Romanian intellectuals and the debates on democracy in Central Eastern Europe in transnational perspective

Research Area 1, “Displacements, “Dépaysements” and Discrepancies: People, Knowledge and Practices”.

Anemona Constantin is a political sociologist by training. She holds a Ph.D. in political science from the University of Paris Nanterre (2019), where she taught seminars in political science and social history of ideas for MA and BA students (2006-2011). Her works examine the transformations of the Romanian intellectual field after 1989, the public debates around the political past that sparked in Eastern Europe during the post-socialist period, and the (re)-writing of national histories after the fall of the Berlin Wall in Romania, Bulgaria, and the Republic of Moldova.

The project conducted at CEFRES examines in a transnational perspective the contributions of Romanian intellectuals to the political debates on democracy and Europe after the demise of state socialism. The project brings four innovations to the literature on intellectuals in CEE: 1) It maps the diversity of Romanian intellectual networks and discourses on democracy and provides a prosopography of these actors with their transnational collaborations; 2) It historicizes the diverse (national and transnational) roots of these discourses and place them in the long history of the Cold War period; 3) It investigates the direct and indirect impact of Romanian intellectuals on the ideology and activity of national political parties; 4) It places the Romanian case study in wider CEE trends in order to evaluate the potential peculiarity of Romanian intellectuals and ideas within the regional phenomenon.

 

CV

Education

2019: PhD in Political Science, University of Paris Nanterre, Thesis: “Regime change and the genesis of a new official history in Romania. Battles over the fascist and the communist past after 1989”

2006: Postgraduate Diploma (DEA) in Comparative Political Sociology, University of Paris Nanterre, Dissertation: “The social conditions of the rallying to fascism of Romanian intellectuals during the 1930s”

2005: MA in Political Science, University of Paris Nanterre

 

Fellowships & Participation in Collective Research Projects

December 2020 – November 2021: Fellowship at the Research Institute of the University of Bucharest, Division: Social Sciences, Research Project: “The Internationalization of Romanian Anticommunism. Transnational Biographies and the Circulation of Knowledge”

May 2018 – Avril 2020 : Team member at University of Bucharest, Department of Political Science, Center for the Study Of  Equal Opportunity Policies, Research Project Transitional Justice and Memory in Romania in Global Perspective, https://transnationalmemory.wordpress.com/our-project/. Research project: „Teaching the history of communism in Bulgaria, Romania and Republic of Moldova”

2016 – 2018 : Team member at University of Paris Nanterre, Department of Law and Political Science, French-British Research project LABEX “Les passés dans le présent” (France) and Arts and Humanities Research Council “Care for the Future” (UK) –Research Project The Criminalization of Dictatorial Pasts in Europe and Latin America in Global Perspective, https://criminalizationofdictatorialpasts.wordpress.com/about/, Research project: „Sighet Memorial of the victims of communism and the reception of Black Book of Communism in Romania”

 

Publications

Peer-Reviewed Articles

• “L’enseignement de l’histoire du communisme à l’Est : Bulgarie, Roumanie, République de Moldavie“, Passés Futurs, no 9, July 2021, https://www.politika.io/index.php/fr/article/lenseignement-lhistoire-du-communisme-a-lest
• (co-authored with Valentin Behr, Muriel Blaive, Laure Neumayer, Maté Zombory), “Anti-Communist Consensus: The Black Book of Communism in a Pan-European Perspective”, Special Issue „Transnational Activism and the Globalization of Anti-Communism after 1989”, Revue d’Études Comparatives Est-Ouest, vol. 51, no 2-3, 2020, https://www.cairn.info/revue-revue-d-etudes-comparatives-est-ouest-2020-2-page-55.htm.
• “Le Mémorial de Sighet entre ‘devoir de mémoire’ et contraintes de l’histoire. Analyse sociologique d’une réussite improbable”, Studia Politica. Romanian Political Science Review, 3, 2018, https://www.ssoar.info/ssoar/handle/document/60116.

 

Book chapters

• “L’influence des facteurs transnationaux sur l’enseignement de l’histoire du communisme en Roumanie“ in Marie Vergnon, Renaud d’Enfert, Frédéric Molle (eds.), Circulations en éducation. Passages, transferts, trajectoires, Grenoble, Presses Universitaires de Grenoble, 2021 (forthcoming)
• “Sortir du communisme : les dé-conversions politiques d’un ‘fils du peuple roumain’“ in Jean-Philippe Heurtin, Patrick Michel, (eds.), La conversion et ses convertis, Paris, Centre Maurice Halbwachs, Politika.io, 2021
• “Roumanie : des minériades à l’intégration européenne“ in Dominique Andolfatto and Sylvie Contrepois, Syndicats et dialogue social : les modèles occidentaux à l’épreuve, Bruxelles, Peter Lang, 2016
• “L’échec d’une « seconde Révolution » Place de l’Université (1990)“ in Jérôme Heurtaux, Cédric Pellen (eds.), 1989 à l’est de l’Europe. Une mémoire controversée, La Tour d’Aigues, Éditions de l’Aube, 2009

Encyclopedia and Handbook Entries

• “L’écriture de récits communs : les commissions d’historiens”, “L’Institut d’Investigation des Crimes du Communisme en Roumanie”, “La Commission Tismăneanu en Roumanie (2006)“ in Sophie Baby, Laure Neumayer, Fréderic Zalewski (eds.), Condamner le passé ? Mémoires des passés autoritaires en Europe et en Amérique latine (ebook), Nanterre, Presses Universitaires de Paris Nanterre, 2019

 

 

Enlightenment in Moravia and French Culture (1750–1820): continuity or discontinuity?

