On November 19-21, the Center for the History of International Relations (CIRI), within the Faculty of History from “Alexandru Ioan Cuza” University of Iași, Universidad Salamanca and Balkan History Association, organized the international conference “Old cities, former capitals and the bation-state building in Europe (18th-20th centuries): regional and national identities”. The conference was held in person and broadcasted on Zoom. Our association was represented in person by its President, Mihai Dragnea, who was part of the Organizing Committee. Some members of the association, Maria Alexandra Pantea, Sebastian-Dragoș Bunghez (Vasile Goldiș Western University of Arad, Romania), and Piotr Kręzel (University of Łódź, Poland), presented via Zoom.
Conference description
The community identities in a society organized according to certain political principles, in a state, is one of the most persistent, fertile, and controversial topics of debate in the social sciences and humanities. In a common understanding, regional identities have a stronger connection with pre-modern forms of identity, historically constructed over a longer period of time, being specific to the political and cultural plurality of the medieval world, while national identities are specific to modern “imagined communities“, based on a unitary cultural discourse and the political principle of collective sovereignty, according to which the political community (the nation) is the only legitimate constituent power. But is this the case? The theme of our conference proposes an interdisciplinary debate around the forms of regional and national identities in the cultural and political discourse of modernity, but also in the political geography of nation-states, taking its starting point from the changes that have occurred as a result of the integration of cities with a long history as centers of political power and regional community cohesion into a nation-state. In order to provide potential participants with some clearer points of reference for debate, we have thought of a few sub-themes, which are of an indicative nature, but without limiting the openness to other relevant issues:
Regional identities and national identity, with the aim of analyzing the interference between regional, political and cultural traditions and the discourse of national identity in the nineteenth century
National languages and regional dialects: particularities of the linguistic transition in the nineteenth century, the standardization of national languages (etymological dictionary, grammar, cultural debates on the historical heritage and the features of the modern national language), etc.
Center and periphery in nation-state building: about political inertia and economic adaptations/declines in some regions and cities with important political background in the past, on the features of the integration of regional elites into the institutional and political structure of the nation-state in the nineteenth century and the first half of the twentieth century
Regional historical memory and the discourse of decentralization/regionalization in the second half of the twentieth century, about the balance between the principle of subsidiarity, the decentralization policies, the problem of economic disparities, and the discourse of regional autonomy in the post-war period.
Organizing Committee:
PhD. Professor Raul Sanchez Prieto – Vice-Rector of the University of Salamanca
PhD. Professor Cristian Ploscaru – Faculty of History, “Alexandru Ioan Cuza” University of Iași
PhD. Professor Efrem Yildiz Sadak – Spanish Language Department, University of Salamanca
PhD. Associate Researcher Mihai Dragnea – Department of Business, History and Social Sciences, University of South-Eastern Norway
PhD. Lecturer Cosmin Mihuț – Faculty of History, “Alexandru Ioan Cuza” University of Iași
PhD. Aurica Ichim – Director of “Regina Maria” Municipal Museum of Iași
PhD. Professor Daniela Cojocaru – Faculty of Philosophy and Social-Political Sciences, “Alexandru Ioan Cuza” University of Iași
PhD. Researcher Liviu Brătescu – “A. D. Xenopol” Institute of History, Iași, Romanian Academy
PhD. Associate Professor Gabriel Leanca – Faculty of History, “Alexandru Ioan Cuza” University of Iași
PhD. Researcher Mihai-Bogdan Atanasiu – Institute of Interdisciplinary Research, Department of Social Sciences and Humanities, “Alexandru Ioan Cuza” University of Iași
Conference Programme
Tuesday, November, 19th
(Vasile Pogor Room of Iaşi City Hall)
Chair: Cristian Ploscaru
https://us02web.zoom.us/j/87054000372?pwd=buEWrcEblMti1oPKZHKbhsie0easpI.1
9.00-9.45: Conference Opening and Welcome Speeches
Mihai Chirica, Mayor of the City of Iaşi
Liviu-George Maha, Rector of “Alexandru Ioan Cuza” University of Iaşi
Aurica Ichim, Director of “Regina Maria” Municipal Museum, Iaşi
Cristian Ploscaru, Center for the History of International Relations (CIRI), Iaşi
9.45-13.30: I. Historical Identity and Territory in Nation-State Building
9.45-10.30: Keynote Speaker
Xosé M. Núñez Seixas (University of Santiago de Compostela), Fascism and Regionalism: Some Notes for a Discussion (Online Zoom)
10.30-11.15: Keynote Speaker
Ambassador Dumitru Preda (Titulescu European Foundation, Bucharest), The Role of Capital-City in European Nation State Building: Romanian Example (Eighteenth–Twentieth Centuries)
Tuesday, November, 19th
(Vasile Pogor Room of Iaşi City Hall)
Chair: Alexander Łupienko
https://us02web.zoom.us/j/87054000372?pwd=buEWrcEblMti1oPKZHKbhsie0easpI.1
11.30-13.30: Plenary Session
Sorin Paliga (University of Bucharest), The Terminology of the Urban v. Rural Organisation in Romania
Jason Finch (Åbo Akademi University, Turku), Ports across Genres and Continents: Two Provincial Capitals in Nineteenth-Century Narrative
Cristian Ploscaru (“Alexandru Ioan Cuza” University of Iaşi), “The physiology of the provincial in Iaşi”: Cultural Discourse between Tradition and “Moldo-Wallachian” Identity (1829-1848)
Octavian Ţîcu (Moldova State University, Kishinev), Interwar Kishinev: A History of the European Transformation under Romanian Rule (1918-1940)
13.30-15.00: Lunch – Restaurant “Cârciuma Veche”
Tuesday, November, 19th
(Braunstein Palace, The Round Room, 2nd Floor)
Chair: Jason Finch
https://us02web.zoom.us/j/86379657403?pwd=5s19aaxxGEY73Obf0npFkaYZhuVMuV.1
15.00-19.00: II. Moving Cities. Urban Culture and Community Identity in Change
15.00-15.45: Keynote Speaker
Alexander Łupienko (Tadeusz Manteuffel Institute of History, Warsaw), Urban Communities and Memories in the Austrian Galicia (1867-1914)
15.45-16.45: Plenary Session
Mina Hristova (Bulgarian Academy of Science, Sofia), Chavdar Hristov (Sofia University), Bulgaria’s Nation State Building Project Narrated by its Banknotes (19th – 20th Centuries)
Radu Mârza (Babeş-Bolyai University, Cluj-Napoca), From Kolozsvár to Cluj, from Pozsony and Pressburg to Bratislava on Postcards (after 1918)
16.45-17.00: Coffee Break
Tuesday, November, 19th
(Braunstein Palace, The Round Room, 2nd Floor)
Chair: Mircea-Cristian Ghenghea
https://us02web.zoom.us/j/86379657403?pwd=5s19aaxxGEY73Obf0npFkaYZhuVMuV.1
17.00-19.00: First Panel
Leonidas Rados (“A. D. Xenopol” Institute of History, Iaşi), First to be Founded, Second to be Funded: The Struggle of the University of Iaşi in the Second Half of the 19th Century
Tatsiana Varabei (University of Greifswald),“Styl kościoła i ołtarzy tak zwykły u nas w kraju …”: Multicultural Perspectives on the Baroque Architecture of the Former Grand Duchy of Lithuania in the Early 20th Century
Jiayao Jiang (University of Cambridge), Transnational Flows and National Identity: Transforming Urban Memory in Post-War Rome
19.00-20.30: Dinner – Restaurant “Casa Universitarilor”
Tuesday, November, 19th
(Braunstein Palace, Room 3, 2nd Floor)
Chair: Mina Hristova
https://us05web.zoom.us/j/87957847626?pwd=pRkt1DR3XhFLiwgqrxzYA1a3oettdw.1
17.00-19.00: Second Panel
Daniela Mârza (Center for Transylvanian Studies, Cluj-Napoca),Between Local Governance and National Representation: Case Studies of Members of Parliament in Interwar Transylvania with Careers in Local Administration
Liudmyla Novikova (Mechnikov National University, Odessa), The Question of the Capital in National-State Building of Ukraine (Eighteenth-Twentieth Centuries)(Online Zoom)
Andrei Cuşco (“A. D. Xenopol” Institute of History, Iaşi), The Orthodox Clergy, the National Question, and the Campaign against ‘Separatism’ in Early Twentieth-Century Bessarabia (1905-1914)
Edmond Malaj (Institute of History, Tirana), The City of Shkodra and its Importance for the Albanian Economy, Education, and National Culture in the Nineteenth Century
19.00-20.30: Dinner – Restaurant “Casa Universitarilor”
Wednesday, November, 20th
(Ferdinand Room, “Alexandru Ioan Cuza” University)
Chair: Radu Mârza
https://us02web.zoom.us/j/86409591463?pwd=2xKb4gWpGorTy10BgfRa6C0LLe408v.1
9.00-13.00: III. Voices of Difference: Representations of Space in National Context
9.00-9.45: Keynote Speaker
Eric Storm (Leiden University), Thick Identities: The Impact of Tourism on Local, Regional and National Identities During the Nineteenth and Twentieth Century
9.45-11.15: Plenary Session
Ivaylo Nachev (Institute of Balkan Studies, Sofia), Southeast European Regional Centers in the Late Habsburg Empire as Quasi Capital Cities: Ljubljana, Sarajevo and Zagreb before the First World War
Alexandru Bar (University of York), Shaping a Modern City: Marcel Janco’s Architectural Legacy in Interwar Bucharest
Raluca Alexandrescu (University of Bucharest), Politicizing Nature in the Carpathian Mountains around 1900: From Regional Perspectives to Nation-Building Narratives
11.15-11.30: Coffee Break
Wednesday, November, 20th
(Ferdinand Room, “Alexandru Ioan Cuza” University)
Chair: Sorin Paliga
https://us02web.zoom.us/j/86409591463?pwd=2xKb4gWpGorTy10BgfRa6C0LLe408v.1
11.30-13.00: Third Panel
Alexandru Cohal (“Alexandru Philippide” Institute of Romanian Philology, Iaşi), George Ţurcănaşu (“Alexandru Ioan Cuza” University of Iaşi), The Beauty of Linguistic Centralism in Language Standardization: “We are all periphery”
Csaba Katona (National Archives of Hungary, Budapest), The Birth of an Imperial Capital: Budapest and the Imperial Idea
Mihai Chiper (“A. D. Xenopol” Institute of History, Iaşi), Moldavia: Historical Agency, Debasement, and Inferiorization after the Union
13.00-15.00: Lunch – Buffet Lounge “Alexandru Ioan Cuza” University Rectorate
Wednesday, November, 20th
(Vespasian Pella Room, “Alexandru Ioan Cuza” University)
Chair: Edmond Malaj
https://us05web.zoom.us/j/84145403928?pwd=N79m7NwOX0M8tjNyRkehAekKuSrBkA.1
11.30-13.00: Fourth Panel
Mircea-Cristian Ghenghea (“Alexandru Ioan Cuza” University of Iaşi), Plagiarism and University Life in Romania at the end of the 19th century. The Case of the University of Iaşi
Ionel Boamfă (“Alexandru Ioan Cuza” University of Iaşi), The Chrono-Spatial Distribution of some Demographic and Socio-Economic Variables in the Romanian Space in the Last Two Centuries
Răzvan Pârâianu (“George Emil Palade” University of Medicine, Târgu Mureş), Nation Building and the Byzantine Turn in Fin‑de-siècle Romanian Culture and Politics
13.00-15.00: Lunch – Buffet Lounge “Alexandru Ioan Cuza” University Rectorate
Wednesday, November, 20th
(Ferdinand Room, “Alexandru Ioan Cuza” University)
Chair: Virgiliu Ţârău
https://us02web.zoom.us/j/87527032123?pwd=hsnbn3KxzsSLlGQCCjfTzEOmWPy1sP.1
15.00-19.30: IV. Provincial Heritage: Features of the National Discourse
15.00-15.45: Keynote Speaker
Heidi Hein-Kircher (Ruhr University, Bochum), Shaping Local Identities through Political Myths: Bulwark-Myths in East European Local Memories (Online Zoom)
15.45-16.45: Plenary Session
Gabriel Leanca (“Alexandru Ioan Cuza” University of Iaşi), Connecting to Europe: The French-Language Press in Modern Romanian Context (1790-1878) (Online Zoom)
Alexandru Daneş (University of Braşov), Nation and Nationalism in Romanian Territorial Heraldry (1859-1989)
16.45-17.00: Coffee Break
Wednesday, November, 20th
(Online Zoom)
Chair: Raluca Alexandrescu
https://us05web.zoom.us/j/81201511078?pwd=QuHAEEjHVS7cMSUUnWDcoHDuF3GUA0.1
17.00-19.00: Fifth Panel
Tatiana Scurtu (“Gheorghe Şincai” Institute for Social Sciences and Humanities, Târgu Mureş), Les élites roumaines des Trois Sièges aux XVIIIe et XIXe siècles (Online Zoom)
Gheorghe Negru (State University of Moldova, Kishinev), La peur du „danger roumain” comme prétexte à l’intensification de la russification en Bessarabie (seconde moitié du XIXème siècle) (Online Zoom)
Jérémy Floutier (Université catholique de l’Ouest, Campus de Nantes), La représentation des villes transylvaines dans les manuels scolaires hongrois de 1920 à 1990 (Online Zoom)
Elena Negru (State University of Moldova, Kishinev), L’Union soviétique comme „machine pour la fabrication des nations”. Le projet stalinien d’ingénierie ethnoculturelle en R.S.S. Moldave (1940-1941, 1944-1953) (Online Zoom)
Wednesday, November, 20th
(Ferdinand Room, “Alexandru Ioan Cuza” University)
Chair: Alexandru Bar
https://us02web.zoom.us/j/87527032123?pwd=hsnbn3KxzsSLlGQCCjfTzEOmWPy1sP.1
17.00-19.30: Sixth Panel
Liviu Brătescu (“A. D. Xenopol” Institute of History, Iaşi), The Political Elite from Moldavia in the Second Half of the Nineteenth Century and the Challenges of Centralism: Integration Strategies and Discursive Practices
Piotr Kręzel (University of Lodz), Vienna-Warsaw-Petersburg 18th Century European Capital Cities in “Mémoire” by Simeon Piščević (Online Zoom)
Lucian Turcu (Babeş-Bolyai University, Cluj-Napoca), The First Hero of all Romanians: Avram Iancu and the National Significance of the First Centenary of his Birth (1924)
Esmeralda Kolaneci (University of Tirana), The Instrumentalization of Language: Unifying Written Albanian and the Forging of a National Identity in The Albanian Renaissance (Online Zoom)
Ante Bralić, Filip Lenić (University of Zadar), The Role of the Zadar Cultural Circle in the Standardization of the Croatian Language in the Nineteenth Century (Online Zoom)
19.30-20.30: Dinner – Restaurant “Casa Universitarilor”
Wednesday, November, 20th
(Vespasian Pella Room, “Alexandru Ioan Cuza” University)
Chair: Eric Storm
https://us05web.zoom.us/j/86793618687?pwd=FY5Ss2LxjEVaccKaF16yaaYPrexz5z.1
17.00-19.30: Seventh Panel – Doctoral Students Workshop
Joel Sidler (Universidad Nacional del Litoral, Santa Fe), State Formation in Argentina. Theoretical Dialogues from the Periphery (Online Zoom)
Bruno Šagi (Independent Researcher, Zagreb), Multinational Cities of the 19th Century: Lviv and Kyiv – An Overview of Inter-Ethnic Relations (Online Zoom)
Victor Risciuc (Babeş-Bolyai University, Cluj-Napoca), Looking West: American Images and Examples for the Emancipation of Romanians in Transylvania (Late 18th to Early 20th Centuries)
Teodora Turcu (Babeş-Bolyai University, Cluj-Napoca), The Concept of Nation in the Speeches of the Romanian Clerical Elite in the Hungarian Parliament. The Case of the Orthodox Metropolitan Miron Romanul
Mihai Tudosă (“Alexandru Ioan Cuza” University of Iaşi), Boosting Morale in the Nation’s Darkest Hour. The Newspaper “România, organ al apărării naţionale”, Iaşi, 1917-1918
19.30-20.30: Dinner – Restaurant “Casa Universitarilor”
Thursday, November, 21st
(Ferdinand Room, “Alexandru Ioan Cuza” University)
Chair: Dana Cojocaru
https://us02web.zoom.us/j/82408149907?pwd=ts3wFL90Uk2S4YP6iewC1sixmD5fST.1
9.00-13.30: V. Integration or Uniformity? The Modern State and the Regional Historical Tradition
9.00-9.45: Keynote Speaker
Raul Sanchez Prieto (University of Salamanca), German, Dutch and Bulgarian – Three Different Models of National Language Formation in the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries
9.45-11.15: Plenary Session
Cosmin Mihuţ (“Alexandru Ioan Cuza” University of Iaşi), Provincial Mores versus Shared Political Ideas: Foreign Officials’ Observations on Moldo-Wallachian Elite in the mid-Nineteenth Century
Efrem Yildiz Sadak (University of Salamanca), Multilingualism and the Teaching of Semitic Languages at European Universities
Virgiliu Ţârău (Babeş-Bolyai University, Cluj-Napoca), A Regional Capital in Transition. Hopes and Realities in the Administration of Cluj, October 1944 – March 1944
11.15-11.30: Coffee Break
Thursday, November, 21st
