Law as Mnemonic Infrastructure: Archival Legal Discourses and Memory Battles in Romania

Abstract

This article examines law as mnemonic infrastructure, tracing how archival laws and policies in Romania shape the construction of its collective memory of communism and fascism. The four layers analyzed here—archival institutions, norms, processes, and practices—help produce a memory regime characterized by nationalism, the securitization of historical memory, and a selectively amnesic collective memory. Focusing on law as mnemonic infrastructure highlights indirect and structural pathways in the construction of memory regimes, with distinctive, if not always obvious, knowledge and truth effects that help clarify the role of law in promoting or undermining hegemonic memory regimes.