Post-Socialist ‘Cancel Culture’? The Contested Politics of Memory in Post-Socialist Romania

Abstract

With the global rise of the social movements such as the BLM driven by quests for racial justice and symbolic reparations, monuments and street names have become objects of ideological contention. BLM movement's rapid expansion across the Western world – including Eastern Europe – has been countered by lamentations over the perils of ‘cancel culture’ towards national identity, memory, and liberal values such as free speech. This study critically interrogates the (in)adequacy of the notion of ‘cancel culture’ in the context of the politics of memory enacted in contemporary Romania. Drawing on a multiple case study research focused on three recent debates on public monuments from different Romanian cities, this study documents how the rhetoric of ‘cancel culture’ is politically instrumentalized by the conservative right. ‘Cancel culture’ is employed by the latter not only to defend the cultural values of national identity, but especially to counter any attempts at criticizing the revived celebration of tainted icons of the Romanian fascist and anti-Semitic past such as marshal Ion Antonescu, Mircea Vulcănescu, and Octavian Goga. It concludes that, instead of a hegemonic ‘cancel culture’ prevailing in postsocialist Romania, what characterizes the mnemonic regime in this country is a contested politics of memorial consecration of the nationalist past.