PHILOBIBLON

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PHILOBIBLON

Philobiblon – Vol. XVIII (2013)- No. 2
Lucian Blaga Central University Library
Research Department
PHILOBIBLON
Transylvanian Journal of Multidisciplinary
Research in Humanities
Volume XVIII
Number 2
– July - December 2013 –
Cluj University Press
Philobiblon – Vol. XVIII (2013) No. 2
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238
HISTORY, HISTORY OF CULTURE, HISTORY OF MENTALITIES,
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ISSN: 1224-7448
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240
CONTENTS
“HORIZONS OF IDENTITIES” (I)
ORIGINAL STUDIES AND ARTICLES
Zeno GOZO , The Modern Man between Existence and Possession ....................... 245
Mihai Stelian RUSU, History and Collective Memory: the Succeeding Incarnations
of an Evolving Relationship ........................................................................................... 260
Alina ŢIŢEI, Caudillismo: Identity Landmark of Hispanic American Authoritarian
Political Culture ............................................................................................................... 283
Raluca-Simona DEAC, Representations of Identity, Self and Otherness
in the Romanian Memoirs of the Balkan Wars (1912-1913).................................... 297
Cosmina-Maria BERINDEI, Discursive Strategies of Traditional
Mining Memory in Two Villages of the Apuseni Mountains ................................... 315
Angelica Puşcaş, Censorship and Self-Censorship In the Traditional Romanian
Village Preliminary Aspects........................................................................................... 335
Zsuzsa SELYEM, New Minor Literatures or the Debt of Contemporary Art ........ 349
Réka KASSAY, Balkán Herald – The Online Book of Complaints
of Hungarians from Romania........................................................................................ 357
Maria ROTH, Florina POP, Sergiu RAIU, Vulnerabilities Built in the Identities and
Future Orientation of Roma Children and Youth..................................................... 374
Enikő VINCZE, Urban Landfill, Economic Restructuring
and Environmental Racism ........................................................................................... 389
Lorin NICULAE, Arhipera and the Ethics of Social Architecture............................ 406
Dana POP, Aspects of Identity in Contemporary Architectural Space.................. 415
Cristian RADU, The Temptation of Absolute Knowledge
- Vintilă Horia and the Modern European Novel ...................................................... 427
Rodica FRENŢIU, The Intuition of the Real and the Aesthetics
of Silence in Japanese Haiku.......................................................................................... 454
Irina-Ana DROBOT Imagining Stories about Other Characters in Virginia Woolf
and Graham Swift: The Role of Imagination in Creating Fiction .......................... 466
241
István M. FEHÉR , “Love of Words” – “Love of Wisdom” Philology
and Philosophy from a Hermeneutical Perspective................................................... 489
MISCELLANEA
Amália SOÓS, About the Way We Should – Reconsidering Our
Energy Sources – Review ............................................................................................... 515
Adriana TEODORESCU, Cultural Benefits of Death - A Review
of Irina Petraş’ Book Death upon the Bearer .............................................................. 517
Lajos BALÁZS, The Devil’s Chum - Thoughts on the Book by Gyula Vadas
and Albert Veress – Review .......................................................................................... 521
István KIRÁLY V., The Eternal and… Non-Eternal Woman – Review ................... 525
Adriana STAN, The Spirit of Geometry – Review ....................................................... 529
Andrei SIMUŢ, O telenovelă socialistă (A Socialist Soap Opera)
– Review ............................................................................................................................ 532
Previous volumes of Philobiblon ................................................................................... 535
242
MAN – BOOK – KNOWLEDGE
– SOCIETY
“HORIZONS OF IDENTITIES”
(I)
ORIGINAL STUDIES
AND ARTICLES
243
244
The Modern Man between Existence and Possession
Zeno GOZO
Faculty of Psychology
Tibiscus University of Timişoara, Romania
Keywords: consumerism, possession, existential, transition, change, transformation.
Abstract: Eric Fromm’s1 work – “To Have or to Be” – allows at least some reflection
and elaboration of ideas especially as we stand at a certain distance in time of its
appearance. We will follow up, based on the main axes provided by the author, possible
elaborations of the “to have” and “to be” paradigms. Some fundamentally different
existential areas involve different philosophies of life, powered by autogenous
backgrounds, self-sufficient, clearly bounded by an area with strong axiological and
epistemological accents.
We shall also follow some nuances that enrich the German author's original
theses: the shift from having to “to be”, the description of horizons that are specific to
both paradigms, conceptual extensions of the sociological perspective (adopted by the
author) as possible interpretative returns from the domain of “to be” towards the one
delineated by the “to have”. A fruitful direction of our exploration is the highlighting of
the impersonality (collectively determined) of the world of “to have” and the need to
customize the existence (in a selective and sober philosophical point of view) for a solid
settlement of “to be”.
E-mail: [email protected]
*
Argument
In 1976 Erich Fromm wrote “To Have or to Be?”, a book which became very famous
(in Germany alone it was reprinted 25 times in 18 years). The German author's work
touches very well the nerve of our materialistic and consumerist era, remaining modern
and up to date. Therefore we can agree with Roger Perron’s earlier appreciation on
Fromm which is described as: “open minded, carried towards vast and generous
considerations regarding the evolution of our western societies, the limitations they
impose and the destiny of individuals living in them (…).”2 Although several decades
have passed since the brilliant sociological, psychoanalytical and philosophical analysis
undertaken in this work was published, its theses prove to be more necessary and more
pertinent than ever. Since it was written and until the present, the tireless enthusiasm of
1
Erich Fromm (1900-1990) psychoanalyst, sociologist and philosopher; he developed social
studies impregnated with Freudian vision on human behaviour. Forced to immigrate into the
United States (in 1934), Fromm got to experience the consumer society. Established, at the end of
his life, at Locarno (Switzerland), he wrote “To Have or to Be” as an advocacy for re-analyzing
the situation of the contemporary human being regarding consumerism.
2
Roger Perron, Histoire de la psychanalyse (Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 2009/1988), 95.
245
consumerism added dimensions and aspects unimaginable half a century ago. In this
context, we might ask ourselves: why is the work of Erich Fromm still so little known
and why are there so few references to it? One possible answer could be the one
suggested by M. Maccobi: “Why has Fromm's work been so neglected? To start with,
his ability to write directly to a large general audience as in The Art of Loving , which
was a best seller in the late 50s, made him suspect to the academic Mandarins whose
criteria for profundity includes incomprehensibility to the uninitiated. In fact, Fromm
provoked defensiveness and even a kind of antipathy from academics he termed
alienated and psychoanalysts he criticized as bureaucratic in their technique and poorly
educated in the humanities and social sciences. Furthermore, Fromm would not fit
himself into a neat intellectual category.”1
Being oriented toward sociological observation and sustained by the
possibilities of psychoanalysis2, Fromm’s theses reach existential issues and aspects of
political philosophy that can hardly be put in conventional patterns. Maybe that is why
he received such “appreciations”: “I'm not talking here of some of the softest attempts to
reconcile psychoanalysis with its social base, like those attempts of Erich Fromm or of
American cultural anthropology: this lacking principle of eclecticism has little in
common either with psychoanalysis or with social criticism.”3 Despite this, ideas can be
raised and developed based on the material provided by some very pertinent
interpretation of the author. A careful reading of the text in question allows
developments devoid of the author’s argumentative pathos, which was perhaps too close
to the novelty of the incriminated phenomenon and also located on an indubitable
critical and emotionally involved position. Another motivation of our philosophical
extensions based on the text in Fromm’s book is represented by the sureness of a certain
participation mystique of the author, of an emotionality with critical accents that wants
to denounce the vices of the contemporary world, as in his The Art of Loving, published
in 1956: “Modern capitalism needs men who cooperate smoothly and in large numbers;
who want to consume more and more; and whose tastes are standardized and can be
easily influenced and anticipated.”4 At present, we are much more tolerant (perhaps
because we have been absorbed by the tempting and multicoloured universe of to have,
at least at a social level) with the mechanisms of the consumerist society. The distance in
time and the normality of the consumerist phenomenon (hence its inevitable
trivialization), allows a more emotionally-detached regard – the only one that guarantees
a philosophical reading.
1
Michael Maccoby, “The Two Voices of Erich Fromm: Prophet and Analyst,” Society 5
(July/August 1995): 72-82.
2
Through which Erich Fromm, together with Karen Horney and Harry Stack Sullivan, enrol in a
direction of thought that Tzvetan Todorov would later describe as: “In the case of Erich Fromm,
another tradition starts from the Marxist criticism of Freudianism,” (...) “The representatives of
this psychoanalytic current deplored at Freud the lack of interest in social interaction (...).” In
Tzvetan Todorov, Viaţa comună, Eseu de antropologie generală (Common life. An essay of
general anthropology) (Bucharest: Editura Humanitas, 2009/1995), 62.
3
Robert Castel, Le psychanalisme, L’ordre psychanalitique et le pouvoir (Paris: Flammarion,
1981), 251.
4
Erich Fromm, The Art of Loving (New York, London, Toronto, Sydney: Harper Perennial,
Modern Classics, 1956/2006), 79.
246
Our approach is situated on a meta-position toward the German psychoanalyst’s
interpretation, on the chain of possible conceptualizations and developments of the key
concepts from the author’s text. No matter how great the distance at which we stand to
the original text, we cannot deny the deep impact that the text in question poses to any
reader. Fromm's book represents, even after many years since it was written, a reading
which is fertile in inspirations that can invite to unexpected developments.
We will use throughout the text the two phrases “to have” and “to be” (always
written in italics: to have and to be) in order to preserve and to highlight the German
author’s ideation. He understands them as defining orientations for two radically
different existential ways, each covering an extremely extended human area. The two
orientations are defined as follows by the author in question: “In the existential way of to
have the relationship with the world is that of the desire for possession and (effective)
owning, a relationship in which I want to turn anyone and anything into possession,
including myself.
In the existential way of to be we must distinguish two forms of being. One is
the opposite of to have; (...) It means vitality and a genuine relationship with the world.
The other form of to be is the opposite of appearance and it refers to the real nature, to
the genuine reality of a person opposed to the deceiving appearance, as it is described in
the etymology of the word to be.”1
It is also necessary to mention that the two verbs of the Romanian, English and
German languages (and in other languages as well) have, besides being auxiliary verbs,
very many connotations, under-meanings and collateral implications that allow
paraphrases and interpretations of the most diverse kinds. Thus, for the verb “to have”
we can find in the Explanatory Dictionary of Romanian Language no less than 17
meanings, more or less connected to each other (while in the Wahrig, the dictionary of
the German language, 9 different meanings are given). Both verbs, the Romanian – a
avea – and the German – haben –, have a common origin, namely the Latin: habere. For
the verb a fi we find in the same Explanatory Dictionary of Romanian Language 8
meanings and 14 grammatical constructions (the verb sein has 8 meanings given in the
Wahrig). We also have to mention that in German there are two words identical in
spelling, but written differently: sein – the verb “to be” and Sein – the noun that
designates the existing, the existence (as in Martin Heidegger’s Sein und Zeit). All this
lexicological richness allows, of course, the most diverse and unpredictable
interpretations and conceptualizations.
The sociological presentation
The fundamental thesis of Fromm’s work is that the late medieval man, freed from
feudal seclusion and thrown into the victorious capitalism, was quickly disappointed by
the unfulfilment of the unanimous expectations, which were apparently legitimate and
based on the enthusiasm of industrial development. The capitalist society came with
promises which proved to be unsustainable, the man is not free and master of his own
destiny,2 but subject to material addictions that are staggeringly and threateningly
1
Erich Fromm, Haben oder Sein (München: Deutscher Taschenbuch Verlag, 1997), 35.
By Duane Schulz and Sydney Schulz: “Erich Fromm, personality theorist and peace activist,
used to auto-attribute his interest in abnormal behavior to the earlier contact with fanaticism
2
247
generated by industry and technology. Even if the main thesis of capitalism stated, in
Caţavencu’s1 spirit, that: “I want progress at any cost”, this proved to be an illusion, a
slogan or a good lie to be used up only during election campaigns. The only exit from
this situation, in Fromm's opinion, is the transition from the consumerist dimension of to
have towards the existential dimension, impregnated by the humanistic values of to be.
The first part of Fromm's work begins with the following statement: “The
alternative to have and to be is not obvious to ordinary mind. To have seems to be
something very normal in life, in order to live, we must have (possess) things, yes, we
need to have things so that we can enjoy them.”2 It can be found that to be is commonly
understood in terms of to have as if the latter term could define the being. However, this
is, according to the German psychoanalyst, only the diverted way to see things, the
essential and defining ones being replaced, in a rebarbative and conjectural rhetoric, by
the secondary (in the etymological meaning). We must point out however that the
influence that the collective, namely the social, exerts on the understanding that we give
at a certain point to some terms or concepts, is not negligible. We notice that often, the
meaning of some phrases or formulations is hijacked, even distorted by the collective/
social group in order to be placed in the general flow of wide acceptance, in the
naturalness of “that’s the way it is” or “that’s the way it is done”. And as long as what it
is done because “that’s the way it is done" is not analyzed and questioned in order to be
restored to the original, things can perpetuate forever in a dysfunctional way. Moreover,
they enter the path of widely and unconditionally accepted normalcy, becoming natural
and unproblematic, without apparent cracks, immutable and released of any possible
counter-arguments. Precisely at this point – of drowsiness or intellectual numbness – the
work in question comes with a “strong hand” and with a detailed analysis.
Fromm makes a careful and well documented critique of the contemporary
consumerism – the field of “haben”, to have – that he opposes to some old and
traditional ethical, philosophical or religious values inspired by the great spiritual and
mystical tradition of humanity: the teachings of Buddha, Lao Tze, the Christian Gospels,
Meister Eckhart etc. In their philosophy and vision, to be represents the supreme value,
diametrically opposed to to have, and precisely this leap, from a value system into
another, is what interests us in this article. By quoting Marcus Aurelius, “the philosopher
emperor”, we can deepen the difference between the comprehension levels of the two
systems of values, difference that can be directly transposable into existential
pragmatics: “From those which always torment you, many are those that you can easily
put aside, like some that exist only in your mind. And you will prepare yourself the
largest area of freedom, if you embrace the whole world with the thought, if you watch
the eternity of time, if you quickly contemplate the transformation of every thing, the
shortening of the duration between birth and disappearance, the eternity which was
before all, and the eternity which comes after all.”3
Returning to Fromm, he found, after his research, that: “To have and to be are
two basically-different forms of human living, whose magnitude gives differences, of an
which haunted his native Germany during the war.” In Duane P. Schulz and Sydney Ellen Schulz,
O istorie a psihologiei moderne (Bucharest: Editura Trei, 2012), 34-35.
1
Famous figure in Ion Luca Caragiale’s play “A lost letter” – a political charade.
2
Erich Fromm, Haben oder Sein, 27.
3
Marcus Aurel, Selbstbetrachtungen (Augsburg: Bechtermünz Verlag, 1997), 131.
248
individual character, and imprints various social types.”1 Such analyzes are of course
made from the position of a researcher with a keen sociologic sense which also do not
lose attention on a psychological view, of an anthropological character, over the general
and also essential positioning regarding the human being, as C. G. Boeree mentioned:
“Another aspect of his theory is fairly unique to him: his interest in the economic and
cultural roots of personality. (…) Your personality is to a considerable extent a reflection
of such issues as social class, minority status, education, vocation, religious and
philosophical background, and so forth.”2 And the author continues, as if to highlight
again the idea and the cause of the marginalization of Fromm’s theoretical views: “This
has been a very under-represented view, perhaps because of its association with
Marxism. But it is, I think, inevitable that we begin to consider it more and more,
especially as a counterbalance to the increasing influence of biological theories.”3
Precisely here in the integrative sociological way of the psychoanalytic anthropological
vision, Fromm's vision detaches from the classic approach of his school of origin, as
already J.A.C. Brown stated: “All religions, metaphysical systems, or all-inclusive
ideologies serve the same fundamental need: to relate man significantly to the universe,
to himself, and to his fellow-men. This observation leads Fromm to reverse the opinion
of Freud that religion is a form of universal neurosis – on the contrary, he says, neurosis
is a form of private religion.”4 Thus, the generous and broad vision proposed by Fromm
in works already appeared before “To Have or to Be” is distinguished, vision that
integrates the human being both in his humanity and in his social and physical
environment.
Development of ideas
Fromm criticizes the shift of the emphasis from to be on to have that is so obvious in
contemporary society. But, to be is the contrary of to have; then when we no longer refer
to our possessions (the material ones, but even the aspirations, desires, expectations that
we have), we can be, defined by ourselves and not on the basis of some values, goods,
possessions or external cues. The release from the “demon” of possessiveness and
consumption can only lead to a detachment from foreignness, grafted on our genuine
nature. We know that man is born without any possessions, but then he will be quickly
surrounded by them, first of all the necessary possessions appear and they will widely
open the doors for the contingent and superfluous ones in a continuously reiterated race
with commitment for life. And, in our opinion, there would be nothing wrong with it, if
the possessions (already present or projected in the future) would not come surrounded
by a “tire” of worries, problems and related dependencies. We note that these attributes
are co-constructed or inter-weaved (in an insidious way) in the very substance of
possessions and of the things we desire, loading them with an additional “weight”.
Representing excessive existential ballast, the dependencies and the implications of
possessiveness become true metastases which are overgrown around the contemporary
1
Erich Fromm, 27-28.
C. Geoge Boeree, Personality Theories, Erich Fromm, accessed on the 14th of March, 2013, at
http://webspace.ship.edu/cgboer/fromm.html.
3
Ibid.
4
J.A.C. Brown, Freud and the Post-Freudians (London: Penguin Books, 1967/1961), 154.
2
249
human Ego, hence: “Indeed the liberation of the exterior enslavement is required as –
with rare exceptions – it cripples the inner man.”1 We have to mention here that not the
possessed good (or the one that would be possessed) is problematic, but the unexpected
implications, strongly branched and insidious, that come with it: the chaining in
dependencies (any service we received should be returned, recognized or rewarded), the
intricateness in the social collateral or the appetite for contingent connections (i.e., if I
have a “cool” house, I must also have a “cool” kitchen that should be continuously updated with the newest creations).
We can see how, continuing our study, the features of possessions (in general)
are aligned on at least two major axes: on the one hand, they bring us satisfaction, make
us happy and give us the feeling of a certain security, reaching even to become
benchmarks for our self-definition, and on the other hand, they require maintenance,
cleaning, repairing, or to be moved from one place to another, to be ordered or arranged
so that our mind is connected without escape to our “wealth”. On the one hand, we
commit our being in order to obtain certain goods and have a series of possessions, and
on the other hand, it’s precisely these possessions that involve us in the continuous
activity of their augmentation, updating, and maintaining. In other words, our mental
system is infected precisely by the objects in which it has invested itself in, is possessed
by its own possessions, thrown in immanence, and caught up in the trap of joy of having
and in the dissatisfaction of not having enough. As Fromm mentioned in his study from
1956: “All activities are subordinated to economic goals, means have become ends; man
is an automaton – well fed, well clad, but without any ultimate concern for that which is
his peculiarly human quality and function.”2
We underline here that, from an etymological point of view the verb “to posses”
came to Romanian from Latin, through French connection. The Latin original –
possideo, possidere – is formed out of potis or pote – adj., which is translated as strong,
capable, able, possible – coupled with sedeo – the first person of the verb sedere, to sit,
to be seated, but also to stand idle, stand still, to let down, to lower, to remain fixed, to
stay still.3 This short linguistic insight allows us to discern double meanings in
interpreting the verb in question. We can notice that it (the verb) also allows the
meaning of “being strong or possibly lowered, fixed and/or let down”, i.e., possessed or
under the influence of something that is undeniably and powerfully acting upon us. All
these come to support, from a linguistic perspective, the pun/wordplay that is allowed by
the expressions “to possess” and “to be possessed”, the nouns “owner/possessor” and
“possessed” (which is also an adjective) or the verb “to possess” with its active meaning
of having, holding or mastering something, etc., and the passive meaning of being ruled,
dominated and subjugated.4. The ambiguity at the linguistic level allows philosophical
seasoning most fertile. In the German version of Fromm’s book the term Einverleibung
– closeness/ incorporation – which, in German, characterizes very well the origin of
1
Erich Fromm, Vom Haben zum Sein, Wege und Irrwege der Selbsterfahrung (München:
Wilhelm Heyne Verlag, 1996), 20.
2
Erich Fromm, The Art of Loving, 122.
3
apud Gheorghe Guţu, Dicţionar latin-român (Latin-Romanian dictionary, 2nd, revised ed.
(Bucharest: Editura Humanitas, 2003), 1024, 1028, 1205.
4
apud Noul dicţionar universal al limbii române (New universal dictionary of the Romanian
language), ed. Ioan Oprea et al. (Chişinău: Editura Litera Internaţional, 2006), 1080.
250
possessiveness – (der) Leib is the body in which we introduce – ein – something in the
complete/perfect way – ver. The psychoanalyst Fromm sees the origin of to have in the
act of feeding, as an in-corporation of the elements of the world, found of course at the
basis of our existence. As Zygmunt Bauman in his Liquid Love puts it: “... (as Erich
Fromm suggests, humans of all ages and cultures are confronted with the solution of one
and the same question: the question of how to overcome separateness, how to achieve
union, how to transcend one’s own individual life and find “at-onement”). All love is
tinged with the anthropophagic urge.”1 Physiological justification at first, the incorporation quickly becomes the main trend of the being that sees fulfilled by this act
not only the maintenance and growth, but also the subsistence or even the psychological
development. Going on further in order to find anthropological tangents, Fromm recalls
the unusual practice of cannibalism by which people approached, namely incorporated
the powers, abilities, intelligence or the cunning of the defeated opponents. Therefore, he
could define the following psychological aspects of incorporation: “Consumerism is a
form of to have, perhaps the most important one in the consumption society. To
consume has two aspects. It reduces my fear, because what is consumed cannot be taken
from me, but it also forces/obliges me to consume more and more, because what has
been consumed does not please/satisfy me for a long time. The contemporary consumer
could identify himself/herself with the formula: I am what I have and what I eat.”2
There follows (in the quoted work) the analysis, from the perspective of to have
and to be, of some sectors of contemporary life; I shall quote a few: learning,
remembering, communication, reading, authority, knowledge and even faith. The
finding that emerges from this analysis is that all these sectors/fields can be easily
perverted by their falling under the incidence of to have. Out of the numerous examples
that can be given we mention a few: “I have learned English.”, “I have a college
degree.”, “I have read many books.”, “I have a strong faith in ...” and so on. All these
formulations, as natural, widely accepted and commonly used as they are, can be
attributed to the same paradigm of possessiveness. We note that although they are part
of the daily use (fact that generally eludes any analysis or opportunity of awareness)
these formulations subscribe to our way of thinking, to our system of beliefs, and hence
to our way of approaching the surrounding reality and the relationships with the others.
Thus, we state that the very cognitive perspective is fuelled and driven by a unanimous
way of thinking, feeling and collective attitudes, without being subject to any
custom/personalized analysis. The result cannot be anything else but a life driven by
external cues, socially validated, and without any serious and profound personal
contribution. Submerged to the collective habitus, the man meets no invitation to
reflection and questioning, to analyze some of the mental stereotypes or the attitudes that
animates him/her. Put and placed (lat., potis, pote + sedere) in his/her place – full-time
conformist – the contemporary human being satisfies himself with the framing that is
given to him, he implicitly accepts his place in society.
In this context we can assert that to have and to be represent two “parallel”
universes, each closed in itself, as if they had at their centre a black hole which does not
1
Zygmunt Bauman, Liquid Love, On the Frailty of Human Bonds (Cambridge: Polity Press,
2011), 17.
2
251
allow them to emanate and to open towards the other in order to establish contacts or
bridges. Within to have predominate the material objects and the possessiveness
(extended even on creatures, including human beings), and within to be the existence of
psychical (mental) “objects”, of cultural and/or spiritual values are dominant. We should
emphasise that to pass, however (as individuals) from one universe into another, thus
from having to being, a leap is necessary, and this leap should be done over an
existential fault. The success of this operation, of this syncope, involves firstly the giving
up. In order to make a step forward, one must first detach the foot from the surface or
the realm it stands on. Only by leaving something behind, we can move forward and
hence the term “syncope” provides the meaning (interruption, pause) of what we
support. The giving up that we are talking about is located within the delicate area of our
choices, desires and expectations; it refers to our way of life itself, thus to what we
usually consider as the most normal thing possible (or, as Peter D. Kramer indicates in
his introduction to The Art of Loving it can be a total reconsidering of our usual ideas:
“For Fromm, love is rebellion against a commercial ideal.”). We leave aside the fact that
this “normal”, just because it is so, is not put under any analysis that should demonstrate
its internal consistency. Being trivial and obvious, kept in virtue of the unanimity of
adhesions, supported by the unilateral collective pressure of tolerance that allows it
without questioning, normality is just going on. It is the absolute merit of the German
psychoanalyst to have emphasized the social role in the psychological imprinting
exerted on individuals, as also Karen Horney mentioned: “Many authors have
recognized the importance of social factors as factors that exert a decisive influence on
the psychological conditions. Erich Fromm in his article, “Zur Entstehung des
Christusdogmas”, Imago, vol. 16 (1930), pp. 307-373, was the first who introduced and
developed this method of approach in German psychoanalytic literature.“1
In our perspective the inherent conception of the field of having is equipped
with the property of self-sufficiency, it wants to posses and if it has something, it wants
to have more, to gather and never to let anything or give up its possessions. It is
precisely the effort that is invested in the gathering of possessions that hinders the
release from them. That is because we invest our energy, our knowledge or our luck in
grabbing the possessions we want. Thus, from simple objects, the possessions become
animated (namely energetically charged) by all our concerns and investments that are
centered on them, being surrounded by the halo of aspirations, expectations or emotions
that we place in them. After all, it is not from the possessed objects that we must free
ourselves, but precisely of this emotional halo; we need to divest them of our concerns
and of the mental energy that „possesio-centrically” gravitates around them. This is not
possible through a smooth transition, which would continue the redundant series of the
related mental preoccupation and accumulations, but it takes a leap, a break within a
self-stiffed structure which is closed, impenetrable and has deep roots (as it is mentioned
in the Gospels: „Wherever your treasure is, there your heart and thoughts will also be.”).
The accumulated possessions become the central point around which we
gravitate, they catch us - captatio - and turn from being possessed into possessing. Each
new possession seems to bring about a change - for the better - but this is just a
1
Karen Horney, Personalitatea nevrotică a epocii noastre (The neurotic personality of our age)
(Bucharest: Editura Univers Enciclopedic Gold, 2010), 24.
252
continuous (re) adjustment (immersed in a self-closed system) and not a trans-formation,
i.e. a trans-mutation. Everything happens like in the group theory in mathematics where
the result of any combination of the elements of a group is also an element of the group;
in other words, whatever we do, as many combinations we try, we remain trapped in the
same mental area, that is in the same ontological horizon. The desired ones and then the
possessed ones will very quickly enter among our many possessions that were once on a
list of expectations. The possessions, whether desired or already ignored (the projection
in the future or the acquisition in the past), i.e. the whole field/domain of having, gain
ontos, they are woven into our most intimate inner being, grafts which are coconstructed in our existence, defining our individual, family, professional, and most of
all, social position.
Psycho-social aspects
The ubiquity of the universe of to have makes it seem right normal; being contiguous to
all aspects of life, the world of possessions insinuates itself on all levels (emotional and
intellectual) of the contemporary man’s feelings. Such universe does not know genuine
existential struggles; all intellectual movements that it can produce are rather defined by
agitation and by a constant anxiety of the search caused by frustration. In this context we
emphasize that the universe of to have alienates the man towards himself, transporting
him to the state of blueprint on a desire or appetite that would once be achieved (as soon
as possible). As such, the individual is thrown into a permanent running – curriculum
vitae, in the original meaning: race of life – perpetual motion towards an apparently
necessary goal, which is never sufficient in itself. The distortive aspect of this race at the
individual’s level is given by its essentially social determination. The man finds himself
in a race which is not really his own. The objects he/she must have, purchase, possess,
and so on, are defined as desirable in a collective universe sketched and induced at a
social, economic and political level. In other words, the desire to own and especially to
multiply the number and/or the quality of the possessed objects are drawn from outside
ourselves, by means of mass-media, advertising and marketing. In order to assert and to
certify the proper social affiliation and integration (that is determined by a certain
historical period, by the geographic placement or by the fashion in vogue) the human
individual is pushed, in virtue of a conformism with gregarious substrate, to a
consumerism of a specific direction. In this sense Rainer Funk believes that: “Fromm's
starting point in Haben oder Sein is the observation that the orientation on to have is
today a mass phenomenon, which has its basis in economic and social realities of a
society that has too much and thus it may fall prey to the temptation to define itself by
possessiveness benchmarks.”1 The diversity of objects that can be purchased is
becoming larger and larger so we can choose the specialized tier of personal
consumption: from food to cosmetics, from books to clothes, from shoes to cars, from
cell phones to ... Thus, extra-wide perspectives of choices are opened, our options
increasing exponentially with each new product or model appeared on the market. But if
it is about making choices, then the perspective of choosing between various
1
Rainer Funk, Nachwort in Erich Fromm, Vom Haben zum Sein, Wege und Irrwege der
Selbsterfahrung (München: Wilhelm Heyne Verlag, 1996), 162.
253
commercial offers presents itself, at a closer look, as being just the tip of the iceberg.
The most superficial part of the options lies in products or new models, while the deep
part, that concerns me as a self-determined, autonomous and settled individual, comes
when I can choose to buy or not, to be concerned with possessions or not. Because, after
all, all marketed products and/or those that can be possessed are situated on the same
level: the one designated by Fromm with the phrase to have. The truly existential and
axiological opening is sketched as the possibility of choosing between the world of to
have and the world of to be. Such option, however, implies the leap outside a system of
values and stated benchmarks, known and of widespread acceptance towards an
unfamiliar land, poorly mapped, with many white spots and numerous questions for the
common consciousness.
Philosophical reflections
We can depict the idea that to have is under the index of immanence; while to be
represents the transcendence. Only within the transcendence of to be comes something
else that is not part of the usual universe of life (because it is neglected or ignored by our
own education and socialization, be it primary, secondary or tertiary1). To be implies an
existential discontent, a restlessness of the being under construction and development,
which does not let itself confiscated by the permanent stasis of self-sufficiency. The one
who placed oneself in being mode must continually reinvent oneself; moreover, he/she
precisely has this existential need. But, in order to do so, he/she must be empty (or
emptied) of things, of the world, of God (as a usual broad concept, implemented by a
religion) and even of himself/herself, as also Herman Kügler emphasised in his essay on
Fromm: “In the end, to feel good means that the individual is and he perceives himself in
existence and not in what he has or wants.”2 He/she must become “poor”, “possessionsless” in the sense of liberating himself/herself of the attachments and dependencies that
the possessions bring along: “The man, who must have this poverty, must live in such a
way as he/she does not live for himself, nor for the truth, or for God.”3
So, ultimately, the emptying of the attachment to material goods is only a
prerequisite for other waivers. This requires a serious leap from a universe that is very
clearly circumscribed in the social by our collective views/conceptions. It is like the
transition from the members of a class to the class itself, located on a higher logical
level. The new level touched by such an understanding of the world and of life
circumstances implicitly leaves behind the previous stage (the area of to have in our
case) in order to strongly anchor in the world of internal values, analyzed, judged and rejudged by our thinking and consciousness. From this new existential perspective and
epistemological settlement, the combinatorics of the class members continues to exist,
but having a totally different axiological frame. More specifically, it sees itself devalued,
because the investment now goes to another sphere, represented in our example by the
1
apud Zeno Gozo, Între tradiţional şi contemporan în sociologia educaţiei (Between tradition
and contemporaneity in the sociology of education) (Timişoara: Editura Artpress, 2010).
2
Hermann Kügler, Die Kunst, menschlich zu leben, Wichtige Aspekte der Selbstverwirklichung
nach Erich Fromm, in Ganz und heil, Unterschiedliche Wege zur »Selbstverwirklichung«, ed.
Karl Frielingsdorf and Medard Kehl (Würzburg: Echter Verlag, 1990), 53.
3
Meister Eckhart, quoted in Erich Fromm, Haben oder Sein, 66.
254
class itself. The class, representing an entirely different level than its members, can be
compared to the field of to be located on a logical level superior to the one represented
by to have. The last term (in question) is now included in the first, recorded somewhere
in its structures, put in its places and transformed through a permeable but highly
selective assimilation. The switching from the class members to the class itself
represents a remarkable jump of level that allows the change of the perspective on things
that is done precisely from the inside of the new conquered position.
If the teleology of to have is continually directed toward the object (understood
here as any thing external to the subject), the teleological of to be aims at the subject,
recurved on itself, placed in a permanent circumambulation and deepening of one’s own
being and of its existential aspects; centrifugal movement in one case, centripetal in the
other; self-distancing with the risk of wandering in the first case, closeness with the
chance of re-finding in the second. In other words, to be leads to the re-settlement in a
personal source, to the repositioning of the individual in what is characteristic for
him/her, to the re-bringing of the particular being on the strong and firm ground of the
Being. If we want to use an Aristotelian term par excellence, we can talk in this context
about the achievement of one’s own entelechy. For the circumscribed territory of to be
creates its own dynamys (gr., power, possibility at Aristotle) that seeks its authentic
centre which stands under the same name and has the same direction: to be. This
achievement, whose aim or purpose is itself, is very securely attached to the term
entelechia forged by Aristotle, that being the principle, the possibility and/or the
direction of fulfilment of something. The entelechy, as the form expressed in/through the
matter is the soul that animates a body; the transition from to have to to be is done
through a motion from the material to the psychological, from body to soul, from nature
to culture. As transposition of a potency – dynamis – in act and even in life and/or its
orientation, the entelechy of to be comes to fulfil an expectation that the human soul has
to itself, to its potentials and possibilities, because, as Fromm mentioned in Escape from
Freedom: “These potentialities are present in everybody; they become real only to the
extent to which they are expressed. In other words, positive freedom consists in the
spontaneous activity of the total, integrated personality.”1 All these reflections draw a
certain existential path that seems very clear at first sight: the path leads from to have to
to be, from Haben to Sein, from possessions to the being, from the focus on the objects
to the focus on our own being. From a psychological, social or ontogenetic point of view
things seem clear: first, to have, and then to be. Even the direction drawn by Fromm in
his famous work follows the same path: “Only to the extent that we demolish the mode
of existence of to have, i.e. of the non-existence (which means the ending of the search
for security and identity by binding ourselves to what we have, to the fact that we
posses, that we are connected to our Ego and to our goods), the mode of existence of to
be may enter. In order to “be” we should hand over the egocentrism and the self-love
namely to become “poor” and “emptied”, as the mystics often express.”2
But from a philosophical point of view all these perspectives are reversed
because otherwise it would seem that we are putting the cart before the horse. To be
represents in fact the potential, the substrate or the sub-stance (etymologically) on which
any item from the domain of possessions can graft or find its place. To be creates, after
1
2
Erich Fromm, Escape from Freedom (New York: Holt Paperbacks, 1994/1941), 257.
255
all, the condition of the possibility of to have. Without this basis or foundation, without
“existing”, no need to own or incorporate something could be possible. For to have,
someone who can perform an action must first exist. In other words, before a predicate
we must put a subject - not only as part of the sentence, but also as a support of an
action. It is precisely here where the huge opening, with which the domain of to be
comes and manifests, lies. Hence its importance; and the fact that this basis exists in the
most natural way makes it gain the least attention. Everything that comes as granted
risks being ignored with the greatest ease and serenity. Moreover, everything that is
ignored simply does not exist, not even as a concern for the reflective intellect.
We must not give up to have – which is, anyway, impossible, because,
whatever I give up, I cannot give up myself – or the little dependencies that this way of
life brings, but we must reach the entelechy of our being, as the subject from which
wraps and unravels endlessly the spiral of consumerism of any kind: necessary or
contingent, stringent or superfluous. In other words, if from Fromm's book, namely “...
that to become, activity and movement are elements of to be”1 it results that to be is
assimilated with to become, I think that the observation becomes pertinent that the first
term refers to the present (continuous), while the second sends very clearly towards the
future. To become does not necessarily mean to re-come namely to return to yourself, to
the origin of the genuine being. To become involves a journey, an itinerary with a goal
that easily reaches for “more” or for “better”. And from here to the entry in the race
(curriculum) of accumulations (qualitative this time), there’s only one step. From this
perspective, the overlapping of meaning of the terms to be and to become – as it was
presented by Fromm – proves to be confusing and lacks the depth of analysis and
comprehension. The concept of to be should not come with a dynamic of the growth,
development, expansion or improvement (implied by to become). The state of to be is
achieved not so much by progression, but by the (re) settlement in the original, in what
genuinely is (and always was). It all refers to an inner attitude, to the ability of awaiting
in the middle of our own being, to the capacity to operate starting from internal values,
filtered by a deep judgment, to a modus vivendi low in existential struggles. Such
lifestyle (way of life) eludes the area of questions and of uncertainties (features of to
have, but especially of to become). The solid placement in the way of to be does not put
questions that it cannot answer, because it knows that the answers or the solutions come
by themselves - since they are needed (especially since they are always within the
collective unconscious that Carl G. Jung spoke about). I believe that these statements are
necessary in order to tie and to fix the nuances of some terms that were overlapped by
Fromm. From a sociological and psychological (psychoanalytical) point of view the
joining of to be with to become is not at all problematic; on the contrary, precisely this
super-positioning allows the development of the dimensions and nuances invoked by the
author. But what is normal and pertinent at the level of some humanity sciences is not
necessarily transposable in philosophical analysis. Certain meanings can be overturned
or misinterpreted from the moment when we start from etymology and the reflection
bent on the original and on the substrate.
Among the modalities of to be, Fromm emphasizes especially the activity and
makes a careful analysis of the opposition between this and passivity, and of their
1
256
valences. The premises of the existential modality of to be are: the independence, the
freedom and the critical thinking. Besides these important aspects, as Fromm mentioned
in Man for Himself: “There is no innate “drive for progress” in man; it is the
contradiction in his existence that makes him proceed on the way he set out.”1 The
manifestation field of those “drives” is the activity in its sense of personal construction,
of self-development and self-fulfilment, namely of self-realization. What we underlined
in the preceding paragraph tends to a rather internal understanding of the realization of
to be, understood as a bending of the spirit on itself. The importance of this fact can be
seen at some of the prominent authors of the history of philosophy.
Aristotle already put in the front of all activities the contemplative one, realized
in the search of truth and wisdom, so philo-sophia. This is also the activity of the nous,
the coordinator spirit of the world at Anaxagora. Thomas Aquinas understands, by vita
contemplativa, an interior tranquillity (detached from the worldly) oriented towards
spiritual knowledge. And at Spinoza it is about the realization of the human nature to
which our freedom and our eudemonia (happiness) depends. Democritus stated about
the eudemonia that it does not consist in the external assets, and for the Stoics happiness
is the result of a harmonious life. But by analyzing the etymology of the word
eudaimonia, we notice the particle “eu” referring to good, right (as in eugenie) and
daimon (whose voice Socrates listened to) the inner voice that nowadays we refer to it as
“intuition”. So eudaimonia would be the good intuition, whose obedience would lead to
happiness (at least from the perspective of ancient, medieval or modern authors). The
voice of this good daimon is the voice of the Being that speaks to us in order to guide us
towards our true nature, towards to be and more specifically, towards being ourselves.
But, regarding these “discussions with the daimon”, for Socrates too it was very clear
that this is not and cannot be confused with his Ego! This inner voice (intuition) comes
from the realm of the Being, the basis and foundation of our life and our becoming. And
precisely to this basis we need to relate actively and fully involved (body and soul) if we
choose the being mode. For, as specified by Karl Jaspers, philosophy is a constant
“concern for ourselves” or, in other words: “The world looks unfathomable. But the man
finds in himself what he does not find anywhere else in the world, something
unknowable, unprovable, never objectual, something that avoids any scientific
investigation: the freedom and everything related to it.”2
Following these few clarifications we can distinguish two main axes of the
domains in question (to have and to be) which we see as being very clearly and strongly
differentiated from a teleological point of view. Both have as hypostasis a telos: the aim
of the circumscribed area of to have is oriented towards the object (objectual), material,
quantitative and tangible, widely socially accepted, driven and validated by the media,
the economy and politics. Left from the collective, envisioned by the social, the purpose
of to have re-curves itself, in order to (re-)turn in the emerging area: the consumerist
tendency. From this perspective, the fulfilment of the individual as such is eminently
second or, to say it more oppressively, secondary; satisfaction comes a posteriori. The
individual is only an inflection point on a loop, a node of an intricate and extremely
1
Erich Fromm, Man for Himself, An inquiry into the psychology of ethics (London and New
York: Routledge Classics, 2003/1947), 29.
2
Karl Jaspers, Der philosophische Glaube (Zürich: Artemis-Verlag, 1948), 57.
257
complicated network that includes him, along with many other individuals. The society,
economy or politics can very easily dispense with a particular individual, with a certain
consumer without suffering losses – in any second other willing buyers will be found.
The individual as such does not even exist (for the system), he is not taken into account
in his individuality and strict personality (being significant only statistically); he sees
himself considered only from the perspective of one who consumes – potential eager or
buyer indebted (financially, emotionally or socially) to the system for everything it (the
system) can offer. Such functionality makes that individuals be interchangeable, small
rollers, which can always fail, located in a huge gear equipped with numerous spare
parts. The individual’s value in the world of having can be measured very precisely in
terms of input and output or to say it more clearly, on the pay (salary) slip and in the
daily basket. In conclusion we can say that the reiteration of the consumerist
determinism is done in a systemic way, by respecting and applying its rules. Individuals,
although components of the system, can only obey the laws dictated by its operating
mode. Even if the individuals represent the structural bases or the bricks from which the
system is built, they are absorbed in the over-structural hierarchy of the system laws and
its operation mode.
On the other hand, the telos of the cutting/carving represented by the paradigm
of to be is oriented toward the subjective and the qualitative, both difficult to count or to
measure with quantifiable scales (clearly-defined and circumscribed). Personal
development, self-realization and fulfilment, the relentless overcome of the limitations
and shortcomings are values of internal nature for which we cannot have objective
evaluation criteria, precisely because they occur at a subtle and insidious level. This does
not mean at all that they do not represent important forces in making changes of
substance. This, obviously only at the internal levels of the being, although it takes place
in an area hidden from the social, it will also flow out through a major attitudinal
change. The man who passed in the register of to be will represent by himself a
milestone on a long and marking free road, paved with everything that can be possessed.
Because the world of to be represents both the beginning or the origin (the a priori) and
the end or the purpose of human existence. From this perspective, the pleading for the
internalization (and then implicitly the exteriorization) of the existential domain values –
to be – would be understood as an argument of humanizing the human.
As the world of to have may seem inexhaustible and continuously extendable,
the same happens with the field of to be. The existential adventure and the (re)
settlement in one’s self allows a continuous development, supported by a relentless
deepening. The dislocation of the landmarks of to have will implicitly lead to the
relocation of the centre of gravity on the internal values of to be. Precisely here is where
the subtle approach of moving from one paradigm to another, shows itself: to be does
not necessarily mean a growing or a development of something, but a very clear
renunciation to the implications, connections, dependencies and concepts of the horizon
of to have.
Conclusions
We showed, in the lines above, that the paradigm of to have has an indisputable
axiomatic authority, making it invulnerable and creator of a mental universe that is well
and solidly mapped. The map that stands at its basis is invisible and thus invulnerable; it
258
does not allow very easily the trip to another ontological continent (except with huge
difficulties accompanied by disagreement from others). The paradigms of to have and of
to be, are untranslatable, because the two worlds speak different languages which are
self-sufficient. Therefore, there cannot be a smooth transition between them, a result of
quantitative accumulations. The two worlds are separated by a gnoseological,
axiological and ethical hiatus. The values are simply not transposable from the one to the
other. But as the world of to have is based precisely on accumulations, these generate a
sense of (objective) reality which quickly structures becoming closed into itself. The
switching to the other universe (that of to be) is done just over an existential fault – thus
by adopting a different perspective/view on things. Only the cracks, the erosions or the
corrosions of the first “universe” can force the individual to see the paradigm that
possesses him/her, and to make the ontic step to another reality. Between the two areas
(paradigms) there is a hiatus, a vacuum epitomized by anguish. In order to realize the
transition, the man must free oneself of two anxieties. First of all, it is the anxiety of
ending the attachment to “my” objects; followed by the anguish of the emptiness that
this waiver creates, gap that is opened towards the nothingness of our own being: “what
shall I do?” In this vacuum of the being we must resist, in this area stasis is required.
Through this stop, the man has the opportunity to make a “mourning” for the lost things,
because only the giving up and the renouncing to the inherent attachments can release
our spirit in order to move forward. The values gathered so far must vanish from the
mental horizon in order to first leave it empty, so that starting from this state, another
horizon of knowledge to be built. This new knowledge will then be translated into life,
thus becoming ontological.
259
History and Collective Memory: the Succeeding Incarnations
of an Evolving Relationship
Mihai Stelian RUSU
Babeş-Bolyai University, Cluj
Faculty of Sociology and Social Work
Keywords: collective memory, history, historiography, philosophy of history
Abstract: Collective memory, despite its status as patrimonial notion within
sociological tradition, recently escaped this rigid disciplinary straitjacket, becoming a
cardinal concept in the contemporary discourse of social sciences and humanities.
Understanding the nature of collective memory cannot be reached before clarifying the
relation between memory and history. This paper analyzes the different configurations
under which the relationship between history and collective memory evolved throughout
time. The central argument advances the idea that collective memory crystallizes at the
area of confluence between history and mythistory, taking historical facts from the
former, and organizing them according to the mythical logic of the latter.
*
Collective memory: a notion on top of the theoretical agenda of social
sciences
Seen as a continuous parade of ideas unfolding through time, the history of social and
human sciences appears as a sequence of intellectual fashions, each of them dominated
by a central axial concept around which an entire mass of secondary ideas orbit. Until
recently, the concept of “culture” has magnetized theoretical imagination, evidence
thereof being the impressive collection of “cultural studies” which have emerged
throughout the entire territorial panorama of social sciences. Along with what can be
called the “mnemonic turn” produced in recent decades, the notion of “memory” has
seized the centre stage of the intellectual debates of the moment. Collective memory, a
term whose conceptual paternity belongs to the sociologist Maurice Halbwachs,1 has
gained a strong foothold in the marketplace of ideas exchanged in the social sciences.
Launched in the academic discourse in the first half of the 20th century, the notion
quickly faded into oblivion, only to be resuscitated in the 1980s by a renewed wake of
social and intellectual interest in the past. So “collective memory’s” academic success
comes with a temporal retard of half a century. But all this delay is fully compensated by

This work was possible with the financial support of the Sectoral Operational Programme for
Human Resources Development 2007-2013, co-financed by the European Social Fund, under the
project number POSDRU/107/1.5/S/76841 with the title „Modern Doctoral Studies:
Internationalization and Interdisciplinarity.”
1
Maurice Halbwachs, The Collective Memory (1950; New York: Harper & Row, 1980).
260
the force with which the contemporary preoccupation with memory has erupted in
current discussions: the idea that both contemporary society and social studies are
experiencing a “memory boom”1 is gaining increasingly more ground. There seems to
be an unprecedented preoccupation with memory, revealed in the concern of the social
actors (both individuals and collective) with protecting and even recovering memory.
The fear of losing historical memory pulses through the Western collective
consciousness, reflected in the impetus of social movements campaigning for historic
preservation of cultural heritage.2 The memory-focused discourse has reached such
impressive heights that a number of critics speak of a “surfeit of memory,”3 or even of
the “abuses of memory.”4 What is certain is that we are witnessing the making of an
epoch obsessed with memory, dominated by an “ardent, almost fetishistic memorialism.”5
It is against the background of this massive revival of public interest in memory
that the social sciences responded by creating “social memory studies,” which has
become probably the most intensely trafficked academic area by researchers coming
from the multiple locations of the social sciences disciplinary system. This new
territorial province emerged within the disciplinary geography of social sciences is par
excellence a multi-disciplinary project, delineating a rendez-vous disciplinary space,
where history, sociology, anthropology, and social psychology (to mention only the
forefront contributors) meet and theoretically cross-fertilize each other. The cardinal
notion and the term of reference throughout this discourse is “collective memory,” by
which is meant the relationship that a society constructs with its own past. A more
extensive and technical working definition can be stated in the following terms:
collective memory is the retro-projectional system consisting of the social
representations of the past developed by a social collectivity in order to make sense of its
own past. The “retro-projectional” character of collective memory is given by the fact
that social representations of the past are always retrospective projections upon the past
made from the present time backwards, which means that they are inevitably coloured
by the presently prevailing socio-political interests, aspirations, and imperatives.
A significant part of the intellectual energies and resources involved in the
“social memory studies” has been invested in clarifying the problematic relationship
between collective memory and history. This paper tries to shed light on the
configurations under which the relationship between history and memory appeared in
the course of time.
1
Jay Winter, “The Memory Boom in Contemporary Historical Studies,” Raritan 21 (2001): 5266. My bibliographical inquiry into the conceptual genealogy of the term “memory boom” came
to the conclusion that J. Winter is the author of this catch-phrase.
2
David Lowenthal, “Material Preservation and Its Alternatives,” Perspecta 25 (1989): 66-77.
Lowenthal argues that “Preservation has become a rampant cult. […] Few cultures are except
from, few individuals uninfected by, the mania for memorabilia.” (67).
3
Charles S. Maier, “A Surfeit of Memory? Reflections on History, Melancholy and Denial,”
History and Memory 5 (1993): 136-152.
4
Todorov Tzvetan, Abuzurile memoriei (The Abuses of Memory), trans. Doina Lică (Timişoara:
Amarcord, 1999).
5
Pierre Nora, “Reasons for the current upsurge in memory,” Transit (Europäische Revue) 22
(2002), accessed December 6, 2012, http://www.eurozine.com/articles/2002-04-19-nora-en.html.
261
Memory and history: a multifaceted relationship
Collective memory and history form an entangled relationship. In order to clarify it, it is
imperative to begin by unravelling the multiform relationship between collective
memory, on the one hand, and history (including oral history) on the other. But first we
need to analytically exfoliate the multiple semantic layers of the notion of “history.” The
term history can be understood in at least two senses, often confused, mixed, and
overlapping in discourses invoking this notion1: a) history as the totality of facts and
events that had occurred in the past (res gestae); this prime meaning captures the
objective dimension of the past existence, which is precisely why it may be called the
ontological meaning of the concept of history (“what objectively existed in the past”); b)
history as discourse about the past, embodied in various narrative accounts purporting to
verbally reconstruct segments of the past (historia rerum gestarum); this second
understanding may be denominated as the discursive meaning of the notion of history.
In many languages of the world, including Romanian, the confusion is further
intensified by the fact that the two meanings are not linguistically separated. Worse, in
certain languages, the single word that hosts both meanings tends to favour the
discursive, narrative meaning of the notion of history. For instance, in Italian, storia
means both history (in both its objective and discursive meanings) and story, or even lie!
Furthermore, a third auxiliary meaning can be added: c) history as a discipline centred
on researching facts and event of the past, as well as the main source of discourses about
the past. This tertiary understanding encompasses the disciplinary meaning of the term
history. After splitting the linguistic hair in three semantic dimensions, it must be said
that the discussion that follows refers to the second meaning only, i.e. the discursive one,
in which history is understood as being a specialized discourse about the past issued by
professionals dedicated to the systematic study of the past.
It must be firmly stated from the very outset that the notions of collective
memory, history, and oral history overlap to a considerable extent, thus any attempt to
define their conceptual content by isolating them from each other is rather the result of a
process of abstractization. All the three (collective memory, history, oral history) are
thoroughly intertwined, mutually influencing and conditioning each other. Nonetheless,
despite the inherent difficulty of circumscribing the exact semantic scope of each concept,
we can still force a distinction between them. Collective memory is both what individuals
jointly remember from their own lived experience and what is collectively commemorated
without being personally experienced. Stated differently, collective memory consists of the
common stock of personal memories of public events plus the package of “second hand”
memories that are historically inherited and shared by a pool of individuals forming a
social community.2 For the sake of full semantic clarity, it would be useful to operate a
distinction between communicative memory and cultural memory.3 Communicative
1
Jacques Le Goff, History and Memory (New York: Columbia University Press, 1992), 102;
Neagu Djuvara, Există istorie adevărată? (Is There a Truthful History?) (Bucharest: Humanitas,
2004), 16; Lucian Boia, History and Myth in Romanian Consciousness (Budapest: Central
European University Press, 2001), 27.
2
Mihai Stelian Rusu, “The Structure of Mnemonic Revolutions,” International Review of Social
Research 1 (2011): 105-121, 107.
3
Jan Assmann, “Collective Memory and Cultural Identity,” New German Critique 65 (1995):
125-133, 126.
262
memory consists of the shared memories within a social community that are based
exclusively upon everyday communication, being derived from personal experiences
and preserved in the form of oral tradition (i.e. “first-hand” social memory). In contrast,
cultural memory consists of the representations of the past transposed into a cultural
support (usually written texts, but also material artefacts like statues, monuments,
memorials, and other lieux de mémoire1) that facilitates the inter-generational transmission
of social memories (i.e. “second-hand” collective memory). Unlike the communicative
memory which is literally embodied (in the sense that it is actually carried inside the
bodies of people who are the possessors of these memories), cultural memory is
externalized in various artefactual objects (history textbooks are a prime example of
products of the textual objectification of collective memory, while memorials best
exemplify the material objectification of memory).
The epistemic program of oral history is to construct representations and
interpretations of the past based on information collected through interviewing ordinary
people. The raw material processed by oral history in order to represent the past is
furnished by the lived experiences of ordinary subjects. As a sub-branch of history, oral
history emerged from the need to descend from the ivory tower of academic historians
directly into the street to listen to voices previously ignored by a historical research too
centred on the deeds and acts of the great figures of the past. Oral history, focused on the
experiences and memories of ordinary people, sets its goal to free historical research
from the Rankean captivity of the archive. Its role within the system of history is to
correct the academician propensity deeply embedded in professional history, and thus to
provide a counter-weight which would balance the scale by taking into account the
perspectives of ordinary people, previously deemed irrelevant and unworthy of attention.
The elitist, top-down approach of political and military history is thus supplemented by a
popular, bottom-up history. As a consequence, “the V.I.P.’s history” surveyed from a
bird’s eye perspective, best epitomized in Thomas Carlyle’s emphatic emphasis placed
upon the Great Men of History,2 is being substituted for “the worm’s eye view”3 taken
from the grassroots level of ordinary men and women’s perspectives. Now it becomes
transparent that the subject matter of oral history is what I have previously defined,
following Jan Assmann, as communicative memory, namely the set of everyday
memories derived from first-hand experiences agglutinated in the form of oral traditions.
However, as was pointed out earlier, collective memory means more than just
communicative memory, so that oral history enables access to only a single layer of
collective memory. Therefore, oral history is not adequately equipped for capturing
cultural memory with its objectified forms of memory.
Collective memory and history are two different ways of accessing the past.4
Moreover, collective memory relies on history to legitimate itself and to emphasize the
1
Pierre Nora, “Between Memory and History: Les Lieux de Mémoire,” Representations 26
(1989): 7-24.
2
Thomas Carlyle, On Heroes, Hero Worship & the Heroic in History. Six Lectures (New York:
D. Appleton & Co., 1841), 1.
3
Christopher Hill, The World Turned Upside Down: Radical Ideas During the English
Revolution (London: Penguin Books, 1984), 14.
4
David Lowenthal, The Past is a Foreign Country (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,
1999), xxi.
263
authenticity of its constitutive events (of course, when history contradicts the claims of
collective memory, the latter being usually suffused with a strong ideological tint, either
historians are discredited or history itself is deemed irrelevant). In its turn, history (as
scientific endeavour) is conditioned by collective memory, which orients historical
research along the lines defined by its sensibilities towards certain events of the past that
carry a heavy symbolic-affective burden. In extremis, collective memory dictates the
conclusions that must be reached by historical research, so that the moral imperatives of
collective memory transform history into a mere confirmational procedure. Fortunately,
this possibility is usually rather a seldom scenario, more present in theoretical
discussions than found in empirical reality. Regularly, collective memory is constructed
with partial scraps of history that are selected and extracted from the flow of time,
infused with meaning, and subsequently inserted into the composition of the society’s
collective memory. In this way, history serves as the fuel for collective memory,
supplying it with historical details to be incorporated into the corpus of memory.
However, history may also play the diametrically opposite role: that of challenging
collective memory’s truth-claims, of subjecting collective memory to a drastic cure of
demythologization. The way in which history is put to work depends on the sociopolitical circumstances, depending especially on the political regime that organizes
social life. In a totalitarian regime, history is turned into a weapon in the hands of power,
and by falsifying history the falsification of collective memory is also being sought after.
In a democratic regime, things get more complicated, because history is being used by a
host of groups, each of them trying to promote its own political agenda and collective
interests by appealing to the past and invoking the precedent. Despite the uses and
abuses of history in instrumental purposes even in democratic and open societies, we
can take solace in the thought that at least democracy provides the premises for a more
objective history, freer of political interests, less loaded with ideological baggage, but
also more deprived of comfortable certainties.
The evolution of the relationship between memory and history
From an epistemological angle, the two extreme cases of the relationship between
collective memory and history are the following: i) perfect identity, when collective
memory confounds itself with objective historical knowledge; ii) total opposition, when
collective memory and historical knowledge do not intersect each other’s path, not even
tangentially. It must be stressed that both situations are hypothetical, very improbable to
be found in empirical world. This is because any historical discourse must be founded,
ultimately, on the memory of those who directly took part at the events that are being
narrated. Not in vain, in Greek mythology, Clio (the muse of history) is the daughter of
Mnemosyne (the personification of memory). And memory, both individual and
collective, is inherently fallible, incomplete, selective, and partially distorted, which
preclude it from being an accurate mirror of the past. Between the two extremes, the
overlapping can be more or less extensive. Usually, collective memory carves from
history symbolically relevant portions that are subsequently organized into a meaningful
narrative, extirpating all the rest of historical reality that cannot be symbolically
capitalized for the time being. Even if collective memory is made from factual bits and
pieces extracted from the flow of history, during the process of their assembling into a
narrative structure injected with meaning, their historical authenticity may be lost, or
264
their historical validity may be perverted. Collective memory tends to corrupt history,
colonizing the past in order to adjust it to the presently dominant political interests and
conceptions.
In the course of time, the relationship between memory and history took on
various forms. Phasing the history of the problematic relationship between memory and
history, Aleida Assmann1 delineates three distinct stages, evolving in time after the
Hegelian logic of thesis, antithesis, and synthesis:
a) identity between history and memory – the pre-modern period;
b) polarity between history and memory – the modern period;
c) interaction between history and memory – the post-modern period.
History as memory: pre-modern identity
In chronological terms, the relation between memory and history firstly underwent the
phase of identity. Aleida Assmann temporally places this relation of correspondence in
pre-modernity,2 before critical history to have secured its foundations as autonomous
scientific endeavour. The “raison d'être” of history was to preserve the memory of the
dynasty, the church, or the state. The historian’s function, as Peter Burke puts it, was that
of being a “‘remembrancer,’ the custodian of the memory of public events.”3 Once
recorded in writing by the historian, these memories of public events were to make the
generating source of fame for the great men of history. That is to say, historians had to
conform to the role requirements drawn by Herodotus, for whom the task of historians
was to be “the guardians of memory, the memory of glorious deeds.”4 As producers of
chronicles, historians performed through their writings the same function as the one
performed in oral societies by the “memory men,” those people socially designated to
preserve the memory of the past in cultures alien to the technology of writing. As such,
this mnemonic history performed more of a political function than a cognitiveintellectual one. Pre-modern history fulfilled a legitimizing function, that of consolidating
the institutions of power and ensuring the durability and perpetuation of the dynasty.
The illustrative expression that can depict the link between history and memory in this
stage is that of history as a tool in the service of power. In this sense, highly suggestive is
the famous statement pronounced by John H. Plumb, according to which “the past has
always been the handmaid of authority.”5 Fusing the memorial function with the
legitimation function,6 this pre-modern form of history brought a decisive contribution
to the ideological reinforcement of the status quo. Regarding this kind of history
subservient to the temporal powers it can be said without hesitation that it performs the
political function of validating the existing social order (“Keeps the ‘quo’ in the
1
Aleida Assmann, “Transformations between Memory and History,” Social Research 75 (2008):
49-72, 57.
2
Assmann, “Transformations…,” 57.
3
Peter Burke, “History as Social Memory,” in The Collective Memory Reader, eds. Jeffrey K.
Olick, Vered Vinitzky-Seroussi, and Daniel Levy (Oxford and New York: Oxford University
Press, 2011), 188.
4
Burke, “History as Social Memory,” 192.
5
John H. Plumb, The Death of the Past (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1969), 33.
6
Assmann, “Transformations …,” 58.
265
‘status’”1). In these circumstances, history, memory, social identity, and power are all
working together to maintain the social order intact.
History contra memory: conflictual polarity
Under the auspices of modernity, the relationship between history and memory
underwent significant change. Subsequent to the formation of history as an autonomous
discipline, the relationship between the two has suffered a radical mutation, transforming
the previous identity into a conflictual polarity. History emancipated itself from the
constraining tutelage of church and royalty, assuming a critical, reflexive stance, even
espousing a destructive manifesto oriented towards the mythologized memory. The
rebellion against memory was made possible only after history underwent a process of
scientification during the 19th century, inaugurated by what came to be known as the
“Rankean revolution”2 occurred in German historiography. This is the moment when
historical knowledge entered its professional phase by defining its own internal
standards, methodological norms, and quality criteria. During this period, the dichotomy
between history (understood now as an objective, value-free, and ideologically impartial
scientific endeavour) and memory (redefined as a distorted, emotionally contaminated,
and subjective history) emerged.
It would be wrong to suppose that the evolution of historical discourse in the
direction of criticism meant the conversion of history from the “handmaid of authority”
in the challenger of the status quo. Not all history became critical and oppositional. Not
even by a long shot! Only a small fraction of all historians assimilated the critical
discourse, the large majority continuing to play the role of lay priests of the state or that
of guardians of the traditional truths that needed constant historical re-confirmation.
Nevertheless, a gradual differentiation occurred between history and memory in the
historical consciousness. History and memory started to separate themselves out of the
melt they previously formed and each of them began to be conceptualized by contrasting
one against the other.
The intellectual tradition that places collective memory at the antipode of
academic history has its roots in the conception of Maurice Halbwachs, more
specifically, in the radical distinction introduced by the French sociologist between
collective memory and historical memory. In his unfinished work, published
posthumously as La Mémoire collective, Halbwachs situates history in an antithetical
relationship with memory, describing their relation as “the ultimate opposition.”3
Halbwachs identifies a set of polar characteristics that distinguish collective memory
from historical memory:
a) The continuity of memory versus the discontinuity of history: collective
memory favours the similarities, resemblances, and analogies that create what
1
Derek Jarman, Suso Cecchi D’Amico and Nicholas Ward-Jackson, Caravaggio, DVD. Directed
by Derek Jarman, British Film Institute (BFI), 1986.
2
Johnson Kent Wright, “History and Historicism,” in The Cambridge History of Science. Volume
7: The Modern Social Sciences, eds. Theodore M. Porter and Dorothy Ross (Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 2008): 113-130, 120.
3
Halbwachs, Collective Memory, 78.
266
Halbwachs calls the “illusion”1 of continuity of group’s identity through time.
While history periodizes the continuous flow of time “just as the content of a
tragedy is divided into several acts,”2 and is focused on capturing the
differences between the historical periods cut into separate temporal
compartments, collective memory “is a current of continuous thought”3 that
emphasizes what remains essentially unchanged.
[…] history is interested primarily in differences and disregards the
resemblances without which there would have been no memory, since the
only facts remembered are those having the common trait of belonging to
the same consciousness […]
What strikes us about [collective memory], however, is that resemblances
are paramount. When it considers its own past, the group feels strongly that
it has remained the same and becomes conscious of its identity through
time.4
As a “record of change,”5 history manifests no interest in the periods when
“nothing apparently happens.” Collective memory, in stark contrast, is the
“record of resemblances.” Ignoring historical ruptures, collective memory is
thus capable of providing the group with a “self-portrait” that persists through
time in which the group can recognize itself and find its collective identity.
b) The syntheticity of memory versus the analyticity of history: collective
memory selects relevant symbols from the reservoir of history that it distils into
identitary narratives. As such, collective memory operates by extracting
significant fragments from the community’s past, injecting them with meaning,
and then synthetizing them into a narrative shot through and through with
emotional undertones. The higher the affective charge of the narrative, the more
privileged position it will occupy within the historical consciousness of the
group members. Instead, history, as disciplined, objective, and emotionally
detached inquiry of the past, does not favour the sectors of the historic flow in
terms of their subjective relevance, but grants equal cognitive and epistemic
importance to all of them. Memory is discriminatory, history is egalitarian.
History’s analyticity (reflected in the propensity of history to break down the
past and analyze it “piece by piece”) and chronological egalitarianism (reflected
in the treatment with the same respect of all parts of history regardless of their
symbolic relevance to society) promote erudition.6 And the necessary
consequence of historical scholarship is the limitation of this kind of analytical
stance towards the past to a small minority of professionals who are deemed to
master and manage the considerable growing stock of technical information
about the past. In contrast, collective memory cannot afford to cultivate
1
Ibid., 87.
Ibid., 80.
3
Ibid.
4
Ibid., 84-85.
5
Ibid., 86.
6
Ibid., 79-80.
2
267
historical scholarship. Selectively retaining from the past only the events, facts,
and figures with symbolic value in the present, collective memory is necessarily
schematic and synthetic. The internal logic of collective memory dictates the
imperative of establishing a parsimonious relationship with the past. Only the
usable past, put in the service of group’s interests and needs, will be
incorporated in the corpus of collective memory. Simplifying to the extremes,
the analyticity of history promotes historical scholarship and erudition, while
the syntheticity of memory is conducive to parsimony towards the past.
c) The subjectivity of memory versus the objectivity of history: closely
correlated with the synthetic character of memory is its subjective quality.
Collective memory, as conceived by Halbwachs, represents the “living past,”
consisting of the sections of the past that continue to be active in the group’s
historical consciousness. On the contrary, formal history represents the dead
past, objectively known, but that had lost any symbolic relevance to the group’s
social life, continuing to survive only as “written history.” Kept in archives or
deposited in books, the scholastic knowledge of the past is sterile in terms of
morally guiding the group’s current affairs and actions. Irrelevant for the
present purposes of the group, scholastic historical knowledge is seen as
continuously embalming a mummified past.
Within the social sciences, a genuine tradition of conceptual borrowing has been
established, expressing itself in the form of transfusing or even transplanting
notions and ideas across disciplinary lines. Notorious is the adoption of the
conceptual pair of “emic” and “etic” from linguistics in socio-anthropological
analysis.1 In the continuation of this tradition of conceptual transfer via the
linguistics-to-sociology link, I propose adopting the notions of dialectgrapholect in order to illustrate the relationship between memory and history.
The distinction between dialect and grapholect has been worked out by the
linguist Einar Haugen,2 for whom the dialect represents the spoken part of the
language, while the grapholect is the written version of the language in
question. The dialect is necessarily narrower in scope than the grapholect, the
former being the active part of the latter, i.e. the selective sum of words that are
orally performed in the contexts of concrete linguistic interactions between
members of a given culture. In contrast, the grapholect includes the totality of
both spoken and unspoken words of a language, i.e. the written vocabulary,
made up of both actively used words in oral practices and un-uttered words that
form the passive vocabulary of a language. In an analogous fashion, memory is
the dialectal past, being performed in the present in commemorative rituals and
codified on material supports (e.g. monuments and texts) through which the
meanings given to the past can be periodically re-affirmed and passed on to
1
Petru Iluţ, Abordarea calitativă a socioumanului (The Qualitative Approach to the Sociohuman) (Iaşi: Polirom, 1997), 38.
2
Einar I. Haugen, “Linguistics and Language Planning,” in Sociolinguistics: Proceedings of the
UCLA Sociolinguistics Conference 1964, ed. William Bright (The Hague, Mouton De Gruyter,
1966): 50-71, 53.
268
future generations. In contrast, professional history, since it encompasses all
knowledge about the past (subjectively relevant and irrelevant alike), is the
grapholectic past. The same relationship between memory and history, dialect
and grapholect, living past and dead past, is captured by the conceptual pair of
canon and archive.1 The canon is the “cultural working memory,”2 expressing
the active dimension of cultural memory. The canon’s defining element is its
“notorious shortage of space”3; this shortage makes exclusion as fundamental in
the establishment of the canon. By contrast, the archive can be seen as the
“cultural reference memory,”4 expressing the passive dimension of cultural
memory.
d) The internality of memory versus the externality of history: due to its
subjective nature, collective memory is an emic representation of the past,
accessing the common past from an internal perspective. Since the social group
is the support and bearer of collective memory, it follows that collective
memory cannot be but an internal gaze, rooted within the group’s social life.
Critical history, understood as objective and non-partisan examination of the
past, is detached from the group’s social framework. In this qualified sense,
history is etic, scrutinizing the past from an external position. The external gaze
of critical history creates the conditions for objectivity, which is possible to be
reached (in a significant measure, but never in its fullness) only as a result of
socio-emotional detachment and de-familiarization.
e) The multiplicity of memories versus the singularity of history: “there are
several collective memories. […] History is unitary, and it can be said that there
is only one history.”5 Since there is an intimate link between every group and its
collective memory of the past, it follows that there are as many collective
memories as there are groups. The subjective nature of collective memories
makes them mutually incompatible and thus impossible to be harmonized into a
single collective memory of humanity. The same cannot be said for history.
Although there certainly are partial histories (e.g. the history of Romania, the
history of Transylvanian peasants, or the history of childhood), these can be
merged together into an overall picture: the comprehensive history resulting
from the collage of specific histories is “like an ocean fed by the many partial
histories.”6 Implicitly in the opposition between the multiplicity of memories
and the singularity of history, there lies another essential tension: the one
between the universal and the particular. Collective memories, as the possession
of the groups, are necessarily particular, while history – objective, emotionally
1
Aleida Assmann, “Canon and Archive,” in Cultural Memory Studies. An International and
Interdisciplinary Handbook, eds. Astrid Erll and Ansgar Nünning (Berlin and New York: Walter
de Gruyter, 2008), 97-107.
2
Assmann, “Canon and Archive,” 100.
3
Ibid.
4
Ibid., 102.
5
Halbwachs, Collective Memory, 83.
6
Ibid., 84.
269
detached, external and immune to the group’s domestic turmoils – tends toward
universality.
Halbwachs’s antithetical dichotomization of collective memory and formal
history has been further continued, developed, and radicalized by a series of thinkers.
The most influential successor of Halbwachs in this direction of counterposing history to
memory is the Annales School historian, Pierre Nora. Prototypical for illustrating the
relation of polarity between collective memory and critical history is the statement of
Pierre Nora: “Memory and history, far from being synonymous, appear now to be in
fundamental opposition.”1 Nora continues by pointing out the stark contrasts between
the two, arguing that memory is the lived connection with the past, while history is
objective representation of the past; memory is the possession of the group, acting as
cohesive cement for group solidarity and fountainhead of group’s identity, while history
is universal; memory is affective and non-reflexive, unconscious of its successive
transformations as it adapts its content to the continuously changing exigencies of the
present, while history is critical, permanently on sceptical guard and suspicious of
memory’s claims. Critical history cuts the umbilical cord that connects the group to its
cultural identity, a bond that memory is desperately trying to keep tightly knit. Memory
sacralizes the past, while history disenchants it, being “iconoclastic and irreverent.”2
Forcing this comparison in religious terms, Tzvetan Todorov considers that “historians
do not aim to increase the supply of holly images, or to enhance the cult of saints and
heroes, or to wash the feet of ‘archangels.’”3 Its refusal to contribute to sacralizing the
past turns history into a “sacrilegious” endeavour, since it desecrates through critical
inquiry what collective memory sanctifies.
The head-to-head comparison is further extended by Peter Novick, for whom
collective memory is ahistorical, or even anti-historical.4 Historical analysis implies the
full awareness of the complexities of the facts examined, along with affective
detachment as necessary measure in order to grasp the multidimensionality of the past.
Abandoning value judgments and embracing the principle of axiological neutrality open
the possibility for accepting ambiguities, “including moral ambiguities, of protagonists’
motives and behavior.”5 In contrast, collective memory simplifies the inherent complexity
of historical facts, reducing them to “mythic archetypes.” Moreover, collective memory
takes a single, morally engaged, perspective, thus being unable to tolerate ambiguities in
interpreting historical events and persons. Elaborating on the opposition between
resemblances and differences emphasized by Halbwachs, Novick points out that
decisive for historical analysis is the consciousness of the historicity of events, the
awareness that the events under study belong to the past. Collective memory, in contrast,
denies the historicity of events, stressing instead their continuing presence and decisive
relevance hic et nunc. Lastly, but not the least, collective memory has a prominent
1
Nora. “Between Memory and History,” 8.
