Programmme

The International Session/La session internationale :

Călătoria ca spaţiu al cunoaşterii şi comunicării culturale/The travel: a space of knowledge and cultural communication/Le voyage: espace de la connaissance et de la communication culturelle

TÂRGU-MUREŞ

9 June 2006/9 Juin 2006

Organizers:

„Gheorghe Şincai” Institute for Social Sciences and the Humanities of the Romanian Academy

„Petru Maior” University

In co-operation with

Le Centre de Recherche sur la Littérature de Voyage,

Sorbonne, Paris

Mures County Council

Organizers: Grigore Ploeşteanu (director, “Gheorghe Şincai” Institute for Social Sciences and the Humanities of the Romanian Academy), Carmen Andraş (“Gheorghe Şincai” Institute for Social Sciences and the Humanities of the Romanian Academy), Cornel Sigmirean (chancellor, “Petru Maior” University), Vasile Boloş (pro-rector, “Petru Maior” University ), Marian Zăloagă (“Gheorghe Şincai” Institute for Social Sciences and the Humanities of the Romanian Academy), Radu Boarescu (manager, “Petru Maior” University)

Scientific board: Liviu Bordas (Accademia di Romania, Rome), Anatol Petrencu (University of Chisinau),  Mária Berényi (The Romanians’ Research Institute in Hungary), Vasile Dobrescu (pro-dean, “Petru Maior” University), Adrian Husar, “Petru Maior” University),

Friday, 9 June 2006

“Petru Maior” University, the Senate Hall

10⁰⁰ Opening

Liviu Marian (rector, “Petru Maior” University)

Grigore Ploeşteanu ( director, “Gheorghe Şincai” Institute for Social Sciences and the Humanities of the Romanian Academy)

Plenary Speech

Camil Mureşanu(member of the Romanian Academy, president of the branch of the Romanian Academy in Cluj-Napoca, director of the “George Barit” History Institute)

Reflections on the role of the Academies in modern cultural life

Geografii simbolice: realităţi sociale şi politice/Symbolic geographies - social, political, cultural realities/Géographies symboliques - realités sociales,  politiques, culturelles

Chair: Adrian Husar

Place: “Petru Maior” University

Time: 11-13, 30

1. Adrian Husar (“Petru Maior” University, Târgu-Mureş), Frontierele memoriei culturale în Antichitatea Orientală: geografia simbolică şi realităţi politice (The frontiers of cultural memory in Oriental Antiquity: symbolic geographies and political realities)

The qualitative differentiation of the spatial perception is based on the psychological impressions founded on the need for security – which is analyzable from different points of views. The opposition between centre and periphery is perceptible on various levels and influences all forms of social organizations: a) the level of personal relationships (home, family); b) the level of local community (including persons and places encountered on daily bases; c) the large level of an national or cultural entity. Populations/nations which have in common language, social customs, cultural values and are within the same administrative, political and economic system tend to asses their territory as a diversity of circumstantiated areas. This differentiation is emphasized by the specific terminology which reveals an entire symbolic – imaginative geography. Water and wind are liquid and mobile elements – in sharp contrast with the stabile and solid earth – and they express the menacing chaotic periphery. As a consequence the area at the edges of the World was defined in accordance with own cultural criteria: - having the characteristics of chaos (unlimited, dark, liquid, instable) as it was the world be fore the application of a Creator. In the outer space it cannot be realised the political and cultural order given to the lay men (by a deity) not even the psychical order – a consequence of a divine action. So the lay men could expand his frontiers only within these borders (and never beyond them).

 2. Fábián István (“Petru Maior” University, Târgu-Mureş), Sparta şi sistemul său de colonizare în lumea mediteraneană (Sparta and its colonisation system in the Mediterranean world)

In the „history of travel” the Greek colonization has a special place: it comes from very ancient traditions which are very specific for the Greek World, and which had as result the spreading of the Greek way of life through the Mediterranean world. In our paper we are going to take into consideration the Spartan colonization: colony of Tera, Tarnent and two attempts of colonization in Africa and Sicily. We are going to emphasize the aspirations of the Spartans, their way of founding a colony and their impact on the commerce in the Mediterranean area.

3. Carmen Dorlan (“Gheorghe Şincai” Institute, Târgu-Mureş), Intoleranţă religioasă si coabitare în societatea moldovenească premodernă: realităţi sociale reflectate în relatări de călătorie  (Religious intolerance and cohabitation in pre-modern Moldavian society: social realities reflected in travel accounts)

The present study intends to analyze the typology, the elaboration and defining elements in the formation of collective religious attitudes and manifestations of Moldavian society during the 16^th and the 17^th centuries, reflected in the travellers’ accounts on the space of the Moldavian Principality. The historical discourse is based on the edited sources in the Romanian historiography and the author focuses her investigation on the moments of contact with other forms of religiosity inside the Christian faith. Thus, the documentary support of this investigation is restricted for the moment to Western travellers’ accounts, mainly of Catholic faith. We include here not only the travellers passing through but also those who remained a few years and worked among these communities, offering this way a much more realistic discourse on the Moldavian society’s religious beliefs and attitudes. It also intendeds to reflect models of sociability and the way they oscillated from attitudes of rejection to their acceptance. They were using the question of religious intolerance in a mainly Orthodox society, but with continuous contacts, more or less violent, with other forms of religiosity, in order to offer a better view on the process of their own Orthodox identity construction.

4. Georgeta Fodor (“Petru Maior” University Târgu-Mureş), Imagini ale femeilor românce la călători străini în spaţiul societăţii româneşti medievale (Images of Romanian women with foreign travellers in the Romanian medieval society)       

Travel has always been a subject of discussion and controversy among historians. The subject is still of great importance as travel meant the way of meeting “the others”, other areas of civilization. Moreover, it was a way by which two different cultures could meet and interfere.         The subject of the present study is the analysis of the foreigners’ attitude towards the Romanian women in medieval society. We considered that such an approach would be beneficial for the knowledge of our medieval society. That is because travellers came from various cultures and civilizations. They could offer us an external point of view on the Romanian women and medieval society. From a chronological perspective, we chose to analyze the records of the travellers through Moldavia, Walachia and Transylvania in the 16-17th centuries. The reason is that during this period of time the records about the Romanian countries increased in number. We found about 37 of travel accounts in which among the main area of interest we can also identify valuable information referring to the Romanian marital strategies,  marital rites, women’s morality and clothing. One could argue that they are not the most relevant aspects that could best reveal the status of women. Nevertheless, we cannot agree as the main reason of choosing the theme is that when we intend to build an objective image of women’s role in our medieval society, it is also important to analyze foreign perspectives upon Romanian women. Moreover, hetero-images are important sources in history, since, as Andrei Oisteanu put it, “we need the others for defining ourselves”. Consequently, the history of women in Romanian medieval society has to take into consideration foreign perspectives too.    

5. Emilia Martin (The Romanians’ Research Institute from Hungary), Piese de artă şi cărţi bisericeşti în Colecţia Bisericii Ortodoxe Române din Ungaria (Pieces of art and church books in the collection of the Orthodox Romanian Church from Hungary)

At the beginning of the 80’s, at the initiative of the Romanians’ Union from Hungary, The Ministry of Culture supported the idea of establishing an ecclesiastical collection and, implicitly, its storing in adequate conditions, by stressing the fact that the pieces should be inventoried after museum and archive criteria. Political leaders, priests and believers decided to treasure the art collection, since the pieces of art (icons on wood, glass and texture), the old cult books and parochial documents were in a very bad condition because of the improper conditions into which they had been preserved since the firs half of the 20^th century. Besides the presentation of the collection, we will describe the circulation of Romanian art objects and books beyond Romania’s borders, based on data referring to their circulation and the notes inscribed on them by their different owners.

6.  Berényi Mária (The Romanians’ Research Institute from Hungary), Budapesta în scrierile de călătorie ale lui Dinicu Golescu şi George Bariţ (Budapest in Dinicu Golescu and George Barit’s travel writings)

Dinicu Golescu uses his travels in the West to study the administration and production systems in those countries, which he describes and recommends through comparisons with the situation at home. His most important work, Însemnarea călătoriei mele (Account of my travel, Buda, 1826) is actual nowadays too. It reflects an open spirit to new ideas, which he can adapt to Romanian realities. It also reflects his patriotic urge to address “Enlightened Europe” whose model should be followed by his countrymen for Romania’s benefit. Travel for Bariţ meant first of all knowledge, comparison, and the 19^th century man’s spiritual openness towards universal values. The desire for information went hand in hand with that of cultivation. Bariţ was a passionate traveller and writer at the same time. Like Dinicu Golescu he was observing and judging other realities, comparing them with Romanian realities and wishing to implement everything they considered good and beautiful in their own country.

14-15, 30 Lunch Break

Călătoria între cunoaştere şi ideologie/The travel: between knowledge and ideology/Le voyage: entre connaissance et idéologie

Chair: Cornel Sigmirean

Place: “Petru Maior” University

Time: 15³⁰-18³⁰

1. Chiorean Ioan (“Gheorghe Şincai” Institute, Târgu-Mureş), Călătoriile de studii în Boemia şi Moravia ale economistului transilvănean Ioan Neagoe (The Transylvanian economist Ioan Neagoe and his research journeys in Bohemia and Moravia)

Ioan Neagoe was born in Armeni (Sibiu county) in a family of priests, around 1729. He began his secondary studies in Sibiu, at the Saxon gymnasium, and in Cluj, at the Jesuitical college. He had a good control of German, Hungarian and Latin languages. Following the model of his Hungarian colleagues in Cluj, who were embracing economic careers and who were better paid than rural priests and public notaries, the peasant Ioan Neagoe gives up his job as schoolmaster in Blaj, choosing a higher professional education. He meets this way Márgai Ferenc, prefect of count Bethlen Gabor’s domains in Făgăraş. In order to become acquainted with the agricultural experiments from the most developed provinces of the Hapsburg monarchy, Márgai Ferenc sends him on an education tour in Bohemia and Moravia. He made there researches regarding the cultivation of the potatoes, which had been recently introduced on limited parcels. Thus, after a pioneer activity into the field, he generalized the cultivation of the potato in Transylvania, in 1765, preceding even Austria.

2. Vasile Dobrescu (“Petru Maior” University, Târgu-Mureş), Călătoria în biografia unui economist de seamă - Ion I. Lepădatu (The place of travel in the biography of a significant economist - Ion I. Lepădatu)  

My paper intends to point out the place and the role of travel in the intellectual and professional formation of the economist Ion I. Lapedatu, at the beginning of the 20th century. He is known in the field as one of the most important representatives of the financial-bank world in modern Romania. The investigation of edited sources reflect that

Ion I. Lapedatu’s peregrinations , in his early years of activity, in the Austrian-Hungarian space, had significant effects upon his training and, mostly, in gaining a good experience in the field of general insurance. His journeys to Budapest, Vienna and Bucharest are reflected in his successful activities destined to the modernization of the Romanian credit system up to the WW I and in the process of institutionalization of the first insurance company with national capital in Transylvania. It was accomplished in 1911 through the foundation of The General Insurance Bank in Sibiu.     

