IRIR was created to respond to the need for a dynamic history institute able to tackle sensitive and controversial issues in Romania’s recent history, which is understood as the period from the year 1938 to the present. One can easily grasp that IRIR’s research and scholarship concentrate on a difficult period that was marked by the two radical ideologies of the 20th century-fascism and communism, as well as by the tortuous post-1989 transition to democracy.
Consequently, IRIR has three major objectives:
To contribute to the democratization of the Romanian society by facilitating-through research, teaching and publications-the process of coming to terms with a most troublesome recent past;
To overcome the parochialism of the Romanian academic community in the field of recent history through comparative studies and by creating a multi-layered framework of international dialogue and exchange;
To devise an institutional framework in order to foster professionalization and specialization-through lectures, debates, seminars, workshops, conferences, publications, free access to IRIR’s library, archives and research facilities, and a strong media and Internet presence-among the domestic community of historians.
