Starting from Forgiveness – a Prospect of Archiving the Troubled Past

Abstract

Taking a controversial documentary film as a case study, the article considers forgiveness as a social practice, proposing an alternative to social antagonism between victims and perpetrators. The following chain of reflections is a direct consequence of the violent reactions to a documentary that was intended to give the public access to what had been on the minds of Secret Service officers during an extremely repressive political regime in Communist Romania. The press interpreted the documentary as an attempt to “whiten” the Communist secret service police, which was detrimental to the victims. In line with new theoretical directions that raise the possibility of a peaceful configuration that serves both parties, our approach examines the wider social shifts necessary to provide trans-generational amity through reconciliation and cultural repair.