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The Identity of Romania
307 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 2009
20 people want to read
About the author
Keith Hitchins
31 books19 followersAn expert in the history of Romania, Keith Arnold Hitchins was professor of Eastern European history at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Hitchins earned a BA from Union College, he earned a Ph.D. in history from Harvard University in 1964 under the direction of Robert Lee Wolff. Before taking up his position at the University of Illinois, Hitchins taught at Wake Forest University and Rice University.
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Displaying 1 of 1 review
January 12, 2016
I have very mixed feelings about this book and if I may, I will divide it in 3 sections.
In the first section, the american historian goes over the incipience of the modern romanian identity in Transilvania in 18th century. We have the known discussions over the Greek-Catholic unified church, the elite that followed out of this union, the Transilvanian School (Scoala Ardeleana) and the unseen consequences they unleashed. All good so far. But then the author starts going haywire and dilutes the mission he took at the beginning of the book and instead of a more scientifically investigation on how this romanian identity was molded we get this fast forward style and then he skips to...Lucian Blaga, to whom he dedicates 70 pages! What?
I was expecting a fresh input on the struggles the romanian society had to go through when the switch from the slavonic to the latin alphabet was made, on the massive import of latin words and surgical replacement of old obsolete words with the fancy new french words. Nothing of this sort. I know this didn't go smoothly and there must have been massive confusion in Transilvania. But, yeah, we got Lucian Blaga and 'spatiul mioritic'! Come on'! I had flashbacks from highschool and it looks like the trauma of Miorita is still not healed for me!
I am not saying that Blaga is not a worthy cause of research, but I felt that he didn't belong in this book and the author just used it as a filler (70 pages).
Actually this is my main gripe with this book. The lack of consistency!
As a plus I got some more info on why the Orthodox priests decided to make a deal with the Catholics and form the unified church and about the long term vision of the religious uniformization the Austro-Hungarian Empire had for the region.
Later on we learn about how delusional the romanian political class was at the beginning of the 20-th century and the philosophical currents that were born out of this identity crysis: peasantism, poporanism, gandirism, trairism...all trying to preach the might and glory of the romanian peasant, holder of the national millenary spirit and on the other hand trying to demonize the west and the horrific impact the modernization and industrialization had on the poor backward peasants that were peacefully living outside history and represented the true romanian soul. We can see that this is still the discourse of present day Orthodox church which, as expected, is still a feudal institution stuck in the modern times.
The closing chapters felt rushed and repetitive. We were again reminded about the individuals presented in the first chapters (including Blaga) and the author without any remorse and excuse goes over communism (the main reformer of national identity) in just one page!
Thank you for the effort professor Hitchins! But a book should be more than a collection of essays/papers.
In the first section, the american historian goes over the incipience of the modern romanian identity in Transilvania in 18th century. We have the known discussions over the Greek-Catholic unified church, the elite that followed out of this union, the Transilvanian School (Scoala Ardeleana) and the unseen consequences they unleashed. All good so far. But then the author starts going haywire and dilutes the mission he took at the beginning of the book and instead of a more scientifically investigation on how this romanian identity was molded we get this fast forward style and then he skips to...Lucian Blaga, to whom he dedicates 70 pages! What?
I was expecting a fresh input on the struggles the romanian society had to go through when the switch from the slavonic to the latin alphabet was made, on the massive import of latin words and surgical replacement of old obsolete words with the fancy new french words. Nothing of this sort. I know this didn't go smoothly and there must have been massive confusion in Transilvania. But, yeah, we got Lucian Blaga and 'spatiul mioritic'! Come on'! I had flashbacks from highschool and it looks like the trauma of Miorita is still not healed for me!
I am not saying that Blaga is not a worthy cause of research, but I felt that he didn't belong in this book and the author just used it as a filler (70 pages).
Actually this is my main gripe with this book. The lack of consistency!
As a plus I got some more info on why the Orthodox priests decided to make a deal with the Catholics and form the unified church and about the long term vision of the religious uniformization the Austro-Hungarian Empire had for the region.
Later on we learn about how delusional the romanian political class was at the beginning of the 20-th century and the philosophical currents that were born out of this identity crysis: peasantism, poporanism, gandirism, trairism...all trying to preach the might and glory of the romanian peasant, holder of the national millenary spirit and on the other hand trying to demonize the west and the horrific impact the modernization and industrialization had on the poor backward peasants that were peacefully living outside history and represented the true romanian soul. We can see that this is still the discourse of present day Orthodox church which, as expected, is still a feudal institution stuck in the modern times.
The closing chapters felt rushed and repetitive. We were again reminded about the individuals presented in the first chapters (including Blaga) and the author without any remorse and excuse goes over communism (the main reformer of national identity) in just one page!
Thank you for the effort professor Hitchins! But a book should be more than a collection of essays/papers.
Displaying 1 of 1 review