The Romanian government’s diktat brought about Tismaneanu’s resignation from the Scientific Council, a decision immediately followed by other members.2 Vehement letters of protest were sent by members of other cultural institutions in Romania and abroad. Until May 2012, Vladimir Tismaneanu, professor of comparative politics at the University of Maryland, chaired the Scientific Council of the Institute for the Investigation of Communist Crimes and the Memory of the Romanian Exile (IICCMER), a public agency of the Government of Romania coordinated by the prime minister’s office.1 It was the newly elected Romanian prime minister Victor Ponta (center-left coalition) who relieved him of that position. This tension became evident in Romania during the past decade, and was often highlighted by mainstream media, which contributed to making contemporary history, and the history of Romanian communism in particular, a hotly debated topic in the national public discourse. There is a clear tension between the freedom of scholarly research and the allocation of resources by political power. The fortune or misfortune of scholarly research on sensitive topics such as the history of national communism is primarily due to the possible outcomes that politicians foresee - and the consequences affect the whole cultural field, including cultural projects, institutions and the lives of those who work in them. Romanian cultural policy is a landscape that changes constantly according to political decisions.
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