Ibid., 10.
3
Tzvetan Todorov, Hope and Memory. Lessons from the Twentieth Century (Princeton: Princeton
University Press, 2003), 200.
4
Peter Novick, The Holocaust and Collective Memory: The American Experience (Boston:
Houghton Mifflin, 1999), 3-4.
5
Novick, Holocaust and Collective Memory, 4.
2
270
identity function, expressing an “eternal or essential truth about the group,” which, once
in place, comes to define “an eternal identity for the members of the group.”1
The critically minded historian becomes a debunker of memory, a deconstructor
of the heroic master narratives woven around mythic nodes. Critically driven, the
historian comes out of the Herodotean role of guardian of the memory of glorious deeds,
and enters the role of “guardian of awkward facts,” exposing “the skeletons in the
cupboard of the social memory.”2
Summing up, the characteristics that distinguish collective memory from critical
history can be listed in two antithetical records of a synoptic table.
Table 1. Collective memory versus formal history3
Collective memory
organic, synthetic, non-reflexive
affective, selective, subjective
emic, partisan, particular
implies an identity project
intolerant towards ambiguity
sacralizing, reverential, passeistic
simplifies the past and ignores the
findings that do not match the selfserving narrative
conservative and resistant to change:
bypasses counter-evidence in order to
preserve the already established story
Formal history
artificial, analytic, self-reflexive
emotionally detached, critical, objective
etic, neutral, universal
aspires towards an objective account of
the past, irrespective of the consequences
for the group’s identity
acknowledges ambiguity and complexity
sacrilegious, irreverent, iconoclastic
constrained by archive material
opened to revision: embraces the findings
of new research and alters the image of
the past in the light of new evidence
The table presents the contrasting characteristics of memory and history, but
opposes memory to an idealized image of history, as it should be, not as it actually is.
This makes the head-to-head opposition between memory and history an unbalanced
comparison, since it counterposes a descriptive image of collective memory (as it really
is) to a normative image of analytic history (as it should be). The entire comparison is
structured upon the implicit assumption of historical realism, according to which history
is an endeavour capable of exactly reconstructing the past “as it really was” (Leopold
von Ranke: wie es eigentlich gewesen). Precisely this positivist claim I will call into
question, arguing that history shares many traits with collective memory, in the sense
that historical knowledge too is conditioned by the socio-cultural contexts in which it is
produced. Historical research cannot seclude itself from society, and thus cannot be
completely immune to socio-political infiltrations. This is why its conclusions,
1
Ibid.
Burke, “History as Social Memory,” 192.
3
Nora, “Between Memory and History,” 8-9; Novick, Holocaust and Collective Memory, 3-4;
James V. Wertsch and Henry L. Roediger III, “Collective Memory: Conceptual Foundations and
Theoretical Approaches,” Memory 16 (2008): 318-326, 321.
2
271
advertised as Olympian and detached from any emotional or political pulsations, cannot
but bear the marks of the socio-political regime that embeds the production of historical
knowledge.
An epistemological detour at this point of argumentation appears as necessary
in order to elucidate the intricate relationship between history and memory. Especially
urgent is the task of clarifying “the nature of history,” given that in the last half of
century the historical endeavor of objectively knowing the past was increasingly brought
into question. The contesting voices challenging the validity of historical knowledge
progressively gathered momentum as they acquired increasingly stronger postmodernist
overtones. At this moment, history as discipline and discourse about the past is internally
broken into rival epistemic factions, each of them advancing disjunctive agendas and
conflicting views on the image of history. A quadruple fracture line cuts across the
historical community delineating four schools of thought: a) reconstructionism; b)
constructionism; c) deconstructionism; d) endism.1 The order of their disposal reflects
the order of their chronological appearance. Reconstructionism is the doctrine best
summarized in Leopold von Ranke’s precept, of writing history “as it really was.” Its
central axis rests on the doctrine of realism, which makes two assertions: i) the past has a
reality of its own, independent of the mind and knowledge of the researchers (the
ontological postulate); ii) the past, waiting “out there” to be discovered by historians, is,
in principle, objectively knowable (the epistemological postulate). The objective
cognoscibility of the past is conditional on two generic elements: i) the existence of
sources as the foundations for inferences through which the reality of the past can be
reconstructed; ii) compliance with methodological protocols, criteria of validity, and the
rules of inferential logic (in short, respecting “the rules of historical method,” to
paraphrase the title of the famous book written by Émile Durkheim2).
The second pillar supporting the reconstructionist paradigm is the old
Aristotelian doctrine of “apartheid” between history and poetry. In his treaty on literary
theory, Poetics, Aristotle introduced a definite separation between them: history relates
“what has been,” while poetry expresses “what might be.”3 This “Aristotelian
demarcation” is one of the two cornerstones of reconstructionist epistemology. As
historiographical style, reconstructionism shows a reverential attitude towards the
institution of the archive, regarded as the crucial data bank containing the raw materials
used by historians in theoretically re-assembling the past. For the reconstructionist
historian, the archive is the locus of history, the site where the reality of the past is
concentrated in documents. Another particularizing feature of reconstructionism is given
by its atheoretical, sometimes even “rabidly anti-theoretical,”4 orientation. Confident
1
Keith Jenkins and Alun Munslow, “Introduction,” in The Nature of History Reader, eds. Keith
Jenkins and Alun Munslow (London: Routledge, 2004), 1-18.
2
Emile Durkheim, Regulile metodei sociologice (The Rules of Sociological Method), trans. Dan
Lungu (1895; Iaşi: Polirom, 2002).
3
Aristotel, Poetica, trans. C. Balmuş (Bucharest: Editura Ştiinţifică, 1957), Sections 1451a and
1451b, 31; See also Beverley Southgate, History: What & Why? Ancient, Modern, and
Postmodern Perspectives, 2nd Edition (London and New York: Routledge, 2001), 15.
4
Keith Jenkins, “Preface to Routledge Classics edition,” in Re-thinking History (London and
New York: Routledge, 2003): xv-xx, xvii
272
that historical facts extracted from the archives speak for themselves, the narratives
related from within the reconstructionist paradigm are characterized by a minimum level
of theoretical reflexivity. Traditional historians’ mistrust of theory finds its full
expression in the words of Arthur Marwick (one of the coryphaei of reconstructionism),
for whom theorists are nothing but “interlopers”1 undermining the historical discipline.
A further distinctive feature of reconstructionism resides in its ideographic approach,
given by the historical research’s focus on specific military events and political actions.
Preference for the ideographic style of doing history leads toward conceiving history in
terms of chronologically sequenced eventful narratives (histoire événementielle), where
the importance of the “Great Men of History”2 is highly oversized.
As a revised offshoot of reconstructionism, constructionism abandons the
absolutist claims of reconstructing the past as it really happened in its original totality (as
expressed by Ranke’s epistemological aspirations). Constructionism acknowledges the
impossibility of total and integral reconstruction of the past, but does not give up the
possibility of a tentative, limited, incomplete, but still quasi-objective knowledge.
Completeness and integrality, both building blocks of the reconstructionist project, are
reformulated as the principles of incompleteness and partiality, inherent to all intellectual
constructions which aim to apprehend the past, as far as possible, in a realist and objective
fashion. If reconstructionism is founded on the premise of epistemological absolutism,
constructionism is built upon the principle of epistemological fallibilism3. Moreover, the
anti-theoretical orientation of reconstructionism gives way to embracing social theory as
paradigmatic framework in terms of which historical facts are being interpreted. A further
revision consists in the move from ideographic towards nomothetic, which results in
refocusing the centre of interest from surface events and concrete individuals to deep
structures and long-term processes. The constructionist style of doing history is embodied
in the French school of historiography coagulated around the Annales d'histoire
économique et sociale journal. Despite the differences in nuances between them, both
doctrines can be framed in the family of epistemological realism, since both
reconstructionism and constructionism are characterized by their belief in the possibility of
objectivity of historical knowledge – naïve faith for the former, qualified belief for the
latter. Furthermore, both can be described as positive epistemologies, since they both aim
to develop assertive statements that establish facts about the reality of the past. In
contradistinction, the other two epistemologies of history (deconstructionism and endism)
can be classified as negative epistemologies, since both set their objective to reject the
possibility of legitimate and disinterested knowledge of the past.
Deconstructionism is the phalanx of postmodernism in historical thought.
Opposable point-by-point to the epistemological assumptions of reconstructionism, the
deconstructionist program considers objectivity to be at best a comfortable illusion.
Deconstructionists protest that the “ideology of objectivity” not only legitimates the
1
Arthur Marwick, “Metahistory is Bunk – History is Essential,” Inaugural lecture at the Open
University, 5 October 1993, cited in Southgate, History…, 3.
2
Carlyle, On Heroes, 1.
3
Charles Sanders Peirce, Collected Papers of Charles Sanders Peirce, eds. Charles Hartshorne
and Paul Weiss (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1931), Sections 1.141-1.175. C.S. Peirce
was the first to advance “the doctrine of fallibilism” concerning human knowledge.
273
flawed traditional historical approach, but also conceals behind the smoke screen of
objectivity a fierce will to power and domination. History, seen by reconstructionists as
belonging to science, is placed by deconstructionists within humanities, sharing the
same cognitive status as literature and other forms of artistic creation. Taking the view
of history as rather an “aesthetic narrative” than an intellectual product derivative of
empirical constraints, deconstructionism is anti-representational, anti-empiricist, and
relativist. Anti-representational, since it rejects the correspondence theory of truth upon
which any realist epistemology is founded. According to the deconstructionist view,
historical narratives do not correspond to any concrete realities of the past, but instead
are aesthetic-literary creations of the “author-historian.” As such, they cannot
legitimately claim to be objective representations of the past, but simple fictional
productions that create the past rather than discovering it out there. “Histories qua
histories are always representational failures,”1 and this undeniable “fact” brings
“wonderful news” that need to be celebrated. It seems that deconstructionism, although
highly aversive towards the appeal to facts, has, after all, its own apodictic facts!
Evidently, this internal contradiction is not resolved by what can be called the
postmodernist strategy of scare quoting, as illustrated in the following statement:
And this “fact” – the fact that histories are irreducible to “the facts” and thus
knowledge closures; the fact that histories always contain acts of the creative
imagination – means that histories are impossible to close down, because it is
impossible to close down the imagination.2
The anti-empiricist element of deconstructionism derives from the understanding of
historical accounts as “acts of imagination”: “histories as such are aesthetic, figurative
productions.”3 Central to this conceptualization of historical theories in aesthetic terms is
the position of Hayden White, for whom the historian “performs an essentially poetic
act.”4 This conviction leads White into concluding “the ineluctably poetic nature of the
historical work.”5 Elaborating on Hayden White’s aestheticizing conception, Keith
Jenkins and Alun Munslow assert that “histories are aesthetic, figurative, positioned,
imaginary artefacts – and especially literary artefacts.”6 For deconstructionists, history
is nothing more than just another literary genre, since they conceive history as being
“indeed a narrative, aesthetic and thus fictive creation.”7
Now is the right time to signal a rhetorical manoeuvre specific to postmodernist
reasoning by invoking an eloquent example of what can be called the postmodernist
argumentative contortion. Here is the quote:
[Narrativization, i.e. the process of organizing unstructured information about
the past into a narrative pattern] is just an act of imagination. And this
imaginative, constitutive element gives history qua history the unavoidable
1
Jenkins and Munslow, “Introduction,” 4.
Ibid., 3.
3
Ibid.
4
Hayden White, Metahistory: The Historical Imagination in Nineteenth-Century Europe
(Baltimore and London: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1973), x.
5
White, Metahistory, xi.
6
Jenkins and Munslow, “Introduction,” 4.
7
Ibid., 5.
2
274
status of being fictive. Not, let us note immediately, the status of being a piece
of fiction […] but fictive in the sense of fictio; that is to say, made up, fashioned,
created, fabricated, figured. We thus take it as read that histories as such are
aesthetic, figurative productions.1
The reasoning follows the rhythms of a two steps, back-and-forth dance. In the opening
move, a radical, if not outrageous, statement is being put forward that shocks common
sense. In our example, the “radical prologue” comes in the assertion: “history is
unavoidable fictive.” Immediately following is the twisting moment, the step back, the
dilutive addition: “fictive in the sense of fictio.” The provocative radicalism of the initial
statement is partially retracted by invoking a play of words. The rhetorical strategy
employed to deliver the persuasive argument looks like a threat of bomb attack, that
immediately after it was announced, its authors rush to diffuse it as quickly as possible.
If “fictive” simply means that the historical account is the intellectual production of the
historian, who must use his or her “historical imagination” (in a sense analogous to
Charles Wright Mills’ “sociological imagination”2), what is the point of using such a
provocative descriptor? Certainly every thoughtful historian acknowledges that facts do
not speak for themselves, that the “voices” of the past are in fact mute, and that the
historian is the one who speaks on behalf of the past through the account that s/he is
piecing together from the available evidence.
Epistemological relativism arises naturally from such a fictional understanding
of history. If histories are but artistic creations free from the double constraints of
empirical evidence and the canons of formal logic, then surely anything goes3.
Relativism substitutes the realist precept expressed by Ranke as the mission statement
for the reconstructionist program (“writing history as it really was”) with the slogan of
epistemological anarchism summarized by Paul Feyerabend in the phrase “anything
goes.” Relativism is also the doctrine to which Lucian Boia pays allegiance in his
repeatedly expressed views on the nature of history: historical knowledge is the
incomplete, simplified, and distorted image of the past endlessly redefined under the
pressure of the present. The radically flavoured relativism embraced by Boia postulates
the impossibility of objective knowledge in history: “It must be understood that
objective history does not exist. Indeed, not only does it not exist; it cannot exist.”4 The
historical discourse drastically filters actually happened history, it artificially injects
order and coherence into the empirical mess of events, and thus it “dramatizes” the
action and infuses it with a “well-defined sense.”5 But Boia does not stop here: the
historians, as tireless creators of meanings, coherence, and order, “produce a sort of
‘fiction’ out of ‘true’ materials.”6 We find in Lucian Boia the same practice of scare
quoting that was pointed out earlier. With this picture of historical discourse, the
differences between history and fiction tend to fade away, being increasingly more
difficult to perceive the borders between the two. History and fiction dissolve each other
1
Ibid., 3.
Charles Wright Mills, The Sociological Imagination (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1959).
3
Paul Feyerabend, Against Method (New York: Verso, 1993), 14.
4
Boia, History and Myth…, 28.
5
Ibid., 27.
6
Ibid.
2
275
into a literary-aesthetic creation. Important to mention is that Boia, vocalizing the
relativistic beliefs shared by all deconstructionists, does not refer to the distorted history,
ideologically biased, and contaminated with all sorts of corrupting assumptions. He is
speaking of historical discourse as such, about history per se. And this is what makes his
relativist position all the more radical.
Finally, the last epistemological faction is the one that Jenkins and Munslow
call endism. The authors whose conceptions on history fall into this category overradicalize the deconstructionist program, bringing into question not only the realist
postulates of both reconstructionism and constructionism, but the very sense of historical
endeavour and knowledge. As such, the endists do not hesitate to declare, with all the
intellectual morgue required by such a mortuary pronouncement, “the death of history.”
If reconstructionism is grounded on realism, and deconstructionism finds its
epistemological support in relativism, endism is founded upon scepticism, or even
cynicism, concerning historical knowledge. The major differences that divide the four
epistemological schools of thought are summarized in the following table.
Table 2. Epistemologies of history
Reconstruction
ism
epistemologica
l valence
epistemologica
l doctrine
Constructionism
positive epistemologies
naïve realism
Deconstructionism
Endism
negative epistemologies
critical realism
relativism
scepticism
uses
philosophical
theory to
problematized
the past and
the knowledge
of it
uses
philosophi
cal theory
to dissolve
historical
discourse
pronounced
total
(hyperbolic)
relation with
theory
anti-theoretical
uses social
theory to
interpret the
past
incredulity
towards the
conclusions
and meaning
of historical
research
absent
mitigated
Personally, the position that I embrace regarding the epistemology of history is
that of fallibilism, corresponding to the constructionist school of thought from the
quadruple classification developed by Jenkins and Munslow. According to the fallibilist
belief system, politically disengaged critical history is an attempt to rationally
reconstruct the past on the basis of the available objective evidence. Nevertheless, the
scarcity of evidence is responsible for the incomplete and tentative nature of any
historical conclusion. Historian’s inferences, even if logically sound, can reflect only
partially (and possibly distorted) the historical reality. Complete reconstruction of the
276
past is impossible. Historical representation inevitably performs a reduction to scale,
since a model as complex as the represented object is meaningless, and in the case of
history, definitely unattainable. “Mapping the landscape of history”1 is never going to
give us a one-to-one temporal chart of the past.2 Besides, historians are prisoners of the
present, who can hardly escape their temporal localization to situate themselves beyond,
or outside, time. This temporal captivity explains why most historical accounts are
affected by a presentist bias. If we introduce into the equation also the ideological
influences that colour historian’s orientations, it becomes clear that the past “as it really
happened,” in its intact and unaltered totality, is irrecoverable. Historical knowledge
must give up the dream of attaining absolute and definitive truths, because they are
beyond the grasp of science, and settle instead for the more modest aspiration of trying
to approximate as accurate as possible (but always imperfect) the structures and
meanings of the past. However, the intellectual constructions developed by historians in
order to make sense of the past are far from being mere fictional creations similar to
literary genres. Even if they are intellectual constructions, they respond to a different set
of criteria of validity than that of aesthetic-literary works for which notions such as
validity are nonsensical. Against fictionalist view, it must be stressed that historical
facts, in the form of elementary truths about the past, certainly exist. Of course, “facts
that can be established beyond all reasonable doubt remain trivial.”3 But their objectivity
resides precisely in the elementarity of these factual truths situated beyond any rational
suspicion. The existence of the Holocaust is one such objective historical fact. On the
other hand, quantifying the exact number of victims of the Holocaust is indeed beyond
the epistemic possibilities of historical inquiry. In such situations, we must content
ourselves with approximations. Even more problematic becomes the condition of
historical knowledge when it tries to grasp the meanings of some historical phenomena
or to understand the intentions of historical actors. But the barriers are far from being
insurmountable even in this case. The subjective dimension of both collective
mentalities and historical actors is not irretrievably lost. Working on the same example
already mentioned, it is known what were the ideological resorts that motivated the
actions leading to the Holocaust in Nazi Germany. Who can state that a work that
constructs, according to the standards of historical method authorized within the
community of professionals, a history of Auschwitz during the Third Reich, is a simple
fictional creation, belonging to literary genre, that is, to the realm of imagination
uncontrolled by empirical constraints? Against the central theses of the fictionalist
doctrine of history, it must be emphasized that “the difference between historical fact
and falsehood is not ideological.”4 With regard to the Holocaust, to continue the
1
John Lewis Gaddis, The Landscape of History: How Historians Map the Past (Oxford and New
York: Oxford University Press, 2004).
2
See Jorge Luis Borges, “On Exactitude in Science,” in Collected Fictions, trans. Andrew Hurley
(New York: Penguin Books, 1999), 325 for a fascinating literary treatment of “map–territory
relation.” With a few literary strokes, Borges explores the absurdity, and ultimately the futility, of
such an ambitious undertaking.
3
William H. McNeill, “Mythistory, or Truth, Myth, History, and Historians,” American
Historical Review 91 (1986): 1-10, 2.
4
Eric J. Hobsbawm, On History (New York: The New Press, 1997), 272.
277
example, the historical reality is in principle knowable: “Whether the Nazi gas ovens
existed or not can be established by evidence.”1 History is fictive only to the extent that
it disregards what Eric Hobsbawm considers to be the foundation of historical inquiry:
“the supremacy of evidence.”2
History and memory: interaction and complementarity
Based on the extent of the supremacy of evidence, a decisive distinction must be
operated between: a) politicized, partisan, ideologically engaged history, which tends
toward the fictional extreme of the continuum, where the imaginary reigns supreme; b)
professional critical history, which although cannot completely purge itself off of
politico-ideological infiltrations that distort its aspirations towards objectivity, succeeds
in constructing approximate representations of past realities. In the first category, that of
ideologically politicized history, fall all nationalist histories written with the purpose of
legitimizing the nation-state. These types of narrative exemplify what Bernard Lewis
called “history for purpose.”3 Also in this category is the right place for genuinely
fictional histories, of the kind written by Nicolae Densuşianu in his Prehistoric Dacia, in
which he launched the phantasmagorical hypothesis that on the current Romania’s
territory flourished, eight thousand years ago, the Pelasgian civilization, out of which the
entire European culture emerged. Latin became, in Densuşianu’s historical scheme, a
dialect spoken within the Pelasgian civilization. Cataloguing all eccentricities contained
in Densuşianu’s work spanning well over a thousand pages would occupy an
unjustifiable amount of space. Suffice it to note that Lucian Boia considers Prehistoric
Dacia as “the expression of the strongest dose of the imaginary in Romanian
historiography,”4 while Vasile Pârvan, referring to Densuşianu’s work, qualified it as
“fantasy novel.”5 So, is there any difference at all between the historical accounts
presented in Densuşianu’s Prehistoric Dacia and Pârvan’s Getica respectively? Are
both figurative creations, fictional productions emerging out of historical imagination?
My firm position is that the only answers that can be given to these questions are
categorically affirmative to the former, negative to the latter. We are forced to
discriminate between history of scientific quality, which responds to the exigencies of
method and logic, and history of poor scientific quality, tributary to wishful thinking and
extra-scientific purposes (political, ideological, etc.). Only the latter, i.e. Densuşianu’s
Prehistoric Dacia, is truly fictitious.
If this fundamental distinction is accepted, collective memory can be related in
opposition with critical history. On the other hand, between collective memory and
fictional history there is an elective affinity as well as overlapping rather than net
opposition. Decupling collective memory from fictionally tilted history is much more
difficult to effect than separating collective memory from analytic history.
1
Hobsbawm, On History, 272.
Ibid.
3
William M. Brinner, review of History: Remembered, Recovered, Invented, by Bernard Lewis,
International Journal of Middle East Studies 8 (1977): 575-577, 576.
4
5
Ibid.
2
278
The relationship between collective memory and history can be characterized as
theoretical distinctivity and practical communion. Theoretically, collective memory is
drastically differentiated from academic, professional history. The precise distinction
resists only artificially maintained on a theoretical level; practiced history, however, in
contrast to its idealized image, is often just as imbued with political, ideological,
methodological biases (to name only a few sources of distortion), which move it closer
to collective memory. Practiced history and collective memory criss-cross one another
and intertwine with each other forming an intricate mesh that is the societal
representation of the past. This amalgamation of practiced history and collective
memory has been captured in notions such as “mythistory” or “mythoscape.”
The interstitial space between scientific history and fictive history is much too
broad not to accommodate intermediary forms of construing the past. I have argued to
this point that between scientific history and fictional history stands practiced history.
But the latter does not fully exhaust the buffer space between scientific history and the
purely, or mostly fictional, history. Enough space is left for mythistory, i.e. the mythical
way of addressing and making sense of the past. Mythistory, understood as mythical
representation of the past, emerges on the territory between practiced history and fictive
history, which can be called mythscape. By the notion of “mythscape,” Duncan Bell is
referring to the “discursive realm in which the myths of the nation are forged,
transmitted, negotiated, and reconstructed constantly.”1
Historical myth must be clearly differentiated from both historical fact and
historical fiction. Historical fact, established as a consequence of rigorous inquiry,
consists of highly reliable representations of some past realities; nonetheless, historical
facts remain, in principle, fallible, and subject to revision. John H. Goldthorpe
formulates the following definition, which the British historical sociologist considers to
be the best answer to the question “what is a historical fact?”: “a historical fact is an
inference from the relics.”2 Embracing the fundamental epistemological postulates of
realism regarding historical knowledge, Goldthorpe strongly emphasizes the idea that
“we can only know the past on the basis of what has physically survived from the past:
that is, on the basis of the relics – or of what may be alternatively described as the
residues, deposits or traces – of the past.”3 The slogan advanced to capture the essence
of his conception is “no relics, no history.”4 The residues of the past survive in three
main forms: a) natural remains, such as bones or excrements; b) material artefacts, such
as tools, weapons, domestic objects or works of art; c) “objectified communications,”
namely written documentary records of human communication. Even though relics (the
inferential foundation of historical facts) are characterized by finitude and
incompleteness, Goldthorpe insists upon the possibility of establishing historical facts
where the traces of the past allow for making controlled inferences. Of course, like any
inductive reasoning, the historical fact established by an inference from the relics falls
1
Daniel S. A. Bell, “Mythscapes: Memory, Mythology, and National Identity,” British Journal of
Sociology 54 (2003): 63–81, 63.
2
John H. Goldthorpe, “The Uses of History in Sociology: Reflections on some Recent
Tendencies,” The British Journal of Sociology 42 (1991): 211-230, 213.
3
Goldthorpe, “The Uses of History,” 213.
4
Ibid.
279
under the general principle of fallibility, which characterizes the entire spectrum of
human knowledge.
In total contradistinction to historical facts stand historical fictions epitomized in
the fantastical speculations of Nicolae Densuşianu. The myth, however, although
belonging to the realm of the imaginary, keeps contact with reality in that “it is not
merely a story told but a lived reality.”1 In Lucian Boia’s conception, myth is an
“imaginary construction […] which serves to highlight the essence of cosmic and social
phenomena, in close relation to the fundamental values of the community, and with the
aim of ensuring that community’s cohesion.”2 In his attempt to elucidate the nature of
mythical phenomena, Boia determines myth’s constitutive dimensions as follows: a)
myth incorporates a truth considered to be essential for the community that embraces it,
an “eternal truth” in which the group’s collective identity resides; b) it is highly
symbolically charged, having a built-in moral grid for interpreting reality through which
it functions as axiological guide for the community; c) it is reductionistic, since it
simplifies the complexity of historical phenomena, paying selective attention only to
what can be integrated into its schematic understanding of reality. We can add to these
essential features Malinowski’s famous remark that myth is a “sociological charter,”3
because it anchors the present in the past and thus performs the function of validating
and justifying the established social structure and organization. Besides the function of
social integration, included in Boia’s definition, the legitimizing role of myth cannot be
overlooked. Malinowski is again illuminating in this respect too: “the myth comes into
play when rite, ceremony, or a social or moral rule demands justification, warrant of
antiquity, reality, and sanctity.”4 Mythistory, in the form of Romanian nationalistic
history throughout the 19th and 20th centuries, for instance, provided the Romanian
national state that was either in blueprint or in the making with a triple “warrant of
antiquity, reality, and sanctity” by which to legitimize its right to political existence.
National memory, Romanian and elsewhere, drew heavily from the “mythothèque”
created by this mythical mode of addressing the past.
Collective memory forms at the junction point between practiced history and
mythistory. Which does not mean that in collective memory’s content do not creep in
reliable information belonging to scientific history, or fictitious elements borrowed from
fictional history. No doubt that both real historical data and fictional information
infiltrate the corpus of collective memory. The difference is that most materials making
up collective memory’s thesaurus come from practiced history and mythistory. To sum
up, collective memory is supplied predominantly from two sources: a) practiced history,
which provides factual information about the past, but which comes already partially
biased in the direction of glorifying the community’s past; these are then processed and
turned in historical master narratives, “semantically loaded” with meanings relevant to
the present needs of the community in question; b) the second major supplier is the
mythothèque, i.e. the collection of historical myths culturally shared within a social
1
Bronislaw Malinowski, “Myth in Primitive Psychology,” in Magic, Science and Religion and
Other Essays (New York: The Free Press, 1948), 72-124, 78.
2
3
Malinowski, “Myth in Primitive Psychology,” 120.
4
Ibid., 85-86.
280
community resulting from the workings of mythistory’s representation of the past.
Figure 1 below offers a schematic depiction of the connections between all this different
types of construing the past and collective memory.
Figure 1. The typology of history along the realism-fictionalism axis
Realism
Idealized scientific
history
Fictionalism
Practiced history
Mythistory
Fictional
history
Collective memory
With the awareness of all these various types of compositions in which memory
and history subsists, the relation between collective memory and history began to be
understood in terms of complementarity and interaction, and not as standing in
opposition and conflict to each other. This latest development is specific to the
contemporary period of post-modernity in which history and memory are seen as
engaged in a dialogical conversation. Two developments are decisive in characterizing
the new situation: a) the dissolution of the radical opposition between history and
memory, as a consequence of acknowledging that history in praxis is not as objective as
it claimed to be; b) the awareness that official history can be supplemented by memory
(especially through oral history research), while memory can be corrected by historical
research.1 The new consensus is that each of the two forms of knowing the past has the
capacity to the fill the gaps in the other’s system of knowledge. Instead of competing in
the race for postulating absolute truth (objective or subjective), the rivalry has been
replaced by a common partnership in knowing the multidimensionality of the past.
Conclusions
The understanding of collective memory (i.e. the way in which a social community
represents its own past, be it real or imaginary) is conditioned by decrypting the
multifold relationship that memory has with history. This paper described the typology
of relations established in the course of time between memory and history, tracing their
incarnations in three successive configurations, each of them specific to a particular
time-frame: from their identity in pre-modernity, through conflictual polarity in
modernity, towards interaction and complementarity in post-modernity. The paper then
differentiates between four types of doing history and spreads them on a continuum
ranging from total objectivity to completely fictive (i.e. “idealized scientific history,”
“practiced history,” “mythistory,” and “fictional history”). Equipped with these
conceptual distinctions, the paper argues that collective memory is being articulated at
the confluence between practiced history and mythistory, both of these being in their
turn influenced by the cultural background (Weltanschauung) against which they
1
Assmann, “Transformations…,” 63.
281
function. Moreover, against the contemporary postmodernist current that fights for
demoting the cognitive status of historical knowledge to the level of fictional aesthetic
constructions, the paper defends the possibility of quasi-objective knowing the expired
reality of the past. Between the Charybdis of absolutism and the Scylla of relativism, the
paper defends a soft and limited objectivity,1 epistemologically sanctioned by the
doctrine of fallibilism. Rigorous inquiry combining ascetic discipline with theoretical
insight opens the possibility of attaining reliable historical knowledge, but unavoidably
fallible, tentative, and incomplete.
1
As espoused by Richard J. Evans, In Defence of History (London: Granta Books, 1997), see
especially Chapter 8, “Objectivity and its limits,” which concludes with the following statement:
“For my part, I remain optimistic that objective historical knowledge is both desirable and
attainable” (252). Against postmodernism’s apocalyptic skepticism, I fully share Evans’
epistemological optimism.
282
Caudillismo:
Identity Landmark of Hispanic American
Authoritarian Political Culture
Alina ŢIŢEI
“Alexandru Ioan Cuza” University, Iaşi
Keywords: caudillo, caudillismo, colonial period, independence wars, authority,
legitimacy
Abstract: The construction of identity, in the case of the turbulent history of Hispanic
American states, was a process which involved the proliferation of authoritarian figures
and an unremitting adaptation to local conditions. A distinctive landmark of this
identitary crystallization, caudillismo was intimately bound to the disintegration of the
colonial system and to the mass-scale social turmoil that escalated during the first half of
the 19th century. Its entire phenomenology was highly influenced by the social,
economic and political superstructures formerly created by the Spanish authority whose
collapse represented a turning point for Hispanic America’s faltering political culture.
*
1. Preliminaries
The year 1492 marks two significant moments in history: firstly, the discovery of
America by Christopher Columbus, and, secondly, the beginning of the territorial
conquests and colonization process on behalf of the Spanish Crown. This resulted in the
creation of the most extensive colonial empire, where the sun never set, as Charles V1
would say later (En mis dominios nunca se pone el sol). At that time, Spain’s leadership
was represented by two sovereigns, Isabella I and Ferdinand V; through marriage
(1469), they succeeded in unifying the most large and important kingdoms over which
they were rulling, Castile and Aragon (1479), thus establishing a very efficient
coregency in terms of equally shared power.
Their accomplishments are noteworthy: the unification of the Hispanic
monarchy and the foundation of the future Spanish state, as we know it today; the
implementation of a centralized government system, after successfully finishing the
Reconquista; the development of a military mechanism that was to dominate the next
century; the completion of a legislative framework; the reformation of the Church and,
last but not least, the political and financial support (especially by Isabella, on behalf of
the Christian ideals and values which she represented as sovereign) of the expeditions to
the West, which culminated with the discovery of America that enabled Spain to
become the first world power in modern times.
1
Ruler of the Holy Roman Empire (1519–1556) and king of Spain (1516–1556)
283
The encounter of these two worlds (el encuentro de dos mundos) entailed a
substantial change in the morphology of geographical, political, social, economic,
cultural, and identitary evolution of both the “old continent” but especially the newly
discovered land. Since the first Spanish contacts with the local population, the American
territory proved to be a very different and extremely heterogeneous reality, the existence
of these huge discrepancies being preserved not only in relation to the continent as a
whole, but to each one of the future Hispanic American countries. In this context, there
are still societies which, although living within the same geographical and administrative
boundaries, belong to different historical times, or even to different worlds. Hence,
Hispanic America is undoubtedly a world of contrasts and dissimilarities, a region
where, historically speaking, there was an enormous lack of equality and uniformity
maintained until today, despite the efforts to eradicate poverty, as well as economic and
social development.
2. Caudillismo: General Framework. Definition
In the early 19th century, Spain loses its vast possessions in the New World and enters a
period of decline that marks the end of its global hegemony, while the rise of another
powerful European state takes place: the United Kingdom. For the Spanish colonies a
fundamental stage begins: the emancipation from Spain and the foundation of the future
Hispanic American free and independent states. These events, that occurred between
1808–18241 approximately, experienced a rapid and homogeneous development due to
major transformations within power relations in Hispanic America: the introduction of the
quartermaster2 system; the practice of selling certain local offices to the benefit of wealthy
Creole who thus increase their influence; an army composed mostly of native people; a
diminished authority of the Church3; trade development; and particularly the Napoleonic
Wars (1799-1815), especially the Spanish campaign, called the “Iberian war”.
To the Hispanic American countries, independence meant only a first step
towards modernity in the early 19th century. Without having a political tradition of their
own and without knowing other way of leadership and organization than that imposed
by the absolutist Spanish Crown, they adopted a foreign governance model – liberal
constitutionalism – trying to articulate a political system based on the experiences of
French and American revolutions. Therefore, they embraced Republicanism and,
1
With the exception of the Caribbean that will not gain independence until the end of the 19th
century. These nation-states have preserved their independence up to the present, noting that
Panama becomes an independent state as late as 1903, as a consequence of its detachment from
Columbia after the War of 1000 days (1899–1902) and because of economic interests related to
the construction of the Panama Canal.
2
Administrative officer of French origin, introduced in Spain and the Spanish colonies by the
Bourbon dynasty, the quartermaster ran over a specific territory, generally of medium size, and
was appointed by the king among the peninsular inhabitants, so that he was no longer
subordinated to the Viceroy, but directly to the Crown.
3
Jesuits, whose power and influence had been increasingly growing, both in the spiritual aspect
(promoters of university education) as well as in the economic one (which allowed them to make
political claims), are expelled through the Pragmatic Sanction of King Charles III of Spain, in
1767, and their properties are taken by the monarchical institution.
284
regarding the separation of powers, they chose the presidentialist model of North
American descent. Acquisition of sovereignty was by no means a peaceful process, in
most cases violent clashes taking place and even civil wars, which inevitably led to
social breakdown, a fracturing of society. The ensuing period was marked by an acute
political instability, with numerous and ongoing conflicts between the various camps
and interest groups, as well as a severe economic crisis largely triggered by the loss and
destruction following the independence wars.
But the separation of the American territories from the Spanish Crown did not
automatically imply a profound and definitive alienation, in all respects, from the old
absolutist regime; it was, indeed, a transfer of authority, but rather a formal one, whereas
many of the social, economic and political practices that had been ensuring the dynamics
of the colonial system’s functioning until that moment survived and kept imposing
themselves in the newly created circumstances, though, naturally, with different values
and meanings1.
Therefore, from a socio-political point of view, the next years, 1830–1850,
would continue on the same ascending line of turmoil, military conflicts and civil wars.
Moreover, given the former colonies’ almost umbilical attachment to the autocratic
model inherited from the Spanish monarchy and the weak state authority, there would be
innumerable attempts to centralize and concentrate power. Those who will stand out in
this period and will seize the forefront of the political scene are the so-called caudillos,
military strongmen whose proliferation and influence during the entire 19th century
made Charles E. Chapman to define it as “the age of the caudillos”.2 Through the
complex political, social and economic phenomenon they generated – caudillismo – and
the authoritarian government system they implemented – caudillaje – these skillful
magnetic leaders marked a historic moment of overwhelming importance in the
development of Hispanic American states and also determined the expansion of
authoritarian regimes in these countries. Largely considered either the product of a
disarticulated society or the effect of an extreme institutional disruption, a peculiar
process related to a crude colonial power in decline or the sheer expression of a political
disarray associated with the presence of regionalisms, caudillismo may be described, in
its broadest political sense, as a “highly personalistic and quasimilitary regime whose
party mechanisms, administrative procedures, and legislative functions are subject to the
intimate and immediate control of a charismatic leader and his cadre of mediating
officials.”3 Although this pervasive, escalating phenomenon flourished within a specific
political, cultural, and identitary environment, one should not overlook, however, that
the transition of Hispanic America to caudillismo virtually took and reflected the
European evolutions and the gradual substitution of the medieval religiously engaged
model with the anthropocentrist or individualistic model, by means of a desacralization
process controlled everywhere as the Hispanic societies evolved towards modernity.
1
Cf. Lariza Pizano, “Caudillismo y clientelismo: expresiones de una misma lógica,” Revista de
Estudios Sociales, junio, 009 (2001): 75, http://redalyc.uaemex.mx/src/inicio/ ArtPdfRed.jsp?iCve
=81500909 (accessed August 16, 2012).
2
Cf. Charles Edward Chapman, “The Age of the Caudillos: A Chapter in Hispanic American
History,” Hispanic American Historical Review 12 (1932): 281–300.
3
Kalman Hirsch Silvert, “Caudillismo,” International Encyclopedia of the Social Sciences, 1968,
http://www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1G2-3045000176.html (accessed August 16, 2012).
285
3. Caudillos and Caudillismo: Origins and Growth
Before the historical moment of 1810 – when most colonies initiate emancipation
movements from the Spanish Crown – the Hispanic American context was not
propitious to the emergence and development of caudillismo. Yet, the events that took
place in the next period gave rise to a new character: local hero, military chieftain or
leader of armed bands, the caudillo was seen as a result of the specific, concrete
circumstances in the early 19th century (independence wars, formation of nation-states
and anarchic tendencies of the postwar period). However, the key factor paving the way
for the fulminant ascent of such leaders were the changes produced in connection with
the ownership and use of land areas in different parts of Hispanic America. The end of
colonial rule and the collapse of colonial institutions have resulted in creating a power
vacuum waiting to be filled. That was the best moment for local heroes to assert
themselves and begin their political journey without necessarily embracing a rigorously
delineated ideological or doctrinal platform: “Los caudillos no han sido necesariamente
gente con arreos ideológicos o grandes proyectos de cambio social; su temeridad
guerrera, sus habilidades organizativas, sus limitados escrúpulos, su capacidad para
tomar decisiones drásticas, los convierten en los hombres del momento. Lograron
organizar y ponerse a la cabeza de cuerpos militares triunfantes, y en su momento
gozaron de una apreciable legitimidad, antes de que su sino político se eclipsara. Un
instinto de autodefensa social les hizo aceptables por cientos o miles de seguidores. Y
finalmente, el acceso al poder los convirtió en dictadores, marcando la parte final del
ciclo.”1 So, in the early years of conflict, the caudillo gradually turned into a guerrilla
leader or a military chieftain, counting among his followers family members, peones, or
unemployed individuals fleeing from justice or slavery and whose adhesion around him
relied on either loyalty, interest or fear. The caudillo needed to obtain absolute power
and he achieved it by drawing upon the three elements of the natural superiority which
any leader acquires in wartime: success, popularity and cruelty. Caudillismo therefore
arises in a tense climate, in which the state authority is unable to impose itself over the
nation – either because of the struggle for supremacy between monarchists and
republicans, or because of the competition among interest groups for controlling the
executive power. In this way, local power bases are created that caudillos rush to
occupy, establishing thus a new social order. But what are the roots of caudillismo, how
it evolved and which aspects best feature it as an identity landmark of Hispanic
American political culture?
After they have long been seeking to establish the origins of caudillismo,
scholars have managed to distinguish three major arguments as to the genesis of this
particular phenomenon: the Spanish monarchy, the colonial period, and the
independence wars.2
1
Pedro Castro, “El caudillismo en América Latina, ayer y hoy,” Política y cultura 27 (2007): 12,
http://www.scielo.org.mx/scielo.php?pid=S0188-77422007000100002&script=sci_arttext
(accessed August 19, 2012).
2
Cf. Reiko Tateiwa, “Caudillismo y sus interpretaciones: un análisis sobre un fenómeno común
de la historia de América Latina en el siglo XIX,” Cuadernos Canela VII (1995): 43,
http://www.canela.org.es/cuadernoscanela/canelapdf/cc7tateiwa.pdf (accessed August 22, 2012).
286
Regarding the Spanish monarchic heritage, Charles E. Chapman believes that
the seeds of the 19th century caudillismo are to be found in the attitude displayed by the
conquistadors, who transplanted the absolutist model from their native country to the
new discovered territories. In his opinion, the indigenous populations incorporated the
absolutist system relatively smoothly due to the fact that the tribal organization and
leadership they had were largely similar to the Spanish autocratic regime.1
On the other hand, Richard M. Morse understands caudillismo as a natural
consequence of the two distinct political stances adopted by the Catholic Monarchs. He
thinks that the Spanish domination in the New World was rooted in the interplay
between the two different manners of approaching statecraft and conquest endeavours:
through her expansionist actions to the south and overseas, Isabella “symbolizes the
spiritualist, medieval component of the emergent Spanish Empire,”2 whereas Ferdinand,
politically and military engaged in Eastern and Northern Europe, “represents a secular,
Renaissance counterpart.”3 This twofold ideological perspective was also gradually
implemented in the American colonies with the aid of the Spanish conquistadors,
colonizers, and catechizers, a significant undertaking which rightfully invested the
Catholic Monarchs as the representatives of a dual heritage: “medieval and Renaissance,
Thomistic and Machiavellian.”4 Therefore, after Isabella’s death in 1504 and until the
coronation of Philip II in 1556, the New World hovered between these two orientations.
However, despite the Thomistic position assumed by the colonial Empire for almost
three hundred years, the emancipation efforts and the outbreak of the independence wars
at the dawn of the 19th century undoubtedly favoured a dominant Machiavellian
position.5 In other words, Morse is drawing a parallel between the rise of the condottieri
in a chaotic and fragmented 15th century Italy and the emergence of the caudillos amid
the anarchic upheavals throughout Hispanic America four centuries later.
Closely related to the first, the second argument explains the birth of
caudillismo by virtue of the colonial period and its cultural legacy; more precisely, it
refers to the political duality manifested on all levels by the cunning viceroyal
administration. According to William H. Beezley, this dualism is to be acknowledged in
the stark disparity between “the empire in theory, and the empire in practice,”6 between
“law and implementation”.7 In concrete terms, the institutional hiatus growing larger
every day as the colonial era was coming to an end rendered the government more
compliant, a favourable circumstance that “provided the underpaid, the ambitious, and
the opportunistic with the possibility of graft, corruption, and often the excessive
1
Cf. Chapman, “The Age of the Caudillos: A Chapter in Hispanic American History,” 286-287.
Apud Tateiwa, “Caudillismo y sus interpretaciones: un análisis sobre un fenómeno común de la
historia de América Latina en el siglo XIX,” 44.
2
Richard M. Morse, “Political Theory and the Caudillo,” in Caudillos: Dictators in Spanish
America, ed. Hugh M. Hamill (Oklahoma: Oklahoma University Press, Norman, 1992), 74.
3
Morse, “Political Theory and the Caudillo,” 74.
4
Ibid., 74.
5
Ibid., 74.
6
William H. Beezley, “Caudillismo: An Interpretive Note,” Journal of Inter-American Studies
11/3 (1969): 345, http://www.jstor.org/stable/165417?origin=JSTOR-pdf (accessed August 25,
2012).
7
Beezley, “Caudillismo: An Interpretive Note,” 346.
287
arrogation of power.”1 At the same time, difficulties in implementing the reforms all
across the empire, fundamentally because of its physical characteristics and nucleated
settlement pattern, altogether with a poorly developed infrastructure, generated a
significant degree of regionalism and local autonomy. Hence, with economy and
demography in decline, an intensifying localism and the extended familial unit as the
strongest social anchor, the first decade of the 19th century witnessed an accelerated
disintegration of the colonial construction. Such a vulnerable context, visibly lacking
order and stability, required the presence of “a strong man who could stand above the
quarrels, attract the loyalty of the people, and crush his opposition.”2 For this purpose, he
needed absolute control over all aspects of government and society. Obviously, the
colonial heritage of the undivided political authority seems to have benefited him most.
The stage was thus prepared to welcome the caudillo, “a man who could remain aloof
from the controversy among ideologies and institutions.”3
Unlike the previous interpretations, the third one circumscribes the caudillismo
to the revolutionary process of the independence wars. For John Lynch, the advocate of
this theory, caudillismo stands among those very specific elements which shape the
idiosyncrasy of the Hispanic Americans and, consequently, it is not by all means a
natural descendant of the Spanish legacy.4
Independence wars legitimized the caudillo, who thus obtained his first
appointments as military leader. Sometimes he was the representative of a powerful
family, who controlled and distributed resources; other times, he was the head of the
local elite with whom he had ties of blood. However, the caudillo represented most often
regional interests above family ones. In many cases, by means of various favourable
circumstances, he could gain access to the control of state resources, which
automatically placed him into a new distinctive position: that of benefactor, of patron.
This laid the foundation for the patron-client relationship, grounded in mutual
needs, help and fidelity, which will become an important support for caudillismo within
the new emerging republics. The most highly valued reward was land and a caudillo’s
ambition was to acquire as much land as he could for him and his henchmen. The
development of this kind of patronage and its application in the political, social and
military spheres accelerated in the immediate aftermath of the independence wars, when
the appointments were no longer favours of the imperial power; hence, in default of a
system to replace this practice which had become traditional, they have turned into an
additional weapon at the caudillo’s disposal. The patron-client relationship benefited
especially those belonging to the elite, but was also a bridge between caudillos and
common people. The influence that a caudillo exerted on those working for him mostly
based on owning larger areas of land, which provided him two key strengths: respect and
resources. At the same time, this gave him the possibility to control a growing number of
peones who formed the so-called peonada – a primitive political structure, born of
personal loyalty and built on the patron’s authority and the peon’s dependence, a structure
which finally came to be part of the state and a specific trademark of caudillismo.
1
Ibid., 346.
Ibid., 348.
3
Ibid., 348.
4
Cf. John Lynch, Caudillos en Hispanoamérica, 1800-1850 (Madrid: Editorial Mapfre, 1993).
2
288
One of the independence wars’ consequences was the weakness of traditional
forms of social control, which allowed peones, mulattos and slaves to claim their right to
liberty and equality, and gave many caudillos the opportunity to rise to power relying on
these popular forces. Yet, in many Hispanic American countries, ethnic groups’ activism
and mass insubordination caused serious problems related to public order, which
claimed the presence of an authoritative power that state institutions were unable to
ensure. Thus, the privileged groups in countries such as Argentina, Venezuela, Mexico
or Guatemala saw in the caudillo the most appropriate person to act as a “necessary
gendarme” (gendarme necesario),1 a strong man to embody both state authority and
popular representation. The elite needed military leaders such as Juan Manuel de Rosas,
José Antonio Páez, Antonio López de Santa Anna or Rafael Carrera2, because they
exerted a certain influence among gauchos, llaneros and Indians, and they were virtually
the only local leaders of their countries to have control over the masses. In this context,
the caudillos’ fundamental mission was not to contribute, as it was erroneously assumed,
to a state of anarchy, but rather to restore order and stability. As protectors and defenders
of order, caudillos not only made use of their power of persuasion and moral influence,
but also of methods of repression, to varying degrees. For caudillismo cruelty was not an
inherent trait, and in many cases the system was less oppressive than the following
presidential regimes. We can therefore say that, largely, the political situation played a
decisive role in the emergence, rise and maintenance in leadership of these local,
regional and, ultimately, national leaders who, after independence, found themselves
1
Concept introduced by Laureano Vallenilla Lanz (1870–1936), a Venezuelan writer, journalist,
sociologist and historian, one of the leading exponents of positivist thinking in his country and
one of the most controversial apologists of the dictatorial regime imposed by Juan Vicente
Gómez (1857–1935). In his book Cesarismo democrático y otros textos (1919) Vallenilla Lanz
proposes two syntagms: cesarismo democrático (democratic caesarism) – rule based on
permanent reelection of a charismatic leader endowed with absolute power, or an autocracy that
seeks to legitimize itself through voting – and gendarme necesario (“necessary gendarme”): a
rather ambiguous and controversial concept – an authoritative but desired figure, the
personification of the nation’s will and spirit, that combines, on the one hand, personal charisma
with a missionary, saving attitude, legitimized by the divine, religious dimension of his role and,
on the other hand, strength and intelligence of a man determined to impose his own criteria to
establish a social order desired by all, irrespective of state law. Vallenilla Lanz’s trajectory and
political ideas indicate a firm conviction: that dictatorship was something natural and even
necessary in Venezuela, the expression rather than the negation of true democracy. Through his
research focused on colonial era, independence war and postwar period in Venezuela, he
concluded that violence, murder and robbery could easily become a normal fact in Venezuelan
society unless a superior force controlled them. Experience has shown that this control should not
be represented by the law, but the most prestigious and feared caudillos. Therefore, in Venezuela,
as in all Latin American nations, condemned out of complex reasons to a turbulent existence,
“[…] el Caudillo ha representado la única fuerza de conservación, realizándose aún el fenómeno
que los hombres de ciencia señalan en las primeras etapas de integración de las sociedades: los
jefes no se eligen sino se imponen”. (Vallenilla Laureano Lanz, Cesarismo democrático y otros
textos, Caracas: Monte Ávila Editores, 1991, 94). The Peruvian writer Francisco García Calderón
also claimed the necessity of caudillos in times of crisis, when the instability of the heterogeneous
Hispanic American states required the strong hand of a powerful leader.
2
Representative figures of caudillismo from Argentina, Venezuela, Mexico and Guatemala.
289
engaged in the competition between liberalism and conservatism. While the new form of
government aspired to rebuild, reform and modernize the Hispanic American states
through a Constitution and an electoral system such as to enable them access to power
and its maintenance, as well as the imposition of an economic policy favourable to
owners and exporters, the conservative wing will count on the support of the caudillos in
an attempt to regain its privileged position by appealing to the social sectors where
conservatives and their traditional retrograde ideology still had supporters: those
institutions deeply rooted in the Hispanic society – the Church and the Army – and, in
some countries, indigenous communities and craftsmen.
In those societies where written agreements do not exist or play a limited role,
and the typical relations of modern societies and even of certain traditional communities
are found only in embryonic state, blood ties and personal bonds are the only ones
which have a real importance. Such is the example of clientage relations: based on the
gens-clientes model, appeared in Roman times and revived during the Germanic
invasions (having a more primitive social organization, the newcomers determined the
perpetuation of this type of agreement), clientage relations will be found in Spain, in the
16th and 17th centuries, where there still persisted groups of criados (retainers) around
powerful, influential men or under the protection of high royal functionaries, hidalgos
and nobles. The obligations were clear for each party: protection, help, favours and gifts
for one side; loyalty and unconditional support from the other. Along with the
conquerors, these clientage relations moved from Spain to America where, given the
immensity of the continent, the king could hardly make his authority felt in every corner
of the colonies. Nevertheless, these relations found a way to proliferation and
consolidation through the new emerging forces: the caudillos – a dynamic social
component, with a mainly military role. Most of these caudillos secured their access to
power and maintenance in leadership through a military career, either as leaders of a
revolution or war, or as professional soldiers. In fact, almost all dictators were military,
because they “[…] must not have other object or thought, nor acquire skill in anything,
except war, its organization, and its discipline. The art of war is all that is expected of a
ruler; and it is so useful that […] it frequently enables ordinary citizens to become rulers
[because] the first way to win a state is to be skilled in the art of war.1” Instead, those
who did not enjoy this prestige adopted the title of general.
Returning to the clientage relations mentioned above, we can identify a type of
relation specific to Hispanic America, “a religious relationship between the compadres,
or godfathers ... and the relatives of the baptized as well as the child himself.”2 This kind
of ties often remains powerful enough so that to oblige the ones involved help each other
in all circumstances. A notorious example in this regard is the Dominican dictator Rafael
Leónidas Trujillo who, most often, resorted to coercive methods to become the
godfather of thousands of children, obviously in order to create a network of loyal
supporters regardless of social class. This practice undoubtedly gained Trujillo the
support of a significant part of the Dominican Republic population, who became thus
linked to him as if by a blood relationship. Local and national leaders relied so much on
the so-called compadrazgo that the word itself took on a political connotation, that of
“favouritism”. But its application also extended to rural communities, as well as to
1
2
Niccoló Machiavelli, The Prince, trans. George Bull (London: Penguin Group, 2003), 47.
François Chevalier, “The Roots of Caudillismo,” in Caudillos: Dictators in Spanish America, 36.
290
mestizo and indigenous ones where “the extraordinary proliferation of these religious
relationships even appear, in a spontaneous fashion, to replace and to recreate personal
bonds ... where solidarity among the clan has softened or lost its control.”1 So, without
understating at all the harmful influence and role, especially at the political level, that
this type of relationship exercised, compadrazgo had and still has an essential function at
the community level, a function similar perhaps to that of the religious brotherhoods in
Spain, responsible for creating reciprocal obligations of assistance which sometimes
proved to be necessary, especially in isolated regions where law has minimal authority
and individuals lack personal guarantees of any kind.
4. Legitimacy or Deviation? Caudillismo: In-Between Phenomenon
Regarded either as a typical manifestation of Hispanic America in the wake of the wars
of independence, or as a degenerate or abnormal form of liberal democracy specific to
Western cultures, caudillismo cannot be ultimately considered an aberration in the
exercise of political power, but rather the expression of a complex network of ideological
and cultural traditions which legitimizes this type of personalistic leadership. Put
differently, this political phenomenon that Francisco José Moreno so appropriately
distinguishes from dictatorship came out of the very culture of Hispanic American
peoples: “Within the Spanish political tradition, caudillismo was an effort to fill the
vacuum left by the removal of the symbol of institutional authoritism [i.e., the king].
Caudillismo is an attempt, based upon charisma, to keep political forces under control by
promoting allegiance to the person of the leader. Caudillismo, thus, is not to be confused
with military control. The former could create legitimacy whereas the latter could not.
Allegiance would render the use of violence unnecessary. The employment of force is thus
indicative of failure to secure allegiance. Caudillismo is a noninstitutional way of
satisfying the authoritistic orientation latent in a country’s political culture. Due to its
reliance on individual leadership, the caudillistic solution tends to be temporary. The
caudillos could be challenged by another charismatic leader, or could be deposed by a
militant minority free of his spell. And even if he were successful in retaining control, his
existence was limited. Once he was dead, the legitimacy built upon allegiance to his
person would disappear. But despite its temporary nature, caudillismo is more conducive
to stability than dictatorial (illegitimate) rule. The caudillistic solution is basically
legitimate and thus acceptable. Dictatorial rule rests upon coercion and its mere reliance on
force is indicative of its inability to secure allegiance.”2 Caudillismo resulted in a specific
political system – caudillaje – defined by four basic features: 1. the repeated emergence of
patron-client relations, reinforced by personal ties of dominance and submission, and by a
common desire to obtain wealth by force of arms; 2. the lack of institutionalized means for
succession in public offices; 3. the use of violence in political competition; 4. the repeated
failures of leaders in power to ensure their tenures as chieftains.3
1
Chevalier, “The Roots of Caudillismo,” 37.
Francisco José Moreno, “Caudillismo: An Interpretation of its Origins in Chile,” in Conflict and
Violence in Latin American Politics, eds. F. J. Moreno and B. Mitriani (New York: Crowell,
1971), 38–39. Apud Caudillos: Dictators in Spanish America, 6–7.
3
Cf. Eric Wolf and Edward C. Hansen, “Caudillo Politics: A Structural Analysis,” in Caudillos:
Dictators in Spanish America, 63–64.
2
291
As we mentioned before, caudillismo is a form of personalistic government
understood as “ejercicio personal del poder, bien como expresión de la pura voluntad de
dominio únicamente sujeta a su propio arbitrio, correlativo a la debilidad institucional
y/o al escaso arraigo de la norma, bien inscrito dentro de la normativa vigente, amparado
tras el «estado de excepción» previsto en los textos constitucionales para situaciones
extraordinarias.”1 Political personalism referred to by Soriano – described as
“sustitución de las ideologías por el prestigio personal del jefe”2 and translated into
practice by the popular tendency to show more loyalty and obedience to the person who
holds office rather than to the office itself3 – is not a phenomenon specific only to
Hispanic America or to the “third world”, but a recurring reality in history that
manifested itself in multiple ways. The author reviews the various forms that political
personalism took throughout world history (Caesarism, preaetorship, medieval royalty,
signoria, absolutism, Bonapartism, proletarian dictatorship, fascism, militarism) as well
as their characteristic elements.
As for the 19th century caudillismo, she admits that, like other terms in the same
category – dictatorship, tyranny, despotism – this term was most often defined
irrespectively of its specificity, being applied to “realidades que tal vez no respondan a
idénticas características y que engloban […] desde los guerreros de la Independencia
hasta los militares del siglo XX.”4 In the author’s view, caudillismo was “[una] respuesta
americana a la desarticulación del Imperio español, implicada en la ruptura y en las
desiguales guerras de Independencia. Se fundamenta en el «prestigio» de los «jefes»
(como expresión de la relación del individuo con la masa) y en la fuerza de las armas
(como condición o factor para la obtención y para la conservación del poder), y puede
emerger espontáneamente como tendencia en situaciones de debilidad institucional –
incluida la del ejército –, y de atraso técnico –tanto desde la perspectiva del desarrollo
técnico general como desde la de las técnicas políticas, incluidas las militares.”5
Thus, authoritarian regimes do not represent a deviation but a phenomenon fully
explainable within the historical, political, cultural, and identitary context of Latin
America. Such polities have dominated the continent’s history for a long time and they
have been considered to some degree “legitimate”, since certain relevant segments of
Hispanic American society have deemed these authoritarian structures to be adequate and,
consequently, worthy of acceptance or support. In order to see in what way and on what
grounds these Hispanic American systems of government were legitimized, we should
start from the idea of political legitimacy, namely “the set of beliefs that lead people to
regard the distribution of political power as just and appropriate for their own society.”6
1
Graciela Soriano de García-Pelayo, “Aproximaciones al personalismo político
hispanoamericano del siglo XIX,” Revista del Centro de Estudios Constitucionales, 7 (1990),
http://revistas.cepc.gob.es/revistas_sf42.aspx?IDR=15&IDN=1234&IDA=35382&strApplication
Path= (accessed September 11, 2012).
2
Apud Lynch, Caudillos en Hispanoamérica, 1800-1850, 530.
3
Ibid., 530.
4
Soriano de García-Pelayo, “Aproximaciones al personalismo político hispanoamericano del
siglo XIX,” 212.
5
Ibid., 213.
6
Peter H. Smith, “The Search for Legitimacy,” in Caudillo: Dictators in Spanish America, 88.
292
Therefore, it is legitimacy that provides a rational justification for voluntary submission
to political authority.
To begin with, we must point out that all modern analyses of political
legitimacy should come to terms with the three “pure” types of legitimacy posited by the
German sociologist Max Weber in his essay Politics as a Vocation (1926), respectively:
traditional, charismatic and rational-legal or bureaucratic.
Traditional legitimacy represents “the authority of ‘eternal yesterday’, the
authority of custom, which is sanctified by validity from time immemorial and by
habitual observation.”1 It is the rule “such as that exercised by the old-style patriarch and
patrimonial prince,”2 based on the belief of those governed in the sacredness and
intangibility of customary rules and ancient traditions, on the idea of the sacred character
of power, of the divine origin of its representative, usually an absolute hereditary
monarch. Traditional legitimacy has occupied a prominent place in Hispanic American
history, particularly during the colonial period, when obedience had always been due to
the Spanish Crown, which demanded – and for centuries received – recognition on
precisely these grounds. Later, separation from Spain nullified the possibility of
explicitly relying political legitimacy on traditional authority. Nonetheless, what
followed, namely the caudillismo of the first half of the 19th century, inherited the
personalistic forms of exercising power, promoted by the Hispanic tradition which has
been determined, in principle, by reformist Catholicism and manifestation of power
through violence. Along with the abolition of colonial institutions a power vacuum was
created that local leaders of the independence wars were forced to “fill” by calling on the
same type of authoritarian patterns they had known until then. Hence, personalistic and
ideological interests have bet on the continuity of traditional forms of domination
personified by the new leaders, and thus they managed to maintain and renew the figure
represented by the caudillo that was to play a vital role in the troubled history of the
Hispanic American states.
A second type of legitimacy is the charismatic one based on “the authority of
the special personal gift of grace (charisma), absolutely personal devotion, and personal
trust in revelation, in heroism or in other leadership qualities of an individual. This is
“charismatic” authority, such as that exercised by the prophet – or in the political sphere
– by the elected warlord or the plebiscitary ruler, the great demagogue and the party
leader.”3
Characteristic of dictatorships, such domination is essentially a mass
manipulation practiced from the leader to the governed; the leader’s exceptional personal
qualities – looks, stage presence, mimics, gestures, speech style, the attraction he
emerges, self-assurance, honesty, modesty, etc. – or a well-directed self-representation
by means of effective communication strategies contribute to gain the confidence of
people who support him, to whom he imposes himself and whom he dominates.
Charismatic leaders have played prominent parts in Hispanic American history meeting
in the popular imagination the secular aspect of political power with the religious aspect
1
John Dreijmanis, ed., and Gordon C. Wells. trans., Max Weber’s Complete Writings on
Academic and Political Vocations (New York: Algora, 2008), 157.
2
Dreijmanis and Wells, Max Weber’s Complete Writings, 157.
3
Ibid., 157.
293
of a redemption mission bestowed upon them because of the unique gift offered to them
through the divine grace: charisma. Reformist Catholic heritage specific to Hispanic
American nations played the leading part in this case too: political missionaries,
caudillos or dictators, represent a movement, a cause, or some higher truth, and embody
under various guises collective redemption, national salvation, social justice, and,
frequently enough, even a historical revenge or the political accomplishment of an
unfinished project. Submission to this kind of leaders, such as Juan Perón (Argentina),
Fidel Castro (Cuba) or Hugo Chávez himself (Venezuela), to give only a few examples
of classic charismatic leaders – obeys either a profound sense of moral duty as a result of
the identification with the great project undertaken by the leader, or a strong and lasting
emotional state, or a combination of both reasons.
The third and last type of legitimacy defined by Weber is the rational-legal one
which is the “rule by virtue of ‘legality’, by virtue of the belief in the validity of a legal
statute and the validity of ‘competence’ that is based on rationally created rules. This
means an attitude of obedience in the fulfillment of statutory duties […].”1 It is
characteristic of modern political systems and it derives from the unanimous acceptance
of rational rules for distributing power which are consistent, unambiguous and
universally applied. Unlike traditional legitimacy, in this case obedience is owed to the
legally established order itself and not to the persons, any individual figure or leader,
who occupy the special offices. As to Hispanic America, this kind of legitimacy
appeared when the recently independent states wanted to legalize their political
personality through constitutionalism. In this sense, there have been attempts to adopt
constitutions inspired by French and North American models, with the intention to make
the transition from traditional to legal legitimacy through the implementation of the
liberal creed and the spirit of the law on a continent yet unfamiliar with these forms of
authority; this led to a profound destabilization of the political order that favoured,
ultimately, the development and establishment of personalistic authoritarianism.
Rejecting the idea that constitutional ideals were imported from France and the United
States, Glen Dealy,2 for example, argues that most Hispanic American constitutions
have contained a large number of authoritarian features and that they placed power in
the state not in the people, the central authority having virtually no restrictions.
However, in explicitly elitist fashion these constitutions defined the major requirement
for holding political office as moral superiority to the detriment of popular support.
Therefore, they may be interpreted as efforts to legalize dictatorship rather than to
implant democracy.
Having as a starting point the Weberian theory, Peter H. Smith identifies and
analyzes two other types of political legitimacy that derive from the very specific
context of Latin America. Taking Weber’s assertion that “the state is a relationship of
rule by people over people based on the means of legitimate force (i.e., force that is
regarded as legitimate). In order for the state to prevail, the people ruled over must
therefore submit to the authority claimed by those ruling at the time.”3 Smith speaks
primarily about political legitimacy based on the principle of dominance, explained by a
1
Ibid., 157.
Apud Smith, “The Search for Legitimacy,” in Caudillo: Dictators in Spanish America, 90.
3
Dreijmanis and Wells, Max Weber’s Complete Writings, 157.
2
294
somewhat tautological assertion, namely “those in power ought to rule because they are
in power.”1 The principle of dominance maintains that the leader’s authority becomes
valid only if the majority or at least a major segment of the population obeys that authority.
According to the author and returning to the idea of the German sociologist, the central
means of asserting dominance is through physical constraint that involves two
components: a sexual one – domination of women (machismo) –, and a political one
which may be translated into demonstration of the capacity for wielding violence. Once
recognized and obeyed, dominance will bring about political order. In short, according to
Smith, power should lie with the powerful. However, the author makes an important
distinction between dominance and charisma, bringing into focus three important
differences: 1. power, force, order vs. ultimate truth, moral purpose, spiritual cause; 2.
obedience by virtue of a rational calculation, a sort of political “bet” vs. submission out of
a sense of duty; 3. maximum and constant attention to the size and strength of his
following vs. maximum and constant attention to the project or mission undertaken. This
differentiation between dominance and charisma represents at least one way of classifying
and analyzing the complex phenomenon called personalism, which may be observed in
the case of Hispanic America too. There has been a widespread tendency in literature on
Hispanic American politics to identify the personalistic leader with the charismatic leader,
which has created confusion and, unfortunately, it also contributed to a devaluation of the
concept of charisma. Some personalistic leaders have undoubtedly been charismatic, but
others have not, their claims to authority resting solely upon dominance.
If legitimation through dominance prevailed in the first part of 19th century
Hispanic America, the following period favoured the assertion of another kind of
political legitimacy – achievement-expertise – which claimed that authority should
reside in the hands of people who possess the knowledge, expertise, or general ability to
bring about specific achievements, especially economic achievements. In this case,
authority derives essentially from the desirability of the achievement itself, the
commitment being to the aim pursued and not to the means employed, which means that
leaders are free to adopt any measure, however repressive, as long as they can
demonstrate progress toward the sought-after goal.2
In light of these theoretical considerations, we return to the question in the
subtitle: legitimacy or deviation? Upon closer examination, the emergence and
subsequent consolidation of caudillistic regimes seem to have stemmed from an intense
social quest for stability, a necessary and eagerly-desired stability that allowed caudillos
to gain legitimacy in the eyes of their people and to perpetuate their tenures. However,
as long as Hispanic, and by extension, Latin America has not proved itself a culturally
and identitarily unidimensional clear-cut territory, we believe caudillismo should not be
appraised but within the same heterogeneous multi-layered perspective that
characterizes the continent. Therefore, the 19th century along with its leading political
actors embodying a particular mixture of old colonial practices related to prestige and
personal power, and independence-arousing ideas could not have generated anything
other than a specific in-between phenomenon.
1
2
Smith, “The Search for Legitimacy,” 92.
Ibid., 92-94.
295
5. Conclusions
Within the miscellaneous context of Hispanic America, an outstanding character
instrumental in forging the cultural identity of the region and its political assets has
appeared: the caudillo; a character that will play an important part in the emergence of
caudillismo, one of the continent’s typical forms of leadership foretelling the various
authoritarian regimes that the countries in the tropics would face over their long historical
continuum. If, at the beginning, caudillo designated especially the military leader who had
authority but not power, along with the wave of independence movements and civil wars,
many caudillos assumed the country’s leadership and some of them even became feared
dictators. Nowadays, a man with such qualities is bestowed with the epithet of caudillo but
in extremely rare circumstances, mainly in political discourse.
As a form of authoritarianism, caudillismo, joined by dictatorship beginning
with the 20th century, represents the mostly rooted political tradition in the tumultuous
history of the Hispanic American states. Three are the key factors that contributed to the
emergence and proliferation of dictatorial figures within the region: the process of
colonization of the continent, which began immediately after its discovery and conquest;
adaptation to local conditions and perpetuation of social, economic and political
superstructures left by the Spanish authorities after the withdrawal from the continent;
and, last but not least, the exclusive contribution of the United States, namely the NorthAmerican capitalist interests, that took advantage of the natural wealth and economic
resources of these lands.
296
Representations of Identity, Self, and Otherness in the
Romanian Memoirs of the Balkan Wars (1912-1913)
Raluca-Simona DEAC
Babes-Bolyai University Cluj-Napoca, Romania
Ludwig-Maximilian University Munich, Germany
Keywords: identity, self, otherness, Balkan Wars, Romanian memoirs
Abstract: The present article analyzes a selection of Romanian memoirs of the Balkan
Wars (1912-1913) in order to reveal the images of our fellow participants in the conflicts
and sources of identities and representations that have been formed along the years. The
study of these writings in the context of the gripping subject of alterity brings original
insight in a matter that is still particularizing South-Eastern Europe. Considering the
diversity of perspectives in the selected memoirs, we can paint an overall picture of the
conveyed representations that may still overshadow the collective mentality.
*
Introduction
Especially when talking about controversial events, history is sometimes suspected to be
written in order to influence our conceptions of the past. From childhood stories and
tales to school textbooks, history is often presented in brighter colours, with stories that
emphasize the heroism of our armies and denigrate the savage behaviour of the ‘others’.
We grow up enveloped by images and stereotypes regarding the peoples surrounding us
– whether fellow citizens, neighbouring countries, or nations we have barely heard of.
Infused to us by stories and school books, these representations are endlessly reiterated
and perpetuated over centuries. Teachers are compelled to educate according to the
official curriculum, based on historical accounts, and students rarely question the acquired
information, coming to learn a perhaps biased version of history. We sometimes live
with such images for an entire life, without once wondering if they are truthful. Even
when pushed by the need to challenge facts, our understanding of the past is subject to
influences of authority. Governments and politicians are only one example of agents that
can manipulate us towards perceiving a particular version of history. The remaining
question is how can we obtain a complete vision of an event in the past? Every story,
recorded either in the form of history, memoirs, or other sources, renders a viewpoint,
but never all angles. From this perspective, no discourse can provide a complete
representation of an event. We therefore encourage a study from the point of view of the

project number POSDRU/107/1.5/S/76841 with the title “Modern Doctoral Studies:
Internationalization and Interdisciplinarity”.
297
complementarity of discourses and sources. Only such a process can lead to the
balanced knowledge of a subject.
It is the case of the Balkan Peninsula, whose history has been determining us for
hundreds of years to think more and more of our neighbours as the others, instead of
striving for inter-ethnic relationships and appreciating our common past and cultural
diversity. Ever since ancient times, the identity of the Balkans1 has been dominated by
the region’s geographical position: the conjunction of numerous cultures, a crossing area
between the Greek and Latin civilizations, and altogether between Christianity and
Islam, but also the harbour of a massive influx of pagan Slavs. Located at the point of
intersection between Europe, the Middle East and Africa, this position has led to deep
scars in its image, the identity of its peoples being a constant oscillation between
different civilizations, cultures and religious confessions. Moreover, the Balkans have
been perceived as predisposed to territorial, ethno-linguistic, and religious conflicts. This
in turn resulted in differences of identity and a high degree of fragmentation among the
countries and their populations, marked by the characteristic, often violent, history. As
expected, the perception on alterity (and the self) was significantly influenced and
various stereotypes related to cultural identities have been inculcated in the collective
memory. The objective of the article at hand is to study such illustrations of the other
and the self as depicted by the Romanian memoirists, testifiers of the 1912/13 Balkan
Wars – one of the crossroad moments of this area. In this way, our aim is to investigate a
facet of the Balkan Wars that is extending beyond the predominantly historiographical
standpoint, which has been the main research focus of this particular page of Romanian
(and European) history.