(Ferdinand Room, “Alexandru Ioan Cuza” University)
Chair: Octavian Ţîcu
https://us02web.zoom.us/j/82408149907?pwd=ts3wFL90Uk2S4YP6iewC1sixmD5fST.1
11.30-13.30: Eighth Panel
Mihai-Bogdan Atanasiu (“Alexandru Ioan Cuza” University of Iaşi), Uprooting and Reintegration into Orthodox World of the Old Regime: On the History of Moldavian Migration to Russian Empire (18th Century)
Lama Allan Abusamra (University of Krakow), Diplomatic Immunity and the Formation of National Identity: Regional Impacts in Nineteenth-Century Europe
Maria Alexandra Pantea, Sebastian Bunghez (“Vasile Goldiş” Western University, Arad), The Perception of Wilsonian Ideas by Transylvanian Intellectuals in 1918 (Online Zoom)
Anatolie Bajora (Zhejiang University of Science and Technology), The Gagauz Movement: Autonomy and Ethnic Identity in Post-Soviet Moldova (Online Zoom)
13.30-15.00: Lunch – Restaurant “Casa Universitarilor”
Thursday, November, 21st
(Online Zoom)
Chair: Piotr Kręzel
https://us06web.zoom.us/j/83438801782?pwd=Eebh8I7488izKSC4PylExdCbjOBlvy.1
11.30-13.30: Ninth Panel
Zornitsa Draganova (Institute of Philosophy and Sociology, Sofia), “This frivolity was allowed …”: Identity Narratives and Community Building before 1989 and Today (A Case Study of a Hub for Culture and Arts in the “Old Capital” of Bulgaria – Veliko Turnovo) (Online Zoom)
Gabriela Boangiu (Institute for Social Sciences and Humanities of Craiova), Old Houses, New Mentalities: A “Told” History of Craiova’s Past (Online Zoom)
Yanna Dimitriou (Ionian University, Kerkira), Reading Associations in Nineteenth Century Corfu: Shaping Identities Between Cosmopolitanism and Nationalism (Online Zoom)
Khachatur Stepanyan (Armenian State Pedagogical University, Yerevan), The Proclamation of the First Republic of Armenia and the Restoration of Armenian Independence (Online Zoom)
ABSTRACTS:
Tuesday, November, 19th
Vasile Pogor Room of Iaşi City Hall
I. Historical Identity and Territory in Nation-State Building
9.45-10.30: Keynote Speaker
Xosé M. Núñez Seixas
Fascism and Regionalism: Some Notes for a Discussion
(Online Zoom)
Historical research on fascism has underlined its intrinsically centralist nature. Nonetheless, strategic use of subnational identities and regional variation were never absent from policy implementation practices, as regional studies have shown. It will be argued that localism and regionalism were deliberately promoted to different various degrees by the regimes of Hitler, Mussolini, Pétain, Salazar and Franco because it suited their ideological agendas. Despite the many important differences in the value placed on the ‘region’ in all five countries, it seems clear that this strategy went beyond mere opportunism. Regional diversity was presented as the legacy of a pre-liberal, ‘authentic’ nation. At the same time, regionalism offered a form of ‘blood and soil’ politics that remained wedded to a realist sense of the political. Five aspects of fascist regionalism will be analyzed: the implementation of regional and local administrations; the role of regional histories; the relevance of regional heritage; the role of languages and cultures; and the translation of regional identities into visual cultures and exhibitions.
10.30-11.15: Keynote Speaker
Ambassador Dumitru Preda
The Role of Capital-City in European Nation State Building: Romanian Example (Eighteenth–Twentieth Centuries)
My intervention at this conference was encouraged by the generous interdisciplinary theme proposed by the organizers: through a comparative survey, it tries to show the main features of the role of the capital cities, their evolution and political, social-economic and cultural implications in the dynamic process – recorded after the French Revolution – that marked the European geo-political map reconstruction, in the 19th and early 20th centuries.
Since the Congress of Vienna (1815), considered by experts in the matter as the starting point of the transformation of the role of the urban centres (some of them with an old and rich history), we can perceive an extensive progression of their gradual integration as power centres focusing the emerging national movements, which will lead to a deeper affirmation and then consolidation of modern state entities, and generating modern national identities.
During this period, the capital cities became the spatial concentration of this modern political and national power; they are invested not only with symbolic characters (spatial layout, pattern of architecture, public monumentality, and nomenclature of public space), but also with permanent and resilient administrative, public and military institutions, all these transformations responded to new social and economic realities.
The dissertation paid special attention to gradual rise of politically and culturally Romanian national movement, the both capitals – Bucharest (Walachia) and Iaşi (Moldova), later Bucharest as unique center of the country – playing a key role in the complex process that fulfilled the development of the Romanian state (1848, 1859-62, 1877-78 and 1914-1918).
Tuesday, November, 19th
(Vasile Pogor Room of Iaşi City Hall)
11.30-13.30: Plenary Session
Sorin Paliga
The Terminology of the Urban v. Rural Organisation in Romania
In two recent presentations held in Ploieşti on the occasion of their conference dedicated to the 1st millennium CE (in 2023 – with Florin Curta in an interdisciplinary dialogue, and again in 2024 – developing the same topic), the specific terminology dedicated to the political and administrative functions has been approached. It is represented by terms like Romanian împărat ‘emperor’ and rege ‘king’, followed by the next level of organisation, i.e. the series ban, jupân (old giupân), stăpân and vătaf, all in the semantic sphere ‘(local) leader, master’. A special position is represented by the largely spread form boier, specific to not only southeast Europe, but reaching the Baltic area and Russia.
On this occasion I would like to approach the specific terms reflecting the type of settlements, by discriminating the terminology referring to the urban v. rural areas, specifically: sat ‘village’ and cătun ‘small village, hamlet’ v. oraş ‘town(ship)’, cetate ‘citadel, fortress’ and târg ‘market town’.
A careful analysis of these terms does not confirm the largely spread hypothesis that Romanian had a major, overwhelming Slavic influence. Some terms have been erroneously considered of Slavic origin or, in the case of oraş ‘township’ of Hungarian origin. The etymological analysis as well as the distribution of place names obviously derived from, or related to, oraş (dialectal form also uraş) do not support the hypothesis of a Hungarian origin. The series is represented, among others, by the place names Orašac in the south Slavic area (I have identified seven such localities spread from Macedonia to Serbia and Croatia) as well as the obviously related place names Orăştie and Orşova (with Slavic suffix ‑ova).
Very often the historical and archaeological investigations refet to wrong explanations and etymologies, which have led to a false historical reconstruction. This presentation has the main purpose to show some relevant examples.
Jason Finch
Ports across Genres and Continents: Two Provincial Capitals in Nineteenth-Century Narrative
This paper relates urban texts, modernity and the nation state. In 1800, the English traveller Edward Daniel Clarke visited Åbo in the Swedish realm, today Turku in Finland. This was a city caught between two early-modern monarchic states, Sweden and Russia. A century later, the American writer Kate Chopin sparked outrage with her novel The Awakening describing the city of New Orleans at a time when it was still in transition but almost a complete part of the post-Civil War United States as a modern nation-state. Comparing Turku and New Orleans answers the calls of critical urbanists and social historians such as Ananya Roy, Jennifer Robinson and Danielle van den Heuvel for a comparative study of cities across the boundaries dividing geographical regions. Doing so reveals commonalities that might not appear otherwise. Both Turku and New Orleans were capitals of colonies or peripheral zones ruled by European monarchies, the former as the headquarters of Swedish rule in Finland for 600 years to 1809, the latter as the administrative centre of the Louisiana district of New France, ruled by the French crown during the eighteenth century. In the twenty-first century, both cities retain an oddity and hard-to-pin-down sense of apartness within their nation-state. This eccentric feel has historical causes but perhaps also topographical ones. Both Turku and New Orleans, after all, are river-mouth ports which long connected a hinterland with the outside world, controlling the passage of trade. Reading Clarke on Turku and Chopin on New Orleans provides evidence from different textual genres. Via these two case study examples bookmarking the nineteenth century, the paper shows how research areas previously marked out in publications by the author, literary urban studies and Deep Locational Criticism, can contribute to public discussions of policy and heritage as well as in the interdisciplinary urban humanities.
Cristian Ploscaru
“The physiology of the provincial in Iaşi”: Cultural Discourse between Tradition and “Moldo-Wallachian” Identity (1829-1848)
In a literary piece from his youth, Mihai Kogălniceanu, a famous Moldavian politician and unionist, wrote a warm and compassionate satire on the “physiology of the provincial in Iaşi”, an imitation of a French-inspired literary theme. This text of Kogălniceanu, about whom Nicolae Iorga said that, through his involvement in politics, Romanian literature had lost a great writer, is not a simple satire, except in the register of entertainment reading. In depth, this literary piece captures the essence of the changes that would reconfigure the collective identities of Moldavia and Wallachia before the political union and in a way that was decisive for the success of this project. My paper will focus on some of the features of this identity metamorphosis.
Octavian Ţîcu
Interwar Kishinev: A History of the European Transformation under Romanian Rule (1918-1940)
On the eve of the great transformations generated by the second world conflagration, the city of Chişinău was a relatively crowded city, with a population estimated at approximately 120,000 inhabitants (according to the 1930 census, 117,016 people lived in Chişinău), with a mixed architecture, which reflected the intermingling of Russian and Romanian, a multi-ethnic city, which, although it hid tensions, was a place where each ethnic group could reproduce culturally and educationally, an important city in the new political, economic and cultural physiognomy of the Romanian state, multilaterally open to the European and international circuit.
Rarely admitted and almost unknown to the general public is the fact that this transformation of the Russian Chişinău into Romanian and European Chişinău was the period of great achievements during the Romanian administration of Bessarabia (1918-1940).
The communication tries to capture the most important moments of the identity battles in interwar Chişinău, the attempts of the Romanian administration to restore Romanian and European identity the city after a century of the Russian domination.
Tuesday, November, 19th
Braunstein Palace, The Round Room, 2nd Floor
II. Moving Cities. Urban Culture and Community Identity in Change
15.00-15.45: Keynote Speaker
Alexander Łupienko
Urban Communities and Memories in the Austrian Galicia (1867-1914)
In my lecture I will concentrate on the culture produced by urban ethnic-cum-cultural communities in the two main cities of Galicia (Austrian partition of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, created after 1772) in the period of autonomous rule of the Polish elite after the Austrian-Hungarian compromise of 1867. Both Poles in the cities of Lviv (Lwów / Lemberg / L’viv) and Krakow, and Ruthenians/Ukrainians in Lviv, as well as in towns in this crown land, set out to invent themselves as politically prominent actors in the public sphere and to present their localness as politically relevant. By showing the memory cultures and the raised historical consciousness, the sensitivity to the architectural heritage and the visions for the future – that were propagated there – I hope to show the tensions between the local and the national.
Tuesday, November, 19th
(Braunstein Palace, The Round Room, 2nd Floor)
15.45-16.45: Plenary Session
Mina Hristova & Chavdar Hristov
Bulgaria’s Nation State Building Project Narrated by its Banknotes (19th-20th Centuries)
Currency is a widely accepted medium of exchange, typically in the form of coins or banknotes, often featuring symbols that represent the values of governments, communities, and national identity. These symbols reflect the evolution of the state, its ideologies, and corresponding value changes and have been effectively used for soft propaganda for over 2,500 years. Our presentation will examine the progression of Bulgarian banknotes from the late 19th century until the fall of the Communist regime in the country. We will observe how values and political systems have transformed thoughout the period. Through the lenses of Sociology, Mass Communication, and Anthropology, we will demonstrate how money is utilized as an effective tool to promote a carefully curated positive image and foster a harmonious relationship between a country and its citizens thus strenghtening the nation-state and the national identity.
Radu Mârza
From Kolozsvár to Cluj, from Pozsony and Pressburg to Bratislava on Postcards (after 1918)
After 1918, the transition from the Austro-Hungarian Empire to the successor states involved not only political, administrative or legislative aspects, but also minor aspects, at the local level. Especially in the multicultural regions and places (Transylvania, Northern Hungary/Slovakia, Bukovina, Vojvodina, Bosnia and Herzegovina), the transition was complicated by the policy of the new administrators (the successor states) to give those regions and places a more national character. One of the aspects that was insisted on was the naming of places, from the official name in public documents and daily press to the names written on postcards.
The research follows the way in which the names of the places written on the postcards change after 1918 in relation to the previous situation, trying to indicate and analyze the numerous and very diverse concrete situations (the continual use of the old names, completion of the old names with the new names (by superscript), deletion of the old names). The material that will be analyzed are postcards that were printed and circulated on the territory of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, respectively on the territories of the successor states (Romania, Czechoslovakia, Yugoslavia, etc.). The most interesting examples are from Belgrade, Bratislava, Brno, Chernivtsi, Cluj, Novi Sad, Sarajevo, Višegrad. The analyzed postcards are part of the author’s private collection.
Tuesday, November, 19th
(Braunstein Palace, The Round Room, 2nd Floor)
17.00-19.00: First Panel
Leonidas Rados
First to be Founded, Second to be Funded: The Struggle of the University of Iaşi in the Second Half of the 19th Century
This paper attempts to provide the audience with a selective picture of the development of the University of Iasi (established in 1860) and its struggle to remain relevant in Romanian academia after the foundation of the University of Bucharest (1864). While the latter easily obtained additional funding and chairs for the completion and study of new/modern scientific disciplines, the University of Iaşi encountered severe problems completing the faculties (and the curricula) and, hence, attracting an acceptable number of students. At the time, numerous criticisms circulated in public regarding the opportunity to establish a University in Iaşi (a former capital) which would have symbolically affected the new capital, or proposals for its abolition because the number of students was rather deficient, and it had become the territory of socialist orientations.
