ABSTRACTThe Romanian political scene at the end of 1989 calls for a critical rhetorical perspective to understand how totalitarian politics clash with revolutionary changes and how communist space, so ambitiously crafted to cover an entire country’s public sphere, influences, if at all, a free(d) discourse on national unity. Examining official discourse on the cusp of revolutionary changes in Romania, in December 1989, this study argues that the concept of rhetorical space along with the enthymematic argument by definition of “we the nation” capture rhetoric in action, showing complex discursive crossings that legitimize the relationship between rhetoric and history at such times. Thus, the relationship between rhetorical space and the “we the nation” political argument, when applied to Romanian political discourse of 1989, reveals challenges that continue to feature the unsettledness of postcommunist discourse twenty-five years later.

AbstractTransformational speeches represent the relationship between rhetoric and history, particularly attempts to exert control at moments of change in the life of a political community. Such speeches re-imagine the definition, principles, or motivation of a community. They also enlarge the scope and vocabulary of political speech. Finally, they interpret or constitute situations at the boundary between past and future. Collected in this Collocutio are fresh translations of historically significant transformational speeches from Bulgaria, Cuba, Mexico, Poland, and Romania.