What is it about?
This study analyzes the manifestation of postmemory and the associated emotional responses to the 1989 Romanian Revolution among young people in Timișoara, the city where the uprising began. Drawing on the frameworks of lieu de mémoire and collective memory, the research explores how this historical event, which involves affective spaces and transmitted narratives, is internalized by Generations Y and Z.
Featured Image
Photo by Johanna Pauls on Unsplash
Why is it important?
We employed two brief Q-surveys conducted during the Revolution's commemorative periods in 2019 and 2024, with emotions analyzed using an adapted version of Plutchik's Wheel and Multinomial Logistic Regression (MLR). The findings indicate that youth postmemory is characterized by symbolic empathy, with dominant emotions being sadness, solidarity, and gratitude. While the 2019 analysis found no significant overall emotional differences between Generations Y and Z, the 2024 model for Generation Z revealed that family involvement significantly inhibited anger, decreasing the likelihood of reporting it. These results confirm that memory experience is stratified by contextual and familial factors and provide a novel generational comparison of postmemory emotions concerning the 1989 Revolution.
Perspectives
The study underscores the necessity of continuous monitoring to prevent the deterioration of this crucial collective memory. The findings demonstrate that postmemory is an inherited coping strategy that facilitates Generation Z's conscious and functional engagement with a complex historical legacy, rather than succumbing to passive emotional burdens.
Dr Remus Cretan
west university of Timisoara
Read the Original
This page is a summary of: Postmemory and Emotion of the 1989 Romanian Revolution Among Y and Z Generations, Population Space and Place, December 2025, Wiley,
DOI: 10.1002/psp.70174.
You can read the full text:
Contributors
The following have contributed to this page