3. Ana Maria Negoi-Roman (“Iuliu Maniu" Centre for Historical and Political Researches, Alba-Iulia), Călătoria de studii: rolul şi dimensiunile experienţelor în formarea istoricului Gheorghe Şincai (Travel and documentation: the importance and dimensions of experience with the historian Gheorghe Şincai)

The education journey, the contact with the great university centres of the European Enlightenment, played an important part in the formation of the Romanian cultural elites. From this perspective, our paper analyses the role of experience related to the Roman and Viennese education stages. There are two principal dimensions in my analysis: the aim for which they were sent for study in the outlook of the epoch and the concrete outcomes of these experiences. The education journey has a double aim: the information and mostly the formation of the intellectual profiles under the influence of the Enlightenment. The contact with important university centres represents significant stages in the formation and evolution of the Romanian cultural and political elites in Transylvania.
4. Cornel Sigmirean (“Petru Maior” University, Târgu-Mureş) & Lucian Năstasa, ”George Bariţ” Institute, Cluj-Napoca), Europa de la sfârşitul secolului al XIX-lea şi începutul secolului al XX-lea văzută de studenţii români de la universităţile europene (Europe as seen by the Romanian students at foreign universities and the crossing of the 19^th-20 ^th centuries)

5. Virgil Pană (Mureş County Museum), Două călătorii de documentare în Transilvania în perioada interbelică (Two research journeys in interwar Transylvania)

The author of the present study analyses two foreign writers’ accounts (the American Henriette M. Tichner and the British C. A. Macartney) during a documentation journey in Transylvania. These accounts were treating the situation of the ethnic minorities in the region. Henriette M. Tichner, the author of Roumania and her religious minorities (published at „A. M. Philpot Ltd.” Publishing House in 1925), was one of the few experts in European realities at the time. Acquainted with the Romanian, German, French, English and Italian languages, this American writer visited Transylvania between 1922 and 1923, in order to make objective observations about the situation of the minorities, especially about the confessional ones. The second book discussed here is Hungary and her successors 1919-1937, written by C. A. Macartney, an author with an indisputable reputation in the study of the ethnic minorities in the successor states of Hungary. This book was published under the auspices of the Royal Institute for International Affairs and analyzed the Treaty of Trianon and its consequences, which according to the author led to the revision of the peace treaties. A long chapter was dedicated to Transylvania  (pages 251-335). After the trip undertaken in the province, Macartney described the situation of ethnic minorities, in 39 pages: first, the political conditions and then, the relations with the state administration system, school, religious and cultural problems, economic organization and social structures etc.

6. Anatol Petrencu (State University of the Republic of Moldova) Impresii de călătorie în Crimeea (Travel accounts in Crimea/Relations de voyage en Crimeea)

The author is presenting his recent travel impressions in the Crimea Peninsula, where he visited Yalta, Alupca, Sevastopol, and other places with historical significance. He visited museums, palaces, historical places and monuments, interested in recent history testimonies, from the time when the peninsula belonged to the Soviet space up to contemporary realities. Of great importance for the authors were testimonies, facts and names by which Crimea is  related to Romania’s past.

Călătoria: între peregrinare şi propagandă/The travel: between  peregrination and propaganda/Le voyage: entre pérégrination et propagande

Chair: Laurenţiu Vlad

Place: “Gheorghe Şincai” Institute

Time: 11⁰⁰-13³⁰

1. Eliane Poirot (La Fraternité «Saint-Élie», Saint Rémy, France), La xeniteia ou peregrinatio monastique: exil volontaire vers la patrie, Xenitea sau peregrinarea  monastică : exil voluntar spre patrie, Xenitea or the  monastic  pilgrimage: a voluntary exile toward home.

Le départ volontaire à l’étranger a reçu dans la tradition monastique le nom de xeniteiva en grec ou peregrinatio en latin. Après avoir rappelé l’origine de ce thème, la Bible où les voyages y ont une gamme de significations très étendue, et noté les trois sens de la xeniteia dans la patristique (le départ au loin, la vie terrestre comme un exil, le cheminement vers la Jérusalem céleste), cette communication présente quelques exemples de moines qui se sont exilés volontairement. Mais quitter son pays n’est pas suffisant, ni même nécessaire, car l’exil volontaire est avant tout un comportement. On aboutit ainsi à une conception intériorisée de la xeniteia, illustrée par quelques textes des saintes Thérèse d'Avila et de Lisieux. Au XXI^e siècle, la xeniteia demeure une exigence de la vie monastique qui est exprimée par tant par la clôture, que par la liturgie, véritable pèlerinage vers le Royaume.

2. Gabriel Leanca (l’Université “Al. I. Cuza”, Iaşi et l’Université de Bourgogne, Dijon), Părăsind exotismul. Moldo-valahii în literatura de călătorie franceză din prima jumătate a secolului al XIX-lea.  Leaving exoticism.  The Moldo-Wallachians in French travel literature in the first half of the 19^{th century,}   Sortir de l’exotisme. Les Moldo-Valaques dans la littérature de voyage française de la première moitié du 19^ème siècle

Les textes des voyageurs français dans les Principautés constituent des sources importantes pour concevoir une étude sur les représentations sociales au 19^ème siècle. Le nombre des voyageurs qui ont laissé des témoignages écrits sur les Principautés à l’époque de l’Union n’est pas assez grand mais leurs descriptions sont pourtant riches et minutieusement élaborées.  C’est à la fin du siècle de lumières que la première histoire des Principautés a été publiée en français et les descriptions de voyage ont dépassé la perspective ethnologique renfermé par la plupart des témoignages de l’époque. Pour la période entre 1829 et 1848, nous avons consulté les ouvrages écrites par Félix Colson, Edouard Antoine Thouvenel, Jean Alexandre Vaillant, Adolphe Billecocq, Abdolonyme Ubicini et Saint-Marc Girardin qui sont de loin les plus importantes textes sur les Principautés, conçues avec des informations recueillis pendant des voyages plus ou moins longues en Moldavie et en Valachie. Il y a une particularité des relations de voyage de cette époque. Par rapport aux descriptions moins chaleureuses de voyageurs du 18^ème siècle, les textes de la période quarante-huitarde sont plus proches de œuvre de propagande pour la cause roumaine. Il s’agissait d’une politisation très forte des témoignages directs sur les Principautés. En effet, le processus de la politisation de témoignages trouve son origine à la fin du 18^ème siècle quand le comte Alexandre d’Hauterive a écrit le rapport dédié au prince régnant de la Moldavie dans lequel il exerça les idées réformistes du siècle de lumières. Il faut, donc, concevoir la littérature française de voyage dans les pays roumains d’une manière plus large, en observant l’intimité intellectuelle entre les ouvrages qui décrivent le même territoire, utilisent plus ou moins les mêmes conventionnes rhétoriques pour inventorier l’espace et parlent d’une certaine tradition de l’écriture et de perspective.

3. Ligia Livadă-Cadeschi (l’Université de Bucarest), Aventuri de călătorie, tablouri, povestiri şi amintiri din Levant de Alphonse Royer (Paris, 1837), Adventures of travel, pictures, stories, and memories of Levant, by Alphonse Royer (Paris, 1837), Aventures de voyage, tableaux, récits et souvenirs du Levant d’Alphonse Royer (Paris, 1837)

Notre essai présente les Aventures de voyage, tableaux, récits et souvenirs du Levant, d’Alphonse Royer, publiées à Paris en 1837. Deux raisons ont déterminé notre choix: la quantité vraiment significative d’informations concernant la Valachie (deux chapitres: Itinéraire de Routchouk à Boukarest et Boukarest et la Vlalchie; 94 pages environ); le fait que cet ouvrage semble assez peu connu à l’historiographie roumaine (le nom d’Alphonse Royer n’est pas mentionné qu’une seule fois, par Nicolae Iorga).  Le chapitre concernant Boukarest et la Valachie est un précis de géographie et d’histoire. On découvre l’importance stratégique et économique du Danube et de la Valachie, ses habitants, son histoire, sa capitale, le gouvernement et les hiérarchies sociales, le prince régnant, les modes en vogue à Bucarest et la langue du pays. Sauf quelques inexactitudes, l’auteur est en général bien informé, pourvu en plus d’un aigu esprit d’observation et d’un incontestable talent littéraire, ce qui fait que sa lecture soit à la fois instructive et entraînante. La fin de ce précis d’histoire et géographie roumaine est un réquisitoire contre le protectorat russe qui n’apportera aucun profit aux population des Principautés, par rapport à l’ancienne domination de la Porte.

4. Laurenţiu Vlad (l’Université de Bucarest), Călătorie, documentaţie, propagandă. O istorie a cărţii lui Georges Detaille, À travers la Roumanie pittoresque (1935), Travel, documentation, propaganda. A history of Georges Detaille’s book   À travers la Roumanie pittoresque (1935), Voyage, documentation, propagande. Une histoire du livre de Georges Detaille, À travers la Roumanie pittoresque (1935)

Notre essai, situé au point de vue thématique et méthodologique à mi-chemin entre l’histoire politique et l’histoire des mentalités, porte sur quelques moments qui ont mené à la publication du volume À travers la Roumanie pittoresque, dont l’auteur est le journaliste belge du Le Soir, Georges Detaille. Le livre, riche en photographies, de même qu’en illustrations signées par Aurel Jiquidi, étant subventionné par l’État roumain avec la somme de 125000 lei (environ 30000 francs belges de l’époque), a vu le jour à Bruxelles en 1935 à un tirage de 10000 exemplaires. Georges Detaille a réunit dans les 80 pages du volume ses articles du Le Soir, publiés en 1934, et les conférences sur la Roumanie qu’il a soutenues à Anvers, Bruxelles, Charleroi, Gand, Liège ou Louvières au début de l’année 1935. Les articles ou le conférences mentionnés ont été rédigés à la suite de quelques voyages de documentation en Roumanie, des voyages rendus possibles financièrement en 1933 par le gouvernement de Bucarest. Une partie des informations présentes dans les articles ou les conférences du journaliste belge ont été obtenues par la correspondance qu’il a entretenue avec la Direction de la Presse du Ministère des Affaires Étrangères (1933, 1935). En 1935, les textes de Georges Detaille ont été corrigés et complétés à plusieurs reprises à Bucarest par les services spécialisés de la propagande roumaine. Le volume a eu un important écho en Belgique. Plusieurs comptes-rendus ont été publié dans des périodiques tels que L’Horizon, Journal de Charleroi, Le Peuple, Le Soir etc. Pour les services rendus à l’Etat roumain dans ses efforts de propagande, le journaliste belge a reçu de la part du gouvernement de Bucarest les insignes d’officier de la Couronne («Coroana României»).

 5. Carmen Andraş (“Gheorghe Şincai” Institute, Târgu-Mureş), Între utopie şi distopie :imagini ale României comuniste în literature de călătorie britanică, Between Utopia and Dystopia: Images of Romania under Communism in British Travel Literature, Entre utopie et dystopie : Images de la Roumanie communiste dans la littérature de voyage britannique

My paper represents an imagological analysis of British representations about communist Romania and their continuity in the construction of postcommunist images. Imagology, or the study of the representation of the Other, is a distinct discipline whose methodology and program have been established by outstanding Continental specialists in comparative literature. While Continental research concentrates upon the imaginary, the Anglo-American researches in the field focus upon the discursive or visual images themselves. Continental imagology defines the Other mostly as a metaphorical, mythical or anthropological projection of the collective imagination and unconscious. On the other hand, Anglo-American cultural and post-colonial studies stress the intentional, conscious, constructivist, ideological and political character. I am proposing here a synthesis of the two methodologies: postcolonial imagology, interested both in the imaginary and ideological, collective and individual, unconscious and intentional foundation of the discursive construction, marginalization or exclusion of alterity. It belongs both to comparative literature and to the general framework of comparative cultural studies. Postcolonial refers here to the (post) imperial condition of Romania both by reference to the Soviet imperialism and the Western metaphorical imperialism of the imagination (see Vesna Goldsworthy). Communist Romania is differently perceived by the British observers: 1) in a flattering way (the myth of its so-called independence from the Soviet Union and the “liberal” views of its president). Such flattering observations that look much alike the Communist party documents of the epoch, were produced by different categories of British authors, politicians and diplomats, academics, writers and journalists: Ian M. Matley (1970), Jack Lindsay (1953), Leslie Gardiner (1973), Andrew MacKenzie (1983). 2) critical and ironic images of communism in Romania: Anton Gill (1990), Guy Arnold (1989), Anthony Daniels (1991), Richard Basset (1990),  Brian Hall (1988), Lesley Chamberlain (1990). 3) dramatic images of oppression and intellectual resistance: Jessica Douglas-Home (2000). 4) dystopian hypostases of communism, dramatic (Alan Sillitoe) or satirical (Malcolm Bradbury). 5) postcommunist perspectives on communist Romania. The conclusion of my paper is that there is a visible thread of continuity among these hypostases of British images concerning Romania, marked by the presence of a very persistent range of stereotypes.

