- Religion and Politics, Comparative History, Humanities, Religion, Romanian Language, European History, and 36 moreSoviet History, Social History, Balkan History, Cold War and Culture, History and Memory, Church History, Romanian History, History, Cold War, Recent History, Les Reformes De Constantinopole 1840, Anthropology, Sociology, Political Science, International Relations, Cultural History, Nationalism, Intellectual History, Sociology of Religion, Historiography, Balkan Studies, Eastern European Studies, Communism, Eastern European history, East European studies, Romanian Studies, South East European Studies, Collectivization, Soviet Union, History of Religion, Religious Studies, History of Ideas, Political History, Modern History, History of Political Thought, and Race and Religionedit
- Anca Șincan has a Ph.D. in history from Central European University in Budapest, Hungary with a research on religion ... moreAnca Șincan has a Ph.D. in history from Central European University in Budapest, Hungary with a research on religion in communist Romania. She completed her academic training at Padova University, Oxford University, the European History Institute in Mainz, and New Europe College in Bucharest. Her research interests revolve around recent history of East Central Europe, history of historical writing, memory and remembrance, church history, religion and politics on which she published articles and book chapters. She took part as an expert in the Presidential Commission for the Study of the Communist Dictatorship in Romania for the chapter Church/ religious denominations under communism. She taught courses at the History and International Relations Department at University of Medicine, Farmacy, Science and Technology in Tîrgu-Mureș. She lectured at the Political Science Department (Bucharest University) and was a guest lecturer at the Religious Studies Program and History Department at Central European University. She is a researcher at the “Gheorghe Șincai” Institute for Social Sciences and Humanities of the Romanian Academy in Tîrgu-Mureș. She was a researcher in the European Research Council Project Creative Agency and Religious Minorities: Hidden Galleries in the Secret Police Archives in Central and Eastern Europe (Hidden Galleries) at University College Cork (2017-2021). She had a junior fellowship at the Polish Institute for Advanced Studies of the Polish Academy of Sciences in Warsaw, Poland (2019-2020). Currently she is a researcher in the ERC project "Negotiating Sovereignty: Challenges of Secularism and Nation Building in Central Eastern Europe Since 1780" at the Research Centre for Humanities, Hungary.edit
This edited volume follows the ERC Hidden Galleries project on underground religion in secret police archives. It discusses cases found in the secret police archives from Romania and Moldova.
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This book aims to revisit the historical canon regarding the formation of intellectual elites during successive projects of modernization during 19th and 20th centuries. While existing works on the topic focus either on the elimination of... more
This book aims to revisit the historical canon regarding the
formation of intellectual elites during successive projects of
modernization during 19th and 20th centuries. While existing
works on the topic focus either on the elimination of previous
elites in times of radical social change or on the creation of new
elites by each new political regime, we focus on a third
mechanism: the recuperation/conversion of previous intellectual
elites for new modernization projects. This mechanism of
historical and social change appears at every major transition
(“historical disjuncture”) but is given less importance both in
history/social sciences and in public discourse.
Almost without exception, the successive visions of
modernity fail in their attempt to transform the deep social
strata in spite of their explicit goals in that regard. Nevertheless,
each one creates new, imperfect, and fragmentary ways of
intervening and programming the newly instituted populations,
individuals and fields of activity. New conceptual vocabularies
were brought forth – by imitation or explicit distancing – out of
the failed discourses and reforms and larger spaces for expert-led
intervention were opened for subsequent reforms and projects
of modernization.
Scrutinizing the moments of discontinuity in modern and
contemporary Romanian history, this book will argue that, far
from a complete break with a past, each modernization projects
builds on and has to incorporate pre-existing social
processes/resources.
formation of intellectual elites during successive projects of
modernization during 19th and 20th centuries. While existing
works on the topic focus either on the elimination of previous
elites in times of radical social change or on the creation of new
elites by each new political regime, we focus on a third
mechanism: the recuperation/conversion of previous intellectual
elites for new modernization projects. This mechanism of
historical and social change appears at every major transition
(“historical disjuncture”) but is given less importance both in
history/social sciences and in public discourse.
