Mapping the Cultural Heritage of Dissent. New Sources, New Knowledge and New Narrative(s) on European Identity

Abstract

The COURAGE project has created an open-access e-database that collected new sources, summarized new knowledge and created new narratives about a hitherto divided European cultural heritage: the legacy of dissent under the communist dictatorships in East-Central Europe. The Romanian COURAGE team has highlighted a new sense of being European, which was experienced by many ordinary individuals who created everyday meanings and cultural practices as if they lived in a free country. This identification with Europe is reflected in previously unknown private collections created by those who envisaged strategies of opposing the communist dictatorships that had rejected the fundamental values underpinning the European Union: rule-of-law, human rights, civil liberties, etc. The opposite values are reflected in the collections created by the Romanian communist secret police, the Securitate, which remind of a non-democratic European past and warn against the danger of forgetting it under the pressure of the current challenges the European project is facing.