Tatsiana Varabei
“Styl kościoła i ołtarzy tak zwykły u nas w kraju …”: Multicultural Perspectives on the Baroque Architecture of the Former Grand Duchy of Lithuania in the Early 20th Century
The end of the over two-century dominance of Baroque in the architecture of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania coincided with the incorporation of these lands into the Russian Empire in the late 18th century. Throughout the 19th century, Baroque heritage was overlooked and eventually eliminated in the old cities of this new periphery, labelled the “North Western Province” (Северо-Западный край) by Russian authorities. The substantial transformation of the local landscape was largely achieved through so-called “church-building reforms” (церковно-строительные реформы), involving the construction of Orthodox churches and the reconstruction of former Roman and Greek-Catholic ones in Classicism or pseudo-Byzantine/Russian styles.
The early 20th century brought more favourable conditions for appreciating and preserving Baroque monuments in the region. The spread of new trends in art history, such as Baroque studies from German-speaking countries, fostered the usage of the term “baroque” in the Russian and Polish languages (барокко, barok) and reflections on local heritage. The Russian Revolution of 1905 resulted in the proclamation of the freedom of speech and faith, boosting national movements, publishing in national languages, and Roman Catholic church construction, coupled with a small-scale Baroque revival.
My study explores how the multicultural society of present-day Lithuania and Belarus perceived and appropriated local Baroque heritage in the turbulent early 1900s. The actors include government officials, aristocracy, clergy, art enthusiasts, national activists, ordinary people, all as bearers of diverse identities (Polish, Russian, Lithuanian, Belarusian, Roman Catholic, Orthodox, etc.), social backgrounds, political views, and aesthetic preferences. The key sources comprise memoirs, travel notes and guidebooks, local history works, etc. The case of the former Grand Duchy of Lithuania is noteworthy in a wider European context, where this period also saw restored interest in Baroque, the development of art history and heritage protection, and the search for national styles in architecture.
Jiayao Jiang
Transnational Flows and National Identity: Transforming Urban Memory in Post-War Rome
Although scholars have discussed the interconnection between urban reconstruction and national identity in post-war Rome, the role of transnational flows in this connection has been little studied. This research aims to examine the crucial and understudied period from 1944 to 1951 in post-war Rome, when the construction of a renewed national identity through reconstruction activities intersected intricate processes of exchange with other cultures. In which ways did transnational flows and national renewal shape each other in post-war Rome? On the one hand, how cultural exchanges may contribute to consolidating national identities through transnational flows and then be reflected in the urban environment? On the other hand, did national narratives facilitate or hamper transnational exchange?
This paper focuses on two kinds of transnational flows that shaped post-war Rome’s transformation: first, the diverse international angencies that acted in Rome and collaborated with local authorities, and second, the local institutions that disseminated Rome’s postwar image to other cultures. For instance, it examines the work of the United Nations and the Monument Men, and their collboration with local soprintendenze. The study investigates whether these rich transnational exchanges helped shape the collective urban memory of Rome in the aftermath of trauma.
In this vein, this paper contributes to the broader discourse on post-war cultural heritage and national identity, offering insights into the ways regional and national identities in Italy were negotiated within a transnational context. By focusing on Rome as a symbol of national renewal, this study also aims to enhance our understanding of the cultural and political history of post-war Europe and its long-lasting impact on nation-state building.
Tuesday, November, 19th
(Braunstein Palace, Room 3, 2nd Floor)
17.00-19.00: Second Panel
Daniela Mârza
Between Local Governance and National Representation: Case Studies of Members of Parliament in Interwar Transylvania with Careers in Local Administration
In interwar Transylvania, many Members of Parliament (MPs) previously held or transitioned into positions of local governance, such as mayors of various cities, prefects, or county councilors. This paper seeks to explore this trajectories of such political figures, analyzing how careers in local administration intersected with national representation. Through case studies of selected MPs, the paper addresses several key questions: Did a career in local administration facilitate ascension to parliamentary office? Conversely, did holding a parliamentary seat ease the transition into significant roles in local governance? Furthermore, the paper examines the factors driving the success of these individuals, particularly the roles played by political parties, social and political networks and personal influence. Were the pathways to national and local power shaped by the same networks and affiliations, or did different dynamics govern these spheres? Additionally, the paper investigates whether certain political or social levers operated efficiently across both local and national levels.
By exploring these questions, this research aims to contribute to a deeper understanding of the interconnectedness of local and national politics in the context of the complex political landscape of interwar Transylvania.
Liudmyla Novikova
The Question of the Capital in National-State Building of Ukraine
(Eighteenth-Twentieth Centuries)
(Online Zoom)
The question on the capital was tightly connected with different periods of Ukrainian National movement and State-Building. It arises in early modern Ukraine in the context of national liberating Ukrainian movement of 17th century. At that time a few real capitals existed in Cossack Hetmanate simultaneously Kyiv played the role of quite symbolic center. But the future of National State in some political manifests (Pylyp Orlyk’s Constitution in the early 18th century) was tied with expectation on reviving of historical determined yet in medieval Rus’ the role of Kyiv as a State capital. Later in 19th – early 20th century the capital question again accompanies the National Ukrainian movement. Determined the significance of Galychyna as Ukrainian Pyemont, the Ukrainian movement created for capital question new circumstances with Western Ukraine centers expectations. But the role of Kiev in National-State building remained the important idea for M. S. Grushevskyi who was the one of the most authoritative leaders in Ukrainian National movement at the beginning of 20th century. New situation was created by Ukrainian revolution 1917-1920(21), when Kyiv obtained the capital status in National State. But a new center like Kharkiv contested with Kyiv, and Lviv and other cities were center of Western Ukraine. Kharkiv remained the capital of Ukrainian SSR till 1934 when Kyiv restored its capital role. With the new configuration of URSR borders during WWII, we met the situation when Kyiv was somewhat challenged by regional centers as Lviv, but also other regional main cities. At the time of the war, it was occurred that both Ukrainian political emigration, returning to the territory of Ukrainian SSR, and soviet authors all became appealing to Kyiv as some symbol of Nation State using such verbal form which we can meet yet at M. S. Grushevskyi’s works like ‘Kyiv is a heart of Ukraine”. The second part of 20th century was the time of mass jubilee of Lviv and Kyiv which accompanied with somewhat of flourishing of historical remembrances. In Ukraine of 1990s Kyiv remained the real and symbolic capital. But still a few regional centers were keeping and declaring their ‘former capital memories” which we can find even in cities hymns like in the hymn of Halych.
Andrei Cuşco
The Orthodox Clergy, the National Question, and the Campaign against ‘Separatism’ in Early Twentieth-Century Bessarabia (1905-1914)
The issue of the role of the Orthodox Church in the emergence and development of nationalism in the early twentieth century is one of the least studied topics in the history of Bessarabia. Most historians who have addressed the issue highlight the fact that the nationally minded members of the clergy, along with ‘secular nationalists,’ participated in the struggle to introduce the local language in the educational system and in the Church. However, the role of the Church in the crystallization of local Bessarabian nationalism was important and even, in some cases, decisive. The church provided a fertile environment for generating various nationalist “messages,” and then for passing them on to the broad masses of the population. During the first years of the twentieth century, the local Orthodox clergy in Russian Bessarabia, which were traditionally a bulwark of official policies and a loyal servant of the Russian imperial state, were stirred into political action both by the revolutionary turmoil and by the innovative cultural strategies of the regime. This presentation discusses the entanglements between the political agency of the clergy and the changes in official policy signaled by the campaign against the threat of ‘Moldavian / Romanian separatism’ initiated by Bishop Serafim Chichagov (1908-1914). Directly involved in Russian nationalist politics and encouraged by certain instructions coming from the higher ranks of the imperial bureaucracy, Chichagov pursued an interventionist and intrusive politics of ethnicity, using his position in the local Church to advance claims of a separate ‘Moldavian’ cultural and linguistic identity. Chichagov’s ‘anti‑separatist’ campaign led to the accelerated politicization of the Bessarabian clergy, whose nationally minded faction actively opposed the bishop’s agenda and supported the articulation of a moderate ‘cultural nationalism.’ This case highlights the complex intertwining between religion and nationalism in the Russian Empire’s Bessarabian borderland.
Edmond Malaj
The City of Shkodra and its Importance for the Albanian Economy, Education, and National Culture in the Nineteenth Century
In the paper, I will focus on Shkodra’s contribution to education and national culture, especially during the 19th century. This time coincides with the end of the Ottoman period in Albania. The Ottoman Empire was already in its last throes, and it was during this time that the first gymnasiums and schools of the classical type were born in the city of Shkodra with the initiative of the Catholic clergy. Among them, a great contribution was made, especially by the Jesuit and Franciscan orders. Other elementary and secular schools in Shkodra were opened on the initiative of various individuals. In 1869, the above-mentioned Jesuit order founded its printing house, where the first dictionaries, many schoolbooks, various types of books, and other printed products were printed that helped not only the community of Shkodra but also the whole country. With the establishment of the Jesuit Printing House, the foundation for the publication of the book in the Albanian language was laid. Shkodra during this period can well be considered the capital of Albanian culture. But Shkodra at this time was not only the cultural center of the Albanian world. This city also occupied an important place in the economy of the Albanian space, where trade and craft production occupied the main place. For the first time, a two-year trade school was created in Shkodra, which was the first of its kind in all Albanian lands. This school, opened by the Jesuits, became a pioneer of economic studies in Albanian lands. These economic and cultural developments in the city of Shkodra will be the focus of our press release. Shkodra can rightfully be called the center of the Albanian National Renaissance.
Wednesday, November, 20th
(Ferdinand Room, “Alexandru Ioan Cuza” University)
III. Voices of Difference: Representations of Space in National Context
9.00-9.45: Keynote Speaker
Eric Storm
Thick Identities: The Impact of Tourism on Local, Regional and National Identities During the Nineteenth and Twentieth Century
Territorial identities have mostly been studied through case studies, focusing on domestic actors and internal developments. Such a historicist approach rapidly leads to various forms of methodological nationalism. In my presentation, I will adopt a comparative and transnational approach exploring how (foreign) tourists influenced local, regional and national identities in various parts of Europe. Interestingly, some cities, regions and countries have a more pronounced territorial identity than others and this was partly due to the demand from foreign visitors. From the Romantic era onwards, travelers and tourists felt attracted by spectacular sights and extraordinary experiences, thus creating a strong demand for typicality that only increased over time. In my presentation I will first discuss the impact of large scale national and international exhibitions, which were visited by millions of people. Here cities, regions and nations tried to present themselves to the world in a dignified way. However, they also had to give in to the tourist gaze and its lust for the exotic and the extraordinary. The rise of mass tourism would only reinforce the typicality effect. Local and national authorities had to present themselves as unique and attractive destinations. Finally, I will reflect on how tourism contributed to make some identities thicker than others.
Wednesday, November, 20th
(Ferdinand Room, “Alexandru Ioan Cuza” University)
9.45-11.15: Plenary Session
Ivaylo Nachev
Southeast European Regional Centers in the Late Habsburg Empire as Quasi Capital Cities: Ljubljana, Sarajevo and Zagreb before the First World War
The paper examines comparatively urban modernization and the role of major cities in nation building in three main cities of Habsburg provinces in Southeastern Europe during a period of several decades before the demise of the empire. Ljubljana and Zagreb have long developed within the Habsburg framework while Sarajevo became a part of it with the Treaty of Berlin and the mandate of Austro-Hungary to administer the former Ottoman-controlled lands of Bosnia and Herzegovina. During the 1990s, as part of the demise of Yugoslavia, the three cities became capital cities of independent states and the legacy of the late Habsburg time arguably played a certain role in that process. The paper elaborates on questions including to what extent contemporaries in the late nineteenth and the early twentieth century perceived each of the three cities as true national centers in spite of the fact that they did not poses such formal status at that time. The paper will thus propose the term quasi capitals as a tool for conceptualizing processes of emergence of national centres which developed alongside or even preceded the establishment of some national states. The work also looks in more detail who were the agents of change and what were their visions of affirming the respective cities as recognized capital cities elaborating on the interplay between the ambitions and actions of imperial, national and local elites. In the multiethnic setting of Austro-Hungary and in times of strong national movements language certainly played a major role. So, language policies, specifically those concerning the language/languages used by the city administration in the three different cases will be taken into consideration. The paper also focuses on various symbolic actions like erecting monuments, naming streets and others as possible strategies for enhancing the positions of the respective urban centres despite the existing political constraints.
Alexandru Bar
Shaping a Modern City: Marcel Janco’s Architectural Legacy in Interwar Bucharest
This paper explores Bucharest’s interwar transformation, examining its shift from “Little Paris” to a Modernist canvas as a reflection of the city’s evolving identity amid regional influences and international aspirations. As Romania sought to redefine itself as a modern nation-state, Bucharest’s urban landscape became a convergence point for French cultural legacies, modernist influences, and Eastern European regionalism. Bucharest’s development was marked by a tension between local traditions and global architectural trends, especially within the frameworks of modernist and Art Deco styles. This transformation is analysed through the work of avant-garde architect Marcel Janco, whose constructivist approach to architecture contributed decisively to Bucharest’s modernist urban fabric.
Janco, a key figure in the Romanian avant-garde and a participant in the Dada movement, introduced a vision for Bucharest that rejected traditional forms and embraced modern, functional designs. His work, influenced by the constructivist principles he encountered in Western Europe, brought modernist principles to Bucharest’s architectural scene, bridging artistic expression with social purpose. By examining the cross-cultural exchanges between Romania and Western Europe, particularly in architecture, this paper highlights how Bucharest’s transformation mirrored the emergence of a radical avant-garde that critiqued both nationalism and conservatism.
Janco’s modernist architectural projects exemplify Bucharest’s shift toward a metropolitan modernism that merges international aesthetics with Romanian architectural heritage. Ultimately, this paper argues that the avant-garde architecture of Marcel Janco, informed by constructivist ideals, was pivotal in redefining Bucharest’s architectural identity, positioning the city as a dynamic site of cultural and aesthetic experimentation. By situating Bucharest within the broader framework of transnational modernism, this paper offers new insights into how avant-garde movements and urban development in Romania contributed to redefining regional and national identities during a period of profound change.
Raluca Alexandrescu
Politicizing Nature in the Carpathian Mountains around 1900: From Regional Perspectives to Nation-Building Narratives
The presentation will explore the links between regional identities and national identity as set into the stage of Romanian State modernization process during late 19th century. Our goal is to interrogate the ways of centralizing institutions by politicizing Nature in the particular regional context of Prahova Valley and Carpathian Mountains around the border with the Habsburg Empire. The process is also associated with a broader context of important economic and political transformations all around Europe, during what is usually called The Grand Acceleration of the Industrial revolution in the late 19th century and early 20th century. Analyzing several case studies by using the conceptual history of the environment, the presentation will follow the modernization process filtered through conceptualizing the possession of nature in a new form putting together local identities and national narrative. The presentation will also explore how the narratives of claiming locally the exploitation of nature as a way of national development and modernization are to be understood also in an intergenerational transmission of concept and/or stereotypes. Those are often linked to nationalistic discourses: the patriotic narrative draws from a certain nationalistic cult of Nature. At the turn of Nineteenth century, Romanian central and east European popular patriotism emerges also from that ideological entanglement.