Lunch Break: 14-15, 30

Călătorie, exil, migraţie /Travel, exile, migration/Voyage, exile, migration,

Chair: Mihaela Grancea

Place: “Gheorghe Şincai” Institute

Time : 15, 30-18,30

1. Corina Teodor (“Petru Maior” University,  Mureş County Library), Pribegii feminine în Evul mediu românesc (Women’ Wanderings in the Romanian Middle Age).

2. Marian Zăloagă (“Gheorghe Şincai” Institute, Târgu-Mureş), Comportament cultural sau strategii de supravieţuire. Consideraţii teoretice privind nomadismul ţiganilor (Cultural behaviuor or survival strategies. Theoretical considerations regarding the nomadism of the  Gypsies)

In my paper I intend to present the most influential theories regarding Gypsy nomadism. When analyzed in isolation, a methodology highly favored by the folklorists and most of the historians, which segregated Gypsy studies from the European macro society research for almost two centuries, this population seems to have been born to assume travelling as a way of being in the world. On the contrary, nowadays, social historians consider that a contextualization of this phenomenon might bring better explanations to the matter. Accordingly, they consider that Gypsy nomadism was determined by the economic, social and ideological fluctuations within the host European societies. In some cases, they even get to consider that a too strong isolation hindered the understanding of the Gypsy nomadism. They suggest that it must be analyzed within the context of the same phenomenon, which was experienced by European society too. Unfortunately, in some cases their insertion of the phenomenon within larger context tends to eliminate any specificities of the Gypsy nomadism, reaching an extreme, which is denying Gypsy ethnicity.   

4. Mihaela Grancea (“Lucian Blaga” University, Sibiu) – Geografia simbolicii europene în memorialul de călătorie paşoptist românesc (The Geography of European Symbolism in the Romanians’ Travel Memoirs during the 1848 Revolution) 

By travelling, the Romanians had the opportunity to see other lands and cultures and, according to their observations, to better understand themselves. In order to illustrate this type of social and cultural phenomenon, we have decided to focus on the personalities of two writers and politicians representative for their respective generations, travellers who saw and analyzed various institutional elements pertaining to 19th century Europe. Dinicu Golescu, a Wallachian boyar fully experiencing the identity crisis of a country still dominated by feudal images and customs, was one of the promoters of the 1848 ideals. Ion Codru-Drăguşanu, a Transylvanian marked both the militant-Enlightened tradition of Transylvanian extraction and by the Romantic one, manifest in his patriotic rhetoric, remains exemplary for the political and ideological thought of the 1848 generation. The 19th century marked a crucial shift in European thought, a shift caused by socio-cultural developments and by the discovery of other lands and peoples, in all their complexity and cultural diversity. With the dawn of Romanticism, the voyage gained new meaning. The modern character of travel notes and impressions derives from the interest in the particular and distinct features of the foreign places, in the national „spirit”. In Romanian literature, the real founder of the travel account as a genre was Constantin Radovici from Goleşti, known to us as Dinicu Golescu, the „first modern Romanian” – to quote Pompiliu Eliade -, with his Însemnare a călătoriei mele [Travel Notes], published in 1826. 19th century Romanian writers travelled first and foremost to the West, the dominant civilization of that time, but later, under the influence of the Romantic tradition, to the East, in the wake of many other European writers. Ion Codru-Drăguşanu is also a distinct personality of Romanian culture, not only because of his contribution to the tradition of travel literature – Peregrinul transilvan (The Transylvanian Pilgrim) but also because of the socio-cultural model, he represented. After the revolution of 1848, travel accounts became a constant presence in Romanian culture. Mihail Kogălniceanu, Vasile Alecsandri, Cezar Bolliac, Ion Ghica, Dimitrie Ralet and Nicolae Filimon would develop the genre established in the first half of the century, expanding the field of observation, focusing on self-reflection and cultivating new forms of artistic expression.

4. Grigore Ploeşteanu (“Gheorghe Şincai” Institute, Târgu-Mureş), Călători şi carantine în Transilvania, în perioada Vormärzului şi a revoluţiei de la 1848 (Travellers and quarantines in Transylvania during Vormärz and the 1848 Revolution)

Based on his interest in the relations between Transylvania and Wallachia, the author analyses the travel phenomenon during the decade before the 1848 Revolution and the Revolution, in the conditions of the existence of the sanitary cordon established by the Austrian authorities at mid-18^th century, at the frontier. The sanitary cordon was set at the frontier with the Ottoman Empire, as a means of protection from the plague, but also from economic and other diverse reasons. Despite the rigours of the quarantine regime, which, in the opinions of contemporary specialists, had to be reformed, but also the precarious lines of communication, a great number of travels between the two principalities are registered. These travels had economic, medical, national-cultural and political reasons, leisure tours and family visits included. Thus, in 1840 only, 6812 persons passed through the Timiş quarantine between Predeal and Braşov, while 7312 persons crossed the border from Transylvania to Wallachia. Based on diverse testimonies, we have identified the most important Wallachian personalities who travelled in this period to Transylvania (princes and member of reigning families, teachers, publicists etc.).

5. Nicoleta Sălcudeanu (“Gheorghe Şincai” Institute, Târgu-Mureş), Exilul ca spaţiu divulgat (Exile as a space of disclosure)

The experience of exile represents a fundamental state, a strongly motivated archetype. Birth itself is a sign of the original sin and driving away, and it is synonymous with the daybreak of the biography of evil in the world. The curve drawn from the exile of creature to the exile of creation tends to close into a perfect circle. When myth or religion missed the occasion of solving the problem of uprooting, philosophy assumed the helm. Released from the normative cage, the new philosophical thinking looks now for more relaxed solutions. It seems that only an ethics of weakening and a behaviour as living in the internal dimension of time, and not "just like at the beginning of the world", represent a chance to the exiled writer, thus he has the occasion to live his craftsmanship like a merry dissemination, without the compulsion of  a hard centre. While he lives into an alternative history, even a protective one, he rejects the understanding of his own tragedy and continues to live for ever backwards of time.

6. Mihai Sin (University of Dramatic Arts, Târgu-Mureş), Între călătorie şi migraţie (Between travel and migration)

“Between travel and migration” does not seem to exist any obvious relationship. Nevertheless, the author of this paper considers that in the recent world history such a connection is not eccentric at all. Obviously, as compared to the “medieval migration age”, present time’ phenomena are much more complex. Sophisticated or not, migrations are real occurrences of the contemporary history. They represent a “barometer” of the “sanity” of nations or even of the continents, with regard to their economic, social, political and physiological state. Though extremely important, the last criterion of analyses is unfortunately almost wholly neglected by the leaders from all over the world.                 

18³⁰ Vernisajul expoziţiei de pictură a doamnei Sabina Ana Purcariu

la sediul I.C.S.U. „Gh. Şincai”, str. Bolyai 17

19³⁰ -  Masă festivă la cabana Universităţii din Complexul „Weekend”

Comitetul de organizare

Ioan Chiorean, director, Institutul de Cercetări Socio-Umane „Gheorghe Şincai”

Carmen Andraş, Institutul de Cercetări Socio-Umane „Gheorghe Şincai”

Liviu Marian, rector, Universitatea „Petru Maior”

Vasile Boloş, prorector, Universitatea „Petru Maior”

Cornel Sigmirean, cancelar, Universitatea „Petru Maior”

Iulian Boldea, decan, Universitatea „Petru Maior”

Marius Dumitrescu, preşedinte, Asociaţia „Suryam”

Mariana Ploeşteanu, Institutul de Cercetări Socio-Umane „Gheorghe Şincai”

Maria Costea, Institutul de Cercetări Socio-Umane „Gheorghe Şincai”

Marian Zăloagă, Institutul de Cercetări Socio-Umane „Gheorghe Şincai”

Novák Zoltán Csaba, Institutul de Cercetări Socio-Umane „Gheorghe Şincai”

Radu Boarescu, director general administrativ, Universitatea „Petru Maior”

Comitetul ştiinţific

Liviu Bordaş, Accademia di Romania, Roma

Steven Totosy, University of Halle-Wittenberg, Germany

Rakesh Batabyal, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi, India

Mária Berényi, director, Institutul de Cercetări al Românilor din Ungaria

Vasile Dobrescu, prodecan, Facultatea de Ştiinţe şi Litere, Universitatea „Petru Maior”

Adrian Husar, şef de catedră, Universitatea „Petru Maior”

Program

Joi, 24 mai 2007/Thursday, 24 May 2007– Recepţie/Reception

19:00

Vineri, 25 mai 2007/ Friday, 25 May 2007

9, 30 - 13, 30

Sesiunea în plen/ Plenary session

Sala/Room: R 39, Universitatea „Petru Maior”

Cuvânt de bun-venit/Welcome by Dr. Ioan Chiorean, Directorul Institutului de cercetări socio-umane „Gheorghe Şincai”, Târgu Mureş/Director of the “Gheorghe Sincai” Research Institute for Social Sciences and the Humanities, Târgu Mureş, Romania: Aniversarea a 50 de ani de la crearea Institutului de cercetări socio-umane „Gheorghe Şincai”/The Anniversary of 50 years from the foundation of the “Gheorghe Sincai” Research Institute for Social Sciences and the Humanities

Cuvânt de bun-venit/Welcome by Acad. Camil Mureşanu, Preşedintele Filialei din Cluj Napoca a Academiei Române/President of the Cluj Napoca Branch of the Romanian Academy

Cuvânt de bun-venit/Welcome by Prof. Dr. Liviu Marian, Rectorul Universităţii „Petru Maior”/Rector of „Petru Maior” University, Târgu Mureş, Romania

Prof. Dr. Vasile Dobrescu, Prodecan, Universitatea „Petru Maior”/Pro Dean of „Petru Maior” University, Târgu Mureş, Romania: Relaţiile Apus – Răsărit în opera istoricului Grigore Ploeşteanu/West – East Relations in the Work of the Historian Grigore Ploeşteanu

Acad. Dumitru Protase, Membru de Onoare al Academiei Române/Member of Honour of the Romanian Academy, Continuitate în spaţiul daco-roman şi central-european/Continuiy in the Dacian - Roman and Central-European Space

Prof. Dr. Claude Karnoouh, Profesor emeritus de filosofie/Professor of Philosophy, Centre National des Recherches Scientifiques, Paris, France; Profesor invitat la Universitatea Catolica Saint Joseph din Beyrouth (Liban)/Associate Professor at the Catholic University, Beyrouth, Relaţiile Est - Vest, sau istoria globalizării/West - East Relations, or the History of Globalization

Maria Berényi, Director, Institutul de cercetare al românilor din Ungaria/The Research Institute for the Romanians in Hungary

