journal History of Communism in Europe. He co-authored two volumes of the The Dictionary of the Officers and Civil Employees belonging to the General Directorate of the Penitentiaries. Central Apparatus: 1948-1989, Iași: Polirom, 2009/ 2011. Starting with 2006 he is a member and spokesman of the civic movement “Militia Spirituala”. Among his fields of interest should be mentioned few educational and memorial projects: istoriacomunismului.ro; memoryofnation.eu, the socio-political transformations in post-communist Europe and transitional studies.

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