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    STUDIA HISTORIA - Issue no. 1 / 2005  
         
  Article:   BOOK REVIEWS - HISTORY AND MYTH IN THE ROMANIAN CONSCIENCE BY LUCIAN BOIA. BUCHAREST: HUMANITAS PUBLISHING HOUSE, 2002. HISTORY, TRUTH AND MYTHS (READING NOTES) BY IOAN-AUREL POP. BUCHAREST: ENCYCLOPEDIC PUBLISHING HOUSE, 2002.

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  Abstract:   Lucian Boia is a professor at the Faculty of History of the University of Bucharest and the founding director of the Center of Imaginary History (founded in 1993). The exploration of the uncertain space of social imagination and the universe of the representations and myths that liven up human societies are some of his interests. From the myth of longevity and that of the end of the world to national mythology, Lucian Boia analyzes a large range of these imaginary achievements, trying to establish the content, the meanings and the functions of these mythical constructions. His review got the dimensions of a new book, Istoria, adevărul şi miturile [History, Truth and Myths], published in Bucharest in 2002. Ioan-Aurel Pop thinks that Lucian Boia’s book is an offence brought to history and historians, for two reasons: because it denies the capacity of history to offer the truth about the past; and because it accuses the great Romanian historians of having mythologized history for political reasons. Although the historian from Cluj agrees that absolute truth cannot be reached, he believes in the historian’s moral duty to look for the truth and interpret sources as honestly as possible.  
         
     
         
         
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