The 'Is' at Home, the 'Ought' Abroad

Self-Comparison as Self-Criticism and the Transylvanian Model in Early Twentieth-Century Romania

Datos Bibliográficos

ID2109348
AutoresAndrei Sorescu (0000-0002-2865-3754, New Europe College, autor de correspondencia)
Año2024
Volumen66
Número1
Páginas213-237
Fecha de publicación2024-01-01
Peer ReviewedSí
Open AccessSí
TipoARTICLE
RevistaComparative Studies in Society and History (JOURNAL)
Identificadores de la revistaISSN: 0010-4175 • E-ISSN: 1475-2999
EditorialCambridge University Press (CUP) (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.1017/s001041752300035x
OpenAlexW4387906393
IdiomaEN
Referencias citadas28

What happens when nation-builders in an independent state imagine themselves to have fallen behind kinfolk living under imperial oppression, and how does this affect their vision of a future of national unity? This paper explores the shapes that critical self-comparison could take among Romanians in the Kingdom of Romania around the turn of the twentieth century by considering three interconnected vignettes. First, it outlines the context in which politicized notions of mutual interdependence between the Kingdom and Transylvania allowed for comparison as self-criticism to take root and gain salience in the public sphere. It explores the implications that comparison as self-criticism had on ascribing agency and apportioning blame for causes of the disparity between state and kinfolk. Second, it examines two Transylvanian travelogues produced by major political and cultural figures on the fringes of the Romanian establishment, and, in a reflexive move, contrasts their politics of comparison. Third, it offers a grassroots perspective on how the travelogues of teachers and priests, as rank-and-file nation-builders, expressed these topoi. The article contributes to the nascent trend of considering historical comparisons in actors' own terms, and as historical processes unto themselves

Agency (philosophy) · Blame · Context (archaeology) · Criticism · Grassroots · Oppression · Political economy · Political science · Politics · Social science · Sociology · State (computer science) · European Cultural and National Identity · Gender Studies · Historical Geopolitical and Social Dynamics · History · Law · Philippine History and Culture · Psychology · Social Psychology