Last name: Bala (n.

Mira) First name: Florentina Claudia University of Bucharest Doctoral School Letters First year / Ethnology and Folklore

MODERNITY ROMANIA MODERNISM Its hard to answer the question Romania, where to? Because the Romania society, at the beginning of the 21 st century is hanging between tradition and modernity. We live today a time of the greatest mixture, of the weak confusion of values. From the middle Ages till the First World War, Romania stayed at the East gates. Geographical situated between East and West, excepting the fact that the Romanian people are not so eastern as the Turkey people, but not as western as the German people, the Romanian society is still desiring to fix its social, historical and cultural hour fallowing the western Europe modal. Now, we use words like modernity and modernism, words in speculative terms which need certain tint. If we refer to the modernity as a modern life, then the word does not signify only a period of time, but a spiritual trait specified to a certain epoch. The modernity idea has suffered profound changes. The modernity does not mean the balance between tradition and innovation. Which is the historical meaning of modernity? We can put this process from a chronological point of view, we can say that the modernity starts with the Westphalia peace and last till the war between 1914 1916? Extending the word, it does not mean a condition of the chronological belonging stricto sensu but an element of identity, of reference and an extra value. The second element which is used more often today is modernize. In sociology and politology the word modernize means a vast and inhomogeneous mixture of socio economical and political realities but also a sum of theories. From Romanian people, from Nicolae Balcescu to our present days, the word modernize has meant a single thing the reproduction of definite western civilization institutions in the Romanian society. The modernize is for Romania a complex process, started with about a century and half the moment when the wallachian landowners and the native man of Moldavia used to ask, in the memorial sent to the Central Powers, the enthroned of a foreign prince in the Romanian Countries. They said the choice of civilizations to the values of
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European West using some political and certificated terms of that time. This project has dominated the thought and Romanian political action till then. The west image has always planned on the Romanian society, travelled centuries, generations and situations. At the beginning of the 21 st century, when Dinicu Golescu visited Europe and wrote in the book The note of my travel Constantin Radovici from Golesti, made in 1824, 1825, 1826, the huge differences between the economical and social situation of the western population and the situation of the Romanian population which created the condition of a fundamental political option the Romania modernize. Even if we had designed a political option, we had even a model (the model crisis couldnt be pleaded) what prevented the approval of this model in the deep strata of the Romanian society? Which could have been the presence of Chinese wall between us and the western civilization? Fallowing the opinion of many Romanian historians, the Slav culture was that ballast which kept us there and interposed between us and the area. So, Nicolae Iorga stated that the development of the Romanian literature couldnt have been done because of the motionless strictness of the orthodox Slavonism. The Romanian people has always reported to the West. As Im already said, the model of society or culture wasnt absent but it wasnt enough. A cause of the absence the contact and influence changes between Romanian people and the western culture wasnt the Slavonism, but mainly the fact that the Romanian people adopted and lived in the forms of the slav culture having a Byzantine origin, or, using other words, they indulged in this context, a situation of the west image which could hardly printed the Romanian society. A praper example that the Slavonism wasnt guilty for the difference between Romania and the west, no matter the historical period submitted to analysis, could be the fact that the same Slavonism blamed by us, couldnt stopp the polish people to give Copernic, as well as the orthodox religion didnt stop the Great Petrus reforms. We can invoke our agitated historical past but it would be better for us to remember that the west had terrible wars the religious ones, those that lasted about 130 years. A most important cause than the agitated post would be the lack of the political unit. Except the political aspects, the economical ones can be added. The economic life from the 16th century, was reduced to agriculture and animals growth in the Romanian countries, making up an economical entity. The civilization supposes luxury and brilliance, it is always the privilege of the rich countries. The foreign influences are always using the economical conections. The Romanian way of life, during all times, has made that the western social and cultural model insufficient for Romania to keep up with this past of Europe. The Romanian society was and still is an agricultural one, but not