Among the numerous conflicts that shook the Peninsula, the Balkan Wars were
two of the most important events that left their mark on the history of Europe in the
beginning of the twentieth century, thus ending the five-century-rule of the Ottoman
Empire in the area. Often labelled as a key precursor of World War I, due to the
increased Serbian power seen as a threat by the two Central Powers Austria-Hungary
and Germany, the two conflicts are often referred to as having changed the course of
European history and that of the world. The First Balkan War started in October 1912,
when the Balkan League attacked the Ottoman Empire, fighting for territories and
populations under Ottoman sovereignty. Although with certain reservations, Romania
remained neutral. The Balkan League won the Ottoman territories of Macedonia and
most of Thrace and then came into conflict over the division of the quarry. The Treaty of
London (May 30, 1913) put an end to the First Balkan War, but the territorial disputes
were left unresolved. As a result, on June 16, 1913 the Second Balkan War started when
Bulgaria attacked its former allies Greece and Serbia. This time, Romania decides to
intervene with military troops in Bulgaria. Shortly after the Romanian army entered
Bulgaria heading towards the capital Sofia, without having had any confrontation with
the Bulgarian troops, the initiators of the war called a truce. The peace treaty of
Bucharest obliged Bulgaria to give up the territories acquired in the First Balkan War,
and Romania obtained Southern Dobruja2, occupied during the 1913 campaign (later
1
The appellative of Balkan Peninsula finds its origins in the name of the Balkan Mountains,
confirmed by the etymology of Turkish term balkan, designating a mountain chain.
2
Also referred to as the “Cadrilater” (Quadrilateral).
298
restored to Bulgaria in 1940). The arrangements were, however, once again short-lived,
given that only 10 months later, the conflict resumed with WWI.1
Several Romanian writers were enrolled in the Bulgaria campaign and
particularly their participation in the Second Balkan War served as a source of reflection
for these events, which were subject to strong propaganda and political interests.
Whether war journals, letters, articles, reportages, or literature works, only a handful of
them made their way to the printing presses and were collected and published in the
form of memoirs in the years up to the First World War. Their appearance was
remarkably appreciated, not only as historical documents, but also as literary works of
art. Hardly known of or interpreted are works such as 44 days in Bulgaria by Mihail
Sadoveanu, Journal of Campaign by George Topîrceanu, Memoirs of a Former Cholera
Sufferer by Constantin Gane and many others. After 1920 the number of memoirs on the
subject is visibly declining, which leads to the widespread view that the 1913 campaign
was ignored. Especially after the Second World War, as Ilie Rad (1999) shows in his
work about war memoirs in Romanian literature (Memorialistica de război în literatura
română), “the official political line after 1944, which condemned this war, did not allow
the research and valorisation, possibly the anthologization of this literature”2. Moreover,
post-war times brought another inclination: numerous volumes were transferred to
library secret funds or ruthlessly destroyed, and “When critical comments were however
made, they were tendentious and restrictive, distorting certain passages, omitting others,
and marching on the traditional Romanian-Bulgarian friendship, cemented in years of
‘the democratic and socialist era after 1944’.”3 With the exception of one chapter in Ilie
Rad’s book, dedicated to the memoirs of the Balkan Wars, this apparently taboo topic
seems to have been, as the author asserts, “deliberately omitted from the Romanian
history”4.
1
Although the focus of the article at hand reaches beyond the historical aspects of the matter, for
further reference we include a selection of valuable works documenting the Balkan Wars of 19121913, written both in Romania and abroad: Academia Română. Istoria românilor (The history of
the Romanians). (Bucharest: Editura Enciclopedică, 2001); Dabija, G.A. gen. Războiul bulgaroturc din anul 1912-1913 (The Bulgarian-Turkish war of 1912–1913). (Bucharest, 1914); Hall,
Richard C. The Balkan Wars, 1912–1913. Prelude to the First World War. (Routledge Publishing
House, 2002); Iordache, Atanasie. Criza politică din România şi războaiele balcanice: 1911-1913
(The political crisis in Romania and the Balkan wars, 1912-1913). (Bucharest: Editura Paideia,
1998); Iorga, Nicolae. Acţiunea militară a României în Bulgaria cu ostaşii noştri (The military
action of Romania in Bulgaria with Romanian soldiers), 2nd ed. (Bucharest: Atelierele grafice
Socec & Co., 1914); Iorga, Nicolae. Istoria războiului balcanic (The history of the Balkan war)
(Bucharest, 1915); Maiorescu, Titu. România, Războaiele Balcanice şi Cadrilaterul (Romania,
the Balkan wars and southern Dobruja). Edited by Stelian Neagoe. (Bucharest: Editura
Machiavelli, 1995); Schurman, Jacob Gould. The Balkan Wars, 1912 to 1913. (Kessinger
Publishing, 2004); Topor, Claudiu-Lucian. Germania, România şi războaiele balcanice. 19121913 (Germany, Romania and the Balkan wars, 1912-1913). (Iaşi: Editura Universităţii
„Alexandru Ioan Cuza”, 2008); Zbuchea, Gheorghe. România şi războaiele balcanice. 19121913. Pagini de istorie sud-est europeană. (Romanian and the Balkan wars, 1912-1913. Pages in
south-east European history). (Bucharest: Albatros, 1999).
2
Ilie Rad, Memorialistica de război în literatura română (Timişoara: Augusta, 1999), 95.
3
Ibid., 93.
4
Ibid.
299
Given the diversity of opinions regarding memoirs and the strong controversy in
recent years, especially on the relationship between memory and truth, despite the
appreciation given to this publishing genre in Europe and overseas, a few considerations
have to be made when analysing such a distinctive genre. According to general belief
and expectations, memoirs must contain the truth, reported in the most precise manner
possible. Generated through a recollection process, memoirs are nevertheless subject to
inaccuracies and even deliberate distortions, brought about by the authors’ aims. Critics
of the genre even claim that memories are selective representations of memory and not
of history, reflecting emotional, personal, and associative processes. While naturally,
any memoir oscillates between subjectivity and objectivity, what we can affirm with
confidence is, however, the testimonial essence of such writings. As confessed by most
of the authors included in the present study as well, that desire to record and share a
witnessed experience – otherwise inaccessible to the reader – is often originated from a
need for justification or even a feeling of responsibility of the witness. With this regard,
the Romanian historian Nicolae Iorga pled: “If you have seen historical facts, you are
obliged to keep them in the form in which they unfolded in front of you.” (Rad, 1999)
Ilie Rad traces out the characteristics of the Romanian war memoirs, observing that
among the various confessional species, memoirs, and diaries in particular, are
documents lacking the literary intent that could jeopardize the feeling of authenticity.
Rather, a documentary or historiographical goal emerges from these writings, urged by
the authors’ interest of reproducing the truth. As far as the relationship between history,
reality, and memoirs, differences remain evident. It is, however, important to keep in
mind that memoirs do not claim to correct, challenge, or replace history, but rather to
offer a point of view, which is the very aim of this article as well.
Otherness, Alterity, Identity
The way a person circumscribes the other represents a significant reflection of what
defines the very self of that person. Likewise, throughout the history of the concept,
philosophers such as Hegel, Husserl and Sartre have asserted that the self depends upon
the other to constitute itself. However, the concept of alterity has been studied not only
from the exclusionary point of view, but also from the more constructive approach of
what brings (and keeps) people together in groups, societies and nations, creating
identities and characters. The interpretations are countless and transcend the philosophical
conceptualization, stretching to political, economic, social and psychological nuances.
In close relation with the self and alterity, we will discuss the concept of identity,
which has proven to be a very intriguing research subject in recent years, with
implications in political science and theory, international relations and the humanities in
general. Psychologists, anthropologists and sociologists use the term identity to describe
different explorations of the term: cultural identity, ethnic identity, gender identity,
occupational identity and so on, emphasizing its multivalence and rendering it difficult
to define. Dedicating a study to the question What is Identity (as we now use the word)?,
James D. Fearon1 assigns a plural sense to identity, referring to “a social category, a set
of persons marked by a label and distinguished by rules deciding membership and
1
James D. Fearon, "What is Identity (as
http://www.stanford.edu/~jfearon/papers/iden1v2.pdf
300
we
now
use
the
word)?",(1999),
(alleged) characteristic features or attributes” – from the social perspective –, as well as
“some distinguishing characteristic (or characteristics) that a person takes a special pride
in or views as socially consequential but more-or-less unchangeable” – in a personal
understanding. In a broad sense, identity can be defined as the specific attribute which
distinguishes an individual or which consolidates the members of a social category or
group. The origin of the term can be traced back to the Latin noun identitas, -tatis,
derived from the Latin adjective idem meaning the same. Therefore, identity is in itself
comparative and entails a mutual feeling of uniformity with peers. In his paper about
imagology1, Joep Leerssen states:
The default value of humans’ contacts with different cultures
seems to have been ethnocentric, in that anything that deviated
from accustomed domestic patterns is ‘Othered’ as an oddity,
an anomaly, a singularity.2
An important characteristic of identity stands in the influence of the significant
others3 in the constitution of an individual’s identity, through his identifications with
these actors, as Berger & Luckmann postulate:
“the self is a reflected reality, which firstly reflects the
attitudes assumed towards the significant others. [...] Indeed,
identity is objectively defined as the establishment in a certain
world and can be subjectively appropriated only together with
this world”4 (my translation).
Particularly in the case of the Balkan area, the issue of identity is amplified by
differences in cultural identities. These in turn are responsible for a pervasive feeling of
alterity, induced by conditions such as location, race, history, nationality, language,
religious beliefs, ethnicity or appearance.
Study
In order to illustrate our research, thirteen titles from the Romanian memoirs of the
Balkan Wars have been included in the analysis5. Specifically, we are investigating the
1
Branch of psycho-sociology studying the images peoples have about themselves and about other
peoples. Retrieved July 12, 2012 from http://dexonline.ro/definitie/imagologie.
2
Joep Leerssen, "Imagology: History and method," Studia Imagologica 13(2007).
3
A significant other is a relative or a person involved in the upbringing of a child during primary
socialization.
4
Peter L. Berger and Thomas Luckmann, Construirea socială a realităţii, trans. Alexandru
Butucelea (Bucharest: Grupul Editorial Art, 2008), 180-81.
5
Constantin Argetoianu, Memorii. Pentru cei de mâine. Amintiri din vremea celor de ieri
(Memoirs. For those of Tomorrow. Reminiscences from the Times of those from Yesterday), vols.
I-II. parts I-IV. 1871-1916. 2nd ed., revised by Stelian Neagoe (Bucharest: Editura Machiavelli
2008); General I. Atanasiu, Avântul ţarii. Campania din 1913 în Bulgaria (The Impetus of the
Country. The 1913 Campaign in Bulgaria), (Cluj-Napoca: Cartea Românească, 1925); Al.
Brătescu-Voineşti, În slujba păcei (scrisori) (In the Cause of Peace – Letters), (Bucharest:
Editura Cartea Românească, s.a.); General G.A. Dabija, Amintirile unui ataşat român în Bulgaria
(1910-1913) (Memories of a Romanian Attaché in Bulgaria – 1910-1913 ), (Bucharest: Editura
Ziarului Universul, 1936); Dimitrie Dimiu, Amintirile unui reservist. Note şi impresiuni din
campania anului 1913 (Memories of a Reservist. Notes and Impressions from the 1913
301
most common representations throughout these sources: the image of our neighbours the
Bulgarians – a nation seen as a friend, but whose image shifted considerably in the eyes
of Romanians in the light of the 1912-1913 events –, and that of the Turkish – the people
often reproached by Romanians for the tumultuous episodes of shared history. Last but
not least, the representations of the Romanians are an important aspect of the research as
they are often used as a term of comparison to the two Balkan countries.1
The context of the epoch is a very important factor, constituting a requisite
context for the written memoirs and the resulting representations of alterity. After
shedding the yoke of the Turkish domination, Romania and Bulgaria met a dispute in
1913 which brought a growing tension between the two neighbours bordering at the
Danube. The Romanians had contributed to Bulgaria’s fight for liberation from the
Ottoman rule in 1877-1878, and were often advocating that Bulgaria owed a lot to
Romania. Historical moments like the 1878 Treaty of Berlin and the 1912 secret military
convention between Bulgaria and Serbia – containing an article against Romania2  led
Romania to a growing feeling of insecurity for its southern border in Dobruja, an issue
which had not been completely settled in 1878. Regarding this matter, Romania was
asking for the frontier to be rectified, a compromise which the Bulgarian officials were
not willing to accept. The conditional neutrality Romania had assumed at the beginning
of the First Balkan War stipulated its reserve towards the developments of the events, as
the Finance Minister Marghiloman was writing in his memoir: “The Bulgarian
Government asks Bucharest ‘to not refuse its benevolent neutrality in the difficult
Campaign), (Bucharest: Editura Minerva, 1914); V. Dragoşescu, Amintiri din războiu. Campania
anului 1913 în Bulgaria (Memories from War. The 1913 Campaign in Bulgaria), (Bucharest
Institutul de arte grafice „Speranţa”, 1927); Constantin Gane, Amintirile unui fost holeric. Din
însemnările unui voluntar de campanie. Cu 30 de ilustraţii, după fotografiile scoase de D-l Jean
de Prato, Sublocot. D. R. si de D-l doctorant Cociu (Memories of a Former Cholera Sufferer.
From the Notes of a Campaign Volunteer), (Bucharest: Editura Minerva, 1914); Nicolae Iorga,
Orizonturile mele. O viaţă de om aşa cum a fost, Vol. II, Luptă (My horizons. A man’s life as it
was, Vol. II, Fight), Bucharest: Editura N. Stroilă, 1934); Alexandru Marghiloman, Note politice,
Vol. I, România şi războaiele balcanice (1912-1913), România si primul război mondial (19141919) (Political Notes, Vol. I Romania and the Balkan Wars – 1912-1913, Romania and the First
World War – 1914-1919), (Bucharest: Editura Scripta, 1993); Theodor Râşcanu, Spre Sofia cu
Regimentul 8 de artilerie. Notele unui voluntar. Iulie-august 1913 (Towards Sofia with the 8th
Artillery Regiment. Notes of a Volunteer. July-August 1913), (Institutul de arte grafice N.V.
Ştefăniu, 1914); Mihail Sadoveanu, 44 de zile în Bulgaria (44 Days in Bulgaria), (Bucharest:
Editura Cartea Românească, 1925); Mihail Sadoveanu, Războiul balcanic (The Balkan War),
(Bucharest: Editura Adevărul, s.a.), Biblioteca „Dimineaţa” nr. 1; George Topîrceanu, Jurnal de
campanie (Campaign Journal), in Luceafărul 28 (12 July 1969): 4-5.
1
The difficulty in illustrating this topic lies in the need for the memoir texts to be rendered in
English, thus the charm of the original passages risks being literally “lost in translation”. The
highest attention has been paid to the translations, all belonging to the author. Occasional excerpts
have been displayed in both languages in order to facilitate an ideal understanding and capture the
uniqueness of the language in the beginning of the 20th century. With this in mind, the original
texts (some written as early as 1912) have not been altered in any way, although we are aware of
the rigours for text transcribing.
2
Atanasie Iordache, Criza politică din România şi războaiele balcanice: 1911-1913 (Bucharest:
Editura Paideia, 1998), 173.
302
assignment it had taken on’. The Maiorescu government replies: ‘In the limits of the
Berlin Treaty, Romania’s neutrality was natural, but should there be any territorial
changes in the Balkans, Romania shall say its word’.”1 In the circumstances of the
growing tension as the negotiations between Bulgaria and Romania seemed to be going
nowhere, the requests of the latter grew as well towards a strategic border on the line of
Turtucaia-Balcic. After a long and unsuccessful process, the powers mediate the issue at
Petersburg in April 1913, but the solution dissatisfies Romania, which was only
receiving the town of Silistra with 3 km around it. The Bulgarians, however, end up
disputing even the point of measurement of the 3 km line. With the start of a second
Balkan War in sight just weeks after the London peace treaty was signed, the pacifist
position of Romania took a different turn. By this time, the Romanian public opinion
was becoming increasingly insistent in demanding a firm and vigorous attitude from the
government, in the form of its entrance in the war. The goals were to secure the strategic
frontier in Southern Dobruja and to re-establish order and peace in the Balkans. By
engaging into the military campaign in Bulgaria, the Romanians’ intention was to stop
the Bulgarians – seen as greedy and relentless – from carrying on with the fratricidal war
against their former allies. This vision of the Bulgarians is also heightened by the
general representations of the time – a discourse intensely promoted in the international
press – regarding the Balkan people. Described by the civilised world as savages, they
were always negatively portrayed. In addition, the frequent reports of atrocities and
barbaric behaviour during the First Balkan War, inculcated this image in the eyes of
many. Romanians, on the other hand, considered themselves a civilised Latin people, the
contrast to the Bulgarians being a very common leitmotif in the press and other writings
of the time. As we are about to see, the memoirs of the Balkan Wars (focused mainly on
the second one) are abundant in examinations of the Bulgarian population and other
nationalities involved in the conflicts. It is mainly the writers who pay attention to this
topic, offering detailed descriptions of the characters met.
The authors of the studied memoirs come from the most various backgrounds,
from politicians to professors, writers and journalists, supporters of the power or of the
opposition, or even politically unaffiliated. In this manner, the stake of the study is to
reveal differences in perception and reporting of the events, and particularly of the image
associated to the other participating nations in the war. In addition to this, the selection
of authors was made taking into consideration the expected differences in perspectives,
particular intents, and power of influence of each author. Due to the natural possibility of
having propagandistic writings among these memoirs, it is necessary to take a closer
look into the authors’ backgrounds, including their political affiliations (where
applicable):
Constantin Argetoianu (1871-1952) was a renowned Romanian politician of
the 20th century, prime minister (1939), lawyer and successful businessman. Descendant
of an old aristocratic family, Argetoianu entered politics in 1913 on the side of the
Conservatives, but exchanged several parties during the interwar period.
General I. Atanasiu was a Lieutenant Colonel and Commander of the 3rd
Regiment Dâmboviča during the Bulgaria campaign in 1913.
1
Alexandru Marghiloman, Note politice, vol. I, România şi războaiele balcanice (1912-1913),
România si primul război mondial (1914-1919) (Bucharest: Editura Scripta, 1993), 59.
303
I. Al. Brătescu-Voineşti (1868-1946) was a well known Romanian prose
writer, awarded by the Romanian Academy in 1945.
General G.A. Dabija was a military attaché at the Romanian embassy in Sofia.
Dimitrie Dimiu (1875-1927) was a professor and editor-in-chief of Ziarul
ştiinţelor populare şi al călătoriilor (Newspaper for Popular Science and Travelling).
Dr. V. Dragoşescu was a doctor and major. At the time of Romania’s entrance
in the Second Balkan War he was leading the local hospital in Ploieşti, near Bucharest.
Constantin Gane (1885-1962) was an appreciated writer of prose and
memoirs, awarded by the Romanian Academy in 1933, passionate about the research of
the past. He later took office as the Romanian ambassador in Athens in 1940 and 1941,
pleading, among others, for the rights of the Macedonian Romanians. Gane later became
a member of the legionary movement and was convicted by the communist regime.
The well known Romanian historian and professor Nicolae Iorga (1871-1940)
was also known as a documentarist, playwright, poet, encyclopaedist, memoirist, and
literature critic. As a politician, in 1910 he co-founded the Democratic Nationalist Party
and among other important titles he was the Prime Minister of Romania between 1931
and 1932.
Alexandru Marghiloman (1854-1925) was a famous politician, lawyer, leader
of the Conservative Party (after Titu Maiorescu’s retreat in 1914) and Prime Minister
(1918). In the years preceding the Balkan wars he took office as the Minister of Internal
Affairs and Finances.
Theodor Râşcanu (1888-1952) was a writer, journalist, genealogist, and
memoirist.
The iconic novelist, short story writer, journalist, and political figure Mihail
Sadoveanu (1880-1961) was one of the most prolific Romanian writers, remembered
for his historical and adventure novels, as well as for his unique descriptions of nature
and characters.
George Topîrceanu (1886- 1937) was a famous Romanian poet, short story
writer, and humorist.
It is our belief that the best mirror of the events and mentalities are the writings
themselves. Therefore we let the words of these authors paint the mind-set of the time,
as they were seen through their eyes, and allow the interested reader of this study to
discover and interpret the writings in their entirety, guided by the main recurrent themes
in the memoirs.
Typically, the books commence with a justification for our intervention in
Bulgaria and an explanation of the context in which it had been decided – an ever
deteriorating situation taking over the peninsula: “yesterday's allies are each others’
enemies today; they send ultimatums, because they do not agree on the division of the
prey.”1 As Sadoveanu shows in his analysis on Romania’s situation, in the midst of the
Balkan turmoil, the country felt that the Silistra issue was being solved in a humiliating
way for the Romanians:
patient, humiliated and sad, stood our poor little country
among other countries in the world. We had been first among
1
General I. Atanasiu, Avântul ţării. Campania din 1913 în Bulgaria (The country's impetus. The
1913 campaign in Bulgaria) (Cluj-Napoca: Cartea Românească, 1925), 9.
304
the Balkans, and we were falling to the latter plan. [...] We
were being finger-pointed! In the West, on summer theatre
stages, revues were played, in which we were ridiculed and
dishonoured.1
All of the authors mention an “urge of a duty to be fulfilled”2, as felt by each and every
citizen of the country and disclose the feeling of self-realization for their enrolment in
the campaign: “despite all the tiredness I feel, I confess I have carried out a holly duty!”3
A distinct characteristic present in each memoir is the opinion of the authors regarding
the campaign. Dimitrie Dimiu feels that “our arrival here rushed the neighbours to
accept peace as we have dictated it”4 , while dr. V. Dragoşescu thinks “a Romanian
incursion in Bulgaria cannot serve much, but it can hurt more in the future”5, given the
proximity of Bulgaria and the development possibilities in harmonious circumstances.
Constantin Gane appreciates “the historical moment in which the prestige of the country
has ascended in such a considerable way and we have gained the gratitude of the entire
Europe for the struggle we’ve had in order to restore peace in the Balkan Peninsula”6.
Moreover, it is noted that “This time our army had the mission of making great marches
and enduring at length,  because the population of the neighbouring kingdom had been
declared sacred!”7
The Romanian soldier is carefully portrayed by the memoirists of the Balkan
wars, especially from the perspective of everyday happenings. It is impossible to
overlook the glorification tendency of the Romanian soldiers, who are going to war in an
atmosphere of extraordinary joyfulness where “they were all laughing and singing”8;
“There’s so much liveliness in this people eager to go to war”9. General I. Atanasiu
describes the exaltation throughout the country: “the nation’s soul, transformed into
eagle wings, carried the sons of the country [...] with such a momentum that, had there
1
“răbdătoare, umilită şi tristă, stătea biata noastră ţărişoară între celelalte ţări din lumea asta.
Fusesem cei dintâiu dintre balcanici, şi cădeam pe planul cel din urmă. [...] Ne arătau toţi cu
degetul! În Apus se jucau pe scenele teatrelor de vară reviste în care eram făcuţi de râs şi de
ocară”, Mihail Sadoveanu, 44 de zile în Bulgaria (44 days in Bulgaria) (Bucharest: Editura Cartea
Românească, 1925).
2
Constantin Argetoianu, Memorii. Pentru cei de mâine. Amintiri din vremea celor de ieri
(Memoirs. For the people of tomorrow. Memories from the times of yesterday) ed. Stelian
Neagoe, vol. I-II. Parts I-IV (Bucharest: Editura Machiavelli, 2008).
3
Dimitrie Dimiu, Amintirile unui rezervist. Note şi impresiuni din campania anului 1913
(Memories of a reservist. Notes and impressions from the 1913 campaign) (Bucharest: Editura
Minerva, 1914), 147.
4
Ibid.
5
Dr. V. Dragoşescu, Amintiri din războiu. Campania anului 1913 în Bulgaria (Memories from the
war. The 1913 campaign in Bulgaria) (Bucharest: Institutul de arte grafice „Speranţa”, 1927), 4.
6
„momentul istoric, în care prestigiu ţărei s’a înălţat într-un mod atât de însemnat şi în care am
câştigat recunoştiinţa Europei întregi pentru sforţările făcute de noi întru restabilirea păcei în
Peninsula Balcanică.” Constantin Gane, Amintirile unui fost holeric. Din însemnările unui
voluntar de campanie. (Memories of a former choleric. From the notes of a volunteer in the
campaign) (Bucharest: Editura Minerva, 1914), 222.
7
Sadoveanu, 44 de zile în Bulgaria.
8
Gane, Amintirile unui fost holeric. Din însemnările unui voluntar de campanie.: 12.
9
Dimiu, Amintirile unui rezervist. Note şi impresiuni din campania anului 1913.
305
been battles, would have pulled out only victories, everywhere.”1 The goodness of the
Romanian soldiers is one of the features most accentuated by the authors. Atanasiu
describes how “during the meal, groups and groups were passing the Bulgarian soldiers
from troops disarmed by our cavalry” and who are given “bread, roast, wine”2. In his
letters, I. Al. Brătescu-Voineşti was making surprising comments about our military men:
Here, in the yard of the barrack, are people rushed from all
corners of the country, coming not willingly, nor driven by
hatred, by their desire for revenge, or by a desire to put an end
to public sufferings, but brought under the threat of severe
punishment in case of disobedience, stated beforehand in the
code of military justice, to go and kill other people whom they
did not know. Here is how their leaders inflame them, how they
pour the poison of hatred into their souls against people
towards which they had previously not one bit of resentment.
[...] Ah! how they will kill the enemies! How they will chop them
up! Where are they? To tear them apart with their teeth! ... In
the face of these wild tendencies I was telling myself: What a
beast lurks in man! ... Three days later I saw the first Bulgarian
soldiers, a group of 70-80 prisoners, worn down by weariness
and hunger. When they arrived, our soldiers were just eating.
They circled them around; and the same people, who were
saying they would tear them to pieces with their teeth, were now,
gravely, without scorn, without a word of derision, breaking
their bread in two to share it with the enemy.3
Dimiu illustrates the good conduct of the troops through his stories as well. He first tells
how “A little girl about eight approaches me. I give her some coins and she kisses my
hand, and I, missing my children, kiss her on the cheeks”4. Then he points out an
1
“sufletul naţiunei, transformat în aripi de vulturi, a purtat pe fiii tarii, din Carpaţi în Balcani, cu
un avânt ce de erau lupte, ar fi smuls, peste tot, numai victorie.” Atanasiu, Avântul ţării.
Campania din 1913 în Bulgaria: 3.
2
Ibid., 40.
3
“Iată în curtea cazărmii oamenii alergaţi din toate unghiurile ţării, veniţi nu de bunăvoia lor, nici
mânaţi de ură, nici de dorinţa unei răzbunări, nici de dorinţa de a pune capăt unei suferinţi obşteşti, ci
aduşi cu ameninţare de aspre pedepse în caz de nesupunere, înscrisă din vreme în codul justiţiei
militare, ca să meargă să ucidă alţi oameni pe cari nu-i cunoşteau. Iată cum îi înflăcărează şefii, cum
le toarnă în suflet otrava urei împotriva unor oameni, contra cărora n-aveau până în ajun nici pic de
resentiment. [...] A! cum o să ucidă pe duşmani! Cum o să-i toace! Unde sunt? Să-i sfâşie cu dinţii!...
În faţa acestor porniri sălbatice îmi ziceam: Ce fiară stă ascunsă în om!... Peste trei zile am văzut cei
d-întâi soldaţi bulgari, un grup de 70-80 de prizonieri, prăpădiţi de osteneală şi de foame. Când au
sosit, soldaţii noştri tocmai mâncau. Au făcut roată împrejurul lor; şi aceiaşi oameni cari ziceau că-i
vor sfâşia cu dinţii, acum, cu gravitate, fără o zeflemea, fără un cuvânt de batjocură, îşi rupeau
bucata de pâine în două ca s-o împartă cu duşmanul.” I. Al. Brătescu-Voineşti, În slujba păcei
(Editura Cartea Românească, s.a.), 107-10.
4
“O fetiţă ca de vreo opt ani se apropie de mine. Îi dau gologani şi-mi sărută mâna, iar eu în dorul
copiilor mei o sărut pe obraji” Dimiu, Amintirile unui rezervist. Note şi impresiuni din campania
anului 1913: 64.
306
initiative of the regiment to clean the places where they would camp: “Ever since this
village exists, has it not been as clean as we have made it and our troops clean... 14
backyards.”1 Also Sadoveanu records the moment when he and the soldiers let a girl
take water before them, as well as the captain warning the military men entering a
village: “Watch out, boys, [...] not to awaken the children...”2 The author also illustrates
an episode in which a soldier buys a chicken from a local, stressing that “They both
appeared happy with the trade and parted as good friends”3. The vigour of the Romanian
soldier is also a topic observed by the authors. Argetoianu notes the outstanding
resistance of the troops who “were walking freely, all together, with the basil behind
their ears, singing and cheering”4, attributing this behaviour to the rural origin of most
soldiers – “peasants used to standing and ‘walking’ from mornings to evenings”5. As
proof, “Out of the 6,000 people, after a march of over 50 kilometres [...] not one
straggler was left behind.”6 Although the Romanian army was composed of two
different castes, Sadoveanu and other authors insist on the equality of the two in
wartimes, as soldiers: “If the town man is convinced that he’s not meant to suffer what
the humble ploughman endures, if he shall protest against the rigors and raise his voice
to the skies,  that means he considers himself holy, descending from heaven on a
rope.”7 Generally, the relationships inside the Romanian army are reported as
harmonious, even between officers and privates, who share food and stories during the
campaign. Beyond the Romanian soldiers’ qualities, a strong sense of authenticity of
these writings emerges from the recording of both positive and negative images that
characterized the army. The memoirists document their negligence and indiscipline,
portraying them as not being prepared well enough for the expedition and carried away
by “our habit of treating all things with ease”8. While fighting their actual enemy – the
cholera –, the Romanian doctors were powerless and soon fell prey to the “carelessness
and stupidity that reigned in the early days of the epidemic”9. The troops do not obey
orders meant to protect them from the deadly contagion. Topîrceanu notices the distrust
of the peasant soldiers, who were convinced that their fellows were dying because they
had damaged their stomachs with the boiled water they were told to drink. Also,
regarding the protective measures they were reportedly confident that it will not affect
people like them saying that “The Romanian knows that this is all a fabrication of the
‘boyars’ and that the bad breed doesn’t perish”10. Even some of the army leaders
disregard the dangers of the disease and the orders to only drink boiled water:
1
Ibid., 83.
“Băgaţi de samă, băeţi, [...] să nu deşteptaţi copiii...” Sadoveanu, 44 de zile în Bulgaria.
3
Ibid.
4
“mergeau de voie, de-a valma, cu busuiocul la ureche, cântând şi chiotind”. Argetoianu,
Memorii. Pentru cei de mâine. Amintiri din vremea celor de ieri, I-II. Parts I-IV: 214-15.
5
Ibid.
6
“Din 6000 de oameni, după un marş de 50 şi mai bine de kilometri [...] nu rămăsese în urmă nici
un traânard.” Ibid.
7
Sadoveanu, 44 de zile în Bulgaria: 25-26.
8
Argetoianu, Memorii. Pentru cei de mâine. Amintiri din vremea celor de ieri, Parts I-IV: 206.
9
Ibid., 225.
10
“Românul ştie că toate astea sunt scornituri de-a «boierilor», şi că soiul rău nu piere.” Theodor
Râşcanu, Spre Sofia cu Regimentul 8 de artilerie. Notele unui voluntar. Iulie-august 1913 (To
2
307
The Colonel, a brave ignorant, would mock the doctor and, to
give a good example, drank a glass of water from the fountain
in question. Three days later he was dead.1
Recorded rumours of violence, such as the Romanian bicyclists who were shot
by the Bulgarians or the ones who had their noses cut, are not absent2. Some authors
prefer to abstain from naming names and generalize their accounts: “the hardships of the
Balkan War and the atrocities committed by some armies, even towards noncombatants, were known by everyone”3. Constantin Argetoianu notes the paradox that
“from the Bulgarians, we have born the friendship of the soldiers and the unrelenting
enmity of the civilians”, exemplifying that “an officer and five people in the 2nd
Regiment Roşiori had been killed in Vratsa by the locals and [...] 15 inhabitants had
been shot in retaliation”4. However, even cases of brutality from the Romanian army
(vastly commented on and exploited by the media of the time, but almost absent from
memoirs) are discussed: “among the soldiers – officers or privates – there have been and
are villains as well, who have needlessly abused and have disregarded their chiefs”5.
Atanasiu in turn complains that “With all my sternness, some soldiers indulge in
devastations”6, while Nicolae Iorga shows that some soldiers “confusing, while walking,
the troops they had been assigned to, would simply ‘get angry’ and take the road back to
Bucharest, as if it had been a mere stroll without any responsibility.” 7Concerned with
the image of the Romanian soldiers, General Atanasiu reports one of the neighbouring
regiments where “[...] starting with the regiment commander [...] indulged in excesses,
abuses of innocent Bulgarians, robbery, which dishonour the soldier in general, and ruin
the good reputation of the Romanians in particular”8 and blames the conduct of the
abusers: “plundering and devastation are shameful actions for an army that has despised
the Bulgarians for their killing, robbing and plundering to which they have indulged
during these wars”9.
In addition to the accounts about the fair, good, and generous Romanian soldier
and the less flattering record regarding his behaviour, an important concern in some
memories takes the shape of an attempt to disclaim compromising rumours published in
the press on the abuses of the Roman army. The series of newspaper pieces troubles and
confuses Sadoveanu, who in 44 Days in Bulgaria expresses his concern regarding these
Sofia with artillery regiment 8. Notes of a volunteer. July-August 1913) (Institutul de arte grafice
N.V. Ştefăniu, 1914), 85.
1
“Colonelul, un ignorant curajos, lua în zeflemea pe doctor şi ca să dea bunul exemplu bău un
pahar de apă din fântâna cu pricina. Trei zile după aceea era mort.” Argetoianu, Memorii. Pentru
cei de mâine. Amintiri din vremea celor de ieri, I-II. Parts I-IV: 225.
2
See Dimiu, Amintirile unui rezervist. Note şi impresiuni din campania anului 1913.
3
Dragoşescu, Amintiri din războiu. Campania anului 1913 în Bulgaria: 6.
4
Memorii. Pentru cei de mâine. Amintiri din vremea celor de ieri, I-II. Parts I-IV: 219.
5
Atanasiu, Avântul ţării. Campania din 1913 în Bulgaria: 116.
6
Ibid., 39.
7
Orizonturile mele: o viaţă de om, aşa cum a fost (My horizons: life of a man, as it was) (Editura
N. Stroilă, 1934), 191.
8
9
Ibid., 39.
308
“unsigned little articles depicting horrors, screaming with terrible pains” which “flooded
desperately the newspapers columns”, and records his thoughts:
I was terribly stunned and outraged when, entering the
country, after ten weeks of campaign, I found out about the
horrors the newspapers were denouncing. There had been
people tortured like in the times of the Inquisition, there had
been sick soldiers buried alive. The horrors were endless. [...]
Where did these things happen? We, the ones returning, had
been on the scene, we had lived the camp life, the marches, the
fatigue, the huger, under the threat of cholera. Could we have
been such strangers to these atrocities and abominations? [...]
What in God’s name? [...] I couldn’t understand anything
anymore.”1
As a reason for the issue, Sadoveanu is of the opinion that the Romanians’ “restless
Latin spirit, always turned to exaggeration and generalization, is the big culprit. But
Sadoveanu contradicts the allegations publicized in the media, in an attempt to put the
record straight and clean the image of the Romanian soldier, accused of violence:
Your country’s soldier did not pillage and he did not rape. He
endured, like the wounded deer by the springs, while the
soldiers of the other nations weltered in the blood and tears of
the innocent. He did not reach out to steal and cut. [...]
Through his patience and suffering he rose to the heroism of a
civilized nation.2
As an emphasis Sadoveanu shows that “Soldiers, at the gates, were making friendly
signs with Romanian money, asking about the pub, about chickens, cheese and corn
flour. No one was cutting, no one was shooting, no one was hanging [anyone]”3.
However, he admits to the existence of isolated incidents:
To maintain a so-called discipline, some officers committed
acts of brutality, beating up and killing poor people... […]
I had heard [...] in the wilderness of sad Bulgaria, about some
bad things, about senior officers who, as the spectre of cholera
rose, had isolated themselves from the troop with a shameful
1
“Am fost grozav de uimit şi de indignat când, intrând în ţară, după zece săptămâni de campanie,
am aflat de grozăviile pe care le denunţau gazetele. Au fost oameni schingiuiţi ca pe vremea
inchiziţiei, au fost soldaţi bolnavi îngropaţi de vii. Ororile nu mai aveau sfârşit. [...]
Unde s’au petrecut aceste lucruri? Doar noi cei care ne întorceam fuseserăm la faţa locului,
trăisem viaţa de bivuac, de marşuri, de oboseli, de foame, sub ameninţarea holerei. Se putea să
fim noi străini aşa de mult de mizeriile şi ticăloşiile acestea? Şi încă campaniile gazetelor păreau a
se îndrepta asupra tuturor ofiţerilor, fără alegeri. Ce Dumnezeu? [...] Nu mai înţelegeam nimic.”
2
“Ostaşul tarii tale n’a prădat si n’a violat. A răbdat, ca cerbul rănit lângă izvoare, pe când ostenii
celorlalte neamuri se tăvăleau în sânge şi lacrimi de nevinovaţi. N’a întins mâna să fure şi să tae.
[...] Prin suferinţele si răbdarea lui s’a ridicat la eroismul unei naţiuni civilizate.” Ibid., 13.
3
“Soldaţii, pe la porţi, făceau semne prieteneşti cu bani din România, întrebau de crâşmă, de
paseri, de brânză şi de făină de păpuşoi. Nimeni nu tăia, nu împuşca, nu spânzura”. Ibid., 95.
309
cowardice and selfishness. [...] But the cases were quite rare,
so that the shame would not fall [...] over an entire army”1.
Regarding the Bulgarian soldiers encountered during the march towards Sofia,
various authors point out that they were surrendering to the Romanian army and they
“wanted to hear nothing about war”2, appearing “drained by a war too long”3. The
goodness of the Romanian army is exhibited once again when they offer food and wine to
the disarming Bulgarian soldiers, which are portrayed as having been left to starve by their
leaders, who would fill their pockets with food. Emphasizing this episode, General Atanasiu
wonders: “Will anyone ever again dare to compare us, Romanian officers, to them?”.4
Turks from villages like Ghighen contribute to the tarnished image of the
Bulgarian soldiers, qualifying them as mean and vindictive. The Bulgarians are
exaggeratedly described by the Turks as barbarians who kill women, children and the
elderly: “ever since they’ve been fighting the Serbs [...] they hang people from every
tree, cut women open [...]. The Serbs do it as well,  but no one can beat the
Bulgarians.”5 As a matter of fact, entire chapters from Sadoveanu’s books, as well as
other authors, march on the idea of the Bulgarians’ cruelty in contrast with the
Romanian army. Yet another representation of the Bulgarian soldiers’ negative image
are the accounts about their war prisoners who had been “jailed in Orhania and Zlatiţa
and abused through hunger”6. The images created by Sadoveanu through the description
of certain episodes are not easy to forget: “the Greek and Bulgarian bandits” had set fire
to the neighbouring villages, “had done their duty to the peasantry”; “they would cut,
shoot and stab anyone in their way... [...] Defenceless people were pursued from all
sides, caught, tortured, bled, crushed...” The next day, “a squadron of Bulgarian cavalry”
arrived in town and the slaughter continued: “the soldiers killed the Turkish in a mosque,
up to the last one; they smashed the heads of children against the walls, the elderly had
their eyes pulled out, they cut women's breasts...”7 However, we encounter a few
favourable passages as well. Râşcanu testifies: “It is said that the Bulgarians were at one
time cavaliers: They warned our commanders that in the Zlatiţa hospital there had been
cholera sufferers”8. In another episode, the Romanian army is surprised to see that the
wells in a village had been marked as being contaminated.
1
“Pentru a păstra o aşa zisă disciplină, o samă de ofiţeri s’au dedat la acte de sălbăticie, stâlcind şi
ucigând în bătăi bieţii oameni... [...] Auzisem [...] în pustietăţile tristei Bulgarii, de unele lucruri
urâte, de ofiţeri superiori care, cum se ivise spectrul holerei, se izolaseră de trupă c’o laşitate şi
c’un egoism ruşinos. [...] Dar cazurile erau destul de rare, pentru ca să nu cadă ruşinea [...] asupra
unei oştiri întregi”ibid., 18-20.
2
Argetoianu, Memorii. Pentru cei de mâine. Amintiri din vremea celor de ieri (For the people of
tomorrow. Memories from the times of yesterday) I-II. Parts I-IV: 206.
3
Ibid., 228.
4
5
Sadoveanu, 44 de zile în Bulgaria.
6
Râşcanu, Spre Sofia cu Regimentul 8 de artilerie. Notele unui voluntar. Iulie-august 1913: 67.
7
Mihail Sadoveanu, Războiul balcanic (The Balkan war) vol. Biblioteca „Dimineaţa” nr. 1
(Bucharest: Editura Adevărul, s.a.), 61.
8
Râşcanu, Spre Sofia cu Regimentul 8 de artilerie. Notele unui voluntar. Iulie-august 1913: 81-82.
310
In a similar way, the image of the Ottoman Empire’s soldiers is covered in a
gloomy perspective:
undisciplined, most of them old and weak, ragged and
barefooted.  Barefooted and especially hungry! [...] sinister
armies, hunchbacked by sufferings and endurance, weakened
by hunger. [...] Artillerymen did not know how to use the
cannon; infantrymen could not use the gun.”1
The Turkish army is depicted by Sadoveanu as “the old lion [...] full of wounds and too
weak!”: “Oh! I hadn’t thought the Turks were so disorganized and decayed. Like
everyone, I believed the allies would be easily crushed and the Turks would be in Sofia
in two weeks”2. Sadoveanu reckons that the current situation of the ottoman army,
acting with an “extraordinary slowness and laziness”, is due to the
Two centuries of development [...]. Then two centuries of
gradual decline, lazy life in harems, possession of dishonesty
and robbery of the despotic camarillas.3
Bulgaria, our neighbouring country receives appreciative comments and
charming descriptions of the surrounding nature and buildings (e.g. a beautiful rural
church), especially as the soldiers are advancing towards the heart of the Balkan
Mountains. They pass through Cervenibreg, a “small picturesque town” or Blesnicova,
“the most beautiful place in Bulgaria seen so far”4. When one of the regiments reaches
Etropol, the town is described as a breathtaking area. Nevertheless, the first impressions
of the soldiers entering the country through the South about its landscapes are frequently
bleakly depicted in Argetoianu’s work:
drought parched and empty fields like a heath. [...] Unweeded,
unstubbed fields, meadows full of heather, roads left in God's
will and the lack of any building or planting proved that over
the centuries, the human hands had not improved anything in
these places, but had destroyed everything it could.5
The bare, uncultivated plains, the deserted villages “abandoned by people and God”6
from the south of the Danube give a feeling of savagery in contrast with the “much
praised Bulgaria and implausible percentages of illiteracy (2%)”7. Such landscapes are
1
“nedisciplinaţi, cei mai mulţi bătrâni şi slabi, zdrenţuiţi şi desculţi.  Desculţi şi mai ales
flămânzi! [...] După veacuri de glorie, Sublima Poartă a nemernicilor Sultani de azi chiamă la
luptă armate sinistre, încovoiate de suferinţi şi răbdare, slăbite de foame. [...] Tunarii nu ştiau să
întrebuinţeze tunul, infanteriştii nu puteau să întrebuinţeze puşca.” Sadoveanu, Războiul balcanic,
Biblioteca „Dimineaţa” nr. 1: 28.
2
Ibid., 16, 20.
3
“Două veacuri de mărire [...] Apoi două veacuri de treptată slăbire, de viaţă leneşă în haremuri,
de stăpânire de necinste şi de jaf a camarilelor despotice.” Ibid., 25-26.
4
Râşcanu, Spre Sofia cu Regimentul 8 de artilerie. Notele unui voluntar. Iulie-august 1913.
5
“câmpii arse de secetă şi pustii ca un bărăgan. [...] Miriştile îmbălărite, păşunile pline de
buruiană, drumurile lăsate în voia Domnului şi lipsa oricărei clădiri sau sădiri dovedeau că, în
cursul veacurilor, mâna omului nu îmbunătăţise nimic pe aceste locuri, dar stricase tot ce putuse.”
Argetoianu, Memorii. Pentru cei de mâine. Amintiri din vremea celor de ieri, I-II. Parts I-IV: 216.
6
7
Argetoianu, Memorii. Pentru cei de mâine. Amintiri din vremea celor de ieri, I-II. Parts I-IV: 216.
311
compared with the “rich plains of Teleorman, covered with wheat”, in a constant
emphasis of the beauty and superiority of our lands: “Such an astounding contrast
between the dirt there and the cleanness here [Turnu-Măgurele]. [...] The city is paved,
swept, with white clean houses, beautiful public buildings”1. In his war journal,
Topîrceanu as well notices the difference between our country and Bulgaria, describing
Romania as “A beautiful and rich country. It would also be happy if it had no boyars.”2
His accounts of the campaign are dotted with descriptions of the Bulgarian sceneries and
observations regarding the moral and social life of our neighbours. They are recorded, as
Săndulescu says, with “the same objectivity, without any resentment toward the
neighbouring people”3:
The tile enveloped houses. The women have no breasts. The
peasant women, especially, are all ugly – their mugs, too.
‘Sorrow’ everywhere. Miserable Bulgaria! The villages are
empty of sturdy young men.4
Other troops, entering Bulgaria further to the east, towards the “Cadrilater”, present the
local peasants and their lives in a different light: “Bulgarian farmers are wealthier than
ours, but they lead a more simple life”5. In Turtucaia, “the Romanians, Turks and
Bulgarians are almost in equal parts, every 4000 each; Turks in the West, Bulgarians to
the middle and Romanians to the East, very mixed with the Bulgarians, and equally
speaking both languages.” It feels very much like home, the author continues: “The
houses in the centre resemble the ones in our countryside towns.”6
In a dedicated chapter called Our neighbours, Sadoveanu paints the image of the
other countries: “The Bulgarians are having a hard time with the war”; the Serbs are
“continually victorious”; the Greeks “have been so circumspect all the campaign and
conquered some cities so empty (even Thessaloniki), that with a right momentum are the
Bulgarians starting to cast them a smirk of discontent and hatred”.
“The Bulgarians – are apparently committing a fratricide. Of
all the Balkan allies, they alone are blood brothers with the
Turks. [...] Historians are indeed proving that the Bulgarians
and the Turks are of the same blood. But the transformations
of the years and the religious ferment, the sufferings’ bitterness
and desire for revenge of the broken have completed the
differentiation of two nations and have created two irreducible
enemies.”7
About Romanians and Bulgarians the author writes during the time of the First Balkan
War that the two peoples “have fraternized in grief”, led by “the tumults of pain and the
consorting of those who groan beneath the same burden.”8 Sadoveanu particularizes the
1
Al. Săndulescu, "George Topîrceanu - Jurnal de campanie," Luceafărul, 12.07 1969.
3
Ibid.
4
“Casele învăluite cu olane. Femeile n-au sîni. Ţărancele, mai ales, sînt toate urîte – şi la mutră.
„Jale” pretutindeni. Nefericita Bulgarie! Satele sunt pustii de voinici.” Ibid.
5
Dragoşescu, Amintiri din războiu. Campania anului 1913 în Bulgaria: 38.
6
Ibid., 34.
7
Sadoveanu, Războiul balcanic, Biblioteca „Dimineaţa” nr. 1: 30-32.
8
Ibid.
2
312
subject even further in the chapter The Romanians and the Bulgarians. He states that
Romania is bigger than Bulgaria, has an older age, a superior national wealth and claims
that we “descend from a nobler race” and “our intellectual captain is not just a mere
word. [...] despite all of this, Western media have shown more sympathy to Bulgaria
than to us, the situation over the Danube has been portrayed in a favorable light, while
we were left in the shadow”1. The newspaper articles were painting a remarkable
picture. Therefore, in the eyes of all foreign countries, Bulgaria possessed a strong,
viable army. The Bulgarians, utter patriots, considered themselves “the pit of the Slavic
civilization” and claimed that their army was “as numerous as the sand of the sea, and
most of all invincible”. Certain voices were accusing Bulgaria of “paying substantial
amounts of money so that the countries abroad would be favorably informed about
them”. The Romanians, on the other hand, were “always dissatisfied and ready to see
only our own harm, to systematically ignore the much-little good that we have.”2
The population of Bulgaria, scarce as it was, rarely approached the Romanian
soldiers, sometimes asking them for help with their wounded: “hundreds of injured
received medical care from the Romanian health crew”3. In other episodes, images of
women “with scruffy hair, roaring and grasping their heads with their hands”, praying to
be spared, are further stressed to show that “Around here this is known: that the army
must plunder, burn and kill...”4. The Bulgarian people receive harsh judgements, being
projected as fools and “the most cruel, most savage people in the peninsula”5 :
It seems that God, too, is facing away from this people,
coward, invasive of another's property and belongings.6
Theodor Râşcanu claims that “The Bulgarians, drunk with success, lost their temper and
sense of reality. [...] Towards Romania, they had always been hostile and stubborn in
recognize its right to Silistra”7. Bulgaria is seen as a “Miserable nation brought in this
state by the imprudent ambition and fanfaronade of an arrogant, stubborn statesman
lacking political sense!”8 He continues, saying that “The kneeling of Bulgaria is only
due to its too big confidence in its forces, lacking sense of reality and arrogance. [...] The
lack of experienced tactful political people.”9
The Turks in the Bulgarian villages are positively portrayed in various episodes,
from meeting the Romanian army with water, dancing and cheering, to the recorded
discussions they have with the Romanian memoirists. Atanasiu observes that the Turks
“look at us with more sympathy, as if we were brothers”, comparing them to the
Bulgarians, which are assigned the identity of a people that is “evil, vindictive, and
1
Ibid., 50.
Ibid., 53-54.
3
Argetoianu, Memorii. Pentru cei de mâine. Amintiri din vremea celor de ieri, I-II. Parts I-IV:
216.
4
5
6
“Par’că şi Dumnezeu, a întors faţa de la acest popor, mişel, cotropitor de bunul şi avutul altuia.”
Ibid., 53.
7
Râşcanu, Spre Sofia cu Regimentul 8 de artilerie. Notele unui voluntar. Iulie-august 1913: 7, 8.
8
Ibid., 37.
9
“Îngenunchearea Bulgariei nu se datoreşte decât prea marei încrederi în forţele ei, lipsei simţului
de realitate şi trufiei. [...] Lipsei de oameni politici, cu experienţă şi cu tact.” Ibid., 142.
2
313
[who] do not forgive them for the benevolent attitude they have towards the Romanian
army.”1 They speak our language and consider themselves friends with the Romanians:
“You Romanians... you good people... You don’t cut throats like the Bulgarians...”2
As the Bulgaria campaign draws to an end, desperate and defeated Bulgaria is
shown to be “bow[ing] her head with sadness and resignation”3. For Romania this
successful campaign is described as having “destroyed a legend. That of the superiority
of Bulgaria to Romania.”4 In the view of the writer and journalist Theodor Râşcanu, the
Romanians’ “duty” now becomes “to never forget the hatred and hostility of the
Bulgarian, who was not been our friend until now because he was stalking our Dobruja
and who, from now on, will hate us to death for losing the Cadrilater.”5
Conclusions
A problematic geographical position, doubled by a stormy history, is proving to be the
absolute recipe for alterity. For the Balkan area, the tales that are accompanying this
history are continuously constructing identity issues and keeping people from
abandoning stereotypes and misconceptions. The concept of alterity has taken different
proportions in the context of the Balkan Wars, followed by the 1st World War and the
reignited conflicts of the 1990s in the region, remaining a very timely issue. Along with
geography, politics and economic interests, such events have hindered the creation of a
real sense of togetherness, of familiarity with our neighbours. Their culture and true
personalities remain overshadowed by century-old stories. However, through our study
we have revealed possible new sources of the aforementioned tales, essential to a better
understanding of the formation of otherness.
1
Sadoveanu, 44 de zile în Bulgaria: 94.
3
Ibid., 182.
4
Râşcanu, Spre Sofia cu Regimentul 8 de artilerie. Notele unui voluntar. Iulie-august 1913: 141.
5
Ibid., 142-43.
2
314
Discursive Strategies of Traditional Mining Memory
In Two Villages of The Apuseni Mountains
Cosmina-Maria BERINDEI
Babeş-Bolyai University
Keywords: gold, mining memory, nationalization, work culture, discursive strategies,
Apuseni Mountains
Abstract: The present paper proposes a qualitative analysis of the discursive strategies
of traditional gold mining memory in two mining villages of the Apuseni Mountains.
The three analyzed discourses were registered using as research method the “life story”
interview. I followed the way the memory of traditional mining experience was
objectified, a profession that disappeared with the nationalization; I also followed the
way each of the three interlocutors made use of the period they experienced comparing it
to their whole life. The discourses are nostalgic; they emphasize the disappearance of a
work culture and the identification of certain survival strategies in a very short period of
time. Thus, migration in the area increased a lot.
*
The present paper proposes an exercise of memory recovery of a professional
community, the gold miners in the Apuseni Mountains. I will try to bring some light on a
few aspects regarding the work experience of the inhabitants of the villages Bucium Şasa
and Roşia Montană shortly before 1948, when, through the Nationalization Law, the gold
exploitation in private mines was forbidden, all the country’s mineral resources being
transferred to state property. At the same time, this research follows the way the
experience of readapting – after June 11th, 1948 – to another world is remembered and
turned into discourse, a world in which the rules of the centralized economy were
imposed, and in which other power relations and surviving rules appeared.
The researched villages are in the North-Western part of Romania, in
Transylvania, and have access to the same mountain, rich in gold seams. The history of
these villages is strongly connected with gold extraction, this being the main occupation
of the inhabitants until the Law no. 119 for the Nationalization of the Transport, Mining,
Insurance, Banking and Industrial Enterprises1, from June 11th, 1948 was passed. This

This work was possible with the financial support of the Sectoral Operational Program for
Human Resources Development 2007-2013, co-financed by the European Social Fund, within the
project POSDRU 89/1.5/S/60189 with the title „Postdoctoral Programs for Sustainable
Development in a Knowledge Based Society”.
1
Monitorul Oficial al României, no. 133 bis/11 June 1948.
315
law’s consequences were direct and harsh on the Apuseni miners. With the
nationalization of resources, the miners were forbidden to exploit the gold, were forced
to wall up the mine entrances, and the traditional installations used for ore processing,
called in Romanian şteampuri, which were water powered, were stopped shortly after.
Moreover, all those who had gold were required to hand it over to the bank until a
certain date, and after a while, those who were suspected to still have gold left or hidden
were persecuted. The persecutions and even tortures experienced by some of them left,
as we will see, deep marks in the social conscience.
The scientific motivation of this research is that it approaches an important
subject for the cultural identity circumscribing to an occupational community, which,
during the last half of century, passed through major changes, generated by the
communist and post-communist political context. This anthropological reality does not
yet have a study that would record the way this community relates to that period of time
when it practiced the traditional mining, and the way this is reflected, through the
memory’s voice, in the subjects’ discourses. The few studies about the Apuseni mining
community focused on their spiritual culture or ethnographically analyzed the
occupation of mining.
Thus, the present approach is justified when it explores, with methods specific
to the qualitative research, an essential aspect of the Apuseni miners’ lives, yet unstudied
in the specialized literature; it emphasizes forms of thinking and activity which make
something that has not yet been said, something unique, capable of being the object of
an ethnographical approach, as Laplantine1 said. The profound socio-economic and
cultural changes experienced by the gold miners from the Apuseni Mountains, starting
with 1948 until today, changed the face of these villages, and offered the villagers other
perspectives. The octogenarian generation who lives in these communities still keeps
alive the image of the villages as they were when several inhabitants from Bucium Şasa
and Roşia Montană had traditional mining as their occupation. This study relies on the
exploitation of the last confessions of a disappeared professional category that used to
have an important role in the area, both from socio-economic and cultural point of view.
Research Methodology
The field information I used for this study was gathered during several field research
campaigns at Bucium Şasa and Roşia Montană, during June 2011 and April 2012. My
field experiences as anthropologist in the two villages were very different. I will start by
talking about the field in Roşia Montană, where I started an anthropological research in
August 2007. In Roşia Montană I found a delicate situation. The state mine built during
communism was closed in 2006, a necessity for the transition from the centralized
economy to capitalism in post-communist Romania. In these circumstances, a company
with 80,46% shares owned by a corporation listed on the Toronto stock-exchange had
proposed a project of intensive exploitation of gold and silver resources which still exist
in the subsoil at Roşia Montană. The project includes the usage of a cyanides based
1
François Laplantine, La description ethnographique (Paris: Nathan, 1996), 36-37.
316
technology in four open quarries during 16 years.1 The implementation of the new
mining project at Roşia Montana involves relocating a number of 974 residential
properties, which affects other cultural facilities such as two churches, two houses of
worship, six cemeteries,2 and a part of the Roman galleries. The mining project threatens
to destroy a rich cultural patrimony, due to the fact that the cultural heritage of Roşia
Montana has a millennial age. The density of the archeological vestiges compared to
their surface is very big3 at Alburnus Maior, and the archeological researches financed
by the company (in order to obtain the archaeological discharge certificate) were made
for a very small part of the whole surface that would be affected by the project. All these
made the project become gradually extremely controversial in Romania and in the
world, fact for which (November 2012) the evaluation process is still not finalized yet,
with all the political support of the President of Romania, Traian Băsescu and of some
government officials. When I arrived at Roşia Montană, the proposed mining
exploitation project was subjected to public discussions, its evaluation process started.
When I started the anthropological research at Roşia Montană, the process of
the inhabitants’ benevolent moving to a new place had just begun and tensions had
appeared within the community. The pressure put on some people to leave, the lack of
jobs combined with the hope that the situation would improve once the project starts, as
well as the presence in the area of company personnel and numerous journalists for
whom the inhabitants and their words became subject of debates made the villagers
suspicious and reserved. Their availability to discuss with me was small or even null
most of the times. I got used to be refused to take an interview, especially if it meant to
record it. It was very difficult to win their trust, and I won it in several stages, when they
understood I was not a “journalist” and I would not write about them or about what they
did not want me to, I was not the company’s “employee” or a “spy”. My interlocutors’
attitude towards the idea of participation to an audio recorded interview remained
reserved. In spite of all difficulties, I succeeded to record a few very good interviews.
This study is based on these interviews, of which I will use, where necessary, fragments
of transcriptions and of field notes. In any case, besides the low number of the recorded
interview hours, the field experience at Roşia Montană was extremely interesting and
full of meanings, but its description is not the object of the present study.
It was obvious, very often, that my interlocutors self-censored any dialogue with
a stranger, especially when it came to gold. The way in which two interviews took place
is worth to be described, in order to emphasize the self-censorship of the inhabitants
regarding the gold. The first communication situation, in March 2012, cannot even be
called an interview, because it took place atypically. One of my interlocutors, of about
1
According to the document issued by RMGC, Raport la studiul de evaluare a impactului asupra
mediului, (Report on the Evaluation Study of the Impact on the Environment) 1 (2006): 4, the
mining activity will be carried on for a period of 16 years.
2
The data was sourced from the Relocation and Resettlement Action Plan (February, 2006),
http://www.rmgc.ro/sites/default/files/RRAP_MAIN%20VOL_Rom%202009%20ok%20180220
10_0.pdf (accessed September 14, 2010).
3
Volker Wollmann, “Monumente epigrafice şi sculpturale din regiunea minieră Alburnus Maior
– Apuleum” (Epigraphic and sculptural monuments in Alburnus Maior–Apuleum mining region),
Sargetia XIV (1979): 191.
317
57 years old, after giving me the interview, offered to facilitate my access to a brotherin-law of his, older, of 72 years old, who knew more about working in the mine and
nationalization. The moment we entered the yard of the man who was supposed to be
my new interlocutor and I introduced myself, I understood I would not have a successful
interview there. And yet I had a 7 minute dialogue, extremely interesting from the point
of view of discursive self-censorship imposed by some of the informants from Roşia
Montană. At the beginning, my interlocutor refused the interview, but then he accepted
and showed interest for the reason I was there. I reproduce as follows a fragment of the
conversation:
I. P.: “But I don’t know and I don’t have time, I am busy...”
C. B.: “Could I come maybe on Sunday to tell me?”
I. P.: “Sundays are not for such things! But what are you interested in?”
C. B.: “I would like you to tell me how was the work in the mine back then,
and how was it when the mines shut down, at nationalization...”
I. P.: “Nothing happened at nationalization, just that no one worked in his
own mine anymore, they worked in the state mine”.
C. B.: “And how was the transition? Do you remember?”
I. P.: “Only that from that moment on, one worked for the state”.
C. B.: “But the gold, did they have to give it all?”
I. P.: “Those who had, we were poor, we didn’t have mills”.
C. B.: “Is it a well-known fact in the village that some of the villagers had
been beaten to give the gold?”
I. P.: “That I don’t know, I don’t know about the gold!”1
Up to here, my interlocutor built his discourse according to an interiorized
model he had learned to use – for dozens of years in which the communist terror
persisted – when talking to a stranger; he has to use this model again now when the
foreign company tries to convince him to sell his property and leave, something he does
not accept. While he was saying he knew nothing about the gold, he did not look at me.
He looked with certain superiority at the mountain on the left, smiling and suggesting he
had a secret he would not yet reveal to me. Afterwards, a negotiation of our social
positions followed. He asked me where I came from, what my profession was, why I
came to Roşia Montană and other things. My answers somehow diminished his
suspicions and he told me certain things about the way the communist authorities
“persecuted them for gold”, emphasizing that the community people back then were not
united either, but envious and divided, like today. The almost guileful attitude, built on
the negation of a question or on a confession of his ignorance, lasted to the last second
when, asked about his name and age (I promised not to make them known), he answered
atypically, “It’s useless! I. P., 72 years old”.
The second interview – an example for my statement that, when talking about
gold, the inhabitants of Roşia Montană have a discursive self-censorship – is taken on
March 26th, 2012, with an interlocutor I knew and had visited several times before.
Whenever we talked about gold, he would build an ambiguous discourse for someone
who did not know very well the circumstances he was referring to. He constantly
1
Field research information. Interlocutor: I. P., 72 years old, from Roşia Montană; interview
taken at Roşia Montană on March 23rd 2012.
318
avoided to utter words or expressions like: gold, to enter the gallery, to hide. I reproduce
as follows a significant fragment of this interview:
O. P. “If it was nationalization, we didn’t have the right....”
C. B. “Did it come like that... one day and they said you weren’t allowed to enter
the mine?”
O. P. “That was it! It was forbidden, if we went on or…we were in trouble”.
C. B. “Trouble meant what? What would have happened to the one who had still
worked?”
O. P. “They would have taken him to Câmpeni, to the police station. Especially
those who still had…They would take them to the police station, in Câmpeni. They took
a lot from here. They kind of beat them up…Others at the corner of the house……they
would bury it, ‘cause it didn’t anymore…they would beat them and….”
C. B. “They forced them to give the saved gold…..”
O. P. “People tried so…but they searched for it, they kind of took it all!”1
My interlocutor spoke about the interdiction against miners to enter the mines in
1948 and then about the pressure put on the mine owners to give the whole quantity of
the gold they still had. The strategy they used in order to keep their gold was to bury it at
the corner of the house or at the roots of trees in the garden; but he never uttered the
word to bury during the whole interview. He answered my questions, and since I was
pretty familiar by now with the facts about which I interviewed him, I could recover
what was not literally said. This interlocutor’s interview took place without frustrations
either on my behalf because I understood very well what I was transmitted, or on his
behalf; he was making his discourse avoiding the words which were serious for him and
was pleased I understood what he was conveying. Thus, a communication context was
created, in which we established silently a convention, through the complicity of the one
who asked the questions and the one who answered. If my interlocutor was building his
discourse by avoiding the words considered some sort of linguistic tabu in the
community, it was because he exercised this countless times. Everyone knew it was
better to avoid the gold subject in discussions, in order not to have problems, not to be
summoned by the police for declarations.
I had a few privileges for my field research at Bucium-Şasa. Firstly, I found a
more balanced and serene community, which had not experienced lately any existential
situations which would shake it violently. Secondly, the access to this community was
facilitated by certain acquaintances of mine and I succeeded quite quickly to reach
exceptional informants. They were persons who were familiar with all the aspects that
define the traditional profession of a miner as well as the customs that were valid in the
community during the period of time I was interested in. At the same time, the
interviews used in this paper were taken from persons who experienced the
nationalization and were good story tellers of their experiences, and, at the same time,
willing to share them. The dialogues with them were natural, without any suspicions,
animated by each interlocutor’s joy to share his/her life experience. Unlike the
inhabitants of Roşia Montană, my interlocutors from Bucium Şasa were never offered
the chance to tell their stories outside their community. Moreover, the younger
generations of the village, for whom the everyday priorities are different, do not show
1
Field research information. Interlocutor: O. P., 78 years old, from Roşia Montană; interview
taken at Roşia Montană on March 26th 2012.
319
interest for the elders’ life experiences. Thus, the participation at the interviews was
regarded as a privilege.
So, at Bucium Şasa the field experience was totally different, the
communication being warmer, without tension or crises. Both the trust capital that the
people from Bucium Şasa granted me because a person familiar to them helped me
approach them, and the larger circumstances, very different, that defined the interrelation
area helped the success of my field research. Regarding the self-censorship during
communication, not only was this diminished in this situation, but my interlocutors
spoke about the way the subject of gold was avoided in conversations during the
communist period, even within the community. However, each of my interlocutors
insisted on telling me that they or their families never had gold, giving as a reason, every
time, the following situations: they had been either poor or had many children or had
invested the money in something else. This could not be called discursive censorship but
rather a defence strategy built during communism and still functional. They would not
talk about their family members’ personal experiences regarding the handing over of the
gold; therefore, they would say that they or theirs never had gold. They knew stories
about the way those suspected of having gold were persecuted but they seldom gave
names. They would present the phenomenon in general, but when it came to very
concrete things, they would rather withdraw in generalities.
The research methods for the field material gathering were the semi-directive
and non-directive interview, as well as the “life story” interview.
An aspect belonging to the research methodology is the one that describes the
way in which the fieldwork turned into written text, as well as into a scientific one.
Tributary to the research methodology driven by the postmodernist orientation in the
anthropological science, our study researched equally the strategies of discourse
production about the miners’ work and the ethnographical information these discourses
include. The textualization of fieldwork meant to transform the discourse in which the
communication situation is internal into an autonomous text, in Ricoeur’s words,
“separated from a specific utterance and authorial intention”1, capable to become an
object of interpretation. My interlocutors’ discourses, turned into interviews’ transcripts,
together with the field happenings, transformed into field notes, will become an
interpretative anthropologic text.2 As James Clifford explains, “in analyzing this
complex transformation one must bear in mind the fact that ethnography is from
beginning to end enmeshed in writing. This writing includes, minimally, a translation of
experience into textual form. The process is complicated by the action of multiple
subjectivities and political constraints beyond the control of the writer. In response to
these forces ethnographic writing enacts a specific strategy of authority. This has
classically involved an unquestioned claim to appear as the purveyor of truth in the
text”3. The truth is intrinsic to each personal narration, being given by the memory’s
voice and not being under any suspicion. There is no other truth about the world to
which the discourses refer, outside the one supplied by themselves.
1
Ricoeur, Apud: James Clifford, “On Ethnographic Authority”, Representations 2 (Spring,
1983): 131, in the Journal Storage (JSTOR), http://www.jstor.org/stable/2928386 (accessed
March 16, 2012).
2
Clifford Geertz, The Interpretation of Culture (New York: Basic Books, 1973), 20.
3
James Clifford, “On Ethnographic Authority,” 120.
320
For this paper three “life story” interviews were selected from the field work,
with further selections of the fragments referring to the work experience from the period
before nationalization, to the experiences with nationalization and the repercussions this
had over the community. When I wrote the interviews, I eliminated the researcher’s
questions as well as the interjections and digressions which would have made the
reading more difficult. Thus, the discourses became coherent. When I transcribed these
interviews, I respected the indications regarding the use of field information from “life
story” interviews in the anthropological research, as described by Atkinson.1
I will analyze as follows, each of the three discourses about work, as they are
produced, like memory voices or instruments. Commenting on these interviews and
filling in the ethnographical information when needed, I have tried to offer a cumulative,
multiple and panoramic view on the approached subject.
The specific strategy of auctorial ethnographic authority used in this text
combined several ways of ethnographical authority. According to James Clifford, the
types of auctorial authority are: experiential, interpretative, dialogic and polyphonic.2
The work strategy used for the present text’s draw-up required not only to describe the
field experience but also to interpret it. In other words, three discourses were chosen, for
whose interpretation I used the understanding of phenomena as it was shaped during the
field research. The memory’s discursive strategy in the case of each interlocutor’s
narration is constructed as a way of interpretation, based on the whole knowledge with
which the author, i.e. the interpreter embraces this discursive text. The interpretative way
of authority organizes the entire production of the present study.
The three interviews I have chosen as work documents are representative for the
emphasis of the discursive strategies of the traditional mining memory. Produced in the
above mentioned circumstances, these discourses confirm – beyond the anthropological
reality they refer to – the reality of an encounter, of a listening, of dialogues. They are
valuable through themselves, as subjective discursivizations of experience memories.
The dialogue situation was a challenge for each interlocutor, a challenge that made
vibrate a thin membrane of his/her memory. The remembrance often provoked
sensibilities which the interlocutors often felt the need to explain and justify or, rather, to
explain and justify them to themselves.
My interlocutors spent their childhood and youth before the nationalization,
their adulthood during communism, and old age during post-communism. Their
personal narrations are more than just perspectives on the dynamics of a specific way of
existence (individual, familial, communitarian), they are the negotiation field of certain
meanings, values, self-images.
The Analysis of a Discourse Constructed on the Nostalgia for the Lost Golden Age
The first discourse of our study belongs to the life story of an 82 year-old woman from
Roşia Montană. Daughter of a mines and stamping mills owner, a diligent and
enterprising man for whom the development of ore processing and gold extraction
installations was a passion, J. M. has a fascinating discourse about that world in which,
1
Robert Atkinson, The Life Story Interview (Thousand Oaks: Sage University Papers Series on
Qualitative Research Methods, 44, 1998), 54-56.
2
James Clifford, “On Ethnographic Authority”, 142.
321
mentally speaking, she still lives. I present as follows a large fragment from the “life
story” interview which I recorded with her, leaving the explanations for the end. I
thought it necessary to offer a larger fragment of this interview not only because it gave
us a lot of extremely interesting information, but because the constructed discourse was
really fascinating and deserved our whole attention.
I could have probably been the richest owner in Roşia Montană, my father had
gold mines. He had mines here in Cârnic and up in Orlea and in Râşna. And we had
nothing when we were children! He would build all the time and used all the money to
make more. There were stamping mills back then that would function with water, with a
wheel, like the mills. And my father had three wheels of stamping mills. Two with
motors, he had. And it hadn’t been easy… it needed a lot of work and money. Everything
he earned at mills he would use there, to install motors, because, you see this water used
now, this water would barely be enough for one wheel of stamping mill. And the water
would last until June. And it would be enough until June because they would free the
ponds, only the rain water was not enough for the mills. We weren’t the only ones with
stamping mills, all people capable of building them had. That’s how we lived, on
stamping mills, with the ore from here, from this mountain.
And when the Russians came, they won then – it was said they won the war –
they (the neighbours) destroyed everything, they didn’t allow us to have the stamping
mills. And we had them from our forefathers, nobody expected, God! not to have these
stamping mills anymore. It was like that from our forefathers. It worked like that,
nobody would close the mines, a gold mine would cost very much. It cost a great deal to
open a gold mine back then, and how difficult it was to open one! They had to work very
hard to find gold; because if one’s not familiar with the seam… it is thinner than the
hair. You can go down to wherever, you cannot find it if you don’t know it. And here,
who knows the gold, has to be like a doctor, like a doctor who knows the human body
and veins. So is the gold. You don’t find it so easy, just enter the mine and hammer it.
Oh, God forbid! And can you realize… more, less, with the money earned my father
built stamping mills for his children. That’s what they used to say, who has a gold mine,
his children’s children will live on it. Other people didn’t have, if they earned some
money, they would drink it and then would take sand from the bottom of the river and
throw it into the stamping mills. But my father opened mines and built stamping mills,
too. And they broke them, because they were envious.
Back then, in ’48, the mines became the property of the state and the stamping
mills... were forbidden, they sealed them. Seal on the door, and that was it. But they
didn’t break them. They only sealed, it wasn’t allowed anymore. These people of ours,
because of envy, they became high and mighty communists then. And those who were
envious on our mills with motor came and hacked them down. Envious people! And the
stamping mills my father had! … as big as this building of Gold.1
But how hard we worked back then! We, too, when we were that little (shows
the height of the table) carried stones with the wheelbarrow and worked there to death. I
worked with the horse, too. I used to bring stone with the wagon. I would bring it,
1
The building of the Roşia Montană Gold Corporation is a big, multi-store one, built during the
communist period.