Almost without exception, the successive visions of
modernity fail in their attempt to transform the deep social
strata in spite of their explicit goals in that regard. Nevertheless,
each one creates new, imperfect, and fragmentary ways of
intervening and programming the newly instituted populations,
individuals and fields of activity. New conceptual vocabularies
were brought forth – by imitation or explicit distancing – out of
the failed discourses and reforms and larger spaces for expert-led
intervention were opened for subsequent reforms and projects
of modernization.
Scrutinizing the moments of discontinuity in modern and
contemporary Romanian history, this book will argue that, far
from a complete break with a past, each modernization projects
builds on and has to incorporate pre-existing social
processes/resources.
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"Ne trebuie oameni!" : elite intelectuale şi transformări istorice în România modernă şi contemporană / coord.: Cristian Vasile.-Târgovişte : Cetatea de Scaun, 2017 Conţine bibliografie ISBN 978-606-537-385-3 I. Vasile, Cristian (coord.)... more
"Ne trebuie oameni!" : elite intelectuale şi transformări istorice în România modernă şi contemporană / coord.: Cristian Vasile.-Târgovişte : Cetatea de Scaun, 2017 Conţine bibliografie ISBN 978-606-537-385-3 I. Vasile, Cristian (coord.) 94 929 Toate drepturile de reproducere, integral sau parțial, prin orice mijloace, inclusiv stocarea neautorizată în sisteme de căutare sunt rezervate. Reproducerea se poate face doar cu acordul scris al editurii, cu excepția unor scurte pasaje care pot constitui obiectul recenziilor și prezentărilor.
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The chapter is a microhistory study of an inspector for religious denomination in communist Romania on trial for corruption within the Department for Religious Denominations. His file amasses documents that offer a view on the church –... more
The chapter is a microhistory study of an inspector for religious denomination in communist Romania on trial for corruption within the Department for Religious Denominations. His file amasses documents that offer a view on the church – state relations from the installation of the regime to its end. It offers a look into the policies and requirements that guard religious life in communist Romania but, more importantly, the way in which these requirements were by passed, negotiated, and broken by the actors involved in regulating the religious life. The in-depth insight into the microcosm that is the Department for Religious Denominations along more than 20 years allows the researcher to note the changes in the state policy but also the routinization of the relationship between state and religious denominations.
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En el contexto de la vigilancia de la Policía Secreta contra la clandestinidad religiosa durante las últimas décadas del régimen comunista rumano, este artículo se centra en un hecho que tomó por sorpresa a la policía secreta y amenazó... more
En el contexto de la vigilancia de la Policía Secreta contra la clandestinidad religiosa durante las últimas décadas del régimen comunista rumano, este artículo se centra en un hecho que tomó por sorpresa a la policía secreta y amenazó con exponer la situación de la clandestina Iglesia Católica Griega: un llamamiento a la oración dirigido a los creyentes de la iglesia católica griega para pedir a Dios y al Partido Comunista la legalización de esta iglesia. Durante más de una década, la policía secreta desarrolló una extensa operación de vigilancia, ampliando su red de informantes, para descubrir a los organizadores del llamamiento.
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The secret police archives present the life of the religious underground as seen by the secret officers who were seeking to facilitate those communities’ destruction. The state’s official narrative about these clandestine groups is... more
The secret police archives present the life of the religious underground as seen by the secret officers who were seeking to facilitate those communities’ destruction. The state’s official narrative about these clandestine groups is mirrored in alternative documents and narratives. This article focuses on the Old Calendarist Orthodox monastic community of the Dormition of the Mother of God Monastery in the Strada Televiziunii in Bucharest at the end of the communist regime. It showcases the life of the monastery as described in the diary of a monastic novice whose written account of becoming a monk described the last days of the monastery before its destruction by the secret police in 1983.
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The paper discusses several responses to the secret police’s (non-)involvement in religious matters that posed direct or indirect problems for the regime. The secret police’s attitude of allowing communities leeway in dealing with... more
The paper discusses several responses to the secret police’s (non-)involvement in religious matters that posed direct or indirect problems for the regime. The secret police’s attitude of allowing communities leeway in dealing with problematic situations had several motivations: to create a culture of self-policing and self-censorship that would defer the punishment to the hierarchical chain of the religious community; so that the community internalized the state requirements; and to infiltrate the community with collaborators in positions of power. Self-punishing and self-censorship were the ways in which communities respected the regulations imposed by the state. The literature on the subject in Romania is scarce and comes mostly from primary texts (memoir, journals, and various histories of religious communities). The article presents a case study of the Sibiu Orthodox Metropolitan See in its interactions with the secret police.