Research Area 1 – Displacements, « Dépaysements » and Discrepancies. People, Knowlege and Practicies

The aim of my project is to examine the various manifestations of French culture in Moravia from the turn of the Baroque, during the age of Enlightenment and until Romanticism.

The project will identify general trends in the reception of French culture in Moravia, the impact of the cultural and philosophical impulses of the Enlightenment and their development over time.

I am thus interested in the reception of French culture (through the importation of books) but also in the use of French in Moravian society, through the production of books (published or not) and private communication (correspondence). I also explore the relatively few, but not insignificant, networks of contacts between Moravia and the French milieu and thus examine the status of French as a means of communication for the elites of the time. The essential theme of the project is the book culture of this period and therefore I examine the noble libraries and their French holdings. Particular emphasis will be placed on the period after 1789, on revolutionary and counter-revolutionary literature and its distribution.

This theme is part of a larger research framework of the Department of Early Printed Materials of the Moravian Library in Brno lead in collaboration with other institutions, among which is CEFRES.

CV

Positions

Since 2020: researcher at the Moravian Regional Library, Brno, Department of Old Prints

Since 2016: Teaching assistant at the Faculty of Arts, Masaryk University, Brno (seminar “Narration au XIXe siècle entre la fiction et l’histoire, Balzac et la Comédie humaine”)

Education

2021 – PhD in Lettres modernes, Faculty of Arts, Masaryk University, Brno/Université Paris-Est (cotutelle, title of the thesis: La fonction esthétique et l’image de l’histoire – les guerres de Vendée et de Bretagne dans la littérature du XIXe siècle)

2017 – Master in French language and history instruction, Faculty of Arts, Masaryk University, Brno

2016 – Master in French Philology and History, Faculty of Arts, Masaryk University, Brno/Université Paris-Est

2013 – Bachelor in French Philology and History, Faculty of Arts, Masaryk University, Brno

Publications

• „Un roman historique minoritaire. La Bataille de Kerguidu de Lan Inisan“, in: Carmen González Menéndez, Daniel Santana Jügler and Daniel Hofferer (eds.): Literature in a globalized context. : 11th International Colloquium in Romance and Comparative Literature (Universities of Brno, Halle and Szeged). Martin-Luther-Universität Halle-Wittenberg, Promotionsstudiengang an der Internationalen Graduiertenakademie, 2020, p. 75-86.
• „La guerre de Vendée comme un « mémoricide » ? Point de vue littéraire sur un différend historique.“ Svět literatury : časopis pro novodobé literatury. Univerzita Karlova, 2020, XXX, 62, p. 80-91.
• „Temný stín brněnského vězení. Obraz Špilberku ve francouzské literatuře 19. století.“ Sborník muzea Brněnska, 2019, p. 22-39.
• „Chouan dans la littérature du XIXe siècle comme une figure de l’ancien monde.“ In: Homme nouveau, homme ancien : autour des figures émergentes et disparaissantes de l’humain. Szeged: Jate Press, 2019.
• Roman au XIXe siècle et (re)construction de l’Histoire : Les Bleus et les Blancs d’Etienne Arago. Acta Romanica Quinqueecclesiensis, Pécs, 2019, VI, p. 213-239.
• “Plus quam civilia bella” (Victor Hugo): Animalité et cruauté dans le roman de l’Ouest. Ostium: časopis pre humanitné vedy, Bratislava: Ostium, 2018, roč. 2018, n. 2, p. 110-125.
• Tableau de la France de Jules Michelet: espace géographique, historique ou poétique? Echo des études romanes, Gallica o.s., 2018, XIV, 1-2, p. 59-69.

Contributions to conferences and seminars

• „L’histoire manque aux Chouans (Jules Barbey d’Aurevilly): l’enjeu historique des Romans de l’Ouest“, Conference „Vers un dépassement de la dialectique de l’histoire et de la fiction“, université Lille 3, 9-11 October 2017
• „Fiction et histoire à l’époque romantique : le roman de la Vendée au XIXe siècle“, XXVIIth Conference AFUE „La recherche en études françaises : un éventail des possibilités“, Universidad de Sevilla, 9-11 May 2018
• « Le Roman de l’Ouest sous la Restauration : entre la littérature, l’histoire et la philosophie contre-révolutionnaire », seminar; Laboratoire „Lettres – idées – sociétés », Université Paris-Est, 11 March 2019
• « Œuvre littéraire comme une structure dynamique. Pour une analyse fonctionnelle de la fiction historique », Workshop “Roman francophone et Histoire. Renouvellement des formes d’écriture littéraire de l’événement historique”, EA 1337 (Strasbourg) et EA 3945 (Metz), 23 March 2019
• “Sous la hache, un roman vendéen exemplaire ?” Workshop on French19th-century literature, conference « Elemir Bourges », université Paris-Sorbonne, 19 April 2019
• „Le roman de l’Ouest républicain au XIXe siècle : une contre-mémoire de la Guerre de Vendée ?“, Conference « Mémoire des guerres civiles », Cholet, (coorganisé par les universités de Nantes et d‘Angers), 11-12 June 2021
  

  Scientific Awards

  • 2016 – Award of the Dean, Faculty of Arts, Masaryk University, Brno, for the best MA thesis : „Jules Michelet : narration historique ou narration littéraire ?“.
  • 2019 – Prix Gallica for the best MA thesis : „Dimension médiévale des recueils ésopiques : les Fables de Marie de France“.
  • 2021 – Award of the Rector, Masaryk University, Brno, for the best PhD thesis.