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Sergiu Gherghina, Sergiu Mişcoiu (eds.), Miturile politice în România contemporană, Iaşi, Institutul European, 2012, 406 pages
The bases of this complex volume were laid back in 2012 by two editors and it was written by experts in the field. This volume is a unique contribution because the field of the political myths is a particular category.
In the Romanian language, it doesn't exist something similar that can look at these issues systematically. This book with theoretical approaches wants to give a response, for various questions related to political myths. The volume addresses the general public in Romania and the students of social sciences find it as a true oasis.
This volume is structured in twelve chapters, where each chapter is trying to make a contribution by providing an answer to questions about political myths.
The introduction of this volume is written by the editors Sergiu Mişcoiu and Sergiu Gherghina who begin to "open" this volume in a very elegant manner by saying "The myths are the reinterpretation of reality in the way imagined by their creators" (p.7).
The first chapter, "Statutul mitului politic dincolo de realitate şi ficţiune" written by Paul Kun, provides explanation of the "myth" concept which is a fanciful explanation of an event, occurrence, etc. with a narrative structure that precedes modern fairy tale and narrative structures. Political myth has a performative role, with many flawless elements that connect it to reality in an image as accessible to the collective imaginary.
In premodern societies, authority was the subject of unique information and its producer. Today we have a lot of sources of information, diverging in excess, and the myth is ordering, humanizing the image of the politician.
The next chapter, "Demitizarea sau mitologizarea postcomunismului?", by Codrin Taut, show how in the contemporary period the term "myth" is regarded as a result of media communication and the general trend is to turn it into a mere fiction, and how political myth lacks depth and mystery appears in the Romanian political culture: nationalism, xenophobia, inadequate values of...