Acasă Articole RTR The Accelerated Delirium of Dacopathy: From The Post-Communist Identity Crisis To The...
The Accelerated Delirium of Dacopathy: From The Post-Communist Identity Crisis To The Present-Day Polycrisis
Rezumat
Abstract: This study provides a critical analysis of ‘dacopathy’—a term designating the obsessive, pseudohistorical instrumentalization of the late Iron Age past within the Romanian public and digital spheres. Diverging from empirical archaeology, ‘dacopathy’ is framed as a modern construct that synthesises classical vulgarised motifs with nationalistic tropes to serve contemporary socio-political agendas. The paper traces the genealogy of this phenomenon from its nineteenth-century romantic roots and interwar far-right appropriations to its formalisation as ‘protochronism’ under the late Ceaușescu regime. It further examines the post-1989 transition, during which state dogma metastasised into a decentralised, commercially lucrative conspiracy theory. The research highlights the convergence of this myth-centric discourse with modern national-populism, facilitated by social media algorithms, AI-generated content, and a national functional illiteracy rate of nearly 50%. Conclusively, the study argues that the persistent inertia of professional archaeology has ceded public narrative space to revisionist ideologies. It calls for a reflexive disciplinary shift to confront the weaponization of the past against scientific consensus, democratic institutions, and minority groups within the context of the current global polycrisis.
Keywords: dacopathy, late Iron Age, Dacian past, post-communism, Romanian archaeology
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