Wednesday, November, 20th
(Ferdinand Room, “Alexandru Ioan Cuza” University)
11.30-13.00: Third Panel
Alexandru Cohal & George Ţurcănaşu
The Beauty of Linguistic Centralism in Language Standardization: “We are all periphery”
In the process of language standardization (Haugen 1997) that affected Southern and Southeastern European countries in the 19th and 20th centuries, the elites interpreted political and cultural emancipation from empires through the romantic cultural model of linguistic standardization, centered on the national language, alongside territory and ethnicity.
Motivated by monolingual ideology, centralist language policies from former empires (France, Spain, Germany, etc.) were transferred to new nation-states without mechanisms to address the cultural, economic, and political inequalities it caused at the territorial and linguistic periphery. Peripheral regions in the new CEE nations, lacking the long-standing regional cultural traditions of France, Germany, and Britain prior to the 19th century, lost the battle against linguistic uniformity imposed by standardization, and regional linguistic communities in these countries, though resisting centralism to varying degrees, became increasingly marginalized.
The impact of standardization on perceptions of regional linguistic varieties or on the social, economic, and cultural capital of those outside the linguistic power centers of the new nation-states was overlooked. The perverse effect of linguistic centralism, which persists in these countries today, has been the opposite of the original Jacobin ideals, which imagined that the use of a standardized linguistic code would democratize society and ensure equal access to power for all citizens. On the contrary, with the intensification of linguistic centralism and the cultural homogenization of the periphery, all communities, whether distant or close to the linguistic norm-setting center, appear to become peripheral.
At the conference, I will present a comparative analysis of the linguistic standardization policies in CEE countries during the 19th and 20th centuries, with a focus on Balkan countries, emphasizing the center-periphery relationship between regions imposing the standard and those upon which the standard is imposed.
I will show that (1) the codification of the standard language did not result from a compromise between the dialects and regional varieties of official languages but most often involved elevating one linguistic variety to the status of a language while ignoring others; (2) the standard language ideology, eroded the prestige of Romanian regional linguistic communities, initially those located farther from the linguistic norm-setting center, and progressively, all linguistic communities across the national territory.
Csaba Katona
The Birth of an Imperial Capital: Budapest and the Imperial Idea
In 1867, a new state was established in Europe, the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy. Hungary regained its legislative independence. The Hungarian state managed his internal affairs himself, he was responsible for his government and parliament. The common affairs of the Monarchy were foreign affairs and military affairs, as well as related financial affairs. With this, Hungary became part of an big empire and even a leading state. Six years later, in 1873, three cities on the banks of the Danube, Pest, Buda, and Óbuda, united under the name Budapest. Budapest grew into a big cosmoplis very quickly. The population of the capital increased from 270 thousand to 880 thousand between 1869 and 1910. The number of houses increased from 9,300 to 17,000. In 1867, three-quarters of the houses had one floor, 6% were two-story houses, and 2% were three- or four-story houses. In 1914, half of the houses had one floor, 35% had one or two floors, and 15% had three, four or more floors. The rapid development was managed by the Public Wor Counis of Budapest. This was already established in 1870, earlier than Budapest. It was chaired by the Hungarian Prime Minister and coordinated the development of the new capital. Budapest’s very rapid development is due to extremely quick decisions. Why and how did this happen? Because Budapest was built not only as the capital of Hungary, but also as an imperial capital. An imperial capital equal to Vienna. In my lecture, I will show how and how the imperial idea influenced the creation of Budapest.
Mihai Chiper
Moldavia: Historical Agency, Debasement, and Inferiorization after the Union
This study investigates, from the perspective of cultural history, the impact of the colonialist/orientalist vision on the unification process between Moldavia and Wallachia after 1859. While administrative and political centralization was the rational model consciously assumed by the political elites, the orientalist intellectual concepts adopted by the political and cultural elites from European literature and culture imposed a distribution of civilizational roles, as well as a dynamic of power disputes between Moldavians and Wallachians. In order to define their civilizing mission, the Wallachians resorted to rhetorical strategies of debasement, aimed at diminishing the qualities of their “brothers” from across the Milcov, with the objective of denying a type of historical agency for Moldavians. Moldavia is assigned an inferior and problematic profile, in opposition to an advanced Wallachia, endowed with superior leadership capabilities and indispensable qualities for fulfilling the national project. Wallachia is “progressive,” the center of Romanian identity, while Moldavia, undergoing denationalization, is a decadent shadow of historical past, losing its prestige. In terms of essentialism and cultural determinism, the Wallachian elites focus their anxieties about the country’s backwardness onto a marginal geographic region.
Wednesday, November, 20th
(Vespasian Pella Room, “Alexandru Ioan Cuza” University)
11.30-13.00: Fourth Panel
Mircea-Cristian Ghenghea
Plagiarism and University Life in Romania at the end of the 19th century. The Case of the University of Iaşi
As a phenomenon that began to be acknowledged and theorized in the 19th century throughout the Romanian society, plagiarism relatively quickly demonstrated its unfortunate impact on literary and intellectual work and property. Given that the general process of modernization intensified only after 1859, when the modern Romanian nation-state was established, it is easily understandable that specific legal regulations also began to appear only after this date. However, the emergence of certain laws did not automatically produce the expected effects, and towards the end of the century the Romanian intellectual life was confronted with this scourge, which also directly affected the academic circles of the time. From this point of view, we present, through our text, some of the cases of plagiarism related to the University of Iaşi at the end of the 19th century while trying to integrate them within the general background of this phenomenon at national level.
Ionel Boamfă
The Chrono-Spatial Distribution of some Demographic and Socio-Economic Variables in the Romanian Space in the Last Two Centuries
We propose to highlight the chrono-spatial distribution of some demographic and socio-demographic variables for the Romanian space from the beginning of the 19th century until today. It is about the share of the urban population, the population density, the structure of the population by large age groups, the economic structure of the active population, the gross domestic product per inhabitant.
To achieve this approach, we used a research methodology that includes two categories of methods. The first category includes documentation sources, represented by statistical-fiscal sources (conscriptions, censuses), population censuses, yearbooks, encyclopedias, data published by various national institutions (National Institute of Statistics, National Commission for Statistics and Prognosis, National Agency for Employment). The second category of methods includes the statistical method, the cartographic method and the geographical method.
For the comparability of the data represented, we used a timeless, conventional county map background of the Romanian space, including the territory included between the borders of the Romanian state, even for a short time interval.
Răzvan Pârâianu
Nation Building and the Byzantine Turn in Fin‑de-siècle Romanian Culture and Politics
After the Greek Revolution of 1821, the influence of the Greeks in the Romanian Principalities decreased significantly. The Phanariot regime was overthrown, and for more than half a century, the Phanariot influence became synonymous with corruption, decay, and Oriental despotism. However, starting with the second part of the 19th century, a new attitude towards the history of the Romanian Principalities under the Ottoman yoke was visible, and then references to the Byzantine heritage of the Romanians surfaced in the public sphere. As Byzantium and its influence began to be reevaluated in Western art and literature (John Ruskin, William Morris, Eugène Viollet-le-Duc, etc.) and, at the same time, became a constant reference for the Russian conservatism, in Romania this influence became increasingly important, questioning the old anti-Phanariot ethos. Influenced by the works of J. B. Bullen and Diana Mishkova, but also by the literature on the politics and culture of the late 19th century in Europe (Carl Schorske, Walter Adamson, and many others), my paper will trace this evolution up to the Balkan Wars. From the first manifestations occasioned by the international exhibition in Paris in 1867, to the disputes regarding the Romanian style triggered by the restorations carried out by André Lecomte du Noüy, then from the works of Constantin Erbiceanu, who re-evaluated the Phanariot era, to, finally, the conferences delivered by Nicolae Iorga in 1913, when he fashioned Romania as the true heir of the Byzantine spirit. My paper will propose a cultural history of this Byzantine theme during this period in order to finally conclude that this Byzantine idea is part of an antiliberal Weltanschauung, what can be called, fin-de-siècle Romanian culture and politics.
Wednesday, November, 20th
(Ferdinand Room, “Alexandru Ioan Cuza” University)
IV. Provincial Heritage: Features of the National Discourse
Wednesday, November, 20th
(Ferdinand Room, “Alexandru Ioan Cuza” University)
15.45-16.45: Plenary Session
Gabriel Leanca
Connecting to Europe: The French-Language Press in Modern Romanian Context (1790-1878)
(Online Zoom)
The use of French language in press outside the European and North-American French-speaking world received limited scholarly attention. The present research does not focus on the various types and contexts of the French colonial press, but tries to provide an insight into the evolution of the French-language newspapers in South-Eastern Europe, shedding light more particularly on the Romanian case. Unfortunately, any research undertaken on this specific subject can only be incomplete because some of the periodical publications of interest for our research do not exist anymore. The only traces they left were in older specialised bibliographies that dissected the development of the Romanian press during the long 19th century. It goes without saying that a detailed inventory of these historical documents should be created in order to update the existing information about them, as well as their physical location, if possible, for all of them. But despite the various difficulties in gathering all the primary sources for such an analysis, a number of preliminary observations that may refine some of the very few perspectives on this subject can be put together. It may also give the Romanian ingredient the attention it deserves in mapping the circulation of French language in the printed culture in the late Ottoman Empire, as well as in the newly established political entities in the Balkans for the time framework proposed in this research. This article discusses the French-language press in modern Romanian cultural and political context, from the first attempts to the establishment of the Havas News Agency branch at Bucharest (1878). It analyses some of the most important French-language newspapers and the ways in which they embodied certain tendencies and styles.
Alexandru Daneş
Nation and Nationalism in Romanian Territorial Heraldry (1859-1989)
Starting in 1859, a new political entity was born in South-Eastern Europe: the United Principalities of Moldavia and Wallachia, under the reign of Prince Alexander John I. This country – which eventually adopted the name of Romania – while led by the same men who inspired the generous ideas of the 1848-49 Revolution, tried from the very beginning to find and establish its national identity, in all domains, including territorial heraldry.
This article follows the long heraldic journey from 1859 until 1989, an interval that can be divided into three distinct eras. First, from 1859 to 1918, is the age of European Wild East of territorial heraldry, based on traditions and legends and lacking almost any heraldic discipline. It is an epoch of great national developments: unification, independence, becoming a kingdom and territorial enlargements. The second, from 1919 to 1947, is the period of heraldic coming of age and uniformization, under the excellent guidance of the Heraldic Consulting Committee, who tried its best to reconcile the traditional Romanian territorial coats of arms with the Hungarian, Austrian and Russian heraldic systems, which were quite different. Lastly, from 1948 to 1989, under the communist yoke, who eradicated all coats of arms adopted prior and then proceded to twist and turn the old national symbols in order to suit their views and values.
Wednesday, November, 20th
(Online Zoom)
17.00-19.00: Fifth Panel
Tatiana Scurtu
Les élites roumaines des Trois Sièges aux XVIIIe et XIXe siècles
(Online Zoom)
La structure ethnique et confessionnelle du siège des Trois Sièges, dans lequel les Roumains étaient numériquement minoritaires, a marqué l’activité de l’élite roumaine. Malgré toutes les difficultés rencontrées dans la scolarisation et la formation professionnelle de l’élite roumaine dans les localités des sièges des Sicules, d’importants nobles et intellectuels se sont affirmés dans la vie publique de la Transylvanie au cours des XVIIIe et XIXe siècles. Les documents du XVIIIe siècle conservés aux Archives Nationales de Covasna contiennent des lettres, des procès-verbaux, des déclarations et des ordonnances gouvernementales concernant l’anoblissement de familles ou des actes administratifs effectués par celles-ci en relation avec leurs propriétés. Au XIXe siècle, de nombreux étudiants roumains du siège des Trois Sièges qui ont étudié dans des universités européennes ont été identifiés. En outre, un certain nombre de personnalités roumaines ou d’origine roumaine de la courbure intracarpatique se sont également établies dans la culture hongroise. Ainsi, l’intelligentsia laïque et ecclésiastique a formé une couche sociale dans les Trois Selles capable de promouvoir et de soutenir la langue, la culture, la foi, les intérêts et les valeurs de la population roumaine.
Gheorghe Negru
La peur du „danger roumain” comme prétexte à l’intensification de la russification en Bessarabie (seconde moitié du XIXème siècle)
(Online Zoom)
Les documents d’archives révèlent le mécontentement constant des autorités tsaristes à l’égard de l’union des principautés roumaines en 1859 et de l’orientation politique pro-occidentale du jeune État roumain, considéré comme anti-russe. Ils ont perçu la nouvelle formation de l’État à travers le Prut comme un danger pour sa tranquillité et son intégrité territoriale. En réponse, ils ont eu recours, à l’avance, à un resserrement drastique de la politique de russification, au changement du paradigme de la politique nationale en Bessarabie. La politique antérieure de „désengagements tactiques” qui, plus ou moins, tenait compte de la „spécificité locale” de la Bessarabie fut remplacée, dans les années 60 du XIXème siècle, par une politique nationale complètement restrictive. Depuis 1862, toutes les nouvelles initiatives des intellectuels et des boyards moldaves, qui prévoyaient l’affirmation de la langue nationale et de la culture en Bessarabie, ont été rejetées, afin de contrer la consolidation de l’identité roumaine et les tendances possibles de l’union de la Bessarabie avec la Roumanie. En 1865, dans le cadre de la recherche de solutions pour renforcer et rationaliser la politique de russification, le gouverneur de Bessarabie a demandé la transmission des corps de garde-frontières et des douanes à la frontière avec la Roumanie pour renforcer la surveillance politique de la frontière et transformer le Prut en une barrière politique insurmontable. En 1866, après la publication des manuels scolaires „pleins de romanisme” d’Ioan Doncev, le processus d’annulation de l’enseignement du roumain dans tous les types d’écoles de Bessarabie a commencé. En 1867, à la demande du ministre de l’Éducation de l’Empire russe, le comte D. Tolstoy, profondément insatisfait des progrès de la russification dans les villages moldaves, par suite de l’impact de l’ „union de la Moldavie avec la Valachie”, a commencé le processus de restructuration de l’enseignement primaire en Bessarabie, c’est-à-dire la transformation des écoles paroissiales roumaines en écoles russes et la construction d’un nouveau système d’enseignement primaire totalement russifié.
Jérémy Floutier
La représentation des villes transylvaines dans les manuels scolaires hongrois de 1920 à 1990
(Online Zoom)
Au travers de la représentation faite des villes de la Transylvanie dite élargie dans les manuels scolaires, cette communication vise à mettre au jour le rapport officiel entretenu avec ce territoire qui occupe une place centrale dans la conscience collective hongroise. Outre le poids mémoriel des villes de la région dans l’imaginaire collectif hongrois, l’espace urbain transylvain – au contraire des campagnes – disposa de la particularité d’avoir été majoritairement peuplé par les minorités hongroise et allemande jusqu’à la seconde moitié du XXe siècle. Dès lors, comment évolua l’image des villes transylvaines dans les manuels de géographie publiés et utilisés en Hongrie entre la fin de la Première Guerre mondiale et le changement de régime en 1989/1990 et quelle influence joua le contexte politique ?