Pauză de masă/Lunch

13, 30 – 15, 00

Secţiuni/Sections

15, 00 – 19, 00

Translaţii identitare Occident – Orient/Răsărit, West – Orient/East Identity Translations (I)

Moderator/Section Chair: Rakesh Batabyal, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi, India

Sala/Room: R 39, Universitatea „Petru Maior”

1. Rakesh Batabyal, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi, India, Nation, Community and the Civilisational Context (Naţiune, comunitate şi contextul civilizaţiei )
2. Andreas Berg, Griffith University, Australia, The Formation of the Russian Enlightenment: Rethinking Eastern-Western Intellectual Exchange (Formarea intelectualităţii iluministe ruse: regândind schimburile intelectuale est-vest)
3. Atalay Günduz, Ege University, Turkey, Translation of Difference into Otherness: Jeremy Seal’s „A Fez of the Heart” (1995)(Traducând diferenţa în alteritate: „A Fez of the Heart” de Jeremy Heart -1995)

Pauză de cafea/Coffee Break

4. Marius Crişan, Universitatea din Timişoara, România, Universitatea din Torino, Italia, Transylvania as a Borderland between the West and the East (Transilvania ca ţară de frontieră între Apus şi Răsărit)
5. Carmen Andraş, Institutul „Gheorghe Şincai”, Târgu Mureş, Europe and/or Orient. Inter-war Romania in British Literature (Europa şi/ sau Orient. România interbelică în literatura britanică)
6. Titus Pop, Partium Christian University, Oradea, Crossing Borders through Music in Salman Rushdie’s The Ground Beneath her Feet (Traversând graniţele prin muzică în Pământul de sub tălpile ei de Salman Rushdie

Imagini, frontiere, comunicare interculturală / Images, borders, intercultural communication (I)

Moderator/Section Chair: Iulian Boldea, Universitatea „Petru Maior” , Târgu-Mureş,

Sala/Room: R 04, Universitatea „Petru Maior”

1. Liviu Bordaş, Accademia di Romania, Rome, Italy, Orientul şi „echilibrul între antiteze”: o reconsiderare a filosofiei istoriei lui Ion Heliade Rădulescu (The Orient and “the Balance between Antitheses”: a Reconsideration of Ion Heliade Rădulescu’s Philosophy of History)
2. Mircea Popa, Universitatea „1 Decembrie 1918”, Alba Iulia, România, Relaţii româno-spaniole în epoca modernă (Romanian-Spanish Relationships in the Modern Times)
3. Iulian Boldea, Universitatea Petru-Maior, Târgu-Mureş, Mircea Eliade – Între Orient şi Occident (Mircea Eliade – Between the Orient and the West)

Pauză de cafea/Coffee Break

4. Doina Butiurcă, Universitatea Petru-Maior, Târgu-Mureş, Fascinaţia sacrului în romanele lui Liviu Rebreanu şi cultura germană(The Fascination of the Sacred in Liviu Rebreanu’s Novels and German Culture)
5. Dumitru Buda, Universitatea Petru-Maior, Târgu-Mureş, Mitologia expatriatului şi Estul irecuperabil în Întâlnirea de Gabriela Adameşteanu (The Mythology of the Expatriate and the Irretrievable East in The Encounter by Gabriela Adameşteanu) 
6. Luminiţa Chiorean, Universitatea Petru-Maior, Târgu-Mureş, Între Orient şi Apus. Demonologia – simbolul unei lumi arhaice (Between the Orient and the West. Demonology – the Symbol of an Archaic World)

Cadrul intelectual al relaţiilor Apus/Răsărit, The Intellectual Frame of West/East Relationships (I)

        Moderator/Section Chair: Ligia Livada, Universitatea Bucureşti, Institutul de studii sud-est europene, România,

Sala/Room: R 36, Universitatea „Petru Maior”

1. Ioan Chiorean, Institutul „Gheorghe Sincai”, Târgu Mureş, Rolul mediilor cultural-ştiinţifice europene în formarea primelor elite culturale din Transilvania (The Role of the European Cultural and Scientific Centers in the Formation of the First Cultural Elites in Transylvania)
2. Ligia Livada, Universitatea Bucureşti, Institutul de studii sud-est europene, România, Formarea cetăţeanului. Un deziderat european în lectură românească (Developing the citizen. Romanian concept of a European ideal)
3. Simion Costea, Universitatea “Petru Maior”, Târgu Mureş, Grigore Gafencu şi Mişcarea Europeană ( Grigore Gafencu and the European Movement )

Pauză de cafea/Coffee Break

4. Zoltán Novák, Institutul “Gheorghe Şincai”, Târgu Mureş, România, Klára Lazok, Eötvös Loránd University, Budapest, Hungary, Apusul în propaganda comunistă din România în anii 1950 (The West in the  Romanian Communist Propaganda in the 1950’s)
5. Alina Ilinca, Academia de Studii Economice din Bucureşti, Facultatea de Relaţii Economice Internaţionale, angajată a Consiliului Naţional pentru Studierea Arhivelor Securităţii (Direcţia Cercetare, Expoziţii, Publicaţii), The Power to Choose. The Intellectual Origins of the Common European Energy Market’s Establishment (Puterea de a alege. Originile intelectuale ale creării Pieţei Unice Europene a Energiei)
6. Liviu-Marius Bejinaru, angajat al Consiliului Naţional pentru Studierea Arhivelor Securităţii (Direcţia Cercetare, Expoziţii, Publicaţii), în funcţia de consilier superior, Multiculturalismul. Originile şi evoluţia unui concept (Multiculturalism. The origins and the evolution of a concept)

Masă festivă/Festive dinner

19, 30

Sâmbătă, 26 mai 2007/Saturday, 26 May 2007

10, 00 – 13, 30

Translaţii identitare Occident – Orient/Răsărit, West – Orient/East Identity Translations (II.)

Moderator/Section Chair: Ghenadie Sontu, Academia de Arte Frumoase, Fundaţia ARS DOR, Chişinău, Republica Moldova

Sala/Room: R 39, Universitatea „Petru Maior”

1. Mostafa Younesie, Classical and Medieval Comparative and Intercultural Political Philosophy, Tarbiat Modarres University, Teheran, Avecinna Heuristic Concept for the Identity Problematic (Conceptul euristic al lui Avicenna pentru problematica identitară)
2. Ghenadie Sontu, Academia de Arte Frumoase, Fundaţia ARS DOR, Chişinău, Republica Moldova, Eurointegration through art (Eurointegrare prin arta)
3. Silviu Hariton, Central European University, Budapest, Hungary, Annales as “New History” in the 1990s Romania: A Perspective from Bucharest (Analele ca „Noua istorie” în România anilor 1990: o perspectivă din Bucureşti)

Pauză de cafea/Coffee Break

4. Marian Zăloagă (“Gheorghe Sincai” Institute – Târgu Mureş), Two Worlds - Three Perspectives. Which Place Do Gypsies/Romanies Belong(ed) To? Short Historiographic Considerations (Două lumi – trei perspective. Cărui loc îi aparţin(eau) ţiganii/romii? Scurte consideraţii istoriografice)
5. Onorina Grecu, Universitatea „Spiru Haret”, Constanţa, România, Imaginile românilor în benzile desenate franco-belgiene (Images of the Romanians in Franco-Belgian Drawn Strips)
6. Emilia Martin, Institutul de cercetare al românilor din Ungaria, Gyula, Hungary Români autohtoni şi români stabiliţi în Ungaria (Autochtonous Romanians and Romanians Settled in Hungary)

Imagini, frontiere, comunicare interculturală / Images, borders, intercultural communication (II.)

Moderator/Section Chair: Adrian Husar, Universitatea “Petru Maior”, Târgu Mureş, România

Sala/Room: Sala/Room: R 04, Universitatea „Petru Maior”

1. Adrian Husar, Universitatea “Petru Maior”, Târgu Mureş, România, Rome and Antioch: Autocracy, magic and religion under Valentinian I and Valens (Roma şi Antiohia: Autocraţie, magie şi religie sub Valentinian I şi Valens)
2. István Fábian, Universitatea “Petru Maior”,, Târgu-Mureş, Relaţiile romano-gotice în secolele III-V. Începuturile  germanismului occidental (Roman – Gothic Relations in the 3-4^th Centuries. The Beginnings of Western  Germanism)
3. Simon Zsolt, Institutul „Gheorghe Şincai”, Târgu Mureş, Cadrul juridic al relaţiilor comerciale între Imperiul Otoman şi Ungaria în Evul Mediu (The Juridical Frame of the Commercial Relationships between the Ottoman Empire and Hungary in the Middle Ages)

Pauză de cafea/Coffee Break

4.  Georgeta Fodor, Universitatea “Petru Maior”,, Târgu-Mureş, Destine comune: femeile în faţa justiţiei. Repere ale istoriei procesuale în Transilvania şi Franţa (secolele XVI – XVII) (Common Destinies: Women in Justice. Guiding Marks for a Judicial History of Transylvania and France (XVI-XVII))
5. Maria Ploeşteanu, Institutul „Gheorghe Şincai”, Mereu în Europa. Mesaje de tron şi scrisori ale Principelui Carol I (sfârşitul anului 1877 şi începutul anului 1878)/ Always in Europe. Throne Messages and Letters of Prince Carol I (the end of 1877 and beginning of 1878)
6. Maria Costea, Institutul „Gheorghe Sincai”, Între Berlin şi Moscova. Relaţiile româno-bulgare după acordul de la München - 1938 (Between Berlin and Moscow. Romanian-Bulgarian Relations after the Munich Agreement - 1938)

Cadrul intelectual al relaţiilor Apus/Răsărit, The Intellectual Frame of West/East Relationships (II.)

Moderator/Section Chair: Cornel Sigmireanu, Universitatea “Petru Maior”, Institutul „Gheorghe Sincai”, Târgu Mureş

Sala/Room: R 36, Universitatea „Petru Maior”

1. Maria Berényi, Institutul de cercetare al românilor din Ungaria, Companii comerciale greceşti şi macedoromâne în Austro-Ungaria (Secolele XVIII – XIX) (Greek and Macedonian - Romanian Commercial Companies in Austro-Hungary – the 18^th-19^th Centuries)
2. Cornel Sigmireanu, Universitatea “Petru Maior”, Târgu Mureş, Studenţi ai Diecezei de Făgăraş la universităţile catolice din Roma. 1854 – 1948 (Students from the Făgăraş Dioceses at the Catholic Universities in Rome. 1854 – 1948)
3. Lucian Nastase, Institutul „George Bariţ” al Academiei Române, Cluj Napoca, România, Strategii de selecţie în mediul universitar român. 1864 - 1944 (Strategies of Selection in the Romanian University System. 1864 – 1944)

Pauză de cafea/Coffee Break

4. Maria Dan, Universitatea “Petru Maior”, Târgu-Mureş, Studenţi români la Universitatea de teologie catolică din Budapesta. Cazul protopopului Ariton Popa (Romanian Students at theUniversity of Catholic Theology in Budapest. The Case of the Archpriest Ariton Popa)
5. Giuseppe Munarini, University of Padua, Italy, Biserica Greco-Catolică în viziunea Monseniorului Octavian Bârlea (The Greek – Catholic Church in Msg. Octavian Bârlea’s View)
6. Răzvan Pârâian, Central European University, Budapest, Hungary, Barbarii din interior. Naţionalismul culturalist şi spiritul public în Europa Centrală şi de Est (The Barbarians Within. Culturalist Nationalism and the Public Spirit in Central and Eastern Europe)