322
hammer it to the size of eggs because we couldn’t mill it if it was bigger; we had to feed
the stamping mill. That was work1, no joke! We had to stay at the stamping mill day and
night; to wash the pyrite in the basin because the pyrite was taken to Zlatna, to the
smelting house; the ore doesn’t contain only gold but other metals, too. There is silver,
mercury, copper, all kinds. And from the melting house all these were paid through the
National Bank. The pyrite was taken to Zlatna, by wagon, with oxen or horse, ‘cause it’s
very heavy. There was a big basin where the refuse was taken to. The refuse came from
the stamping mill. And then the pyrite was washed in another basin. The pyrite doesn’t
float away, it’s heavy and it remains there, only the refuse does. You pull it with the
crişna2: one washes it with the scraper, the other one pulls it with the crişna. Very hard
to do it! We used to work at the hurcă3. We would mill too. I was very young and used to
mill during night. Oh, you should have met my father, he was so mean! I fell asleep once
and he caught me and beat me. I thought I had been hit by a crushing-mill.
But I know the gold; even if it’s thinner than the needle I know it. If I worked
with it as a child, I know it. And how it’s filtered, I know. And if I do it like that (shows
the movement she used to do) in a small pan, I know the gold. The nationalization took
place in ’48 and I got married in ’49 and my daughters don’t know, they have never
seen stamping mills anymore. I saw them enough. I milled by hand, too. The stamping
mills didn’t work in winter because the water was frozen. And in winter, we milled by
hand. I would grind the ore until it became like rice, and it was a grinder like at the mill
but the grind stone was smaller. And if I didn’t grind, I don’t know who did! Once it was
before Easter:
- Father, I have no shoes!
- Well, I’ll bring you some ore and you’ll mill it and buy shoes.
I was older, of about 15 years old. There was a shop in Abrud called Dermata.
And there were shoes made of linen with wooden soles. I ground for a whole week. My
hands were full of blisters. And I bought myself a nice pair of shoes. The sole was of
wood and the linen over the soles was blue. Anyway, very nice!
And they took them; and left us poor. My father lost his minds a little. He
couldn’t stay at home. He went up the mountain to Biharia for three years. The Russians
opened a mine there. There was some quartz there. Their materials, what do I know?
And he didn’t come home for three years; he missed the stamping mills. And after he
came, he would walk like crazy on the road during night. The stamping mills were as
tall as the Gold’s building. Big building! Repaired and painted them inside too. And
how hard our entire family worked there! It was hard work there! And other people who
waste their money came and destroy them? The Russians didn’t destroy them, they did,
because of envy; the Russians only sealed them.
After that there was the gold. There were these communists too who wrote
everybody down and told on them, those who had gold. People saved something for
1
Cf. Ilie Popa, “Mineritul de aur din Roşia-Montana” (Gold mining at Roşia Montana), Analele
minelor din România 9 (Sept. 1936): 416-419.
2
Crişna is a small tool, like a short shovel, used by the miners in the separation process of pyrite
from the refuse.
3
Hurcă is, in traditional mining, a slope from which the refuse was washed away in the gold
separation process.
323
when they got old, not everybody worked for the government to have pension. Gold was
like a pension. Gold is always valuable. And then they caught them and beat them
heavily. They beat one of my uncles’ soles so hard he couldn’t put on his shoes; he had
to cut his shoes, so hard was he beaten! They would beat the people to tell whether they
had gold. And they brought home my uncle (he had a young daughter) and told my aunt,
“He didn’t give the gold, he said you had gold, you saved gold for your daughter! If you
don’t tell us now, you’ll tell tonight!” They brought her husband to see how beaten up
he was and said, “You’ll look the same if you don’t give the gold”. But my aunt said, “I
cried so much then and I told them to ask anyone if we had gold, they should shoot us all
‘cause we didn’t have gold!” She couldn’t have had, my uncle was an alcoholic he
couldn’t keep the gold for his family.
They took my father too, but he said he didn’t have gold ‘cause he built a lot. He
used all the money to build, he didn’t have gold saved.
They beat up almost all the miners here in Roşia Montană for gold. The women,
the widows too were taken and beaten for gold. You only saw the van! They used to take
the people at night. Only because these were told on! That’s how the inhabitants from
Roşia Montană were tortured for this mountain they don’t want to give now. Some of
here don’t want to give. They don’t want to give it and that’s it! Someone from Cluj
sustains those. I don’t know who from Cluj. Why should we allow the government to
own this mountain? Why should it own the mountain? Our bread was there. If God let
us there and let the miners there and gave us this bread, why shouldn’t we exploit the
mines, ‘cause the ground is enough, there is enough ground downwards. A few people
don’t want it. They are well-paid and don’t care these have no jobs. They say people die
because of cyanides, but people died before too, and they have to die of something
anyway. Those cyanides aren’t like that, all the people die suddenly of it!1
My interlocutor’s personal memory is focused on the nostalgia of the times
when although she worked a lot, she had a privileged social status, being the daughter of
a mine owner. Her childhood, for her, as a daughter of a miner, mine and stamping mills
owner, is equivalent to the lost paradise from where her entire family was banned. She
understands nationalization as a phenomenon that ruined an ancient social order. It was
the absolute evil, about which no one in the community could have thought. For her
family, the consequences were disastrous: she saw her father watching helplessly the
destruction of the investment that absorbed all his work, energy and hopes of a lifetime,
then leaving in search for work. So deep was her father’s grief that it was impossible for
him to come home for three years. She may be talking here about the so-called
rehabilitation period for those who were considered chiaburi2 by the new regime.
Several miners worked at Băiţa Bihor bearing this status for three years, during which
they did not receive but food, clothes and a modest sleeping place. But for this woman,
the fact that her father did not come home for three years meant he could not see the
changes of the place where he projected his and his family’s future, a place from where
1
Field research information. Interlocutor: J. M., 82 years old, from Roşia Montană; interview
taken at Roşia Montană on April 1st 2012.
2
Chiabur/chiaburi is a pejorative word used in Romania at the beginning of the communist
period, for those who were rich or had any assets. The communist regime believed these exploited
people by using paid labour force.
324
he and his family were totally banned. That is how she remembers that experience. In
her memory, her father’s image is of a man who, for the rest of his life, could not find
his place in the new world to which he obeyed but never understood and in which he
could never fit.
This discourse combines prefabricated elements, clichés with concrete facts,
which give colour and specificity to the discourse. The prefabricated constructions are
used when she talks about the difficulty of working in mine and about her family’s
perseverance in this work, as well as in her father’s stamping mill building. At the same
time, the comparison of her family’s mills with an imposing building that can be seen in
the village today is a prefabricated discursive construction that was used several times in
the discourse.
Being from Roşia Montană, this woman has a life influenced by the mining
project proposed by the company that came in the village for gold exploitation. Within
this context, the project being controversial, the villagers adhered, according to their
preferences, interests and convictions, to one or the other party, accepting or rejecting
the project. Both the ones and the others used, most often, prefabricated linguistic
constructions when they oppose or support the project. The person we are talking about
sold her house to the mining company, but she was allowed to live there for a period.
She became, thus, a supporter of the project. When she turns against those who oppose
the new project at Roşia Montană she uses a prefabricated linguistic tool box. Defining
the mountain as “the villagers’ bread” which was left by God as a providential gift, she
believes that it should be exploited to offer jobs. For her, the perception of the
environment risks does not exist, and the fact that the project proposes a temporary
solution, the resource depleting in 16 years, is a thing impossible to understand and
evaluate, because her universe was the one in which previous generations entered in an
open mine and took as much gold from there as they needed for their everyday living.
Besides these prefabricated constructions, her discourse is completed with
spontaneous elements, which are, though, less than the prefabricated ones. Each
discussion I had with this interlocutor at different intervals of time included all the
enumerated aspects, as being prefabricated elements. Their order differed, but they
appeared, obligatory, with small variations. Another fact contributed, I believe, to the
construction of this discourse: her status of elder woman, inhabitant of a village
frequently visited by researchers and journalists, she herself being a person known in the
community as an expert in the mining traditions and an excellent story teller. Without
refusing anyone of those who visited her, J. M. admits she has been visited by dozens of
visitors in Roşia Montană. Because she has to tell her story over and over again, she has
a discourse for the public, made by exercise, a discourse she tells in a confident tone,
interrupted from time to time by modulations of voice, which becomes warm, creating
the atmosphere of a confession when she appeals to spontaneity. This is how she told me
about the way she processed the ore to find gold which she took to the bank to get
money for shoes or the episode in which her uncle’s family was tortured to hand over
the gold which the militia suspected they hid.
The discourse we are talking about is extremely interesting from the point of
view of identity definition. Our interlocutor claims she belongs to the professional
category, that of the miners; she organizes the discourse defining her identity like this. It
is fascinating how she emphasized in her discourse the relationship between a miner,
325
mine gallery, respectively between miner and gold seam. A perfect symbiosis is
suggested, which appears between the miner and his work environment. Expressing the
perspicacity and skill1 of the one who enters the mine, who has to possess all the
sophisticated empiric knowledge in order to succeed in his gold search, the miner is
compared to the doctor who has to know the internal parts of the human body in order to
heal his patient. The nationalization represents in this woman’s discourse the moment
that broke an identity as a whole, consolidated in numerous fragments, a moment that
coincides with the regress to a precarious social state, expressed in the discourse as “they
left us poor”. My interlocutor was a cook at a canteen of a mining enterprise. Activating
her memory, she does not relate to any other identity but that of the poor person because
of the closing of the mine. Her memory records a time syncope which coincides with
quite a long period of time, from the nationalization to nowadays, which did not mean
anything for her: it was a flat, eventless time. Her whole life is turned to value through
the projection of her identity image in which she, somehow, remained blocked.
A discourse focussed on the remembrance of the atmosphere in the traditional
mining village
The second discourse to be analyzed belongs to an 80 year-old woman too, who lives in
Bucium Şasa. She does not come from a miner family. Her father was a carpenter, and
his only experience of trying to obtain gold by working at a relative’s mill made them
understand that mining was an extremely hard work, and the ending was a real fiasco
because they lost the grain of gold after they had brought it home. Her narrations are
valuable within the context of the present study which proposes to valorize the memory
of the experience lived in a community of gold searching miners, because it succeeds to
catch the atmosphere from the village where she spent her childhood.
The discourse is melancholic, emotional, constructed on the idea of steadiness
that led her life. The first sentence she told me when we started the interview and I asked
her where she was born emphasized her fidelity for her birth place, expressed very
suggestively:
I was born here, I lived here, I die here! I was like a worm, I never wanted to
leave. And when my husband didn’t work here and we were like a separated family, me
and my children here, he at Deva, and we discussed about my moving there, in the end, I
still didn’t leave.2
The world configured by her discourse based on memory is idealized, bucolic
and perfect. She projects herself in this world as an actor with a special sensitivity,
capable to feel and register the created atmosphere.
1
Cf. Szentkirályi Zsigmond, Apud: Ion Rusu Abrudeanu, Aurul românesc. Istoria lui din vechime
până azi (The Romanian gold: its history since ancient times till today) (Bucharest: Cartea
Românească, 1933; re-edition: Cluj-Napoca: Napoca Star, 2006), 245-246; Valer Butură,
“Spălarea aurului din aluviuni şi mineritul ţărănesc din Munţii Apuseni”, (Gold wash in river
deposits and peasants’ mining in Apuseni Mountains), Anuarul Muzeului Etnografic al
Transilvaniei 1965-1967 (Cluj: 1969), 72.
2
Field research information; interlocutor: T. D., 80 years old from Bucium Şasa; interview taken
at Bucium Şasa on March 26th 2012.
326
I remember exactly the way it was when the stamping mills worked. I was in
school at Baia de Arieş and I used to go to school sometimes over the hill. A 13 year-old
child to go 8 hours by foot! There was a train too, but no one knew when it left. There
was a timetable but it was not observed. And we would go over the hill, with the miners.
When we returned, we would arrive in Bucium at night. They would finish their shift at
around three o’clock and it was at night when I would arrive home because the miners
came only to Bucium Muntari, a village before my own, and from there I would walk
home alone for another couple of hours. And if not every house, but every second house
had stamping mill. There was such music at night that I wasn’t afraid to walk alone. I
wouldn’t walk alone now because there are villains, but back then, there weren’t. Now,
that I’m old, I wouldn’t walk alone. But back then, I used to. I had such a pleasant
company during night with the stamping mills, and such love for my native places, that I
thought nowhere was more beautiful than here. The stamping mills made strong noise1!
It was special music, you couldn’t miss it. It was impossible to go from one stamping
mill to the next and not to hear the noise.2
The strategy of her discourse focuses more on the village’s reality and less on
her private life, the latter being brought into conversation only through heroic moments,
if it was the case. She keeps to herself her private aspects that belong strictly to her or
her family; she prefers to speak about herself as a member of the community to which
she belongs, and, thus, to speak, in general, about the village’s life. The goal of her
communication and sharing is to emphasize the diligence and capability of the villagers
who, even if they sometimes would drink a lot, worked very hard. Speaking about the
difficulty of the mine work, she often refers to the vulnerable categories, like women
and children3, emphasizing the families’ surviving techniques, trying to avoid the
common elements and to find those aspects that could impress the listener/reader.
It is very hard work to obtain one gram of gold. For a gram of gold one works a
lot. As shiny the gold, as hard it was to get. The children worked too, and everybody in
the house. No matter how young a child was, he/she couldn’t even load the baskets by
him/herself, he/she worked with the horse, he/she would bring the ore. If the father
worked in the mine, he would load the baskets with ore, and the child, poor soul, would
lead the horse.4 And those who were poorer didn’t have mines or stamping mills and
worked for others for little money. Those worked for others because they got two-three
lei and who doesn’t like money? And the children, everybody! But it’s very hard work!
And the mines were sometimes good, sometimes bad. One couldn’t find gold all the time.
And the gold was exchanged for something. One didn’t trade gold for bread but sold it,
1
The stamping mills (ro. şteampuri) are traditional (rudimentary) installations for ore processing.
Each installation has several huge arrow-like parts that are lifted, one by one, by the wheel, and
then left to fall in the abacus. By their one-by-one falling, a specific rhythmic sound is created.
2
at Bucium Şasa on March 26th 2012.
3
The specialized literature often records the children’s participation to mining activities. Cf. B.
Roman, A. Sîntimbreanu and V. Wollmann, Aurarii din Munţii Apuseni (Gold miners in Apuseni
Mountains) (Bucharest: Editura Sport-Turism, 1982), 83 and Valer Butură, ”Spălarea aurului din
aluviuni şi mineritul ţărănesc din Munţii Apuseni”, 82.
4
Cf. Ilie Popa, “Mineritul de aur din Roşia-Montana”, 416.
327
took the money and bought bread and what one needed. Back then, we didn’t have
bread like now, ad lib. And there were many children. And the wheat was expensive;
everybody would bake bread at home. We took only a litră of wheat for a gram of gold1.
And today one litră of wheat is 15 lei and a gram of gold is 180 lei. How much wheat
can we get for a gram of gold?! But then it was like that. And it was very difficult to dig
for that gold, I don’t know if it was worth it. But people had to live on something. The
gold was the everyday bread. Many ask why the people here don’t have jewellery since
they had so much gold. Nobody cared for jewellery; they needed the bread first, and
then jewels. Few families had, ‘cause the women were smarter a little and, maybe, they
didn’t have a large family, but the rest could not afford to save money for jewellery.
A lot of money was spent at Detunata Restaurant. The work of the villagers
went to hell! They would enter Detunata on Monday morning and would leave on
Tuesday afternoon.2
This interlocutor perceives nationalization as a moment of economic and
identity blockage, strongly felt by the community, which overcame it by quickly
adapting itself to the new political, economic and social conditions.
In ’48 a law was passed, which stopped the mills, everything. It was as if
someone cut their hands. They forced the people to give both the gold and the ore.
People had ore saved in the stamping mills’ end; they thought: when I need it, I mill it.
And then they took everything. A policeman and an engineer came and took everything.
They would draw up a report and the people didn’t oppose, because if one opposed, they
took one to the police station. Nobody said anything. Suffering was closed in people’s
souls. They didn’t ask the people to break the stamping mills. Many stamping mills
remained like that until rain destroyed them.
My father didn’t work in the mine. He was engaged in timber work. He made
planks; he built mills, too. But in ’48, the sawmill was closed and then father worked
with oxen. But nobody hired him because people couldn’t pay, they didn’t have money.
And then, the villagers started to go and work on the country’s construction sites. It was
then that all hydro-electric stations, roads, railroads were built. It was back then that
the mountains were penetrated to build the railroad connection between Banat and
Oltenia. There are many tunnels, at Bumbeşti-Livezeni. Once, I went there myself, too.
I’m not nostalgic by nature but while I was passing through the tunnel I thought I saw,
here and there, people from our village. When I hear them saying that our people cannot
do anything else but mining,3 I die. What, are we handicapped? Who built so much in
1
Cf. Valer Butură, “Spălarea aurului din aluviuni şi mineritul ţărănesc din Munţii Apuseni”, 70.
at Bucium Şasa on March 26th, 2012.
3
My interlocutor refers to the communication strategy used by the foreign mining company that
came in the neighbouring village, Roşia Montană. The company describes the miners in its media
discourse as a specialized professional category that preserved the mining tradition from
generation to generation and cannot find an alternative to survive, if the mining project is not
implemented. This discourse is used to increase the benefits of the mining project and decrease
the risks, with the hope to force the authorities to issue the exploiting permits and to obtain the
indulgence of those who strongly opposed to the project, for environment protection and human
health reasons, as well as for the reason of preserving the national historic patrimony of
international importance existing at Roşia Montană.
2
328
this country? People from here used to work everywhere in the country, on every
construction site.1
This time, in order to offer an example of the fact that people looked for certain
survival techniques, she speaks about her father. If the lumber installation was shut down,
if nobody bought stamping mills or parts he produced, because all the installations had
been shut down, he could have worked with his oxen for someone in the village; but
because nobody had money to pay him, no one hired him. Then, she oversteps the
boundary of the private life and speaks about her co-villagers, who got used with the new
demand of labour force and got over the blockage. It is important here to emphasize that
she refers to the diligence of the people, who accepted the alternatives and left, in search
for a work place. The connection she makes in her mind between the important
constructions of the Romanian infrastructure in the second half of the 20th century, and the
image of her co-villagers, presented as heroes-constructers, is extremely powerful and
impressively expressed. Her co-villagers represent for her the symbols of the progress
made by Romania during the respective period. My interlocutor criticizes the exaggeration
of the miner identity suggested by the media discourse built around the investment in
mining in Roşia Montană during last years. Surely, it is about the appearance in
advertisements of certain persons from the region who are, supposedly, the media image
of the miners’ community and who pretend to continue a mining tradition, without which
one cannot live in the area. This can be the subject of a separate paper, but we’d like to
state here that for this woman, the identity of the area’s fit-to-work inhabitants cannot be
reduced only to mining, but is characterized by their diligence and adaptability.
The Discourse Strategy Focused on the Miners’ Community Customs And SocioProfessional Relationships
The third discourse we are referring to is produced within the context of a “life story”
interview I took from a villager from Bucium Şasa, ex-miner, 80 years old. His
discourse about the period before the nationalization focused, on the one hand, on the
emphasis of the social and professional relationships within the miners’ community, as
well as on their customs; on the other hand, it focused on creating the atmosphere and
suspense lived by the miners in search of gold. The information about his family’s
implication in mining is short and concise, turning slowly towards the community’s
actions, presented in general. He prefers not to make public what he considers to belong
to his or his family’s private life but to keep to himself. The passing from the
objectivism of the lived experience to the generalization was done easily, at the level of
discourse technique. At a certain point of the discourse, the marks indicating the first
person singular or plural, or his father’s person are replaced with the relative pronoun
someone. Thus, he starts his discourse introducing himself as the son of a mine
shareholder, owner of a few mine work places which he purchased. In this capacity, his
father participated to the opening of a mine. This is the piece of information he offers
about his father, only to talk then, in general, about such an endeavour:
Long time ago, father participated to a mine opening. When someone wanted to
open a mine, he had to inform the director. He gave the document and then they would
1
at Bucium Şasa on March 26th, 2012.
329
go to the owners. These had to sign if they participate or not to the opening. Some of
them would sign, others wouldn’t. And all those who wanted to open the mine had to
contribute to all the expenses until they would reach the seam. And this was a matter of
luck. One could or couldn’t find the seam.
The expenses for the mine opening were kept in a book. And, at the end of a
week, all the contributors would gather and see what was spent for: so much wood, so
many people, this, that. They would share and each would pay his part. If he worked, he
didn’t have to pay a man, if he didn’t work, then he had to pay a worker.
And when they opened the mine in Rodu, there were several shareholders. And
they were so poor that they had only one pair of trousers. And they kept digging and
found a very good seam and got rich. But the villagers of Bucium couldn’t keep their
wealth, because they would party a lot in Abrud.1
Shortly after the interview started, my interlocutor criticized his co-villagers for
the way they spent their money obtained from selling the gold. These remarks are like a
leit-motif of his entire discourse. After each opinion on the work for gold extraction, he
re-iterates the observations regarding the careless money spending.2 This is the idea that
dominates his entire discourse and we’ll try to emphasize the way it is expressed.
An important element of the way my interlocutor’s discourse is constructed is
that – when he speaks about the miners’ strategies of gold searching – he tries to
valorize the local mythology in terms of true-false. He explicitly states that there has
never been Vâlva Băii3, but, still, the mines had a certain mystery. Even if Vâlva Băii- as
a woman dressed in white that takes the miner to the place where he finds gold, or in
black that takes him to his doom day – does not have a place in his imaginary, my
interlocutor feels the need to say that there are still signs the miners follow, and he
himself, while working in the mine4, witnessed two situations in which the seam
discovery was preceded by certain signs:
When people entered the mine they had faith and looked for the signs. When I
was a child I remember they would drill manually. With drills so long (shows approx. 70
cm). One hammered two-three holes here, another one two-three holes there, until they
would surround the entire work front. When we hit that drill with the hammer, the sound
was heard through the wall in the other room towards where we headed. And then
people expected to find a good seam there. And they found a good seam.
In another part of the mine, there was a gallery of about 500 meters length and
there were ramifications everywhere and a slope and a connection with a pool from
1
Field research information; interlocutor: T. M., 80 years old, from Bucium Şasa; interview taken
at Bucium Şasa, on March 28th, 2012.
2
Cf. Teofil Frâncu and George Candrea, Românii din Munţii Apuseni. Moţii (Romanians from
Apuseni Mountains. The “Moţi”) (Bucuresci: Tipografia Modernă Gr. Luis, 1888), 34.
3
Vâlva Băii is a mythological creature that is believed to be the spirit patron of the gold mines
and presents itself to the miners under various figures. It helps the poorer and punishes the greedy
or dishonest people.
4
Cf. Ana Şoit, Legende populare minereşti (Miners’ folk legends) (Bucharest: Minerva, 1974);
Maria Ioniţă, Cartea Vîlvelor. Legende din Apuseni (Legends of Apuseni Mountains) (ClujNapoca: Dacia, 1982), Nicolae Both, “Vîlva Băilor – O reprezentare mitologică” (Vîlva Băilor –
a mythological representation), in Ceasuri de seară cu Ion Agârbiceanu (Evening hours with Ion
Agârbiceanu), ed. Mircea Zaciu (Cluj-Napoca: Dacia, 1882), 215-224.
330
Rodu. And there, one could see like a horizon… like a horizon. And they dug a gallery
there, and on that side they found some kind of clay, it’s called kaolin. It was extremely
rich in gold. There was half of a kilogram of gold in a wagon that would carry around
800 kilograms of clay. And the villagers here found much gold. But they drank a lot. You
couldn’t see a nice house belonging to a villager! They went to Detunata and drank;
after one drinks, can one think?1
This time too, my interlocutor’s conclusion regards the way of investing the
money earned on gold, after – he believes – certain signs urged the miners to advance
into the gallery towards the place where they discovered a rich seam of gold.
I asserted earlier that a consistent part of this interlocutor’s discourse was
focused on emphasizing the customs that functioned in the community. Regarding the
way in which each miner or group of miners managed his/their mine he/they worked in,
or the place where he/they found gold, his story touched an extremely subtle social
reality, which he understood from inside, whose rules he abode by and which he
remembered vividly. From this point of view, the world he evokes in his narration is a
very familiar one to him. Thus, he suggests that every member had his/her own, wellestablished place in the community he lived in. All villagers knew everything about each
and every member of their community, and when something changed in their standard
of living, everybody knew that could be only because the respective neighbour found
gold. But since the resource was not meant for someone in particular, anyone could have
had access to it, had he found out about it. Therefore, the more skilful one was in
following the social reality to detect any changes, the more careful the one who found
gold had to be, so that the treasure would not be stolen from him. Observing the changes
in a family’ standard of living was usually the women’s job:
A miner’s wife worked very much. They wove and dressed the whole family,
sewed, cooked, and sometimes even milled during night. And women did something else
too. They were worse than Securitatea (Romanian Secret Services before 1989). They
kept a careful watch on the people to see who went to the pub and drank, who bought
from the market. They said, “He has to have a good seam somewhere!” And then
everybody watched him closely. The women didn’t go to bed at night, they watched the
neighbour to see where he went, where he came with the gold from, how come he had
everything. When one lived better, they saw he bought shoes for his children, they saw
what he ate, and they spied him until they found out.2 But the man knew. He couldn’t
afford to leave traces. He stepped on stones, he took care. And people entered the mine,
but they weren’t called “thieves”, they said God gave the gold. They were called
“holoangări”, not thieves.3 We never used the word thief.4
The specialized literature often records the fact that the holoangări “were not
considered ordinary thieves, but rather outlaws who helped the poor people.”5 It was
believed that gold was a providential gift that belonged to all the inhabitants. Therefore,
1
Field research information; interlocutor: T. M., 80 years old from Bucium Şasa; interview taken
2
3
Cf. Ion Iliescu, Introduction to Ana Şoit, Legende populare minereşti, XV.
4
5
Roman, Sîntimbreanu and Wollmann, Aurarii din Munţii Apuseni, 100.
331
the miners’ unwritten moral code does not punish the stealing of ore directly from the
mine’s work front, but condemns dishonesty and the desire to get rich.
T. M. remembers with delight the excesses of the gold miners who found much
gold and wanted to show off their economic power. This information is taken from the
local folklore of the area. A happening that roused the community’s admiration or
surprise was quickly spread and in a very short period of time was familiar to
everybody. Besides, this was the reason for those excesses: because of the subject’s
desire to become well-known and respected within the community, his economic power
being, thus, recognized. Almost every inhabitant from Abrud neighbourhood knows
about the excesses of the villagers of Bucium and Roşia Montană who had money
obtained from selling their gold. The desire to make themselves respected and show
their economic power determined some of the miners to become extremely eccentric. I
further reproduce a part of another interview that relates such excesses. Returning to my
interlocutor, I have to mention that even when he speaks about the miners’ excesses, his
discourse focuses again on assessing the human character from the point of view of
moderately spending the saved capital. This emphasizes an almost cynical situation: at
nationalization, the authorities required people to hand over all the gold they possessed,
which would then be paid back to them by The National Bank in a fixed quantum.
Those, however, who had gold and did not hand over, suffered a lot. That was the
moment of value overthrowing, when the ownership feeling was destroyed, and honest
work was punished, if we are to evaluate this reality, using the thinking paradigm
specific to the capitalist economy. Those who took the gold to the bank regularly and got
money with which they covered the daily expenses and partied, too, or, sometimes made
excesses did not suffer so much as those who were passionate in gold saving, as it was
the case of a family who often did not have anything to eat and had over one kilogram of
gold which they handed over after numerous tortures.
Like the previous interlocutor‘s discourse, T. M. regards the nationalization as a
desperation moment for the inhabitants who were forbidden to access their income
source and were forced to give up a way of life without being given anything in return
immediately. A transfer took place then, from the individual responsibility for the
standard of life towards the state responsibility for providing jobs. It was the state that
cut the resource and it was still the state that should repair the situation.
It was very difficult for a while, after the mines were closed, to find something to
work, to earn money. Nobody had money anymore and we could not work. Nobody
hired anyone. They cut it. Later on, they started with construction sites, with the mine
from Roşia... it was all right. But it wasn’t home anymore. To work on a construction
site we went I don’t know where in the country. But we went because we had to live on
something. The mines weren’t like before anymore, either. We got our salaries; whether
there was or wasn’t ore, the salary was the same. We didn’t think any more about how
to hammer, like this or like that. Geologists were there, we played safe.1
He emphasizes here the fact that the miners, in their accommodation strategy,
traversed a professional reorientation, becoming workers on construction sites or miners
in a state mine, where industrialized mining was practiced and where they did not have
1
332
the responsibility of finding the seam. All three discourses I have analyzed lead to the
idea that traditional mining disappeared with the nationalization. The 1948
nationalization brought an end to those times when there was solidarity1 between the
miner and the mine’s gallery, the miner and the found seam or between the miner and
the rock taken to the mills to extract gold.
After this moment, mining became industry in Romania. With the exception of
a few cases of authorized gold diggers in the rivers’ alluvial deposits, there was no other
form of mining but the industrial one in Romania. As our interlocutor very well
suggests, the difference between traditional and industrial mining lies in the fact that the
mine worker, unlike the miner, is not present in the entire ore processing, though he is
the one who can hold in his hands first the rock, and then the gold. The industrial gold
mining has become a dull, repetitive work that brings less suffering but, at the same
time, less joy.
Previous to this moment, the gold set the rules and power relationships at
Bucium Şasa and Roşia Montană. Two things were left in the social memory about gold:
on the one hand, the miners’ excesses to prove their economic supremacy, and on the
other hand, the tortures some of them had to endure under the communist regime when,
after nationalization, they were asked to hand over the gold, and some of them did not
agree with this. The inhabitants of a larger geographical area can tell about these aspects.
Regarding the miners’ excesses, there is a whole largely spread register of variants. This
shows that the miners had a privileged position within the community; they had the
economic power and enjoyed everybody’s respect and admiration. I reproduce a
fragment from an interview with an inhabitant from Ciuruleasa, who told me about the
excesses of a miner from Roşia Montană:
They said about a man from Roşia, who organized the work at stamping mills,
that he had more gold than his own weight. But he wasted it. He wasn’t married, didn’t
have a family… They were three brothers, and they used to say that God had with only
one leu more than them. So much money they had from gold! He said about one and
another, “Well, they tortured that one, locked him up, beat him… did this and that to
him, they didn’t have anything to take from me!” He wasted it no one knows where.
Handsome fellow he was! He wasn’t bad looking. Once he went to a fair at Roşia, on a
Saturday, and there were people who sold, like now, too, pots. He looked around but he
was drunk. And looked at a pot and stepped in it with one boot – people wore boots like
those back then – and told the pottery seller to find him another one of the same size.
The seller found one for him. He stepped in this one, too and started to walk around and
break the pots: zdru, zdrruu!. The seller: “Oh, God, my work, what am I to do now?”
“So many of yours! You don’t have so many pots I would like to break”. He broke all
those pots. But he said, “I paid so much for them that even if he had sold them he
wouldn’t have earned so much money”.
He said he went to Cluj. And the mocăniţa (small train in the area) went only to
Câmpia, from Câmpia one had to take a different train to Cluj. And there were shays
instead of cars at the railway station; one after the other. “Hei mister, come to me, I
have so many children, I haven’t earned anything today, I don’t have this, I don’t have
that! “ Another one: “Come to me!” He says: “I had my walking stick and my briefcase
1
333
with me”. The merchandise; he was taking the gold to the Jews. But he says: “What
should I do? Wait a minute! I gave each of them one hundred lei, a lot of money back
then! In the first shay I put my hat: «Don’t take anyone else!»“ In the second shay I put
my walking stick. And in the last one it was me and my briefcase. And they took me
where I told them to take me, I paid them even more”. He loved to give. Some character
he was!1
I have reproduced this interview fragment because the images constructed
around the miners are highly suggestive for the power relations the gold supremacy
established. When explaining the three brothers’ financial power, the human sphere is
exceeded: the brothers were said to possess a financial capital with only one unit less
than God Himself.
Conclusion
In its discourse strategy analysis, the present study focused not on the narrated fact but
rather on the way it was narrated. The different ways the subjects’ personal memory was
objectivized through discourse, with the advantages and limits that the call to memory
can have are symptomatic for this type of research. The first analyzed discourse is
constructed to emphasize the personal experience, without hesitating to underline
intimate aspects of the family life, while the community experience takes a second
place. The other two interviews approach a discourse strategy through which the
intimate aspects belonging to “I” are merged with the communitarian experience that
takes the first discourse level.
The fact that each of my interlocutors spent his/her childhood and youth before
the nationalization, his/her adulthood during communism, and old age during postcommunism allowed them to assess their traditional gold mining experience in
accordance with all these different socio-political systems. All discourses have a
melancholic sound. Each of the three interlocutors emphasizes, on the one hand, the
difficulty of the work that traditional gold mining involves and, on the other hand, the
unity and social harmony which existed in the village before the nationalization. The
nationalization law brought traditional gold mining to an end. With it, the work culture
disappeared, which involved a direct, unconditioned connection between the miner and
the mountain from which he extracted the gold, a connection that filtered hopes,
passions, desires and joy. This work connection settled power relationships and living
rules; it was a means to transmit the miners’ beliefs and superstitions.
After the nationalization, the gold miners from Roşia and Bucium had to
identify other surviving strategies. Thus, the social mobility and temporary and
permanent migration to work increased a lot.
My interlocutors belong to a generation that, like many others before, tied their
dreams and hopes to the gold of the neighbouring mountains. When, suddenly, their
access to the gold resource was cut, they felt as if they had been banished from Paradise.
1
Field research information; interlocutor: L. D., 76 years old from Ciuruleasa; interview taken at
Câmpeni, on April 2nd, 2012.
334
Censorship and Self-Censorship
In the Traditional Romanian Village
Preliminary Aspects
– An anthropological addendum to the interpretation of censorship –
Angelica PUŞCAŞ
Babeş-Bolyai University, Cluj-Napoca
Keywords: community, good traditions, solidarity, control, self-control, common laws,
consciousness, respect, ancestry, belief.
Abstract: The Romanian traditional village, within a historical reality that validates the
concept of “tradition” regarding the entire rural geospace with a multi-millenary, as well
as multicultural habitation, is abruptly eradicated, during the middle of the 20th century,
synchronously, the millenary values of the community fading away in increasingly dim
touches, assumed by censorship and self-censorship, coordinates of a “hygienic
mentality”, shaped from conventions, rules, customs and common laws. Two of the
major categories responsible for the functional capacities of censorship–self-censorship,
likened one to another, enter within an area of vulnerability. These two categories are
equally impropriated by the official institutions (the church, political and administrative
structures), respectively by the levers of the community (the council of the elders,
evening village sittings, group work, the fair, to become the talk of the village, customs
and traditions characterized by a significant and crucial impact…)
*
We may open a discreet and subtle incursion into the authentic universe, characterized by
the archaic nobleness of the traditional village, just as we open the gate of a fairytale
with “once upon a time” and this because the village itself, devised by the millenary
virility of the community1, exhaustedly laid down in a crepuscular area.
1
Specific, especially to the middle period (6th-8th centuries), the community has its origin in the
Dacian-Pre-Roman era and later in the Post-Roman stage, when the inhabitants of the Carpathian
and North-Danubian space knew a superior level of social organization – the one of the village
community of vicinity or of territorial type, led by a village headsman (judex) and a council formed
of people “elders and grandparents”, according to the Romanian ancient law Jus Valachicum. This
institution organically connected to the specific space of the lands, assured, in time, the background
of ethnical survival, of the language, as well as of a geographical mindset governed by the attributes
of the human verticality. The early existence of such administrative, political, military and economic
entities prove the existence of a sedentary population, organized in steadfast settlements, established
especially in mountainous and hillside regions, and secondary, in the shelter of the forests and the
forest steppe areas. Moreover, an essential fact is that on a time-space scale, the community was
formed into an embryonic structure, found at the origin of a complex territorial and social
organization, a gearing in which each subsystem functioned simultaneously, both as a singular
system, and as a subsystem integrated functionally, within the dynamics of the superior hierarchic
335
In this light, “allowed” by the sunset, but also by the agony of certain
“purposes”, having the role of structural pillars for such a long time, the image of the
ancestral rural, bashfully emerges, just like the ashamed shadow of what once was a
tree, nowadays sapless, fleshless, but still anchored with profound roots.
The roots meaning here – customs, traditions, mystical and magical rituals,
conventions, common laws, specific institutions etc. – will represent fundamental
landmarks to us, on the path of analyzing the condition of the ancestral communities.
The disinterment of these values, their resuscitation, and their progradation represent our
chance to define our identity, an absolutely “aristocratic” identity, through the promoted
norms: decency, politeness, good faith, good traditions, right-judgment, humility,
solidarity, ability to give and to devout yourself…
Then, from the perspective of the same pattern of identity, but referring to its
intensification as well, the addressing of the mentioned values within a tridimensional
level which transcends into a veritable “axis mundi” is crucial. It is a vector that unites,
within an experience that is unanimously accepted, “the present world” as a collective
of the living human being (“the white world”), with the “after world” – turned into a
ritual by the patronage of the elders, and, an undeniable fact, with the land (the property,
upturned land) giver of all things, but a threshold between two worlds as well.
As far as the desire to distinguish between the valences is concerned, so
generously nuanced, impropriated to the concepts of censorship and self-censorship, in
an archaic geography, found under the sign of the sacred, it is mandatory, as a primary
action, to investigate with the attribute of the centrality of the village community, an
institution that crystallizes a very rigorous construction grounded on the matrix of a
corpus of judicial, moral, economic, political-administrative laws(unwritten) and implicitly
laws of strategy (military).
Before we would ask ourselves “why?”, within our endeavour regarding the
community, the investigation, however brief it may be, is in the highest sense of the
word, necessary. Therefore, as a forefront of impact, we set two other concepts,
respectively semiotics and imagology – coordinates that will accomplish the plenitude of
the initiated analysis.
Returning to the public communities, in regard to censorship and selfcensorship, a systemic and logic approach must be equally imposed, the taking into
consideration of two primary guiding marks: time – when the community consecrates
itself as a coherent entity, well articulated from the functional point of view and a clearly
defined lever of power, respectively the environment – as an existential space and as a
space of evolution – that will imprint upon the two commandments, the specificities
common to folk culture. By placing the time1-community-censorship vectors into a
unit. The excellence of the model was later taken, in time, by the Romans and later by the
Hungarians, the Seklers and by the Saxons living in Transylvania – advancing therefore the
longevity of the community into the modern era (19th century). Angelica Puşcaş, Ţara Chioarului.
Studiu de geografie regională (The Land of Chioar. Study of Regional Geography) (Cluj-Napoca:
Presa Universitara Clujeana Publishing House, 2007), 29–30.
1
According to Marian Petcu “censorship seems to have appeared even before receiving a
designation, beginning with the early forms of wording, as it is attested by the biblical texts”. A
first testimony in this sense is brought by the New Testament (The Book of Acts – chapter 19:19),
according to which the Apostle Paul in the city of Ephesus, famous for the practicing of magic
and witchcraft, determined through his preaching the public destruction of the inscriptions of the
336
relation of interrelation, this clearly detaches, on one side the censorship-power
synchronism and a decrease during the pre-Christian times – on the other side – when
control and self-control were plenary manifesting themselves, we observe – through the
agency of orality – dictated by the behaviour of an archaic mentality, inhabited by
spirits, by superstitions, by heroes, by solar and moon deities, by the cult of the dead, by
submission before the sacred power of the fire, by the fascination and/or the spending of
life (birth, wedding-marriage, death) and of nature, from one cycle to another, by the
umbilical connection to the earth, by the rites of passage, etc.
All these signs take us to a history of time with purpose, of the quiet time,
implicitly of the sacred time1, dimensions of time which, through a perfect syncretism
between time and spirit, will be transformed anthropologically, into the human being
whose conduct will be intensely marked by a number of restrictions, coming from the
outside, but mainly from within himself: sin, shame, fear, “he is not free”, it is
improper, entering the society, mockery, the wisdom of a lifestyle that is faithful to the
self and to the community etc. Attached to these desiderata, a drastic measure of control
or of censorship must be imposed, with a severe malefic charge, exercised both on the
level of the individual and on that of the community, is “the uneven curse”, a product of
the rigors of ritualistic essence.
We therefore notice that for the ancient, pre-Christian individual, censorship
was promoted and carried out, not only by certain “public” institutions, whose
intervention will be subsequent and particularly persuasive, but by instincts strongly
anchored in mythology, magic, or esoteric, in secret, of certain songs, incantations,
carols, games, mysteries of initiation or even within the spirit of the feared plants
(mandrake, henbane, ivy…).
It is the moment, without being exhaustive, to attempt a typological revealing of
censorship, implicitly of self-censorship against the background of a network of criteria,
whose order, far from being “fastened with nails” manifests a flexible game regarding
time, inhabited environment (rural and/or urban), the degree of the training of the actors
exorcists”. Within the same context, the author reveals other types of consumptions of censorship
or it emphasizes it by using more descriptive terms. Therefore, we find out that “the supreme organ
of justice of Athens, the Areopagus, was to be condemned to burning, the masterpieces of
Protagoras, for the fact of doubting the existence of the gods, as well as the writing of the
philosopher Numa, by a decision of the Senate of Rome (272 A.D.)”, or the syntagm of “inquisitor
of the faith”, first appeared in a law given by Emperor Diocletian (313 A.D.). Further following this
author, we observe that his pleading from the perspective of etymology, comes to confirm the deep
lode of the phenomenon of authoritarian control, showing that “censorship is connected to cens, the
census of the Roman citizens and of their fortunes, accomplished by censors, whose attributions
expanded into the political life as well: censorship as magistracy of the politicians emerged, it seems
in the year 443 B.C.” (Marian Petcu, Cenzură în spaţiul cultural românesc, (Censorship within the
Romanian Cultural Space) (Bucharest: Comunicare.ro , 2005), 9.
1
Purpose, rest, the sacred concerning time, assume fluent and beneficial harmonies of the rural
calendar, a syncretic image in itself regarding the time of God, a result of conversion to Christianity,
sanctioned during the 4th century, with the time of the gods, of the spirits, of vegetation and of the
living beings. What it is important, for our topic, is that “it” imposes, naturally, both to the reason
and to the soul – self-censorship, while another period of time – defined by ideology and politics,
founded by force, ignoring the taktika (from the Greek word – to arrange) – censorship, an
allochthonous and conflicting dimension of tradition (the author’s observation).
337
(the illiterate and/or the literate), the profile of the inhabited geospace (morphological,
latitudinal, longitudinal…) the ethnical and cultural personality, the social segregation,
the psycho-behavioral character, etc.
When we corroborate this eclectic corpus of peculiarities, it almost appears as a
certainty, the synchronous debut of the censorship-strength pair, during a period of time
which surpasses, as far as the age is concerned, the Christian era, a point where the
ensemble of corrections are branching out on axels that are well shaped by two
primordial factors: the environment of habitation (see the emerging – rural settlement/
boroughs and/or polis), respectively the social stratigraphy. We, therefore, are in the
possession of a taxonomy of censorship, articulately integrated both in horizontal and
vertical (hierarchical) plans.
Certainly, these two plans, considered to belong to the universal field of
censorship, are not disjunctive; rather certain projections will resonate in unities of
image and content, nearly homogenous or somehow complementary.
Two major classes of censorship will logically emerge, namely:
•
Censorship: borough/polis/city – attached to writing and correlatively –
to the segments of population with a medium-superior training;
•
Censorship: community/village – attached to orality and governed by a
mythological cosmogony;
As a consequence, an individualization of the directions of decisional action
emerges, with prevalent features induced by the pattern of these two mental geographies.
One aspect that may catch our interest, by relating our issue to the universal
cultures and civilizations, emerges, even though paradoxically, from the large chief
characteristic of the resemblances, the distinctions assuming the role of emphasizing,
whom being far from dividing the behavioural synonymies, rather approaches the
semiotic effervescences developed by multicultural nuclei, an action that has both a
competitive and a distilling impact upon the authentic values.
For instance, it is not at all unusual, referring to the type of obedience – that
connects, within an equation of the order regarding the commandments (unwritten) of
the community, with the ones (written) found in Sharia, in Islam, or of the Torah, in the
Judaic universe, the examples being easily transferred into a dialectics of divergences
and convergences, either in the similar cultural source or in mental fields pertaining to
the geographical diversities.
Fundamental questions gradually emerge by regarding these issues:
 How and in which directions have censorship and self-censorship operated?
 How severe (censorious) was it and how far did it spread its tentacles?
 Which is the level of perception and of the ability of responding of the
receivers?
 A priori, was there only obedience, regimentation, persecutions or other
actions of resistance as well?
 Between order and chaos; between the beneficial and to irretrievably
caused injuries – people, communities, means of expressing (custom, book, art...), where
does censorship stand?
 What types of institutions are exercising it and where did they establish the
balance of a good measure or were these institutions able to establish it?
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 Were there compatibilities of censor-protector-guarantor type or where
there ever, situations when censorship and self-censorship became identical, within a
protective matrix?
These are question marks (see the cunning winding of the reptile) that are
triggered instinctively, and invade, “bite” the mental, spontaneously speaking.
A gliding of the problematic into the sphere of reason, imposes itself as a
decisive spring within the setting of the foundation of the nature of to be and of to be but
not anyhow, but a conscious and watchful presence – wired to the values of the
unwritten law and/or to the civic values. By taking advantage of this juxtaposition, of
two systems of value, distinctly attached to the rural and to the urban1, we will make a
digression, with the purpose of a brief projection upon the censorship of the “borough”.
In this sense, we reinstate the pre-Christian antiquity of censorship and we come to the
assistance of the already suggested examples, by invoking another infallible argument:
the multi-millenary antiquity of the cities (starting from the 8th millennium B.C.),
systemic organisms, extremely complex and evolved, from which, regarding our own
interest, we select one single phenomenon – gaining individual freedom, a new concept,
which developing simultaneously with the great process of labour division, introduced,
in a very spontaneous and natural manner, a differentiation of the mentality in
comparison to the rural, this meaning, the shading off the spirit of organic affiliation to
the community of ancestry and class, strongly fused together by blood and unwritten
laws, in the exchange of the emphasis of individuality. Rather emptied by spirituality,
the “citizens”, namely the people of the borough – become a multitude animated by
antagonistic, centrifugal, subjugated interests or better said “brought down to their
knees” in front of a new belief, rapacious in its essence – pragmatism.
On the other hand, time is burning its stages faster here, evolution and/or
involution being formed on a spiral, with fulminatory increase, frequently accompanied
by a downfall. This is the reason why the city appears in a “hasty, artificial” historical
perspective. They arise, grow, become mature, then dominant and then they decay and
perish. The functions of the city proliferate, the phenomenon of risk taking the shape of
the same “rapidity”, but “hygienic structures” of progress emerge as well – within the
most diverse fields, including the areas where “games” are performed by the freedom of
the spirit, unrestrained, alive, dynamic (see – science, philosophy, arts, training…). Or,
precisely this spectrum, through its provoked liberalism, proved to be extremely
dangerous, proportional to a society “cradled” in some kind of a rough pragmatism. And
which was the consequence? A force of coercion had to be constituted: censorship, and
the most powerful authority in this sense was, by far Religion, with its class of priests,
and later the institution of the Church.
1
Within the sociologic and mental plan, an important condition intervenes in defining the urban,
the quality of life or the urban lifestyle (“type of life”), the later being assimilated, firstly with a
certain attitude or behavioural pattern, marked out by moral values: politeness (rules,
habits…imposed by the borough/polis), civic sense, responsibility, multicultural communion, etc.
considered to be in interrelation, those certain rules were integrating a system mandatorily
involving censorship. In order to make a comparison, the city develops synchronously a malefic
interface as well (the ensemble of the phenomena which represent a social and/or environmental
risk) that demands, consideration, the intervention of censorship that regards objective recovery
correction and not one of eradicating the freedom by right (the author’s observation).
339
Therefore, the interference of the Church in stigmatized, “cursed”, areas, will not
know any boundaries, censorship taking seismic proportions within the borough. In front
of these attacks the rural environment is either sheltered, or the punishments take other
shapes. The pre-Christian ancestral practices are found in complete opposition to the Church.
Here is where we mark a first distinction and we will also close the parenthesis,
(this thematic not representing the object of our analysis) but not before pointing out the
directions serving, “by excellence”, the censorship of the “borough” such as: science,
music, literature, art, philosophy, and later correspondence, clothing, the press, motion
pictures, photography, etc. Furthermore, “the borough” manifests itself through a
fanatical censorship, towards the ethnical communities and “their production” (religious,
cultural, behavioural, financial, etc.), aspects that within the traditional village are much
shaded away or even inexistent.
What does censorship and self-censorship represent within the traditional
Romanian village? A very simple answer, striped by any reference, might be the content
of the phrase – a good and organized functioning of the community1.
How can this state be attained and lived? The answer can be reduced, this time
as well, to the essence – faith; then it can be distinguished by invoking conscience,
respect, ancestry (blood bonds and the exploiting of the unity of the family at the level
of the entire community) its accepting as something given (a gift) of the traditional
individual and collective customs. All these attributes (or good practices) and others we
have mentioned before, mark the universe of the village to its last details, regarding its
cycles (the living, the dead, the precincts of the village, the estate).
As far as faith is concerned, the essence of the mentality and actions of the
village universe, it does not relate strictly to something in particular. The understanding
– is a “polyphonic” one. It is not only about faith in God, faith being precursory to
Christianity, but about some kind of habitation with faith, a lifestyle of faith, of all and of
1
As far as the intimate gearing of the rural community is concerned, it was determined and
supported, on the foundation of certain principles and inalienable unwritten laws, such as: the
material equality of the members of the society (especially during the first phase); the reciprocity
of the services; the joint responsibility in proportion to the hierarchical authorities; the keeping
and the perpetuation of the ancestral traditions; the mixed character of the real estate; the
embracing of a simple, austere behaviour, based on authentic Christian values and of rejecting
the deviant influences for the community. From the organizational perspective, the leadership
position of the community belonged to the village headsman – chosen by the large family, called
the community, based on the criteria of worthiness and moral integrity – invested with polyvalent
functions (economic, administrative, judiciary and military) and to a council – of good elderly
people. These particular levers watched over the interest of the community, judged the disputes
between its members, according to certain unwritten laws – the so called tradition of the land “Jus
Valachicum” – and the representing of the community in its relations with the superimposed
military hierarchies or of other nature, relations formed through the payment of tithe consisting in
products. Therefore, the community was jointly answering in case of criminal offence committed
on its territory, as they were also jointly performing the duty to defend themselves in case of
attacks coming from the outside. Another dimension regarded the organic communion of the
entire community, even if structured on contingents of age or on “worlds” marked by the
attributes of the genders. As a consequence, the community articulated a homogenous human
nucleus, without severe social dysfunctions, depositary of immaculate traditions (Angelica
Puscas, Ţara Chioarului. Studiu de geografie regională, 45-46 )
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everything: man, land, household, the animal found in the trodden patch or outside of it
(see for instance Filipi), the grain of wheat, water, salt, vine, the tree, the fruit tree, the
days of the week, feasts and festivals, birth and death, the mythological universe,
ploughing and planting, offering the fruit of the harvest as sign of worship, the sacrifice
and the ceremonial sacrifices…even those that refer to the “accursed” one (the Devil).
As a matter of fact, the defeating, by faith, of the Evil one, represents the great
mystery and magic of the universe of the village. For this purpose, man is censored and
he self-censors himself or, in other words, we might say: man is taught and guided, then
he “carefully” answers the advices and teachings, in order to be seen as the worthy one
and not a reject (a nobody in this world, someone who became everybody’s laughing
stock, a degenerate…). For the latter, the ones who bring damage to the unwritten laws,
left alone by the community, at the mercy of fate, life, practically, ended. They were a
kind of “shadows”, exposed to evil, but, at the same time, a lever, by whom, the
censorship of the community was taking action over the youngest segment of the
population. Within the context mentioned above, I made a reference regarding the
censorship of the community and to some extent, to its abilities, aptitudes and force, to
preserve the concept of humanity1, within the community.
Which are, however, the justified means which possess the ability to set “the
pedals of censorship” in motion, a censorship of a productive manner (sometimes
subtle, other times emphasized or in given moments – compelled to apply sentences,
certainly, with a distinguished degree of severity).
From this perspective and by invoking a minimal synthesis, a potential
taxonomy, would register, at the base of the pyramid, two categories of organisms,
namely: official institutions (the church, the school, political and administrative
structures), respectively institutions of the community (the council of the elders, evening
sittings of the village people, group work, the market, shouting over the village, customs
and traditions2 – with a crucial educational impact…).
We can also extract, from the described standardization, another order divided
into: ecclesiastical institutions (church-priest), civic institutions (school-teacher, political
and administrative authorities, family), including institutions of the unwritten law.
Regarding the way they acted, the prevalence of some or of others within a
given temporal segment, there certainly existed, numerous mutations. It was a time of
censorship, exclusively conducted by the unwritten laws, by mythology and by folk
1
“The idea of humanity..., regards not only the interpersonal relationships but the attitude of our
peasant as well, towards the natural universe in which he lives and with whom he became as one
by humanizing it”. Dumitru Pop, Crepusculul unor valori si forme ale vechii noastre culturi si
civilizatii (The downfall of certain values and forms of our culture and civilization) (Cluj-Napoca:
Studia, 2004), 16.
2
“We value traditions because of the role these had in keeping the moral purity of our people, for
its educational function fulfilled by it in different circumstances of family life and of the large
family of the village that existed during the olden days. Together with other areas of folklore,
traditions represented, for ages, not only a manual of percepts, from which the main form of
culture was translated…but also of pedagogy, from where they learned the behavioural patterns of
the people in certain important situations of life and generally, in everyday life. For the
ploughman who during spring season went out with his plough, for the first time, was honest…,
just as the girl who got off the right way of the traditional rules and standards of conduct, became
the topic of the sarcastic ridicule of crying over the village”. Ibid., 16.
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cosmogony. Later, conversion to Christianity, tipped the scale towards the Church,
without the need for the village to deny its remaining archaic traditions, even if in secret,
these are considered to be more intimate.
Hereinafter, the times and man worked in the favour of syncretism between
tradition and religion, consolidating a behavioural pattern of double censorship, but,
apparently, never equally expressed, man quickly acquiring the art of choosing,
according to the circumstances, the most favourable path for him.
Actions are established in a certain similarity into the field of training as well,
the precepts of the family and of the community being much older. Quite late, school
became a scientific institution, the option for it being one of the free agency, destined for
another stage, which counted generations. The important fact is that during this time,
while school joined the universe of the village, two other pillars of light were also
established: the priest and the teacher, which alongside the consecrated mission, are
actively involved with the so called “patience of educating”, and perceptibly better built
on the foundation of the older structures.
Furthermore, censorship coming from these two institutions is rather
consecrated as a behavioural guide and it acted, predominantly, as an act of preventive
custody. From this perspective, censorship assumes the abilities of the wakeful state,
capital to the harmonious evolution of the community. However, occasionally, the priest
and the teacher, as literate persons, would take the position of a guarantor1 on the behalf
of the villagers confronted with certain causes, vulnerable for them.
Most assuredly, there were also situations which required interventions with a
higher degree of amplitude, but within the rural environment for example, the Church
did not reach, in neither circumstance, the severity, most of the times a "criminal" one,
of the censorship occurred in the cities.
It is a paradox that, at present, the censorship of the Church, generally takes a
more aggressive shape, both in proportion to the individual and with the ancestral
traditions - whom it attacks virulently. Therefore, we witness the formation of a more
abrupt fault between the Church and the Community, (identical to the time that is lived),
more striking within the urban environment where a heinous breach is directed against
1
We can find such an example in the work of Gherasim Rusu Togan – Dimensiuni ale
imaginarului popular (Dimensions of the rural imaginary), where while the author analyses “the
ecclesiastic protocol” of Chijasa de Sus Commune – Sibiu, dated to the middle of the 19th century,
emphasizes the following passage: “I have listened to my Christian, dedicated to my church,
Herciu Sava Moise, whose strength was weakened by an old illness, fact known by anyone, and
therefore with the help of God, I vouched to be, from now on and forever, his watchman, since
before all the other matters of his family, he puts first his eldest son Toader, so that he would be
the one to carry on in leading the household and to decide, under my care, what would be the best
for its progress. And I, as his helper, will do my best to meet his needs, in case, by the will of
God, other trials may fall upon this household. God willing! Priest Veltean”. Further on, the
author informs us that once the eldest lad becomes “the head of the family” he will also take on
the duties of a censor, “beginning with the mother and to the youngest brother or sister, having the
right to decide regarding the way they will ever leave the family, by marriage, in the case of those
who reached the right age, by becoming the servant of a master, or by moving to the city, finding
a job or going to school, in the case of the youngest brothers and sisters.” Gherasim Radu Togan,
Dimensiuni ale imaginarului popular – dezordini, temeri, închipuiri (Dimensions of the rural
imaginary – disorders, fears, imagination (Bucharest: Libra Cultural Foundation, 2009), 11.
342
the top hierarchy of the church, respectively the civilian society. Therefore, all history
does is to reinvent itself. Its cyclicity, similar to a metronome, only moulds new forms
built on a fundamentally unaltered content.
Here is a synthetic and synoptic representation of our previous considerations:
ASPECTS OF CENSORSHIP OR A POSSIBLE TAXONOMY OF
CENSORSHIP AND SELF-CENSORSHIP
CHURCH
SCHOOL
ADMINISTRATIVEPOLITICAL
STRUCTURES
OFFICIAL
INSTITUTIONS
CENSORSHIP
SELF- CENSORSHIP
THE
COUNCIL
OF
THE
ELDERS
THE FAMILY
EVENING SITTING
STATUTE LABOUR
BECOMING THE TALK OF
THE VILLAGE
COLLECTIVE
INSTITUTIONS
THE FAIR
SHOUTING OVER THE VILLAGE
THE RURAL CALENDAR
THE DAYS OF THE WEEK
THE MIDWIFE
THE BROTHERHOOD OF THE
SHEPHERDS
THE BROTHERHOOD OF THE
LADS
THE SISTERHOOD OF THE GIRLS
TRADITIONS, CUSTOMS, UNWRITTEN
LAWS
URBAN TYPE
AUTOCHTHONOUS
INSTITUTIONS
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Nevertheless, we cannot move forward from the topic of the marriage between
Church-School censorship, without “uncovering” and restoring the right of respectability
yet to another key factor, in which censorship and self-censorship, both objectively and
responsibly, become synthesized. We are referring to a behavioural pattern, imposed by
the valour and integrity of “the most remarkable” householders, generically called,
according to the geospace they inhabit: kulak1, bocotani, culaci, găzdaci (Romanian
archaic terms used for kulak – translator’s note), and so on.
1
The concept of the kulak, an extremely delicate one, can be, on the one hand, clear to be
synthesized, starting either from the etymology of the term in the Turkish language (kibar) or
from the Russian word kulak, both indicating the condition of the prosperous, rich peasant.
Further, the dynamics of time and of the inhabited space develops a corpus of kindred concepts,
from a certain angle (susceptible of confusions), but by a trenchant distinction within the area of
certain realities which correlatively intersect geographical- historical information, as well as social
and cultural (ethnographical) ones. A primary aspect that stands out, without doubt, is the one of
the hierarchically-social affiliation of the kulak (bocotan, culac, găzdac…), the layer of peasantry.
We firmly point out this element here, fact that prohibits the sliding towards any other social
category (boyars which became members of the divan, natives and/or allochthonous; petty
countryside boyars; tenants; imperial nobility, etc.). As far as the semantic nuances are concerned,
synonyms, regarding their content, with the term kulak, they belong to the diversity of the
geographic field. The dimension that places us in front of a detached-distinct concept – even
though fundamental, it belongs also to the peasantry – is the historical-political one perceived
throughout temporal evolution. We are referring to the voivode–average nobleman–marksman,
which designates, delicately nuanced, social segments of the peasants and/or serfs, raised to the
state of gentility (average nobleman), specific to certain “land” type regions located within the
inner side of the Carpathian arch. The cause which is obviously responsible for the superiority of
this particular condition is the unconditional assuming of the condition of soldiering, in other
words, of employed soldiers in the service of the feudal aristocracy. The latter observation, leads
towards the elimination of the double confusion regarding the kulaks versus the average
noblemen. A primary factor is represented by the time element, which verifies the longevity of the
voivode-average nobleman state, during the entire duration of the Middle Age period, and the one
of the kulak, during the period of Modern Romania. The second element is vindicated by the
active function, proportional to the type of labor economy, a military-political one for the first
category, respectively, an agricultural one by excellence for the kulak householders. Another
factor of influence which introduces a detached differentiation, regarding the historical time,
between the two units of wealthy peasants, is, amongst other signs regarding identity, the right of
the average noblemen to bear a crest – a clear indicator regarding the perspective of the superior
condition of an owner, extrapolated (see the 15th-16th centuries) to the number of villages. For a
better understanding, we appeal to a series of excerpts taken from the work entitled: Ţara
Chioarului.Studiu de geografie regională (The Land of Chioar. Study of Regional Geography).
“…throughout the Middle Ages, within the Land of Chioar, a consistent social class of gentry and
free Romanian peasantry succeeded to preserve itself. This social cass was a beneficiary of a
number of privileges contracted through the valorization of their military and organizational
skills, as well as their abilities to be productive. This situation if very well exemplified around the
year of 1615, by Prince Gabriel Bethlen by the terms “around the beginning, in the Land of
Chioar, there were more likely boyars (Boierok), from amongst them some were made into
average noblemen in each and every village and these were called voivodes or princes (Vajdak)”,
then adding “that they have privileges regarding freedom, received not only from the ruler of the
country or from the lords of the provinces, but from the ancient kings and princes, bearing the
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Was it an institution, a pseudo institution, a person of impact...? It is difficult to
elucidate.
However, most assuredly, they lived and acted while being in a key position
that coagulated the conscience, the quality and the competition, both for them and for
the community. Therefore, looking from more than one perspective, and where we can
allow ourselves to explicitly detach the economic function, or in other words, the size of
the real estate, of the estate, the kulak/kulaks represented, within the segment of the elite
of the traditional village or, this value compelled of organically involved, a way of being
qualitative, exceptional.
Conduct was, rigorously severe, attached to the fundamental pillars of the
community, whence the necessity of a "life protocol", a resultant of the equilibrium
between a self-imposed censorship, proportionally dominated by a coercive approach
exercised upon the members of the "circle" which incorporated, by communion, the
community.
Therefore, we emphasize, quite emphatically, regarding the more objective
understanding possible, that censorship, arising from the direction of the respective
social segment, both sparing and keeper of the rightful practices, both in the field of the
economy of labour and in the field of the traditions and Christian faith – was rather a
moral guide. Moreover, the superior economic capacity, preserved and progradated,
simultaneously, generation after generation through work; moderation (especially
assimilated from the outside, of greed); a specifically demographic behaviour (reduced
to one, at most two children - heirs); a wise and constructive cooperation with the
leaders of the village (the jury, the priest, the teacher) or with institutions and important
people from the outside, occupying high positions, implicitly with a "hygienic"
mentality, originating from a sever training - placing them, very naturally, within the
matrix of Maecenatism, a system of the spirit of generosity.
Very often, they were founders of churches, of schools, the predecessors of
introducing techniques regarding tillage, spiritual parents (god parents), benefactors (and
here we can speak about the culture/the economy of the gift) for the “pure belonging to
the nation”, dealing with hardship (widows, orphans, burdened families, etc.). They
duty to serve the borough.” Angelica Puşcaş, Ţara Chioarului, 76. “…the nobility here, was
rather a state of mind, voluntarily embraced and materialized in a behavioral pattern whose
fundamental values were honesty, pride, moral integrity, nearly physical attachment towards the
property and companionship or brotherhood. On the other hand, we cannot speak about national
reasons and emotions. Military engagement, directly under the command of the borough…
determined the development of a powerful local affiliation.” (Ibid., 77). “Historical time imposes
– on the background of the existent political, social and military circumstances – the taking into
consideration of a social category with a military nature. A new institution emerges…from
amongst the class of serfs, free peasantry and even the petty voivodes, the institution of <<the
nobility of the marksmen>>, founded by Gheorghe Rakoczi II. The marksmen (professional
soldiers, rifle bearers) ensure their privileges, respectively their investments and the keeping of
their nobility directly proportional to the efficiency of the performed services. They were actually
subjects exonerated from public and serfdom duties, in exchange of complete commitment
towards the borough and its master. The measure of the devoutness was acknowledged by the
prince by promoting them to the rank of petty nobility – certified by the so called nobleman’s
book (armalis), frequently consolidated through a crest as well.” Ibid., 87
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appointed young girls, especially, esteemed for their worthiness (a special kind, in a
way, with the purpose to honour Saint Nicholas), they used to send to school and
support in school, children who loved to study, they used to organize feasts on important
days, involving the entire community, they were supporting “the brotherhood of the
lads”, from the point of view of the logistics and spiritually, both in fulfilling the
customs of the ancient traditions, and on their path towards the position of mature
manhood.
Further on this discourse and within the same content, it is necessary to refer to
an entity that is well outlined by exigencies such as: censorship – self-censorship,
respectively, the family of the kulak, a structure of superior quality within the archaic
universe of the village, an attribute doubled by its configuration on circumscribed levels,
related one to another functionally, hierarchically and as a way of communication on the
pattern of the radial-concentric “texture” to the “father-nucleus”. Without any doubt, all
the signs lead us to the understanding of a patriarchal community, nothing artificial, yet,
within a social universe established under the same sign, all the more so, the state of
homogeneousness of the community – where the patriarchal “vectors” were diligently
shaping “the order”. Returning back to the family of the kulak, we are speaking here, not
about the restricted family, the blood family, coordinated by “canons” distinctlyattached (hierarchically, regarding the age, gender, the right of the first born, etc.), to
each member, but about the enlarged family (servants, day laborers, impoverished
relatives...) located in a privileged area of protection (assistance).
We know and we assume the responsibility for the fragility of certain terms we
are using, yet, exactly at this point, we must open up for a rational way of thinking,
cleansed by “the anathematization” of a destructive ideology, injected during the middle
of the 20th century, by a political system, not only foreign to us, but in opposition to the
traditions of the land1 as well.
It is the moment when the Romanian village is strongly and irreversibly
shattered, amputated by its purposes. The values are “unappealably” overthrown and
destroyed. The elite of the community, in other words “the hinges” of the village, which
lasted for ages, is exterminated and, a tragic fact, its break down comes from the inside,
respectively from the earlier mentioned segment, under the expressions of: a nobody in
this world, rejects, people who became everybody’s laughing stock…, but, paradoxically
and difficult to justify – from the perspective of the virtues of the community –
1
Beyond the aesthetic, the mystical and magical interfaces, the unchaining experiences, beyond
the feasts, etc…, the traditions encipher profound meanings regarding the relations of man with
the surrounding world, with nature, regarding the interpersonal relationships, the natural course of
the social life and regarding the solutions that, during an evolution which lasted for several
millennia, were discovered by humankind, in order to cause things to get back to normal, in a
time when the good order of the world was, from one reason or another, broken… From this point
of view, the customs express the social life of the human communities, different aspects of its
organization. It expresses them and in the same time contributes to achieve them. These are
expressions of the social life and mechanisms by which social life functions.” They are also
intimately “correlated with human life, with the lifestyle of the people as a fundamental cell of our
traditional society, with the lifestyle of the smaller or larger, local or regional communities”.
Mihai Pop, Obiceiuri tradiţionale româneşti (Romanian Traditional Customs) (Bucharest:
Univers, 1999), 7-8.
346
condemnation comes with an obstinate virulence from the very bosom of the enlarged
family, suddenly transformed into a inquisitorial unit. With their moral “thinness” –
ignoring the natural side of the family and community connections, and supported
politically (through the agency of a petty exchange: treason-acceding) they claim
themselves to be the lever of absolute power.
Without further gliding into the depths of this certain issue – the fields of other
sciences, owning here a very clear competence – we are augmenting the parenthesis we
opened, based on reasons which refer to the culture of the traditional village.
A final “protest” is the one of recovering the honour and worthiness of those
who once were “the leaders of the villages”, a “caste” that has never been served, but it
served the tradition and the state of order of the village. Another proof is the
synchronous breaking (approximately 1947-1958) of “the rural aristocracy” along with
the traditional village itself. In fact, to speak about a presence of the traditional village is
either a conscious and mean defiance of reality, or a lack of knowledge. Certainly, there
still exist customs, traditions, folklore…, but under a chopped off shape, from the
perspective of identity, and with a use placed either into the service of superficial
amusement, or, even more critical, “far-fetched”, in the sense of a sparkling “ethnofolkloric blend”, served to a social section, more often a super-technologized, curious or
even honest-desiring to rediscover archaic societies, closely connected by the rhythmic
progress and in balance with nature. Within the present context, these manifestations
would rather integrate within the category of “show-business”.
Another form of protest is the necessity to put exclamation marks at the end of
the questions left, more or less intentionally, in suspense.
Turning our eyes towards the system of the public institutions, from the
traditional village, we will observe an authentic presence of censorship and selfcensorship. Both of them have developed a determined, twinned strength, and
manifested from the gentlest way to the most caustic one possible.
For a better understanding, examples are required, recollections developed on a
scale of detail, of the everyday life. In actual fact, it cannot be spoken of the pulse,
outside censorship and self-censorship, the last one, coherently analyzed, reveals the
rhythms of the dominant character.
We asserted that life, in its entirety, is put under the sign of self-control,
naturally assumed by each person, from a very early age – when the family owned the
prerogatives of being the censor, respectively under the sign of the social and spiritual
mechanism of tradition – led, in a balanced manner, by the community (“the council of
the elders”). These two structures, family and community, acted exclusively in the sense
of interrelating, of the unity, the only way of resistance as against the autochthonous
pressures.
Another form of protection and of surviving was the expulsion from the interior
of this world of individualism, voluntary actions, not being anchored to the common
frame, being factors which caused unbalance and had an impact by breaking the order.
This is the explanation why, since the birth of the child into this world, he is not
only the child of his parents, but a desired and valued member of the community as well.
Each age stage1, increases the degree of involvement and responsibility, and in the
1
“At the same age, children were sent to drive geese, then the sheep and the cattle; approximately
around the same age they were beginning to go to weeding or to gather the hay, and so on…, just
347
moment of crossing adolescence, the young man/woman organically enrolled to the
behavioural code that was specific to the community, whom, in its turn delegated them
rules (regulations) – see the surveillance of the borders of the estate synchronous to the
oath made at the border stones, the watch over the flocks, crops, vineyards and springs;
helping the elderly people and the powerless through activities of statute labour,
accomplishing the rituals of initiation etc. – as well as assistance1, not few being the
cases when on the same topic help and censorship enter in some sort of osmosis.
Side slipping outside the unwritten laws was strictly sanctioned not only by
“the council of the wise men” – whose mission was to be a guidebook of deviant
behaviours – but especially “becoming the talk of the village” – fertile when it comes
down to establish anathemas, impossible to be “washed” off, even if “affections”, let’s
say were “cured”.
Conclusions:
We stated that censorship and self-censorship distilled from: conventions-rules-customs
and unwritten laws are a part of what defines each member of the community and at the
same time establishes a place in the hierarchical structures of the community.
Particularly targeting these plans and their exhaustiveness, we will attempt,
before entering any more detail, to point out the future directory coordinates of the
investigated concepts:
 The sacred connection with the land (estate);
 The respect given to the wise men (“givers of laws and traditions”);
 The cult of the dead and/or of the ancestors;
 Assuming all the differences regarding the behaviour of the community;
 Acknowledging the significances of the rural calendar;
 Preparations for the cycles of life – rites of passage, rites of initiation,
states of divination;
 The impact of censorship and self-censorship regarding clothing;
 Allowed/ forbidden food or gastronomical behaviour;
 The control of the good practices in magic and/or rural medicine;
 Protection regarding evil spirits;
 Vigilance and the preservation of beliefs, practices and traditions;
 To respect and worship sacred elements (earth, water, fire, wind, salt,
vine, milk, and so on).
as these were the first notions of mythology, first songs and learnt games”, regarding the
perpetuation of the national state. Dumitru Pop – 2004, page 44.
1
The ecclesiastic protocol of Chijasa de Sus Commune – Sibiu (referred to in a previous paragraph
as well), mentions, on the date of 10th of April 1856, that: “the council of the community…made the
decision that Onul Sântâi (Sântea Ioan), should not move in with the bride chosen by him, from the
village of Vecert, but to stay in the village, due to the fact that he is useful with his skills of tending
to the sheep, sick with rabies (to trepan!). And because he was a poor man, with the purpose to start
his future family, it was decided to be given to him, four hectares of tillable land and two hectares of
hay-field, located within the precinct of the village, with legal documents, to become his property
forever, added to what he already owned from his parents, so that he may be within the pale.
Gherasim Rusu Togan, Dimensiuni ale imaginarului popular, 8.
348
New Minor Literatures or the Debt of Contemporary Art
Zsuzsa SELYEM,
Keywords: minor literature, financial ideologies, happening, advertisement, communities
Abstract: Minor literature is mainly characterized, according to Gilles Deleuze and
Felix Guattari, by linguistic and political creativity. Contemporary financial ideologies
are interested in individualizing the problems shared by many, who otherwise could
form communities. I analyze a happening of a contemporary poet and playwright,
Krisztián Peer, which, due to a typical frame of capitalism, became an isolated and
pathetic manifestation enforcing financial ideologies, although it could have been a
strong contemporary act of minor literature.