Le manuel scolaire, cette fausse évidence historique, est placé au cœur de la politique mémorielle de tout pouvoir politique qui exerce une influence tangible sur son contenu. Au cours de l’entre-deux-guerres, la Hongrie du régent Miklós Horthy œuvra avant tout à la révision du traité de Trianon et entretint ainsi une politique mémorielle ouvertement irrédentiste. 1945 marqua un tournant majeur, puisque la domination soviétique sur le pays, puis l’instauration du socialisme d’État changea considérablement le rapport entretenu aux anciens territoires. Dans le cadre de la fraternité socialiste, toute révision des frontières ne pouvait être exposée, alors que selon la rhétorique officielle la question nationale était désormais résolue par la seule application des principes léninistes. La mémoire de la Transylvanie fut alors sacrifiée sur l’autel de l’internationalisme, sans toutefois totalement disparaître des manuels scolaires. À partir des années 1960, « la dictature molle » de János Kádár et la détérioration des relations entre Budapest et Bucarest permit un retour timide des villes transylvaines dans les livres scolaires.
Elena Negru
L’Union soviétique comme „machine pour la fabrication des nations”. Le projet stalinien d’ingénierie ethnoculturelle en R.S.S. Moldave (1940-1941, 1944-1953) (Online Zoom)
La communication examine comment le régime soviétique a tenté de mettre en œuvre le plan de construction nationale sur le territoire entre le Prut et le Dniestr après son occupation en juin 1940, puis après sa réoccupation en mars 1944, ainsi que pendant la première décennie d’après-guerre. Afin de faciliter la compréhension du caractère géopolitique profond, les racines de ce projet seront mises en évidence, le contexte de son apparition et de sa mise en œuvre à l’est du Dniestr, Là où en 1924-1940 une république autonome moldave fonctionnait comme partie de l’Ukraine soviétique, elle a servi de tête de pont pour l’expansion de la révolution sur la rive droite du Dniestr, c’est-à-dire en Roumanie. Le territoire de cette entité comptait une population totale de 572 mille habitants, dont 172 mille ,,moldaves” soit 30,1%. En 1940, l’URSS a lancé un ultimatum à la Roumanie, affirmant qu’il existait en Bessarabie un peuple dit moldave sous occupation roumaine, ce qui l’a obligée à céder la province située entre le Prut et le Dniestr. Suite à la fusion de six districts de l’ancienne RASSM avec six comtés en Bessarabie, une nouvelle entité a été créée le 2 août 1940, qui sera désormais appelée RSMS. En conséquence, le projet de construction d’identité sera mis en œuvre, qui a été expérimenté sur la rive gauche du Dniestr pendant une décennie et demie. Ce projet ethnoculturel était fondé sur l’idée des différences et de la séparation entre la langue, la culture et l’identité nationale de la RSS Moldave et de la Roumanie, dans le but d’inventer une langue, une culture et une nation ,,moldaves” d’origine prolétarienne. Au cours de la première décennie d’après-guerre, sur le territoire entre le Prut et le Dniestr, les expériences les plus sinistres ont été lancées et mises en œuvre, visant à démolir l’identité roumaine et les bases culturelles, tout d’abord, la langue roumaine et l’écriture avec l’alphabet latin, en transposant à leur place une langue qui avait le nom de ,,moldave” et était écrite avec l’alphabet russe. La ligne d’analyse couvrira également les aspects liés à l’interdiction de la langue roumaine et de l’alphabet latin, à la création de la ,,langue moldave”, à l’écriture de l’histoire, à la capitalisation du patrimoine littéraire classique, à la politique de ,, moldovanisation” et ,, l’indigénisation” comme stratagèmes de russification, ainsi que ceux liés à la destruction de la vieille mentalité ,,,bourgeoise” et à la rééducation idéologique de la population dans l’esprit communiste.
Wednesday, November, 20th
(Ferdinand Room, “Alexandru Ioan Cuza” University)
17.00-19.30: Sixth Panel
Liviu Brătescu
The Political Elite from Moldavia in the Second Half of the Nineteenth Century and the Challenges of Centralism: Integration Strategies and Discursive Practices
The present text aims, in its first part, to carry out a quantitative analysis regarding the presence of the political elite from Moldova in the gearing of the unitary Romanian state and specially to surprise how the Moldovan liberals and conservatives succeed, at the same time, to integrate into the leadership structures of the political formations and to occupy important legislative and executive positions on their behalf.
The second part of the text will be focused on the integration and “imposition” strategies followed by the political leaders from the old capital of Moldova and the other counties, highlighting the discourse used by them and not ultimately the causes that led to the establishment of regional parties or local factions.
We are interested in identifying the way in which all these leaders relate in real terms, regardless of the political family of which they belong to the political “Centre”, but also to the centralization project of the Romanian state. Our concern will be to the same extent to see if, during the period under consideration, there will be protests against the bill of April 3, 1866, or other forms of public expression such as press articles or speeches from the Parliament’s rostrum in which to talk about the importance for the proper functioning of the Romanian state, of a correct representation within its power structure.
In the end, our historiographical incursion will have one last objective, namely finding an answer to the question regarding the success of the process of integration of the political elite from Moldova and the development by it of some projects for the region from which it came.
Piotr Kręzel
Vienna-Warsaw-Petersburg 18th Century European Capital Cities in “Mémoire” by Simeon Piščević
(Online Zoom)
Simeon Piščević (1737-1798) was a Serbian memoirist and one of the most important observers of Balkan ethnicities living on Habsburg-Ottoman borderline in the early modern period. His “Mémoire” also include a lot of valuable information and reflections on political and cultural centres in central and eastern Europe in the 18th century.
The purpose of this presentation is to present selected descriptions of European capital cities by Piščević, with special emphasis on Vienna, Warsaw, and Petersburg, where the author spent many months. His observations were focused on many aspects of these cities – social and cultural, but also political and military life. The two last will be dominant in this presentation. Various literary descriptions of these places by Piščević will be also discussed. At last, I will attempt to determine the reason for subjectivism of the narrative in “Mémoire”, and for author’s identification with one specific capital city. Due to materials’ complexity, historical, literary, and memory studies research methods will be used in the presentation.
Lucian Turcu
The First Hero of all Romanians: Avram Iancu and the National Significance of the First Centenary of his Birth (1924)
The centenary of Avram Iancu’s birth 100 years ago took place in a radically changed state compared to the one in which he was born, lived and sacrificed for the good of his people. It is about Greater Romania, the state that appeared on the map of Europe at the end of the First World War. The internal consolidation of the young Romanian state was based not only on an extensive effort to homogenize and standardize legislation, to expand and diversify the authority of various institutions or to rethink educational and cultural strategies, but it was also to be achieved by marking the public space through festive events. These events had both the role of contributing to the de-tensioning of Romanian society after a period of calamities and prolonged deprivation, as well as of ensuring the coalition of Romanians around some national symbols. After the solemnity of the coronation of the sovereigns of Romania in Alba Iulia on October 15, 1922, the time had come to commemorate one of the most important historical figures placed at the service of Romanian emancipation in the 19th century. It is about none other than Avram Iancu, the hero of Transylvanian Romanians during the revolution of 1848-1849 and the years that followed.
Our paper examines the events circumscribed to the celebration of the centenary of the birth of Avram Iancu organized by the officials of that time in the capital of the country and in other “places of memory” in Transylvania, the cultural initiatives put in the service of honoring the life and activity of the hero from 1848, but also the place which Avram Iancu acquired in the national pantheon of Greater Romania.
Esmeralda Kolaneci
The Instrumentalization of Language: Unifying Written Albanian and the Forging of a National Identity in The Albanian Renaissance
(Online Zoom)
This paper analyzes the Albanian National Renaissance through the critical lens of linguistic unification, positing that the standardization of written Albanian transcended a purely linguistic project to become a potent instrument of national self-assertion and a catalyst for self-determination. Grounded in a theoretical framework that recognizes language as intrinsically bound to collective identity formation and sociopolitical mobilization, this study argues that Albanian revivalists strategically operationalized linguistic standardization to navigate the complex interplay of internal fragmentation and external pressures.
The late 19th and early 20th centuries witnessed a fragmented Albanian sociocultural landscape, characterized by regional dialects and competing writing systems, often reflecting historical allegiances and rivalries. This linguistic heterogeneity presented a significant obstacle to the burgeoning Albanian national movement. This paper contends that the standardization of written Albanian functioned not merely as a technical exercise but as a deliberate act of nation-building, forging a shared cultural identity capable of transcending these divisions.
Furthermore, this paper examines how a unified written language served as a strategic defense against the assimilationist pressures exerted by neighboring Balkan states and European powers invested in maintaining the existing geopolitical order. By cultivating a distinct linguistic identity, Albanian intellectuals asserted their national distinctiveness within the broader European context, challenging dominant narratives that denied their right to self-determination. Through an analysis of primary sources, including correspondence between Albanian revivalists and diplomatic documents, this paper illuminates the intricate relationship between linguistic unification, national identity formation, and geopolitical strategy during this pivotal era.
Ultimately, this analysis demonstrates that the standardization of written Albanian was not merely a byproduct of cultural awakening, but a strategic imperative in the Albanian struggle for national self-determination, underscoring the profound capacity of language to shape not only thought but also political destinies.
Ante Bralić & Filip Lenić
The Role of the Zadar Cultural Circle in the Standardization of the Croatian Language in the Nineteenth Century
(Online Zoom)
In the second third of the 19th Century the process of the standardization of the Croatian language amid all difficulties had entered in the final stage. The difficulties were numerous; there where three dialects (shtokavian, kaikavian and chakavian) with several minor dialects, the Croatian lands were territorially disintegrated and there was a dominance of the use of other major languages in the public communication and education (Italian, German and Latin). Nevertheless, the activity of the individuals and groups within the Illyrian movement founded in the northern Croatia which have formed Zagreb philological school, had continued the language standardization process. However, on the south, in the capital city of the Austrian Kingdom of Dalmatia, Zadar, there was a group gathered around the paper Zora Dalmatinska. Primarily Šime Starčević and Ante Kuzmanić had diverse approach to the standardization of the Croatian language. Eventually occurred a conflict between the linguists of the two capital cities, Zagreb and Zadar, and its description is the main presentation part at this conference. At the end of the 19th Century the third model had won, the one articulated by “the Croatian vukovci” (Broz, Iveković) which had in due course became the Croatian linguistic standard.
Wednesday, November, 20th
(Vespasian Pella Room, “Alexandru Ioan Cuza” University)
17.00-19.30: Seventh Panel – Doctoral Students Workshop
Joel Sidler
State Formation in Argentina. Theoretical Dialogues from the Periphery
(Online Zoom)
Latin American structuralism and dependency theories, in their various forms, have correctly emphasized external dynamics when analyzing the social structuring processes in Latin America, particularly in Argentina. Contributions by Raúl Prebisch, Fernando Henrique Cardoso, Enzo Faletto, and Theotonio dos Santos have shaped intellectual currents that focus on the connections between commercial flows, local elites, and external influences. However, this emphasis on external factors has often overlooked the process of state formation as an object of study, leaving the role of the state, its power, and capacities as secondary considerations. On the other hand, institutionalist approaches have concentrated on the state and its historically constructed capacities, but with a marked focus on internal dynamics and a state-centered perspective. This approach has created significant challenges when attempting to understand the state as a central actor in development and its constraints when dealing with other social actors. Also, by neglecting external dynamics and the unified functioning of the capitalist system, these perspectives have provided limited tools to think beyond methodological nationalism. This paper seeks to synthesize an analysis of the Argentine state formation process by revisiting world-system theory and the Latin American Structuralism. We draw on systemic cycles of accumulation (CSAs), the role of British hegemony during the consolidation of Argentine state power and its spheres of intervention and the importance of center-periphery dynamics in the world-system. Specifically, we frame the period from the unification of the Argentine Confederation and the Buenos Aires Province (1860) to the 1930 crisis as the long process of state formation in Argentina. We argue that this period was shaped by external dynamics, particularly those triggered by the 1870 British financialization phase, which deeply influenced the configuration of power structures within which the Argentine state exercised its authority and maneuvered within specific limits.
Bruno Šagi
Multinational Cities of the 19th Century: Lviv and Kyiv – An Overview of Inter-Ethnic Relations
(Online Zoom)
Lviv and Kyiv are cities located in Ukraine today. Throughout history, today’s territory of Ukraine belonged to different states. In the 19th century, Lviv (Lemberg, Lwów…) was part of Galicia, which was an Austrian crown land, while Kyiv (Kiev…) was part of the Russian Empire. Both cities were multinational in terms of population.
This work shows the similarities and differences between the relations of the Austrian authorities in Lviv and the Russian authorities in Kyiv towards the different peoples who were an integral part of those cities. The focus of the work is on the Poles, Ukrainians and Jews as three peoples who stood out in the national-political turmoil during the 19th century in both areas. Jews were developing their intellectual institutions at this time, but at the same time they were faced with anti-Semitic attitudes in society. As for the Poles, one can notice their desire for the restoration of Poland and their activities directed against the government. In this century, Lviv and Kyiv were especially important for Ukrainians and were some of the centers of the development of Ukrainian identity. Therefore, this work also mentions different views on the solution of some national issues during the 19th century.
The multinationality of Lviv and Kyiv during the 19th century became a topic that is present in contemporary literature (S. Bilenky, M. F. Hamm, J. Czaplicka, N. M. Meir, etc.), but there is a lack of works in which the comparative historical method was used, such as used in this work.
Victor Risciuc
Looking West: American Images and Examples for the Emancipation of Romanians in Transylvania (Late 18th to Early 20th Centuries)
This presentation addresses the complexity of the emancipation of the Romanian nation in Transylvania during the 19th and 20th centuries, analyzing the North American influences on this process. Key events in U.S. history, such as the Declaration of Independence and the American Revolutionary War, had a significant impact on the Romanians in Transylvania, stimulating their struggle for the recognition of national rights and freedoms. Through the document “Supplex Libellus Valachorum” from 1791, we can see how the ideals of European and American Enlightenment were integrated into the claims of the Transylvanian Romanians. The period between the early 19th century and the end of World War I was marked by a considerable expansion of American influences, driven by Romanian publications, the increased printing of translated American works, and a growing wave of emigration to the United States. The image of the United States as a symbol of political, religious, and social freedom became entrenched in Romanian culture during this time, evolving into an ideal model of national aspiration that profoundly influenced the Romanian mindset. This perception was further amplified by the nationalist principles promoted by President Woodrow Wilson, which supported ideals of unity and national emancipation, culminating in the Great Union of 1918. Thus, the analysis of the connections between American ideals and Romanian emancipation movements highlights how international context can influence national processes of self-determination. In presenting all these aspects, period sources, represented by memoirs and press/publications (both from across the ocean and within Romania), play a crucial role in shaping the historical discourse, illustrating how ideas and events from the United States influenced the national discourse of Romanians in Transylvania.
Teodora Turcu
The Concept of Nation in the Speeches of the Romanian Clerical Elite in the Hungarian Parliament. The Case of the Orthodox Metropolitan Miron Romanul
Far from being uniformly defined, the concept of nation took on various forms and meanings for the romanian elites in Transylvania at the end of the 19th century, and one of the strong voices of the period who opined around it was that of Metropolitan Miron Romanul. The definition and defense of national identity in the speech of the romanian elite in the Upper House of the Hungarian Parliament had to take into account, first of all, the interests of the nation that this elite – ecclesiastical and (increasingly) secular – represented, but also the dynamics of the relationship of forces within the different groups of power and influence in the Romanian society of the time. Continuing the line of political activism of his predecessor (Andrei Ş aguna), Miron Romanul tried to collaborate with the Budapest authorities, which caused a damage to his image among the nationalist opinion groups in Transylvania.
