romanian cultural identity

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Romanian Cultural and Political Identity

Author(s): Donald R. Kelley

Source: Journal of the History of Ideas, Vol. 59, No. 4, (Oct., 1998), pp. 735-738

Published by: University of Pennsylvania Press

Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/3653941

Accessed: 08/06/2008 15:46

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Romanian u l t u r a l

n d

olitical

I d e n t i t y

The

Journal

of

the

History

of

Ideas,

in

collaboration

with other

institutions,

n-

cluding

the

Universities

of

Bucharest and

Budapest

and

the Soros

Foundation,

re-

cently

sponsored

he

second

in

a

series of international onferences

being planned

on

topics

in

current

ntellectual

history.

(The

first,

Interrogating

radition,

was held at

Rutgers

University,

13-16

November

1997.)

The

Romanian

conference,

which was

held

in

the

Elisabeta

Palace

in

Bucharest

27-31

May

1998),

was devoted

to

Culture

andthePolitics of NationalIdentity n Moder Romania. Overfortyscholars,mainly

from

Romania

but

some

also

from the

U.S., France,

Germany,

and

Hungary,

gathered

to

discuss a

variety

of

questions

about Romanian

society,

past, present,

and

specula-

tive

future;

and

they

were

joined

by

at

least as

many

visitors,

especially

students,

from

the local

area

and

beyond.

Topics

discussed

included

politics,

language,

economics,

historiography,

reli-

gion,

education,

philosophy,

ideologies, intelligentsia, particular

ntellectuals,

mi-

norities,

and

women

(though

not

Gypsies

or

gays).

Under

this riot

of rubrics

a

wide

range

of

questions

were

posed

in

interdisciplinary

ashion,

with

frequent,

sometimes

impassioned

nterventions.

What

is-was,

might

have

been,

can

be-Romania?

Who

is

a

Romanian

and

who

not)?

What

is

Romania's relation

to

the

West

and

the East?

(And

what

are the

West

and

the

East ?)

To

modernity,

o

modernism,

o modern-

ization?

What

is-has

been,

should

be-the function of

intellectuals,

of

political

and

cultural

elites,

in

understanding

he

Romanian

past

and

in

setting

a

course

for

the

future?

What,

more

generally,

s the

role

of

history

in

answering

such

questions?

Or

is

history

perhaps

as

Karl

Krause

remarked f

psychoanalysis)

the disease

for which

it

claims

to be

the

cure?

Keith

Hitchens's

keynote

address

suggested

that

rehashing

old essentialist

de-

bates

might

not be

productive

at millennium's

end,

but the conference

itself could

not

avoid

some

excursions

down

the

paths

of

memory

and

myth.

For

historians,

Western

historians

anyway,

Romania

seems to have too

many pasts.

Located

at the

juncture

of

four previousempires,Romaniais a mosaic, or perhapsa pandemonium,of ethnic,

religious,

economic,

and

ideological groups

that can

only

imagine,

or

invent,

a

na-

tionality.

Geographically

and

in

many ways culturally)

remote

from the

West,

Ro-

mania

for a

long

time

(as

Sorin

Antohi

remarked)

acked both

a

public

sphere

and

a

civil

society;

and

suffering

a

Counter-Reformation

ithout

a

Reformation

Alexandru

Dutu's

phrase),

it

has

not

enjoyed

a traditionof

religious

or

ethnic toleration. Nor

have

either

the

Germansor the

Jews

(as

Glass

said)

found

their

own

unity

within

the

changing

bordersof

the

moder Romanianstate. Not until the

nineteenth

century

did

Romania

develop,

out of

its

Boyar background

as

Siupiur

argued),

an intellectual

elite

that could

create a

moder

national

history

and

help

turn

peasants

nto Roma-

nians

(Antohi'sphrase);andeven then this elite seemedmore

attracted

o

conserva-

735

Copyright

1998

by

Journal

of

the

History

of

Ideas,

Inc.



Journal

of

the

History of

Ideas

tive

(Herder,

Savigny,

Burke)

than to

liberal

views of autochthonism.