*
Law isn’t charismatic: obeying law is self-understanding
only for those, who trust society, those, who don’t,
want a new society and not a mere empty right
for starving and unemployment.”1
How does minor literature look like in the Bermuda-triangle of the information
age,2 the digital natives3 and the financial crisis that seems to become more and more
permanent?4 And if we want this concept to also comprise the complexity of the
Zsuzsa Selyem's study, originally presented at the international workshop "Cultural Imprints in
the Age of Globalization: Writing Region and Nation" (Babes-Bolyai University Cluj, Dec. 6-8,
2012), has previously appeared in the volume Cultural Imprints in the Age of Globalization:
Writing Region and Nation. Eds. Sanda Berce, Petronia Petrar, Erika Mihálycsa, Elena Păcurar,
Rareş Moldovan. (Cluj-Napoca: Presa Universitară Clujeană, 2012)
1
Péter György, “A Rubicon,” Élet és Irodalom 34 (26 August 2011), 12. (Fragment translated
from Hungarian by Zsuzsa Selyem)
2
Manuel Castells, The Rise of the Network Society. The Information Age: Economy, Society and
Culture, vol. 1 (Oxford: Blackwell, 2000, 2nd ed.).
3
Marc Prensky, “Digital Natives, Digital Immigrants,” On the Horizon (MCB University Press,
Vol. 9 No. 5, October 2001.) http://www.marcprensky.com/writing/Prensky%20-%20Digital%20
Natives,% 20 Digital%20Immigrants%20-%20Part1.pdf , http://www.marcprensky.com/writing/
Prensky%20-%20Digital%20Natives,%20Digital%20Immigrants%20-%20Part2.pdf
4
Although the 10th April, 2009 issue of Time Magazine (“More Quickly Than It Began, The
Banking Crisis Is Over.” http://www.time.com/time/business/article/0,8599,1890560,00.html) and
Barack Obama, president of USA on 27th January, 2010 (http://www.treasury.gov/
initiatives/financial-stability/briefing-room/reports/agency_reports/Documents/TARP%20Two%
20Year%20Retrospective_10%2005%2010_transmittal%20letter.pdf) reported that the financial
crisis is over, demonstrations against the political and financial system were organized all over the
349
reference points of our times and at the same time be suitable for various operations
outside the context of the increasingly peripheral institutions of literature (and arts and
culture in general), then what are the differences and particularities to consider?
Although in this paper I am considering the concept of minor literature in the
context of the Hungarian language, I do not appropriate its nowadays mainstream
nationalist discourse – for me, at stake is to link the contemporary phenomena of minor
literature to the globally happening social and political issues. Some parameters of this
contemporary scene, essential for my analysis, are: the way of functioning of market
society, the status of artists in a market society, the informational networks, the social
crisis and the ideological answers to them, literature as a form of art and as a form of
making palpable/exposing the new ways of manipulating ideologies. And the most
spectacular among these: the universality of advertisements.
To make my geo-historical context clear, a story that I refuse to overwhelm my
analysis with, I briefly sketch the evolution of Hungarian literature in national minority
conditions. It became an urgency to define the concept of minority literature in the
beginning of the 20th century, after World War I, when important centres of Hungarian
literature passed under the government of neighbouring countries.1 For Transylvanian
Hungarian literature the new geopolitical situation resulted in a European and humanist
approach of literature (Károly Kós, Aladár Kuncz), and later in “the dignity of
particularity” (“a sajátosság méltósága” was the term introduced by Gábor Gaál, which
term has in itself something self-diminutive). These terms may suggest some over
ethicized grasping of minority condition, but in fact they are euphemisms for closure,
regression and lack of communication between mainstream majority and minority actors
of literary life, whose attitude can be described as expectants of gratification for modest
achievements.2 In spite of serious intellectual struggles, the geopolitical approach did not
world from the beginning of the year 2011 (Tunisia, Egypt, Spain etc.). The Occupy Wall Street
movement having as its slogan: “We Are The 99%” becomes worldwide spread, which is also a
sign of the insolvability of the financial crisis (http://www.cbsnews.com/2300-201_16210009481-50.html). Alain Badiou speaks about the spectacle of the crisis that is meant to obscure
the structural inconsistency of the parliament-capitalist system. (Alain Badiou: “De quel réel cette
crise est-elle le spectacle?” Le Monde (17 October 2008. http://www.lemonde.fr/idees/article/
2008/10/17/de-quel-reel-cette-crise-est-elle-le-spectacle-par-alain-badiou_1108118_3232.html)
1
With 19th century nationalisms, the national canon of Hungarian literature was a relatively
young construction, only half-a-century old, when the treatises after the WWIdrew a tinier map of
Hungary. The two totalitarian ideologies of the 20th century didn’t favour open professional
discussions, social elaborations of historical traumas. This can be among the reasons why the
most recent Histories of Hungarian Literature (2007) is treating minority literature in the
unreflected terms of 19th century’s national and colonial ideology and, by the example of Sir
George Gray, appointed governor of New Zealand in 1845, points out as the task of majority
literators to familiarize themselves with the “Maori mythology”. . Éva Jeney,
“Transzszilvanizmus. 1937. Jelszó és vita.” A magyar irodalom történetei (Histories of Hungarian
Literature), vol. 3 (Budapest: Gondolat, 2007).
http://www.villanyspenot.hu/apex/f?p=101:201:0::::P201_SZOV_KOD:12335)
2
The History of Hungarian Literature edited in the times and under the guidance of the “softcommunist” Kádár-régime, has the following insight to minority literature: “Minority literature is
mainly defined by the fact that it is not a wholly valuable literature: a part-literature broken from
its spiritual centre, from its mother-literature, it is only a secondary literature that makes virtue
350
result in such aesthetical results that would have saved Hungarian minority literature
from oversimplified interpretations that reduced it to some rough and momentary
ideological interests of the acting persons.1 Consequently, the universalist and
aestheticizing model became recognized among professionals, and according to this
model the creation of communities was not the task of literature; only particular poetics
of authors or regional styles were developed.2
The relationship between minor and major literatures has changed radically in the
contemporary social circumstances; culture as a whole, functioning subordinately to the
market, has become a minor factor in society, with or without the acknowledgment of the
intellectual working class. Commercial literature fulfils the surviving needs for reading of
most people; besides mainstream escapade-literature there is no chance for works that deal
with the lives, problems and complexity of present times. Looking at the book selling
statistics, an impressive part of humanity read the profit-oriented products of bookindustries, language doesn’t matter – a bestseller has to be translated with astonishing
speed into various languages. What does matter is to fit the readers’ expectations.
In the context of Hungarian minority literature Imre József Balázs used the
Deleuze-Guattarian concept of minor literature.3 Minor literature in their conception
from compulsion, if it is capable of or it has the opportunity at all.” (Miklós Béládi, ed., A magyar
irodalom története 1945-1975 (History of the Hungarian Literature 1945–4975), vol. 4 [Budapest:
Akadémiai, 1982]. – fragment translated by Zsuzsa Selyem) http://mek.niif.hu/02200/02227/html/
04/index.html). This patronizing attitude has not changed even after the political turn toward
some kind of democracy. Ernő Kulcsár Szabó in his history of recent Hungarian literature
continues with this tone. See: Ernő Kulcsár Szabó, A magyar irodalom története 1945-1991.
(History of Hungarian Literature 1945-1991) (Budapest: Argumentum, 1994). I wrote about this
question at length in: Zsuzsa Selyem, “Az ”erdélyi magyar irodalom”–beszédmódok egyik
utópiája. Disztransz.” (One Utopia of the “Transylvanian Hungarian literature” discourse.
Distrans,” In Valami helyet(Some place), 2nd ed. (Cluj (Kolozsvár): Komp-Press, 2003), 63–96.
1
From the point of view of colonialism-research Ágnes Klára Papp (In “A csirkepaprikáselmélettõl a töltöttkáposzta modellig. A kisebbségi irodalom újraértelmezési lehetõségei a
posztkoloniális kritika tükrében.” [From chicken stew-theory to stuffed cabbage-model.
Reinterpretation possibilities of minority literature in the mirror of post-colonial criticism]
http://www.barkaonline.hu/kritika/1538-a-csirkepaprikastol-a-toeltoettkaposztaig) describes the
post-Hungarian regions’ Hungarian literature with the concepts of hybridism and magical realism;
although her examples are convincing, these terms are working as filters against literary pieces
with different poetics from these regions (consequently these terms are not able to grasp the
characteristics of the studied phenomenon). Furthermore, these concepts were developed for the
totally different cultural movements of places of the world with hugely different geopolitical
background. The shared ideological and historical experiences of Eastern- and Central Europe
remain untouched by these exoticizing methods.
2
In their recent history of literature, Gábor Schein and Tibor Gintli have not discussed Hungarian
literature separately from literatures written in other languages. Still, speaking about one of István
Szilágyi’s novels, they use the concept of “Transylvanian prose” with the attributes: “moralizing
emotional tendencies” or “language used for description with ornamental metaphors”. Gábor
Schein, Tibor Gintli: Az irodalom rövid története (A short history of literature), vol. 2 (Pécs:
Jelenkor, 2007), 654.
3
Imre József Balázs, “Minor és maior nyelvhasználati módok az erdélyi magyar irodalomban,”
Kisebbségkutatás 2 (2006). http://www.hhrf.org/kisebbsegkutatas/kk_2006_02/cikk.php?id=1368
351
means: (1) an intense language based on strong deterritorializational factor (it is able to
use language in peculiar, regional, archaic, broken or deviant forms), (2) everything is
politics in it (“personal issues instantly become political because of the straitened
space”), (3) everything gets collective value (it is not literature evolving around masters,
it is a “literature that can create active solidarity”).1 From the point of view of collective
and political qualities there seems to be a similarity between “minor literature” and the
militaristic strata of Hungarian literature with its heroic ideals, but in fact they are each
others’ opposites: “the latent expectation that a minority always has to wait for some
kind of »organic completion« from the part of the majority is turned upside down by
Deleuze and Guattari when they speak about the multiplicity of minor languages that
makes possible a get-out from the cold power-language of majority.”2
“Minor” is not a characteristic of certain literatures, it is “the conceptual
condition of each literature working inside an institutionalized big one”,3 so geopolitical
factors in approaching minority literature become irrelevant. What becomes important is
the analysis of works, languages, without trying to fit them into a pattern that is longing
for its master, the major literature, and also without trying to institutionalize them by
means of bureaucracy. The most fervent question is not the exotizing, subaltern-creating
one so many times used till now: “why it is so good for them to write and read such
things?” The questions and approaching methods do not suppose a uniform medium.
The new minor literatures consist of works and interpretations taking part in globally
happening communications, able to create new, sometimes totally unexpected
communities.
***
In what follows, applying the concept of minor literature, I shall try to interpret “The
debauched poet’s case with capitalism”, a 4-part documentary that appeared in August
2011 on the site of one of the most visited Hungarian internet journals, index.hu.
The poet’s name is pronounced for the first time in trivial circumstances: he is
calling on the phone the electricity provider and is introducing himself: “Hello, I am
Krisztián Peer.4 You have recently cut off my electricity. I would just like to know, how
much money I have to bring to you.”
Contrary to mainstream literature’s practice of celebrity cult in market society,
here we have the poet, script-writer and playwright Krisztián Peer sharing the state of
1
Gilles Deleuze, Félix Guattari, Kafka: pour une littérature mineure (Paris: Minuit, 1975).
Hungarian edition: Kafka. A kisebbségi irodalomért, trans. Karácsonyi Judit(Budapest: Qadmon
2009), 33–36. (English translation by Zsuzsa Selyem)
2
Balázs, “Minor és maior….”
3
Deleuze-Guattari, Kafka. A kisebbségi irodalomért, 37–38.
4
Krisztián Peer poet and playwright was born on 22 July, 1974 in Dorog, Hungary. He studied
literature, aesthetics and philosophy at ELTE, Budapest. His first volume of poetry appeared in
1994 (Belső Robinson [Inner Robinson]) and had a great critical impact. His next book, Szőranya
(Fur mother, 1997) became a mythical reference in Hungarian literature. Till present he has
published 4 volumes of poetry and he has written more then 10 plays (mostly for The Symptoms
Theatre, Budapest) and he has participated as a screenwriter or as a poet not only in several films,
but also in critical social events.
352
millions of losers of loan. He does not try to fit the rules of the self-polishing culture, he
does not use metaphors – the question is, can he create a Deleuze-Guattarian (and
Kafkian) metamorphosis?1 Is it possible to create something radically new by showing
the real face of the bureaucratic power system? Has it the power of creating new politics
and new community by providing the receiver, the spectator of the film a basis for
understanding its own living conditions?
This particular case (loan in Swiss franc for a flat, rates grown to unrepayability,
discussions in the Bank and with the organization of losers of loan) in itself doesn’t
enforce or weaken the odds of artistic expression. As Deleuze and Guattari put it: “life
and writing, art and life stand against each other only from the point of view of
mainstream literature”.2
Peer stated his claim that this series of documentaries has to be taken as art: “If
somebody didn’t see my – pedagogically deeply mistaken – postmodern Noszty’s son3
happening on the Index-video (The debauched poet’s case with capitalism 1–4), he/she
should watch it and comment here (there, I asked for it in vain, it isn’t possible).
Moreover, I shall pronounce myself regarding this issue on the Radio Q Friday at 7 pm.”
Peer’s earlier blog posts prepare the happening to a certain degree as a planned,
conscious and autonomous creation placed in an artistic context – to the highest degree
of individuality, which is however completely subordinated to the circumstances and
actors of the future event. I quote one of his posts at some length:
”Stolen idea (it’s good to steal). Two young visual artists, Lilla Borsos Lőrinc
and János Borsos gave me the idea. The Esterházy private foundation bought their
painting entitled “My student-credit debt in forints” made with the so called «magic
pencil technique» for 789.279 forints. This was the exact amount of their debt. (The site
of this action: http://diakhiteltartozasom.blogspot.com/) “Why wouldn’t it work for me
too?”, I thought. I attempted to sort out a more than 2 million forints debt for rates and
approx. 11 millions capital debts.4 (As a matter of fact, the score of my film I have also
stolen from the Béla Tarr – Mihály Víg team.) At the gate of the Bank I got a panic
1
“Kafka deliberately kills every metaphor, every symbol, every meaning, as well as every setout.
Metamorphosis is the opposite of metaphor.” (Deleuze-Guattari, Kafka. A kisebbségi irodalomért, 45.)
2
Ibid., 82.
3
“Noszty’s son” is a highly known Hungarian 19th century novel character, famous for his
bohemian négligeance.
4
The attempt can be watched on youtube:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z7CFUbgp1Nk. It would require a huge imagination on the
part of clerks, HRs, communication managers to recognize as advertisement this little film
containing only the logo of the Bank, Mihály Víg’s peaceful-apocalyptical music and a
monologue told shyly, stutteringly, and with lots of repetitions. The 2-minute film based on a
monologue expressing defencelessness, on a music that reveals a universal solitude that is so
clearly formed in Béla Tarr’s films, and only the logo of the Bank, creating a complex,
contemporary attitude to life andan extreme imbalance between the power and the individual. is
too complex in its simplicity to be used as a any kind of advertisement. Except the case when the
Bank experiences a metamorphosis and as a consequence it moderates its orientation from the
profit to the active implication in the world’s welfare. It was only a personification: banks as
institutes cannot change their lives. Institutes cannot figure out the universal human condition
from someone’s solitary begging.
353
attack, my heart blew up, my stomach went up and down, icy sweat poured from me and
my mouth had a metallic taste. But for the second try, as used to be in my childhood, I
succeeded to pass the threshold and make the offer. Practically speaking, they laughed at
my face. Barbarian folks.”1
The relationship between life and art is beautifully and inventively constructed in
the visual object of the Borsos Lőrinc team and the actions around it. The object was
exhibited in Octogon Art Gallery, Budapest in 2009 and it consists of ciphers that in their
totality give the sum of their debt. Each cipher is a collage of symbols and objects
representing the authors’ biographies, focusing on that part of them, when they have spent
the money taken as credit. Next to this installation there was running a documentary film
about the authors that dealt as much with their aesthetic concept as with their personal life.
As Lilla Borsos Lőrinc said, the motivation of exposing their personal life was their
remorse. Stating this, the artist is aiming authenticity instead of emphasizing the act of
creation or the privileges of celebrity artists in the late-postmodern era. This is exactly how
Edward Docx characterizes contemporary artistic tendencies.2
One of the extreme works of the market-fitting visual art of late-postmodernity
is Damian Hirst’s installation entitled For the Love of God that was exhibited for the
first time in the White Cube Gallery, London in 2007, then was cried in an auction for
50 million pounds. As it is well-known, the work consists of 8601 diamonds worth
approx. 15 million pounds fixed on a human skull.
Docx says that it is postmodernity’s specialty to see in every value some kind of
manipulating ideology, great narration has gone for now and the market price of the
piece of art became the only orientation factor.3
The action “My student-credit debt in forints” deliberately uses materials and
stories that have only personal values. The artwork cannot be interpreted in postmodern
aesthetical terms where the author’s personal story and social/financial status is
absolutely irrelevant.
In my view, speaking about our post postmodern contemporary art as “the age of
authenticity” is more a question of daydreaming than the style of a thoroughly analyzed
era. We have no possibility of becoming innocent again; the chance of finding out some
eternal originality beyond any comparison is not going to happen for sure. Or, if it is
possible, it will easily lead to authoritarian ideologies that wouldn’t accept criticism at all.
However, the autonomously and coherently shaped life and art relationship can result in
some new forms of authenticity. As mainstream literature surrenders itself to the laws of
market, hiding its unconditional conformity to the power system with exotic, gripping
1
http://reszegeszregeszet.postr.hu/
Edward Docx, “Postmodernism is dead,” Prospect, 20th July 2011, Issue 185.
http://www.prospectmagazine.co.uk/2011/07/postmodernism-is-dead-va-exhibition-age-ofauthenticism/
3
Ibid. “Commoditization has here become the only point. The work, such as it is, centers on its
cost and value and comprises also (I would say mainly) the media storm surrounding it: the
rumors that it was bought for £50m, or that Hirst himself bought it, or that he offset his tax bill by
claiming diamonds as tax deductible artistic materials, or that he didn’t buy it at all, or that
nobody has bought it… And so postmodernly on. The paradox being this: that by removing all
criteria, we are left with nothing but the market. The opposite of what postmodernism originally
intended.”
2
354
stories or the coquette sharing of private life, there is plenty of room for minor literature to
create these new forms of authenticity. Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari are timely/up-todate in this respect: “How/So many styles, genres and literary trends – even the tiniest –
are dreaming about functioning as majority, serving as official language of state (...) let’s
dare to dream the opposite: becoming minority.”1
Krisztián Peer’s happening on index.hu generated an aggressiveness and hatespeech much beyond the accustomed level in the genre of anonymous comments. My
cautious estimation is that approx. 1% of the comments related to the action with
empathy. The posts with names and photos on the poet’s personal Facebook-account
contained nice and thoughtful words, but this represented an – although rather extensive
– restricted social network of people who know and esteem Peer’s artistic achievement
and, moreover, here there is also just 1% who interprets the happening beyond the
private sphere.2
The deterritorizational gestures were strong, the situation was presented from
the point of view of the invisible many, the script and the chosen characters of the
documentary were ok, so the question arises: why did it not provoke active solidarity
instead of swear-words? Was it not planned clearly enough? Looking at the posts of
Peer’s personal blog, we can see that the action was constructed thoroughly. Secondly,
there comes the stereotypical cynicism: people are not capable of understanding
(because they are conformists, lazy, stupid, selfish, etc.)
On the one hand, “people” as a whole don’t exist; on the other hand, the special
possibility of art is to create community for a while (for the 15 minutes catharsis after a
theatre performance, for example) by revealing, exposing our most real life, in a way
unimaginable before. So, there is no other solution than to admit that the video-series
was indeed “pedagogically deeply mistaken”.
“Our video belongs to the column of Everyday Finances supported kindly by
Allianz.” – The inscription appeared in the first part of the video-series, but I noticed it
only after I watched it several times. And here comes the infocapitalist structure of our
society: the so called freedom of the Internet is based upon the provider’s income from
the ads. For not breaking the illusion of freedom, readers such as I developed a way of
reading/consuming from the diverse sites on the Internet by excluding the ads from
his/her/our sight.
But in what respect did the Allianz-ad change the situation?
While Krisztián Peer performed his clearly planned, personal risk-taking artistic
action, the team of the index.hu site was executing a commission. Moreover, the team
did not consider the famous insurance company only as a sponsor, but they also met its
(real or imagined) requirements by adding such titles and synopses to the videos that at
first sight, with great benevolence, would have been considered only ironical. Still, the
fact was that the artist’s self-humiliation was transformed by arrogant, official,
bureaucratic means into an authoritarian, paternalistic humiliation. They surrounded
1
Deleuze-Guattari, Kafka. A kisebbségi irodalomért, 56.
In fact I found only one such post: “peer, this does much more than relate your story. and the
proportions are also very good. i don’t know who you made it with, but congrats for them also.
you succeed to bring a lot of typical (eastern-European) civilizational deep strata to light for a
moment.”
2
355
Peer’s personal gestures with discriminating signs in a medium where they were the
masters and they were the majority who make the rules. This time their main character
was a pathetic figure. The artist did not defend himself against this image in spite of
attempting to reveal one of the most common situations of being in debt. This image
says: all people in need are pathetic individuals. The video-series succeeded to
particularize Krisztián Peer’s private problem as one of the most important social issues
of our days that would have had the chance to – in Deleuze-Guattarian terms – “not refer
to only one subject”.
So the real question regarding this performance became: why is it a good
advertisement for an insurance society? The answer is not so complicated: the majority
of the readers of index.hu are young, learned/educated consumers, who, manipulated by
the crisis-spectacle, are searching for arguments to conform to the ruling system, but
from time to time it may occur to them that they could live otherwise also. The goal: to
present the alternative ways of life deprived of their force, joy and dignity, their gained
autonomy, to make it look like a total failure in the eyes of the would-be deserters of the
capital circuit.1 I do no’t doubt that this team could produce a far more distressing videoseries about an ordinary day of an Allianz clerk.
However, the failure of the performance gives us a clear image of the
mainstream (not only Hungarian) reality. Unfortunately, it did not become a minor piece
of art because it did not/failed to reflect sufficiently upon the context; the performer let it
to be run as the message of an insurance society. In vain it is authentic/Its authenticity is
in vain/superfluous, if the frame is ideological.
Minor literature cannot be pushed under the rule of finance ideologies.2 Beyond
its private credit, it transmits something that can be recognized as the possibility of
involving freedom.3
1
The success of the advertisement can be clearly seen from the post written by the outstanding
young editor and writer Endre Balogh on Peer’s Facebook-wall: “You are such a pr*ck that we
can orient after you – I, for example, searched my bills to pay out ”
2
Here is a poem written by Krisztián Peer that forms the debt-situation resisting the finance
ideologies: „Uram, neked oly kevés, amennyiből / újrakezdhetném. Higgy nekem, / hogy ne
kelljen hazudnom. / Nincs mit beosztanom, annyi a törleszteni valóm. / Szeretnék csak neked
tartozni. / Már most megmondom, / hogy nem leszek pontos, / és persze ugyanilyenben
maradnánk, / ha adnál, nem menekülnék aztán előled, / meg persze az se baj, ha neked sincs,
Főnököm!” In my humble translation: My Lord, it’s so little for you / but from it I could start
again. Believe me, / don’t force me to lie. / I have nothing to economize / I have so much to
amortize. / I wish to have debts only to you. / I say it for now, / I won’t be punctual, / and of
course we would remain in the same terms / if you would give me, and I wouldn’t flee from you, /
and of course it wouldn’t be a problem if you don’t have either, Chief!
3
The word “freedom” appeared first in the Sumer language: “amargi”. It means remittal,
forgiveness of debt, and – as the debtors in those times were exiled – “amargi” means also:
returning to mother. See: What Is Debt? An Interview with Economic Anthropologists David
Graeber
http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2011/08/what-is-debt-%E2%80%93-an-interviewwith-economic-anthropologist-david-graeber.html.
356
Balkán Herald – The Online Book of Complaints
of Hungarians from Romania
Réka KASSAY,
Keywords: Cultural studies, communication, sociology, Balkans, Transylvania,
Hungarians from Romania, cultural identity, cultural tendencies, cultural differences,
conflicts, mediation, online community, online communication, community blog.
Abstract: In the current study, I analyze cultural tendencies, preconceptions about
cultural differences among Hungarians from Romania that are present in the virtual
space. I have tried to explore the way this community treats different situations, conflicts
resulted from cultural differences. The examined interface is a community blog written
by Hungarians from Romania, where users share their stories considered typical for
Balkanic culture. Because of the negative pejorative meaning, the site functions as a
book of complaints, but also gives place to heated debates about Balkanic identity. As a
result of the three years of research (from November 2008 to October 2011) I have tried
to describe the trend of westernization in the Eastern European cultures, taking into
consideration the characteristics of online communication as well.
*
Introduction
There is an interface where readers can follow specific virtual community-discussions
about cultural peculiarities. Its name is suggestive: Balkán Herald, a community blog
with stories, images and videos on the subject of Balkanic culture.
Considering that the site is written and read mostly by Hungarians from
Romania, the image of the Balkans often has a negative connotation. The tendency of
westernization is not new at all, but monitoring this phenomenon in the virtual space, in
the community communication raises new aspects of the subject. During my research I
followed the content of the blog from November 2008 (from its startup) to October
2011. During these 3 years, I observed the different attitudes and behaviours and I made
case studies about conflicts on this subject. I also performed a survey with the readers of
the site, which completes the content analysis. Its goal was to identify the community
which creates this content, and to compare the readers’ opinion with the common

project number POSDRU/107/1.5/S/76841 with the title “Modern Doctoral Studies:
Internationalization and Interdisciplinarity”. I would also like to express my thanks to Márta
Fingermann for the correction of the text.
357
attitude that can be deduced by reading the articles. In this case, the content analysis and
the public research cannot be separated very clearly, because the content is also
produced by the readers with minimal censorship. However, it is interesting to compare
the consciously expressed opinion with the preconception that turns out from the stories.
The study tries to explore the question of cultural identity: the image that
Hungarian users from Romania show about themselves, the way they position
themselves in contrast with the Balkan culture. However, during the analysis I also take
into consideration the impact of the virtual context on communication (like anonymity,
the absence of meta-communication or the mediating role of the community).
Before describing the analysis, I would like to tag some explanation onto the
terminology that I use. The word Balkan appears in different forms: the Balkans, as a
geographical-historical unit (the Balkan Peninsula), Balkanic, as a culture and Balkán
Herald, the name of the site. About the technical terms of the internet, there is a
difference between the blog, the community blog, the portal and the forum.1 The Balkán
Herald is a community blog, but this cannot really be used for describing actions, so I
often use the terms of blog and forum referring to the activity of the readers. Finally, it is
important to note that some expressions that appear in the text like eastern, western,
developed, undeveloped are not obvious notions, their meaning is determined by
comparison, so it often depends on the context. In the present case, I adopt the termusage of the readers’ community: for example the eastern-western opposition refers here
to the Eastern-European and Western-European countries, even though this means
something different in a global interpretation.2
1. Theoretical background of cultural differences and the stereotypical Balkans
Before talking about the community blog and its aspects, it is necessary to take a look at
the different meanings of the word “Balkan”, because it has several different
interpretations. First, we can talk about the geographical-historical unit,3 which is
frequently described by stereotypes like “the barrel of gunpowder of Europe”, because
the place was a buffer zone between the great powers. From ancient Rome to the world
wars over the former Yugoslavia, there were always disturbances, wars, and ethnic strife
in this area. Furthermore, because of the diversity of the nations and religions, the
peninsula has a very colourful cultural heritage. Finally, there is a pejorative meaning
1
The blog is personal, the community blog is written by more users. The forum is discussion
about different topics (not apropos of stories, images, like in the case of the community blog),
while the portal is not necessarily a chronological collection of articles.
www.onlinemarketingszotar.hu [2011. 11. 13.], www.onlinemarketing.blog.hu [2011. 11. 13.]
2
Samuel P. Huntington, “The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order”,
Fooreign Affairs 3 (1993): 22-49.
3
The region that lies on the south-eastern part of Europe takes its name from the Balkan
Mountains in Bulgaria and Serbia. The Balkan states are Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina,
Bulgaria, Greece, Kosovo, Macedonia, Montenegro, Serbia and the European part of Turkey. It is
disputed whether the southern part of Croatia, Slovenia and Romania also belong to the Balkan.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Balkans [2012. 01. 20.] The present Romanian policy considers
Romania a part of Central Europe (except of Dobruja).
http://hu.wikipedia.org/wiki/Balkan [2012. 11. 13.]
358
related to the Balkans: in many places of the world, it is associated with poverty,
disorder, corruption, connection-oriented views, the circumvention of the rules,
ingenuity, and the bad quality of services and public works. In the terminology of the
blog the Balkan culture is often used as a synonym of collectivistic, high-context
cultures. David W. Augsburger writes in detail about differences between individualistic
(low-context) and collectivistic (high-context) cultures.1 In his interpretation, the
characteristics of the low-context culture are the formal relations between people,
compliance with the rules, and a problem-oriented perception, while the high-context
culture can be described by informal relations, broadly defined rules and relationoriented principles. Augsburger mentions that those cultures that are now considered
individualistic had also been collectivistic, but in time (partly because of the technical
progress), they have become individualistic. This explains why the high-context cultures
are specific mostly to the less developed countries and in many cases, the culture
transforms gradually from high-context to low-context.
Talking about Europe, in the public perception this opposition also means
eastern and western cultures. As Romania is central-eastern, it represents a transition
between the two, from the point of view of the context as well. However, western
cultures also have a pejorative meaning: this can be understood from Samuel P.
Huntington’s theories. In his writing The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking
of the World Order, he talks about the decadence of western cultures. First of all,
the cultural and moral decadence: the anti-social behaviour, the decline of the
family models, the decrease of work ethic and volunteering.
However, in the community of Hungarians from Romania the pejorative
meaning of Balkan culture is more negative than that of western culture: there is a strong
demarcation from any phenomenon that is considered Balkanic. The general opinion
here is that the Balkans is backward and out of date, unsatisfactory for the tough
demanding customers. In the same time, many people accept the loopholes – as “the
system is not good”. This generates a (self-)ironic attitude regarding the culture they live
in – and that they cannot change.
The Transindex2 portal based its Balkanic community blog on this stereotypical
formation, but before starting it, the idea was maturing for more than one year. This had
a good reason: the Hungarians’ attitude regarding the Balkans is changing together with
the people’s lifestyle. It changed a lot in the past 20 years as well, since people started to
travel more and more. The increasing mobility results in the exploration of other
cultures,3 which leads to the discovery of the differences. Many entries in the blog were
inspired by travel experiences in other countries. That’s why I was curious about the
travel habits of the readers.
The cultural determination is very important in each community, because every
notion gets its meaning from the thoughts, feelings, images linked with it, and these are
all defined by culture. This is a basis of Stuart Hall’s theory, which he explains in his
1
David W. Augsburger, Conflict Mediation Across Cultures (Louisville, John Knox Press, 1992)
Transindex is the dominant Hungarian portal in Romania, it has 10-15 thousand daily visitors Trafic.ro [15.11.2011]
3
Kollányi Bence, Térhasználat az információs társadalom korában (Use of space in the age of
information society) (Budapest: Pintér, 2007), 82-93.
2
359
book Representation.1 He also claims that the high penetration of mass media and mass
communication resulted in the interoperability of these meanings across cultures. This is
another factor that I measured in my survey: the media-using habits of the community
that reads and writes the blog.
2. The Balkán Herald community blog and the antecedents of the project
2. 1. The community blog and its roots
From the beginning of the years 2000, the presence in the virtual space became a daily
practice in the life of Hungarians from Romania, but its way has changed a lot in the
past decade. At the beginning, the trend was the debating on different forums. This
activity is still alive but mostly in a thematic way, in different small communities, with
the aim of changing information and experiences (not just for arguing on the internet).
This is illustrated by the case of the Disputa.ro forum, an older project of the Transindex
portal, which had many visitors a few years ago, but now there are no more new entries
since 2009. After the forums, blogs and community blogs came into fashion. These have
the advantage that readers are arguing about continuously updated content: there is no
need to generate the subject of discussion. The Transindex portal started more
community blogs as well: collection of restaurant critics, of erotic texts or negative
campaign before elections. The Balkán Herald was their last community blog: since its
startup, this way of online communication also started to go out of fashion. Now the
online communication is more personalized, thanks to the conquest of community sites.
2. 2. The idea of the Balkanic blog
The blog itself expresses its pejorative meaning-defined concept on the first page, with
the following definition: “The Balkan is not a place, but a spirit. There is no need to
conjure up this spirit or to believe in it: it can be experienced everywhere. Each
confrontation with the spirit of Balkan is a Balkan-story. Don’t keep it to yourself, share
it with others, to make them amazed or cheered up! Do this on Balkán Herald, the
official journal of Balkan-stories, in the appropriate topic.”2 This definition includes the
two most important functions of the site: to entertain and to evoke the solidarity of
others. The second is needed because the Hungarians in Romania often confront
situations that they cannot explain, accept or resolve, they even chafe at something that
could be natural in other cultures. Hungary is situated to the west of Romania, so
according to the discussed differences between cultures, the Romanian culture is a little
bit more collectivistic than the Hungarian. This is manifested on the blog, when
Hungarians write about the Balkanic situations that they face day by day. While the
stereotypical meaning of the Balkans is negative in this context, the blog has turned into
a book of complaints. Most of the stories describe a conflict resulted from the cultural
differences, or a negative situation: it is extremely rare to use the word in a positive
sense. This reflects the attitude of the Hungarian community, but the concept of the blog
(of the editors) as well. For example, the only standard design motive of the site is the
1
Stuart Hall, Representation: Cultural Representations and Signifying Practices (London: Sage,
1997), 1-39.
2
The author’s translation (this note is valid for all the quotations from the site)
360
onion: it appears on the header and after each story. Users can appreciate the entry by
throwing it with onions: germinal onions, spring onions, seasoned onions, rotten onions
and so on, depending on the heaviness of the situation. This fairground nature also
strengthens the stereotype about the Balkan in a negative way.
2. 3. Data about the blog and its readers
The project was launched in November 2008, and I followed its content from the
beginning to October 2011. Of course, the blog is still alive, but its traffic has very much
reduced. As I mentioned in the case of the Disputa.ro forum, in many cases the online
contents do not have a definite ending, even if they are not visited any more. Based on
this, I would have never stopped monitoring it. So, in October 2011 I decided to take
into consideration the yield of exactly 3 years. In this time 258 entries were created and
these generated 627 comments. After the first year of the blog these data were the
following: 135 entries, 405 comments. This shows that the first year was the most
successful, after that the number of the stories decreased, but the comments even more.
This means that the blog lost its most important function – the disputing nature. In the
third year just a few entries appeared, mostly written by the editors of Transindex portal,
so currently it functions as a simple column of the Transindex portal, which is updated
from time to time.
The number of entries
November 2008 – October 2009
Month
11
12
01
02
Entries
3
2
8
18
03
10
04
11
05
15
06
5
07
7
08
1
09
3
10
8
Month
11
12
01
02
Entries
2
3
5
3
03
3
04
2
05
2
06
2
07
2
08
2
09
0
10
8
Month
11
12
01
02
Entries
3
4
3
3
03
0
04
1
05
1
06
2
07
0
08
1
09
0
10
2
The measuring about the target group of Balkán Herald was realized in March
and April of 2010. 56 people filled out the online test, but considering that the blog had
only 89 registered users at that time, this can be considered representative for the
community. The survey concentrates on the users’ social background, and – as I
mentioned before – also refers to the travel habits and the media consumption habits of
the target group.
Age of the target group
10-19
3,6%
20-29
64,2%
30-39
25%
361
40-49
3,6%
50-59
3,6%
Occupation
Education
17,8%
Informatics
16%
Economy
14,3%
Media
12,6%
Arts
7,2%
Student
19,6%
Pupil
3,6%
Other
8,9%
Living place
Cluj county
48,2%
Szekler Land
25%
Partium
8,9%
Mureş county
7,2%
Hungary
8,9%
Abroad
1,8%
Note: The Transindex portal is edited in Cluj, one of the main cultural centres (or maybe the first
one) of Hungarians in Romania.
The Szekler Land is situated on the eastern part of Transylvania, it is inhabited mainly by a
Hungarian-speaking (Székely) ethnic group.
The Partium is the western part of Romania, near the Hungarian border.
Mureş county lies in the middle of Transylvania.
It was remarkable to see the users’ opinion about the different functions: most
of them highlighted the entertaining function: they told that they read or write stories
because it is funny, only a smaller part told that they want to share their outcry or to
warn others about different negative situations. This is interesting, because during the
reading of the stories the complaint function is more obvious.
As I mentioned before, I also measured the travel and media consumption
habits. The result is that in general the members of the community travel in the country
once a month and to other countries once a year. Most of them read and watch
Hungarian media products from Romania, but almost half of them also follow the
Romanian and the Hungarian media, and 20% consumer media products from abroad.
Finally, I also asked about the most popular topic on the blog. The major part
mentioned the scam-stories and the travel-stories. But from the point of view of the
frequency, the “public services” category is at the top of the list, followed by the “travel”
category. This also shows a contradiction between the content and the consciously
expressed opinion of the public, because in the mentioned categories the complaining
function is more evident.
3. Case studies about the conflicts on Balkán Herald
3. 1. The type of the conflicts
The conflicts on the blog can be classified according to several aspects, but in each case,
the user community plays an important role. Considering the context of the conflict,
there are stories which present an ended situation, where the discussion afterwards helps
to interpret the facts. A lot of stories about low quality services, job conflicts, fights and
some hospital and travel stories belong here.
There are other stories, which describe continuous (or repeated) phenomena that
we can meet all the time, so in this case the comments are about actions that can be
influenced. In this category I can mention some habits that are very prevalent in the
high-context culture, like hitchhiking, or even some swindle actions that threaten the
naïve citizens.
362
Finally, there are some situations when not the conflict of the story is
interesting, but the conflict generated in the virtual space afterwards. Sometimes this can
be a result of anonymity, because people don’t know who they are arguing with, so the
whole thing turns into a personal quarrel. In the following chapters, I will present some
examples for these three situations. In the conflict analysis, I am going to use
Augsburger’s questions1 and I will also take into consideration the characteristics of
virtual space and the mediating role of the virtual community. I have chosen the
following entries for analysis either because they generated very much discussion, or
because they present some special cases resulting from the characteristics of online
communication.
3. 2. Ended situation
One of the most argued entries belongs in this category, its title is: How to blackmail the
customers emotionally?2 In this story, the author writes that once she tried to book bus
tickets from Cluj to Budapest for the next day. The employee of the bus company
informed her that there were no more tickets. She offered that she tries to get some,
without giving any details. After some time the client found bus tickets at another
company, even cheaper. When the first company called her back, the employee was
very upset with the client who chose the cheaper and sure solution. “There began the
emotional blackmailing. <The customer is like this>, she said and she asked me why I
couldn’t wait cause she had to call a Hungarian number for this……then I got some
more reproach and I said goodbye. After some minutes, my phone rang a very long time
but I didn’t answer. It’s enough to get feedback about my weaknesses, I don’t expect this
from the employee of a bus company. After 10 minutes she called again but then I turned
off my mobile.
The situation reflects very well the disagreement between the problem-oriented
and the relation-oriented culture. The employee of the bus company tries to get some
tickets, although this is not her duty, while the tickets are all sold. So she is doing a favour,
she initiates a positive relationship with the customer. Because the “we’ll find some
solution”-context is natural for her, she doesn’t understand the client’s attitude, who only
wants to solve her problem. The fact that the employee still tries to convince the client
despite the fact that they’ve already sold all their tickets – can have more reasons. She can
hope some extra money or gratitude for the extra ticket, or her vanity was injured and she
provokes the recognition of this or apology at least. Or, what is more probable: both. For
her it is unacceptable to end this way their formal relation, while the client doesn’t care
about this, she is only interested in the ticket. She insists on the customer’s right to choose
the advantageous solution, as long as the rules permit this. And the written, formal rules
permit it. Furthermore, she wants to maintain a formal relation with the representative of
the company and not to discuss their personal problems.
1
Where? (in which cultures or between which cultures was the conflict developed);
Why? (what was the reason of the conflict, was it interest-centred or value-centred); What?
(what was the attitude of the parties); Which? (which type of solution they applied to resolve the
conflict).
2
Balkán Herald, http://balkanherald.transindex.ro/?p=85 [2011. 11. 15.] (the reference is also
available for all the quoted comments of this entry)
363
The runoff and the ending of the conflict is intuitive, guided by emotions in the
case of the employee, and logical, consistent in the case of the client. When she doesn’t
see the sense of the discussion she interrupts it, and she can do this easily, because the
phone is an indirect way of communication.
The conflict was interest-centred at the beginning, and the situation started
cooperatively: both parties’ interest was to get some more tickets. But the moment the
second company appeared, the situation became competitive. With this turn, the position
of the parties also changed: first, the client’s interest depended on the employee, but then
it changed. As the client had the possibility to choose, she got in the situation to decide.
The ending of the situation was positive for her, because she got her tickets and she
could choose the best offer. On the other hand, the conflict ended in a negative way for
the representative, whether her approach was interest-based or relation-based.
The continuation of this story takes place in the virtual space, where the blog
users discuss their opinion about the situation. There are very different opinions: as in
many cases, the first user contradicts the author, and after this, more users try to defend
her standpoint. From the 17 comments, 9 are on the part of the author, 6 on the other
side and 2 neutral. There are some comments where the user tries to bring some
arguments on both sides, but anyway, it turns out what is his standpoint, for example:
“For the eventual rough tone I also condemn the representative, but I think she was
right when she said that you could have waited until she called back.” It is specific that
users try to convince the others by giving practical examples, e.g.: “Imagine that you are
playing tetris on the computer1 but someone calls you to make a Photoshop-collage. Not
with pleasure, but you make it, at the end it turns out really good and when you call
back triumphantly, they tell that they’ve resolved it already.” Or: “And when you call a
taxi, and it comes later, you call another, don’t you? You don’t care that there was a
traffic jam? ... I think not the company was Balkanic, but you were muddling. I think the
employee was right and she would have had the reason to cry that she gets some stupid
calls like this.” There are users who tell their own story relating to the situation, they
mostly agree with the author. e.g.: “This <we’ll find a solution> cases are already
suspicious. We took a knock with this once, when we had to travel on a stool thanks to
the kind-hearted stewardess. I think they are sharing with the drivers.” Others are
detailing what they would have done in the place of the author: “I would have waited at
least an hour, and only after that I would have begun to suspect...” Some users begin a
personal discussion with others, talk rhetorically to the whole world: “Everybody is
strayed here? Maybe I came from the Mars, and this is not the Balkans here, but...”
In total, there is a very diverse range of opinions, which tell much about the
culture of the individuals. Changing of attitude is not characteristic in this debate, but
with more and more comments, the situation becomes more nuanced. In my opinion, it
is illuminating to share these experiences, because the overlook of the community’s
perceptions can help to process the events. By this, users can get feedback from the
community they are living in, sometimes maybe they can understand better the other’s
point of view. That is why I think that this virtual part of the conflict was rather
productive.
1
It is quite weird to argue like this: how bad it is to disturb the employee who is playing during
working time – I guess it is rather ironic, but this is hard to say exactly without the help of metacommunication.
364
3. 3. Continuous or repeating phenomena
The discussion about hitchhiking1 also generates very many comments, because almost
everybody has some kind of experience about this topic. The author of this entry writes
about a very interesting conflict that he faced – more exactly, a misunderstanding, which
turned into a disagreement. This situation is the opposite of those that usually happen.
The author is a young Hungarian intellectual from Romania, who has very much
experience in hitchhiking. So he knows that in Romania hitchhiking is considered rather
a service than help. When he tries to hitchhike without money, he tells this to the driver
before the drive. In several cases drivers were angry when they heard this, once it almost
turned into battery, but in this story, the driver was upset because he felt piqued. His car
is not a taxi, he said, and he does not understand the mentality that people take money
from hitchhikers. His opinion was that those who are hitchhiking do not have money for
train, so they need help. The traveller agrees with this perfectly, but the driver blames
him for this misunderstanding, and advises him not to offer money for this kind of
transport anymore. In this case, both parties have the same opinion, but because of the
context, they don’t know this about each other. In addition, the driver speaks Romanian,
but he has a car with a foreign number. In the car they clarified the situation, with direct
communication and axiomatic-deductive method (both base on their own conviction,
and from this point they try to interpret the reality. The situation is cooperative from the
beginning, and it is admittedly productive, because both parties can ascertain that they
are not alone with their views.
In this case, the comments and stories of the users are more interesting than the
initial story, because people start to discuss about hitchhiking itself. They note more
aspects of this phenomenon, so the image of it becomes more nuanced.
15 people have the opinion that taking someone in the car is a favour, so it
should be a principle not to take money for it. Some of them describe that they used to
hitchhike a lot when they were students without money, but now they drive a car, so
they always take passengers and don’t take money for it. 4 people do not agree: they say
that hitchhikers expect the free transport, so even if they do not pay, they should ask
what they owe. Two people interpret this conceptual debate from a financial viewpoint:
they say that they take money from hitchhikers not because they think they should, but
because they also don’t have much money for the travel. Among the last 8 comments
there are analyzing, informational, storytelling, and comparing opinions. Someone
writes: “It is not necessary to pay with money. I paid once with a sandwich because the
poor driver was very hungry and he couldn’t find any fast food open. For a foreigner I
paid once with a film, that takes place in Transylvania, and once I copied my own film to
his memory stick. In addition, it is an unwritten rule that if your conversation is pleasant
then you do not have to pay.” While these inventive paying methods are closer to the
high-context culture, the conversation rule is also valid in the western countries.
Hitchhiking means a favour there, and drivers usually decide to take someone if he is
likeable. A user also writes that he takes hitchhikers when he is in the mood for talking,
and another says: “I don’t take money, between Nagyszalonta and Nagyvárad, just
1
Together, for a world full of drivers who don’t take money from hitchhikers. Balkán Herald,
http://balkanherald.transindex.ro/?p=75 [15.11.2011] (the reference is also valid for all the quoted
comments of this entry)
365
wave! If someone shows the printed version of this post, he is my guest for a coffee.”
This attitude reflects that the user not just acts according to his conviction, but he tries to
proclaim it. Another user also writes that he intentionally does not take old people,
because they are hard to be convinced not to pay. So he feels injured when they consider
him a profiteer.
Most of the users express that the western model is good, because there it is
evident not to take money, but someone points out that in western cultures hitchhiking is
not so prevalent: in eastern countries this custom is maintained by its service-type, but in
the occident, even if they don’t take money, it’s less likely that they stop. All in all, I
think that this discourse is obviously useful for all the participants, because they get to
know other viewpoints and this may help to interpret the situations when they meet
different behaviour.
3. 4. Conflict after event, in the virtual space
The entry titled “Why is the jeep parking in the place reserved for disabled people? Just
like that...” presents a one-sided conflict, which generates a very personal discussion on
the internet.1 The author writes that she saw in the parking of a hypermarket, that a jeep
stopped on the place reserved for people with handicap. A big family got out of it, talking
loudly about the shopping list, when the author warned them about the parking. The father
told very kindly that he knew about that, he thanked for the warning and added that they
would not stay long. This case shows how the development of a conflict depends on
cultures – if one party doesn’t face the conflict, this makes the other one incapable too. The
author considered this gesture a serious problem, so she was prepared to face a conflict,
but the driver didn’t even understand what the matter was. In his culture, the actions are
rather determined by the personal relations and less by the written rules.
Furthermore, for the author this is a value-centred confrontation, while the
driver interprets it as an interest-centred situation. So, he ends the situation by a formal
arrangement, that nobody is angry with nobody. This is typical for the high-context
cultures: important is to resolve the relations with the other people; the problems will be
solved after that. From the point of view of the author, this is just a superficial cover-up
of the situation, the important part, the problem was not solved. So the situation cannot
really be considered productive for any of the parties.
In contrast, the following discussion on the Balkán Herald is more interesting in
this case as well. From the 14 comments 10 users condemn the behaviour of the driver
and they agree perfectly with the author. The other 4 comments are from the same user
who condemns the condemners and says this is intolerance and prejudice regarding the
jeep-drivers and the big families. Several users react very vehemently, there are some,
who raise the idea of aggression: “Because the words are of no use, their legs should be
broken at least in two places, so they would become entitled and the problem would be
solved. If the news got through to others, maybe they would end this habit – the fee
doesn’t help here, these people pay it from their vest-pocket.” Others express their
indignation by description: “Probably there are all able-bodied people, just lazy pigs to
go a bit further”. Among the destructive comments, there is a constructive one too:
someone describes how he used to proceed in such cases and how well this functions.
1
Balkán Herald, http://balkanherald.transindex.ro/?p=70
366
There is a user, who continuously contradicts the others and he confesses only
after a few replies, that he is also disabled – but tries to see with the others’ eyes. Finally,
he concludes that in this dispute everybody is against him, just as in real life. This is
interesting because people who contradicted him (sometimes maybe too tough) probably
did not know that he was affected.
The discussion reflects that users consider tolerance an important value of
western cultures, and the “everyone gets along as he can” mentality is a Balkanic
(meaning not to be followed) way of existence.
This case represents an interesting example of the special situations in the
virtual space: when users are talking in incognito, they don’t know anything about each
other, they also cannot know what kind of sensibilities they can hurt. It is also a question
if there is a value-based or an interest-based dispute. For most of the users (especially
those who are not affected in any way) it is a value-based discussion: they talk about
principles. But the one, whose interests are concerned, doesn’t want to enter in this kind
of arguing at all. In this entry, the community is not mediating between the actors of the
initial situation, but it has some tension-relieving role between the parties of the new
conflict, especially between the disabled user and the others. During the discussion,
there can be noticed some change in the attitude, which refers mostly to the tone of the
comments. When the delicate subject arises, the comments become more explicit, more
polite and less spontaneous.
Despite the occasionally tough tone of the debate, this entry can also be
productive, people can learn not to judge too quickly, and some bring up concrete ideas
to deal with situations of the same kind.
4. Cultural tendencies observed in the discussions
4. 1. Balkanic identity – horizontal and vertical borderlines
As I mentioned before, Romanian culture is somewhere between the individualistic and
the collectivistic cultures. Both attitudes can be observed on the blog, but it is more
characteristic that users are distancing themselves from both. One user expresses this in the
following way: It happened half a year ago in Dresden, that the last tram, after my 200 m
Olympic sprint, closed its doors and left in front of me. (...) It is not good to reach the other
extreme either. Herr O. – and maybe the Germans in general – respect the rules in a way
that they often lose sight of the man (who should be served by the rules...). Compared to
this, Mr. O. is an understanding archangel. Of course, just that he is Balkanic.”1
According to my research, the users of the site travel to other countries once a
year. In many cases, these experiences make them express their opinion. That explains
why one of the most popular categories is about travelling. Many entries were inspired
by travelling by bus, car, taxi or train, which is understandable: in these situations,
people can observe the differences and compare one culture to another. In this category
the Balkanic identity manifests itself, separated in horizontal space from the western
culture’s identity. The most commented entry is about travelling home from Germany to
Romania. In this story, the bus was late and the author called the company. The driver
1
The
New
Conquest
a’la
http://balkanherald.transindex.ro/?p=37
Transylvanian
367
Transporter.
Balkán
Herald,
was very upset because he was “demanding” and had “all kinds of pretensions”. The
author was outraged about the disrespectful tone of the driver. This dispute comes to
prove the distancing between the western and non-western groups. From the 36
comments 17 are on the side of the author (they usually despise the “Balkanic
behaviour”), 13 on the other side (they despise the snobbery of those who travel in the
world), and 6 are neutral.
Also in the travel category, there is another horizontal borderline, which
separates the Hungarians living in Romania from the Hungarians living in Hungary. It is
very usual that users put someone in a category, without knowing anything about him.
This resulted in a conflict in an entry where one part of the users thought that the author
lives in Hungary and started to attack him from this point.1
The most typical examples reflect an identity, which can be defined by
distancing from the other cultures. Not just from the so-called Balkanic, but from the
western as well. Of course, there are groups which express their negative opinion about
the other, but there is no model that could be followed. In general, the low-context
cultures appear as positive just in comparison with the high-context ones.
The other phenomenon is the vertical borderline that can be observed in the
category of services. By this, people separate themselves from the system that they live
in. This is especially characteristic for Hungarians living in Romania, because their
culture is a little bit more individualistic, than the Romanians’, and they often cannot
accept the relation-based, rule-circumventing (ergo Balkanic) solution of the problems.
One user writes: “In Romania the state’s father-role was replaced by the state’s
stepfather-role. It is not a shame to steel from him, but a virtue. This damned popular
attitude is anachronistic, or rather infantile in an age when the society is regulated by
the other pole – the market.”2 More users express the same opinion, and this interface is
very useful to deduce the tension of situations that cannot be changed. Looking at the
entries from the category of services and bureaucracy, most of them reflect a customerconsciousness: the individual, who points out the system’s weaknesses, can feel at least
in moral superiority, especially when the members of his small community understand
him. This can be a form of the fight against the authority, described by Foucault.3 The
difference is that in this case the manifestation is directed neither to the head of the
system, nor to the closest representative, but to the public. In this case, it is not excluded
that the message gets to some of them.
In the same time, this community functions as a mediator, this can be observed
in the case of entries written out of sudden indignation. There is a need for this, because
writing on the blog is devoid of the traditional steps of publishing – anyone can be
publicist after the registration. For the site, it is good to have traffic, so practically
anything can appear that doesn’t violate the rules. At the same time, readers react fastest
to the things they do not agree with, so a community censorship takes effect.
1
Hospitality in Csíksomlyó. Balkán Herlad, http://balkanherald.transindex.ro/?p=35
The
New
Conquest
a’la
Transylvanian
Transporter.
Balkán
Herald,
3
Michel Foucault: A szubjektum és a hatalom (The subject and the power), ed. Bókai et al.: A
posztmodern irodalomtudomány kialakulása (The formation of post-modern literary studies)
(Budapest: Osiris, 2002), 396–410.
2
368
Previously I wrote about the horizontal division of the community, but a
hierarchy also exists between the users of the blog. On top of this hierarchy there is the
administrator, who moderates the entries. He is followed by the registered members –
among them the editors of the Transindex portal represent the highest level, the
registered users can write entries and comments, upload photos. The users who are not
registered, can only write comments, and there are users who can just read the content.
Practically anyone in the world can join the community – there are no restrictions. In
this case – in the world of web 2.0. – the opinion-forming effect of mass media is very
complicated, because the public texts are created by the voice of the public. This is good
for the portal, because they get free content, and for the users as well, because they get
publicity.
4. 2. Linguistic identity
Another aspect of cultural identity is the expression of linguistic tendencies. The way the
users express themselves generates a theme for discussions as well. This is a little bit
more than the usual arguing about orthography on the web 2.0. interfaces: here the
question is if it is acceptable to use Romanian words written with Hungarian spelling, or
words that remind of the Szekler dialect, all these mixed in a way that cannot be called
literary at all. Some users do not like this at all, for example, a user who comments the
entry Urdzsenca á la Kluzs1: “So, you also forgot to write in Hungarian there? But really:
what’s the sense of it, that everyone tries to be funny by creating such a degenerate mix of
standard and Szekler?” And the reply: “Who said that the Hungarian orthography is
essential on this blog? (...) Just hold on, supporting the Hungarian orthography and read
the Új Magyar Szó (New Hungarian Word) and the Hargita Népe (Nation of Hargita)2,
they write correctly and they don’t even try to be funny.” There are more arguments on
both sides: a part of the users rejects the mixing of other languages in Hungarian, but there
are some, who treat this issue more dynamically. They are of the opinion that the theme
and the medium legitimize a more special use of the language. Unfortunately, in some
cases it is hard to separate this special conceptual use from the mistakes.
Conclusions
The goal of my research was to explore the cultural tendencies among Hungarians from
Romania that are present in the virtual space, and the way this community deals with the
different situations resulted from cultural differences. These situations (often conflicts)
are frequent in the daily life of the mentioned group, and the Balkán Herald is a good
interface to share – and to examine – these experiences. The original objective of the site
was to share the stories with others, but due to the negative image of the Balkan, it got a
complaint-book function.
I have monitored the site from the beginning, so my first impressions,
hypotheses were born before analyzing the content. I could expand and reconsider these
1
The Romanian word urgenta (urgency) and the Romanian name of the city Cluj are written here
with Hungarian spelling, all this together with a French formula.
http://balkanherald.transindex.ro/?p=55 [14.11.2011]
2
Regional Hungarian newspapers
369
assumptions by the scientific methods. I tried to describe those differences that function
as a basis for people’s distancing from the Balkanic culture, and I tried to take into
consideration the characteristics of online communication regarding this subject.
Another issue was to observe the role of a community on such an interactive surface.
It was an interesting observation about the Balkanic-western opposition, that the
low-context culture does not appear as a positive model, because of its impersonal,
inhuman and consumption-oriented nature. However, it appears as a model in a latent,
unvoiced way, in opposition with the negative traits of high-context culture. It is very
hard to find a positive model in an explicit mode, and this can be special for the
community, but for the medium as well.
It is also interesting that in spite of the negative attitude that regards the
Balkans, the communication between the members also reflects the characteristics of
high-context cultures. This can be the influence of the medium as well, but it still gives
the impression of a less formal way of communication with strangers.
Furthermore, I assumed that the conflict mediating abilities of Hungarians from
Romania are more effective, because usually, the more cultures we know, the more
tolerant we are with others. But here I saw that those who travel to other countries and
experience other ways of living, have much more pretensions regarding the culture they
live in. I can explain this by the fact that it is easier to be tolerant with others and harder
to accept our own culture, when we are aware of our own weaknesses. From the point of
view of tolerance, the community has an important role, it can be compared in some
way with those traditional societies where the community played the key role in
mediating the conflicts. Of course, with many differences.1
The research of the public shows similar proportions regarding the content in
many aspects, but the answers to the more personal questions are sometimes surprising.
Based on the responses, users visit the site for entertainment, but their favourite category
is about scam stories. This is a little bit contradictory, because there is more fun in the
pictures that usually belong to the Balkanic design category, and among the scam stories
the complaining function is more evident. This may be because complaining can be a
form of entertainment, especially when someone does it in a superior way. In this case,
in addition to the moral satisfaction, the user can gain popularity.
Regarding the future of the blog, I thought earlier that the cultural differences in
Transylvania can maintain this interface for a longer time (these things do not change
from a day to another). The world of the internet changes faster, so the blog can decline
rather because the medium of community blogs becomes obsolete. This oracle seems to
be confirmed: now the structure of online communication is different, people reach the
contents on personal channel. Today if someone has a blog, or reads a blog entry, he
posts that on a community site and people comment it there, not at the original source.
But probably the opinion of the public on this topic – as long as the theme is actual in a
community – will find their way to be discussed, whatever channels are used.
1
In his book, Augsburger illustrates the mediating role of traditional communities with different
stories. Augsburger, Conflict Mediation Across Cultures, 188-228.
370
Images from the site
The dustbin expressed in future time, Balkán Herald
Note: “furat” means “stolen” in Romanian.
Piata M. Viteazu nr. 3-4 is the address where the dustbin belongs.
The local crossing, Balkán Herald
371
Break off your hands! Balkán Herald
Note: the text written in Romanian means: May the hands of the thief be broken!
The fact that Romanian people are usually religious also contributes to this curse.
Asphalt tango, Balkán Herald
372
Facefood, Lady Gaga on the manicure table and Others, Balkán Herald
Note: There are texts in Romanian and Hungarian too, but the most Balkanic aspect of
this photo is the text written in Romanian (with big letters): Do not try if you don’t buy!
This refers to the negative attitude of many people who work in customer service.
373
Vulnerabilities Built in the Identities and Future Orientation
of Roma Children and Youth
Maria ROTH
Sociology and Social Work, Babeş-Bolyai University, Cluj
Florina POP
Sergiu RAIU
Keywords: identities, vulnerability, Roma, self-esteem, future orientation
Abstract: The article is based on research with different age segments of Roma children
and youth, whose self-concepts are marked by the perceptions of the Roma identity in the
public opinion. The authors look at vulnerabilities reflected in the identities of Roma
school children of different ages, as they appear in children's self-esteem and future
orientation. We show fragments of testimonials of children living in Roma communities
and interpret them according to different psychological, psychoanalytical and social
approaches. We reveal some of the unifying elements of all children’s identity formation,
but also some of the context specific differential elements related to the development as a
Roma child, living in a specific neighbourhood and learning in a certain school. Our goal
is to draw attention to the mechanisms that can lower the educational aspirations of Roma
children and adolescents and might contribute to the appearance of frustration and thus the
reproduction of feelings of alterity and marginality.
E-mail(s): [email protected];
[email protected]; [email protected]
*
Introduction
Identity, situated at the core of the self, results in behavioural and affective outcomes, for
example to influence children’s and adolescents’ future orientation and career
aspirations. Needs and motivations lead to aspirations, goals and behaviours that
accompany development of children and youth. Self-efficacy, as the capacity to pursue
one’s goals, is a result of reflections on cognitive and psychosocial abilities and largely
influence outcomes as school performance and career attainment. In this paper we ask
ourselves and invite our young Roma interviewees to explain us how their ethnic
identity interferes with their future orientation and marks it with ethnically biased
negative emotionality due to the discrimination they perceive. Observing the numerous
acts of ethnic discrimination that surrounds the Roma in present days’ Romanian
society, though we understand the variance within this ethnic group, we presume that
discrimination is going to mark development and career aspiration of Roma children and
adolescents.
374
1. Reflections on the construction of identity and the ethnic identity of Roma youth
The social construction of identity, along with the social interactions that shape the
process of identity construction have been widely debated in the last couple of decades,
in all social sciences. Studies regarding identity construction in Roma have often
focused on ethnic identity and cultural identity, to describe Roma with strong social
networks inside the same community, low mobility rate and often difficulty and conflict
while exploring and affirming their own ethnic identity.1 We acknowledge here the
influence of Erikson’s ego development theory (1968) on the identity construction
process that combined individual and psychological elements of identity formation, with
social interaction concepts and envisages adolescence as having the main task to detach
from parents’ expectations to form their own sense of selves, career and other future
aspirations. Symbolic interactionist theories, originating with G. H. Mead, revealed the
symbols and meanings associated with human social behaviours and their effects on
expectations from selves and others. Identity Theory (IT) as developed later by Sheldon
Stryker23 and Peter J. Burke45 provides the necessary theoretical means for
understanding the interference of social and psychological influences: how selves
influence society by creating groups, institutions and networks, while being influenced
by society through language and meanings that enable the individual to engage in social
interaction by taking one role or another.6 Role-based identity and salience are the key
concepts in IT. The theory states that the roles taken by the individuals are central in
understanding identity construction, due to the positions they delineate for identity
formation.7 The individual’s reflections about self are influenced both by society and the
individual’s behaviour through the mechanism of role prescription transmission, a
component of the self.8 As people understand and perform their multiple roles in society,
they evoke different aspects of their selves, according to the salience of the role
appropriate identities. As role performers, individuals select among their own identities,
1
Florina Pop and Claudia Drăgulin, Identity building in the context of inter-generational social
reproduction: the voices of two Romanian Roma, (Iaşi: Analele Ştiinţifice ale Universităţii Ioan
Cuza 1/ 2012), 191- 208.
2
Sheldon Stryker, Identity competition: key to differential social movement involvement, in
Identity, Self, and Social Movements, eds. Sheldon Stryker, Timothy J. Owens, Robert W. White
(Minneapolis: Minnesota Press, 2000), 21-40.
3
Sheldon Stryker, “Identity theory and personality theory: mutual relevance”, Journal of
Personality 75 (2006): 1083- 1102.
4
Peter J. Burke, “Identity Processes and Social Stress”, American Sociological Review 56 (1991):
836-849.
5
Peter J. Burke, “Can You See What I See?”, in Control Systems Theories in Sociology, eds.
Kent A. McClelland and Thomas J. Fararo (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2005).
6
Jan E. Stets and Peter J. Burke, “A sociological approach to self and identity”, in Handbook of
Self and Identity, eds. Mark R. Leary and June Price Tangney (New York: The Guilford Press,
2003), 128- 152.
7
Michael A. Hogg, Deborah J. Terry and Katherine M. White, “A Tale of two theories: a critical
comparison of identity theory”, Social Psychology Quarterly 58 (1995): 255- 269.
8
Peter J. Burke, “The Self: measurement implications from a symbolic interactionist
perspective”, Social Psychology Quarterly 43 (1980): 18- 29.
375
according to the salience of the identity structure.1 By the roles taken in society,
individuals define themselves as objects in certain social positions in specific social
contexts. Referring to role-based identity, Deaux and Burke2 bring forward the idea that
the existence of socially defined shared meanings is reflected in both the assumption that
self is influenced by society and that shared meanings are incorporated in the
individual’s identity standard. Based on these ideas, ethnic identity development means
“that individuals learn about their culture, shared origins, geography, religion and their
language from individuals who are often connected by strong loyalty, and kinship as
well as proximity”3. Phynney places ethnic identity of dominant groups against that of
minority groups4. He reveals that both groups have to resolve the conflicts for being
either dominant or subordinated, thus being confronted with discrimination from one of
these two perspectives. This implies that members of a dominated minority group have
to face unpleasant experiences of manifest or latent, verbal or physical hostility or
violence and stereotyping, which they have to integrate in their individual and group
identity. More than this, they also learn to identify the individuals of the majority as
dominants, and react by exaggerated cautiousness or by aggressiveness.
Ethnic groups are hosts of identity ideologies of superiority or inferiority. In the
construction of the ideology of the ‘destructive’ group there is no place for discovering
the reality, or learning, or development. Building on the early thoughts of LeBon,
Hinshelwood describes group identities as either characterized by being destructive or
constructive for the individual identity formation. According to this grouppsychoanalyst, the effect of the destructive group is to distort individuality by its
ideology of being “disorganised, amoral, thoughtless of consequences, spreading a
contagion of emotion, pray to a loss of individuality (homogenization)”5.
2. Aspirations and future orientations by Roma children and youth
Adolescents’ thoughts about their future are of particular research interest since they
influence adolescents’ choices and presumably their future attainment. Oyserman and
Markus6 illustrate that future orientation predicts future behaviour, to the extent of being
a protective factor for delinquency. In addition, from the risk and resilience perspective,
Werner and Smith7 demonstrate that resilient adolescents succeed in developing positive
vocational plans, which finally help them overcome adversity.
1
Sheldon Stryker, “Exploring the Relevance of Social Cognition for the Relationship of Self and
Society,” in The Self-Society Dynamic: Cognition, Emotion, and Action, eds. Judith Howard and
Peter L. Callero (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991), 19–41.
2
Kay Deaux and Peter Burke, “Bridging identities”, Social Psychology Quarterly 73 (2010): 315-320.
3
Alicia Fedelina Chávez and Florence Guido-DiBrito, “Race and ethnicity in development”, in An
update on adult development theory: New ways of thinking about the life course, ed. M. Carolyn
Clark and Rosemary S. Caffarella (San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 1999), 42.
4
Jean S. Phinney, “Ethnic Identity in Adolescents and Adults: Review of the Research”,
Psychological Bulletin 108 (1990): 499–514.
5
Robert D. Hinshelwood, “Ideology and Identity. A Psychoanalitic investigation of a social
phenomenon”, in Psychoanalysis, Culture & Society (2009) 14, 131–148, p. 134.
6
Daphna Oyserman and Hazel Markus, “Possible Selves in Balance: Implications for
Delinquency”, Journal of Social Issues 46 (1990): 141- 157.
7
Emmy Werner and Ruth Smith, Overcoming the Odds: High-Risk Children from Birth to
Adulthood (New York: Cornell University Press, 1992).
376
In contrast to its definition in psychology, where future orientation is related to
optimism, self-confidence, positive illusions and other personality characteristics, the
sociological approach looks at future orientation in relation to adult attainment, while
focusing mainly on educational and occupational goals. It distinguishes aspirations and
expectations. Aspirations are defined as idealistic goals for future attainment, whereas
expectations stand for the possible or realistic outcomes that the individual elaborates.1
Future orientation is a complex and multidimensional construct, that results from a
process in which attitudes and assumptions based on previous experience on roles and
capabilities play a large part.2 Beal3 identifies available opportunities and socio-economic
status as important demographic variables that, besides personal characteristics and
abilities narrow the aspirations of adolescents. Seginer4 emphasizes the role of individual’s
past and present social environment in shaping his future orientation, as well as the role of
the macro system, encompassing the social and political structures within the society.
Similarly, Shelley5 argues that although micro-systems, such as family or school have an
important impact on adolescents’ future orientation, one’s social class, cultural orientation
or access to economic resources and opportunities are important to be accounted while
developing research on how adolescents envisage their future.
Drawing on the idea of aspirations as a wide range of desired future outcomes,
which eventually are restricted, Gottfredson6 shows the role of experiences gained by
adolescents that will eventually narrow their range of aspirations. According to this, in
the case of the Roma youth, their life and school experiences narrow the educational and
career aspirations of Roma youth. We presume that their ethnic identity which includes
some of the negative descriptors attributed to them by the dominant group, increases the
difficulty of Roma youth to develop future education and career aspirations7. Negative
identifications associated with experiences of being exposed to discrimination, to
stereotyping and having little or no recognition of their capabilities, often described in
previous research on educational status of the Roma8 are reflected in reduced aspirations
and expectations for career development, which is detrimental for their involvement in
school related activities. Not even the specially funded programs designated to equalize
1
Sarah Beal, “The Development of Future Orientation: Underpinnings and Related Constructs.”
(Theses, Dissertations, and Student Research: Department of Psychology, 2011).
2
Debra Lorna Shelly, “An Investigation into the Future Orientation of Indigent Culturally
Diverse Urban Adolescents” (Dissertation for degree of Master of Diaconiology, University of
South Africa, 2010).
3
Beal “The Development of Future Orientation: Underpinnings and Related Constructs.”
4
Rachel Seginer, Future Orientation: Developmental and Ecological Perspectives (New York:
Springer, 2009).
5
Shelley, “An Investigation into the Future Orientation of Indigent Culturally Diverse Urban
Adolescents.”
6
Linda S. Gottfredson, “Circumscription and Compromise: A Developmental Theory of
Occupational Aspirations”, Journal of Counselling Psychology 28 (1981): 545- 579.
7
Roth Maria and Moisa Florin, “The right to education of Roma children in Romania: European
policies and Romanian practices”, International Journal of Children's rights (2011): 127-148.
8
Enikő Vincze and Hajnalka Harabula, “Attitudes Toward Schooling And Ethnic Identification
in the Case of Roma from Romania”, in Social Ecology of School Success, ed. Maria Roth, Diana
Dămean, Lorena Văetişi, and Csaba Dégi (Cluj Napoca: Cluj University Press, 2010), 175-193.
377
chances of the young Roma and desegregate their education were able to bring the
expected changes in the number of youngsters to participate at higher levels of education
and involved in career development programs. Our research aims to contribute to
understanding why in spite of optimistic and politically correct policies, results are still
scarce. In the field of Romanian Roma adolescents’ aspirations, we acknowledge the
contribution made by Vincze,1 in the comparative study of ethnic differences in identity
formation and future aspirations of urban Roma youth. The study identified that the
school settings and educational policies reinforce the dominant discourse in society with
regard to Roma ethnicity, maintaining power inequalities and the status-quo of the Roma
status, despite individual exceptions.
3. Objectives, methods and sample
Our research is looking at the elements of Roma minority ethnic identity formation that
are marked by the negative characteristics associated to it by stereotypes, prejudice and
discrimination and how these influence the individual aspirations and future orientations
of Roma children and adolescents. Based on the testimonials collected from Roma
youth, the aim of the present study is to understand the resources and barriers that
adolescents identify as influencing their occupational aspiration. We look at the identity
construction process from the individual’s perspective, in our case Roma adolescents at
the point of completing their high school education, while trying to investigate the
vulnerabilities they are faced with and the influence of others in shaping their identity
and subsequently their future orientation, namely their career aspirations.
In our analysis, we followed three directions: (1) how do Roma children view
themselves in relation with the others; (2) how do adolescents perceive their identity; (3)
how do they describe their occupational aspirations, what resources and respectively
what barriers are they faced with in occupational aspirations’ attainment and (4) is their
reality reflected in a traumatic way, or does ecologic normality resolve in adaptation
processes that deepen the gap between Roma minority and the others’ way of life. We
use the concept of ecologic normality in the sense of the ecological system theory2 to
explain that certain behaviour might be adequate for a specific environment and might
be completely irrelevant and dis-adaptive for another environment. In our case, we
suggest that when understanding vulnerable Roma children and adolescents’ narratives
the reader has to keep in mind their context of life, which might have shaped their
adaptive mechanisms accordingly.
