Cercetări arheologice în fosta colonie de muncă forţată din perioada comunistă de la Peninsula, canalul Dunăre – Marea Neagră / Archaeological excavations in the former communist forced-labour camp from Peninsula, the Danube – Black Sea canal

Abstract

Despite the fact that Peninsula occupies an important place in the memorial literature and historical works regarding the political repression in communist Romania, the materiality of this forced labour colony on the trail of the Danube ‒ Black Sea Canal has been neglected both by archaeological research and by the institutions responsible for memory and heritage protection policies. In order to redress this situation, in the fall of 2020, the first archaeological surveys were carried out at Peninsula, with the following objectives : to draw a general plan of the site ; to make a repertory and detailed description of constructions and facilities (buildings, cement platforms, water tanks, concrete structures) ; to identify those structures which, by their construction elements, can be dated in the 1950s ; to identify, map and document the material traces associated with the working sites of the former forced labour colony ; to document the cemeteries where, according to testimonies, political prisoners from Peninsula were buried. The present archaeological analysis goes beyond the legal distinctions (“ political prisoners”, “ common law prisoners”) and historical chronologies with which the dominant narratives regarding the communist period operate (“ first Canal”, “ second Canal” ; communism, post‑communism) and reveals another kind of memory – of the marginal, of the anonymous and abandoned, of those forgotten, at a given moment, by history. From this perspective, the ruins at Peninsula are relevant not only for understanding communist repression, but also for understanding the mechanisms of social marginalization which are perpetuated to this day.