"On the level of historical insight and political thought there prevails an ill-defined, general agreement that the essential structure of all civilizations is at a breaking point. Although it may seem better preserved in some parts of the world than in others, it can nowhere provide the guidance to the possibilities of the century, or an adequate response to its horrors…
The conviction that everything that happens of earth must be comprehensible to man can lead to interpreting history by commonplaces. Comprehension does not mean denying the outrageous, deducing the unprecedented from precedents, or explaining phenomena by such analogies and generalities that the impact of reality and the shock of experience are no longer felt. It means, rather, examining and bearing consciously the burden that our century has placed on us — neither denying its existence nor submitting meekly to its weight. Comprehension, in short, means the unpremeditated, attentive facing up to, and resisting of, reality — whatever it may be…
We can no longer afford to take that which was good in the past and simply call it our heritage, to discard the bad the bad and simply think of it as a dead load which by itself time will bury in oblivion. The subterranean stream of Western history has finally come to the surface and usurped the dignity of our tradition. This is the reality in which we live. And this is why all efforts to escape from the grimness of the present into nostalgia for a still intact past, or into the anticipated oblivion of a better future, are vain."
I thoroughly enjoyed chasing the "anti-nostalgia links" posted at O'Connor's Opinions-- enough, in fact, to start working on an anti-nostalgia links list of my own. Hat tip to the O'Connors for the inspiration. And due respect to Hannah Arendt for the above-listed quote from the preface to The Origins of Totalitarianism (a.k.a. my guidebook).
- "The Gulag Archipelago in Romania: The Story No One Has Told Before" by Sandro Magister. This includes information garnered from the Vatican.
- Memo from Henry Kissinger to President Nixon on May 15, 1973 urging "high priority" relationship between US and Romania.
- "Behind the Facade of the Ceausescu Regime" by Vladimir Tismaneanu for RFE/RL
- The names, the short sentences describing their fate, the condemnations, the many who simply disappeared.
- The archives of Romanian state television in the 1970's.
- The Museum of Communism, created by one of my favorite people in Arlington, Virginia.
- Cum era? Cam asa: Memories of Romania's Communist Years edited by Calin-Andrei Mihailescu with excerpt at link.
- Bless This Prison video from Fundation ICAR.
- "Pioneers Forever" by Vasile Ernu.
- "The Legacy of Elena Ceausescu" by Catherine Lovatt for Central European Review