In the following section we look at testimonials collected 1. By discussing with
children aged 9-15 years old, out of school, during a group interview on the occasion of
a meeting of children with a volunteer whom they previously knew for joint educational
or entertainment activities3; 2. Revisit 22 interviews with Romanian Roma high school
adolescents (12 boys and 10 girls) of Roma ethnicity living in the North-Western region
1
Enikö Vincze, Ethnic Differences in Education in Romania: Community Study (Budapest:
Center for Policy Studies. Central European University, 2010).
2
Urie Brofenbrenner, “The Ecology of Human Development: Experiments by Nature and Design
(Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1979)
3
Data collected by one of the authors, Sergiu Raiu
378
of Romania1; and 3. Look at visual material like pictures drawn by Roma children and
photos taken on the landfill. Participants in the interviews were selected using snowball
method, by asking children to invite their friends to join.
For the data collection from high-schoolers, all participants attended urban
schools, while 13 had urban place of residence and 9 in the rural area. Adolescents were
aged 16-18, and were in the 10th, 11th or 12th grade, in technological fields of study
(forestry, industry, services, and technical profiles). The interviews were conducted in
the period March 2012- June 2012. In order to respond to ethical requirements, we asked
for informed consent from the participants for publishing anonymous fragments of their
testimonials. We informed the adolescents on the purpose of the research, the procedures
of the research, risks and benefits, voluntary nature of the research participation, the
participants’ right to stop the research at any point and the procedures used to protect
confidentiality. About 45 minutes of interview time was collected with each adolescent,
using the tape recorder as the source of data gathering. For issues of confidentiality and
anonymity, we will use pseudonyms while referring to all our participants. On analysing
the interviews, by following the major themes of our research, we reviewed the
interviews separately until we identified the common domains emerging from the data.
The children and adolescents who participated in the group interview live in the
area of the garbage dump nearby Cluj-Napoca, which has several settlements with
different degrees of deprivation and communities living mostly separated. A summer
day spent there, by the author SR, alongside the Roma children who wanted to cool
down around the nearby lake resulted in many testimonials on children’s and
adolescents’ lives. Conversations were winded around the questions of self perceptions,
perceptions of others and discrimination, future plans and personal resources. As
introduction, the interviewer asked: I would like to know you if you don’t mind; can you
tell me something about you? Something that you think is important, what you like and
you do not like; what do you wish for? The fragments presented below were translated
by the interviewer to present the messages of the interviewees as accurate as possible.
4. Children’s and adolescents’ testimonials
Dreams and opportunities
As all other children, they are open to suggestions, and wish to become loved and
respected. In Pata-Rât we met children who considered going to school as the
characteristic that distinguishes good, from bad behaviour, as their pastor told them.
“I want to be repented, to play and go to school, and I am starting school in
September. I like to write and draw and paint.” (Alexandra, 7, female, Pata-Rât).
Alexandra’s testimony shows that families and children from this remote Roma
community were prepared for schooling by the locally active repentant pastor, and
invited to join the religious community under his direction. Continuing the way of life of
their family is an important wish for teenage girls. Their future is painted with the
traditional colours of Roma women’s lives, helping their mother with the younger
brothers, and later having their own family and being good mothers.
“I like helping my mother, wash, take care of my brothers, my nephews, my
father, my mother …I like playing with girls and boys, with everybody. I wish to marry a
1
Data collected by one of the authors, Florina Pop, in the frame of her PhD research.
379
lad and have a child with him and care for him, not to forget about him, so he does not
get angry with his mother and father.” (Cosmina, female, 17, Pata-Rât).
Another teenage girl seems to follow the local pastor’s advice and take a
different path, which should keep her away from early child birth.
“I like helping my mother, but I wish to be a repentant. Because I like to be with
God. This means to sit next to God, so that one does not swear, not tell foolish things
and not have a lover. (Gerda, female, 14, Pata-Rât).
Roma children’s career dreams do not differ from other children’s dreams.
Seven years old Alexandra and ten years old Gabriela, want to become a physician,
thirteen years old Aurel wants to be a shepherd to take care of animals, eight years old
David wishes to become a policeman, and 10 years old Adi, wishes to become a wellknown, important person:
“I want to finish school, go to high-school and when I shall be big I want to
become a physician, to save people. When they have a fever, they should come to me, to
heal them.” (Aurel, 13, male, Pata-Rât).
“Since primary school I started dreaming of becoming someone” (Adi, male,
16, high-school, Bistriţa).
At a higher education level, some of the Roma adolescents met in the highschools envisioned getting a high school graduation diploma as their short-term plan.
They consider passing the graduation examination as decisive in shaping their future
career plans, and they describe different career plans, depending on the results of the
final examination.
In terms of achieving their short-term goals, like passing the high school
graduation examination or attending university, adolescents discussed the importance of
their personal characteristics, abilities and strengths in achieving occupational goals.
Participants considered that these characteristics are most relevant in the context of the
learning process at sch
ool in regard to their assignments and tasks for the graduation examination.
“I really want to graduate from high school and then go to college. Meanwhile,
I want to have a job.” (Cristi, 15, male, high-school, Bistriţa).
Self-confidence
Cristi has a goal, but he is also aware that he faces lots of obstacles. He describes that he
thinks of himself as strong enough to obtain his own resources, in spite of the scarcity of
the environments he lives in.
To start with, I think I would work just for the money, so I could pay for college:
as a sales person or anything else. I would like to start a project. For instance, to help
Roma children go to kindergarten or just help the needy. There are older people that do
not have a place to stay, their families just send them to nursing homes. I think this is my
dream. There are a lot of people who settle with graduating 8 classes, but I want to
become someone, to show people that a Roma can also become a kindergarten teacher
or can work somewhere higher.” (Natalia, 17, female, high-school, Bihor)
The great majority of Roma adolescents described their occupational aspirations
as highly influenced by their financial status, which, on the one hand, reduces the quality
of their study for their graduation examination, and on the other hand, determines their
decision to choose labour instead of prolonging education. They consider that they lack
the necessary financial resources to provide for tutoring, whereas this is a common
practice among their colleagues. The issue of transportation money was also a common
380
issue raised by the participants. The majority report having financial difficulties and thus
at times not being able to attend school due to lack of money. The decision to continue
their studies or to find a job after they graduate is considered as problematic for the
majority of them, even for those who are in high-school, because of the financial costs of
attending university, as the financial support provided through some educational
measures is insufficient. Participants use the word “dream” while discussing their
occupational aspirations, but they differentiate between their dream and what they
consider as achievable for them. They state that eventually, choosing one occupation or
another is a matter of choosing among the options that are available to them. Although
some adolescents identify resources for following their occupational goals, it is again
financial issues, like the need to provide for one’s family, which hamper their access to
the desired educational and subsequently occupational path.
“I don’t know if I will succeed. I hope I will. It’s difficult. It’s not about the
tuition money for the university, or about not becoming a state- funded student, because
this year I participated at the national Olympic contest for Romani language and earned
the first place. They have told me that because of this I can become a state-funded
student at any university. Considering this, you would think it is easy. But it’s not, when,
coming from our communities, you start to blend in, see this better world, compared to
what you leave at home. And you tend to stay here, but you can’t do this so easily, the
roots are too deep and it all very much depends on what happens at home. You can’t do
this because you know what you leave behind. The normal thing would be to do it,
sacrifice a few years and then go back and do a greater good. But it depends from case
to case. I, for example, have my doubts. I don’t know if I will continue my studies
because I have to find a job. I could work here, in Romania, I could manage, but I can’t
do this because my parents wouldn’t. This is why I can’t stay and study in Cluj, while my
family lacks the wherewithal. I might go and work abroad and send them money. In
what concerns a career, I would love to become a lawyer. I really want to study and
become a lawyer.” (Maria, 18, female, high-school, Cluj)
Family influences
The issue of family’s influence in shaping adolescents’ occupational aspirations and
perception of occupational attainment emerged in many of the interviews. For children
already in high-schools, family was the source of motivation, their inspiration and resource:
”For my mother, my education and me finding a good job…this means a lot to
her (...) And that motivates me a great deal.” (Tania, 17, female, high-school, Bihor)
The issue of family’s influence in shaping adolescents’ occupational aspirations
and perception of occupational attainment emerged in all the interviews. The majority of
the Roma adolescents described their families and especially their parents as a source of
support, encouraging them to take a career which would eventually provide them with a
higher social position than the majority of their family’s members. The adolescents’
perception is that parents advise them to follow the career path adolescents have chosen
and that they make a series of sacrifices in this respect, like financial loans. However, we
could sense an overall awareness of scarcity of resources and barriers that might impede
on their chances. It seems like the understanding of their parents’ vision on the
adolescents’ future depends on obstacles due to the fact that they are Roma. When they
talk about loans to invest in career education, an option often advertised in the media,
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they are aware that due to their ethnic origin their family would not be offered loans.
Most of the participants state that seeing their parents work so hard and struggle so much
motivates them to achieve more in terms of education and labour and, in result, to be
able to help them.
“Since primary school I started dreaming of becoming someone. I did not
consider myself as being very smart, but looking at my mother who only finished the
eighth grade having difficulties in finding a job and then working so hard for so little
money, that motivated me. She is always pushing me: go, do that, study! And that
motivates me a great deal.” (Tania, 17, female, high-school, Bihor)
Support people and inclusion
Besides family influences, participants indicate a series of persons who they believe
influenced them in deciding upon their future career. About half of our participants state
that they met these influential persons for their career choice in the school setting,
among their teachers or school counsellors.
”I like to learn. I like to hear about planes, deers, and sheep. I talked with my
teacher about what I want to be …” (Aurel, 9, male, Pata-Rât, attending special school).
We will refer to this aspect as school models, encompassing persons in the
school setting who are identified as models and their influence on adolescents’
occupational aspirations and one’s perception of occupational attainment. One
adolescent describes her kindergarten teacher as the person in school who stood very
close to her and determined her and her mother to grow fond of school and to have faith
in the possibility of a future career, which she now imagines as becoming a kindergarten
teacher. Another adolescent talked about the teacher in the tailoring courses and the fact
that this teacher advised her to become more confident in her abilities and skills, while
the other teachers treated her as an outsider because of her ethnicity. The other
adolescents described the school counsellors or other teachers in their school as
determining their choice for a career path, in their view. It is important to mention that
adolescents’ choice for a role model in the school context was described in a context
where a great share of their teachers and colleagues discriminated them, while the
teacher adolescents chose as a role model proves to be tolerant towards their ethnic
background. The adolescents who did not identify a person in the school context as
influential for their career choice mentioned the need for teachers to offer a model of
ethnic tolerance for students, or in one adolescent’s words:
“If teachers do not stop calling us names, neither will the students” (Gabriel,
17, male, Satu Mare).
Participants also identified as important for their career decisions persons who are
not part of their family or school setting, such as friends, neighbourhood and
nongovernmental organizations. Five of our participants perceived that their career choice
was determined by their relationship with counsellors or mentors, while taking part in
support programs developed by nongovernmental organizations. These relationships were
perceived as supportive for adolescents and extremely necessary, especially because they
participated in these programs at times when they felt they were extremely vulnerable and
at risk of making the wrong choices for their future. Other adolescents mentioned friends
or neighbours as key persons who determined their career choices.
“I had a mentor, God rest his soul! He died two years ago. He was also a
Roma. This was during the time my father was in jail. He was an old man, around 60.
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From him I learned about my rights and he enrolled me in a support program for Roma
youth. He was my role model. I think I want to have a job, become someone and be well
seen by everyone.” (Ovidiu, 18, male, Bistriţa-Năsăud).
The critical philosophy of children and adolescents
Adolescents’ and children’s testimonials are impregnated with their efforts to make
sense of their realities. Their philosophy is full of concrete life experiences and
represents an attempt to understand and to get understanding for their way of life. They
perceive the conflicts around them and have a developed critical view:
”My name is Fernando, I am 14. I do not like (to live) like this. I am worried,
and sad, do you understand me? I do not have a good house to stay, and a job to work,
to have my own money and to buy food. Here (he lives in the community on the Garbage
Dump) I had problems with my eyes, when I was younger one of my eyes was shot out
with a sling by another boy. I cannot see at all with one of my eyes, but I see a little with
the other. And I have no chance to stay in a proper place. My mother is poor, my father
is a drunk, and my brothers often shout and yell at him. How others are treating me?
Well, sometimes they fight, other times they get along, you understand?” (Fernando, 14,
male, Pata-Rât).
Some teenagers, like Fernando feel superior to the community he is living in,
and at the age of 14 he wishes to change it.
“Here are so many Gypsies; I was raised among Romanians, in the countryside, not here. I heard one can work here, but it is not true. I did not grow up here, not
among the Gypsies, therefore I do not like it here so much among the Gypsies. Some
consider me dumb or fool; why? I am like this, I would like if children spoke nicer to
each other, and if they did not curse; here people do not say good morning to each
other; I mean when people pass by each other, they go by without a word; when evening
comes, they should say hello and if children are around they should teach them, you
understand? not to curse.” (Fernando, 14, male, Pata-Rât).
Identity and experiences of discrimination
For some of those living in the closed Roma communities from Pata-Rât (on the garbage
dump), it is an adventure to be in the same place with people from the majority, even if
this does not depend on financial resources. On his way to the free swimming pool close
to the garbage dump, Cătă observed some non-Roma people who were already there
enjoying the free cool lake and the sun:
”We are not going there anymore. Look how fat they are! They do not1 let us
there. They are Romanians. Will not let us! (Why would the Romanians not allow you to
go there?). I am a Gypsy… they do not let me…they do not allow us, they say we bear
illness, and they bring police on us.” (Cătă, male, 9, Pata-Rât). Visibly frightened, Anto
(10, male, Pata-Rât) stayed behind and added: “They shouldn’t beat us!”
Some children are fearful, suspicious or mistrustful with the majority in spite of
attending schools with other children. When asked how they feel they are treated in
schools, and how their relations with their colleagues are, most of them mention
conflicting relationships and feeling discriminated.
1
will not allow
383
“Badly. They hit me at school when I write; they fight a lot.” (Aurel, 9, male,
Pata-Rât, special school).
“My class mates envy me because I play with my best friend, and they push me
down to the ground. If I want to play with them too, they do not play with me, they are
envious because we are friends.” (Gabriela, 10, female, primary school, Pata-Rât).
On this remote garbage dump area, different groups have stayed for longer or
shorter periods, so their previous histories as well as their sense of ownership of the
landfill are different. The relationships between these Roma communities are often
tensed, which is transmitted also to the children, so fighting and conflicts are common
accompaniments of life:
“Do you want to play with her too? Don’t, because she will bring the dog on us.
I like better to play here, because in Dallas all children are bad, they steel money from
other children. Children here are not fighting with me, and I can play with them.”
(Aurel, 9, male, Pata-Rât, special school).
Positioned on a higher social status, high-school students are able to turn
discrimination in a motivation to succeed:
“Nowadays it is very important to have a diploma because Roma are very
badly seen in society.” (Dorin, 18, male, Satu-Mare).
While referring to the transition to the labour market, Roma adolescents
describe their personal characteristics as less influencing their transition, while the
majority of them acknowledge that becoming employed and therefore, achieving one’s
occupational aspirations ultimately depends on:
“whether the employer gets by the fact that I am Roma and would like to get to
know me better.” (Remus, 16, male, Maramureş).
According to their testimonies, ethnic discrimination is reported as a barrier in
describing one’s occupational aspirations and subsequently perception of one’s aspirations
attainment. In this respect, all participants expressed their concern of not being able to
become employed, despite their educational attainment and professional skills.
“My ethnicity would be a problem when looking for a job. I don't know if the
employer would accept me. Maybe some of them will not want to meet me. Just like in
school, when children, before getting to know me, would make judgments. After they got
to know me, there were no more problems.” (Larisa, 17, female, Sălaj)
“…if you have an educational diploma, they think more of you. This is my only
chance to get a good job, earn some money and help my family. (Dorin, 18 , male, SatuMare)
Despite the fact that all adolescents named discrimination as the most
significant barrier standing in the way of their occupational aspirations attainment, they
also hoped that their high school and afterwards their university graduation diploma
would protect them from employers’ social prejudices against Roma.
Housing conditions
Children did not talk much about their housing situation, but we had seen some of their
drawings. A psychologist or a teacher that would look at the drawings would tell that
children have not yet acquired the minimal graphic representations of such simple forms
as a house, a road, a tree or flowery gardens. In fact, many of children’s drawings are just
realistic. They draw the barren hills, roofless houses, and rarely use colours, neither do
384
they draw the sun that is so often present in other children’s drawings. Andreea’s home is
in the modules built by the mayor’s office when 56 Roma families were relocated from the
inner city to the garbage dump in Pata-Rât. She is 9 and lives in a 16 square meters single
room with her parents and brothers (no kitchen), using the common toilet, shared with
other four families in one of the match boxes she drew. The thin walls do not protect her
family from the cold weather, and there is no road from the hills to the establishment.
Children playing at the landfill
385
More complex, the drawing of Rafael shows that on the top of the hill there are
actually two rows of dwellings, exactly 10 match boxes, 3 trees and 2 of the families
even have cars. The surrounding small huts represent the other Roma communities of
the area. Rafael did not forget the packs of dogs, that threaten children in this
environment, or the garbage dump, where grown-ups and children work all day long to
recycle.
4. Discussions
Children’s testimonials are impregnated by the burden of their exposure to poverty,
often violent and insecure environments, improper housing conditions and the lack of
financial resources, and their experiences of discrimination. Listening to them clarifies
what it means to be part of the ostracized Roma ethnicity and how large the existing gap
of chances really is in spite of the antidiscrimination laws and the equal access social
policies of the recent years.
Roma children and adolescents view themselves differently compared to nonRoma persons. Depending on their position and age they see themselves more or less
exposed to threats coming from the non-Roma. Those in the remote Roma community
often express fears of violence, although they also mention that violence is threatening
them in their own communities, too. All the same, Roma children and adolescents also
wish for help from support people outside their community and are grateful when they
get it.
Looking at identity formation from Phynney’s point of view, who considered
ethnic identity of dominant groups against that of minority groups,1 Roma children’s
1
Jean S. Phinney, “Ethnic Identity in Adolescents and Adults: Review of the Research”,
Psychological Bulletin 108 (1990): 499–514.
386
testimonials go in the direction that they feel subordinated to the majority population.
We agree with this author that in the future both groups have to reflect on their own
position of being either dominant or subordinated and reduce chances of discriminating
and being discriminated.
As for the future orientation of the interviewed children, Roma children and
teenagers do not seem to lack aspirations or imagination in career planning. Some girls
are marked by traditional family models, and some testimonials showed that teenagers
lack options for the future, especially when they were aware of their disadvantages. On
the other side, several others were also aware of their capabilities and were committed to
school. Although some high-school students talked about the discrimination they expect
in the future employment, testimonials also showed that the main resource they had was
self-confidence in their own personality, but they were not equipped with information on
where and how they can get social and legal help. Perhaps acknowledging this finding
could open new paths to social programs oriented to career development of Roma youth.
Children who shared their experiences with the interviewers seemed capable of
responding to the challenges of their environment in an age appropriate way. Attached to
their families, they were capable to talk about violent experiences and hardships. Their
reluctance to surpass the frontiers of their own community is an effect of their traumatic
experiences with police and other officials, but also non-Roma adults and peers, but they
are capable of forming trustful relationships with school-mates, teachers, professionals,
volunteers and other friendly visitors.
Conclusions
Our data collected from the interviewed children and teens did not confirm
Hinshelwood’s1 suggestion that being part of a marginalized and disadvantaged group
necessarily has a destructive effect on the identity formation of its young people. Highschool students and even most of the children living on the garbage dump proved to be
aware of their needs, to believe in their individual strength and own capabilities, to be
sometimes critical and to see the barriers they are faced with and accept help when
offered.
Testimonials only partly confirmed what Gottfredson2 affirmed about negative
experiences of marginalized adolescents – that will eventually narrow their range of
aspirations – and largely showed that Roma adolescents who get support from families,
social programs or mentors are perseverant in wanting to overcome poverty and
discrimination. Others who are not so lucky to have support are still hoping for it, and
are open to suggestions, whether it comes from religious backgrounds, charity or human
rights based programs.
The interviewed children were ready to share experiences and showed how
much similar they are with other children. Although we assumed they will show more
negative emotions and cautiousness, or be more family oriented and preserve status-quo,
many of the children and adolescents who talked to us saw opportunities to improve
1
Hinshelwood, “Ideology and Identity. A psychoanalytic investigation of a social phenomena”
Gottfredson, “Circumscription and Compromise: A Developmental Theory of Occupational
Aspirations”.
2
387
social status starting with career orientation. They wanted to improve their own status,
and change family trajectories by their own efforts, taking advantage of the chances they
got with the help of families or mentors.
Our research has hopefully contributed to the understanding of the
consequences of insufficient social policy measures to address the segregation of Roma
in socially deprived housing areas and to improve the employment chances and work
conditions of Roma people. Though such measures can contribute to the survival of poor
Roma families, and sometimes they allow access to higher education, they leave a large
unstructured space where discrimination and the lack of resources can easily annihilate
all the efforts to end marginalization made by social programs, by the Roma families, by
volunteers and most importantly by the children themselves to integrate in the
mainstream society.
388
Urban Landfill, Economic Restructuring
and Environmental Racism
Enikő VINCZE
Keywords: urban marginality, neoliberalization, environmental racism
Abstract: The article describes urban marginality in Cluj (Romania) as it has developed
in recent years and has transformed the town’s landfill into an inhabited area that hosts
today approximately 1500 persons. The author observes that Anti-Gypsy racism
becomes an important building block of neoliberalization as it “justifies” evictions and
residential segregation by racializing ethnic Roma. She states that in cases when
residentially segregated spaces are located nearby polluted areas (landfills, water
treatment plants, chemical factories or deposits) the analysis of the phenomenon should
observe how environmental racism dehumanizes poor Roma and pollutes the milieu
where they are forced to live.
*
Urban marginality: spaces of poverty in neoliberal regimes
Advanced urban marginality is, according to Waquant,1 the new form of social
exclusion in neoliberal regimes. Advanced marginality has several characteristics such
as accumulation of economic penury, social deprivation, ethno-racial divisions, and
public violence in the same distressed urban area. This type of expulsion does not stem
from economic crises or underdevelopment; it is rather the resultant of economic
restructuring and its unequal economic effects on the lowest faction of workers and
subordinated ethnic categories, as the author cogently demonstrates. The specific

This article is linked to the author’s presentation at the series of events organized by the doctoral
school “European Paradigm” at Babes-Bolyai University of Cluj-Napoca, with the topic
“University for a just society”. The series aimed at offering occasion for critically discussing on
the social role of knowledge production, on university education as public good, on the function
and positioning of the university in today’s society, but as well as about the public intellectual
who practices his/her academic carrier assuming social and moral responsibilities. On April 23,
2013 our debates focused on the topic “Landfill and environmental racism” (with the participation
of Mihaela Beu, expert in environmental protection, sociologist dr. Cristina Raţ and
anthropologist dr. Enikő Vincze, university teachers at BBU, founding members of the Working
Group of Civil Society Organizations). By this very event the organizers were also marking the
World Day for Safety and Health at Work (28th of April), observing the inhuman conditions in
which informal landfill workers labour, among others in the city of Cluj, Romania. Most
importantly, this article builds on experiences gained by the author from her involvement into
local civic activism against segregation (www.gloc.ro) and into research concerning spatialization
and racialization of social exclusion (www.sparex-ro.eu).
1
Loïs Waquant, Urban Outcasts. A Comparative Sociology of Advanced Marginality (Oxford:
Polity Press, 2008).
389
advanced urban marginality that emerges in full-blown and global neoliberal economic
and politic context has to be distinguished from former forms of urban poverty, which
has been a characteristic feature of earlier stages of capitalism and, we may add, of late
socialism in Romania. A series of factors make advanced urban marginality particular.
According to Waquant these include: expansion of “free market”; commodification of
social life; polarization of economic growth; fragmentation of paid work; transformation
of occupation and increasing incidence of informal and unsecured jobs; autonomy of
street economy in degraded urban areas; lack of jobs; de-proletarianization of the most
vulnerable factions of the working class; public policies focusing on cutting welfare
budgets and abandonment of urban regulations.
Marginalization comes with its own distinct local history and form. Specific
local articulations of the welfare states and/or of the market, dominant classification
systems, and particular regimes of urban poverty structure its shape. Thus, we need to
approach this phenomenon in the context of local realities and economic-political
regimes, new and old ones. In the followings, I elaborate on the evolution of urban
marginality in Cluj (Romania) that resulted in a residential space nearby the town’s
landfill, which is home now for around 1500 people. I rely on my already mentioned
personal and professional experiences as activist and as academic/researcher.1 As for
theoretical premises (as stated above) I build on Waquant’s analytic scheme,2 and as
well as on the frame elaborated by Smith.3 The latter tracks changes in racial segregation
in Great Britain, more precisely the way politics constructs this problem and tries to
solve it relying on its conceptions about race. The author observes that all major
decisions regarding housing in Great Britain after WWII have had direct and cumulative
impact on racial division of residential spaces. In addition, she notes that inequalities
have persisted in these particular systems not only as an effect of material forces (i.e.
production and distribution of resources, including those regarding housing), but also
because decisions have been legitimated by what has been considered normal, rational,
and tolerable in liberal democracy.
1
The research “Spatialization and rasialization of social exclusion” is conducted by a team
including Cătălin Berescu, Adrian Dohotaru, László Fosztó, Hajnalka Harbula, Norbert Petrovici,
Cristina Raţ, Anca Simionca and others, with whom we are also sharing activist initiatives.
2
My analysis follows the six characteristics of urban marginality as identified by Waquant, which
I am referring to in the context of the city of Cluj, Romania. These characteristics include: paid
job becomes a vector of social instability and uncertainty, while living conditions continuously
worsen in these areas independently of macroeconomic trends; territorial designation and
stigmatization of these more and more isolated and marked spaces as ones only those exiled from
normality can “wish” to live, and which transfers its stigma to the inhabitants. Politics of place (of
the Afro-American ghetto as place that protect from insecurities generated by the system)
becomes policy of space (a hyperghetto as a battlefield where the aim is to survive). Given the
lack of jobs and de-proletarianization of large masses of people, individuals cannot rely on
informal networks but on individual strategies for self-support. There is social and symbolic
fragmentation, inability to organize and make coalitions and mobilize around a collective
imagery.
3
Susan J. Smith, The Politics of ꞌRaceꞌ and Residence. Segregation and White Supremacy in
Britain (Oxford: Polity Press, 1989).
390
Environmental racism
The mainstream landfills of Romania are not ecological. Despite of adhering to the
European norms regarding this domain, the country is still full with traditional garbage
dumps, and toxic systems of collecting, storing and processing the waste.
The case of Pata Rât is one of the cruellest manifestations of this phenomenon.
After decades in which the issue of the landfill of Cluj-Napoca was silenced and
neglected, during the past few years it entered into the public agenda of political and
media discourses as a matter of polluted natural environment, or as an “ecological
bomb” which needs to be “greened” and replaced by a “new waste management system”
using European funds. However, the agenda of this environmentalist kind of intervention
was totally lacking any social dimension, it was crucial for providing at least implicit
recognition of the toxicity of the area. When local activists approached the County
Council with claims regarding people living on or nearby the landfill for different
reasons (among others because they have been relocated there by local authorities from
other parts of the city, or because they settled there “voluntarily” while looking for cheap
housing conditions), and also with demands regarding the landfill workers who for
decades assured the waste selection for the whole municipality and its surroundings
without any labour rights and protection, representatives of this administrative body stated
that they implemented a “technical project that could not have a social dimension”.1
Described in a historical and contextual frame in this article, the formation of
the Cluj landfill as a space of precarious and stigmatized housing and labour, is a site of
environmental racism. In the local context this consists of a set of development policies
and practices, and economic activities that places dispossessed social categories
(self)identified by racialized elements (such as the colour of the skin) in polluted natural
environments, or that locates polluting industries into areas inhabited by these “types of
people”. Moreover, I consider that in our case environmental racism also refers to the
deliberative lack of public policies and practices, which might counterbalance such
developmental mechanisms that benefit particular persons and corporations, while
inferiorizing and marginalizing those whose labour force they exploit. Environmental
racism functions at the intersection of polluting the natural milieu, and of marginalizing
social categories inferiorized by racial identification.
Landfill in Cluj and racialized urban marginality
Dwelling in improvised buildings on and around the landfill (in the area of Pata Rât) is a
case of advanced marginality, an instance of spatialization and racialization of social
1
The critique of racist, classist and limited activist agenda of environmental movement is
documented for example by the volume “Environmental Justice and Environmentalism. The social
justice challenge to the environmental movement”. Its reflection on the way in which environmental
goods and decisions are distributed, or on the environmental justice challenge to environmentalism,
or more broadly on how besides race, “economic status, elitism and economic disparity are
significant factors in the unequal siting of environmentally undesirable land uses, routine
marginalization from environmental decision-making processes, and denial of just compensation
and informed consent in environmental matters”, might offer us relevant reference points in
addressing the way of thinking and network of interests behind the “socially neutral” development
projects (Introduction: Revisiting the Environmental Justice Challenge to Environmentalism, eds.
Phaedra C. Pezzullo and Ronald Sandler (Cambridge, Massachusetts: The MITT Press, 2007), 8.
391
exclusion in urban areas. This form of precarious housing has changed drastically (both in
quantitative and qualitative sense, meaning numerical growth and deepening poverty,
respectively) during transformations of urban political economy from socialism to postsocialism. From a material perspective, in this case “growth” goes together with worsening
conditions, multiple deprivation and insecurities, which are reproduced from one
generation to the next. From a social perspective, tensions of informal and underground
economy – based on exploitation of the most vulnerable – grind down various groups
according to how drastic is their isolation from the rest of the city. Symbolically, city
dwellers cut off the entire area from a proudly held image of the multicultural city of Cluj.
The symbolism of disposed waste is associated with people living nearby the landfill,
while inhabitants embody odours and dirtiness of this toxic environment, and stigma
attached to the milieu becomes integral part of their self-identification and the image
others have on them.
Compelled to use Pata Rât as home and workplace, the population of the area has
increased from four families living there in the 1960s (in the centre of the old landfill) to
nearly 1500 individuals living there today in four different settlements: Dallas, garbage
dump, Cantonului street and new Pata Rat/Colina Verde. Out of them circa 42% were
moved there by local authorities under different circumstances, but probably under the
same “justification” that constructed a humiliating “argument” between people-to-bemoved there and the environment (while many of them are not working on the landfill).
Roma people make up the overwhelming majority of inhabitants. They live in extreme
poverty, substandard housing conditions, even though personal and collective histories of
social exclusion produce various degrees of advanced marginality structured by the
immediate physical, social, and economic space of the landfill, and by the wider political
and economic context of the city and of the country. The images from below reflecting
access to water express differences in social status of inhabitants within this common
segregated space, which is in the same time internally divided.
Divisions in the common, but internally divided segregated space of Pata Rât
through photos
1.
The source of water in the landfill
392
2.
The water pump on Cantonului street
The bathroom in Colina Verde/New Pata Rât
393
Some of the inhabitants of Pata Rât (around 300 persons in Dallas and 200
persons on the landfill, although their number fluctuates according to seasons, majority
of them being Roma) get there by their “own will” (however, constrained by socioeconomic shortages that provided them with very restricted alternatives, or betterly put,
cut them off other choices). They have come on their own (as individual families) or as
members of informal social networks (generally bounded by kinship ties, or by
neighbourhood relations, crossing the boundaries of the city and even of Cluj county).
Patron-client-like financial dependence, usury, or informal commercialization of
electricity (in other words, formal and informal economic authorities on the spot) on the
one hand, and support of a neo-protestant Dutch foundation1 on the other makes up the
web on which cohesion and “discipline” in Dallas and on the landfill stands. There is a
fine line between security and support, and exploitation in the life of this self-contained
community, who is suspicious of every external element that is seen as dangerous to
their limited resources or informal organization, including underground economic forms.
Starting with the end of 2002, the mayors’ office has relocated to Pata Rât area
(more precisely to Cantonului street) – one by one or in small groups – families evicted
from other parts of the town (Byron street, NATO block of Gheorgheni, Hangman’s
House, Cipariu Square, the basements of blocks in Mănăştur, former working class
neighbourhoods, etc.) by administrative measures. Today, more than 130 families live
on the Cantonului street, which hosted only 5 families at the beginning of 2003. Above
those settled here by authorities, over half of the families established there informally
and “willingly”, some of them have come from outside Cluj, many through lines of
various underground economic networks. The population in Cantonului colony is
extremely heterogeneous. It is grouped and fragmented on nuclear or extended families,
having a set of extremely tense, even violent relations of cyclical mutual contestation,
and a high level of mistrust regarding any kind of internal or external organization
susceptible of intervening in the inner order. It is also marked by relations of financial
dependence related to usury, procurement, and informal commerce with electricity.
Newcomers to Pata Rât are those 300 persons evicted from Coastei street under
the regime of Mayor Apostu in December 2010, where they constituted a relatively
cohesive community (a mosaic of several kinship networks, but also families not related
to them). They hold on to the idea that they belong to the city; school and workplace
have linked them to the town. They were moved into 40 apartments of modular houses
allocated to them on contractual basis as “social dwellings” on the site named by
authorities “Colina Verde”; other 30 or so families who did not get any alternative
housing after eviction during winter time and remained practically without a dwelling,
were told to build “illegal” shelters on parcels given to them “informally”. During the
almost two years of living there, they showed capacity to organize and manage
themselves: they made efforts for sending their children to their old schools, tried
solving access to public transport, and began building new shelters and extended
infrastructure of utilities. Probably, their capacity building and mobilization has been
aided by the involvement of many local and international organizations (gLOC,
Amnesty International, European Roma Rights Centre), which intervened to support
community claims addressed to local authorities.
1
Their presence culminated in 2012 with the acquisition of the terrain of old Dallas, which has
become a “private neighborhood” owned by Pro Roma Foundation.
394
Internal dynamics of housing in Pata Rât, just outlined above, takes shape in a
larger context, involving wider mechanisms, whose intersectionality places poor ethnic
Roma in positions of advanced racialized marginality. Wider context include: deindustrialization of economy, resulting in the fact that many former industrial workers
today have access only to precarious jobs (unstable, informal, poorly paid, toxic);
privatization of public dwelling stock and deregulation of estate market, so the most
vulnerable tenants structurally cannot afford decent housing that satisfy national and
international legal standards; withdrawal of central and local public administration from
distribution of housing resources in the case of poor, while they favour the interests of
the more privileged by the way in which they support the privatization of public spaces;
this kind of actions dispossess marginal groups by eviction, while “deserving” people
become owners of estates left empty by “undeserving” ones; criminalization of those
who fail securing a house on “free market”, which is closely related to blaming the poor
because they are poor; public discourses, both political and media, that associate
Gypsies with poverty and/or garbage collectors; everyday discourses that use the
category of “Gypsy” to identify the unwanted utter otherness, and thus to circumscribe
all that is considered to be unworthy of modernity and civilization – with which even the
poor belonging to the mainstream society wants to identify, and tries in this way, at least
symbolically, to minimize the effects of their own economic misery.
In the following, I am going to outline how these mechanisms have worked
across different political and economic regimes, and to show how particular definitions
and conceptualizations of “Roma policies” were instrumental in the implementation of
different regimes’ plans for economic growth. It will be observed that alongside with
economic growth strategies and Roma policies, power regimes also legitimized
particular identity constructions and classifications of citizens.
Socialist legacy – Roma transformed into Romanian workers
Socialist authorities justified the disbandment of a compact Roma colony on Bufniţei
Street in Cluj during the 1960s resorting to the belief that socialist economic growth
based on industrialization and urbanization was going to solve problems related to
majority’s (non)acceptance of Roma. On their part, Roma paid the price for embarking
on this type of assimilation by renouncing their language, traditional crafts, and cultural
customs since all of them qualified as “inferior” or “pre-modern” compared to majority
culture, or in a more general sense compared to an ideal of the “new socialist man”.
National communist regime did not give recognition to Roma as national minority and,
contrary to Hungarians, they had been put through a process that transformed them into
workers and Romanians. Such a transformation was seen as a positive trajectory for
their social mobility and civility. Large-scale construction of blocks of flats and worker
neighbourhoods assured a relative success for this type of ethno-national politics. This
minority policy worked out relatively well also because it fitted mainstream policies of
the socialist era’s social engineering.
Apparently not more than a socio-economic investment into urban development,
this was also informed by national-communist imagery. The newly built city districts
(and the industrialization that made them necessary and supported them) had also the
role to transform the ethnic landscape of the town (changing its name from Cluj to that
395
of Cluj-Napoca in 1974). Before 1956 Cluj was a preponderantly Hungarian town, the
parity in its ethnic structure had been reached in 1956, and, as later censuses showed, the
percentage of ethnic Hungarians decreased steadily until today when they ended up
representing only 16% of the population. Socialist state devised economic and ethnonational policies, including categorization of citizens, and transformed “Gypsies” into
universal citizens defined as Romanian workers. Roma were getting apartments in
blocks of flats and worked mainly as unskilled or skilled blue collars in local factories.
Other Romani groups from Cluj, the Gabor Gypsies for example, continued to work in
those traditional crafts that assured their living in the shadow of socialist industrial
production. Still others, musicians called “lăutari” gained a sort of recognition in the
entertainment industry. Roma’s older history (that transformed them into subjects of
assimilation policies in Transylvania, and slaves in the Romanian provinces) has not
been a subject of moral or financial reparation during socialism. Consequently, socialist
regime reproduced their relatively deprived economic condition as well as their
presumed cultural inferiority, both of which have been worsened after 1990.
The landfill in Pata Rât of Cluj (part of Someşeni, which was an independent
administrative unit) was established at the end of the sixties in a place that became to be
known later as Dallas. At the beginnings, four Roma families lived there. They came
from a village not far from Cluj, named Dezmir. The landfill grew together with the city
and the spread of industrialization. (According to the census in 1966, there were 185663
people living in Cluj, in 1992 the population was of 328602 individuals and today,
counting students of various universities, there are 450000 persons producing large
quantities of waste daily.)
Post-socialist legacy in the nineties: losers of state withdrawal from estate market
Besides the long and tricolour reign of the nationalist mayor Gheorghe Funar (an
important actor in the transformation of socialist workers into post-socialist Romanians),1
the Caritas pyramid game dominated the public life of the nineties in Cluj. The landfill
witnessed a boom regarding the quantity of waste deposited there, a situation that pulled
many poor (mostly Roma) families to the landfill, families who were looking for income
and cheap housing conditions. Caritas meant huge gains for some and the landfill has
begun to look like a good business opportunity for entrepreneurs in waste management.
However, Caritas also meant comparable high volume loss for others, especially for those
who had sold their belongings hoping returns for would-be successful financial
investment. A few people warned and protected by the Caritas system gained a lot; but the
majority of players were losers, many of them lost their lifetime savings.
Moreover, the landfill became a space of financial dependence and exploitation
of those who could not sell anywhere else their unskilled manual labour. All these
1
As Petrovici aptly demonstrates, Funar’s ethno-nationalism legitimized workers presence in Cluj
after the collapse of socialist industry, which has made workers redundant. Funar articulated the
right to the city for the working class in terms of Romanian people’s right to Cluj in relation with
ethnic Hungarians, while showing affinities with the frustration of workers related to the idea that
they were robbed and dispossessed (Norbert Petrovici, “Articulating the Right to the City: Workingclass Neo-Nationalism in Postsocialist Cluj, Romania”, in Headlines of Nationalism, Subtexts of
Class, eds. Don Kalb and Gabor Halmai (New York and Oxford: Bergham Books, 2012).
396
happened in the midst of massive de-industrialization and privatization of state owned
industrial companies, which resulted in de-proletarization of tens of thousands workers,
who became unemployed. Changes put the heaviest burden on unskilled or poorly
skilled workers whose chances to integrate into the new “free labour force market” were
structurally very limited.1 In that period, private construction industry absorbed some of
the manual, skilled and unskilled labour force. For example, many of ethnic Roma who
lived on Coastei, but also in other parts of the city, were hired or worked informally in
constructions.
Alongside these local and national phenomena, what regards housing,
Romanian post-socialist transition meant massive privatization of dwelling stock.2 This
happened through different processes. Firstly, former owners – dispossessed during
socialist nationalization of properties – gained back their properties in a process of
restoring their rights according to what they owned before socialism. Secondly, tenants
of blocks of flats apartments, which had been distributed to them during socialism from
their workplace, gained the right (which they did not know that it also was a great
burden) to buy the formerly rented dwellings. Thirdly, the state almost completely
abandoned construction of dwellings (excepting the so-called “ANL houses”3, which
1
Updates on these processes culminate in the alarming data about poverty in Romania.
According to EUROSTAT statistics in 2008, 17% of employed individuals lived below the
poverty threshold, while the risk of poverty for women was of 23%, and for men 21.4% in 2009;
the most affected were persons above 65 years. While in UE27, 23% of citizens experienced
poverty risk and social exclusion in 2010, in Romania 41% were in the same situation. Further,
according to National Statistical Institute, in the first trimester of 2012, Romanians spent 43.3% of
their income on dwelling (for equipment, improvement and utility bills), and 40.8% on food and
non-alcoholic beverage.
2
As shown by EUROSTAT data, since it has become member of the European Union, Romania
has been on the first place regarding the percentage of homeowners without bank loans (95.3%).
Although apparently a positive situation, this indicator does not refer to high-level quality
housing. Quite on the contrary, it shows that the once celebrated popular governmental measure
implemented in 1990 has proved to be a trap for the population, being actually a measure that has
diminished state responsibility regarding citizens’ housing needs and refurbishing the old socialist
blocks of flats. In the same year, the rate of overcrowded housing was also the highest in Romania
(55.3%, compared to 17.7% in EU27) and the percentage of those who lacked toilet in the
dwelling was 42.5% (compared to the European average of 3.5%). Further, in 2009 Romania’s
population confronted the highest level of housing deprivation in the EU (indicator that measures
financial access to dwelling, physical proximity of local services and access to housing):
compared to the 5.9 % average in the EU27, 28.6% of Romanian citizens were confronted with
this problem:
http://epp.eurostat.ec.europa.eu/statistics_explained/index.php/Housing_statistics#Further_Eurost
at_information
3
ANL (Agenţia Naţională de Locuinţe), National Housing Agency was established in 1998 and it
is subordinated today to the Ministry of Regional Development and Tourism. At the beginning,
the Agency built new houses or refurbished older ones, which were sold through mortgage. On its
website it is stated that the Agency was the first institution from Romania offering housing credit
and it was the main promoter of the country’s mortgage market. In 2003 the Agency established
public-private partnerships with several banks, so today its mortgage program is solely financed
by banks. Since 2001, ANL also implements a program for constructing houses dedicated to
397
proved to be a public project privatized by those who were well-positioned in political
and economic hierarchies). The presumably “free housing market” has become in fact a
market of estate speculations and for those in key positions has had important contribution
to primitive capital accumulation. Deregulation of estate gave a free hand to those close to
information regarding political decisions on urban terrains and public spaces. All this
converged to privatization of estates by local entrepreneurs supported by Romanian law,
corruption and local networks of bureaucracy, which gave them protection.
Transformations have had the most negative impact on tenants of formerly
nationalized and now returned dwellings. They have been evicted without receiving any
state support or compensation. Manual workers were also hit hard; lost their jobs that
would have given them material resources to buy apartments they had received from
socialist enterprises or to pay the costs of utilities. Young generations were another
vulnerable category; growing up in poor families without properties, they could not
access housing on the “free” estate market due to structural inequalities they were
subjected to. Consequently, they started to be evicted from their former apartments
(some of them who did not enjoy protective informal networks withdrew in woods,
parks, under bridges or basements of block of flats) and increased the number of
individuals who lived in improvised or abandoned buildings. The state ignored, or at
best tolerated this situation for a while. Non-interventionism on the part of the state
deepened the chronic lack of affordable and adequate housing. Non-intervention created
long-term social implications of denying many people the right to decent housing.1
2000s – the racialization of segregated residential space in the landfill
Anti-Gypsy pogroms in rural areas in the 1990s, which appeared in the context of
privatizing land and agriculture, were the first signs of racialization of citizenship and
interethnic conflicts stemming from issues of using public and private space. During
these pogroms, Romanians and Hungarians tried to banish Roma from villages (for
example in Kogâlniceanu, Hădăreni or Plăieşii de Sus) burning down their houses,
holding that Roma became not only useless for local economy but also dangerous for the
sacred nature of private property and community order.
The same phenomenon, although in a more subtle institutional form, appeared
later in urban settings: while considering intensification of privatization as taken for
granted and desirable, and sustaining that market logic should prevail in housing, local
authorities started to “clean up” the town starting with the most vulnerable. They evicted
youth under the age of 35, which are distributed by local councils. Owners may first rent, and
after one year may buy these apartments.
1
The right to housing is the right to “live somewhere in security, peace, and dignity … [and]
should be ensured to all persons irrespective of income or access to economic resources”. United
Nations Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights stipulates seven criteria of decent
housing: legal security of tenure; availability of services, materials, facilities and infrastructure;
affordability; habitability; accessibility; location which allows access to employment options,
health-care services, schools, child-care centers and other social facilities – all these for a
reasonable price. United Nations Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights comment
on “The right to adequate housing” (Art.11 (1)), 12/13/1991:
http://www.unhchr.ch/tbs/doc.nsf/(Symbol)/469f4d91a9378221c12563ed0053547e?Opendocument
398
vulnerable groups from areas integrated in the city’s circuits and pushed them off to the
margins of the city. Local authorities gave several reasons for their actions ranging from
an emphasis on urban regeneration (framing it as a neutral technical intervention), to
supporting elitism in the city (“in the distribution of social housing we take into
consideration that Cluj is a university city and we have to promote university graduates
in this matter”). Other reasons were the “repeated complaints” of neighbours or “tenants
who refused to accept Roma as neighbours” (thus authorities took off their shoulders the
responsibility of non-discrimination and transferred the matter on the allegedly selfdefensive anti-Gypsy attitude of majority population). Moreover, there were some
cynical and false arguments stating that “eliminating poverty zones” in downtown and
moving tenants out, is a first step toward “improving quality of life” and “social
inclusion” (of Roma).1
At the turn of 2002-2003, authorities chose to evacuate Roma from several
places of Cluj and moved them to Cantonului Street, in the Pata Rât area, providing
them with some metal barracks.2 Back then, public opinion already saw Pata Rât as the
space of waste, misery, garbage, wilderness, of things thrown away and hidden out of
sight of the city’s “civilized” population. People living in Cantonului Street are
themselves connected to the waste industry. The majority of those who work in formal
economy (around half of the active population) have found employment in one of the
local sanitation companies. Some of them go every now and then on the landfill.
Meanwhile, the city landfill already extended south, while Dallas, the older
wasteland, was “ecologized” (disintegrating waste was covered by a layer of soil) and
continued to host the landfill workers. After Andrei Schwartz launched his film entitled
“Auf der Kipe” in 1998, no one could deny the inhumane living and working conditions
of Roma on the landfill. Media discourse, most of the time interested in sensational
events on the landfill (adults and children run over by bulldozer or sanitation company’s
trucks, or burned to death in their own improvised shelters; random rallies of local
police, which burned down their shelters and chased them away; conflicts between
politicians regarding the statute of this toxic landfill), has had its main share in
constructing the public image of those living on the landfill. This image is a mixture of
humanitarian compassion and criminalization of victims based on racial beliefs that
1
See about the articulation of this discourse, particularly regarding the actions of Mr. Cherecheş,
mayor of Baia Mare, in Enikő Vincze, “Zidurile rasismului şi eliminarea pungilor de sărăcie,”
Critic Atac 19 June 2012, accessed October 13, 2013, http://www.criticatac.ro/17250/ziduribimrene-eliminarea-pungilor-de-srcie/
2
In 2004 and 2005, mayors Gheorghe Funar, and Emil Boc respectively signed an agreement
with Ecce Homo Foundation. According to this agreement, the foundation placed there 50 single
room shelters (called “thermopan houses”). When in 2011 the Romanian Railway Company went
to court to request immediate eviction of those who lived in these shelters, the agreement and
contracts between Ecce Homo and tenants served as proof showing that people have settled there
legally, since the town hall allocated them the place. See for details the following online sources,
accessed October 13, 2013.
http://www.petitieonline.ro/petitie/petitie_privind_posibila_evacuare_fortata_a_peste_120_de_fa
milii_de_pe_strada_cantonului_din_cluj-p60638048.html;
http://gloc2011.files.wordpress.com/2011/08/comunicat-apel-reconciliere-gloc-23august2011_final.doc; http://www.sectorulcultural.info/gloc/?page_id=509
399
“only this ethnic group can live in such conditions”. It also fuels the prejudices stating
that the “Roma lifestyle” on the landfill is the cause and not the result of their
marginalization.
Despite such media noise, local authorities and sanitation companies mostly
chose to deny or mitigate the fact that people live on the landfill. They said, “no people
live there” or “you find there only one ethnic group” as if they were not human beings and
their life did not count. They talk less or not at all about multiple complicities between the
City Hall, other local or county authorities, sanitation companies, and waste management
firms, or about slavery relations on the landfill, or about how the complicity between
forces of order and “managers” of the landfill permits the exploitation of the most
vulnerable people. One can hardly hear in these discourses about accountability regarding
authorities, about assuming responsibility for those who have been selecting waste for
decades for very small amount of money or in exchange for daily food necessary for
survival; or about who benefits the most from the inhumane work done by Roma on the
landfill.1 Ignorance, inertia, and non-interventionism on the part of authorities – it is the
least to say about why informal economy of waste management could grow for such a
long period in this space. And it is more than cynical to voice opinions that qualify as
humanitarian those who “allow” “poor Roma” to work and live on the landfill.
Three generations, in the past four decades have become synonymous with the
material and symbolic meanings of this place. Absolute dependency on this location as
residence and source of income makes these needy people unable to organize for
claiming their rights, which in the given context means simply the right to live in a city
for which they provide its ecological interests without any recognition.2 Profiteers of this
system create the official and illegal context within which they engage in a work that is
informal, precarious, underpaid, and damages their health and endangers their life.
1
Petty “patrons” are usurers that facilitate the functioning of the current waste management
system. They are also the persons who link the landfill (the invisible work of those who collect
and sort garbage) and the outside world (rubbish speculators sometimes existing in the form of
formally established waste management firms). They begin by crediting poor people and families
(some of them staying there just during summers). Afterwards, people work for them until they
pay back their debts, and they cannot leave the area without permission from creditors. Without
any money, working to pay their debts, people also “buy” food on credit from their patrons
paying a higher price for goods than they would pay in shops. There is no electricity on the
landfill, and there is one single source of water. People collect firewood on the spot. Few who are
not indebted, receive cash when they turn in collected iron, plastic, and paper.
2
“I am a garbage worker, too”, action of gLOC on the 22nd of March 2012 that combined a street
manifestation (participants were collecting and selecting waste from downtown and delivered it to
a representative of the county council) with submitting a petition to local authorities (county
council and town hall). The petition referred to local authorities’ duty to consider the human
dimension of the “new waste management centre” EU-funded project, to publicly recognize that
people of the old landfill were performing informal, dangerous and underpaid work that was
useful for the whole city, and to the need that authorities should support them in their effort to be
hired in the planned ecologization of the old garbage dump, the construction of the new waste
management centre and into jobs provided by the new recycling facilities
(http://gloc2011.files.wordpress.com/2012/03/scrisoare-deschisa-pata-rat-23-032.pdf, accessed
October 13, 2013).
400
In 2005, authorities put a sign on the entrance to the new landfill stating that it
does not meet the standards required by European legislation and it is closed (de facto it
still functions even today). The garbage dump closed again, apparently in July 2010,
when the owner (relative of the manager of the sanitation company) faced huge penalties
under the pressure of the European Union. Despite this fact, the landfill that closed for
many times has been reopened in July 2012 by the Regional Agency for Environment
“for sorting recyclable waste”. But this is not possible to do, because domestic waste is
not selectively collected across the town. Meanwhile, the county’s new prefect
(belonging to the Socio-Liberal Union) contests procedures for establishing the new
waste management centre in Pata Rât. Those procedures were launched by the former
prefect (on the part of Liberal-Democrat Party) and were delayed for several years due
to contested public tenders.
Furthermore, regarding Pata Rât and waste collection, courts of justice treat
differently illegalities committed by authorities and little people respectively. The latter
are imprisoned while the former are losing, at best, some of their political capital (or
political positions connected to economic privileges). Peoples’ testimonies show that
almost every family have had at least one member incarcerated at a given moment for
steeling scrap iron or for illegally occupying an abandoned space. Double standards
have been broken somewhat with the arrest of former mayor, Sorin Apostu in 2011 on
grounds of corruption. Even small penalties (fines for travelling without bus ticket or for
expired identity cards) have dramatic implications for these people: those fined lose their
social benefits and consequently their health insurance and access to free public
healthcare. All this happens although people work 72 hours on behalf of the city
community to receive social welfare. This work means different things (from street
cleaning to cleaning up the dwellings or improvised shelters left behind by homeless
people in the nearby forests after being evicted by authorities).
Local authorities have come to recognize only recently and implicitly – when
the European Union forced them to close it down – that the old landfill is very toxic and
the entire environment is polluted. The same authorities ignored the very same
argument, namely the disastrous impact of pollution on people’s health (not to mention
the dramatic implications of living in a symbolically and physically isolated
neighbourhood), when they relocated here the families from the Coastei Street.1 Their
1
See protests, petitions and several programs of civic organizations, which constituted Grupul de
Lucru al Organizaţiilor Civice (Working Group of Civil Society Organizations) in January 2011,
accessed
October
13,
2013.
http://www.petitieonline.ro/petitie/impotriva_ghetoizarii_romilor_din_ora_ul_clujp19395057.html; http://www.sectorulcultural.info/gloc/wp-content/uploads/2011/03/propunereprotocol-24-mai-2010.pdf;
http://www.sectorulcultural.info/gloc/wpcontent/uploads/2011/03/referat_de_constatare_20-sept-2010.pdf;
http://voxpublica.realitatea.net/politica-societate/mutarea-romilor-linga-groapa-de-gunoi-in-clujlupta-continua-57979.html;
http://gloc2011.files.wordpress.com/2011/09/whd-comunicat-depresa.doc;
http://gloc2011.files.wordpress.com/2011/12/invitatie_19dec2011_dreptatesociala.doc; http://gloc2011.files.wordpress.com/2011/12/invitatie-17-dec-2011_program-copiipata-rat.pdf;
http://www.sectorulcultural.info/gloc/?page_id=653;
http://gloc2011.files.wordpress.com/2012/01/scrisoare_deschisa_gloc_ian2012.pdf
401
new and old living space was the object of land transaction made by the mayor’s office:
the land where they lived on the Coastei street, five months after eviction, was allocated
for free by the mayor’s office to the Archbishop of Feleac and Cluj to build a campus for
students in Orthodox Theology at the Babes-Bolyai University of Cluj; on the other
hand, for the parcel where the Roma were relocated in Pata Rât, the Brantner-Veres
sanitation company got another, more suitable area in Cluj.
Besides material deprivation and loss suffered due to eviction, a moral trauma
hit these families and individuals, namely the trauma felt because of moving them
nearby the landfill and chemical waste station. Even if, by necessity, they try to adapt to
these new living conditions by improving their dwellings or extending them,
symbolically they emphasize their distance from this space. Relations with older
inhabitants, with those from Dallas in the first place, but also with individuals form
Cantonului colony, mediate building up their relations with Pata Rât as physical place.
They strive to maintain their positive self-image in a negative natural and social
environment, trying repeatedly to prove that they are different from the “autochthonous”
population, and that they do not belong to this location.
In the case of societies in advanced marginality too, internal hierarchization is
an important element of self-identification and of othering. Almost every category of
person finds someone related to whom they can prove their moral superiority, while all
assume their Roma or Gypsy identity. For example, in the relation between the residents
of modules and those from the landfill, the arguments are the following: “we send our
children to school”; “we do not work on the garbage”. Meanwhile, in the relation of
Dallas and Cantonului people say: “we do not send our women to prostitute”, or “we are
more united”. Regarding relations between sub-groups right in the core of the landfill,
classifications are used with the same end: “Hungarian Gypsies from Harghita county
are different breed”, “they are violent” – it is said on the one hand; while on the other
The main results of gLOC until now is signaling to the National Council for Combating
Discrimination the eviction from Coastei street and the inadequate housing conditions in the new
location from Pata Rat, which resulted in the decision of this body regarding the discriminatory
nature of these acts (http://www.sectorulcultural.info/gloc/); organizing a Stocktaking visit in Pata
Rat entitled “Getting closer – EU strategy for Roma and local realities” on the 10th of July 2011
with Roma communities, local and national civic organizations, and international organizations,
which accepted the invitation (European Commission, United Nations Development Program,
Amnesty
International,
European
Roma
Rights
Centre)
(http://www.sectorulcultural.info/gloc/?page_id=335). This was a meeting that launched dialogue
with the mayor’s office, who accepted to elaborate a strategy and a pilot project on integrated
housing benefiting people from Pata Rat and aiming at territorial desegregation
(http://www.undp.ro/projects.php?project_id=68;
http://gloc2011.files.wordpress.com/2012/07/sugestions-for-the-implementation-of-the-undpproject.pdf). Moreover, since then, with the aim of empowering people, gLOC organized several
actions together with Amnesty International and European Roma Rights Centre, and also
facilitated the participation of some children from Pata Rat on cultural programs within public
spaces that otherwise would have been inaccessible to them. At the beginning of the summer of
2012, gLOC was accepted to take part as watchdog on the Preparatory phase project run by Cluj
Municipality in a partnership with UNDP, the North-Vest Regional Development Agency and the
Babes-Bolyai University (http://www.undp.ro/projects.php?project_id=68).
402
part people state: the “travellers are the most aggressive”, “we are Romanized Gypsies”,
“we are peaceful”.
From assimilation to racialization – social differentiation through racial
segregation and intensification of criminalized marginality
Roma assimilation policy in socialism served the production and assurance of labour
force necessary for industrialization and “multilateral development of the Romanian
nation”. (Also, in the same context, women’s emancipation policy aimed at the same
end with all its economic and ethno-national dimensions). For those who wanted but did
not dare to assume Roma identity, the price paid for “integration into the socialist labour
market” was renouncing this identification.
Alongside post-socialist changes during the 1990s (supported by an ideology of
transition to democracy and marketization) and the triumphant neoliberalism of the
2000s (the widespread extension of market principle on all domains of social life),
assimilation was gradually substituted by policies of racialization. In the case of
assimilationist politics Roma represented a cultural problem that was supposed to reach
resolution as soon as they adapted to the cultural norms of socialist society (the socialist
state used this model of social engineering for Romania’s entire pre-modern and rural
population, seeking their necessary transformation into urban workers). After 1990,
Roma racialization, as unintended and perverse consequence of their recognition as
ethno-national minority who was supposed to enjoy cultural and linguistic rights, and
the need to explain why they lived in poverty without acknowledging its economic and
political causes, transposed the difference and inequality between Romanians/
Hungarians on the one hand and Roma on the other into the realm of biology and
physiology. Viewed in the wider context of post-socialist transformations in Romania,
Roma racialization is a specific technology of de-proletarianization and deuniversalization of ethnic Roma Romanian citizens.
This endeavour articulates well with larger scale initiatives to reinvent citizen’s
subjectivity in relation to a reorganized state. Beyond a legal façade imposed by joining
the European Union, the nationalist discourse in post-socialist Romania reconstructed an
ideal of national purity and “authentic Romanianness”. In a similar vein, discourses
related to Europe created the image of the “European Romanian” (enjoying the right to
free movement) in contrast with “nomad Gypsies” who became in this way “another
species” or “different breed”, which should not to be associated with Romanians or
more, became considered as an obstacle to Romania’s Europeanization.1
Segregated space epitomizes processes of differentiation between insiders and
outsiders, or those who deservingly belong to society and those who do not deserve
1
I mention here some cases, which prove that racism is part of a political culture that transcends
political parties: ministers of exterior have called on it to define Romania’s problem in
international relations and identify solution to them. These observations/explanations are not
technical issues; they denote a deep consensus between some of the Romanian political elite and
intellectuals regarding anti-Gypsy feelings and ideology. See Mr. Baconschi’s diagnosis related to
“Roma’s physiological criminality”; or voicing the need “to deport Roma criminals in Egyptian
desert” in Mr. Cioroianu’s cleansing scenario; or Mr. Marga’s fear that “Roma beggars endanger
our effort to close the Schengen dossier”.
403
belonging, or between middle class and pauperized social categories. Segregation is a
terrain on and through which – after the disintegration of homogenizing socialism –
various social actors negotiate from unequal positions on a consensus regarding who
should be included and who should be excluded from the societal space. Spatial
segregation is a process that creates and maintains differentiation of “deserving” and
“undeserving” citizens, constructed at the intersectionality of ethnicity and social status,
for example between members of mainstream society and those social categories that
cannot hold on to norms established by the former. Moreover, claiming that poor ethnic
Roma are poor because they do not want to work and because they are only looking to
live on welfare, authorities consolidate the idea of majority as “responsible” and
“deserving” citizen who does not expect to be “assisted” by the state; this idea suggests
that those who are living on welfare act as Gypsies or even become Gypsies. On the
other hand, when public authorities evacuate and relocate Roma in segregated areas they
may create a feeling of moral superiority among majority people, including poor, who
can feel themselves as “normal citizens” that are not banished in polluted, isolated areas,
which are unworthy of human beings.
Today, racialized segregation becomes more and more acute due to neoliberal
domination both as generator and as manager of economic crises, which deepens poverty
in Romania producing various forms of advanced marginality (such as the precarious
housing in the stigmatized, polluted, and isolated space of the landfill in Cluj). Local and
central governmental policies related to housing are not neutral techniques that bring
solutions to “naturally” defined problems, but they are means of power marked by political
ideologies and personal convictions.1 Apparently non-interventionist and “free market”
oriented policies in housing and estate (which in reality have an important role in creating
the illusion of “free market” and in covering up suspicious transactions on the residential
market) are in fact saturated by neoliberal values.
Arguments and public positioning of policy makers and managers support
privatization and marketization of housing, and construct distinctions among
“deserving” and “undeserving,” or responsible and welfare-dependent citizens, or those
who can secure a dwelling on the “free housing market” and those who are “not able to
do that because they do not like to work”. Further, these public positioning classify
ethnic Roma as “undeserving poor”, and transform them into symbols of statedependent citizens, while the state refuses to take any measure for them and grants
privileges to those already privileged by their economic condition, social capital or gains
on the neoliberal “free market”.
Created through such symbolic procedures, eviction of Roma from informal
poor urban settlements becomes easier to legitimate and justify. Consequently, “their”
inability to adapt to the times and place they live in serves as explanation for relocating
them into marginal neighbourhoods of the city (such as the landfill, perceived by some
as the “natural environment of Gypsies”). Society punishes them for losing their ability
to integrate into mainstream society through education or work as if their own will and
1
According to Shore and Write policies work as means of governance, vehicles of ideology, and
agents that construct subjectivities and organize people within structures of power and authority
(Chris Shore and Susan Wright, Anthropology of Policy. Critical Perspectives on Governance
and Power (London and New York: Routledge, 1997).
404
free choice would be responsible for this situation. Some classify their ability to live
under sub-human conditions as “natural trait of their ethnicity”; others even say that they
deserve to live in the polluted and isolated environment of the landfill. Thus, anti-Gypsy
racism becomes an important element of neoliberalism. Such racism legitimizes its
actions in terms of framing Roma and non-Roma relations as a relation of (inborn)
difference and not as a relation produced by power hierarchies built in and by the
system. Therefore, residential segregation comes to be interpreted as natural result of
putatively biological and cultural difference, and solution to segregation is
correspondingly imagined as a process of transforming marginal people into individuals
who meet the requirements of neoliberal regimes, without changing the latter.
Meanwhile, residential segregation deepens advanced marginality making multiple
deprivations chronic, eroding the social capital and dignity of people, and creating
extreme instances of human suffering. At its turn, as one of the factors producing
marginalization, environmental racism justifies both neglecting of Pata Rât as a polluted
natural area, and the violations of human rights, including the basic right to life of those
whose work is linked to the landfill placed in this zone. Moreover, in a stigmatizing and
dehumanizing way it associates Roma with polluting and dangerous “waste”, it suggests
that “the landfill is the natural environment of Roma” and it sustains that “Roma deserve
to live near the garbage dump”. The victims of environmental racism suffer of absolute
vulnerability, and above of this, they are told that they should be grateful that they were
allowed to live and work in that location.
405
Arhipera and the Ethics of Social Architecture
Arch., Ph.D Lorin NICULAE,
Ion Mincu University of Architecture and Urbanism, Bucharest
Soros Foundation Romania
Keywords: public interest architecture, ethics, participation, democracy, poverty
Abstract: This paper is a manifesto for the practice of social participatory architecture.
It focuses on the need to understand in a different manner the relationships established in
the field of social architecture between architects and their clients and users. What does
ethics mean when it comes to designing for a community that lives in extreme poverty?
Should architects design for the client or for the user? What resources should be used
and how? These are just a few questions that this short text tries to address, while
sketching the political context of contemporary social architecture. In this article I am
going to present an antithesis between social participatory architecture and authoritative
architecture for mass housing.
E-mail: [email protected]; [email protected]
*
Motto: “What if you can’t prove you had a house?”
(Hernando de Soto)
One of the most pressing issues of urban planning in the world is urban housing for
the poor and especially for people living in extreme poverty. At the political level, the
situation seems well known for decades, as it results from the main political statements
worldwide.
The Universal Declaration of Human Rights, article 25 (1) says that “Everyone
has the right to a standard of living adequate for the health and well-being of himself
and his family, including food, clothing, housing and medical care and necessary social
services, (...)”1 including access to housing within the system of factors that influence
the social performance of individuals and families.
As early as 2007, the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union
sanctions in article 34 (3) that: “In order to combat social exclusion and poverty, the
Union recognises and respects the right to social and housing assistance so as to ensure
a decent existence for all those who lack sufficient resources, in accordance with the
rules laid down by Community law and national laws and practices.”2
These statements show that, from a political point of view, the need for
intervention in situations of extreme poverty is known and assumed.
1
2
http://www.un.org/en/documents/udhr/ consulted on Nov 22nd 2011
http://www.europarl.europa.eu/charter/pdf/text_en.pdf consulted on Nov 22nd 2012
406
The commitment of the EU presidency generated the political line at the level
of the European Parliament and of the European Committee for fighting poverty by
allocating financing lines. Starting with 2014, these will also include housing, regarded
from an ethical point of view, as a premise for the improvement of social and economic
aspects.
Extreme poverty in Bălţeşti, Prahova County, 2007
However, the global demographic growth occurs mostly in disadvantaged
areas, where resources are scarce or absent. Besides social exclusion caused by poverty,
disadvantaged groups cannot access basic facilities and, as far as the study is concerned,
407
they do not have access to an architecture made by architects, with direct impact on the
quality of built environment and on the quality of life. As early as 1995, Philadelphia
Inquirer declared that only 2% of the population who bought houses consulted an
architect.1
In 2012, an enormous global social pressure, which particularly affected
Romania, was caused by the explosion of a precariously built environment and by the
unprecedented expansion of ghettos, slums, suburbs or extremely poor housing areas,
which, however they may be called in one part of the world or another, cause the local
authorities’ despair, as well as that of the urban and rural inhabitants. The built
environment resulting from the above mentioned context raises serious stability and
health problems for its users. Last, but not least, its volume and expansion are
overwhelming. People living in informal settlements do not own a house, nor do they
have a postal address. As such, many of them do not have identity documents, which are
issued based on the proof of property ownership.
This harsh reality raises an ethical problem for the architect, which consists in
the decision as to whether he should try to alleviate the situation or not. To begin with
the latter possibility, an architect would feel comfortable with the idea of designing just
for the 2% who afford to pay the regular fee, understanding architecture merely as a
business. Still, even if he has this commercial approach, the architect might be
confronted with a project for social housing ordered by a municipality. Thus, the
situation becomes more intricate: he has to design for the client (the municipality) and
for the users (the vulnerable group that the houses are designed for). What happens
when the interest of the municipality is opposed to that of the social group, as it usually
happens in the cases of urban gentrification? Should an architect design a new suburb
for people who are going to be forcibly evicted from the city centre by the local
authorities? Is the architectural product immune to the social life that it generates and
can it be judged as such? In other terms, has the architect the capacity to detect situations
in which the public interest comes against the private one, and, if so, does he have the
means to address the situation?
On the other hand, if an architect becomes aware of the living conditions of the
extremely poor, he might try to help and offer a charge-free project for a community.
This action is a generous one nevertheless. However, it might damage the social life of
the community even more, if it is not done in an appropriate manner. An architect who
creates a magnificently and aesthetically designed, wonderful block of flats in a different
city for a poor community, would destroy the economic life of that community by
cutting all its supportive networks, both social and economical.
Given this situation, during the last decades there has been an imperative need
for architecture to redefine its field of action, to become an “architecture of change”, that
is not only aesthetically but also socially and ethically relevant. A good architecture,
insofar as design quality and professional standards are concerned, must satisfy as many
users as possible; it must be permeable and flexible at the same time. Rather than
creating blueprints for buildings, this architecture lays an emphasis on creating an
1
Brian Bell, ed., Good Deeds, Good Design: Community Service Through Architecture (New
York: Princeton Architectural Press, 2004), 13.
408
economical, political and social network, capable of changing the built environment in
areas affected by extreme poverty and of transforming the communities themselves as
far as their social and material poverty is concerned.
It is time for mainstream architecture to take into consideration the unseen face
of the profession and to start looking for the necessary resources and energy, in order to
responsibly take part in what is to become the prevalent built environment. It is time for
architecture to provide real solutions to real problems. In Romania, maintaining the
architectural speech at a top-notch or, in many cases, at a purely conceptual level, in
2012, is similar to the bishops’ debate on angels’ gender while Constantinople was
being attacked by the Ottoman cannons. In addition, volunteering without knowledge
provides uninhabitable environments.
This paper is also a wake-up call. In the absence of an active involvement of
the architects in developing a built environment for people in extreme poverty (a current
situation generated by architecture as the commercial model aforementioned), other
factors take over the problem. In search for a method and lacking the suitable knowhow, the local authorities decide upon authoritative solutions, which amplify the need
instead of responding to it.
In the actual paradigm, the development of a social housing construction project
for beneficiaries in extreme poverty starts with the attempt of eradicating the built
environment of a settlement affected by extreme poverty, as this represents an issue for
the local public authority. Once the municipality makes the decision, it orders a local
urban plan to an urban design office, which will take over the project from the local
authority, using the area placed at its disposal. Then follow the approval procedures, the
architectural details, the authorization for construction, the technical project, the bid with
the entrepreneurs and the actual construction of the social houses, succeeded by the
voluntary or authoritative resettlement of the poor from the slum to the new
neighborhood. Actually, the local public authority is the client that benefits from the
project which develops only by the rules it has established. The level of authority and
control during the intervention is extremely high, and the role of the urban planners and
architects is secondary, given the extremely low budget for this kind of actions. The
typical hierarchical pyramidal model “from top to bottom” is enacted. The architect
designs within a system of technical clauses, without having access to the “big picture”.
He does not question the statistics, or the budget. He does not question the need for the
very project, or the ethics behind it. He is just a technician who has the ability to resolve
a problem of space occupancy, height of buildings, density, accessibility,
standardization, speed of execution etc. He focuses on the functionality of the project,
and does not know the social reality of the vulnerable group that he actually designs for,
nor is he aware of the users’ living conditions and habits. In the end, the users have to
leave their shelters and become the consumers of the newly built dwellings. On the limit,
social housing turns into boring prefabricated condominiums that lack human scale and
that are segregated both from a spatial and a social point of view. Planning housing
projects with minimal surfaces on isolated plots with minimum of resources leads to
social exclusion. How many urban planners may afford to refuse a large project ordered
by the municipality because it fails to put into practice the above mentioned points, or
because some of the future users were forcibly evicted from their houses?
409
Local public authority
Architect
Entrepreneur
User
Normative
paradigm
Solves the problem
Profit
Funding
Normatively
Standardization
prescription
Quality of execution
Centralized production
Profit
Consumption
Lack
of
possession
Concordance
Anonymity
Intervention
THEME
PROJECT
EXECUTION
HOUSE
Analysis of existing and
projective needs
Resource management
Adaptability
Flexibility
Indetermination
Diversity
Participation
Progressive building
Decentralized production
Development
Possession
User+
Architect
User+
Architect+Entrepreneur
Participatory
paradigm
Uniqueness
User+ Architect
User
A table showing the stages of a project for building social houses in the
normative paradigm as opposed to the participatory one.
On the other hand, social participatory architecture suggests as an initial step the
“bottom to top” approach, based on the democratic process of consulting the citizens
who are to be involved in the project. Even if the local public authority could be the
initiator of the project, the consultative process involves a decision network, a
consortium of people who make the decisions, and the urban planners and architects
have a more important word to say. Besides, the architects can start this kind of project
by themselves, bringing the idea of change to the community and working on the project
together with the people. The project grows together with the community and reflects its
stage of development. All the decisions regarding the project are taken by the architect
together with the community; the design is intended for the users and adapted to their
actual and prospective needs. All private interests fall under the public interest and the
rights of all parties are consolidated through the process. The project does not reflect
statistics and financial strategies any more, but real individualities with real needs. The
budget is not fixed and the project might rely on local creativity, personal contributions
in money or labor.