In this study, we will follow the conception of the romanian nation in the vision of Miron Romanul in the legislative debates of the last two decades of the 19th century, debates generated by the initiative to introduce the hungarian language as a compulsory language in the schools of non-Hungarian nationalities in Transleithania. The analysis of the discourses of the clerical elite will shed light on the importance of language as the identity foundation of the concept of nation, and one of the arguments used in its defense was to guarantee the right of nationalities, through the laws establishing the dualist system, to express themselves in their own language.
Mihai Tudosă
Boosting Morale in the Nation’s Darkest Hour. The Newspaper “România, organ al apărării naţionale”, Iaşi, 1917-1918
After the series of serious defeats of the Romanian army in the autumn of 1916, the central military institution settled in Jassy tried to boost the morale of the Romanians by publishing a daily newspaper named “România, organ al apărării naţionale” [Romania, Paper of the National Defence]. As it was directly subordinated to the Romanian H.Q., it gathered the finest writers from the Old Kingdom and Transylvania (regardless of their personal political opinions), also having advantages like an easier censorship, frontline correspondents and access to the foreign news. Thus, even if it was initially regarded as a newspaper for the troops, it became highly popular between the Romanian civilian population, some thousands of editions even being transported to the Russian prisoner camps in order to convince the Romanians captured as members of the Austro-Hungarian army to join the fight for the Greater Romania.
The research aimed to highlight more than the general lines of the articles from the newspaper. With the help of memoirs and archive documents published in former studies and scientific articles, I aimed to recreate the organisational effort for editing the newspaper, printing and distribution of its editions, as well as how it was regarded by the contemporaries and its echoes after the war ending, also focusing on the role that Jassy had as a catalyst for the national resistance in the times of the Refuge.
Thursday, November, 21st
(Ferdinand Room, “Alexandru Ioan Cuza” University)
V. Integration or Uniformity? The Modern State and the Regional Historical Tradition
Thursday, November, 21st
(Ferdinand Room, “Alexandru Ioan Cuza” University)
9.45-11.15: Plenary Session
Cosmin Mihuţ
Provincial Mores versus Shared Political Ideas: Foreign Officials’ Observations on Moldo-Wallachian Elite in the mid-Nineteenth Century
In the mid-nineteenth century, as the Principalities of Moldavia and Wallachia united under a single political framework, a part of the elite from Iaşi – the former capital of Moldavia – viewed the political shift to Bucharest with a sense of nostalgia and loss. This paper examines the observations of foreign officials on the manner in which the former boyars, steeped in traditions and accustomed to a central role in the region’s politics, perceived all the changes brought about by the growing dominance of Bucharest. The foreign officials commented on their attitudes, observing that, for some, the move of the capital to Bucharest represented more than just a political shift, and it seemed to mark the decline of their city’s historical and cultural significance. Moreover, the growing influence of the new capital created a sense of political marginalization, and many of the Iaşi elites felt that their voices were being drowned out by the epicenter of the new political order. Foreign officials observed this tension, noting how the elite from Iaşi seemed torn between their attachment to Moldavia’s past and the political values of the newly created state.
Efrem Yildiz Sadak
Multilingualism and the Teaching of Semitic Languages at European Universities
Multilingualism in Western society is going through a significant phase, as academia is looking for mechanisms that promote the preservation of languages, despite the undisputed dominance of the English language at all levels. In the past, we can see bilingual societies due to commercial needs or mass deportations of entire peoples that led to the emergence of a second language that came not only to coexist with the language of the empire but also to eclipse it over time.
Multilingualism in European society is an increasingly tangible reality. The mobilities of European teaching and research staff and students have made it possible today to speak of multilingualism almost as a natural matter of course. European alliances, such as EC2U, have already included this phenomenon of multilingualism in the design of their training proposals at master’s level.
There is a need to highlight the teaching of languages practised on the European continent. What space do Semitic languages have in modern European society? Since when have Semitic languages been taught in European universities? In this conference we will try to answer these questions because Semitic languages already have a high percentage of speakers of Semitic languages. These languages imply a deeper knowledge of the people who speak and practice them on the European continent, which today is the best ground where a multitude of languages are cultivated for a better understanding of the multitude of cultures that coexist in Europe.
Virgiliu Ţârău
A Regional Capital in Transition. Hopes and Realities in the Administration of Cluj, October 1944 – March 1944
Liberated and militarily administered by the Soviet army in October 1944, Cluj became the center of administrative policies in northern Transylvania in the following months. Under Soviet control, and also as a result of a pact among local elites, political structures and organizations were projected and developed here to autonomously coordinate this region. Later, during the height of the Stalinist era, these attempts at autonomy were condemned and prosecuted by the people’s justice, and some of those who supported them were arrested and sentenced. Our intervention draws on historical documents and personal accounts, as well as records from political and administrative authorities, and information from the judicial and police environments, including courts and the Security services, in both Romania and Hungary.
Thursday, November, 21st
(Ferdinand Room, “Alexandru Ioan Cuza” University)
11.30-13.30: Eighth Panel
Mihai-Bogdan Atanasiu
Uprooting and Reintegration into Orthodox World of the Old Regime: On the History of Moldavian Migration to Russian Empire (18th Century)
After the Battle of Stănileşti, in July 1711, a large part of the Moldavian political, administrative and military elite, together with Dimitrie Cantemir, set off for Kharkov, where Tsar Peter the Great divided a vast territory into regions such as Novomlisk, Balacleika, Colodejna, Dvurecinâi Kut, Kursk.
Our presentation is part of a larger article in which we analyzed the evolution over time of several families from the group of refugees, observing how, over three or four generations until the end of the 18th century, they merged into the great mass of the population of the Russian Empire. By way of example, in the short time allotted to this communication, I have chosen to present the case of the Bantăş family, one representative of the situation of all refugee families.
The conclusions bring into discussion how, over time, these people and their descendants, losing hope of returning to Moldavia, progressively diluted their resistance to integration, accepting imperial military service, marriages with natives, jobs in local administrations, geographical spread, adoption of the Russian onomastic heritage, etc. However, a series of traditions, symbols, patronymics and stories orally perpetuated allowed them to preserve some elements of the identity of their Moldavian ancestors.
Lama Allan Abusamra
Diplomatic Immunity and the Formation of National Identity: Regional Impacts in Nineteenth-Century Europe
This paper will explore the relationship between diplomatic immunity and the construction of national identity in nineteenth-century Europe, with a focus on how regional identities influenced and were influenced by diplomatic practices. As European states navigated the complexities of nation-state building, the concept of diplomatic immunity became a critical tool in asserting sovereignty and establishing international norms. The study will examine how regions with distinct cultural and political traditions, such as the Balkans and the Italian states, interacted with these legal frameworks, affecting both their local identities and their relationships with central authorities.
By analyzing specific case studies, including the diplomatic interactions in cities like Constantinople and Florence, the paper will illustrate how regional elites utilized diplomatic immunity to navigate their status within the emerging national narratives. Additionally, it will consider the implications of these interactions for broader questions of national identity, including how the protection afforded by diplomatic immunity contributed to tensions between regional aspirations and national cohesion. Ultimately, this research aims to highlight the dual role of diplomatic immunity as both a mechanism of statecraft and a factor in the evolution of regional and national identities, shedding light on its lasting impact on contemporary diplomatic relations in Europe.
Maria Alexandra Pantea & Sebastian Bunghez
The Perception of Wilsonian Ideas by Transylvanian Intellectuals in 1918
(Online Zoom)
Wilsonian ideas, primarily the idea of self-determination of peoples, were perceived differently by Transylvanian intellectuals in 1918, depending on the ethnicity to which they belonged. Initially viewed with skepticism, they were embraced in the fall of 1918, as the victory of the Entente in the war was taking shape, by Romanians, Hungarians, and Germans alike. However, the interpretation given by the representatives of the three ethnic groups was different, reflecting the different conception of the nation that they had. Thus, the Romanians, influenced by the German idea of the ethnic nation, supported since the middle of October the separation of the territory inhabited by them from Austria-Hungary and then the Union with Romania. The Germans oscillated between maintaining the regions they inhabited within Hungary or supporting the Union with Romania, which promised them full national rights. The Hungarians pleaded for the preservation of a Greater Hungary, supporting the idea of the civic nation, of French origin. In the end, it can be said that intellectuals in each nation gave Wilsonian ideas the interpretation that best suited their national interests.
Anatolie Bajora
The Gagauz Movement: Autonomy and Ethnic Identity in Post-Soviet Moldova (Online Zoom)
This paper offers an interpretative and critical analysis of the Gagauz national movement in Moldova during the late 1980s to early 1990s, focusing on their push for territorial autonomy in the aftermath of the Soviet Union’s collapse. Drawing from declassified archives, books, and academic journals, the study applies theories of ethnicity and nationalism by scholars such as Erik Erikson and Anthony D. Smith. It highlights how the political transformation in Moldova, particularly the shift towards Romanian-Moldovan linguistic identity and the possible reunification with Romania, spurred the Gagauz elite’s desire for political autonomy. The paper further explores the influence of pro-Russian forces on the escalation of tensions and conflicts in the Gagauz region, as well as the Moldovan government’s response, which ultimately led to the establishment of the Autonomous Territorial Unit of Gagauzia in 1994. The paper contributes to understanding the complex interplay between ethnic identity, territorial claims, and national politics in post-Soviet Eastern Europe.
Thursday, November, 21st
(Online Zoom)
11.30-13.30: Ninth Panel
Zornitsa Draganova
“This frivolity was allowed …”*: Identity Narratives and Community Building before 1989 and Today (A Case Study of a Hub for Culture and Arts in the “Old Capital” of Bulgaria – Veliko Turnovo)
(Online Zoom)
The paper will present the history of an emblematic hub for culture and its role in the community building through narrative identity in the city of Veliko Turnovo (Bulgaria’s capital during medieval times and in the late 19th century). The “Club of cultural figures” was founded in 1967 as part of a network of similar spaces for culture and arts in many Bulgarian cities with the intention to serve as infrastructure for the initiatives of a large part of the local creative communities in Bulgaria. CCFs were supposed to stimulate meetings between artists from various fields, but also to spread the narratives and goals of the Party. Presentations of authors, talks, readings, film screenings were organized until shortly after the fall of the socialist government in 1989.
Recently, the place was revived as a hub for contemporary culture and arts and the process of revitalizing the physical but also the social space included a research on the story of the former “Club of cultural figures”. It consisted in a thorough exploration of documents and archives, and in-depth interviews with some of the key figures of the Club in the late 1980s.
Based on this research, the paper will attempt to reconstruct the function of a shared “social imaginarium” in the transformations of the identity narratives through the decades of social and political shifts. It will also discuss the effect of decentralization of culture and its role for the local community building “then and now”. The club today presents an interesting bricolage of 1) the collective memory for the importance of the city’s history, 2) the efforts of the cultural communities during socialist government to create a micro public sphere and 3) the discourse of a growing community around contemporary culture and arts, and current topics like urban regeneration.
* The first part of the title is a quote from an interview with a respondent and it reflects the duality of the situation in the “Club of cultural figures” before 1989 – of creative freedom beyond the political framework.
Gabriela Boangiu
Old Houses, New Mentalities: A “Told” History of Craiova’s Past
(Online Zoom)
This paper aims to highlight that the history of Craiova is shaped by the stories of various ethnic groups and professions that were once visible in the public space: Greek, Jewish, and Romanian merchants; shops, jewelers, tailors, pharmacies, and restaurants; and a diverse clientele. Photographs and paintings from the time capture life along the city’s main streets, reflecting the socio-cultural relations and the symbolic practices and representations of the past. Today, there is a pressing need for new aesthetic valorizations of these houses, which are historical monuments. This is particularly important when compared to the previous periods: the Kingdom era, the communist period (marked by a lack of representation), and the post-communist period. Within this context, this study seeks to analyze the current aesthetic and anthropological discourse surrounding these buildings.
Craiova still retains the air of French-inspired architecture in some of its active streets. Many residents recall the charm of the city before the demolitions of the communist era, but few are familiar with the city’s history before the socialist nationalization. An essential aspect of this study is the archiving of oral history documents, which emphasize the narrative of urban public spaces. It also investigates the social networks that promote the image of the old city, as well as current memories, conversations, and reflections among its citizens.
This study aims to address the need for contemporary research on the figurative representation of historic houses during the communist and post-communist periods. It examines both local and broader articulations – regional, national, and even international – by identifying the contemporary functions of these houses, the cultural significance of certain city streets, and the identity aspects they embody in the current period. Analyzing these elements can help unravel the subtle layers of today’s identity construction in Craiova.
Yanna Dimitriou
Reading Associations in Nineteenth Century Corfu: Shaping Identities Between Cosmopolitanism and Nationalism
(Online Zoom)
The distinct cultural identity of the Ionian Islands was forged through the influence of their Byzantine heritage and their long subjugation to Western powers. Their shared religion and language with the Greeks, who lived under Ottoman rule and later in the liberated Greek State, added to the uniqueness of this culture. Examining the history of the Ionian Islands in the 19th century requires a nuanced approach, one that is open to a multi-level exploration extending beyond the confines of the local context, reaching into broader European and Greek dimensions.
The prevalence of ‘extensive’ reading over ‘intensive’ in 19th century Europe influenced reading habits, prompting intellectuals to seek mechanisms that would facilitate the dissemination of books and the reading of newspapers. This was often achieved through the establishment of reading rooms and reading societies. The Ionian Islands, influenced by Western cultural trends, were among the first to adopt these evolving European reading habits.
These associations, through the practice of extensive reading, broadened scientific, social and political horizons. Understanding the characteristics of these voluntary organisations, as well as the profiles of their members, contributes to the study of the social and intellectual demands that shaped Corfiot and, by extension, Ionian society.
Networks of communication among the urban elites emerged diligently and patiently under the auspices of these reading societies and promoted lofty ideals, such as the cultivation of a national ideology envisioning the union of the Ionians with the newly established National Greek State.
The topic under consideration demands a dynamic approach. It requires the continuous co-examination of issues arising from the association of the Ionian Islands and European states. This is crucial for documenting the trajectory of how cultural and national identities were shaped through the formation of a reading public in Ionian society.
From the specific to the general, this article places the phenomenon within a broader European context, acknowledging that the Ionians, and especially Corfiots – Corfu was the capital of the Ionian State (1815-1864) – were influenced by Europe, and, in turn, exerted their own influence on the societies of the Greek territory from 1864 onwards. This integration strengthened and elevated the cultural level of the Greek State societies through the infusion of experiences and ideas that had arisen on the islands due to their prolonged contact with Western powers.
Khachatur Stepanyan
The Proclamation of the First Republic of Armenia and the Restoration of Armenian Independence
(Online Zoom)
After the Bolsheviks came to power in 1917, Russia withdrew from World War I. The Caucasian front of the war immediately collapsed, which allowed the Turks to launch an offensive in early 1918. In April 1918, at the demand of the Turks, Transcaucasia declared itself independent. The Transcaucasian Democratic Federative Republic was created. However, the Turks continued their offensive. As a result, the Transcaucasian Federation collapsed. In May 1918, the Armenian people showed heroic resistance to the Turkish invaders. After the heroic battles of Sardarapat and Bash-Aparan, the Turkish troops were pushed back from a part of Eastern Armenia, and on May 28, the Republic of Armenia was proclaimed. This was an important event in the life of the Armenian people. Armenian statehood, which had been destroyed about 6 centuries ago, was restored. Despite the lack of experience in state administration and the extremely difficult conditions in the country caused by the war and genocide, the government of the Republic of Armenia was able to solve the minimum task assigned to it. In a short period, it was possible to organize state life. The establishment of the First Republic of Armenia made it possible for Soviet Armenia to be included in the USSR as a union republic in December 1920, and after the collapse of the USSR, the Third Republic of Armenia was proclaimed.
