New book: Lavinia Stan, Lucian Turcescu (eds.), Justice, Memory and Redress in Romania: New Insights

„Are there any lessons Romania can teach transitional justice scholars and practitioners? This book argues that important insights emerge when analyzing a country with a moderate record of coming to terms with its communist past. Taking a broad definition of transitional justice as their starting point, contributors provide fresh assessments of the history commission, court trials, public identifications of former communist perpetrators, commemorations, and unofficial artistic projects that seek to address and redress the legacies of communist human rights violations.

     Theoretical and practical questions regarding the continuity of state agencies, the sequencing of initiatives, their advantages and limitations, the reasons why some reckoning programs are enacted and others are not, and these measures’ efficacy in promoting truth and justice are answered throughout the volume. Contributors include seasoned scholars from Romania, Canada, the United States, and the United Kingdom, and current and former leaders of key Romanian transitional justice institutions.”

Content:

Introduction (Lavinia Stan)

Part 1. Memory, Reckoning, Legitimacy, and Justice: Theoretical Considerations

Conceptions of Memory and Historical Redress (Cristian Tileaga)

Collaboration and Resistance: Some Definitional Difficulties (Lucian Turcescu, Lavinia Stan)

Evaluating Measures and Their Outcomes (Cynthia M. Horne)

Paradoxes of Delayed Transitional Justice (Alexandru Gussi)

Part 2. Transitional Justice in Practice: Successes, Failures, and Challenges

Chapter Five 100
Retrospective Justice and Legal Culture (Raluca Grosescu, Agata Fijalkovski)

Public Exposure without Lustration (Dragos Petrescu)

Memory, Commemorative Landscapes and Transitional Justice (Duncan Light, Craig Young)

The Role of Art in Dealing with the Communist Past (Caterina Preda)

Part 3. Victims and Collaborators

Nostalgia, Identity and Self-Irony in Remembering Communism (Cristina Petrescu)

Remembering the Gulag: Religious Representations and Practices (Monica Ciobanu)

Coming to Terms with the Controversial Past of the Orthodox Church (Cristian Vasile)

Pain and Politics in Victim Testimonials (Delia Popescu)

Conclusion (Lavinia Stan and Lucian Turcescu)

More details about book on Cambridge Scholars Publishing website.