Of course, such a project needs time and, eventually, it becomes more expensive
than a standardized one. But the result is a totally different environment and the
community is changed, no longer being an assisted community but a community of
entrepreneurs. Moreover, architects acting inside the community become social architects.
To be a social architect does not mean to give up practising your profession in
order to design what the users have in mind but, on the contrary, it means practising it in
order to change the existing reality into a better one, together with the users. If architects
put on their rubber boots and generate architecture where it does not exist, then
410
architecture will start to matter not only as a sector destined for the elite (which becomes
smaller and smaller), but also for the poor masses (which become more and more
numerous), and the architect’s work and effort will contribute to the diminishment of
poverty and to the protection of the human and civil rights of vulnerable groups. This
change is necessary and possible.
At the same time, the definition of the social architect within the frame of his
profession and at the level of the power relation must take into consideration the fact that
he is a mediator between vectors that are often opposed: on the one hand – the
administration, that wants to solve the problem; on the other hand – the poor people, that
are themselves seen as a problem by the administration. The architect’s role is to
understand the point of view and the thinking system of both parties and to supply an
architectural solution capable of “opening the limit”, of making opposites meet. And this
ethical role is not impossible as long as the opposition of the parties involved is given by
the inaccessibility of the opposed thinking systems. In other words, the architect is an
intellectual who can induce change in the social sphere, and good architecture does good
to as many people as possible.
This approach transposes the architect from the field of authority to the agora, to
the public sphere defined by the community’s needs and aspirations. It is definitely not
an easy decision to make. But the reward of generating change where it seems
impossible to happen, of bringing hope where there is none and of putting all your talent
at work for creating architecture out of minimal resources, is well worth it.
For the reasons mentioned above, I have created a group of social participatory
architecture called Arhipera, a group that assumes the fact that designing for the
vulnerable groups means practising a democratic architecture by creating houses that
reflect the life and growth of a family, rather than being mere objects to be contemplated
on the covers of glossy magazines. To use John Turner’s words, it is far more important
what a house does, rather than what a house is. The houses that we design are meant to
relate to the capabilities of the vulnerable families that live inside, so as to create
favourable social and economic relationships. The topic is shifted from bricks and
mortar to ethics and democracy, by a slow and long process of community
empowerment that eventually delegates the decisions to the community.
411
APPENDIX
4 houses in Dor Mărunt, designed by Arhipera (2011-2012)
412
413
1 house erected in one week in Belciugatele, Călăraşi by Arhipera,
July 2013
414
Aspects of Identity in Contemporary Architectural Space
Dana POP
Technical University of Cluj-Napoca
Faculty of Architecture and Urban Planning
Keywords: identity, similarity, globalisation, cultural shock, theme park, mall.
Abstract: Starting with a theoretical approach, the presentation will focus on the new
environment which we shape in order to respond to our newly born needs. Buildings do
not focus anymore on cultural or local identity, instead they become an interactive
environment that can be controlled and reshaped through a touchscreen; it is a
sophisticated environment, but at the same time, it lacks identity – in the traditional
sense of the word. We are designing intelligent buildings, which are more likely to focus
on inventing their own fictional identity, rather than on the context. These
multifunctional buildings, which host a wide range of functions – starting from coffee
shops up to airports – are designed in such a way that from the moment that you set foot
in them, they take over the control. The building actually decides for you.
*
Introduction
Identities, cultures, nations are the unique product of a historical, geographical and
political context, with strong roots which define their people. Or do they? How strong
are in fact these roots? Globalisation has proved that they might be more fragile than we
thought. Today we are more flexible, we go where our job tells us to and we come to
realise that we are spending more time on planes than at home. We are shaping a new
environment, which will allow us to be better connected and more efficient, but, without
realising it, this new environment is changing us as well. We are re-becoming nomads,
global nomads without roots – thus the concept of identity is changing, too.
Identity is a word which we hear very frequently today, especially in the context
of global versus local. Identity is in fact a multi-layered concept, it has many “faces”; for
example, we can talk about a personal identity, about identity theft, about changing an
identity, a social identity, national identity, or cultural identity. Each of these layers
implies a unique set of rules, restrictions and liberties, of symbols and meanings, which
define the concept of identity and its specific language – a coding system that is unique
for each and everyone of them. Identity is an abstract concept that unifies and reinforces
a community, acting as a web made of common values, thoughts and meanings. The
members of a community assume their own identitary way in which they relate to the
environment, to the context they live in and, as well, a particular manner in which they
relate to the others. Thus, when talking about space, context or environment, we cannot
assert that they have an identity of their own (not besides a geographical or geological
one, or one that has to do with shape), but that the identity is projected onto them. By
415
assimilating a particular space, the community imprints messages and codified meanings
into the environment – it is the process through which a space identifies itself with the
culture that inhabits it. Thus, identity is rather a quality of the space and it lacks a physical
form. Its survival depends on the existence of a group of people that are willing to assume
all the restrictions and liberties which define an identity, as well as the symbols and
meanings that define the particular environment associated with their identity. When this
community disappears or when its members decide that their need for such a structure
does not exist anymore, the identity loses its purpose and it simply ceases to exist or it is
forced to change, to transform itself. This is why identity presupposes a certain fragility.
Today, in the multicultural context of globalisation, we sense even stronger how fragile the
concept of identity really is. Cultures are no longer restricted to a particular space, which
means that more cultures can overlap or even collide in a single space. Thus,
unprecedented situations emerge, when such sets of values, symbols and meanings, which
define a culture, are amazingly easily set aside, transformed or replaced by stronger ones –
which are insensitive and even aggressive to otherness.1
There is, of course, a more cynical, postmodern viewpoint, which states that all
identities are mere constructions, theoretical structures. Moreover, this is in fact true, if
we were to look at the issue objectively: one could argue that, in a multi-cultural context,
place-based, unidimensional and uniform identities are outdated and they struggle to
survive. Therefore our society needs to “invent” another type of identity or – if we were
to borrow Doreen Massey’s2 succession of thoughts and apply it to identities – we could
conclude that identities might be seen as processes. If we were to define the concept of
identity as being a network of social relationships, experiences and meanings, we could
see it as an evolving entity, developing into something new each time one of its
parameters changes. It is a new image – one much more adapted to our postmodern
condition. Consequently, identities are not bound anymore to territories or withheld
within certain limits, instead they manifest themselves each time their corresponding
parameters intersect themselves in a situation which displays the need for such an
identity to manifest itself.
Identity and its Fragility
In order to exemplify3 how fragile identity is or, to put it more bluntly, to show the
fictional character of this construct we call identity, we will examine the town of Júzcar,
in Spain. Júzcar is a small community known for the fact that it is one of the “White
Towns of Andalusia”, and whose identitary characteristic is the fact that all the buildings
1
Amos Rapoport, The Meaning of the Built Environment – A nonverbal Communication
Approach (Tucson: University of Arizona Press, 1990), 11−34.
2
Doreen Massey, Space, Place, and Gender (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1994),
154−155.
3
Alasdair Fotheringham, “Spanish village happy to be left feeling blue by Smurf – Residents in
Juzcar vote to keep paint job after tourist boom”, The Independent, 19 December 2011, accessed
September 13, 2012, http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/spanish-village-happy-tobe-left-feeling-blue-by-smurfs-6279106.html; Katy Perry, “Smurf movie stunt sees Spanish town
of Juzcar covered entirely in blue – A Spanish village has been painted blue for the launch of The
Smurf
movie”,
Metro,
10
June
2011,
accessed
September
13,
2012,
http://www.metro.co.uk/weird/865896-smurf-movie-stunt-sees-spanish-town-of-juzcar-coveredentirely-in-blue
416
are whitewashed. Júzcar is one of those small secluded pueblos, which conserved a very
specific type of atmosphere – that of calm, lazy days with a warm light, which casts
sharp shadows on its white walls. However, during the summer of 2011, all the
buildings in this little town of 220 souls, including the church and the grave stones (!),
were painted blue, as part of the advertising campaign of the film “The Smurfs”1. At that
time the film company was looking at the “White Towns of Andalusia” to choose one of
its pueblos in order to turn it into a life-size Smurf village. Júzcar was the one chosen
and, even though the film company claimed that, the impact would be minimal and only
temporary –namely six months – the consequences were actually much greater.2 In fact
a true Smurf rush started. The residents, seizing the opportunity, took advantage of the
spotlight and embraced the new imported identity: they even started dressing up as the
characters in the film, while Mayor David Fernandez Tirado stated that people starting
calling him “Papa Smurf”.3 Eventually, they started organising Smurf painting
competitions, a Smurf market – which ran six days a week – and much more. Even the
church got involved as it started organising Smurf theme weddings. Although the film
company promised to repaint the buildings to their original state, the community voted
141 in favour and only 33 against keeping the colour blue.4 It should be noted that six
months after painting the houses blue, 80,000 tourists visited the town, while prior to
this event the town registered an average of 300 tourists per year.5
When analysing the example of Júzcar, the first word that comes to mind, is
fragility: the fragility of its former identity, the fragility of a particular type of life, the
fragility of the built environment. However, more important is the fact that in this case
we are dealing with a peculiar situation: the town of Júzcar, because of its isolation, its
secludedness, managed to function as a homogenous, uniform community inhabiting a
more or less well-defined territory; thus succeeding in preserving its identity. This
identity was taken for granted – implying a certain type of behaviour, a certain type of
social contact and a certain way of relating to the environment. Thus, the film
company’s intervention shook the balance of this fragile micro-culture. Changing the
colour of the buildings triggered a chain reaction, culminating with a replacement of
identity – a new, fictional, imagined identity. There are two interesting features about
this particular case. The first is the fact that the initial identity had an introverted,
inward-looking character, and its isolation prevented it from a natural or organic
development. Consequently, in time, its balance became more and more fragile. Then,
the second and more striking aspect is the fact that the “new” identity was not a choice,
it was more or less artificially imposed upon the inhabitants. Of course, one could argue
that all identities are basically fictional. And if we were to look at things from this
perspective, it is true: an identity can be defined as being an artificial or even random set
of values that guide a particular community. The big difference between such an identity
and what happened in the case of Júzcar, is the fact that even if identities can be
1
The Smurfs, director: Raja Gosnell, writers: J. David Stem, David N. Weiss, Jay Scherick, David
Ronn, production: Columbia Pictures, Sony Pictures Animation, Kerner Entertainment, 2011
2
“Juzcar- The Spanish Village that Voted itself Blue”, Kuriositas, 19 December 2011, accessed
October 18, 2012, http://www.kuriositas.com/2011/12/juzcar-spanish-village-that-voted.html
3
Perry, “Smurf movie stunt sees Spanish town of Juzcar covered entirely in blue”
4
Fotheringham, “Spanish village happy to be left feeling blue by Smurf”
5
Ibid.
417
considered to be artificially manufactured, they are answering to a certain need – a
particular need of a well-defined community. Therefore, even if we accept that all
identities are manufactured, we also have to accept that they are custom-made for a
specific context. In Júzcar, on the other hand, the blue identity was not the answer, but
an answer – an artificial and fictional one, which was actually the reason behind the
behavioural change of the residents. They ended up living a fairy-tale life in which they
are characters of the Smurf village. This is maybe the most alarming aspect, namely the
fact that the residents traded their own lives for the ones of the characters in the motion
picture. The choice is even more meaningful from a psychological and architectural
point of view. Thus, in the light of these facts, where do we stand? we, as members of a
community; we, as designers of spaces and places. In any case, the only thing that can
be proven is that identity is extremely fragile.
Identity in the Global Context
Globalisation does not necessarily imply cancelling (local) identities, but rather it
involves a shift in the concept of identity, a change in its structure. Life in a multicultural
environment involves juxtaposing several cultural contexts into a single space. We can
draw a parallel, for example, with a market hall where everyone speaks at once in
different languages.1 This does not mean that the functional identity of the market
disappeared; it is still in place, just that everyone uses it differently; they have a different
way of relating to its space, while the meaning of the concept of market is more
important or less important depending on its role in each of the cultures. The same
principle applies for any (global) space: all cultures claim their space, their meanings,
and their symbols. Adapting the designing process to this way of viewing space, meant
shifting the paradigm; and instead of designing an identitary space for a certain
community or culture, the designers are creating spaces which can become the
background for any type of activity or cultural behaviour. In fact, this implies the
transformation of the physical space into a virtual one, in which, through technology, it
is possible to overlap multiple cultural environments. The most basic example of this
paradigm shift is the small visual, cultural, intellectual or musical bubble, which we
create around us every time we connect through an mp3 player, a mobile phone, a
camera, etc. to “our world”.2 Because of technology, which was introduced on a large
scale in architecture, we actually encourage the isolation of each individual in such a
bubble, at the expense of the socialising act. Cultural identity, community identity loses
its importance or shifts to an individual set of values, now part of a global system. The
spatial paradigm shift is also obvious in the way in which we conceive our design
themes: libraries become hybrid libraries, museums and exhibition halls become cultural
malls, airports become transit lounges; buildings are becoming interactive blobs,3 while
architects do not design anymore in a cultural or local system, but they are part of a
global one. Architects are not designing place anymore, instead they are designing
processes – to use Massey’s term.
1
Rapoport, The Meaning of the Built Environment, 85
Marc Augé, Non-Places – an Introduction to Supermodernity (London, Broklyn: Verso, 2006), viii.
3
Tooraj Sadeghi and Fereshteh Bijandi, “The Effect of Shopping Mall Environment on Shopping
Behavior under a Model”, Middle-East Journal of Scientific Reserch 8 (2011), accessed
September 13, 2012, http://www.idosi.org/mejsr/mejsr8(3)11/4.pdf
2
418
Therefore, space – the actual built environment – changes. We can find an
almost tangible link between the transformation of the concept of identity and its effects
upon the physical space. The new multicultural context gives birth to the space of the
“nomad” man – the phrase Rem Koolhaas1 uses when talking about people who are
always on the move, actual real life globetrotters – which is no longer a place in the
phenomenological sense defined by Christian Norberg Schulz2 or Martin Heidegger.3
We no longer invest the place with character through the process of dwelling; we no
longer assimilate a place nor do we identify with it; but, we rather pass through spaces –
this is the type of environment which Rem Koolhaas calls “the generic city”.4 Still, the
postmodern space is probably the most heterogeneous space yet: it can be condensed or
diluted; it can fold more places into one space – as is the case of Michel Foucault’s
“heterotopias”5; and it can range from Koolhaas’s “generic city” to Kenneth Frampton’s
“critical regionalism”.6
In this very colourful mix, Marc Augé distinguishes a particular kind of places,
namely transit spaces, or, as he calls them, non-places, precisely because he defines them
as being the opposite of the place: “If a place can be defined as relational, historical and
concerned with identity, then a space which cannot be defined as relational, or historical,
or concerned with identity will be a non-place”.7 The buildings which fit best this
description are airports, hotels, railway stations, fast-food restaurants, or, as Krakauer8
remarks, a space of an anonymous life. This means that the traditional idea of a place has
become questionable. In this context, Martin Drenthen’s remark is very pertinent: “We use
cultures of place – like (reinvented?) folklore […], local history, and ‘information
pavilions, signposting, treasure hunts along tree species and ponds with half domesticated
otters’ […] – to provide us with a temporary feeling of meaning, but in the end most of us
will indeed remain (to some degree at least) strangers, visitors, aliens to the landscape. […]
If Augé’s diagnosis has some credibility, then clinging to the ideal of ‘good old’ place
attachment could eventually only result in the creation of artificial ‘landscapes of
memory’, that is: museum pieces, ironical look-alikes of places long gone. Instead of
‘grounding’ our identity in place, we would actually draw back into a would-be identity
and as a result project our desires onto a landscape and thus create non-places ourselves”9.
1
Rem Koolhaas and Bruce Mau, S.M.L.XL. – Small, Medium, Large, Extra-Large (New York:
Monacelli Press,1995), 1252.
2
Christian Norberg – Schulz, Genius Loci – Towards a Phenomenology of Architecture, (New
York: Rizzoli International Publication, 1980), 5.
3
Martin Heidegger, "…Poetically Man Dwells..." in Poetry, Language, Thought, (New York:
Harper & Row, 1975), 221-229.
4
Koolhaas and Mau, S.M.L.XL., 1252
5
Michel
Foucault,
Of
Other
Spaces,
Heterotopias,
in
Foucault.info,
http://foucault.info/documents/heteroTopia/foucault.heteroTopia.en.html (accesed June 28, 2012 )
6
Kenneth Frampton, "Towards a Critical Regionalism: Six Points for an Architecture of
Resistance", in The Anti-Aesthetic: Essays on Postmodern Culture, ed. Hal Foster (Port Townsen:
Bay Press, 1983), 16-30.
7
Augé, Non-Places, 63
8
Anthony Vidler, Warped Space – Art, Architecture and Anxiety in Modern Culture,
(Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 2000), 72
9
Martin Drenthen, “Ecological restoration and place attachement: Emplacing non-places?”, in
Environmental Values 18 (2009): 285-312
419
Hence, not only do we design non-places, but, furthermore, by “clinging” to place
attachment we turn existing places into non-places, too!
In such a continuous space – an endless chain of non-places -, which crosses
numerous time zones, the nomad man needs an anchoring point. He needs a coping
mechanism. In fact, identity, in its original form, can be seen as a coping mechanism,
namely a way in which each member can be assured that when communicating with
others or with the environment, he will receive a message, which makes sense and has
meaning. In the global context, similarity is another type of coping mechanism.
Similarity can be seen, in fact, as another dimension of identity, which helps the
individual fight against the stress provoked by the never-ending need to adapt to a new
set of rules. Cultural shock is precisely this state of anxiety, which we exhibit when we
react or behave in a certain way specific to our own culture, and the answer we receive
does not correspond to the action-reaction pattern we are used to. This fact produces
confusion and the incapacity to make a decision. In such a context similarity, the
warranty of obtaining the expected response to which we are used to, can actually be a
moment of psychological relaxation. The architectural translation of similarity is the
environment of chain businesses. For example it has been noted1 that fast-food
restaurants impose an almost ritual type of behaviour with an astonishing degree of
behavioural uniformity, that implies indeed a minimum effort in establishing a
relationship with this type of environment. Thus, similarity becomes a new layer when
defining the concept of identity.
One of the goals of these multinational companies or chain businesses is to
establish for themselves an identity. However, this identity – or brand – unlike
community-based identities, is not the product of a necessity, it is an advertising tool
focused on selling the product, on selling the experience. People feel the need to belong, to
be part of a group, and share an idea or an ideal – basically, to have an identity. Therefore,
this is what multinational companies sell: they respond to this need of belonging.
Nevertheless, these identities have a completely different structure compared to what we
would call a cultural, national or social identity. The latter type of identity springs out of a
necessity; it has very specific cultural and social characteristics; it acts like an anchor
defining a certain group of people – although usually aware of its relativity and fragility.
The former type, the brand, is invented; it is a fictional identity or a brand. If we were to
follow Marc Augé’s chain of thoughts, we could call this type of identity a non-identity
because it has no cultural or social anchor and it does not define a particular group of
people. Nevertheless, these non-identities do fit in very well with our postmodern context.
They are defining themselves as a new type of culture, the culture of consumerism, a truly
– and maybe even the only – global culture. The consumers end up identifying themselves
with the product and, by buying it, the product becomes their identity.
What Does Disneyland Teach Us
A similar theoretical path can be applied to the type of space or environment these chain
businesses use. Their identity is also imprinted into the spaces they generate. The
certainty of always finding the same type of environment, each time we cross their
1
Rapoport, The Meaning of the Built Environment, 78
420
threshold, is triggering a certain type of behaviour on behalf of the buyer – who comes
to identify himself with the brand, with the identity of the company.
Among these spaces, theme parks and shopping centres are a special category,
because they have a very well defined enclosure and they are easily monitored, too.
Such spaces are the perfect setting for analysing the cause-effect relationships regarding
the behaviour of the visitors, thus enabling the designers always to readjust their concept
and the identity of the place to fit better the desires of (potential) buyers. This ensures
the success of these types of environments – they always give you “what you desire”
(not to be confused with “what you need”!). While at the same time, designers are
developing ways to control or induce a certain type of response.
In an amusement park, the social norms are not as restrictive, the visitors are
more inclined to accept, adopt or try out new behaviours or situations. Because of their
playful character, because they bring fantasy into the real world, people are more
inclined to experience a different type of event, other than their daily routine. Precisely
because of this, theme parks can be considered experimental environments scale 1:1, for
testing and analysing different hypotheses about the way in which behaviour can be
influenced through design. Esther Sternberg1 presents a case study on Walt Disney,
considered a visionary in this field. His aim was to create an environment in which
people could plunge into a fantasy world, which could take them back to their childhood
– a time of hope and happiness – as an alternative to the daily stress and anxiety. Disney
worked for the “Disneyland” project together with some of his animation and film
specialists, who tried to apply their knowledge from animation to this project. The whole
concept is based on a rather simple assumption, namely that fairy-tales and classical
mythology derive from some fundamental, ancestral associations, which are placed at
the basis of our species and are related to our survival instinct. For example, fear of the
anxiety caused by disorientation and the unknown or the impulse to flee when facing
danger. All of these are valid for each of us and, at the same time, they are predictable
reactions. Walt Disney’s imagineers2 based their design of “Disneyland” precisely on
these reactions. The environment is founded on an illusion, a trick, but, as a member of
the initial imagineers team, John Hench, demonstrated: imagined stress can induce
reactions that are just as strong as those provoked by real, imminent danger. Hence, a
sudden and unexpected change is one of the brain’s most powerful stress triggers. Hench
used this artifice in order to prepare the entrance into another world – into Disney’s land.
Thereby, the visitor feels this shift, not only visually, but also viscerally. Any memory is
stronger and more intense, when, not one, but all of our senses are involved, and
especially when we experience powerful feelings.3 By contrast, this fright or state of
induced anxiety emphasises the state of calm, which follows. This alternation between
states of stimulation, excitement and calm keep the visitor’s interest awake and avoid
boredom. These are the main principles, which stood at the basis of the conceptual
structure of the park.
1
Esther M. Sternberg, Healing Places: The Science of Place and Well-Being (Cambridge,
Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 2009), 129-138.
2
This is the name which was used for the members of Walt Disney’s team, a mixture between
imagination and engineering, Sternberg, Healing Places, 129-138.
3
John Zeisel, Inquiry by Design – Environment / Behavior / Neuroscience in Architecture,
Interiors, landscapes and Planning (New York: W. W. Norton & Company, Inc., 2006), 148
421
Disney intuitively used several space structuring principles, which Lynch1
would only describe approximately ten years later, namely a spatial structure based on
landmarks and paths – whose directions are marked by certain cues or “wienies”, as
Disney’s team named them.2 These wienies are exciting cues, which attract and incite
the public to walk towards them. The name is derived from the hot dog stands on
stadiums, which become some sort of focal points that attract buyers. Unlike these small
inciting cues (popcorn, sweets or souvenir stands) – according to Disney’s team –
landmarks have to have certain characteristics: they should be large enough so that they
can be noticed from a distance, they should contrast with their background so that they
are easily perceived, they should evoke positive memories or associations so that the
visitor will choose to walk towards them, and they should be memorable.3 Disney
picked out these characteristics based on his experience as an ambulance driver during
the First World War in France, when he had to find a way to orient himself and cope
with the unfamiliar space of old European towns. During the same period, he came to
the conclusion that people are fascinated by castles: usually they are associated with
fairy-tales, stories, with certain images, desires and dreams; actually with what could be
called a romantic atmosphere. This is why Disney decided that the main landmark, the
major attraction of the park should be the image of a castle built on top of a hill. This
becomes the focus of most viewpoints throughout the park and it acts as an incentive
and as a mnemonic device, convincing people that it is worth walking all the way up to
the top. This castle is actually the main element, the landmark, around which the entire
park is structured and against which the visitor can always check their position in space.
Through this artifice, the visitor will no longer experience that uncomfortable feeling of
being lost or disoriented.
The “Disney experience” starts form the main square with a festive atmosphere.
This fact is extremely relevant, precisely because this type of atmosphere is capable of
changing the psychological mood. This is the mechanism which triggers a certain type
of behaviour, and which, later on, is constantly reinforced by the presence of the
wienies. Actually, the main idea of the entire amusement park is to offer a pleasant
alternative to the daily reality, an alternative that should entice you to return. The square
continues with the “Main Street”, for which Disney used as an inspiration source the
image and the memory he had of the atmosphere of an early 20th century Midwest main
street. It is interesting to note that Disney’s Main Street is not (necessarily) a
reproduction of a real street, but rather it revives a certain kind of context: namely the
one of a calm, lazy summer day on a dusty street – actually the perfect setting for the
beginning of a story. This street is sprinkled with visual, auditory and olfactory stimuli,
which incite the visitor to move on forward. For example, many shops sell fudge, which
most visitors associate with their childhood flavours. In order to emphasise this stimulus,
Disney’s team designed fans, which would scatter the smell of fudge. As a result,
Disneyland is still registering the highest sales of fudge worldwide. At the end of the
street, in order to keep the visitors’ interest alive, the designers offer a wide range of
alternatives, each having several wienies spread around for enticing them. In order to
1
Kevin Lynch, The Image of the City (Cambridge, Massachusettes: MIT Press: 1960), 46-83.
Sternberg, Healing Places, 133.
3
Ibid., 133-136.
2
422
maximise the visual attraction, the settings built by Disney’s team make use of light,
sound and movement in order to ensure the passing from one scene of the story to the
other. This type of effect was imported from cinema and it is called “cross-dissolve”,1 a
technique through which a scene blends gradually into the next. In the three dimensional
space this blending is done by preparing the moment of passage from one frame to the
other with the help of sounds, smells – which enhance the visual stimuli. In order to
complete and improve the experience, at the same time, cues from the previous setting
are being turned off. This shift is designed in such a way that the visitor does not even
realise that the scene has changed until he reaches the destination point. This alternation
between a comfortable state and anxiety for the unknown, and then, again, of calm, give
the experience rhythm and maintain the interest awake. Amazingly, this is done without
a word, with no verbal cue or any obligation to follow a certain path. Everything is
suggested through the cues embedded in the environment. The environment “speaks”
and even decides for the visitor which path should be taken.
Walt Disney’s success produces a paradigm shift in space design, especially in
the commercial and entertainment sector. His idea of practically selling an illusion, a
story, a fiction lets the buyer’s imagination run wild and allows him to become any
character he chooses to. The visitor can be anybody for a day – this is the identity that
Disneyland chooses to sell. This experience is what attracts people and makes them
come back. Disney managed to identify and take advantage of a desire – being part of a
dream world, of something beyond our daily routine – a desire that develops during the
childhood years and sticks with us throughout our entire life.
The Psychology Behind Mall Design
Simultaneously to Walt Disney’s world, during the same period, another building type
was being developed in the United States of America, namely the mall or the shopping
centre. The ’50s, in the United States of America, are very much influenced by the
presence of the automobile. It is the period during which the life of Americans revolves
around the car and everything is being done out of or beside a car. This situation
facilitated the birth of the first consumption society in the world. Consequently, the
recipe for this new building type automatically included the presence of the car.2 The
mall is a specific type of shopping centre, which combines a certain set of
characteristics. Firstly, it is a self-sufficient building type – in a way, it behaves just as an
amusement park, in the sense that it is a very clearly enclosed space, with strict rules,
and it is a very carefully monitored environment, too. Then, secondly, the mall wants to
reproduce inside the illusion of a city, or, to be more precise, the main street of the city’s
commercial area. This is its brand, or fictional identity. Just as the theme park wants to
reproduce an imaginary fairy-tale world, the mall wants to reproduce the atmosphere of
the downtown area, replicating and “improving” it, by making it more accessible by car.
Thirdly, it is an extremely controlled environment: this building type is based on the
invention of the air conditioning, thus, it becomes immune to bad weather conditions. At
the same time, this strict control is being used for the visitors as well, namely by the way
1
Ibid., 141-142.
Dana Vais, “Cultura mallului” (Mall culture), Korunk 5 (2009), accessed September 13, 2012,
http://www.korunk.org/?q=ro/node/11212
2
423
in which the commercial centre is structured: the layout is designed on purpose just as a
maze, so that the visitor has a limited number of choices, following a pre-established
path.1 The main feature of the shopping centre – and of the amusement park, too – is the
fact that it is always monitoring moods, reactions and actions, so that it can constantly
redesign its environment, its strategies and cues in order to modulate the behaviour of
the visitors with one goal in mind: convincing them to shop.
Victor Gruen conceived the ’50s mall as a catalyser for suburban development.
This type of development was necessary from a demographical point of view, but, at the
same time, the speed with which it evolved, led to the overnight emergence of
communities which were not able to coagulate in order to emanate an identitary
character on their own. This is why, as in the example of the town of Júzcar, the identity
was imported, meaning that the mall duplicated an area of the initial city in a fictional
manner and projected it as well onto the community. Placed in the vicinity of the city,
through its complementary services (restaurants, banks, cinemas, sport facilities, postal
office, pharmacies, etc., all in a carefully balanced percentage in order to keep the
visitor’s interest awake, just as in the case of Disneyland), the mall becomes the
landmark of the area – a catalyser which attracts potential developers for residential
complexes and office spaces. Thus, just as a real city centre, the mall became during the
’50s and ’60s the boost for the suburbanisation phenomenon.2
The second stage, during the ’80s, brought with itself a shift in the concept of
the mall. The postmodern world, in which the concept of the suburb is already outdated,
needs a new image, a reinvention of the mall. The new image offered by Jon Jerde3 was
that of “showbiz”. At this moment the influence of the entertainment world was at its
peak – Walt Disney’s true legacy. This mall is no longer just a shopping centre; it
becomes an amusement centre. The commercial aspect falls into the background, while
the experience provided just by visiting the mall, becomes its main aspect. The net area
of commercial spaces is largely decreased when compared with Gruen’s alternative; this
new layout is focusing more on the scenography of “public” spaces, on extravaganza
and on an “out of this world” experience. Thus, it temporarily replaces reality with an
entertainment world. The malls begin to organise events, concerts, exhibitions, even
book launches, competing more and more with the centre of the city. Unlike it, the mall
is capable of infinitely redefining its identity and putting on a new face every day and it
can become quite aggressive to other forms of identity.
The mixture between commercial spaces and entertainment spaces can be felt
also in the layout. The accesses do not always coincide with the exits, the vertical
circulation nodes are separated so that the customers cannot go down the same way they
went up. The elevators and escalators are separated, and, from time to time, they even
have their direction of movement reversed. Therefore, the entire structure becomes more
and more like a maze. The mall is a hallucinating and bewildering world, in which
everything is carefully directed, so that one will pass among as many temptations as
possible. The decision-making capacity is reduced even further: when designing a mall,
1
Dana Vais, Global şi local în arhitectura contemporană – teorie anul II – note de curs (Global
and local in contemporary architecture) (Cluj-Napoca: U. T. Press, 2011), 166-169.
2
Vais, Global şi local în arhitectura contemporană, 167
3
Vais, “Cultura mallului”
424
the planners use highly refined ways to determine changes in behaviour and in leading
the customer on a certain pre-established path. Not even the manner of display is left to
chance: the windows or the front areas never display products of strict necessity,
because then the buyer would have no reason for entering the shop. They actually
display products which could be bought on impulse. The window has a mnemonic role
in the sense that it increases the chance for a weak behaviour – meaning that the public
would be more susceptible to surrender to the stimuli.1 This “new” mall uses space in
excess, so that it can sell the experience of buying!2
Yet, why do malls attract so many people? How do they influence our decisions?
This phenomenon has been called “the Gruen Transfer”.3 The term refers to the moment
when a buyer enters a mall and finds himself in the middle of a maze-like-structure, which
induces the buyer to lose his control and weakens his decision making ability. This is the
result of a psychological setting aimed at disorienting people. It is based on stimulating the
senses through sounds, smells, colours, lighting, temperature and interior design. The first
visible effect is that walking speed slows down, the muscles relax, and the individual
forgets why he came and is tempted to shop on impulse.4
The concept of the mall is based on a very well planned setting which uses
strong lights, warm colours (yellow, red, orange), loud music with an intense tempo,
sometimes even mirth-provoking gas. All these are orchestrated so that the buyer
focuses his energy and attention on the act of shopping. The buyer is cut off from reality
and the passage of time. Mall buildings are usually opaque, natural light does not reach
inside them, thus we hardly perceive the passing of time or the influence of weather
conditions. The more scenographic the display is, the more probable that the individual
will see, desire and buy the product. For example, there is a case study investigating
IKEA stores. The IKEA concept is unique in its way, it uses the idea of having different
spaces designed as the rooms of a home, laid out on a pre-established path. The path is
very clear and cannot be cut short. The paths that shorten the way are very well hidden
and disguised, practically invisible to the visitor – who has no choice but to follow the
imposed path. The idea was inspired by zoo parks. This alternative type of display,
which uses cubicles instead of traditional shelf displays, has the advantage of showing
different instances of how the products can be used, thus stimulating the imagination of
the buyer, provoking him to buy on impulse products which he had no intention of
buying before!5
“Mall culture” is redefining our identity by becoming the characteristic of
today’s consumption society – a society based on here and now, on present experiences,
anaesthetising and substituting reality, and the need of affiliation to a community, a
culture or a social environment. This is a new type of identity – an identity truly
postmodern in character, as it is impossible to link it or to identify it with one place or
one environment; an identity more relative than ever.
1
Burrhus Frederic Skinner, Science and Human Behavior (New York: The Free Press, 1965), 110.
Vais, “Cultura mallului”
3
“What does ‘The Gruen Transfer’ mean?” ABC 1, accessed September 13, 2012,
http://www.abc.net.au/tv/gruentransfer/faq.htm
4
“The Gruen Transfer”
5
Ahargrave, “The Psychology of Shopping” biz/ed, March 14, 2005, accessed September 13,
2012 http://www.bized.co.uk/current/leisure/2004_5/140305.htm
2
425
This entertainment feature expands rapidly, practically invading all public
building types: museums, libraries, airports, hospitals, schools; all start to behave like
malls. Our environments are changing; we are transforming them by projecting onto
them the desire of clinging to an identity, without really having one. Thus, museum
visitors, researchers, patients, students, all become consumers – consuming a fictional
identity – a brand – and by buying it, they identify themselves with the product.
Conclusions
A very important aspect of this theoretical construct was to analyse the way in which the
concept of identity evolved in time. We showed that the concept of identity is itself an
artificial construct – an imposed set of rules, norms of behaviour and a network of
meanings. Nevertheless, the most important aspect – even if we were to define the
concept from the eclectic viewpoint of postmodernity – is the fact that an identity always
responds to a necessity. This necessity can be cultural, social, religious or historical.
Thus, identities can range from “critical regionalism” to “generic cities” or they can even
fold multiple places – i.e. identities – into one space, as is the case of “heterotopias”.
However, beside this wide range of definitions, the analysis also led us to
discover that there is yet another category, which we named non-identities or fictional
identities. They are the characteristic of the “mall culture”, based on desires – not
necessities – and although they might supply the illusion of belonging to a group or
community sharing the same ideals. In fact, they are designed to just sell the product.
Still, they can feel very real, as the case of Júzcar proves it.
Nevertheless, the most important conclusion that can be drawn is the fact that
there is a very strong link, and even an interdependence between identity and the way in
which the environment is designed. The case studies we have analysed demonstrate that
amusement parks and shopping centres have a very similar bond with their identities –
even though they are fictional ones – as any other historical, cultural, social or religious
environment has with theirs. Our environments reflect who we are and what we believe
in, no matter if it is or it is not fictional.
“If it is now recognized that people have multiple identities then the same point
can be made in relation to places. Moreover, such multiple identities can either be a
source of richness or a source of conflict, or both.”1
1
Massey, Space, Place, and Gender, 153
426
The Temptation of Absolute Knowledge
Vintilă Horia and the Modern European Novel
Cristian RADU
Babeş-Bolyai University
Departament of Communications and Public Relations
Keywords: novel of human existence, totalizing knowledge, figural representation,
sight/vision, mimesis, poïesis, metaphoric.
Abstract: This study aims to identify the writer’s specific narrative technique and to
situate his literature in a certain typology. We have detailed his doctrine about art and
literature, as it is expressed during his career. Literature is seen as a privileged technique
of knowledge, the instrument through which the vocation for absoluteness can be best
satisfied. In order to emphasize the characteristics of his work, we draw a comparison
with the works of some modern known writers, which are united in their conception
about literature, the formula of the novel of ideas, as well as Erich Auerbach’s concept
of “figural representation”. The best definition for the metaphoric novel, which aims to
meditate upon the human existence, is smoothed by remarkable theoretical contribution,
marked inside of this study.
*
I. The ball scene from Trevisan palace is less significant for the epical
development of the novel The Resignation Knight, but it is important, in turn, for the
configuration of the philosophical vision about writing, and, above all, for Vintilă
Horia’s entire work.
In this scene we are witnessing a “rhetorical competition”, during which the
participants are competing to describe, as expressively as possible, their own particular
vision about the beauty of a woman’s body. After the Venetian rhetoricians “praise” in
beautiful words one or another part of a woman’s body, Radu Negru will eulogize, in the
end, the beauty of the whole body: “We cannot separate her body from her soul, nor her
different parts of her body in separate fragments. I think she is perfect, as a woman, and
our people say that a woman is indeed beautiful when every part of her is beautiful […].
Just the same, I could tell that the world is beautiful and complete not isolated in the
image of a flower, of a tree or of a mountain, but in its whole, just like a naked
woman”1.
The character’s words are, as a general fact for Vintilă Horia’s work, very
illustrative and transparent: it is about a way of conceiving the world, about a
philosophical attitude. Through that phrase “our people say”, the voivode’s conception
1
Vintilă Horia, Cavalerul resemnării (The Resignation Knight), trans. Ileana Cantuniari,
afterword by Monica Nedelcu (Craiova: Editura Europa, 1991), 87-88.
427
embeds, without doubt, the wisdom of his people. To the fragmentary way of perceiving
the world, which is specific for the Venetians, the Walachian voivode opposes a
unifying vision, a vision which “embraces” the woman (respectively the reality) in her
complete visible and invisible embodiment. The episode mentioned here is illustrative
for an entire vision which shapes the substantial opposition between the two confronting
civilizations, respectively, the Venetian and the Walachian one. In this respect, Radu
Negru’s words addressed to Paolo Erratino, the poet of the court, (let us remark how
transparent the etymology of this name is) are very significant: “You are much cleverer
than I am, he says after a moment of silence, but I know more essential things than you
do. With all your knowledge you will never discover them. Your cleverness choked you
like an ivy and now it forbids you from seeing. Soon it will suffocate you.”1 These
words, as those uttered in Trevisan’s palace scene, reflect the failure of Radu Negru’s
attempt to self-exile. Only here, in Venice, his inner self discovers the hidden wisdom,
inherited from his people and its superiority in front of the Venetian’s sterile erudition.
In the same time, the two episodes, among others, lead to one of the fundamental
assumption which defines the work of the writer: the clear opposition between two
human models, the dissociation between two existential attitudes, which can be reduced
at the opposition between an authentic existence and an inauthentic one.
This antagonism is an essential theme in Vintilă Horia’s novels. All the novels
are, without exception, novels which follow the knowledge path, novels of initiation
crowned by a blessed revelation. This revelation, gained at the end of an initiation is
embodied as a definitive option for the authentic model, of the two antagonistic models.
The voivode from The Resignation Knight has inherited, besides the crown, his father’s
deadly sin (motif taken from Kierkegaard)2, being tempted to abdicate in front of the
unbearable responsibility and, in the same time, to rise against the Power which lay such
a burden on him, “without even asking him”. Della Porta, the unconverted Venetian,
stimulates his Promethean impulse3: “We are Prometheus, our actions repeat his saga.
One day, through us, people would no longer be humiliated […]. There is no object or
aim, visible or invisible, which can escape our thirst for knowledge. We are God”4.
We are witnessing here the classical conflict with the limits of the human
condition, with the absurdity of the existence, a concept theorized by Pascal and
ingrained in the European consciousness by Kierkegaard. Vintilă Horia borrows from
the Danish philosopher not only the title and his novel’s motto, but also the theme of the
difficult relationship between humanity and the limits assessed by God.
For Kierkegaard, assuming the option and the responsibility which comes with
it generates suffering, but refusing the option leads to spiritual death5. If at the beginning
of the novel, Vintilă Horia’s character wants to avoid the “agonizing strain”, which the
necessity of the option involves, at the end, he will discover the sense of the authentic
resignation, perfect equivalent of the Christian humbleness. For this to happen, he has to
1
Ibid., 125.
Sören Kierkegaard, Traité du désespoir (Paris, Gallimard, 1963), 7.
3
Ion Vlad, “Simbolurile cunoaşterii şi ale existenţei,” (Symbols of knowledge and existence)
Tribuna 3 (22.01.1992).
4
Vintilă Horia, Cavalerul resemnării, 47.
5
Sören Kierkegaard, Traité du désespoir, 49-85, passim.
2
428
confront the anti-model offered by the Venetians. The configuration of the entire space
of Venice suggests the twilight, the morbid sophistication specific for the decadence,
with the perversion of the values, with the shadow that embraces the view, with the
sleep which descends upon the doge’s eyelids and after all with the resignation before the
Turkish threat, the symbol of the supreme Evil. This is the second meaning of the concept
of resignation in the novel, the resignation in front of the evil, consecutive to the revolt
theorized by Della Porta, captured in Aloiso Loredano’s paintings and in Paolo Erratino’s
words. The Prince’s living in Venice reflects his initiated experience, through the direct
confrontation with the established model. He will realize that it is an evil model, its
assumption will lead him to spiritual death: “To stay would mean to forget”, the hero says
to himself1. His option would lead him to the return in the Walachian “wood”, a space in
total opposition with the Venetian one, symbolized by material poverty but abundant in
spiritual richness. It is a space of wisdom and of authentic values, in opposition with the
perverted knowledge and fake values of the Venetian space.
This binary opposition is also clearly marked in the novel God was born in exile
where we find the opposition between the space of Dacia and that of Rome. For Ovid,
who is a sophisticated Roman, the contact with the wild space of Tomis is a real shock
and his initial abhorrence is imminent. But soon he will get through the surfaces and will
discover a world of freedom which he groaned unconsciously for a long time. “I have
found a path which I had been searching for all my life, without finding it” the character
notes in his diary, remembering that he was once interested in the Pythagorean theory2.
(Vintilă Horia suggests that this is the real reason for Ovid’s exile, and not the
immorality promoted by The Art of Love. It is a valid hypothesis stated by Nicolae
Lascu in the volume dedicated to the Roman poet.3)
The space of Dacia, organized around the Holy Mountain is being transformed
gradually from a space of punishment into a blessed one, which reveals a full sense of
existence for the poet, offering him, a belated, but blessed self-recapture. The space of
Dacia, through its special configuration, overlaps itself perfectly on the Walachian one
from the other novel, while Augustus’s Rome is the counterpart of Venice. The same
strict antinomy between two types of humanity is reflected in the novel Above North,
where we are witnessing Matteo Muriano, a stranger who is initiating himself in the
deep mystery of a mythical Moldavia. The people of this county live “beyond the
learning of the Greek books and beyond those up-side-downs characterized for our
living, we, the one from the bookish Western, full of imitation and cast in marble
artistically grounded in faithlessness”4.
Vintilă Horia’s work is very seamless in what concerns the thematic field, the
shades are often insignificant and what remains important is the prototype which can be
traced in every novel at an easy rate. Each of his novels asserts one of these kinds of
1
Vintilă Horia, Cavalerul resemnării, 93.
Vintilă Horia, Dunmnezeu s-a născut în exil (God was born in exile), trans. Al. Castaing,
reexamined by the autor, afterword by Daniel Rops, study by Monica Nedelcu (Craiova: Editura
Europa, 1991), 59.
3
Nicolae Lascu, Ovidiu. Omul şi poetul (Ovid. The man and the poet) (Cluj-Napoca: Editura
Dacia, 1971), 60-66.
4
Vintilă Horia, Mai sus de miazănoapte (Above north) (Bucharest: Cartea Românească, 1992), 80.
2
429
archetype, a human model, whose ascendancy can be easily figured. From this point of
view, his manner of writing is a transparent one, namely because his spiritual masters
are indicated directly either in his novels or in his theoretical writings.
One of this archetype is that of Plato’s, having a long history and initially being
defined in his Phaedo. As Eliade1 had shown, Plato takes and integrates elements from
Orphism and Pythagoreanism, he determines as the imperative of existence – the
dismissal of the contingent and the bend of the human spirit to the native word of Ideas.
The philosophers, in the proper sense of the word, are Plato’s closest category, are those
who subordinate their life to the love of wisdom, deliberately ignoring any other
activities. For them, life is assumed as an exile, as a long preparation for returning, which
is desired and not feared. This model is implicitly in opposition with the other one, which
defines existence in terms of mundane objectives, abased it, breaking it from what is
essential: “It seems that all we can do in our lifetime in order to get close to knowledge is
to break any connection with our body, except for physiological necessities. Consequently,
it is not a strong proof for you, Socrates said, that the man whom you will see revolted in
front of death was a bodily lover, not a wisdom lover? Because the same man is maybe a
lover of money, of honours, that he cherishes one of those, or both.”2
A long tradition will take this theme and will treat it intensively, as in fact a
distinction between authentic and inauthentic existence. It is a tradition which Vintilă
Horia implicitly assumes. Some Gnostic suggestions clearly appear in his work, as in
God was born in exile, where we find out about “a humanity with a flesh heart” and
where it is said that “soma estis sema.”3 Gnostics are those who distinguish three types
of humanity, respectively: somatics, psychics and pneumatics, introducing in the same
time the difference between elite and the amorphous assemblage4. When Boethius, who
is himself a character of the novel Persecutez Boece, discovers the The Consolation of
Philosophy5, he actually continues, in other shades, the Platonist knowledge. Not least,
Vintilă Horia was attracted by Existentialism. As we have already seen, from
Kierkegaard, who is the pioneer of this current, the writer took his novel’s motto (The
Resignation Knight), and Heidegger is explicitly mentioned in the novel Persecutez
Boece. The German philosopher is, just like Vintilă Horia, a critic of the technological
development of the modern society and of its negative implications. Consequently, “the
daring” of the modern man is perfectly equivalent with the “rebellion” from The
Resignation Knight, while the “docility” is similar with Vintilă Horia’s resignation6. The
theme of self-edification through the active memory is also an existentialist theme,
which is an essential argument of Vintilă Horia’s work. It is important here to notice that
1
Mircea Eliade, Istoria credinţelor şi ideilor religioase (The history of religious beliefs and
ideas), trans. Cezar Baltag (Bucharest: Editura Ştiinţifică, 1991), vol. 2, 180-186.
2
Plato, Phaedo, in Dialoguri (Dialogues), trans. C. Papacostea, examined by C. Noica,
(Bucharest: EPLU, 1968), 66.e-67.a.
3
Vintilă Horia, Dumnezeu s-a născut în exil, 159.
4
See Serge Hutin, Les gnostiques (Paris, PUF, 1959).
5
Boethius and Salvianus, Scrieri (Writings), trans. and commentaries David Popescu (Bucharest:
Editura Institutului Biblic şi de Misiune al Bisericii Ortodoxe Române, 1992)
6
Martin Heidegger, Originea operei de artă (The origin of the work of art), chapter “La ce bun
poeţi” (What are poets for), trans. and notes Th. Kleininger and G. Liiceanu, introduction by C.
Noica (Bucharest: Univers, 1982), 236-261, passim
430
the ideologists submitted to this theory operate the distinction between two ways of
living in the world. The concept of elite exists, even though is no longer associated with
the transcendental truth, but defined by the capacity of assuming one’s existence and
building it through continuous spiritual effort. In contrast, the inert assemblage is
incapable of authentic existence. (We can mention here Jaspers’s1 finite man, Ortega y
Gasset’s 2material man or Berdiaev’s3 superficial man).
Finally, we can refer to René Guénon and his followers, because Vintilă Horia
deliberately adhered to their theories. René Guenon is known for his virulent tone in the
discourse about the modern society, seeing it as the deplorable result of a long
involution. He takes from Hindu culture the notion of Manwantara, placing our society
under the sign of Kali-Yuga, an evil age, the last of the human cycles. (In this regard,
Cornel Ungureanu4 noticed that the final eve is a key concept in Vintilă Horia’s work).
The cause of the involution is the alienation from the spiritual values, from the tradition
which became the privilege of a small number of illuminists who have access to the final
truths and salvation. The rest of humanity stands under the sign of the evanescent world
and its destiny is to pass into nothingness5.
II. Vintilă Horia’s adherence to these conceptions is immediately visible. We have to
mention that the writer did not assume these influences directly, but he is congenial with
them after he has exposed his personal vision, although not very systematic, in his youth
articles.6 We can speak about an early shaped vision which was kept almost unmodified
during his entire career. Obviously, this conception shaped the writer’s vision upon
literature and art in general. As we have seen, a dominant line in the evolution of his
heroes is the longing, more or less conscious, for knowledge, seen as access to the
hidden mystery of the world. In fact, this aspiration belongs to the writer and it is the one
which generates the artistic act. We opened our paper with a suggestive scene which
reflected the substantial difference between the broad wisdom of the Walachian land and
the Venetian’s narrowness. Consequently, we have discovered that, in fact, the novel
emphasized the opposition of two ways of conceiving life and reality. The writer totally
assumes this distinction and transfers it on the way of conceiving literature. The result:
two types of literature, of which just one deserves its name. Here is what Vintilă Horia
wrote in no. 2 of the journal Meşterul Manole: “Art is the discovery of a symbol. The
writer’s mission is like the one of the man’s off-stage who, lifting the curtain reveals the
1
Karl Jaspers, “Condiţii şi posibilităţi ale unui nou umanism” (Conditions and possibilities of a
new humanism), in Texte filozofice (Philosophical texts), ed. Bruno Wurtz and George Purdea,
trans. and notes George Purdea (Bucharest: Editura Ştiinţifică, 1981)
2
José Ortega y Gasset, Revolta maselor (The revolt of the masses), trans. Coman Lupu
(Bucuresti: Humanitas, 1994).
3
Nikolai Berdiaev. Un nou Ev Mediu (The new Middle Ages), introduction by Sandu Frunză,
(Craiova: Editura Omniscop, 1995)
4
Cornel Ungureanu. Mircea Eliade şi literatura exilului (Mircea Eliade and exile literature)
(Bucharest: Editura Viitorul Românesc, 1995)
5
René Guénon, Domnia cantităţii şi semnele vremurilor (The rule of quantity and the signs of
times), trans. F. Mihăilescu and D. Stanca (Bucharest: Humanitas, 1995).
6
Cristian Radu, “Publicistica lui Vintilă Horia” (The journalism of Vintilă Horia), in Tribuna 44
(31.10.1996).
431
unknown world of the scene, a world of full and clear meanings and bright deeds, which
are kept in shadow by the average curtain of life.” The same theoretical position is
reaffirmed by the writer when he glosses over Rebreanu’s new novel, Gorila where he
seizes upon “the drama of the realistic writer who tries to bring a light upon, ad litteram,
the archaic precept of creation, ‘ars est imitatio naturae’. There is a drama in this
struggle, because the act of representing faithfully a given reality means to copy,
believing in the same time that you, as a writer, can create a reality, which is, in fact,
only a faded and average reflection of life, projected and mediated by your own
mirrors.” He continues in the same article: “To be a writer means to let go of the
objectiveness and to reproduce it as dishonest as realistic you are”1. In another writing
he enforces the artist with “the fear of imitation” and asks him imperatively “to
transfigure, to recreate reality, to impregnate it with the original rules of his own soul”.
After this, he concludes: “The great art of the world was always a fantastic art, an escape
from reality through the assembly in unnatural times and symbols of a whole reality of
life”.2 This assessment is worth remembering, even if its articulation is slightly
ambiguous, because in one of the next numbers of the same journal, this statement is
invested with a value of “aesthetical faith”3. There is also another sentence which is
eloquent in this sense: “The mysticism, understood as a dive of the self in the womb of
the supreme pneuma, appears forever as an ontological condition of the artist”4. This
aesthetical belief was often mentioned, both in his novels (through the characters’
voices) and in his theoretical writings. Here is an example of Ovid’s thought recorded in
his diary: “The poets are also prophets, they are the connection between beauty and men,
and if beauty is God, the poets should reveal the true God”5. In another novel, where the
character is El Greco the art is seen as “a channel of searching the truth”6. On the other
hand, in the volume which the writer considers to be “the essence of his academic
career”, he clearly asserts that the novel is a technique for knowledge, and that the writer
is the prototype of the connoisseur man.7
For clarifying this statement, we recover in short terms another parameter of
Vintilă Horia’s thought, which is the denunciation of the deep crisis of the modern
world, always reaffirmed in an obsessive way and in firm terms. In the number from
October 1936 of the journal Gândirea, under the pretext of a review for a volume
written by Alexis Carrel, the young writer of only twenty one years old, exposes the
degradation of the spiritual side of the human existence, and in the same way the
specialization of the sciences, the relativization of the knowledge up to a point where its
1
The review of Gorila, Gândirea 12 (December 1938)
“O nouă înţelegere a fantasticului” (A new understanding of the fantastic), Meşterul Manole 2
(February 1939)
3
“La inaugurarea unui sistem estetic” (On the inauguration of an aesthetic system), Meşterul
Manole 7-10 (September-December 1939)
4
“Miracolul fascist” (The fascist miracle), Gândirea 10 (October 1937)
5
Horia Vintilă, Dumnezeu s-a născut în exil, 170.
6
Horia Vintilă, Un mormânt în cer (A grave in the sky), trans. Mihai Cantuniari and Tudora
Şandru Olteanu (Bucharest: Eminescu, 1994), 61.
7
Horia Vintilă, Introduccion a la literatura del siglo XX, ed. Andres Bello (Madrid Universidad
Gabriela Mistral, 1989), 140.
2
432
unity becomes impossible to be recreated in the mind of the contemporaries. This idea is
continued in Introduccion a la literatura del siglo XX, where the cause of the crisis is
seen as the incapacity of man of finding satisfactory answers for his existential
questions, in his impossibility of understanding the world and his own human
condition.” Hence, we do not know what we die for and we ignore the goal we direct
to.”1 Concisely, we find in Vintilă Horia’s work the whole arsenal of accusations
towards the contemporary society, the writer bonding himself to the conception
promoted by traditionalism, existentialism and esotericism. Consequently, the solution
promoted in this volume is inspired by the last of these doctrines, esotericism. Besides
the theoretical content of this doctrine, it is an ample way of understanding the world, “a
historical-metaphysical vision”, as it is named by the writer2.
Coming back at the content of our study, it is this kind of model which literature
should aim at, and the novel in particular. It is about an absolute sense of knowledge,
which should integrate the Wholeness and reveal its indissoluble unity. If the evolution
of the sciences led to the fragmentation of the knowledge and the transformation of it
into a way of expanding the material legacy, the novel is the way through which the
unity must be rebuilt and the existence should regain its supreme goal, dignity. The
sciences, no matter what field, are not contemned, but their infusions should be
integrated into a “general epistemology”, into an effort of total knowledge, which has
wholeness as its goal. The only one susceptible to accomplish this goal is the novel:
“this technique of knowledge with epistemological possibilities, in a way more esthetic
than scientific, is the novel. Literature, in general, and the novel in particular, could be
the proper field for a connection between different types of human knowledge”. What
follows is that the writer is the one who “knows and describes in order to understand the
world around him”3.
There is the possibility that some critics show reticence or even rejection upon
such affirmations. This kind of reactions might be legitimate. Our objectivity advises us
that the whole literary history book is impregnated with a strong essayistic sense,
somehow not in accordance with the title, and that the author selects the closest writers
and analyzes them from the perspective of his old obsessions.
We have to make clear that this kind of conception upon literature, upon art in
general, was born a long time ago and, at least in the time when this book was released,
was timely. A tenuous interpreter as Nicolae Balotă was writing in 1968: “There is no
art like the novel where the man looks for himself so feverishly. The present writers,
trying to communicate the incommunicable, they attempt to explore the Being, who the
older novelists understood as a psychological and social entity, but today, more and
more, the Western writers seen it as an ontological entity. The obsessive goal of the
present novelist is the essence of the Being, its plenary becoming”4.
Vintilă Horia’s “daring” is, in fact, the act of placing the novel into a sovereign
position among other artistic forms of expression, and implicitly, he is offering the
1
Ibid., 90.
Ibid., 105.
3
Ibid., 96.
4
Nicolae Balotă, “Introduction” to R.-M. Albérès, Istoria romanului modern (The history of
modern novel), trans. Leonid Dimov (Bucharest: EPLU, 1968)
2
433
writer a privileged status. (His wisdom lies in his ability of reminding his
contemporaries, who often are tempted to forget that the novel, and literature in general,
are forms of art.) It is worth mentioning that in history, art was often seen as the first
(sometimes the only authentic) in the order of human activities. Even Plato, known for
his tough condemnation of poetry and its relegation from the Citadel, admits that the
poet is the “Gods’ translator”, the voice of the divinity. Being in a state of grace, the poet
writes some poems that “are not human, but divine and belonging to Gods”1. In The
Republic, after a close reading, suggested by Noica’s Cuvânt prevenitor (Admonitory
word) it is revealed that the art is disclaimed as an imitation of this world, and that it
would be better instead an art which would imitate the Essences. If he repudiates the
poetry for its irrationality (after all, for its adequacy at the contingent) he suggests that he
could accept a poetry “which would deal with the truth and would be reliable”2, a poetry
“opened to idea”, as Noica3 calls it.
In Plotinus, instead, all trace of ambiguity vanishes, and the art becomes the
only form of access for the authentic knowledge. Here appears for the first time the
opposition between the artistic knowledge and the scientific one, which is totally
inefficient. When the soul accepts the scientific knowledge of an object, it alienates itself
from the One and ceases to be itself, because the science implies discursive rationality
and discursive rationality implies multiplicity. In conclusion, “for reaching the One, you
have to be above science”4. Hence, there are two types of knowledge, as
W.Tatarkiewicz5 remarks, one rational discursive and another one, named “the wisdom
of Gods and the happy ones”, which can be fully traced only in the artistic act. For
Plotinus, this implies a direct intuition of the absolute, intuition which generates in the
artist’s spirit the so-called “inner shape”. The art work is born out of the concrete
embodiment of this inner shape which, as generative core, assures its beauty and its
revealing effect upon the one who contemplates it. In this sense, “the aesthetic feeling
[becomes] a metaphysical elevation of the human. In his inspiring language and in his
pathetic style, Plotinus compares this emotion with a saint enthusiasm, in which the man
gives away all the vainness of the physical life and elevates himself through the eternal
land6. Finally, we have to mention W. Tatarkiewicz’s addend who shows that Plotinus
“situated art between this world and the other one”7, endowing the artist with a
privileged status, who through his gift, is a mediator between humanity and idealism
These considerations are important because Vintilă Horia, without getting in contact
with Plotinus’s philosophy, seems to get his inspiration directly from here, when seeing
1
Plato, Ion, in Opere (Works), trans. Dan Sluşanschi and Petru Creţia (Bucharest: Editura
Ştiinţifică şi Enciclopedică, 1976), vol. 2, 533d-534e
2
Plato, Republica (The republic), in Opere, reviewed edition by Constantin Noica and Petru
Creţia, translation, interpretation, introduction, notes and annexes by Andrei Cornea, (Bucharest:
Editura Ştiinţifică şi Enciclopedică, 1986), vol. 5, 604d-608a
3
Constantin Noica, Cuvânt preliminar (Foreword) to Republica, 16.
4
Plotinus, Enneads, 6.9.4. (apud Grigore Tăuşan, Filozofia lui Plotin [Plotinus’s philosophy]
[Iaşi: Editura Agora, 1993])
5
Wladislaw Tatarkiewicz, Istoria esteticii (The history of aesthetics), trans. Sorin Mărculescu,
(Bucharest: Editura Meridiane, 1978), vol. 1, 467.
6
Grigore Tăuşan, Filozofia lui Plotin, 256.
7
Wladislaw Tatarkiewicz, Istoria esteticii, 466.
434
in the creation “the imitation of a blustering interior landscape” or when he considers the
poets “prophets, revelators of the divine order”.
Following this lineage, we have to mention F.W.J. Schelling, the one who has
also antagonized the art with 1science and cast a reflection on the last one. “The science
itself, which, through its gratuitousness, situates itself in the proximity of art, remains long
behind it just because it always directs itself towards an exterior goal and it has to be just
an agent for what is supreme”1. Practically, for the German philosopher, the artistic act is
the only shape through which the self can recreate the unity between objective and
subjective, between conscious and unconscious. The artistic intuition (“unmediated and
incomprehensible”) is the only one which assures the absolute self-consciousness of the
spirit: “By means of this intuition the whole (supreme) problem of the transcendental
philosophy is solved”2. Schelling is one of the few philosophers who offer art the first
place, proposing it as a model for philosophy: “If the aesthetic intuition is nothing but the
transcendental one transformed in the objective one, implicitly the art is the only authentic
and eternal authority of the philosophy […]. For the philosopher art is supreme just
because it reveals for him the most sacred realm where it burns in a single flame, in an
eternal and original immortality, what is divided in nature and in history”3.
The list could go on with some other thinkers who offer art a privileged status.
Let us remember Heidegger as well, who, less generous, placed the poetry (“citadel of
the Being fulfilled by words”4) next to philosophy, both being the ones which “elevate
themselves from Being and reach its truth”5.
This kind of vision upon art is fully shared by Vintilă Horia. His only “dare” as
we have already mentioned, is that of placing the novel on a sovereign position. This is a
debatable option, which can generate a contention with other categories of artists, but in
the same time is a vision shared and argued by some prestigious writers and critics. For
the moment, our interest is to show that this option is reflected upon Vintilă Horia’s
thematic field and upon the structure of his narrative discourse.
Concerning the thematic field, we can say that the label of novels of knowledge
find its support in the general opinion of the critics upon Vintilă Horia’s work. The same
critics assign some constants concerning the thematic of his work. Besides all, we have
the supra-theme of the knowledge, which subordinates the theme of the exile, of
creation, of love, as privileged forms of knowledge; then we have the theme of the
ending cycle, which shape the chronotope of Vintilă Horia’s literature, situating it under
the sign of the perverted values, of the “reign of the quantity” and implicitly of the
crepuscule which dominates the world, auguring the night and in the same time the
dawn, the resurrection; the elite theme, the authentic existence, opposed to a terrestrial
bounded existence. The opposition of these two types of existence is expressively
embodied in the opposition between memory and forgiveness, two central elements of
the writer’s work. We have to mention here the complementary meanings of the concept
1
F.W.J. Schelling, Sistemul idealismului transcendental (The system of transcendental idealism),
trans. Radu Gabriel Pârvu (Bucharest: Humanitas, 1995), 303.
2
Ibid., 291.
3
Ibid., 307.
4
Martin Heidegger, Originea operei de artă, 201.
5
Ibid., 317.
435
of memory. Firstly, the memory is the equivalent of the perpetual wake, of the deliberate
conscious effort to remain bound with the unchangeable values. Then, the memory is
seen as the only weapon against time: thinking your existence, reliving it, bestowing it in
words, whose magic powers shirk it from the demolishing power of time. In other
words, memory represents the activity of the spirit itself, the necessary and self-assured
condition of the plenary existence.
III. It is clear that this kind of thematic joins a larger problematic, that of the human
existence, transforming literature into a meditation upon the deep significances of the
world and of the existence. Liviu Petrescu, critic and theoretician, noticed in an older
study that “the theme of the human condition is a twentieth century theme, if we take
Albert Camus’s observation, according to which in art collective passions take the place
of individual passions”.1 This is not an isolated observation, because this type of novel
came into prominence in the first half of the twentieth century. The young Vintilă Horia,
when he made visible in a convincing way his artistic view, he bonded himself in the
spirit of the age. He would later discover his fellows, would give them his credit and
would appreciate them, discovering in their literature the same grave questioning which
he also approached.
This phenomenon is visible in the above mentioned Introduccion… . After he
reconsiders the humanity crises and reaffirms his literary doctrine, he goes through the
literary history of the twentieth century and, through interpretation and personal
consideration, he converts it into a lively mirror of the evolution (involution!) of humanity.
Corin Braga, when making commentaries upon this book, signals that Vintilă Horia sees
in the literature of this century “not a different area of the spirit, but an instrument of
experiencing reality (the global reality) and an anthropological geophone.”2
According to Vintilă Horia, the whole literature of the twentieth century
illustrates the process of the continuous degradation of the human race, the forthcoming
of the end, which, in different shapes, was signalled by Spengler, Nietzsche, Toynbee
and especially Guénon. In literature, the direct expression of the degradation of values is
reflected in the forms of vanguard, which is integrated as “a symptom of the existential
crises and of the global technique of modifying the being.”3
The writer’s focus is on the great creators, those who deliver through their
literature a meditation upon humanity problems. The first signs of the “sickness” are
signalled by Dostoevsky and Kafka4 (authors who are assigned little space in this
volume). Musil’s The Man without Qualities is seen as the prototype of the
dehumanized man, and the symbolic space of Kakania is a metaphor not just of the
empire, but of the agonized world.
In the writer’s hierarchy, the preferred authors are Ernst Jünger, Thomas Mann
and Hermann Hesse. In Jünger’s On the Marble Cliffs, Vintilă Horia sees the confrontation
1
Liviu Petrescu, Romanul condiţiei umane (The novel of human condition) (Bucharest: Editura
Minerva, 1979), 11.
2
Corin Braga, “Literatura preapocaliptică,” (Pre-apocalyptic literature), Steaua 9 (September
1990).
3
Vintilă Horia, Introduccion a la literatura del siglo XX, 167.
4
Ibid., 144-145.
436
of the two principles which fight for the human destiny from its beginning, even if
Jünger wanted to punish, through his parable, the ascension of the third Reich. Then,
The Treatise of the Rebel is an advocacy of “‘the freedom hidden in the woods,’ for
refusing slavery and assuming the unrest of the freedom.”1 Regarding Hesse, his work is
seen, in a metaphoric sense, as a permanent effort of finding “a clearance in the woods,
where science, religion, philosophy and art can integrate themselves for building the
image of a new man, capable of fighting with disaster and crisis”. The death of Joseph
Knecht, from The Glass Bead Game, is regarded as “a return to essence and the
resurrection of faith”, and Goldmund’s experience (from Narziss and Goldmund) is an
initiatory one, he gains access to authentic faith through art and suffering.2 Finally,
Thomas Mann describes in The Magic Mountain the same sinuous way through
knowledge, through life, which is assumed and understood by Hans Castorp at Berghof3
sanatorium, in the presence of death and agony, at the end of an initiation.
Even without making these brief considerations, the connection between Vintilă
Horia’s work and those mentioned above is self-evident. Hans Castorp, just as the
heroes of the Romanian writer, is himself an exiled, far away from his country, from his
family, from his “bourgeois” life. There, in the sanatorium on the high mountain, in the
closeness of illness and death, he would build his own conception about life,
instinctively rejecting Naphta’s and Settembrini’s pedagogical burst, finding in the end
his own way through fulfilment: “there are two ways which lead to life. One is the
regular one, straight and honest. The other one is dangerous, gets through death, and is
the genial way.”4
The closest writer to Vintilă Horia, through his artistic conception reflected in
his work, seems to be Hemann Hesse. His own confessions are relevant in this regard:
“to create means to follow the path of the life voice, which I hear inside of me, which
calls me to follow it, even if I am not capable to distinguish its meaning and its goal,
even if it will take me away from the road to happiness, and dip me in dark and
incertitude”. He sees in art “an alternative for the alienated civilization” and creates his
work as a personal citadel and, in the same time, as an “expression of the resistance that
the spirit opposes to the barbarian forces.”5 He would transfer this passion of quest upon
his characters, restless spirits, chosen ones, hating people’s inaction and getting through
the twists and turns of life to make a sense for his own existence. Hesse’s obsession is
the possibility of finding a solution for the conflict which turns apart the human
consciousness, the one between spirit and life, between vita activa and vita contemplativa.
This antinomy is reflected with extreme clearness in Hesse’s heroes. His novels
deal with pairs of characters, whose confrontation reflects the opposition between the
spiritual character and the vital one. We have, on the one side, Joseph Knecht and
Narcis, on the other side, Plinio Designori and Goldmund. Each of them experience in a
1
Ibid., 273-283.
Ibid., 306-312.
3
Ibid., 312-315.
4
Thomas Mann, Muntele vrăjit (The magic mountain), trans. P. Manoliu, (Bucharest: EPLU,
1967), 641.
5
George Guţu, Preface to Hermann Hesse, Lupul de stepă. Siddharta (Steppenwolf. Siddharta),
trans. George Guţu (Bucharest: Univers, 1983)
2
437
bitter way the incompleteness, the melancholy of the “otherness”, the unfairness of the
necessary option they have to take: “Ah, and life does not make any true sense unless if
you can achieve both of them, if life would not be separated between this empty “or-or”!
To be able to create without paying the price of life! To live without letting go at the
elevation of creation! Was this impossible? All the existence seems to be built on
duality, on contraries.”1
Following the line of Platonic philosophy, and then, of Gnosticism (but also
Christianity), there is the tendency of solving this antinomy through the generalization of
the spiritual dimension to the injury of the unvalued “living in the world”. Hesse’s heroes,
besides their choices, test until breakdown the principle they choose, discovering its failure
and seeing, only in the end, the saving solution of the balance. We are witnessing here a
revaluing of life, and it is also here that the existentialist philosophy finds its influence. The
isolation of the spirit from life, the idea of a conflict between the two “half” of life is
displaced by the suggestion of their complementariness. If in the novels The Seventh
Letter, God was Born in Exile or The Resignation Knight, Vintilă Horia seems to frame the
first solution, the one-way choice, in other novels he converges to Hesse’s vision. El
Greco’s observation in A Grave in Haven (“what wisdom lays in life’s contradictions
when they get together”2) can be named as a central idea in Hesse’s novels. This last idea
is made visible in the novel Persecutez Boece, where Ştefan Diaconu dreams about
building a “complementary ontology” which should integrate the unity of the human
historical side with the corpuscular (supra temporal) one.3 In the second part of this novel,
Boethius later understands “the complementary solidarity” of Plato’s and Aristotle’s work,
which, joined together, reveal the human and world complexity.4
Among the writers Vintilă Horia did not mention in his Introduccion…,
Hermann Broch is congenial with him. In his The Death of Virgil, he describes the reign
of Augustus under the same atmosphere of an ending which embraces the world, an
image present also in God was Born in Exile. The parallel with the century in which he
writes is clear and the writer confesses this directly.5 In Broch’s case, we have to
mention, in addition, the clear identity of his conception on the novel with Vintilă
Horia’s one. “If there is a right of literature to exist, if there is an over temporality of
poetic creation, than there is the absoluteness of knowledge. Because the wholeness of
the understanding of the world, as it is that the work of art dreams, concentrates the
whole knowledge of an infinite human evolution into a single act of knowledge: into a
single existence, into a single work of art and in its wholeness has to be included the
eternity”6. For this writer, the pure aesthetical function of art is unacceptable, he dreams
about writing a “gnoseological” or “polyhistoric” novel whose mission is the integrative
knowledge of reality.
1
Hermann Hesse, Narcis şi Gură de Aur (Narcissus and Goldmund), trans. Ivan Deneş,
(Bucharest: RAO, 1995), 228.
2
Vintilă Horia, Un mormânt în cer, 57.
3
Vintilă Horia, Salvarea de ostrogoţi. Prigoniţi-l pe Boeţiu! (Persecutez Boece!), trans. Ileana
Cantuniari (Craiova: Editura Europa, 1993), 14; 45,
4
Ibid., 178
5
Ioan Roman, Preface to Hermann Broch, Moartea lui Vergiliu (Virgil’s death), trans. Ioan
Roman (Bucharest: Univers, 1975), 15.
6
Ibid., 12.
438
Finally, it’s worth mentioning here Julien Gracq, a writer less present in the
commentaries upon the modern novel. His novel, The Opposing Shore, is closely
connected with Vintilă Horia’s writings. Julien Gracq imagines, in a lyrical way, the
utopian realm of Orsenna as a crepuscular world, crushed under a great, extinction
history, ceased by a restless sleep, hunted by anticipations. The suspense of this world is
vanished by Aldo, a chosen hero, obsessed of what is beyond the moving border
reflected in the crystal of the sea. His gesture of crossing the forbidden border (besides
the fact that he awakes Orsenna) is the equivalent of a revelation, of an enlightenment
which gives sense to a confusing existence. “The inner feeling which lay out the web of
my life, still from my childhood, was that of a wandering deeper and deeper. And now,
the irrational feeling of the right path made the salted desert to bloom all around me. It
seems to me that I was blessed with the promise and the revelation of another pole,
where the roads unite themselves instead of separating.”1
In the preface of the novel, the professor Nicolae Balotă notices, on one way,
the model of the agonizing civilization and the waiting state which arouses the desire for
knowledge in the souls of the chosen ones, the searching for a revelation which should
end the wandering in the dark. On the other way, he suggests that, in front of Gracq, the
world opens like a book, that “the creature and the things are not detached, are not lying
in lethargy, but they point to something beyond them.”2 For Gracq, reality has a double
dimension and his interest is guided towards what is beyond appearances. Because of
this, for the French writer the literary work represents a palimpsest, which hides in its
filigree “a magical text”, which reveals the meanings of the world for those who know
how to see.
