Nation-Building and Contested Identities: Romanian & Hungarian ...

National Prejudices, Mass Media and History Textbooksreactionary, anti-democratic, eastern socialist, Goebbels, Vishinsky, etc.... None of these above-mentioned jerks, barking dogs, and paid cyborgsanswered my question. 45His new article developed the main topic of the previous texts with somespecifications. The first one concerns the education policy of the government.In his opinion, “the Ministry of National Education, as a state institution,is not allowed to approve something that many people reject.” 46The second one is that the edition of alternative textbooks is a veryhazardous venture at the moment because Romania is in a crisis and itmight lose its internal social coherence. For Popescu, it is very clear that:“The history of a nation is an important unifying and stabilizing elementindispensable in moments of crisis threatening with political instability,dissolution of authority and economic collapse, such as the momentswhich Romania is living through.” 47 Popescu envisioned a “unique textbook,elaborated under the conditions of full professional autonomy anddeliberative democracy, by a wide collective of scholars.” 48 After somepublic clashes, Popescu found another tone, much more politically correct.But very soon he reverted to sheer aggression. His inner convictionsare obviously based on the slogan, “one state, one history.” The very ideaof having multiple histories is abnormal for him, and directly hints at themutilation of the Romanian state. He literally said that many historieswould be equivalent to many constitutions:If the branch of historians is unable to elaborate through consultationsa textbook expressing the indisputable fundaments of the history ofRomania, a minimum existential baggage for any Romanian who wantsto be called as such, this means that we can start to think about alternativeconstitutions as well! 49Of course, the national-communist formulations are detectable in the subtextof these ideas. The Fundamental Problems of Romanian History wasthe title of a collection that replaced the ordinary textbooks in highschools in the late 1970s. These “fundamental problems” were the mainmoments of Romanian state-building and independence. In the prefaces,a strong accent was put on the scientific quality of socialist history and onits univocal result, the history of Romania.Finally, concerning one critique raised by the philosopher, GabrielLiiceanu, Popescu reopened the “file” of world conspiracy against Romania.Similar to a science fiction movie, the European cyborgs attackRomania:109