At the same time, the political leadership, which found itself in exile after the fall of the First Republic, began to organize the Armenian diaspora. The dream of restoring independent statehood was an important motivation for the success of the Armenian preservation work in the diaspora.
In essence, the proclamation of the First Republic was of paramount importance in the life of the Armenian people; it guaranteed the existence of independent Armenian statehood in our days and ensured incomparably more favorable conditions for preserving Armenian identity.
CONFERENCE PARTICIPANTS:
Lama Allan Abusamra
PhD Researcher, University of Krakow. Recent publications: Mechanisms That Could Be Used to Prevent Diplomats from Abusing the Immunities and Privileges of Their Authority, in Z Problematyki Prawa Pracy I Polityki Socjalnej, 2024, p. 1-17.
Raluca Alexandrescu
PhD Associate Professor habil., Department of Comparative Governance and European Studies, Faculty of Political Sciences, University of Bucharest. Recent publications: Les politiques de l’éternité Réflexions sur les fondements idéologiques de la «Grande Roumanie», in Recherches: Culture et Histoire dans l’Espace Roman, 30, 2023, p. 143-155; Les Dix décisives vues d’ailleurs: Modes et inspirations de la modernisation politique roumaine, in Les Dix décisives 1869-1879, Sous la direction de Pierre Allorant, Walter Badier et Jean Garrigues, Rennes, Presses universitaires de Rennes, 2022, p. 373-384.
Mihai-Bogdan Atanasiu
PhD Senior Researcher, Director of the Department of Social Sciences and Humanities, Institute of Interdisciplinary Research, “Alexandru Ioan Cuza” University of Iaşi. Recent publication: Moldavian Eighteenth-Century Diptychs. Prosopographic Sources for Social History, in Angela Jianu and Gheorghe Lazăr (Eds.), Pro refrigerio animae: Death and Memory in East-Central Europe. Fourteenth-Nineteenth Centuries, London, Routledge, 2023, p. 291-305; Mihai-Bogdan Atanasiu, Tudor-Radu Tiron (Eds.), At the Crossroad of Civilizations. Individuals and Families Reflected by Genealogy and Heraldry, Konstanz, Hartung-Gorre Publishers, 2024.
Anatolie Bajora
PhD Researcher, Romanian Research Institute of Zhejiang University of Science and Technology. Recent pubications: Romanian Students in the Soviet Union (1948-1964), in Sociopolitical Sciences, 11, no. 5, 2021, p. 98-103; Anatolie Bajora, Bogdan-Tudor Costantinov, Romanian-Yugoslav Relations: From Confrontation to Cooperation (1948-1964), in Miscelanea Adriatica et Mediterranea, 8, 2021, p. 133‑148.
Alexandru Bar
PhD Researcher Associate, Department of History of Art, University of York. Recent publications: Dada Lingua Franca: the Linguistic Fate of Tristan Tzara and Raoul Hausemann, in Cannibalizing the Cannon: Dada Techniques in East-Central Europe, Edited by Oliver A. I. Botar, Irina Denischenko, Leiden, Brill, 2024.
Ionel Boamfă
PhD Lecturer, Department of Geography, Faculty of Geography and Geology, Alexandfru Ioan Cuza University. Recent publications: Romanian Onomastic Mentions related to Old Political-Administrative Structures at Local Level, in 8th SWS International Scientific Conference on Social Sciences – ISCSS 2021, 8, no. 1, 2021, p. 11-17; Considerations regarding the meaning of toponym Făgăraş, in Lucrările Seminarului Geografic” Dimitrie Cantemir”, 49, no. 1, 2021, p. 51-80.
Gabriela Boangiu
PhD Researcher, C. S. Nicolăescu Plopşor Institute for Socio-Human Research, Romanian Academy, Craiova Branch. Recent publications: The Symbolic Imaginary of Romanian Charms, in Anuarul Institutului de Cercetări Socio-Umane C. S. Nicolăescu-Plopşor, 24, 2023, p. 263-272; Collective Memory and Aristocratic Families in the XIXth and beginning of XXth Centuries in Craiova and Bucharest, Anuarul Institutului de Cercetări Socio-Umane C. S. Nicolăescu-Plopşor, 22, 2021, p. 257-271.
Ante Bralić
PhD Professor, Department of History, University of Zadar. Recent publications: Ante Bralić, Branko Kasalo (Eds.). Istočnojadranski prostor između sloma Habsburške Monarhije i stvaranja novih država : zbornik radova [The Eastern Adriatic area between the collapse of the Habsburg Monarchy and the creation of new states: collection of papers], Zadar, Sveučilište u Zadru, 2021; Zadarske srednje škole na hrvatskom jeziku i talijanska vlast 1918-1921 [Zadar Secondary Schools in the Croatian Language and the Italian Rule 1918-1921], in Miscellanea Hadriatica et Mediterranea, 6, 2020, p. 205-242.
Liviu Brătescu
PhD Senior Researcher, “A. D. Xenopol” Institute of History, Romanian Academy, Iaşi Branch. Recent publications: A Life Serving a Cause. Vasile M. Kogălniceanu and His Era, in Mihai-Bogdan Atanasiu, Tudor-Radu Tiron (Eds.), At the Crossroad of Civilizations. Individuals and Families Reflected by Genealogy and Heraldry, Kostanz, Hartung-Gorre Verlag, 2024; Centenarul naşterii lui I. C. Brătianu (1921). Memorie socială şi legitimare politică, in Analele Ştiinţifice ale Universităţii “Alexandru Ioan Cuza” din Iaşi, Istorie, 68, 2022, p. 543-558.
Sebastian Bunghez
PhD Researcher, Balkan History Association. Recent publications: La politica estera della Romania discussa nel Parlamento di Bucarest, Edizioni Sapienza, 2022; Andrei Ando, Maria Alexandra Pantea, Sebastian-Dragoş Bunghez, Transilvania sub influenta tezelor wilsoniene, Cluj-Napoca, Mega, 2023.
Mihai Chiper
PhD Senior Researcher, „A. D. Xenopol” Institute of History, Romanian Academy, Iaşi Branch. Recent Reinventarea regionalismului în Iaşul interbelic, in Archiva Moldaviae”, 13, 2022, p. 47-68; Când Unirea devine o decepţie. Comitetul pentru apărarea intereselor economice şi culturale ale Moldovei (1891), inMarius Chelcu, Dorin Dobrincu (Eds.), Frământările modernităţii: discursuri, oameni, instituţii. Lucrările Conferinţei Institutului de Istorie „A. D. Xenopol”, Iaşi, “Alexandru Ioan Cuza” University Publishing, 2022, p. 215-274.
Alexandru Cohal
PhD Senior Researcher, “Alexandru Philippide” Institute of Romanian Philology, Romanian Academy, Iaşi Branch. Recent publications: Towards linguistic Romanianness, in Cambio. Rivista sulle trasformazioni sociali”, 12, no. 23, 2022, p. 19-28; A. Cohal, D. Dobrincu, D. G. Ţurcănaşu (Eds.), Regionalizarea: către un model de bună guvernanţă a României [Regionalization: towards a model of good governance in Romania], Iaşi, Polirom, 2022.
Csaba Katona
PhD Researcher, Institute of History, Research Centre for the Humanities, Hungarian Academy of Science, National Archives of Hungary, Budapest. Recent publications: Véghely Dezső visszaemlékezései. S. a. r. Hudi József. Pápa, Dunántúli Református Egyházkerület Tudományos Gyűjteményei, in Egyháztörténeti Szemle”, 23, 2022; A füredi Savanyúvíz. Rendi és polgári normák ütközése a 19. századi Balatonfüreden, in Korall. Társadalomtörténeti folyóirat”, 24, 2021.
Andrei Cuşco
PhD Researcher, “A. D. Xenopol” Institute of History, Romanian Academy, Iaşi Branch. Recent publications: Andrei Cuşco, Flavius Solomon, Konrad Clewing (Eds.), Migration and Population Politics during War(time) and Peace(time): Central and Eastern Europe from the Dawn of Modernity to the Twentieth Century, Cluj‑Napoca, Mega, 2021; A Contested Borderland: Competing Russian and Romanian Visions of Bessarabia in the Late 19th and Early 20th Century, Budapest, New York, CEU Press, 2017.
Alexandru Daneş
PhD Researcher, University of Braşov. Recent publications: “Stema muncii care a înlocuit stema fiarelor”. O incursiune în istoria adoptării stemei de stat a României comuniste, in “Revista Arhivelor”, no. 1-2, 2023; 75 de ani de la bombardamentele aeriene americane în Craiova, in “Arhivele Olteniei”, new series, 33, 2019.
Yanna Dimitriou
PhD Researcher, Department of Archives, Library Science and Museum Studies, Ionian University, Kerkira. Recent publications: Corfu General State Archives from Local to Global, in Moderna Arhivistika, 5, no. 1, 2022, p. 71-79; Yanna Dimitriou, Eleni Socratous, The Corfu Criminal Court Archive: recording, impressing and studying the phenomenon of violence and justice in the Ionian State (1815-1864), in Moderna Arhivistika, 4, no. 1, 2021, p. 51-65.
Zornitsa Draganova
PhD Researcher, Institute of Philosophy and Sociology, Bulgarian Academy of Sciences, Sofia. Recent publications: Mapping of Pitfalls and Paths in Cultural Entrepreneurship: Case studies in Plovdiv, Veliko Tarnovo, Varna and Sofia, inPetrova, B., Karadzhov, V. (Eds.) Pitfalls in the City, Plovdiv University Publishing House, 2022.
Jason Finch
PhD Professor, Department of English Language and Literature, Faculty of Arts, Psychology and Theology, Åbo Akademi University, Turku. Recent publications: Literary Urban Studies and How to Practice it, New York, Routledge, 2021; Powered Modernity, Contested Space: Literary Modernism and the London Tram‘, in “European Journal of English Studies” 27, no. 2/2024, p. 288-308.
Jérémy Floutier
PhD Associate Professor, University of Szeged, Université Catholique de l’Ouest, Campus de Nantes, Honorary Consul of France in Szeged. Recent publications: Le manuel scolaire comme lieu d’expression du politique ? L’exemple du traité de Trianon et de l’Union d’Alba Iulia dans les manuels scolaires hongrois et roumains (1945-1990), in Histoire & Politique : Revue du Centre d’histoire de Science”s, no. 1 (49), 2023; Laws of Education and the Minorities of Transylvania between 1867 and 1990: Some Considerations, in “Studia Universitatis Babes-Bolyai”, 67, 2022, p. 141-158.
Mircea-Cristian Ghenghea
PhD Lecturer, Faculty of History, “Alexandru Ioan Cuza” University of Iaşi, Recent publications: Journalist, Spy, Propagandist: About Vándory Lajos and His Activity in Romania (1876-1885), in “Studia Universitatis Babeş-Bolyai Historia”, 68, 2024, p. 105-122; Bucharest, 19 February/3 March 1886: “…anyone understands how shaky and little durable this peace will be”, in “Studia Universitatis Babeş-Bolyai Historia”, 66, no. 2, 2022, p. 121-132.
Heidi Hein-Kircher
PhD Professor, German Culture and History, Faculty of History, Ruhr University, Bochum, Director of the Martin Opitz Library, Herne, Head of department “Academic Forum”. Recent publications: Magdalena Eriksroed-Burger, Heidi Hein-Kircher (Eds.), Consumption and advertising in Eastern Europe and Russia in the twentieth century, Palgrave Macmillan, 2024; Albrecht Fuess, Heidi Hein-Kircher, Stefan Rohdewald (Eds.), Mobility Dynamics between Eastern Europe and the Near East Exploring a Cross-Regional Shared History, Franz Steiner Verlag, 2024.
Mina Hristova
PhD Assistant Professor, Balkan Ethnology Department, Institute of Ethnology and Folklore Studies with the Ethnographic Museum, Bulgarian Academy of Science. Recent publications: M. Hristova, M. Maeva (Eds.), Cultural and Social Consequences of Emigration on the Bulgarian Society Sofia, Paradigma, 2022; Bŭlgari sme, no ne sŭvsem: Mezhdinni prostranstva i khibridni identichnosti na balkanite prez 21 vek [“We are Bulgarians, but not quite”. In-between Spaces and Hybrid Identities in the Balkans in the XXI c.], Sofia, Paradigma, 2021.
Jiayao Jiang
PhD Researcher, Italian Section, Faculty of Modern and Medieval Languages and Linguistics, University of Cambridge. Recent publications: The Role of the Oval Piazza in Urban Morphology: Piazza San Pietro and Piazza del Popolo in Rome, in Proceedings. Cities in Evolution: Diachronic Transformations of Urban and Rural Settlements, Edited by Ezgi Çiçek, Özge Özkuvancı and Alessandro Camiz, Istanbul, DRUM Press, 2023.
Esmeralda Kolaneci
PhD Lecturer, Department of History, Faculty of History and Philology, University of Tirana. Recent publications: Roman Law’s Legacy: Historical Connections to Contemporary Political Institutions, in Educational Administration: Theory and Practice, 30, no. 5, 2024, p. 5333-5342; Erida Pejo, Esmeralda Kolaneci, The Role of Roman Law in the Formation of the State and Modern Law, in Statute Law Review, Oxford Academic, 45, no. 2, 2024.
Piotr Kręzel
PhD Assistant Professor, Department of Slavic Philology, Faculty of Philology, University of Lodz. Recent publications: Etnos serbski. Czasy patriarchy Arsenija IV Jovanovicia Šakabenty (1726-1748) [The Serbian Ethnos. The Period of Patriarch Arsenije IV Jovanović Šakabenta (1726-1748)], Wydawnictwo Uniwersytetu Łódzkiego, 2021; The Legal and Fiscal Situation of the Serbs in the Patriarchate of Peć during the First Decades of the 18th Century, in Studia Ceranea, 12, 2022, p. 651‑666.
Gabriel Leanca
PhD Associate Professor, Faculty of History, “Alexandru Ioan Cuza” University of Iaşi, Head of CIRI, Fulbright Visiting Scholar/Faculty at the State University of New York at Cortland. Recent publications: Léon Lalanne et ses missions en Europe orientale, in Léon Lalanne Un ingénieur entre la science, la politique et l’industrie au xixe siècle, Sous la direction de François Jarrige, Besançon, Presses universitaires de Franche-Comté, 2024, p. 181-194; Roumains et français: images réciproques, politique et diplomatie à l’époque moderne (1829-1859), “Alexandru Ioan Cuza” University Publishing, 2021.
Filip Lenić
PhD Researcher, Assistant, Department of History, University of Zadar.
Alexander Łupienko
PhD Associate Professor habil., Tadeusz Manteuffel Institute of History, Polish Academy of Sciences, Warsaw. Recent publications: Urban Communities and Memories in East-Central Europe in the Modern Age, New York, Routledge, 2024 (Editor); Order in the Streets: The Political History of Warsaw’s Public Space in the First Half of the 19th Century, Frankfurt am Main, Peter Lang, 2020.
