"Overcoming Dictatorships - Encounter of Poets, Artists and Writers"
Workshop in Bucharest, 7-9 December 2007

"Overcoming Dictatorships - Encounter of Poets, Artists and Writers" is a program supported by the European Union, whose main purpose is to facilitate the intercultural exchange between artists, poets and writers from different ex-communist European countries. The participating countries are the Czech Republic, Germany, Italy, Poland, Hungary, and Romania. During the meetings that are organized in these countries, the participants have the chance to present their works, share their experiences from the communist period and discuss the ways in which their professional activities were influenced by communism. The result of the above-mentioned project will be an exhibition which will be presented first in Birmingham (UK) and then tour the participating countries. A volume comprising the works of the writers involved in the project will be published as well.

Furthermore, these meetings aim at eliminating prejudices and setting a strong basis for a better understanding between Eastern, Central and Western Europe.

The encounter in Bucharest (Romania), which was held in the interval 7-9 December 2007, followed the meetings in Poland, the Czech Republic and Hungary. The event was organized by the Institute for the Investigation of Communist Crimes in Romania, Hannah Arendt Institute fur Totalitarismusforschung-Dresden, and Technische Universitat-Dresden. The workshop also benefited by the support of the National Museum of Contemporary Art in Bucharest and the Writers’ Union in Romania.

The International Conference "Ways to Consider Communism"

Thursday, 15 November 2007, the House of Parliament accommodated the International Conference

"Ways to Consider Communism"

, an event organised this autumn by the Institute for the Investigation of Communist Crimes in Romania.

The aim of the international conference Ways to Consider Communism was to debate on the issue of the crimes of communism as crimes against humanity. Through the present conference, the IICCR aimed at contributing to the strengthening of the cooperation between institutions from different countries preoccupied with the above-mentioned theme.

Mr. Bogdan Olteanu, the President of the Chamber of Deputies

, declared during the conference: “We have the duty to include the horrors of communism in the collective memory, so as to avoid these acts to repeat in the future (...) I hope that today’s meeting will lead to visible results and that the work of Marius Oprea will be acknowledged on European level. Europe admitted many of its mistakes and I hope that communism will be included among these mistakes.”
More details

Forms of Repression within Communist Regimes

In the interval 12-14 July 2007, the Institute for the Investigation of Communist Crimes in Romania organised the international symposium Forms of Repression within Communist Regimes in Făgăraş – Sâmbăta de Sus, Braşov County. The IICCR’s co-partners in the event were the “Negru Vodă” Cultural Foundation of Făgăraş, the “ Brâncoveanu” Monastery of Sâmbăta de Sus, the University of Arts in Bucharest and the “Mozaic” Cultural Association of Cluj-Napoca.

The main themes approached within the Symposium were centred on

• the resistance movement against the communist take-over
• forms of repression within communist regimes
• the museum valuation of the history of communist regimes

Official Programme of the Symposium

Gulag and Holocaust in Romanian Conscience

In the interval 24-27 May 2007, Phantasma, the Research Centre of the Imaginary in Cluj, organised the symposium Gulag and Holocaust in Romanian Conscience, which represented a national premiere among similar cultural events.

For the first time, the two horrors of the 20 th century, approached in relation to Romanian experience, were being analysed and discussed upon jointly, and not within different sections and workshops.

Overview of the Symposium

Official Programme of the Symposium