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only as an economical organization but as spiritual one. The economical conections with the rest of the Europe hasnt been absent. Starting with the 15 th century the trade ways, between the Baltic Sea and the Blach Sea, has possed on our territory. But this trade was a transitive one in the foreigners hands. Even if the goverming had strenghtened the economical position in the country, the Romanian society has remained an agricultural one. In 1839, Andrew Bonar and Robert Mc. Cheyne, two scotish clergymen, travelled in the East as missionaries of the Committee for the Jew to be converted to Christianity. The Committee has been established by the General Congress of the Scottish Church. In their book Narrative of mission of inquiry to the Jews from the Church of Scotland in 1839 a whole chapter is reserved to the Romanian Countries. How was possible for those two scothmen to find the Romanian Countries at that time? About Moldavia is said that it was The interesting country but with a poor civilization. The country could be very fertile if it were well worked. It is colled Peru of Greeks. Many of its large fields are still uniworkeed. About Wallachia, the two missionaries say it is A beautiful country. If it were cultivated, it could have 12 millions of inhabitants, not 2 millions as it has nowadays. Its large fields wich I passed over, if it works, they would bring well incomes. But there arent arms to carry the plough. In such conditions the Romanian society does not have favourable conditions to create or to assimilate a superior culture. The journeys have had a great roll in enlarging the thinking horizon of a certain society. But it was difficult enough that Dinicu Golescus literary work has urgent effects, Dinicu Golescus complex was enough time enchored in the reality of the Romanian everyday life, the obsession of a hard meeting with the European modern civilization was felt from the pre forty - eighters period. Because starting with the 19 th century the Roumanian people have traveled through Europe. About a strong western influence an the Romanian society we can talk starting with this century. After many conections with the west, major economical social and cultural changes took place. The romantism was the literary current which served the modernize process of the Romanian society in a better way. Its true that this current entered the Romanian literature later, but this delay is deeply conected one hand, with the economic development even it was a delayed one, but, on the other hand, the pretty late contact with the foreign literature, with writers as Yong, Rousseau. Hardly in the last decade of the 19 th century the Romanian intellectual used the western ideas. The image of the western civilizations, spread trough literature had a main role in the Romanian cultural life but it wasnt a strong one. The west influence could demonstrate in the context of the deep social changes because this
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is the moment when the Romanian bourgeoisie was founded. The old system disappearrance is made by bourgeoise and commercial capitalism, wich started in our country around the year 1821, and the new 19 th century culture is the expression of the new bourgeoise society. Now, the differences between Easter Europe and western Europe are as present as in the Golescus time. The lack of vision is obvious in Romania. The difference between those two types of society consisti of the way in which each of them use to manifest and state. While the western societies existed in Europe, the Romanian society resisted. Concerning the modernise proces in the Romanian society resisted the west has had a strong impact upon it a real identity crisis of this impact manifested among the present choice of the society, because after the two culture contacts, at the mental level, the image of the other is formed. This new concept, the image of the other, for the first time disscused and tested by Helene Ahweiler in the Historical Science Congress Stuttgard, 1985, developed a unique science imagologia. The study object of this new science adopted and adapted by history, found at the border between compared literature, anthropology, etnography, sociology is, in fact, the subjective reflection of reality. Analysing the foreigen image in the culture, we also get a picture of that who the foreigner. The image made by a nation about another is interesting. Studying journals, travels impresions certificates, letters, memorials, it can be seen the role these images had on a nation culture. In 1798 Grigore Ramniceanu made the first reference to europe. He spoke about a Europe supposed to civilize a Europe which tamed tought and defetead all the other world nations with the mind, language and increase power. The europe image a cultural myth has remained in the Romanian mentality for a long time. After 1950 the stereotypes has been introduced this term bening connected to the traditions and to the own social position. The cultural stereotypess are resistant in time. And if the cultural stereotype is rigid, resistand to the time action, but the national image tends to be easier, being enriched trough influences and culture. This cultural rigid stereotype markes the western model be a cecessary condition but not sufficient for moving the moderniso process of Romania. This does not mean that if we had been Catholic and not Orthodox, Rembrandt, Corneille or at least Voltaire would have been born in our country, and in the Old Court on the Dambovita river some tragedies would be acted and not some gipsy music. But neither of all these! Because a culture is always connected to the social form, without it the culture cannot develops. Culture is a demonstration of the society, the develop toghether. There are some steps in a culture development: inferior ones and superior ones. But we cannot say that
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there are inferior cultures or superior ones. Any culture put on a inferior step/level can develop just like a language enriched trough loans. No matter what are the religions differences, the political conflicts, a nation, for receiving the influences of the direct or indirect neighbours, we should get to a level permitting this influence. This process of a modern Romania having the Westen contries as modes, is not only a culture matter but a spiritual one between cultures, especially between those nations which are defined trough these cultures.

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