The opening of the archives of the Communist regimes thirty years later. The divergent paths of Romania and Russia

This article is situated in the perspective of a necessary comparative history of the archives of communist regimes in the countries of Eastern Europe after the fall of the Berlin Wall. The choice of the Russian and Romanian cases sheds light on the divergent paths that archives policy in the two countries has taken in the space of three decades by contributing to the highlighting of the diversity of relations with the past in the “Eastern” countries in general. Russia and Romania offer the example of contrasting developments concerning the openness and social and historiographical uses of “sensitive” archives. To a first post-communist decade synonymous with massive restrictions, even the destruction of archival collections in Romania, corresponds, in Russia, an unprecedented access to Soviet archives. From the beginning of our century the politicization of history by the Putin regime restricts access to archives while Romania’s entry into NATO and the EU promotes the academic and citizen demand for a wide opening of archives that ends up occurring in the years 2004-2007.