Edmond Malaj
PhD Researcher, Institute for History, Academy for Albanian Studies, Tirana, Albania. Chef of Department of the Middle Age, Associate Professor, Department for the German language, University of Tirana. Recent publications: Hulumtime mbi historinë e krishtërimit në Shkodër e rrethina gjatë mesjetës, Shkodër, Botime Françeskane 2021; The first Efforts of Balsha III and his mother Helena to take Shkodra and surroundings at the beginning of the XV Century, in Albanian Studies”, no. 2, 2023.
Daniela Mârza
PhD Senior Researcher habil., Center for Transylvanian Studies of Romanian Academy, Cluj-Napoca Branch. Recent publications: History in the service of the nation: The role of history in interwar Transylvania, in Transylvanian Review, 31, no. 1, 2022, p. 90-103; “The holy war of race”: Eugenics and the protection of the nation in Hungary 1900-1919, in “Transylvanian Review”, 31, no. 4, 2022, p. 139-150.
Radu Mârza
PhD Associate Professor, Department of Medieval, Premodern and Art History, Faculty of History and Philosophy, Babeş-Bolyai University, Cluj-Napoca. Recent publications: Shaping Modernity: The Railway Journey Across Two Centuries, Cluj-Napoca, Mega, 2022 (Editor), Călători şi pacienţi români la Karlsbad. O istorie culturală a mersului la băi pe la 1900 [Romanian travelers and patients in Karlsbad], Iaşi, Polirom, 2022.
Cosmin Mihuţ
PhD Lecturer, Faculty of History, “Alexandru Ioan Cuza” University of Iaşi. Recent publications: Politică şi discurs naţional în vremea domniei lui Alexandru D. Ghica (1834-1842) [Politics and national discourse during the reign of Alexandru D. Ghica (1834-1842)], Iaşi “Alexandru Ioan Cuza” University Publishing, 2022; Cosmin Mihuţ, Cristian Ploscaru, From the Russian Occupation to the Reign of Alexandru D. Ghica. The Features of a Political Transition, in “Studia Universitatis Babeş-Bolyai Historia”, 66, no. 2, 2021, p. 77-98.
Ivaylo Nachev
PhD Assistant Professor, Institute of Balkan Studies and Center of Thracology, Bulgarian Academy of Sciences, Sofia. Recent publications: Konstantin Jireček and the Outset of Modern Institutions in Bulgaria (1879-84), in Transforming Southeast Europe During the Long 19th Century, edited by Boriana Antonova-Goleva, Ivelina Masheva, Brill, 2024; Post-Ottoman “Capitality”: Making Sofia and Sarajevo in the Late 19th to the Early 20th Century, in Urban History Review”, 52, 2024.
Elena Negru
PhD Lead Researcher, Institute of History, Republic of Moldova Academy of Sciences. Recent publications: Elena Negru, Gh. Negru, Construcţie şi deconstrucţie identitară în RSS Moldovenească: 1940-1941, 1944-1989, Cetatea de Scaun, 2023; Elaborarea fundamentelor etno-culturale ale identităţii naţionale din RSSM (1944-1954), in Revista de Istorie a Moldovei, no. 3-4, 2023, p. 67-77.
Gheorghe Negru
PhD Lead Researcher, Institute of History, Republic of Moldova Academy of Sciences. Recent publications: The Tsarist Policy of Russification of Education and the “Unfavorable Realities” in Bessarabia (Second Half of the 19th Century), in “Revista de istorie a Moldovei”, no. 3-4, 2023, p. 30-51; Bessarabia – from a Region to a Tsarist Gubernya, in “Revista de istorie a Moldovei”, no. 1-2, 2022, p. 28-41.
Liudmyla Novikova
PhD Associate Professor, Department of History of Ukraine and Auxiliary Sciences of History, Faculty of History and Philosophy, I. I. Mechnikov National University, Odesa. Recent publications: History of Jews in Ukraine in the Twentieth Century as a Subject of Teaching at a University, in Chornomorska mynuvshyna“, 18, 2023, p. 165-172; Slavic-Turkic Relations in the Steppe Frontier in Local Historiography in the 19th and Early 20th Centuries, in “The Journal of Southeastern European Studies”, 35, 2020, p. 73-88.
Xosé M. Núñez Seixas
Director of the Department of History, Universidade de Santiago de Compostela, PhD Professor of Contemporary History, Leader of the Research Group on Political History and Nationalism. Recent publications: Beyond Folklore? The Franco Regime and Ethnoterritorial Diversity in Spain, 1930-1975, New York, Routledge, 2023; Sites of the Dictators: Memories of Authoritarian Europe, 1945-2020, New York, Routledge, 2021.
Sorin Paliga
PhD Professor, Department of Russian and Slavic Philology, Faculty of Foreign Languages and Literatures, University of Bucharest, member of the Romanian Writers’ Union. Recent publications: An Etymological Dictionary of the Romanian Language, New York, Peter Lang, 2024; Florin Curta, Sorin Paliga, Slavii în perioada migraţiilor [The Slavs during the migration period], Târgovişte, Cetatea de Scaun, 2023.
Maria Alexandra Pantea
PhD Researcher, “Vasile Goldiş” West University of Arad. Recent publications: The Role of the “Petru Maior” and “România Jună” Societies in the Formation of the Romanian Elite, in “Plural. History, Culture, Society”, no. 1, 2024, p. 23-40; Diversité ethnique et confessionnelle dans la basse vallée du Mureş au XIXe siècle, in “Quaestiones Romanicae”, 10, no. 3, 2023, p. 84-90.
Răzvan Pârâianu
PhD Lecturer, Faculty of Sciences and Letters of the “George Emil Palade” University of Medicine, Pharmacy, Sciences and Technology, Târgu Mureş. Recent publications: “Diplomaţia conferinţelor sau intelectualizarea politicii externe a RPR sub regimul lui Gheorghiu-Dej” [The Diplomacy of Conferences or the Intellectualization of the Foreign Policy of the RPR under the Regime of Gheorghiu-Dej], in “Studii şi Materiale de Istorie Contemporană, 22, 2023, p. 115-143; Omogenizarea socială şi sensul progresului social în Epoca de Aur [Social Homogenization and the Meaning of Social Progress in the Golden Age], in Studii şi Materiale de Istorie Contemporană, 19, 2021, p. 104-126.
Cristian Ploscaru
PhD Professor, Faculty of History, “Alexandru Ioan Cuza” University of Iaşi. Recent publications: The Institution of the Prefecture in Romania (1864-1892): Between social relations of patronage and political networks, in “Studia Universitatis Babes-Bolyai-Historia”, 68, no. 2, 2023, p. 75-90; Politică, reformă şi interogaţii identitare în Moldova (1822-1828) [Politics, reform and identity questions in Moldavia (1822-1828)], Iaşi, “Alexandru Ioan Cuza” Publishing House, 2022.
Dumitru Preda
Scientific Director of Titulescu European Foundation, PhD Professor, Alumni Fulbright, Georgetown University, Career Diplomat, Ambassador of Romania to Cuba. Recent publications: The XX Century between War and Peace: Romania in the Turmoil of History, Bucharest, Cavallioti, 2022; La Roumanie et l’Entente: les avatars d’une petite puissance dans une guerre de coalition 1916-1917, Bucharest, Cavallioti, 2017.
Leonidas Rados
PhD Senior Researcher habil., “A. D. Xenopol” Institute of History, Romanian Academy, Iaşi Branch, Head of the Department of Cultural Hustory. Recent publications: Un cărturar de altădată: Constantin Erbiceanu (1838-1913), Bucharest, Romanian Academy Publishing, 2020; The First student Strike in 1880, in Student Revolt, City, and Society in Europe from the Middle Ages to the Present, Edited by Pieter Dhondt, Elizabethanne Boran, New York, Routledge, 2017.
Victor Risciuc
PhD Student, Faculty of History and Philosophy, Babeş-Bolyai University, Cluj-Napoca, Recent publications (reading note): Rudolf Gräf, (Ed.), Monarhia Habsburgică (1848-1918) [The Habsburg Monarchy (1848-1918)], vol. 3: Problema naţională [The National Issue], Romanian Academy Publishing, Polirom, 2021, in “Revue Roumaine d’Histoire”, 61, no. 1-4, 2022, p. 168.
Bruno Šagi
PhD Student, Independent Researcher. Recent publications: The Economic and Political Thought of Rudolf Bićanić in the Context of the Development of Capitalism and the Presence of Capitalism in the Croatian Countryside, in “Zbornik Janković”, 7, no. 8-9, 2024, p. 321-332.
Raul Sanchez Prieto
PhD Professor, Vice-Rector of Universidad de Salamanca, Department of Modern Philology, Faculty of Philology, Universidad de Salamanaca. Recent publications: La imagen proyectada del Reino de León, sus gentes y sus lenguas en los territorios de lengua alemana del siglo XVIII, in Rutas, viajeros y peregrinos en el Reino de León, Universidad de León, 2023, p. 291-313; España y los españoles en el Spiegel Historiael. Un acercamiento a través del Análisis Crítico del Discurso Histórico, Valencia, Tirant Humanidades, 2022.
Tatiana Scurtu
PhD Researcher, “Gheorghe Şincai” Institute for Social Sciences and the Humanities, Romanian Academy, Târgu Mureş. Recent publications: The Romanians in the Intra-Carpathian Arc and their identity institutions, 17th-20th centuries, in Transylvanian Review, 33, no. 1, 2024, p. 1221-1249; The Documents of the Szekler Border Regiments in the Covasna County Bureau of the National Archives of Romania, in Iulian Boldea, Cornel Sigmirean (Eds), Reading Communication in Postmodernity. Discourses and Social Perspectives, Târgu Mureş, Arhipelag XXI Press, 2024, p. 38-47.
Joel Sidler
PhD Student, Instituto de Humanidades y Ciencias Sociales del Litoral, Universidad Nacional del Litoral, Santa Fe. Recent publication: Manuel Tizziani, Joel Sidler, La deriva de las ideas. Tradiciones intelectuales y reconfiguraciones locales entre Europa y el Río de la Plata (siglos XVIII, XIX y XX), in “Araucaria”, no. 54, 2022, p. 787-793.
Khachatur Stepanyan
PhD Professor, Head of the Chair of the World History, Khachatur Abovyan Armenian State Pedagogical University. Recent publications: The political exile of the Transcaucasian Republics in 1920-1930: Common Interests and Contradictions, The Caucasus on The Crossroads of International Trade and Cultural Exchanges, no. 1, 2022. 1921 February Rebellion as a Manifestation of Armenian War of Independence, “Estonian Yearbook of Military History”, no. 11, 2021, p. 116-129.
Eric Storm
PhD Professor, History Department, Leiden University, Visiting Fellow Modern European History Research Centre, Faculty of History, Oxford University. Recent publications: Nationalism: A World History, Princeton, Princeton University Press, 2024; La construcción de identidades regionales en España, Francia y Alemania, 1890-1939, Madrid, Ediciones Complutense, 2019.
Virgiliu Ţârău
PhD Professor, Faculty of History and Philosophy, Babeş-Bolyai University, Cluj-Napoca. Recent publications: Otmar Traşcă, Virgiliu Ţărău, Corneliu Pintilescu (Eds.), Building a Nazi Racial Community in the South-East: Mobility and Transnational Transfers between Nazi Germany and the South-Eastern European ‘Volksdeutsche’, Regensburg, Friedrich Pustet Gmb, 2024; Swimming against Rip Currents. Paul Philippi and the Migration of the Romanian Germans in the Postwar Era (1950-1960), in Stephan Lehr (Eds.), Unter Beobachtung / Under Surveillance, De Gruyter, Oldenbourg, 2022, p. 211-226.
Octavian Ţîcu
Research coordinator at the Institute of History, Academy of Science of the Republic of Moldova and Associate Professor at Moldova State University. Recent publications: Octavian Ţîcu, Carlo Policano, La Russia e il separatismo della Transnistria nella Repubblica Moldova: Implicazioni geopolitiche militari ed energetiche, Torino, Seignalibro, 2023; Homo Moldovanus Sovietic: teorii şi practici de construcţie identitară în R(ASSM (1924-1989) [Soviet Homo Moldovanus: theories and practices of identity construction in R(A)SSM (1924-1989)], Kishinev, Arc, 2018.
Mihai Tudosă
PhD Student, Faculty of History, „Alexandru Ioan Cuza” University of Iaşi. Recent publications: Orthodoxy and orthopraxy among Romanians during the Great War, in Analele Ştiinţifice ale Universităţii „Alexandru Ioan Cuza” din Iaşi, Istorie, 68, 2022, p. 497-514; Romania’s Neutrality and Path to the Great War reflected in The Austro-Hungarian red book, in “East European Journal of Diplomatic History”, no. 8, 2021, p. 33-44.
Lucian Turcu
PhD Lecturer, Department of Modern History, Faculty of History and Philosophy, Babeş-Bolyai University, Cluj-Napoca. Recent publications: The Interest of the Convert: Marius Theodorian-Carada and the Romanian Greek-Catholic Church in the First Decades of the 20th Century, in “Studia Universitatis Babeş-Bolyai Historia”, 68, no. 2, 2023, p. 123-140; Behind the Scenes of a National Show: The Coronation of King Ferdinand I and Queen Maria at Alba Iulia (15 October 1922), in“Studia Universitatis Babeş-Bolyai Historia”, 66, no. 2, 2021, p. 151-177.
Teodora Turcu
PhD Student, Faculty of History and Philosophy, Babeş-Bolyai University, Cluj‑Napoca.
George Ţurcănaşu
PhD Lecturer, Department of Geography, Faculty of Geography and Geology, „Alexandru Ioan Cuza” University of Iaşi. Recent publications: Metamorfoze teritoriale şi rezilienţa sistemelor urbane ale Europei central-estice (1910-2017). Relevanţa scărilor de analiză, in Muntele I., Ungureanu A., Rusu C., (Eds.), Spaţiul geografic românesc la 100 de ani de la Marea Unire, Iaşi, “Alexandru Ioan Cuza” University Publishing, 2018, p 85-118.
Tatsiana Varabei
PhD Researcher, International Research Training Group “Baltic Peripeties. Narratives of Reformations, Revolutions and Catastrophes”, Universität Greifswald. Recent publications: Kasciol Sv. Jana Chryscicielia ŭ Stalovičach – pomnik «vilienskaha baroka» (pavodlie invientaroŭ XVIII-XIX stst.) [The church of St. John the Baptist in Stalovičy as a monument of Vilnius Baroque (according to the inventories of the 18th-19th centuries)], in “Archivaryus”, 15, 2017, p. 113-125.
Efrem Yildiz Sadak
PhD Professor, Department of Hebrew and Aramaic Studies, Faculty of Philology, Universidad de Salamanca. Recent publications: Las fuentes documentales antiguas e imperiales de lengua aramea, in Carmen Quijada Van Den Berghe and others (Eds.), De Estepa a Salamanca miradas en torno a la lengua, Salamanca, Ediciones Universidad de Salamanca, 2023, p. 751-769; Enhuduanna, la primera mujer autora de la historia y las luchas por el poder, Rebeca Hernández Alonso, Sofía Raquel Oliveira Dias (Eds.), A las malas: desobediencia y rebeldía como transgresión femenina en la literatura, Comares, 2021, p. 7-17.