Masă/Lunch

13, 30

Conferinţă de presă/Press Conference

16, 00

CONTINUITATE ŞI DISCONTINUITATE ÎN RELAŢIILE OCCIDENT-RĂSĂRIT

CONTINUITY AND DISCONTINUITY IN WEST-EAST RELATIONSHIPS

Rezumate/Abstracts

Carmen Andraş, Institutul „Gheorghe Şincai”, Târgu Mureş, Europe and/or Orient. Inter-war Romania in British Literature (Europa şi/ sau Orient. România interbelică în literatura britanică)

The theme of the Other has become an obsessive preoccupation during the last decades as a reaction to the escalation of xenophobia and intolerance both in the Western and the Eastern or Oriental world. It is a general concern but owing to its importance, it has become the central interest of specialized fields of research such as imagology or image studies. In what Romania is concerned, it is still represented in a ambiguous way either as a Central-Eastern European country, somewhere between the West and the East or, more often, as a South-Eastern or Balkan country, on the structure of the Ottoman Empire, somewhere between Europe and the Orient, between Western civilization and Eastern backwardness, between an authentic democracy and dictatorship. These last two symbolic locations in the East or in the Balkans remain prevalent in British representations about Romania, where different influences are perceived in a manner that implies ambiguity and strange hybridity. We temporarily enter the registers of Orientalism and Balkanism, coming then back to those of Europeanism, an oscillation which complicates the analysis of British self- and hetero-images constructed while in Romania. I intend to emphasize the relationship between gender and national identification in British literary representations of Romania. As Nira Yuval-Davis points out, the image of a nation usually implies specific notions both of masculinity and femininity. Associated with essentialized features of “imagined communities” (see Anderson, Imagined Communities), the opposition masculinity-femininity becomes very lucrative when included in the long series of dichotomies inherent in the West/East power relationship. Inter-war Romania is either perceived as a feminine, charming, luxurious, both exotic and sophisticated, European and Oriental country by British journalists or writers (Derek Patmore, Sacheverell Sitwell, Lord Thomson of Cardington) invited by Romanian high-society ladies or charmed by their entourage (Queen Mary, Anne-Marie Callimachi, Princess Marthe Bibesco), or as a masculine, energetic country by British “court” visitors (D. J. Hall, R. H. Bruce Lockhart), whose books were approved and promoted by king Carol, for example. Diplomats like Ivor Porter and Frank Rattigan perceived Inter-war Romania in a balanced way, appreciating it for its mixture of Europeanness and Orientalness. These positive and flattering images were counter-balanced by the negative images of jealousy, hatred, treason, aggressive Oriental femininity, in Olivia Manning’s Balkan trilogy.

Rakesh Batabyal, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi, India, Nation, Community and the Civilisational Context (Naţiune, comunitate şi contextul civilizaţiei)

The Idea of nation is under attack from various quarters. There are intellectual trends which link the rise of the modern state with the suppression of other sources of allegiance such as the community. Many argue that this has its roots in the modernist epistemology which privileges a schematic and ruptured perception of social reality in order to legitimize the nation’s claims of complete allegiance. Community and the larger concept of civilization occupy a very tenuous position, it is thought, in such a paradigm. We propose in the present paper to examine such claims, both on epistemological and historical grounds. Exploring an aspect of the intellectual history of India at the beginning of the twentieth century, as articulated by Rabindranath Tagore (1861-1941) and Mahatma Gandhi (1869-1848), we would like to look at the way nation and community were perceived in their interconnections and also with their respective locations in what was called the civilisational context. This will enable us to locate the ideas to their epistemological premise and see how the current intellectual efforts at privileging ‘fragments’ or ‘community’ by also invoking a new epistemology privileging disjunction and deconstruction attempt to constitute an alternate. However, the critique of history which emanates from such discourses attack coherence, connectedness and interconnections as significant tools of analysis. It is my contention that ideas of nation, community and civilization have to be seriously engaged with historical tools which do not take disjunction and non coherence as a priori thereby excluding from analysis mediation, negotiation or even interconnectedness from entering into the dialogue.

Liviu-Marius Bejinaru, angajat al Consiliului Naţional pentru Studierea Arhivelor Securităţii (Direcţia Cercetare, Expoziţii, Publicaţii), în funcţia de consilier superior, Multiculturalismul. Originile şi evoluţia unui concept (Multiculturalism. The origins and the evolution of a concept)

Multiculturalism is a term often used to describe the cultural and ethnic diversity of a nation and advocates of it often argue that diversity is a positive force for a society’s nationhood or cultural identity. Multiculturalism contrast with monoculturalism and assimilation which had been the norm in the nation-state paradigm since the early nineteenth century. The older multilingual and multi-ethnic empires, such as the Austro-Hungarian Empire and the Ottoman Empire were derided as oppressive, and most European no longer accept that such a state can be legitimate. In the other hand, the legacy of these Empires constituted a provocation for these nations which was created on these Empires’ ruins, under the circumstances the American melting pot ideal was an illusion.

Maria Berényi, Institutul de cercetare al românilor din Ungaria, Companii comerciale greceşti şi macedoromâne în Austro Ungaria (Secolele XVIII – XIX-lea) (Greek and Macedonian - Romanian Commercial Companies in Austro-Hungary – the 18^th-19^th Centuries)

The commercial companies were organizations of tradesmen, which served the interests of their members. The Greek companies were founded in the 17th century. Greek tradesmen realised the Austrian mercantilist policies, their economical expansion to the East, and made out their priorities consequently, by obtaining privileges, confirmed by Imperial diplomas. It is most difficult to establish the ethnical origin of the members of the companies. The term Greek was applied in Hungary to any tradesman, of any origin, Albanian, Macedonian or Aromanian. The trade was in fact in the Greeks’ hands. The Macedonian-Romanians spread their influence in Austria and Hungary after the Peace of Pasarovitz. Almost all the silk trade in the Orient and Central Europe belonged to them. Trade in Hungary and the largest amont of money was also controlled by them. The Macedonian-Romanians founded houses of trade and important financial institutions in the capital cities of Austria and Hungary, which kept economical relations with similar institutions in the West, in countries like Germany, Italy, Poland, Russia and France. Together with the Greek tradesmen, they were the only intermediaries for the exchange of goods between the Orient and Central Europe.

Andreas Berg, Griffith University, Australia, The Formation of the Russian Enlightenment: Rethinking Eastern-Western Intellectual Exchange (Formarea intelectualităţii iluministe ruse: regândind schimburile intelectuale est-vest)

In this paper I will discuss the influence of Russian mystical-religious thought in the formation of the Russian Enlightenment in late Eighteenth-century. It seems that a focus on alternative Russian intellectual development can provide an important stimulus to rethink the traditional conception of Eastern European Enlightenments as merely recipients of an already formulated set of Western Enlightened principles. I will suggest that the Russian Enlightenment can be cognised as a collection of autonomous intellectual debates which were not necessarily indicative of the official Westernising policies of Catherine the Great. The debate on the importance of Orthodox institutions by the leading Russian mystical intellectuals such as N.I. Novikov, I.P. Elagin and I.V. Lopukhin was a fundamental aspect of Enlightened reform. By grounding Russian Orthodoxy as an intrinsic part of Russian spiritual experience, these intellectuals attempted to reconsider Russian philosophical dependence on Western Europe. Consequently, whilst this led to the rejection of Western rationalist and secular discourse, it led to a deep examination of Western theosophical tradition represented by Boehme, Swedenborg and Saint Martin. Hence, the turn to mysticism represents a different trajectory of Western and Eastern European intellectual exchange. I will further suggest that an examination of the mystical component of the Russian Enlightenment has implications for the construction of Western and Eastern Europe as intellectual entities because it leads to the recognition that Eastern European countries had their own Enlightenments which related, but not depended on similar processes occurring in the West. In contemporary terms, this topic attempts to depart from Larry Wolff’s misunderstanding of the aim and intellectual content of the Russian Enlightenment which was at variance from the traditional British and French focus on science, rationalism and secularism.

Iulian Boldea, Universitatea „Petru-Maior”, Târgu-Mureş, Mircea Eliade – Între Orient şi Occident (Mircea Eliade – Between the Orient and the West)

In our paper we attempt to identify, underline and comment the most important thematic elements in the works of Mircea Eliade, from the perspective of East-West interferences. Thus, there is a certain impulse towards rationality and a day-like regime of the imaginary in the entire work of Eliade. Nevertheless, these tendencies are counterparted by a temptation of the zones of shadow, of fantasy and mystery in the world. Between day and night, East and West is the space where the almost un-analyzable specificity of Mircea Eliade’s works is configured.

Liviu Bordaş, Accademia di Romania, Rome, Italy, Orientul şi „echilibrul între antiteze”: o reconsiderare a filosofiei istoriei lui Ion Heliade Rădulescu (The Orient and “the Balance between Antitheses”: a Reconsideration of Ion Heliade Rădulescu’s Philosophy of History)

Dumitru Buda, Universitatea „Petru-Maior”, Târgu-Mureş, Mitologia expatriatului şi Estul irecuperabil în Întâlnirea de Gabriela Adameşteanu (The Mythology of the Expatriate and the Irretrievable East in The Encounter by Gabriela Adameşteanu)

Romanian writer Gabriela Adamesteanu’s shortstory entitled Intalnirea was recently transformed by its author into a successful novel, at the end of a series of epic expansions that is somehow unprecedented in Romanian literature. The book focuses on the useless attempt of an old scientist to return to East-Europe Romania, a country governed by communist dictatorship in which the personal past seems doomed to perdition. It is the complex epic mechanism that interweaves ancient myths with dream-like flash-backs of the character’s existence that creates the tension and builds-up the climax of the story. The East-West dichotomy is drawn here in a very poetical manner, in a sort of postmodernist perspective of relativity and weakening of all human abilities.

Doina Butiurcă, Universitatea „Petru-Maior”, Târgu-Mureş, Fascinaţia sacrului în romanele lui Liviu Rebreanu şi cultura germană/The Fascination of the Sacred in Liviu Rebreanu’s Novels and German Culture

Having become a sign of value, this type of renewal associates itself to the temptation of modernity: the novel of mystical search, for instance, in Liviu Rebreanu’s work, shifts to the psychological test, to the necessity to synchronise with European literature (Dostoyevsky, Tolstoy). Liviu Rebreanu understands in the same manner, that the specific of the Romanian existence cannot be reconstituted as a synthesis, out of the religious feeling which spiritually perfects the being. The world seen “under the proportions of eternity” is fundamental to Rebreanu’s credo.

Ioan Chiorean, Institutul „Gheorghe Şincai”, Târgu Mureş, Rolul mediilor cultural-ştiinţifice europene în formarea primelor elite culturale din Transilvania (The Role of the European Cultural and Scientific Centers in the Formation of the First Cultural Elites in Transylvania)

The attendance of the West European Universities, following the example of the universities in Paris, Padua, Vienna, Prague, Krakow etc., became a tradition for the Transylvanian intelligentsia in the Middle Ages and contributed to the formation of the first intellectual elite. Approximately 2 500 Transylvanian students had attended important foreign universities by 1520, and represented a small elite with European ideals, which they shared with the local intelligentsia. They had academic titles, such as: baccaleureus or magister atrium, decretorum doctor or doctor utrisque iurie etc. The members of the high clergy and of the middle layers of the ecclesiastic intelligentsia contributed in the greatest measure to the laicization of the ecclesiastic intelligentsia through their laic preoccupations (editors of documents, public notaries, secretaries, diplomats, politicians, lawyers)

Luminiţa Chiorean, Universitatea „Petru-Maior”, Târgu-Mureş, Între Orient şi Apus. Demonologia – simbolul unei lumi arhaice (Between the Orient and the West. Demonology – the Symbol of an Archaic World)

Mircea Eliade once wrote about the Romanian culture that “… we are one of the few European cultures that have kept the sources of folklore and ancient culture alive”. This assertion is the very basis from which we start our research on demonology as a symbol of the archaic cultural morphology. From the generous space of archaic types found in the world between the West and the East, the dragon attracts attention as a universal metaphysical form. We attempt to present the synoptic of demons in Mircea Cărtărescu’s postmodernist literary discourse – Enciclopedia Zmeilor / The Encyclopaedia of Demons: a simulacrum of a virtual world, an allegory and parody where the author travels in relation with his own culture.