Many

features

of Western

modernity,

uch

as

Newtonian

science,

reached

Romania

ate,

and indeed

there

was a

retrograde

movement

against

liberalismunder

the

aegis

by

orthodoxreli-

gion.

In

any

case

this

intelligentsia

has

been

as

fragmented

and

multiform

as

the

Romanian

past

itself.

True,

some

Romanian

cholars

like to

posit

a

mainstream

radi-

tion,

excesses

aside,

as

one

speakerput

it-but

how,

asked

another,

can historians

put

excesses

aside from

the

devastatingperspective

of

this

century?

Political and

cultural

self-examination

was the dominant

theme

of

this confer-

ence.

Nationality,

said

Pippidi,

depends

on

three

factors,

viz.,

name,

language,

reli-

gion,

and

territory.

The

Romanian name dates from

the tenth

century,

indicating

a

separation

of the

Roman

from

the Greek tradition n

Wallachia;

and from

the seven-

teenth

century

the

idea

of a

mainly

Roman

provenance

was

given

privilege.

As

a

language,

Romanian

was

spoken

in

the late Middle

Ages,

but

the

first

written

docu-

ment is

dated 1521.

The

principalreligion

in Romania

was

and

is Greek

orthodox,

although

there are also

Roman

Catholic,Jewish, Islamic,

and German

Protestant om-

munities, as well as the Uniate church createdin the eighteenthcentury.As for the

territory,

his

has

been a

matter

of

change,

conflict,

and confusion

throughout

he

tragic

course

of

southeastern

European istory

and

continues o

be

so for

the

Moldavian-

Wallachian

wins

viv-a-vis their

equally agitated

and

protean

neighbors.

Finding, finally,

a

kind of

modem

nationality

n

the

wake

of

World

War

I,

Roma-

nia

was

plunged

into the

bloody

excesses

of Fascism and

Communism.

The intellec-

tuals of the

unlucky

generation

of

1927

sought

understanding

nd

legitimacy

in

a

variety

of

contradictoryways,

including

what Calinescu

called

the

apocalyptic

e-

ver of

the

1930s,

to

which

Eliade,

among

others,

surrendered.

At that

time,

as one

participant

reminded

us,

both

fascism and communism

had

a

future

and

cannot,

retrospectively,

be

discountedas

irrelevant excesses.

In

general

nationalist

and

ex-

clusionist

sentiments were

countered

by

the

centrifugal

forces of

regionalism,

xeno-

phobia,

and

extremist

deologies

of that

age.

No wonder

Romania

didn't

work

(as

one

commentator

remarked)

either

under socialism

or

under

the

megalomaniacal

dirigisme

of

Ceaucescu. In

fact

Romania

has lived

through

not

just

one

but

a

number

of

unlucky

generations

since the

achievement

of

political

independence;

and this

is

an

indelible

part

of its

national

history

which is the

subject

of

these

critical

exchanges.

What of

the future?Will

this and the next

generations

be

luckier?

Can Romania

be made to work? Is

there a

Romanian

path

to

modernity

(or

postmodernity)?

The

Romanian

past

has not

been

liberal n a

Western

sense,

and

many

participants

x-

pressed

doubt

about this

model

(although

Daniel

Chirot,

in a

spirit

largely

at odds

with the spiritof dialogue in earliersessions, held it out as the only way of coping

with

political

and

economic

challenges

in

the

millennium

to

come).

In

any

case

Ro-

mania

has

more

immediate

problems,

social,

ethnic,

and educational

as

well as

po-

litical and

economic,

to

resolve before it

can

join,

or

rejoin,

mainstream,

hegemonic

Western

history-and

to do so at

a time when this

mainstream

nd

this

hegemony

are

being challenged

and

when

Southeastern

Europe

tself

is

in a condition

of

apparently

endless

chaos.

How

this

works out

only

history

will

tell,

while the

intellectuals

watch,

perhaps

act,

but at

least

(such

is

the minimal liberal

hope)

continue

the

sort of

dia-

logue

carried

on

here.

