The Name as Witness: the Onomastics of Pain and Identity Reconstruction in Journal of 66: The Night I Burned by Alexandra Furnea

Abstract

This study examines the onomastic repertoire found in Jurnalul 66: Noaptea în care am ars (Journal of 66: The Night I Burned) by Alexandra Furnea, a survivor of the Colectiv nightclub fire in Bucharest on October 30, 2015, which claimed 65 lives and left more than 180 people injured.Based on the assumption that proper names acquire a strong symbolic function in traumatic contexts, the research explores the role of anthroponyms, cryptonyms, and toponyms in shaping the journal’s narrative structure. Names do not merely serve an identificatory function; they also become witnesses to the physical and emotional suffering experienced by those involved. The text employs various naming strategies, including explicit names (doctors, friends, colleagues, and fellow survivors), omitted or encoded names through initials and pseudonyms, and names carrying a strong stigmatizing value, such as Colectiv, Spitalul de
Arși (Burn Center), and Ministerul Sănătății (Ministry of Health). Methodologically, the study draws on onomastics, semantics, stylistics, literary text theory,
and literary studies.