Maria Costea, Institutul „Gheorghe Şincai”, Târgu-Mureş, Între Berlin şi Moscova. Relaţiile româno-bulgare după acordul de la München - 1938 (Between Berlin and Moscow. Romanian-Bulgarian Relations after the Munich Agreement - 1938)

The relations between Romania and Bulgaria in 1938-1940 were marked by Bulgarian revisionism, especially by Bulgarian territorial claims against Romania. Bulgarian territorial claims became more aggressive after Germany and Hungary annexed territories from Czechoslovakia, threatening Romania. The diplomatic action of Sofia’s governments was to pursue the “peaceful restitution of Southern Dobroudja to Bulgaria”. How? Not by War, but by the pressings of Great Powers on Romania. Indeed, all the Great Powers, Germany and Italy, USSR, USA, Great Britain, but also Hungary, Turkey and Yugoslavia supported Bulgarian claims on Southern Dobroudja, a fact underlined by Bulgarian Historiography. Why? Hitler and Mussolini were interested in maintaining their alliance with Bulgaria. France and Great Britain, Turkey and Yugoslavia wanted to attract Bulgaria towards them and towards Balkan Entante, by paying the price: Southern Dobroudja taken from Romania. USSR and Hungary had territorial claims against Romania. Stalin, Hitler and Mussolini competed for attracting Sofia as an allied. They all supported decisively Bulgaria to get Southern Dobroudja. Finally, in 31 July 1940, Hitler dictated to Romania to cease Southern Dobroudja. Romania obeyed and signed the treaty of Craiova in 7 September 1940 throughout Southern Dobroudja passed as a part of Bulgaria.

Simion Costea, Universitatea „Petru-Maior”, Târgu Mureş, Grigore Gafencu şi Mişcarea Europeană ( Grigore Gafencu and the European Movement)

After the Second World War, Grigore Gafencu was one of the leaders of Romanian Exile in Western Europe. He was a founder of European Movement, a prestigious association that has a decisive role in European Integration. Gafencu pronounced for a Pan-European Integration, including Eastern Europe, and for a Federal Europe.

Marius Crişan, Universitatea din Timişoara, România, Universitatea din Torino, Italia, Transylvania as a Border Land between the West and the East (Transilvania ca ţară de frontieră între Apus şi Răsărit)

Shaped in a period of about four hundred years, the image of Transylvania in English literature is a topos as notorious as complex. The literary critics have shown that on the one hand, the Romanian Otherness, as well as the whole Eastern European, is seen in British fiction and travel literature like a “devalued Other”, and this tendency prevails in the literature prior to the 1989 revolution. On the other hand, mostly in the period after the event which put an end to the Communist rule, the British literary representations are often accounts of “journeys of discovery and initiation”, in the context of reconsidering “the English/British identity through the perspective of different needs and desires, of new forms of knowledge and self-knowledge” (Brînzeu, 67). A reading of the British works until the revolution of 1989 shows that the tendency to underline the difference is often obvious, and more frequently expressed than the wish to know the Other. Still, from a different angle, I think that the dual attitude towards the Other could be extended to the whole area of texts in English about our country and particularly about Transylvania, as a different light shed on these texts might show that in each historical period this double perspective can be observed.   From this point of view, even the work which affirmed the image of Transylvania as a dark mythical land, Bram Stoker’s Dracula, can be reinterpreted starting from the “positive” aspects of Stoker’s Transylvania.  This topos has been discussed by literary critics both in Romania and abroad, and in the recent period considerable studies have been published in this regard. Among the books published in the last ten years, see: Carmen Andraş, România şi imaginile ei în literatura de călătorie britanică (2003); Pia Brînzeu, Corridors of Mirrors: The Spirit of Europe in Contemporary British and Romanian Fiction (1997); Elizabeth Miller, Reflections on Dracula: Ten Essays (1997), Dracula. Sense and Nonsense (2000, 2006); Alan Ogden, Romania Revisited: On the Track of English Travellers, 1602-1941 (2000) and Winds of Sorrow: Travels in and Around Transylvania (2004).

Maria Dan, Universitatea „Petru-Maior”, Târgu-Mureş, Studenţi români la Universitatea de teologie catolică din Budapesta. Cazul protopopului Ariton Popa (Romanian Students at the University of Catholic Theology in Budapest. The Case of the Archpriest Ariton Popa)

In the modernization process of Romanian society, the contacts with the Western culture and civilization had a major impact. Romanian students’ education at Central and Western European Universities was of great importance. Many of these students had impressive careers and fed the selection process of Romanian elites. In our study we approach the Romanian students of Budapest, with the case of Ariton Popa, the arch-priest of Reghin, between the two wars.

István Fábian, Universitatea „Petru-Maior”, Târgu-Mureş, Relaţiile romano-gotice în secolele III-V. Începuturile  germanismului occidental (Roman – Gothic Relations in the 3-4^th Centuries. The Beginnings of Western Germanism)

The invoking waves of Gothic populations into the Roman world represented the first major conflict between a town centered Western civilization and a rural Eastern society. How was that conflict managed, which were the mechanisms of control and propaganda, and how was it approached by the Roman and Barbaric historiography? These are a few questions taken into account by this paper.

Georgeta Fodor, Universitatea „Petru-Maior”, Târgu-Mureş, Destine comune: femeile în faţa justiţiei. Repere ale istoriei procesuale în Transilvania şi Franţa (secolele XVI – XVII) (Common Destinies: Women in Justice. Guiding Marks for a Judicial History of Transylvania and France (XVI-XVII))

Simone de Beauvoir wrote in her “ Le Deuxième Sexe” that you are not born but become a woman. Analyzing the history of women during the Late Antiquity and during the Middle Ages we could only agree with Simone de Beauvoir’s words. Without any doubt we can identify –for the period considered- several images of women. At least two profiles can be noted: that of a “real woman”, characterized by her daily actions and that of an “imaginary woman”, that can be depicted in the official discourse either legal or religious one. The last model seems to overpass time and space. The Middle Ages’ heritage is that of an evil, sinner woman who had permanently to be under one man’s control. But where should we draw the line between reality and imagination? Where is the point where we no longer talk about the imaginary woman and start talking about the real one? Or can we make such a distinction? These are some of the questions to which we are trying to answer in the present paper. Our effort is doubled as we are trying to identify a parallel existence and discourse on women in Transylvania and France. Could there be common destinies? We think so although the space, both geographical and cultural between these entities, is quite large. But we consider that we can get over these boundaries as “women in justice” seemed to have shared a common faith.

Onorina Grecu, Universitatea „Spiru Haret”, Constanţa, România, Imaginile românilor în benzile desenate franco-belgiene (Images of the Romanians in Franco-Belgian Drawn Strips)

Image is gaining a tremendous place in our lives. It has become one of the authority’s best means, but also a strategy of transmitting persuasive messages, and information of different kinds: media, artistic, even political. In the Self-Other relation, when the studied text is of a literary nature, the image is based on artistic, media and historical sources. The first steps of the French Bande Dessinée (drawn strip) were set in the beginning of 19th century, in the search of new ways of graphic and visual expression, through pictures and text lines. Nowadays, the drawn strip tells different stories and characters for all ages. My paper analyses the value of images, created and carried to the public, as they do not mirror the reality but are being created by gathering, filtrating and selecting those items of information that, all together, represent the otherness in the author’s mind. To this purpose, we have studied 18 Romanian characters from 29 French and Belgian drawn strips. We consider this type of expression relevant to the imagological study due to its double perspective of the constructed image: one explicit (the illustration) and the other implicit (the character of the imported foreign character); to decide to what point the character is related to the cultural and historical reality that his/her name recalls is also important to the issue.

Adrian Husar, Universitatea „Petru-Maior”, Târgu-Mureş, România, Rome and Antioch: Autocracy, magic and religion under Valentinian I and Valens (Roma şi Antiohia: Autocraţie, magie şi religie sub Valentinian I şi Valens)

In the 4^th – century Roman empire – the age of authority par excellence – the emperor, absolute dictator though he was, ruled by consensus, and consensus could only be maintained at the price of compromise. Valentinian I and Valens were largely indifferent to the diversity of religious belief in their worlds, and both tried primarily to maintain the status quo ante Iulianum by privileging Christianity while not attacking paganism. Indeed, pagans and Christians seem to have coexisted quite comfortably through both of their reigns. This paper investigates the dramatic magic and treason trials that have often been used to brand both emperors as persecutors of pagans. In both instances, however, the emperors were attacking “magic”, not paganism as such, and even contemporaries regarded their actions, and particularly those of Valens, as justified, albeit extreme. Many 4^th –century emperors attacked religious dissenters, but very few suffered a catastrophic fate like Valens’s to prove, in the boundaries between magic (maleficium, veneficium, goetheia, manganeia) and religion were far from apparent. The Rome trials were an attack on maleficium in its various guises and manifestations; they were aimed against magic, poisoning, adultery and perversion, and they affected not just aristocrats but also commoners. The Antioch treason trials reveal a broader plot orchestrated by imperial courtiers; this was a palace conspiracy, perhaps a conspiracy centred among the notarii. Thus, a group of imperial officials, dissatisfied with their rough emperor (“rustic tyrant”), began seeking divine input about his successor. Magic and treason trials pocked the bloody surface of imperial politics throughout the 4^th century, leaving all subjects aware of the consequences of prognosticating the fate of an emperor. Where Valentinian I and Valens – both emperors were notoriously hot-tempered – went wrong was in allowing their magic and treason trials mushroom out of control. The denunciation of Valentinian’s and Valens’s handling of the magic trials began immediately after the death of each emperor. More reprehensible, to ancients as also to moderns, was the zeal with which Valentinian I and Valens attacked those they feared.

Atalay Günduz, Ege University, Turkey, Translation of Difference into Otherness: Jeremy Seal’s „A Fez of the Heart” (1995) (Traducând diferenţa în alteritate: „A Fez of the Heart” de Jeremy Heart -1995)

In his Islam and West, Bernard Lewis claims that the history of Islam-West relationships have been a history of conflicts. (13) Samuel Huntington Clash of Civilizations (1996) is a confirmation of Bernard Lewis’ theory of the inevitable conflict between the East and the West. For Huntington, the Cold War years created a deceptive, temporary alliance between civilizations against the “bigger evil,” communism.  Edward Said challenges this paradigm and argues that “cultures are hybrid and heterogeneous. . .so interrelated and interdependent as to beggar any unitary or simply delineated description of their individuality. How can one speak of “Western civilization” except as in large measure an ideological fiction.” Thus pointing out the constructednes of the term West, in his “Clash of Definitions” Said, furthermore, questions binary oppositions like East vs. West, Islam vs. West: “Does not this method in effect prolong, exacerbate, and deepen conflict? What does it do to minimize civilizational conflict? Do we want the clash of civilizations?” (573). Lewis and Huntington are not unique in their perception of East-West relations in terms of conflict. We see the same tendency even among the modern British travel writers. Jeremy Seal’s A Fez of the Heart (1995) is a typical example of how intercultural relations can be interpreted and represented in terms of “clash of civilizations.” Seal’s travelogue “translates” Turkey’s “difference into otherness” (49), in Michael Pickering’s terms, through overemphasizing the history of conflict between Turkey and Europe; while ignoring the history of “slow working together of cultures that overlap, borrow from each other, and live together” (xxix) as Said puts in his Orientalism (1978). Following Said’s example, I believe that if we want a better understanding, interdependence and coexistence of cultures and peoples; any work constructed on the paradigms of othering, opposing and stereotyping should be challenged and their constructedness should be revealed. In my paper I aim to analyze Seal’s travel account which takes East-West, Islam-Christendom and European-Asian dichotomies for granted and which strengthens the discourse of conflicts and enmities depicting Turkey as the Other of Europe.