Donald

R.

Kelley

736



Romanian

Culture

and

Identity

Program

Keynote

Addresses:

Keith

Hitchins,

The

Identity

of Romania

Alexandru

Zub,

Western

deas on the

RomanianSoul

Modernity

and the

Construction

of National

Identity:

Alexandru

Dutu,

The

Communitarian

Model

and

National

Ties

Andrei

Pippidi,

Romanian

dentities

in the Sixteenth

Seventeenth

Centuries

Adrian-Paul

Iliescu,

Nineteenth-Century

Romantic

and

Conservative

Sources

of

Romanian

Autochthonism

Hugh Kearney

(comment)

Religion and Identity:

H. R.

Patapievici,

A

Short Look

into the

Dissemination

of

Newtonian

Ideas

in

the

Romanian

Provinces,

1687-1860

Maria

Craciun,

Religious

Change

and

Tolerance

n

Sixteenth-Century

Moldavia

Catherine

Durandin,

From he Liberalism

of 1848

to

the

'Orthodoxismul'

of

the

1930s

AlexandruDutu

(comment)

Historiography

nd

National

Myths:

Mirela-Luminita

Murgescu,

School

Textbooks

and

Heroes

of

Romanian

His-

tory

Ovidiu

Pecican,

Moder Romanian

Historiography

nd

the National

Project

Alexandru

Zub,

Romanian

Historiography

under

Communism

Sorin Antohi

(comment)

Cultureand

Identity

in

InterwarRomania:

Hildrun

Glass,

The Jews of

Greater

Romania:

The Search

for

a

Single

Identity

(1919-1938)

Rainer

Ohliger,

Minority

Identity

in Process:

Cultural

Politics

among

Ethnic

Germans n InterwarRomania

Edit

Szegedi, Regionalism

and National

Socialism

Andrei

Corbea Hoisie

(comment)

Engineering

Social

Identity:

Elena

Siupiur,

The

Formation

of Romanian

Intellectuals

n

the

Nineteenth

Cen-

tury

Mariana

Hausleitner,

Cernauti

University,

1918-1944:

Concepts

and

Conse-

quences

of

Romanization

CharlesKing, MakingMoldavians:LanguageandEthnicityon the Romanian-

Soviet

Border

Irina

Livezeanu

(comment)

737



Journal

of

the

History of

Ideas

Interwar

ntellectuals and Politics:

Matei

Calinescu,

The 1927

Generation

n

Romania:

Mihail

Sebastian,

Mircea

Eliade,

Nae

Ionescuu,

Eugene

Ionesco

Marta

Petreu, Cioran,

The

Transfiguration

f

Romania

Claude

Karooth,

Lucian

Blaga

and the

Birth of

the

Modem

Sorin

Alexandrescu,

The Iron Guard

Phenomenon

Leon Volovici

(comment)

Ideologies

and

Economic Theories:

Joseph

Love,

Interwarand Postwar

Structuralist

Theories

of

Development

in

Romanin

and

Latin

America

Bogdan Murgescu,

The

Heritage

of

the

Past

in

Contemporary

Economic

De-

bates

F. Peter

Wagner

comment)

The

Woman

Question

and Feminism:

Marias

Bucur,

Calypso

Botez: Gender

Difference

and

the

Limits

of Pluralism

n

InterwarRomania

Mihaela

Miroiu,

Antifeminismas Conservatism:

The

Romanian

Case

Irina

Liczek,

WesternCultural

mports

n Eastern

Europe:

Democracy

and

Femi-

nism

Bonnie G.

Smith

(comment)

Intellectuals

and Communism:

Alexandra

Laignel-Lavastine,

From he

'First' Constantin

Noica to the

Second:

Break or

Continuity?

Mircea

Flonta,

Analytic

Philosophy

in Communist

Romania:

Why

and

How?

Vladimir

Tismaneanu

(comment)

Final Address:

Daniel

Chirot

(Thereareplansto publishthe papersof this conferencein Romanian,andperhaps n

English,

at a later

point.)

738

romanian cultural identity

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