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En el contexto de la vigilancia de la Policía Secreta contra la clandestinidad religiosa durante las últimas décadas del régimen comunista rumano, este artículo se centra en un hecho que tomó por sorpresa a la policía secreta y amenazó... more
En el contexto de la vigilancia de la Policía Secreta contra la clandestinidad religiosa durante las últimas décadas del régimen comunista rumano, este artículo se centra en un hecho que tomó por sorpresa a la policía secreta y amenazó con exponer la situación de la clandestina Iglesia Católica Griega: un llamamiento a la oración dirigido a los creyentes de la iglesia católica griega para pedir a Dios y al Partido Comunista la legalización de esta iglesia. Durante más de una década, la policía secreta desarrolló una extensa operación de vigilancia, ampliando su red de informantes, para descubrir a los organizadores del llamamiento.
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The issue of morality is a vector in the analysis of the archival documents related to religion in communism. When the veil of privacy is lifted and the secret is no more, a rich picture unfolds for the researcher. Blackened names, the... more
The issue of morality is a vector in the analysis of the archival documents related to religion in communism. When the veil of privacy is lifted and the secret is no more, a rich picture unfolds for the researcher. Blackened names, the minimal protection offered to the actors that surface in surveillance files will do little in affording the subject of such files the privacy his/her actions were thought to have been acted in. For clergy and church members alike the moral stick they are measured against is higher than for the rest. It was self-imposed in many cases. Documents of the CNSAS archives on religion abound with stories about sexuality in many forms. Judges of the morality of the life of “God’s men” the Securitate officers will highlight the failures of the clergy based on guidelines that pertain to the church rather than the Securitate. This article is an overview of the way in which morality permeated the Securitate documents on religious life in communist Romania. How it ...
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The Church in Romania was pushed aside by the modern state in its endeavour to modernize the society. The Church was stripped of its social functions and left with ceremonial roles that served to legitimate the state. It was no longer an... more
The Church in Romania was pushed aside by the modern state in its endeavour to modernize the society. The Church was stripped of its social functions and left with ceremonial roles that served to legitimate the state. It was no longer an autonomous body but through economic, legal, cultural and social ties it became a dependant of the state. This put a dent in the much looked after doctrine of caesaro-papism since the Church had no longer a sufficiently strong status to challenge the state and negotiate its position in ...
Abstract: The present article presents a theoretical overview of the interpretation on church state relationship in communist Romania. It offers a possible solution to researching this topic by going comparative and using the case of... more
Abstract: The present article presents a theoretical overview of the interpretation on church state relationship in communist Romania. It offers a possible solution to researching this topic by going comparative and using the case of Soviet Union as example. Several ways of interpreting this relationship are followed and some of the pitfalls of such research are discussed. The terms that were used to define the relationship between church and state during the communist regime: compromise, submission, co-option and association are ...
The relationship between state and religious denominations in communist Romania was mediated, supervised and enforced among others by a member of the state administration—the local inspector for religious denominations. Inherited from the... more
The relationship between state and religious denominations in communist Romania was mediated, supervised and enforced among others by a member of the state administration—the local inspector for religious denominations. Inherited from the Soviet practice this position is new in the state apparatus. The present article offers an overview of the particularities of the inspector’s work. Constantly moving between the requirements of his position, his communist orthodoxy and his own belief system and world view he had a difficult task of going between the state administration and the religious communities and make the policies and regulations of the totalitarian state palatable and enforceable. A sounding board for state policies whose applicability they tested in the field they were the last link of the newly designed relationship between the communist state and religious denominations.
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The present article discusses the terminology that the repressive state imposes on underground religious communities and the limits these terms impose on the current theoretical language researcher and communities develop for describing... more
The present article discusses the terminology that the repressive state imposes on underground religious communities and the limits these terms impose on the current theoretical language researcher and communities develop for describing the religious life during the communist regime. Based on archival work with CNSAS files and on oral interviews in Greek Catholic and Old Calendarist Orthodox communities the article hypothesizes that three decades after the fall of communism we (researchers and communities alike) are still indebted to the vocabulary used by the Secret Police in the surveillance activity against the religious communities of the underground.
