Two Decades of Making Oral History in Romania.

As communism performed a constraint of both individual and collective memory, its fall in 1989 opened the path to a plurality of voices that generated alternative accounts to the official discourse maintained by the regime. While many victims were sharing their stories of suffering, compromise, resistance or dissent, oral history was taking its first steps in connection to these unique and valuable testimonies. The interest of the researchers gradually expanded towards documenting different aspects of every day life and identities during communism and post-communism. Starting with an approach of the theoretical and ethical issues behind Romanian oral history making, the paper reviews the main initiatives leading to the establishment of oral history as an academic discipline, while at the same time inquiring into the reasons that propelled the practice of oral history in Romania. Both the actors and institutions that have made and managed oral history will be taken into account. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]