Silviu Hariton, Central European University, Budapest, Hungary, Annales as “New History” in the 1990s Romania: A Perspective from Bucharest (Analele ca „Noua istorie” în România anilor 1990: o perspectivă din Bucureşti)

My paper aims to trace the reception of the discourse of Annales in the Romanian historiography in the last forty years, from its rather isolated practice in the 1970s to its relative triumph as the “new history” in the 1990s Romania.  As Krzysztof Pomian has shown, Annales had a large impact in Central Europe, especially in Poland and Hungary, from its very beginning.¹ Especially in Hungary, a large number of social historians inspired by Annales and the Bielefeld school had already produced a vast literature using quantitative methods in aspects of demographic and everyday life history, nowadays being clustered around the review “Korall.”  In Romania prior to 1948, Annales had a relative impact, Gheorghe Brătianu being the only well known historian to have relations with Marc Bloch.² Still, since 1960s, several important Romanian historians created schools of original historical research being directly or indirectly inspired by the work of Annales, especially its third generation. The most important such historians were Pompiliu Teodor at Cluj, Paul Cornea, Alexandru Duţu and Lucian Boia at Bucharest while reviews like “Revue des etudes sud est europeennes” and “Revue roumaine d’histoire” hosted the highest number of articles containing references to the Annalists as well as discussions around the main concepts. In the same time, the translation work of Meridiane and Univers publishing houses circulated an important number of works, most notably those written by Fernand Braudel. Since the 1980s, the number of Romanian historians inspired by Annales increased: Stefan Lemny, Alexandru-Florin Platon at Iaşi, Sorin Mitu, Teodor Nicoară and Simona Nicoară and others at Iaşi, Simona Corlan-Ioan, Bogdan Murgescu and Mirela-Luminiţa Murgescu at the Faculty of History from Bucharest, while a large number of followers of Alexandru Duţu, like Daniel Barbu, Ligia Livadă-Candeschi and especially Laurenţiu Vlad clustered around the Faculty of Political Science of the University of Bucharest. The key question is what were the factors and causes which determined, unlike the rest of Central and Eastern European historiographies, a heavily preponderant interest for the history of “mentalities” and “imaginary” rather than an interest for the quantitative and comparative history. By surveying the trends of reception, the paper will concentrate on the political, social and institutional contexts, personal relationships as well as the topics and keywords used by the respective practitioners.

¹ Krysztof Pomian, “Impact of the Annales School in Eastern Europe,” Review. A Journal of the Fernand Braudel Center for the Study of Economies, Historical Systems, and Civilizations, pp. 101-121

² Lucian Boia, “L’historiographie roumaine et l’école des ‘Annales.’ Quelques interférences,” Analele Universităţii din Bucureşti – Seria Istorie, vol. XXVIII, 1979, pp. 31-40.

Alina Ilinca, Academia de Studii Economice din Bucureşti, Facultatea de Relaţii Economice Internaţionale, angajată a Consiliului Naţional pentru Studierea Arhivelor Securităţii (Direcţia Cercetare, Expoziţii, Publicaţii), The Power to Choose. The Intellectual Origins of the Common European Energy Market’s Establishment (Puterea de a alege. Originile intelectuale ale creării Pieţei Unice Europene a Energiei)

Energy is the force behind industry, transport and heating. There is hardly an aspect of daily life that is not one way or another accompanied by the use of energy. The idea of a Common European Energy Market rose from the economic debate in the period comprised in between the two world wars. After the end of World War II, the Western European countries followed their own way, while the Eastern European countries were forced to adopt the Soviet economic model. In the last decade, after the collapse of communism, the extension of the European Union and the recent EU legislation for removing state intervention from the energy market have given to consumers the power to choose their suppliers.

Ligia Livada, Universitatea Bucureşti, România, Formarea cetăţeanului. Un deziderat european în lectură românească (Developing the citizen. Romanian concept of a European ideal)

The first decades of the Romanian 19th century are characterized by the struggle of some significant classes of the society that keep on trying to affirm and impose their own conception of an European ideal, that should be modern and progressive, in opposition with the barbarian and despotic ottoman Orientalism. The essential purpose of this approach is with no doubt a political one. But the temptation of a political revival passes through the necessity of a new social construction of which the main promoter is a new social subject, a citizen-subject, educated in the spirit of the European values of the time. Thus the education, the instruction and the school itself become the most important vectors of this renewal. The interest shown to these fields already has some very good previous antecedents. Since the middle 18^th century in accordance with the Enlightenment European ideas, the Phanariots princes had been willing to exploit the political virtues of the public education of which levels fit closely to those of the social hierarchy. At the beginning of the 19^th century, the Enlightened Europe become the tacit or explicit model of all those tempted by the renewal of the ancient structure. Regarding the public education, the Romanians overtook the emphasis put on moral Christian education which had to be in accordance with a minimum level of education. The social and political restructurings that were taken into account did not suffer any major changes but the reorganization of consciences. In the Principalities, the basis of the entire elementary public education was represented explicitly by the Christian morality. The homeland, as a motherland, substitutes the family in order to develop young people education, so that its uniformity could ensure the public harmony and happiness. The security of the government is based on raising citizens up and their enlightenment. This ideological option can also be found at the level of public education administrative rules and programs for which notions opposite either to Orthodox belief or political authority were prohibited to be taught. The fundament of every public institution is the moral doctrine of which purpose is to give birth to pious Christian, faithful citizens who are useful to their homeland. In the middle of 19^th century, Man had to have had a special and useful role in the society and that was a general rule and idea. So the education must fit to social needs and thus it must be differentiate accordingly to the social roles that are ideally assumed by each individual. Together with both some certain influences which don’t reveal their sources and some clear theoretical references to the general European pattern, there was a practical constant concern of assuming it. In the first decades of the 20^th century, the first public scholarship beneficiaries were sent to foreign schools (in Italy and then in France). These scholarships were granted on one condition: beneficiaries had to return to their country and make a teaching career so that they could do that in accordance with the occidental European pattern in order to make a connection between the Romanian system and the foreign one. In the middle of the same century, local authorities within the Principalities were thinking to send as scholarship beneficiaries the most gifted orphans raised on State expenses. The dream of a European model goes beyond the administrative field and spreads over through private individuals. At the end of the century, Ion Ionescu de la Brad founded an agricultural school for orphans inspired by similar models seen in France and Switzerland. Those schools were factually claimed by the new scientific and positivist philanthropy which had a lot of supporters in Romanian culture especially among doctors (hygienist movement).

Emilia Martin, Institutul de cercetare al românilor din Ungaria, Gyula, Hungary Români autohtoni şi români stabiliţi în Ungaria (Autochtonous Romanians and Romanians Settled in Hungary)

One can notice in the last decades the migration of Romanians to Hungary, who settled temporarily or definitively there, through marriage, work contracts, or studies. The transfer and their integration bring about difficulties both for them and the Romanians already settled there, in different stages of assimilation. The Romanians, who come from diverse regions of their native country, speak standard Romanian language and have serious knowledge of Romanian culture and civilization. On the other hand, the Romanians from Hungary, base their knowledge on the elements of traditional life and on the information they had acquired in schools about Romanian culture or the cultural influences of the environment which they belonged to, in order to maintain their identity and traditions. We refer here to a Romanian population formed of two groups carrying distinct signs. In my paper I will present the situation of the Romanians in Hungary, taking into account mostly the intra-ethnical relation resulted from recent migration.

Giuseppe Munarini, University of Padua, Italy, Biserica Greco-Catolică în viziunea Monseniorului Octavian Bârlea (The Greek – Catholic Church in Msg. Octavian Bârlea’s View)

Lucian Nastase, Institutul „George Bariţ” al Academiei Române, Cluj Napoca, România, Strategii de selecţie în mediul universitar român. 1864 - 1944 (Strategies of Selection in the Romanian University System. 1864 – 1944)

Zoltán Novák, Institutul „Gheorghe Şincai”, Târgu Mureş, România, Klára Lazok, Eötvös Loránd University, Budapest, Hungary, The West in Romanian Communist Propaganda in the 1950’s

After WW 2 Romania gradually came under Soviet influence. Shortly after the Romanian Communist Party came to power the country was reorganised following the Soviet model (the destruction of civil society, nationalisation, the reorganisation of the educational system etc.). In this process of transformation the Party needed the support of Romanian society, which could only be involved and mobilized through massive propaganda. Thus in this first stage of the communist regime propaganda had played an important role. The legitimacy of the Romanian communists depended on a bipolar discourse: on one hand towards the socialist faction led by the USSR and on the other hand towards the capitalist West headed by the USA. The representations (the ideal socialist East and the depraved West) of the above mentioned sides were presented through images, flyers, easy to understand stereotypes in which the visual elements played a significant role. According to these images the West was depraved morally and economically and it was a breeding ground for social inconsistency. This sombre image of Western society was presented in films, flyers, caricatures etc.

Răzvan Pârâian, Central European University, Budapest, Hungary, Barbarii din interior. Naţionalismul culturalist şi spiritual public în Europa Centrală şi de Est (The Barbarians Within. Culturalist Nationalism and the Public Spirit in Central and Eastern Europe)

The present paper aims at exploring the ideological settings of the present-day culture in Central and Eastern Europe in relation with the democratization process that occurred there after 1989. Its main goal is to analyze the discursive recurrence of many ideas inherited from the late nineteenth century, when the standard narrative about Romanian national culture was created. Originating in a crisis of the liberal ethos, under the impetus of neo-conservative theories, a culturalist movement sought to create a new basis for social cohesion, to undermine fragmentation, disunion, and individualism, and to strengthen the unity and commonality of the nation. Placing their notion of culture at the core of their social and political project, many conservative intellectuals often designated their opponents as uncultivated barbarians, as a threat for the national community. Gradually, toward the beginning of the twentieth century, on opposition was created between the rural and urban ways of life, the first being assigned as the source of national culture while the latter was consigned to the role of a foreign and pernicious influence of the neighbouring empires or European powers. Besides the political currents, such as traditionalism, peasantism, or populism, this opposition was a useful instrument in challenging the political elite of the moment and promoting a new type of leadership and political representation. The new leader was depicted in terms of being a man of letters, a person who had an intimate relation with "the soul of his nation" because of his culture, someone who has a deep insight into the traditional way of life of his folk. Unlike the previous political elite, such people were perceived as the only salvation of the nation, which was depicted as facing the worst moral crisis due to centuries of slavery and foreign domination. These men of letters were the promises of a new beginning, a new modernity, and eventually of the national salvation. This narrative resurfaced after 1989. In the aftermath of the communist dissolution, various forms of cultural nationalism (autochthonist, ethicist, and anti-modern) constituted the only references available within the public sphere. Most of the journals, reviews and daily newspapers developed their discourses on the basis of notions and ideas inherited from the interwar period, without the original intellectual references. It is important to note that even the social-democrats embraced a similar rhetoric while the leftist discourse was unexploited in the period of economic and social crisis following the communist collapse. Facing similar challenges, many commentators adopt similar ideas, which have not been critically evaluated since the interwar period. Moreover, it is not a mere persistence of discursive memory but the interpretation of social reality according to the same national narrative in which the main character, the nation, is described by means of cultural traits which are inborn, i.e. not cultivated. This narrative may pose obstacles to EU integration because of the inevitable conflicts caused by the necessary social, political and economic reforms, which are easily emplotted as the same old lasting conflict between alien modern civilization and national culture.