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The relationship between state and religious denominations in communist Romania was mediated, supervised and enforced among others by a member of the state administration—the local inspector for religious denominations. Inherited from the... more
The relationship between state and religious denominations in communist Romania was mediated, supervised and enforced among others by a member of the state administration—the local inspector for religious denominations. Inherited from the Soviet practice this position is new in the state apparatus. The present article offers an overview of the particularities of the inspector’s work. Constantly moving between the requirements of his position, his communist orthodoxy and his own belief system and world view he had a difficult task of going between the state administration and the religious communities and make the policies and regulations of the totalitarian state palatable and enforceable. A sounding board for state policies whose applicability they tested in the field they were the last link of the newly designed relationship between the communist state and religious denominations.
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Abstract: The present article presents a theoretical overview of the interpretation on church state relationship in communist Romania. It offers a possible solution to researching this topic by going comparative and using the case of... more
Abstract: The present article presents a theoretical overview of the interpretation on church state relationship in communist Romania. It offers a possible solution to researching this topic by going comparative and using the case of Soviet Union as example. Several ways of interpreting this relationship are followed and some of the pitfalls of such research are discussed.
Abstract: The politics of remembrance in present day Romania and the lingering communist behaviour make a strong argument for the hide behind documents of fellow researchers. Writing contemporary history is a complicate undertaking. The... more
Abstract: The politics of remembrance in present day Romania and the lingering communist behaviour make a strong argument for the hide behind documents of fellow researchers. Writing contemporary history is a complicate undertaking. The researchers have to distance themselves from a past that they had first-hand experience of. Their position towards the research subject has to account themselves and the inner reflection about the subject and thus is complicated by what the researcher knows or thinks he/ she knows what they remember or think they remember. This article describes a personal escape from the perils of archival research in post-communist Romania, how one surpasses the silence of the document, the problematic authorship, the lack of access in various archives or the multitude of archival material that was left unprocessed.
Page 1. The Romanian orthodox church, the state, and European Union. Steps towards integration «The Romanian orthodox church, the state, and European Union. Steps towards integration» by Anca Şincan Source: The Yearbook ...
Page 1. O zi din viaţa unui împuternicit pentru culte de la administrarea autorităţii la exercitarea autorităţii «A Day in the Life of an Empowered for Religious Denominations from the Administration to the Exercise of Authority» by... more
Page 1. O zi din viaţa unui împuternicit pentru culte de la administrarea autorităţii la exercitarea autorităţii «A Day in the Life of an Empowered for Religious Denominations from the Administration to the Exercise of Authority» by Anca Şincan ...
Page 1. The following ad supports maintaining our CEEOL service Recenzii şi note de lectură «Reviews» by Carmen Andraş; Maria Costea ; Anca Şincan; Marian Zăloagă; Carmen Maria Dorlan; Sabina Cismaş; Alexandru Istrate ...
It’s a typical photo from the 1950s. Eleven well-dressed people of various ages sitting together staring into the camera. A number marks each to correspond to their names listed on the back. But this seemingly harmless photo has a dark... more
It’s a typical photo from the 1950s. Eleven well-dressed people of various ages sitting together staring into the camera. A number marks each to correspond to their names listed on the back. But this seemingly harmless photo has a dark side: It’s secret police evidence against Jehovah's Witnesses in Western Ukraine sometime between 1953 and 1955. The police confiscated it during a special operation called "Zavet" or “Testament.”
Secret police archives in former-communist countries are full of pictures, letters, religious brochures and images collected as evidence against religious communities. How do police files narrate the religious “enemy”? What do these files say about religious life in the USSR? In this interview with Anca Șincan, the Romanian Academy of Sciences, and Tatiana Vagramenko, University College Cork, we will discuss how the secret police archives represent underground religious life. What do they tell us? And what are their limitations
Secret police archives in former-communist countries are full of pictures, letters, religious brochures and images collected as evidence against religious communities. How do police files narrate the religious “enemy”? What do these files say about religious life in the USSR? In this interview with Anca Șincan, the Romanian Academy of Sciences, and Tatiana Vagramenko, University College Cork, we will discuss how the secret police archives represent underground religious life. What do they tell us? And what are their limitations
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A presentation on the cultures of surveillance for nep4dissent on how to escape surveillance
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A discussion on religion during cold war. How was religion used in the relations between communist Romania and US.