Maria Ploeşteanu, Institutul „Gheorghe Şincai”, Mereu în Europa. Mesaje de tron şi scrisori ale Principelui Carol I (Always in Europe. Throne Messages and Letters of Prince Carol I)

During the 48 years of his reign, in his throne messages and letters, Carol I stressed the Romanians’ wish to have an European status. The achievement of the independence, the modernization of the political and economic structures conferred a place in the concert of the European peoples to the Romanian state, Carol I himself being the voucher of this place.

Titus Pop, Partium Christian University, Oradea, România, Crossing Borders through Music in Salman Rushdie’s The Ground Beneath her Feet (Traversând graniţele prin muzică în Pământul de sub tălpile ei de Salman Rushdie)

Following H. Bhabha’s idea on temporality and deterritorialization and a third space of communication and his plea for an ‘in-between space ‘, we may say that the third space is a register of cultural performance, that is a space which transgresses territorial borders and is ,therefore, disengaged with cartography. Given this theoretical imperative, auditory space displays a better means of cultural collectives.  Rushdie, as an émigré writer with a foot in both Eastern and Western worlds, fully employs the auditory space in his novel called The Ground Beneath Her Feet. In this context, a prominent aspect of the author is his endeavour, both at the level of form, by using song micro-texts embedded in macro-text, and at the content level, to confer a degree of solidity and credibility of rock music world as a possible common ground for peace and understanding. 

Mircea Popa, Universitatea „1 Decembrie 1918”, Alba Iulia, România, Relaţii româno-spaniole în timpurile moderne (Romanian-Spanish Relationships in the Modern Times)

The present study belongs to the field of imagology, and it is based upon the principles of multiculturalism, inclusion and interdisciplinarity. It will reflect the way the Romanian men of culture discovered Spain during their journeys from Eastern Europe to the Mediterranean world and how they constructed an imaginary Spain in their works, mostly in literary accounts. While the majority of Romanian imagological studies analyse the spatial translations from the West to the East and stress the imperialism of the imagination, my study follows an atypical itinerary, from Eastern to Southern Europe, involving different aspects that depend on the historical background, but always having Spain as a model for Romania: Spain as an ideal of Latinity and a model of cultural accomplishment,  an ideal of classical cultural  perfection, an exotic place where the Romanians could escape from a dark present etc. To the Romanians Spain has represented for a long time an exotic, remote, inaccessible space, the country of Don Quixote and Gonzalo de Cordoba.  

 While for the Western observers Romania is an exotic place situated between the West and the Orient, the Romanian observers attribute exoticism to the Iberic other. The study will analyse chronologically the accounts of different Romanian men of culture who travelled to Spain in the modern epoch, from Mihail Kogalniceanu who left us the first accounts about Spain (1846), Vasile Alecsandri (1847), V. A. Urechia who made researches related to Spain and helped the first Romanian students in Spain: A. Vizanti and Ştefan Vârgolici, to Romulus Cioflec, Mihail Ralea, Nicolae Iorga, Mihail Tican Rumano. The study will reflect the Romanians’ different identity projections upon Spain and their respective self-representations, in close connection with their historical, cultural and political backgrounds, at the frontier between the West and the East, between Europe and the Orient.

Cornel Sigmireanu, Universitatea „Petru-Maior”, Târgu Mureş, Studenţi ai Diecezei de Făgăraş la universităţile catolice din Roma. 1854 – 1948 (Students from the Făgăraş Dioceses at the Catholic Universities in Rome. 1854 – 1948)

Over thirty five students studied at the Catholic Universities of Rome with scholarships approved by Pope Pius the 9^th in the period 1854 – 1948.^. The scholarships were granted starting with 1854 when the Romanian Greek-Catholic Bishopric was created. As scholars, the Romanian students were boarders in the “Saint Atanasie” Greek - Ruthenian College and from 1898 in the Urban College de Propaganda Fidae. In 1937, the Pio Romeno College was opened in Rome.

Zsolt Simon, Institutul „Gheorghe Sincai”, Târgu Mureş, Cadrul juridic al relaţiilor comerciale între Imperiul otoman şi Ungaria în Evul Mediu (The Juridical Frame of the Commercial Relationships between the Ottoman Empire and Hungary in the Middle Ages)

In our presentation we intend to analyse a less studied aspect concerning the medieval commercial relationships between the Ottoman Empire and the Hungarian Monarchy, namely the legal frame of these contacts, from the beginning of these relationships until the Battle of Mohács, in 1526. The sources we are studying are the laws and decrees, the royal medieval mandates of Hungary and the texts of the truces concluded between the Ottoman Empire and Hungary. In our conclusion, we intend to draw a comparison between the juridical regulations of the trade between Hungary and the Ottoman Empire on one hand, and the commerce between Hungary and the neighbouring countries, on the other.

Ghenadie Sontu, Academia de Arte Frumoase, Fundaţia ARS DOR, Chişinău, Republica Moldova, Eurointegration through art (Eurointegrare prin arta)

European artists, musicians, writers, poets, film-makers, actors, academicians and intellectuals are Ambassadors of culture, who can build bridges between European countries, people and cultures by encouraging and enhancing dialogue and interaction between them, more successfully than politicians. Artists from the countries in the process of European integration should not wait until their countries will be integrated in the EU politically and economically – they should do it through culture and do it right now. Europe is created – now it is necessary to create Europeans. Countries that aspire for European integration should not wait until Europe will come to their borders – they should move forward and become really European. This process has already started, and it is only a question of time when culture and art will become essential components of European integration.  ARS DOR Association with the support of the International Fund for the Promotion of Culture (UNESCO) launches the International Project “Eurointegration through Art” that has mission to contribute through art to the process of European integration. Artists from Moldova, Romania, Ukraine, Latvia and Georgia were selected to become Ambassadors for Eurointegration through art and to express their vision on importance of culture and the role of artist in the process of European integration. Objectives of the International Project “Eurointegration through Art” are: to explore the cultural dimension of the European integration; to explore cultural perspectives of EU enlargement; to define role of artist in the process of European integration. Integration of new member states in the EU poses several questions: how it will affect culture of the EU neighboring states? Will countries neighboring the EU become isolated from cultural development in EU? New borders of the enlarged European Union should not neglect past and ongoing regional cultural cooperation or cooperation with neighboring countries. Culture is the true European identity power. In this context the major role of the European artists is to promote through art cultural diversity and preserve common values of Europe. Intercultural dialogue through art is an important instrument which could facilitate the integration of new countries in the European Union. In this dialogue artists must convince governments and politicians that there is a need in cultural renaissance across Europe. If politicians of European countries will understand this, European integration will not be limited by economic, political, security and other reasons. It is important to inspire people living in the European Union to actively get in touch with other cultures, both at home and abroad, and thus to contribute to tolerance and mutual respect which are conditions for the existence of Europe.

Marian Zăloagă (Institutul „Gheorghe Sincai”, Târgu-Mureş), Two Worlds -Three Perspectives. Which Place Do Gypsies/Romanies Belong(ed) To? Short Historiographic Considerations (Două lumi – trei perspective. Cărui loc îi aparţin(eau) ţiganii/romii? Scurte consideraţii istoriografice)

For centuries the written records about Gypsy groups was unidirectional. Therefore the symbolic place reserved to them was at discretion of the out-groups elite representatives. The ideologies of all sorts influenced the discourses towards them. Consequently, the interests regarding the enquiry concerning their inner or outer cultural origins lead to some arbitrary discriminating and exclusive policies which with the passing of the centuries gained coherent ideological legitimizing support. As a result Gypsies came to be victims of the “final solution” initiated by Nazism. The terrain had been previously prepared. Persecuting practices traditions can be traced back in time. From 18^th and 20^th centuries, the exclusion from among the “honorable” social groups, the belonging to a certain underrated “civilization” selectively and discretionary discerned about, gained theoretical consistency despite of some theoretical independent achievements (like the Indian origins of the Gypsies themselves). Recycling centuries old sanctioned stereotypes Gypsies were thought to have belonged to a space object to the “civilizing process” developed during this stage by the European imperialism. Placed among subcultures of marginal groups, or among nations, races or whichever paradigmatic cognitive hierarchy influential at specific times at the level of the “scientific discourses”, the resulting hierarchy was an arbitrary mix of all sort of references. This kept Gypsies among the lowest esteem-worthy groups. Using the linguistic references, generally, national spirited representatives of the normative society regarded Gypsies as “exotics from home” and considered them foreign to the national venerated body, therefore as outsiders. Nowadays self - representational strategies have lead to some responses. In their attempt to break the centuries old stereotypes, referring to the “trans – national” entity, Roma intellectuals pretend to represent an ethnic victimized group, projecting their representation mainly on the background represented by the European borders regarded both geographically and culturally. While registering persecuting outcomes, they explicitly or implicitly bring to trial the European intolerant normative and imperative cultural discourse. Thus, results a way of imagining Romanies in an in-between position which serves the argumentation of: 1.a separate and circumstantially integrated ethnic group (with an origin, with a particular ethno-name, with a language, a particular prevalent mobile culture), 2.of an aggressed group by means of assimilation strategies, 3.of a marginal but useful often demonized social group. The double referential Indian and European sets the in an intermediary symbolic position. Lately, a particular approach was developed by historians of migrations and social anthropologists. They represent Gypsies as an internal deviant and subculture groups. Aware of the diversity of the Gypsy’ groups, they disregard the matter of origins, which so much time sustained an ideologically exclusivist legitimizing argumentation of the normative authorities’ representatives. Instead, they consider that Gypsies have shared the role of scapegoats because of their different lifestyles. The matter of language, so important to the classic historians and Romanies intellectuals, in setting classifications, respectively affirming the ethnic uniqueness of the group, is in turn considered a reference unable to give valid “ideology free” responses to the question of Gypsies past and present identity. Consequently, “Gypsies” are imagined as a European stigmatized group of diverse atypical or/and delinquent diverse elements sharing a not sedentary lifestyle.

Mostafa Younesie, Classical and Medieval Comparative and Intercultural Political Philosophy, Tarbiat Modarres University, Teheran, Avecinna Heuristic Concept for the Identity Problematic  (Conceptul euristic al lui Avecinna pentru problematica identitară)

In my paper I want to explore the philosophical and conceptual  contribution of Avecinna or Ibn Sina as an intercultural thinker to the one aspect of the identity problematic that is, preservation and non-exclusion. It can be said that he does not speak directly and specifically about the mentioned aspect but by examining his writings we can find more or less an appropriate concept or notion. Accordingly, I think that in a heuristic way the concept of union (ittahad) can be such a concept. Analytically this term has many meanings and uses. The sharing of things in one attribute, be it essential or accidental. The sharing of attributes in one object. The combination of object and attribute in one essence. The combination of many substances, as through contiguity or contact or juncture. In all of these four meanings we can see the different forms or ways of preserving identities and preventing exclusions. For example, in the first case the sharing of ox and man in animality; in the second case the union of taste and smell in the apple; in the third case the combination of the body and soul in man; and in the fourth case the congruity of cities, the contact of chairs and beds, and the juncture of the limbs of animals .