IV. When investing the novel with a gnoseological function and approaching a
philosophical thematic, this leads to some consequences upon the technique of the
novel, upon the configuration of the narrative discourse. Nicolae Balotă’s observations
concerning J. Gracq’s work can also be applied to the work of any the writers we have
already mentioned and, evidently, on Vintilă Horia’s writings. Returning to Vintilă
Horia’s work, we have to remind that the shades and details of his creation are less
important, his focus is on the “essential things”. He frequently chose his characters from
the historical field, without a closed or detailed description of the respective historical
context. Even if he approached the Greek Antiquity (in The Seventh Letter), the
Romanian Middle Ages (Above North or The Resignation Knight), the Romanian PostWar Age (Persecutez Boece), the timing is always the one of the final age. The
crepuscular atmosphere, the indefinite waiting, the anticipation of the imminent ending
and implicitly of a new beginning, all these images are present in his novels.
The space is always described in a brief way, neglecting some concrete features.
What is said about it is enough to know that it is a space of malefic glamour or of benign
poverty. For example, the description of Venice is very significant in this context; it is
concentrated in three sentences: “Everything was beautiful and tidy. No spontaneous
1
Julien Gracq, Ţărmul syrtelor (The Opposing Shore), trans. Gellu Naum, (Bucharest: Univers,
1970), 201.
2
Nicolae Balotă, Introduction to Julien Gracq, Ţărmul syrtelor, 5-9.
439
things could happen. The sky seems to be the men’s work.” The epical dimension in
itself is not very dense (should be mentioned that his novels have in general a small
number of pages). Vintilă Horia’s characters move and talk just so much as to specify
their belonging to one or another antagonistic existential models.
We find no concern for the particular aspects of life, not an effort to describe in
detail a segment of reality. There is no focus on the visible side of this reality; it is
described just to suggest the a-temporal foundation which lay beneath it. From this point
of view the things get a new shape, different form the common one: a shepherd is more
learned than the Western scholars, a poor and ignored by history country becomes a
blessed land, and the abject space of a kennel is broader and more suitable for living
than a kingdom. This is not the common face of things, but is the real one, as it is
suggested, because it is built by the Reality itself, by that level in relation to which
reality is just a mere reflection.
Erich Auerbach, in the first chapter of his known book, Mimesis, proposes a
comparison between the Odyssey and the Bible. Along with the author, we find out that
the people, the deeds, the phenomena brought in scene by Homer are what they are and
nothing more. Everything happens in only one level, the background does not exist, any
secondary significance is out of order. The reality is just as it is presented to us, is the
only and absolute reality.
By contrast, the Bible favours the background. The characters that act lose their
consistency, their material presence, the role of people of “flesh and blood” is
diminished. There are few words and gestures, the spatial and temporal clues are
sketchily presented and, in most of the cases, not important. A thing, in itself and taken
separately from its context, has no meaning. What remains important is its projection on
the background; a thing gets consistency only in relationship with a vertical level which
dominates the whole scene. It is what Auerbach called “figural representation”.
This technique of representation starts from the conception of the universe as an
absolute unity, from the connection between the horizontal level and the vertical one. All
that happens in the horizontal level gets meaning in the vertical one and the objective
reality is overwhelmed by the hidden meanings. “The connection between events is not
seen as a temporal or causal development, but as a unit in the divine plan, all these
events being its links and its reflections”1. In other words, “the temporal-horizontal and
causal connection between events is broken, now and here, they do not exist anymore as
links in a mundane existence, but on contrary, of something that had always been there
and will be accomplished in the future”.2
Auerbach’s already classic contribution was referred here because the figural
representation dominates Vintilă Horia’s work and also the work of the other writers
mentioned above. This type of novel requires this kind of representation as long as its
goal is to follow not the effective shape of empirical reality, but the mysterious
meanings which are hidden in it. In other words, reality is important just because, in its
entirety, is a reflection of the worlds of essence, a “forest of symbols”, as a famous
quote. We have seen how firmly the young writer disclaimed the realistic literature,
1
2
Erich Auerbach, Mimesis, trans. I. Negoiţescu, (Bucharest: EPLU, 1967), 18.
Ibid., 81.
440
making a resolute option for the “fantastic” literature. The writer’s devotion has to be,
not toward reality, but toward the “inner landscape” which will be born out of the
contemplation of reality. The writer will recreate the reality, will impose his own rules,
will become “the creator of a personal universe, who looks to reproduce the hidden
meanings of the universe, and not its complex visible manifestation.
Some of Nicolae Manolescu’s observations, from his ample study dedicated to
the novel1, are welcomed in this context. Compared with “Noah’s ark”, the novel is being
characterized by the choice it makes, by the fact that it is a “sample of reality”. This choice
leads to the existence of a goal, of an established sense, in front of which the selected
sample has to become expressive. “Not all the people entered Noah’s ark, just like a heroic
poetry could not contain the whole reality; the novel reproduces it on a small scale and it
systemizes it, it is a reconstruction of the universe, not a restitution of it”.
Questioning “what is the meaning of realism in the novel”, Manolescu uses the
definition which Arnold Toynbee gives to the city, “a place that cannot produce its
necessary goods and it is, because of this, dependent on the agricultural Hinterland”. The
novel is similar to the city, it cannot feed itself alone, it needs the Hinterland of the
empirical reality. The critic puts a light on the ways in which the ages of the novel deal
with this “appendix”, which is the reality: the Doric novel and the Ionic one searches,
even if from different perspective, to reproduce reality for itself. The Doric does that
from an objective perspective, while the Ionic does it from a subjective, relative
perspective, but they work in the same extent, trying to capture the reality as exactly as
possible, in an analytical and classifying approach. The two novelistic prototypes want
to substitute the reality with the fiction, making the last one similar to the first one,
searching, in other words, to create an illusion closer to the reality appearance.
The “anti-natural” approach of the Corinthian appears to be in contrast: “The
Hinterland of the Corinthian novel recovers its conventional status: allegorical, mythical,
imaginative, exotic or just bookish”. The reality of this last type of novel is conventional,
it signifies, it does not copy, it is just a way of outlining another reality, an idealistic one.
Implicitly, it is not followed by plausibility or respect for the truthful reality (if it has
one), but its obedience in front of the truthfulness of the artistic structure. Let us notice
that only in this last case reality proves to be truly helpful, being subordinated to art; for
the Doric and Ionic novels, the proportion seems to be backward, namely, the art seems
to be subordinated to life. The Corinthian novel is built “in filigree”; it has two levels, a
closed one, “copied” after reality, and one in background, imposed by the creative
imagination. It is obvious that the first level is subordinated to the last one that the
physical reality is presented so as to speak about the invisible reality, as the author
conceives it.
The above considerations did not follow to integrate Vintilă Horia’s literature in
the frame of the Corinthian type of novel, which has some other features besides those
already mentioned. Vintilă Horia’s theoretical option is clear in what concerns its
relation with the reality, and his art will abundantly confirm this. To use his term, his
literature is, without a doubt, a “fantastical” one, if we interpret the fantastic as defining
the supremacy of fantasy upon reality, the firm expulsion of any mimetic form. This
1
Nicolae Manolescu, Arca lui Noe (Noah’s ark) (Bucharest: Minerva, 1983), vol. 1, 42-60, passim
441
kind of thinking does not imply the disdain of reality and Manolescu also observes that,
paradoxically, the Corinthian novel “does not exclude (even increases) the detailed and
closed description made by a vigilant eye, which gives attention to the feeble porosity of
the real”. The paradox disappears when we state that, after all, only if you carefully
observe the appearances you can distinguish the essences. We do not have to limit our
understanding at the surface of the things, but to go deeper and treat it for just what it is:
the visible part of an immense invisible reality. “Just like the depth needs a surface to
stay underneath, in the same way the surface, to be real, needs a thing to rest on and to
cover it”.1
We have to mention here that realism does not take imitation as a goal in itself,
because this will be impossible to achieve, and consequently, abnormal to settle as a
rule. After all, the realist authors also see in their creation an act of knowledge, but one
situated under the positivist paradigm. It is about situating in a deliberate way the artistic
consciousness in relation with reality, a fact that aspires to identify the artist with the
scientist. Vintilă Horia’s distinction between realist literature and fantastic one can be
reduced to the distinction between the scientific knowledge and the artistic one, as they
were described by Plotinus and Schelling.
The obligation of the scientific knowledge, as it is postulated by the positivist
paradigm, requires the writer to limit himself to the realm of the sensible reality. The
writer will give his full attention to this reality, will examine, catalogue and classify it,
searching intensively through each corner (even the abject ones, in the case of the
naturalists), observing people, firstly in their external movement, and then trying to
penetrate their psychic, in search of their inner mechanism. ”The modern novel analyzes
the common man and makes anatomy and classification, being grounded exclusively on
the objective, bringing out the man from the diurnal life. It is entirely the prosaic type.”2
This is a realistic doctrine that Vintilă Horia would certainly turn against. This kind of
novel limits itself to observation, at close observation and impersonal recording, as an
actuary. The observation can be directed towards a society, a restricted community or it
can explore the psychical and emotional life; it can be objective and all-embracing, in
the case of the omniscient narrator, or can be relative and restrains its area of
exploration, if it is assumed by different reflectors. The narrator’s look remains inside
the world, analyzing it in detail, but not crossing its borders, no matter which technique
he uses or which is the object of his observation. The empirical reality, even transformed
or just copied, it remains the model the work relates to.
In the case of “fantastic” literature (keeping for now Vintilă Horia’s term), the
model is ideal, is beyond the border of the world. In this order, the reality is analyzed
just because it hides, in its depth, reflections of the transcendental model; the artist did
not observe the things, but contemplates them, trying to guess their deep value. “There is
not a thing in the world that would not be impregnated with a divine nerve; the difficulty
is to reach it and to make it tighten”.3 The artist always searches the hidden meaning of
1
José Ortega y Gasset, Meditaţii despre Don Quijote şi gânduri despre roman (Meditations on
Don Quixote and thoughts about the novel), trans. Andrei Ionescu (Bucharest: Univers, 1973), 68.
2
G. Călinescu, Principii de estetică (Principles of aesthetic) (Bucharest: EPL, 1968), chapter
Reflecţii mărunte asupra romanului (Minor reflections on the novel), 292.
3
José Ortega y Gasset, Meditaţii despre Don Quijote şi gânduri despre roman, 53.
442
the world, the significance that assures its coherence and justifies its existence, being
confident that every object is a sign, that the world, as a whole, is a book. The sensible
reality is analyzed, invested with significance, in permanent connection to its
transcendental foundation; its image is reflected in the work and is subordinated and
related to the absoluteness which the artist feels beyond the limit of the visible. The
image of the reality is transfigured, becomes an essence of the world, as seen by the eye
that contemplates it.
The general features of the two types of novel are reflected in the building of
the characters. In the realistic novel, “of observation”, (we adopt for the moment this
name), the characters live in the world, they develop their life exclusively in the area of
the contingent reality. Their actions, thoughts and wishes are in direct connection with
the environment they live in and their reasons and consequences do not cross the border
of this environment. They are “terrestrial” spirits, no matter how elevated their concerns
are, their living is part of this world. They do not look beyond the visible, their wishes
stop at the border of the achievable, their thoughts do not exceed the rational. They are
“flesh and blood” heroes, their life is subordinated to the laws of nature and society. “In
the typology of the Romanesque forms, the spiritual alternative which plays the deciding
role is the one which emerges from the fact that either the soul of the character is, in
connection with reality, too narrow or too large”.1 Judging in G. Lukacs’ terms, we will
easily discover that the heroes’ soul is, in relation with reality, too narrow. The limits
imposed by the social order or by ethic, the historical limits in general, can be
experienced as border of a jail, producing, as a consequence, revolt, break-out. The
reality, in its entirety, is large enough. The human limits are not fully experienced, they
are not questioned.
On the other hand, in the “fantastic” novel (as named by Vintilă Horia) the
narrowness of the reality is acutely experienced. The horizon of the heroes opens
towards infinity, their look constantly goes towards a point placed beyond, their dreams
point the unreachable, their thoughts think the unthinkable. Their actions relate with a
transcendental level, the reasons and the meanings of their actions should be searched in
this level. The laws that govern their life are the spiritual ones. If we are to use a
metaphorical image, Kafka’s land surveyor can be a prototype of these characters. All
his actions and thoughts search the access of the far-away, misty castle. He studies
people and their customs, he falls in love, fights with all his being to achieve his
purpose, namely to enter the forbidden space of the castle of which the village life
depends. It is another matter whether he will succeed or not, a matter which could lead
eventually to a sub-classification. The novel is a story of a spirit of unrest, of life
experienced as a perpetual search. “In this way, the fundamental generative command of
the novel’s shape is realized as the psychology of the heroes: they are the searchers”.2
V. We have named here the two members of the typology using Vintilă Horia’s terms
in order to emphasize the differentiation between the two. From this point forward we
will drop this terminology. We would like to borrow, in this respect, Ioana Em.
1
Georg Lukács, Teoria romanului (Theory of the novel), trans. Violeta Nişcov (Bucharest:
Univers, 1977), 21.
2
Ibid., 65.
443
Petrecu’s terminology, namely, the distinction she made between sight and vision1, a
distinction which we find relevant for our discussion. In this regard, the first type of
novel will become one of the sight (the term is already established, as we shall see), a
sight which impersonally records the scene of life; the second one, named “fantastic” by
Vintilă Horia , will become the novel of vision, a vision which opens itself to the hidden
meanings found beyond the surface of the world. Our concern was to define the type of
literature where Vintilă Horia’s novels can be placed, and not the typology. The
existence of this type of novel was intensely commented and debated. Wayne C. Booth
is one of the critics that define this kind of novel: “the quest-novel”. The author of The
Rhetoric of Fiction signals the appearance, in this century, of some novels whose
authors “thought they were similar to Conrad, competing with the philosopher and the
scientist, unravel the truth”. All these novels are similar to “a philosophical dialogue as
The Banquet or to allegories as The Pilgrim Journey, then to Tom Jones or
Hemingway’s A Farewell to Arms. In all these novels a character or a group of
characters set for the essential truth”. It is about the “modern quest-novel”, and they are
given as example Kafka’s The Castle, Thomas Mann’s The Magic Mountain, or Hesse’s
Siddharta and Steppenwolf.2
This type of novel, in some way, is close to what Northrop Frye calls “the
romance”, making a difference between three other types of fictions: the novel, the
confession and the anatomy. Unlike the novel, which is constrained by its relationship
with history, the romance gravitates towards universality and timelessness. If the novel
is closer to “an extensive fictional shape of the history”, the romance converges to
allegory, “reflecting allegorical implications through its every element”. This type of
writing is at the crossroad between the novel, which speaks about people, and myth,
which speaks about gods. Frye, in the same manner as Lukàcs, suggests that the way in
which the characters are conceived is defining for every type or narrative. “The essential
difference between novel and romance belongs to the way in which the characters are
conceived. The romance’s creator does not propose himself to create flesh and blood
characters, but stylized figures, capable of generating psychological archetypes.”3
Signalled by Northrop Frye, the tendency through allegory becomes at R.M.
Albérès the fundamental feature of the new type of novel, specific for the middle of the
twentieth century, marked by Kafka’s influence. It is about “the symbolic-allegorical
novel” whose model is indebted to D’Annunzio’s or D.H Lawrence’s lyric novel, and
also to Swift’s and Wells’ utopia. The features of this kind of novel are meditation,
esotericism, the suggestion of a hidden meaning, the utopian alienation, all these
subordinated to the defining character, which is the allegory. “The symbolic-allegorical
novel aims, in addition to using the fable, to reveal the mystery which connects the
visible life to the deep one, the anecdote with the essential. Hermann Hesse, Ernst
Jünger, Marcel Schneider offer in the same time a true story and its symbolic meaning.
1
See Ioana Em. Petrescu, Eminescu şi mutaţiile poeziei româneşti (Eminescu and the mutations
of Romanian poetry) (Cluj-Napoca: Editura Dacia, 1989)
2
Wayne C. Booth, Retorica romanului (The rhetoric of the novel), trans. Alina Clej and Şt.
Stoenescu (Bucharest: Univers, 1976), 344-345.
3
Northrop Frye, Anatomia criticii (The anatomy of criticism), trans. Domnica Sterian and Mihai
Spăriosu (Bucharest: Univers, 1972), 386-390.
444
The art of novel does not lie either in description, or in imagination; it is about the
creation of a dense and opaque fable in which should develop, with the same force, the
resistance and contingency of reality, as much as the elementary fever and the elevate
possession of the spirit who wants to give it a meaning. It is a symbolic novel in the
whole sense, because it is established between the common and the essential reality,
between existence and essence, between the lived and the ideal world of the spirit. The
symbol, constant and voluntary, is here the unifying feature between the universe of the
ideas and the apparent universe. The novel is neither life, nor ideal, it is the relation
between them, continuously polished”.1
The novel, through its aim to offer an image of the Wholeness, to look for the
unique principle which guarantees the unity and the homogeneity of the universe,
competes with philosophy and this fact was emphasized by Wayne C. Book. In a
pragmatic way, this type of novel illustrates or debates a certain philosophical
conception, even if it is not a systematic one and does not integrate itself in one of the
philosophical doctrines. In these novels, more or less ostensive, the writers integrate
their hypotheses or opinions about some concepts that are part of the philosophical field.
Often, the writer develops his thesis in his confessions or in his commentaries upon his
own writing, to make sure that his conceptions are properly perceived. In Vintilă Horia’s
case this was explicitly demonstrated. We shall not limit his entire work at these
“theses”, because, as Maria Corti suggests, the work asserts its own will, enclosing the
will of the writer, preserving itself so in the end it might not reflect his intentions with
precision.2 But these theses still exist, the novel was conceived upon their frame and it
reveals them, even if not in an obvious manner. We can find the same phenomenon in
Th. Mann’s work. It is enough to mention that, writing Doctor Faustus, he also added
the story of writing it. In this “novel of the novel” we are explicitly offered the reading
key: “I knew what I wanted and what burden I was assuming: nothing less than the
novel of my age, dressed in the precarious and outlaw story of an artist”. In another
place we find: “The fundamental reason of my book: is the imminence of the sterility,
the innate dismay, which favours the pact with the devil”.3 The writer, in the same
manner as Vintilă Horia, for gaining a faithful reception of his intentions, reveals them
through the perfect credible narrator, who, in Doctor Faustus, alarms us towards the
“symbolic parallelism” between the order of the German nation and Adrian Leverkühn’s
illness. In a similar way, “the publisher” from Hesse’s novel, Steppenwolf, to which we
owe the autobiography of Harry Haller, writes: “the illness from Haller’s soul, I am
convinced now, is not the caprice of a single man, but the illness of the age itself”.4 We
1
R.M. Albérès, op. cit, pp. 360-375
Maria Corti. Principiile comunicării literare (translation by Ştefania Mincu, Introduction by
Marin Mincu, Univers, 1981) p. 93
3
Thomas Mann, Doctor Faustus. Viaţa compozitorului german Adrian Leverkuhn povestită de
un prieten. Cum am scris Doctor Faustus. (Romanul unui roman) (Doctor Faustus: The Life of
the German Composer Adrian Leverkühn, as Told by a Friend. How I wrote Doctor Faustus. The
story of novel), trans. E. Barbu and Andrei Ion Deleanu (Bucharest: Editura Muzicală a Uniunii
Compozitorilor din R.S.R., 1970) (In English: Doctor Faustus: The Life of the German Composer
Adrian Leverkühn, as Told by a Friend, trans. Helen Tracy Lowe-Porter [New York: Alfred A.
Knopf, 1948])
4
Hermann Hesse, Lupul de stepă, 42.
2
445
also have to mention that in the afterword of the same novel, Hesse pointed out that the
detected illness “does not lead to death”, that in his work, “it does not represent the fall,
but its contrary: redemption”.1
After considering these examples, we can draw the conclusion that we are
confronting some “novels with thesis” (making this reference we exclude any possible
pejorative connotation). When formulating this statement, we do not have in mind only
this practice of the writers to make commentaries upon their work. It is a well spread
practice, which can guide the critic to some basic assumptions, but not to some decisive
arguments for analyzing the work, which has to be approached as a distinct entity. The
way in which these writings are conceived limits the critic’s liberty, guiding him firmly
enough through a closed interpretation, exposed by the writer. The allegorical
construction implies by definition this kind of orientation. It would be hard to analyze
God was Born in Exile in another way than a novel of an exile as soteriological
experience, or The Glass Bead Game as a meditation upon the sterility that threatens the
spirit as soon as it isolates itself from life. The characters, their gestures and their words,
the background in which they move, are invested with significant meanings which make
difficult or even impossible an alternative meaning. “We are dealing with an authentic
allegory when the poet explicitly reveals the correspondence between his images and
some examples or perceptions, trying to suggest the way his work should be explained.
The writer uses the allegory every time he explicitly asserts ‘when I say X I also refer to
Y’. If he acts in the same way all along his work, we can say, although prudently, that
his writing is an allegory”.2 There is nothing to argue against this way of conceiving
literature. The writer has full freedom in choosing the conventions, and the critic owes
respect to his choice and to studying him according to the terms of the respective
conventions. The base of these narrative constructions is the convention that substitutes
the author’s commentary with the setting, with symbols and the dramatic presentation of
the characters. (It is a compositional strategy signalled by Wayne C. Booth3, who had
demonstrated that the author has the freedom to choice his disguises, but it is impossible
for him to vanish from his text.) Hence, in the novel The Resignation Knight, in the
place of an explicit authorial comment, which should label Venice as a space of
ignorance, of moral and spiritual decadence, we find an image shaped in a way that the
reader could label it accordingly. In The seventh Letter, the broken statues of gods speak
instead of the author about the disappearance of faith among the Athenians. The narrator
from Tonio Kröger does not said directly that the people with blue eyes are “the
unconscious” type, but the way they are presented excludes the ambiguity. Judging in
these terms, in the case of these novels, which spotlight the correspondence between
images and their meanings, we could talk about a deeply marked authorial presence.
This aspect is not surprising at all because, as we shall see, we are speaking about
“autobiographical” novels. But this consistency of the authorial comment (concealed or
not) can become slightly annoying for the reader. We are not talking about what
Northrop Frye4 named as “the aversion” of the critic in front of a work that limits his
1
Ibid., 21.
Northrop Frye, 109.
3
Wayne C. Booth, 245.
4
Northrop Frye, 112.
2
446
interpretative possibilities. The results of our analysis show that the specificity of this
type of novels implies this strategy of orientating the spirit of the reader, leading him to
follow the author in his way to “knowledge”. To make this clear, there are no objections
to be made against this type of literature; conversely, in our opinion, they are exceptional
artistic achievements, valuable and fascinating novels.
Some prestigious critics gave evidence for the demonstrative character,
sometimes excessive, at least in the case of Vintilă Horia. The professor Ion Vlad,
making commentaries upon the novel The Resignation Knight, finds it “here and there
overwhelmed by the insistence of the meditation and implicitly of the demonstration”1.
Cornel Ungureanu is even stricter, affirming that “Vintilă Horia’s didacticism (like
Mircea Eliade’s) becomes at one point annoying”, that some ideas are obsessively
reaffirmed in his work and “disseminate the text, dividing it in moral stories.”2
Consequently, there is a risk to glide in didacticism, understood as the author’s wish to
firmly orientate the reader’s mind. This risk is not always avoided with enough
cleverness by the writer. The problem is delicate and difficult to settle because it is
impossible to determine a categorical limit for the firmness of the authorial voice.
Although, reading Narciss and Goldmund, it is hard to repress the feeling that the
author, through the narrator’s voice, works too hard to make us see the two characters in
the way he conceived them. As for Vintilă Horia, we have to mention that his novels
remind or even lead to René Guénon’s and especially V. Lovinescu’s esoteric doctrine.
In The Resignation Knight, the aim of introducing one of these theses has as a result the
inconsistency of Della Porta’s portrait. At the beginning of the novel, he is the
revolutionary type, who arrogantly affirms “We are God”; but he is also the one who
recounts Radu Negru about the “possibility of becoming eternal”, about Plato’s and
Pythagoras’s learning, about “the religious truth valid for all people, beyond the
Churches”. The elite, that minority of initiated people, who were meant to keep alive the
spiritual flame in order to make possible the rebirth of the world into another cycle of
life, appears in every novel, sometimes only as a simple gloss of Guénon’s thought,
insufficiently integrated in the unity of the artistic text, as it happens in Les impossibles:
“they are the guardians of a universal equilibrium, which we are about to destroy and
they are about to save it, because they know the laws…”3. In the novel Persecutez
Boece, the fragment from Diaconu’s manuscript, about the strange meeting of Madame
S.’s friend with a woman who had been dead for two years, appears as a perfectly
strange textual body; it seems to be introduced only to justify Guénon’s opinion about
the communication between the dead people with those alive: “Guénon is clear in his
book, The Spiritist Fallacy and The Reign of Quantity & the Signs of the Times”. It
briefly exposes the thesis of this book, and suddenly, in the next line, we have Niels
Bohr and Max Planck, thinking about the bond between science and religion4. The truth
is that Vintilă Horia’s novel are not equals as value, but we should not accuse him. They
are less elaborated novels, less shaped from an artistic point of view, as Les Impossibles
or Above North, and others, like God was Born in Exile, The Resignation Knight or The
1
Ion Vlad, “Simbolurile cunoaşterii şi ale existenţei.”
Cornel Ungureanu, 115.
3
Vintilă Horia, Les Impossibles, 118.
4
Vintilă Horia, Salvarea de ostrogoţi, 45.
2
447
Seventh Letter, in which the artistic accomplishment was more attentively searched. In
the first novels we can distinguish that “didacticism” we have already mentioned,
manifested by the wish to introduce in the text some particular ideas and concepts.
When the writer competes, as Booth said, with the philosopher and the scientist,
he takes the risk of borrowing their instruments. Consequently, the fact that he directs
the interpretative act cannot be disapproved as long as he conceives it with artistic
instruments. We cannot incriminate the illustration of a philosophical doctrine, of a
vision upon the world by the agency of the novel. The novel cannot speak for itself, as
some people asked, more than the eye can look itself or more than a man can lift himself
when he pulls himself by the hair. There is no valuable novel that does not philosophize,
that does not reveal hidden meanings, that does not raise important questions in the spirit
of its readers. The problem is the way these things are revealed, when it uses an easy
method of expression, in a specific (scientific) formula, by the agency of the characters
or the narrator. These ideas will remain as strange bodies in the novel as long as they are
not expressed in an artistic way. To use the art in order to reveal a truth means to limit
yourself at suggesting the way that leads to it, and not imposing it as such. “An esthetical
necessity enforces the novel with hermetic feature; binds it to be a closed universe for
any factual reality. And this condition generates a number of consequences, among
which that the novel cannot be directly a philosophy, political pamphlet, sociological
study or moral sermon. It cannot be more than a novel, its internal world cannot
transcend the exterior”1.
In a direct way, the novel cannot aim to be more than it is, namely a fiction, a
closed universe, enough for itself; it is a world that has its own truths, disguisedly beyond
appearance, just like in real life. This world of the novel can foster many truths and
meanings, on condition that they find a “body”, an image to live in, a surface to hide
beneath. Ortega Y Gasset said that “the essential feature of the profound things is the fact
that they hide beneath a surface and reveal to us in this form, vibrate through it”2. The
novelist is, by definition, an architect; he does not state anything, he does not express his
thoughts, but he builds an entire world who speaks for himself, in its own language.
In addition, Milan Kundera, one of the brightest critics of the modern novel,
comes to support these statements. Even if he admires Broch, the Czech writer and
theoretician holds back the trilogy The Sleepwalkers.3 One of these distances is in
connection with the apodictic message present in the novel, which loses in this way the
level of relativity. Kundera, continuing the idea in the next section, he firmly asks the
novel to maintain itself in the area of the possible and not to make definitive statements.
“In the field of the novel there are no statements; it is the realm of the play and of
hypothesis. The novelistic meditation is, in its essence, interrogative, hypothetical.”4 All
this inquiry did not follow the negative aspects of Vintilă Horia’s prose. Their number is
reduced as compared to the whole creation, which has an exceptional value. It is a
discussion which tried to reveal the limits of this kind of literature. More precisely, our
1
José Ortega y Gasset, Meditaţii despre Don Quijote şi gânduri despre roman, 205.
Ibid., 67.
3
Milan Kundera, L’art du roman (Paris: Gallimard, 1986), 86-87.
4
Ibid., 101 (Dans le territoire du roman on n’affirme pas: c’est le territoire du jeu et des
hypothèses: La méditation romanesque este donc; par essence, interrogative, hypothétique.)
2
448
analysis tried to signal, in an artistic language, the existence of these limits, because it is
impossible to mark them in a firm way. To determine these limits lies in the power of
every artist, this (difficult!) freedom is his privilege. The length of this realm depends on
the force of the artistic consciousness, on the capacity of keep under the control of art
this field. Ortega Y Gasset reaches the same conclusion, even if exploring other paths:
“Inside the novel you can find everything: science, religion, discourses, sociology,
esthetic opinions – on the understanding that eventually, all these should be attenuated
and kept in the novel body without having an executive and final power. The amount of
strange elements that a book can contain depends, after all, by the power of the author to
melt them in the atmosphere of the novel as such”1.
This way of conceiving a novel is generated by the relationship between the
artistic consciousness and reality. We have replaced Vintilă Horia’s terms, considering
they were inappropriate, with Ioana Em. Petrescu’s distinction between sight and vision.
The novel of sight, named by the ones who promoted it, existed in the European
literature contemporary with the one discussed so far. It is about what we called the
“nouveau roman”, and it is quite odd that Vintilă Horia did not mention his position
related with this literary phenomenon. The accusations that Vintilă Horia brought on
Rebreanu’s technique (not rightful because the Romanian novelist was searching a
“realism of essences”) could find a more adequate object in the new technique promoted
by the nouveau roman. We do not mean to analyze in detail this phenomenon. Our
intention is to underline its major features (even they were not fully accomplished)
presented by its promoters.2 It is, as we have already seen, a novel of sight, almost
transfigured in a “camera”, moved arbitrary in the world. Robe-Grillet said that the
story, the narrative, as seen in the traditional way “became something impossible”, the
novel will be invested with a self-reflexive function. Consequently, all the fundamental
elements of “traditional”3 epic discourses are disrupted: the author, the story, the
character. We are not discussing here whether the literature of these novelists followed
their theoretical discourses or about the value of this kind of literature (it is worth
mentioning that Vintilă Horia won the Goncourt award in 1960, when the nouveau
roman was in full offensive). On short notice, the problem is about the writer’s attitude
towards reality: a neutral attitude, which will eliminate any sense of subjectivity. The
reality is depicted by the author, who gives up his creative ambition and remains a
simple “cameraman”. The reality is inexpressive, lacking, as Genette shows, any inner
side, any depth. “The function of this surface representation is obvious. Bachelard
showed that imagination is useless in front of surfaces or figures: the subjective inner
self cannot project itself but in an objective inner self, but in the depth of a substance. To
declare that Robe-Grillet’s objects are only surfaces means to say that they are not
susceptible of any human significance but that of their presence and after all, their tools’
function; it means to say that the subject that they reflect is an empty subject. Similarly,
the gestures, the actions are in general, inert, or meaningless”4.
1
Ibid., 214.
Romul Munteanu, Noul Roman Francez (Bucharest: Univers, 1973), chapter O nouă aventură
antiromanescă (A new anti-novel adventure).
3
The promoters of the nouveau roman thought of this term to be depreciative.
4
Gerard Genette, Figuri (Figures), trans. Angela Ion and Irina Mavrodin (Bucharest: Univers,
1978), 27.
2
449
We can immediately grasp the distance between these two visions upon
literature. First, we have on the one hand the tendency of annihilating the subject, and on
the other hand, the full expression of it, a tendency which approaches the novel to selfbiography. It is remarkable that Vintilă Horia, along with those close to him, confess this
self-biography character of their writings. “A writer does nothing but describe himself.
This is a truth I have experienced in all my being and which gives a light of authenticity
to this work of mine in which I had done nothing else but to describe actions from my
future, deeds of a life”1. Vintilă Horia’s confession, made in 1922, could be continued
by such like, which all have the same meaning: the characters are the writer’s avatars,
their experience is fed by the consciousness that created them. Mann, Hesse or Junger
see their creation in the same way,2 concluding that this kind of novel is born as the
history of the artist’s consciousness which creates it. It is a permanent wake
consciousness, which permanently searches to endow reality with meaning.
The writer defines himself as a critic of the book which is the world itself, he
offers a reading which articulates hidden meanings of the world, bringing it into being.
The work is in fact autobiographical and authentic since it tells the story of an
experience elevated into an act of knowledge through which the artist himself continues
the act of creation. We take the risk of a surprising association and we yield to the
temptation of reminding that “it is not possible…” which the Creator utters next to
Hyperion’s demand in Eminescu’s poem. This is not a refusal; it is the
acknowledgement of an impossibility which the poem does not respond to, allowing us
to take this burden. At least, in what concerns The First Letter, we have the subtle
interpretation made by Ioana Em. Petrescu, who considers that the old teacher is “the
embodiment of the power attributed to the human intelligence. The teacher has,
ultimately, the role of an axis mundi, his thought supports the world into being […], has
the role of an eye that sees the world and shapes it.”3
Our intention is not to associate Eminescu’s genius with the novelist (even if the
writer’s virtues, as they are described by Vintilă Horia, would make it possible). We
have used this comparison because, after all, beyond the shades, their role is similar: that
of an active conscience, which gives sense to the Creation through its own creative
work, and, in the same time, fulfils the destiny, balancing the precariousness of the
human condition.
VI. Our analysis leads us to assume, in order to label this type of novel, Sanda Berce’s
distinction exposed in a study dedicated to the typology of the novel.4 This study
distinguishes a metaphoric novel from a metonymic one, the two terms being perfectly
proper for our distinction. The contrast between them is, while the metonymic novel has
1
Despre degradare şi risc (On degradation and risk), Cotidianul 85 (4.05.1992)
Thomas Mann, Scrisori (Letters), trans. Mariana Şora (Bucharest: Univers, 1974), 14-15; Ioan
Roman, Preface to Ernst Jünger, Pe falezele de marmură (On the marble cliffs), trans. Ioan
Roman, (Bucharest: Univers, 1971); George Guţu, Preface to Steppenwolf.
3
Ioana Em. Petrescu, Cursul Eminescu (The Eminescu course), reviewed by Ioana Bot (ClujNapoca: Babeş-Bolyai Univ., Faculty of Letters, 1991)
4
Sanda Berce, O posibilă teorie a formei (A possible theory of form), doctoral thesis (ClujNapoca: Babeş-Bolyai Univ., 2002)
2
450
a relation of proximity with the reality, discovering its terrestrial dimension, the
metaphoric novel is born under the sign of “as though“, “as if”, taking the poetical
dimension of human existence. The metaphoric novel gets close to the myth, to the
sacral story, which combines two levels: of the untruth speaking and of the truth that it
reveals.1 We can add that the novel of sight gets close to the historical condition which
reproduces life in its superficial levels. The authors of Pragmatic Dictionary suggest that
the archetype of the literary discourse would be the fairy tale, with its “Once upon a
time….” which gives it a strong metaphoric dimension.2 The same authors cite D.
Lewis, who rejects the mimetic function of literature (the literary representational
function) in order to emphasize the metaphoric nature of literature.3
From another perspective, the epithet metaphoric applied to Vintilă Horia’s
novels finds its justification. We have already mentioned that this type of novel is born as
an expression of a dream for the absolute knowledge. Its duty is to certify and to enrich the
effort of the artist to compensate for the fragile character of the human existence. “From a
structural and existential point of view, the human being finds itself in a double situation of
precariousness. He lives, on the one hand, in a concrete world which he cannot express
through his structural instruments; on the other hand, he lives in the horizon of the
mystery, which he cannot reveal. The metaphor is seen as a complementary ontological
moment which tries to compensate the fragile situation.4 In Blaga’s vision, the metaphor
does not have an aesthetical function, or this function has a secondary role. It is about an
ontological function, as the quotation shows, through which the metaphor comes to enrich
the human destiny. In simple words, Blaga’s philosophical vision asserts that any cultural
act is justified by the emancipation tendency, being a leading fact in authentic human
existence. In the same time, every cultural act is in essence metaphoric: it is an act of
knowledge through which the spirit crosses the visible border in order to find access to the
ultimate mysteries of the material reality.
Paul Ricoeur’s study dedicated to the concept of metaphor5 adds new nuances
in the spirit of the same conclusion. The French philosopher, when making
commentaries upon Aristotle’s work, debunks the wrong acceptance of mimesis,
showing that the notion of Stagirit is completely alien to that of imitating. “Therefore,
just through a mistaken twisting Aristotle’s mimesis could be similar to imitation in the
sense of copying […]. Mimesis is poiesis and vice versa”6. On the other side, the
comment upon Aristotle’s definitions of metaphor lead to the conclusion that the
metaphor – as being a “redefinition through fiction” – realizes a connection between
mythos and mimesis and can be, therefore, assimilated to poiesis. In short, Paul
Ricoeur’s thesis postulates the metaphoric nature of the literary discourse and the clear
assertion of its ontological function. The relation between physis (living nature) and
1
Ibid., 125-161, passim
J. Moeschler, A. Reboul, Dicţionar enciclopedic de pragmatică (Encyclopedic dictionary of
pragmatics), trans. and ed. Carmen Vlad and Liana Pop (Cluj-Napoca: Editura Echinox, 1999), 412.
3
Ibid., 421.
4
Lucian Blaga, Trilogia culturii (The trilogy of culture), Opere (Works), reviewed edition by
Dorli Blaga, introductory study by Al. Tănase (Bucharest: Minerva, 1985), vol. 9, 289.
5
Paul Ricoeur, Metafora vie (The live metaphor), trans. Irina Mavrodin (Bucharest: Univers, 1984).
6
Ibid, 72.
2
451
mimesis (understood as poiesis), is that of the being-in-power (in potentia) and being-inact, suggesting that the literary discourse operates an actualization of the hidden
meanings of the world. “In it every hidden possibility of existence appears as open,
every potential capacity of action appears as effective. The lively expression is that
which tells the story of the lively existence.”1
The effort of finding a proper definition for this type of novel is a secondary
problem, because, as we have already found out, it can take multiple names: symbolicallegorical novel, Corinthian novel, the quest-novel or the metaphoric novel. What is
important is the effort of trying to define the essence of this way of seeing the art of the
word. The great spirits meet themselves in the same conclusions. The conceptions of the
writers we have already discussed and the commentaries of the theoreticians imposed a
sense of the novel as a privileged technique for knowledge. Milan Kundera adheres to
this conception with his subtle plea for the art of the novel. One of the essential
affirmations of his study dedicated to the novelistic art is that the fundamental and the
unique aim of the novel is the knowledge. “The novel which does not reveal an
unknown area of human existence is immoral. The knowledge is the only moral of the
novel”2. Kundera, without accentuating it, shows that the novelists spotlight, before the
philosophers did, the guiding lines of the European cultural development (or involution).
The major contribution of the novel is that it kept the universe of life (“le monde de la
vie”) under the light (“éclairage”) of perpetual meditation, protecting the world against
forgetfulness. The novel does not explore reality, nor history or culture but the existence
understood as a “territory of human possibilities.”3 Although in a different formulation,
Kundera’s thought carries further Ricoeur’s: the novel is an exploration of the possible,
of that territory that surrounds without borders the existence, of the mystery, with
Blaga’s term. In this flow, that used expression, according to which the writer “gives
life”, gets new and profound meanings: every novel, in the universe that it creates,
elevates in the level of being, what was until then in the level of possibility. The essential
ground of the novel remains the ambition of transcendence beyond the sensitive reality,
the vanity of sharing a wide knowledge of the Wholeness.
In the light of these statements, Vintilă Horia’s vision (and of the other modern
novelists) upon literature becomes clear. Vintilă Horia’s firm statements were qualifying
only this type of literature as being authentic and this is also Ricoeur’s conclusion:
namely, that the artistic act is justified just because it represents the expression of the
tendency of investing reality with meaning. The writer’s work attempts to forms,
following the laws of the artistic subjectivity, a substance, which for a profane eye
seems shapeless and incoherent. Our intention is not to establish a scale, or to privilege a
certain type of novel. We can mention that the realist novel (mimetic, in the narrowest
sense of the term), and especially its external shape, the French nouveau roman,
succeeded as far as it betrayed the programmatic intention of its authors. This happened
especially because, in the case of the creator, the drive to give birth, the ideal of the
lively expression, subordinated to the impulse of knowledge, are irrepressible.
1
Ibid., 79.
Milan Kundera, L’art du roman, 20 (Le roman qui ne decouvre pas une portion jusqu’alors
inconnue de l’existence est immoral. La connaissance est la seule morale du roman.)
3
Ibid., 61.
2
452
A number of modern writers, among whom Vintilă Horia as well, assumed this
impulse through knowledge as a major aim of their creation, dreaming to offer a sublime
image of the world, re-created so as the laws that govern its development to become
coherent. We found it appropriate to situate this type of novel under the metaphoric
category, since, guided by Blaga’s and Ricoeur’s thoughts, we have seen in the
metaphoric discourse a privileged way of manifestation of the human force to know.
This type of discourse expresses, in fact, the unique power and the dignity of the human
being, made, as The Book says, “in the image and likeness” of the Creator. It is not
surprisingly to see that a writer who conceives his work under these principles, dreams
about “an ideal novel”, impossible to be written, but assessed as object of perpetual
aspiration, a novel which can be able to offer “a total vision of human history and
geography, seen from all possible perspectives”.1 We could say that, in the end, this is
the ideal of an absolute metaphor, gifted with the magical power of expressing in words
the infinity of the possible meanings of the world.
1
Vintilă Horia, Introduccion a la literatura del siglo XX, 35.
453
The Intuition of the Real and the Aesthetics
of Silence in Japanese Haiku
Rodica FRENTIU
Faculty of Letters, Babes-Bolyai University
Keywords: haiku, intuition of reality, aesthetics of silence, Zen philosophy
Abstract. The premise of the present study is identifying the main characteristics that
render the haiku poem perceptible as “artistic peak” of Japanese language potentialities.
By turning poetic and cultural-semiotic perspectives to advantage while discussing a
literary text, the following analysis tries to probe the way in which haiku retrieves a
world of concentrated emotion and of creative spark created by trivial facts, and
transforms them in poetry capable of orienting the spirit towards satori, or Zen
enlightenment. All this is done using an extremely reduced lexical inventory. Through
the diffuse and ineffable, but especially through silence, a unity between the never
ending, varied and complex “seen”, and an enlivening, simple and impenetrable
“unseen” is realised within the haiku. Also called “a model for an aesthetic of silence”,
the haiku proposes living and intuitively discovering reality which unfolds infinite
silences by recording a graceful moment, and thus offers the reader considerable
freedom in his own intervention to create meaning. Only a language characterised by
“ambiguity” and “high dependence on context”, together with a culture highly imbued
by Zen philosophy could create, we believe, a favourable context for the birth of a type
of poetry whose shortness could guarantee formal perfection and whose simplicity could
stand proof for semantic depth.
*
The great discovery of the
Occident is humanity; the great
discovery of the Orient is man.
Anton Dumitriu, Eleatic Cultures and Heracleitean Cultures
Sumi-e, Japanese monochrome brush painting which traces with a black line the
cliffs or the tree in a landscape, is supposed to be pure meditation on things and on
existence itself. While trying to describe “the spirit of things” and to give shape to that
certain something that is named “creative impulse”1, the act of creation functions in
accordance with aesthetic principles such as wabi and sabi. Wabi, in literal translation,
would mean ‘poverty’, and from this basic sense derive other secondary ones, such as
‘longing for primitive simplicity, close to the natural way of being’ and ‘coming into
resonance with nature, through mystic contemplation’. This is because, as Japanese
spirituality considers, analytic intellect distances man from the essential simplicity of
1
See Daisetz T. Suzuki, Zen and Japanese Culture (Tokyo: Tuttle Publishing, 1997), 36.
454
nature, and as such the mystery of life becomes more and more difficult to decipher. The
creative act in monochrome brush painting also involves the state of sabi1, literally
translated as ‘loneliness’, but which can also gain the significance of not only ‘ancient
imperfection’, and ‘apparent simplicity in executing a line’, but also ‘the mystery’ that
makes the object in question into an artistic realisation.
The same black and white painting also promotes, along with renouncing
colour, the rule of asymmetry which actually governs the Japanese forma mentis2.
Symmetry is a notion that inspires grace and solemnity, being the characteristic of a
logical, abstract way of thinking. The lack of such a line, or of an element of apparent
balance, in places where the regarding eye would probably expect it, provokes the spirit
in Japanese mentality, and only that which before seemed an imperfection can become a
form of perfection.
Similarly to the artistic program proposed by sumi-e painting and comparably
with the mode of conception and realisation of the Japanese dry garden, made solely of
rocks and the line to which they give birth, Japanese spirituality, in all its creative
manifestations, bears in it the secret human aspiration of transcending the physical and
of contemplating at infinitesimal scale the colossal, the infinite.
Considering that “poetry appeared along with the birth of the earth and sky”3,
Japanese verse, of a “delicate reluctance”, which expresses through words only an
insignificant part, the rest being only suggested, affirms itself through a famous
anthology, Manyōshū (Collection of Ten Thousand Leaves). It appeared at the end of the
8th century, and among the five thousand poems it contains, the poetic formula of the
chōka also appears, the long poem, borrowed from Chinese literary tradition. Manyōshū
is followed, in time, by the arrival of other 21 imperial anthologies compiled along five
centuries (10th-15th), the first of which is Kokinshu (Collection of Poems of Ancient and
Modern Times). The Kokinshu was shaped at the request of emperor Daigo (885-930),
and it uses the poetic formula of the tanka or waka – the two words are not traditionally
synonymous, but today they are used as such – characterized by a number of 31
syllables, arranged in the structure 5-7-5-7-7. Among others, Ki no Tsurayuki (868946?) brought a main contribution to the elaboration of this famous work. In the preface
to the mentioned anthology, he describes Japanese verse as a spontaneous act,
“spontaneous” being here, without question, in relation to the intensity of emotion. In
the same preface, Tsurayuki admits from the very beginning that the spring of poetry is
the human soul, and the verse of Yamato has as root the human heart, from which
thousands and thousands of word-leaves grow. He acknowledges that this poetry
expresses the thoughts in people’s hearts with the help of what they see and hear: “Our
native poetry springs from the heart of man as its seed, producing the countless leaves of
language. Multitudinous are the affairs of men in this world – what their minds think,
what their eyes see, what their ears hear they must find word to express.”4. The poem is
1
See Ibid., 23-25.
Cf. Ibid., 24.
3
Cf. Tsurayuki, in Ion Acsan, Dan Constantinescu, Tanka - Haiku. Antologie de poezie clasică
japoneză (Bucharest: Editura Ştiinţifică şi Enciclopedică, 1981), 87.
4
In F.V. Dickins, Primitive and Mediaeval Japanese Texts (Translated into English by F.V.
Dickins, Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1906), 379.
2
455
constituted, as such, of three essential elements: emotion, which is the source of the
poem, the poem proper which is born out of this emotion, and an external event that has
caused this emotion1. The world of poetry is transformed into one of the feelings that the
surrounding universe has stirred within the poet, feelings transferred to the reader
through the means of a particular state of sadness, delicacy and dreaming.
Classical and post-classical tanka used the figures of speech that supported the
Japanese language moderately, but, later, because of the abuse of wordplay and allusions
to literary legends, poetry acquires a bookish flavour, a precious and pretentious one2.
This impasse is broken by renga, ‘connected-poetry’ or the ‘chain-poem’, which
consisted of a string of several tanka belonging to different authors, interconnected by a
lyrical idea, and haikai or renga in satirical form. In time, the first hemistich, called
hokku, is isolated from a succession of renga, being the part of the poem that contained
the word which indicated the season (kigo). Thus, the proper circumstances for the
apparition of a new lyrical style were created. This style was later called haiku, a term
formed through the combination of the first syllable of haikai with the last of hokku.
During the 17th century, through Matsuo Bashō, a renowned haikai poet, the hokku
becomes an independent type of poem, and its interpretation as a part of a chain of
verses is discarded. Overcoming the conflict between the serious renga and the comic
haikai, the haiku shows itself capable of expressing humour, but also profound feelings
and religious introspection with such precision and awareness of nuance, with such
sincerity and sobriety, that the understanding of the way in which it communicates with
the “mystery” of existence becomes rather difficult for the reader belonging to another
cultural space. On a fairly poor lexical keyboard, the simple passing of a cloud on the
autumn sky is laden with the drama of existing in the world: この秋は何で年よる雲に鳥
(This autumn, - / Old age I feel, / In the clouds, the birds.)3 .
Japanese poetry, interpreted since its very beginnings as “the language of
passion and emotion”4, seems to have crystallised its essence in the haiku, the shortest
poetic formula that can be found in universal history. The poem that stores “some of the
highest feelings human beings are capable of”5, is composed of 17 mora, or, in a
Western terminological approximation, 17 syllables. Although it is difficult to believe
that through the simple enumeration of some lexical elements an entire meaningful
universe can be created, it is said that the haiku reminds one of the supreme moments of
existence, for example that of death, when a shout or a gesture replace the story, when
feelings refrain from conceptualisation, refusing to be transformed into a product of the
intellect. The shortness of a haiku is precisely its meaning6, and the haiku strives to say
as little as possible while meaning as much as possible.
1
Cf. Makoto Ueda, Literary and Art Theories in Japan (Center for Japanese Studies, Michigan:
The University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, 1991), 3.
2
See Kenneth Yasuda, The Japanese Haiku. Its Essential Nature, History, and Possibilities in
English with Selected Examples (Tokyo: Charles E. Tuttle Company, 1995), 107-123.
3
Matsuo Basho, in R. H. Blyth, A History of Haiku (In Two Volumes, Tokyo: The Hokuseido
Press, 1984), 111.
4
Ueda, Literary and Art Theories in Japan, 2.
5
Suzuki, Zen and Japanese Culture, 227.
6
Cf. Ibid.
456
In the 17th century, Matsunaga Teitoku, who had become the mentor of the
“Teimon” school, proposes a new variety of haikai, the poetry of comic verse that had
already appeared a century before. This new type would combine the haigon, a word of
foreign origin, usually Chinese, with lexical elements bearing a “humble” meaning,
which had been completely removed from the classical poetic code of the 10th century.
As a reaction to the formalism of the Teimon school the Danrin school appears,
promoting the “instant”, as the written poem was now defined as a quick, uninterrupted
notation of the moment1. Once it reached this stage in its evolution, Japanese verse,
through Matsuo Bashō (1643-1694), the one who had experimented the poetic exercise
under the tutelage of both the mentioned schools, will give birth to a new poetic formula,
known today as haiku. The wandering troubadour who signed with several pen names,
but who, owing to a biographical detail, entered the memory of posterity under the name
of Bashō (‘banana tree’), the Zen Buddhist monk considered to be the founder of a new
poetic genre, in agreement with Shakespeare2 for whom poetry was the revelation of the
hidden world, invisible to logical, rational knowledge, in his turn considered that only
very short poetry could concentrate on a momentary impression, and in this way stop the
instant: “You must capture in words the light in which you saw something, before it is
erased from your mind.”3.
The haiku which is considered Matsuo Bashō’s ars poetica:
古池や蛙とびこむ水の音 has known several translations into English: The old pond; / A
frog jumps in, - / The sound of the water.4; The old mere! / A frog jumping in / The sound
of water (Masaoka Shiki); Into the ancient pond / A frog jumps / Water’s sound !
(Daisetz T. Suzuki); How many frogs? / Old pond... frogs jumped in... sound of water. /
(L. Hearn)5. This poetic formula undoubtedly surprises the Western reader by the
extremely reduced inventory of lexical elements, causing great puzzlement as one tries
to understand what makes “an old pond”, “a jumping frog” and “the sound of water”
into poetry?! The answers found by Bashō’s exegesis could be synthesised as “the
intuition of Reality” and “poetic inspiration”.
As the expression of a sensation instantaneously roused by the meaning of an
apparently commonplace event offered by nature or by human experience, the haiku
refuses an explanation of the cause – effect type6. Accepting this premise, the sound of
water in Matsuo Bashō’s haiku is not the effect of a frog’s jump in an old pond. The
pool has always been there, and the ya from the original text is proof of this. It is the
equivalent of an interjection similar to ah! , which indicates and insists on the place in
which the “sound” was realised, and the acoustic element seems to become a main
1
See Michiko Arima, “Japanese Haiku vs. English Haiku vs. Concrete Poetry”, in Poetica 46
(Tokyo: Shubun International, 1996): 137-152, 139.
2
See Roland Barthes, L’empire des signes (Genève: Editions d’Albert Skira S.A, 1970), 111.
3
Matsuo Basho, in Shūichi Katō, Istoria literaturii japoneze (De la origini până în prezent)
(Traducere din limba japoneză de Kazuko Diaconu şi Paul Diaconu, Cu un interviu al autorului
pentru cititorii români şi o prefaţă de Nicolae Manolescu, Vol. I, Bucharest: Editura Nipponica,
1998), 446.
4
R. H. Blyth, A History of Haiku, 46.
5
In Yoshihiko Ikegami, On Translating Haiku (Lecture, Faculty of Letters, Babes-Bolyai
University, November 2004, manuscript), 2.
6
Blyth, A History of Haiku, 11.
457
element in the decoding of this haiku. The frog’s jump is, grammatically, an attributive
determination, which leaves room for the interpretation that the created noise is not
consecutive to the frog’s leap into the water. Both the pond and the frog are coexistent,
eternally present. While the ancient pond continues its existence in time, the leap and the
sound of the water seem to be outside of time. The silence of eternity has been
interrupted by a short noise, and the creation of this almost mystical atmosphere is due
to the absence of thought, to transcending the cause – effect relationship. Specialised
critics have affirmed1 that not only has haiku nothing to do with Good, Truth, or Beauty,
but also that it is not symbolic, nor does it represent a portrayal of natural phenomena
with a meaning behind them. Haiku speaks about the man who tries to become one with
the surrounding universe by overcoming his own limits, somehow continuing the
teachings promoted by Zen Buddhist masters. Zen philosophy affirms that to learn about
the pine tree or about bamboo as a man means that human beings surpass their own ego
while searching for the true knowledge that will lead them to finding creative impulse:
“To learn means to submerge oneself into the object until its intrinsic nature becomes
apparent, stimulating poetic impulse”2. This truth might have been revealed to Matsuo
Bashō one day when he received the visit of his Zen master, Bucchō. When the master
asked his disciple how he had been doing, the answer given sounded like the following:
“After the recent rain the moss has grown greener than ever.”, and to the next question
“When is timeless time? ”, Bashō is said to have answered: “A frog jumps into the
water, and hear the sound!”3. Without initially containing the phrase “the old pond”,
which he later added, Matsuo Bashō created a complete haiku, out of 17 syllables, about
a tranquil pond, placed somewhere near a Buddhist temple, whose eternal silence was
broken by a frog’s leap. The serenity of the place that man notices with the sound made
by the small creature’s jump in the water is believed to be able to bring the human spirit
to resonance with the spirit of the universe4. Thus, Bashō has given voice to the intuition
and inspiration that make this possible.
However, some Western interpreters believe that to affirm that the sound of
water caused by the frog’s jump revealed the truth of Zen to the poet is the kind of
conclusion that would belong to an Occidental type of hermeneutics, and because of this
it would be more appropriate to consider that this genre of poetry rather reminds one of
“the end of language”5. The haiku, seen as “the Zen literary branch”, similarly to the Zen
enigma known as koan, tries to reach the threshold where words stop, making way for
“non-language”6 on the path of the individual towards satori, or Zen enlightenment. The
shortness of the haiku is not formal or conventional, but represents the correspondence
of the form to the revealed moment: “le haïku n’est pas une pensée riche réduite à une
forme brève, mais un événement bref qui trouve d’un coup sa forme juste”7, where the
signifier “adapts” itself to the signified in a sentence that is evocative of music. If
1
See Ibid., 12-13.
In Ibid., 13.
3
4
Cf. Ibid., 240.
5
Cf. Barthes, L’empire des signes, 96.
6
Cf. Ibid., 97.
7
Ibid., 98.
2
458
Western art transforms “impression” into description, haiku never does this1, respecting
the tradition according to which revelation before the things mentioned by the Buddhist
mu (‘nothingness, void’) and the Zen satori (‘enlightenment’) cannot be described, nor
defined. As such, for some Western interpreters, the haiku seems to be pure designation:
“C’est cela, c’est ainsi, dit le haïku, c’est tel. Ou miex encore: Tel! Dit-il, d’une
touche si instantanée et si courte (sans vibration ni reprise) que la copule y apparaîtrait
encore de trop, comme le remords d’une définition interdite, à jamais éloignée.”2
Defined as “the expression of a temporary enlightenment”, through which one
can see “the life of things”3, the haiku attracts the attention of the West which perceives
this poetry as expression of things such as they are within and outside the mind,
subjectively and in a primordial union with man himself. Accordingly, a way in which
man can return to nature is created, a way towards his own Buddha nature, and the
rereading of the previously discussed haiku finally allows for the interpretive
suggestion4 that the old pond is no more, just as the frog is no longer a frog. Everything
is enveloped in a veil of mystery whose mysteriousness is completely gone.
To continue the Occidental approach, if one considers the three “verses” of 5, 7,
5 syllables of the haiku as a syllogistic drawing in three beats, that of escalation,
suspense, and conclusion, in Matsuo Bashō’s haiku the only syllogism that becomes
admissible would be that of inclusion, in which the whole swallows the fragment5.
However, abandoning this syllogism, for the contemporary reader the commentary of a
haiku seems to become impossible, ending in its simple repetition: “parler du haïku
serait purement et simplement le répéter”6. A Zen teaching says that “bamboos are
straight and pine trees are gnarled”7, from which one understands that Zen Buddhism
accept the facts of experience as they present themselves. Zen is neither negativistic nor
positivistic, and, similarly, the haiku of which is said that “it doesn’t mean anything”8
invites a paradoxical interpretation for the Western reader. Since it is “empty”, it may be
believed that, apparently, the haiku is ready to accept any interpretation, but, on the other
hand, it is precisely because of the same “emptiness”, before which everything becomes
relative, that it indeed cannot accept just any interpretation9. Haiku, in the same manner
with the pictograms and ideograms used for writing in this cultural space, firstly evoke a
visual impression, as they actually are “a painting in words”10:
枯れ枝にからすの止まりたるや秋の暮れ (Autumn evening; / A crow perched / On a withered
1
See Ibid., 100.
Ibid., 111.
3
Blyth, A History of Haiku, 2.
4
5
See Barthes, L’empire des signes, 93.
6
Ibid., 93.
7
In Suzuki, Zen and Japanese Culture, 36.
8
9
Cf. Ibid., 89-107.
10
Yoshihiko Ikegami, “Some Traditional Japanese Visual Tropes and their Perceptual and
Experiential Bases”, in Yoshihiko Ikegami, Seisaku Kawakami (eds.), “New Developments in the
Study of Metaphor”, Poetica. An International Journal of Linguistic-Literary Studies, 46, Special
Issue (Tokyo: Shubun International, 1996): 89-99, 92.
2
459
branch.)1. More than a world of form and colour, the haiku follows the embodiment of
movement in the sway of a branch from which a bird or a wild goose has just taken
flight, ready to disappear into the clouds. “A few words”, “an image” and “a feeling”2,
where Occidental literature demands the development of a long rhetorical labour,
become the poetry of the trivial and ephemeral.
Also called “the essence of pure poetry”, the haiku speaks about the diffuse and
ineffable, about concentrated emotion, about marking a moment of grace, and especially
about silence3 through conservative means. Exploiting the characteristics of the Japanese
language morphological classes, to be precise, the onomatopoeia that emotionally and
affectively loads a sentence, the noun that lacks gender, number and case, and the verb
which is liberated from tense category, Japanese has given birth to a poetic formula in
which what the poet puts to silence becomes just as important as the things which he
affirms: 静かさや岩に染み入る蝉の声 (How silent and still! / Into the heart of rocks sinks /
The cicada’s shrill.)4. Specialised critics consider that the haiku is a model of the
aesthetics of silence, owing to the infinite silences met once it unfolds, silences
generated by syncopes of words, among others5. In the relationship between void and
fullness (of which it is believed that it governs Far Eastern spirituality) in the haiku
poem, the accent falls once again on the void, imprinting its singularity indirectly on the
fullness. Resembling the Zen koan, the labour of reading becomes that of “suspending
language and not causing it”6, and Bashō seems to have deeply understood this:
旅がらす古巣は梅になりにけり (The old nest / Of the journeying crow,- / It has become a
plum-tree.)7. “Fluid indeterminacy”, impersonality, and discretion in simultaneity, to
which one could add the capture of a primordial burst of emotion, relate the haiku to the
Oriental mirror, which is tightly connected in its symbolism to the reproduction of
perfection. If, in the West, the mirror is par excellence an object to do with narcissism, in
the East it seems to be the symbol of the void, which lets something be the way it is,
without altering it in the slightest. “L’esprit de l’homme parfait, dit un maître de Tao, est
comme un miroir. Il ne saisit rien mais ne repousse rien.”8. Similarly to the mirror, the
reading of a haiku could remind the reader of something that hasn’t happened to him
yet, when he recognises in the poem “a repetition without origins”, “an event without a
cause” and “a memory without identity”9, by which he can easily be pulled in.
In Japanese tradition, an object has never been considered for itself, and it was
most often thought of as “something” that possesses “a heart” or “a spirit”. As shingon
(‘true-word’) and kotodama (‘spirit-word’) speak about the relationship of the word with
the heart/spirit of the person who uses it, in the same way, the act itself of birthing a
1
Basho, in Blyth, A History of Haiku, 422.
Barthes, L’empire des signes, 90.
3
See Ibid., 92.
4
Basho, in Yasuda, The Japanese Haiku. Its Essential Nature, History, and Possibilities in
English with Selected Examples, 185.
5
See Ibid., 33.
6
Barthes, L’empire des signes, 94.
7
In Blyth, A History of Haiku, 124.
8
In Barthes, L’empire des signes, 104.
9
Ibid.
2
460
poem is tightly connected to the heart/spirit of its creator. Poems can then be divided,
according to the established relationship, in poems that “are born” and poem that “are
made”. Concentrating on one’s own emotions and placing them in harmony with the
surrounding atmosphere will cause the creative impulse that will transform a poem
which becomes “the essence of the spirit and of one’s own heart”1. When this gesture is
lacking, poetry is not conceived, but composed.
The assertion according to which haiku is the “artistic peak of inherent
potentialities in Japanese”2 comes somehow as a natural extension to the belief that
literature, in its essence a verbal art, has to inevitably reflect the characteristics of the
language in which it is created3 . This fact can also be recognised in classical Japanese
poetry, which uses a language whose specific traits are, among others, ambiguity and
contextual dependence. As a result, it comes to develop, as canons of the poetic genre,
shortness, ellipsis and polysemy4, as can be observed in the haiku poem. There being a
relatively vague and unclear articulation between language and “heart/spirit”, it is then
not surprising that rhetoric, as an art of persuasion, has never thrived5 in the Japanese
cultural space.
The term ‘ambiguity’ (aimai-sei) is, in the Japanese language, a Sino-Japanese
lexical compound meaning ‘that which is obscure, equivocal’, by combining ai
‘obscurity’, ‘the act of covering’, with mai ‘obscurity’, ‘indeterminacy’6. Through this
particularity, Japanese, full of periphrases and successive approximations of a reality
that is never fixed7, leaves every speaker the possibility of refuge in a world of reserve,
of allusions, and ambiguity situates the text at a relatively high degree of context
dependency8. As the essence of the haiku type discourse is to say the minimum and to
convey the maximum9, this genre of poetry becomes, in its turn, a text that is strongly
dependent on context. Differentiating itself from the Western textual theory that speaks
of the autonomy and the self-sufficient functioning of text in relation to the context in
which it is used, a text composed in Japanese makes the reader an active participant in
the construction of the meaningful universe, due to its dependency on context. The
relationship text/context combined with the particularities of an SOV language, that
1
Basho, in Katō, Istoria literaturii japoneze, 447.
Yoshihiko Ikegami, “Homology of Language and Culture - A Case Study in Japanese Semiotics
–“, The Nature of Culture (Proceedings of the International and Interdisciplinary Symposium,
October 7-11, 1986 in Bochum, edited by Walter A. Koch, Studienverlag Dr. Norbert
Brockmeyer, Bochum, 1989): 338-403, 394.
3
Jakobson, in Ibid.
4
Cécile Sakai, Kawabata, Le Clair-Obscur. Essai sur une écriture de l’ambiguité (Paris: Presses
Universitaires de France, 2001), 23.
5
Ikegami, “Homology of Language and Culture - A Case Study in Japanese Semiotics”, 399.
6
Nihongo Daijiten (The Great Japanese Dictionary) (Tokyo: Kodansha, 1995), 10.
7
See Jean-Claude Courdy, Les Japonais (Paris: Pierre Belfond, 1979), 43.
8
Cf. Yoshihiko Ikegami, Introduction: Semiotics and Culture in Yoshihiko Ikegami (ed.), The
Empire of Signs: Semiotic Essays on Japanese Culture (Amsterdam: John Benjamins, 1991): 124, 10.
9
Cf. Yoshihiko Ikegami, Signs Conception in Japan, in Roland Posner et al. (eds.), Semiotik.
Semiotics (Volume 2, Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 1998): 1898-1910, 1905.
2
461
emphasises the topical rather than the subject in a sentence1, requires it to become the
reader’s “responsibility” to decipher the meaning of a text. Thus, sometimes, the
Japanese poet/writer will deliberately adumbrate the meaning, offering the reader
considerable freedom in his intervention that creates meaning. In this case, the reader is
aware of the fact that, when he constructs, he has to take the rhythm of decomposition of
what he builds into consideration2.
The haiku is constructed of two juxtaposed nominal phrases, whose semantic
relationship is established by the reader. This fact can be proven by the numerous
possible translations given, for example, in English, for one and the same haiku written
by the wandering poet Bashō before setting out on the way of no return.
旅にやんで夢はかれのをかけめぐる。can receive the following translations: Ailing on my
travels, / Yet my dream wondering / Over withered moors. ; On a journey, ill / And over
fields all withered; dreams / Go wandering still.; Ill on a journey; / My dreams wonder/
Over withered moors. /3. The nominal lexical elements, as semantic nodes of a haiku,
are not sufficient to generate the whole meaning, the verbal expressions are incomplete,
and as such their association strongly stimulates the imagination of the reader. This
independence of connected images is often overwrought by kireji (‘caesura words’), as
ya or ka na, lexemes that suggest semantic discontinuity in various ways. Without the
reader’s active participation in interpreting, through which the sense passes beyond
literal meaning, the haiku could not function as an artistic text4, a fact that is easily
achievable, as the endophoric, the reference to the linguistic context, and the exophoric,
the reference to the extralinguistic context, are rather vague in Japanese. For example,
the personal pronouns, whose primary function is endophoric, are not very well
developed in this language as distinct grammatical objects, and their referential function
is assumed by the demonstrative pronouns, whose primary function is exophoric. Thus,
the border between the produced-text, the object-text and the subject who produces text
is easily eroded5, so that a haiku poem comes to discover human depths in stirring
simplicity. At one of his children’s death, Issa wrote: けろりくわんとして鳥と柳かな (As if
nothing had happened, - / The crow, / And the willow.)6
One of the famous interpreters of this poetic genre, R. H. Blyth7 considered the
haiku to be a poetic formula without rhyme, with little rhythm, assonance, alliteration or
intonation. However, recent studies prove that in each of the three segments of the haiku
a rhythm of eight beats can be recovered, in an alternation of full and empty beats, in
which those lastly mentioned would suggest significational discontinuity, greatly
important in the construction of meaning:
1
See John Hinds, Reader Versus Writer Responsability: A New Typology, in Ulla Connor; Robert
B. Kaplan (eds.), Writing Across Languages: Analysis of L2 Text (Addison-Wesley Publishing
Company, 1987), 141-142.
2
In Courdy, Les Japonais, 17.
3
Ikegami, On Translating Haiku, 2.
4
Yoshihiko Ikegami, “Introduction”, in An Interdisciplinary Journal for the Study of Discourse,
Special Issue. Discourse Analysis in Japan (Edited by Yoshihiko Ikegami, Berlin: Mouton de
Gruyter, 1989): 263-273, 265.
5
See Ibid., 268-269.
6
In Blyth, A History of Haiku, 243.
7
Ibid., 7.
462
“The meaning in such poems [tanka, haiku] depends considerably on the silent
beat in context: we may say that the (personal) association in the silent beat links the
artistically designed semantic discontinuity of each phrase”1.
But through the establishment of time necessary for metonymic or metaphoric
associations2, this silent beat perceived as silence becomes the main element in the
process of activating the exercise of interpretation. Taking into consideration the fact
that a normal breath is also composed of eight beats, the haiku becomes a poetic formula
as natural as breathing.
Japanese sensitivity pays great attention to all things in nature. Zen wisdom
does not forget that however small and however unimportant the surrounding world
seems, it enters a relationship with the great cosmos. This Zen teaching has been
adopted by the poetic formula of the haiku3 by situating the concept of kigo, a term that
combines ki, ‘season’ with go ‘word’, among the aesthetic principles that form the basis
for creating a haiku. Resembling the other characteristics of the haiku poem, the kigo is,
in its turn, “strongly dependent on particular context”4, acting the part of an emotionally
heavy, symbolic word, that participates in the activation of an extremely context
dependent metaphoric interpretation in the haiku.
The originality of the school of poetry created by Bashō was defined by
Japanese aesthetics through: wabi, or the love for sobriety and austerity, contemplation
of nature in silence and detachment, search for richness in poverty and for beauty in
simplicity; sabi, or the love for the old and antiquated, loneliness and resignation; shiori,
or special spiritual state, capable of perceiving deep suggestions of eternal truth in
everyday life5, all these principles being derived from the artistic ideals of waka and
renga poems, and noh theatre, with the purpose of realising mysterious beauty
(yūgenbi). Yūgenbi is a lexical creation composed of yū and gen, which would literally
mean ‘cloudy impenetrability’. The combination can be freely translated as ‘obscurity’,
‘mystery’, ‘beyond intellectual calculation’, but not as ‘manifestation of darkness’, to
which the lexeme bi, ‘beauty’, is added. An object thus named cannot become the
subject of a dialectical analysis6, nor of a clear definition. If it cannot be presented by
intellectual sense, it doesn’t mean that the object in question is beyond human
experience. Even hidden, the presence of that mysterious beauty can be perceived
intuitively, according to the suggestion of Zen philosophy which does not desire a
refusal of life. Quite the contrary, it urges one to live life more intensively. Reevaluating
practical activity itself, among other arts that it generated, Zen is configured as “a recall
to life lived, to things themselves: zu den Sachen selbst”7. Liberation from any trace of
1
Michiko Arima, Creative interpretation of the text and the Japanese mentality, in Y. Ikegami
(ed.), The Empire of signs: semiotic essays on Japanese culture (Amsterdam: John Benjamins,
1991), 48.
2
See Idem, “Japanese Haiku vs. English Haiku vs. Concrete Poetry”, in Poetica 46 (Tokyo:
Shubun International, 1996): 137-152, 141.
3
Cf. Suzuki, Zen and Japanese Culture, 238.
4
Arima, “Japanese Haiku vs. English Haiku vs. Concrete Poetry”, 144.
5
Cf. Ibid., 140.
6
Cf. Suzuki, Zen and Japanese Culture, 220.
7
Umberto Eco, Opera deschisă. Formă şi indeterminare în poeticile contemporane (The open
work. Form and indetermination in contemporary poetics), trans. Cornel Mihai Ionescu, (Piteşti:
Paralela 45, 2002), 225.
463
selfishness and entering what Far Eastern spirituality calls “the cosmic subconscious”1
are the pursuits of Zen Buddhism and of art, while mushin (‘no-mind’) and munen (‘nothought’)
become
unsuspected
treasures
of
the
human
soul:
露はらりはらり世の中よかりけり (The dew-drops fall / By ones and twos, rapidly,- / It is a
good world.)2.
One of the countless attempts at defining this poetic genre is: “Haiku is an
ascetic art, an artistic asceticism”3. Zen enlightenment, to which a haiku can lead, is not
transcendentalism, nor immanentism, nor a combination of the two, but it could be a
sudden turn towards Truth. A monk once asked the Zen master Tōsu “What is Buddha?”
and Tōsu answered: “Buddha”. “What is Zen?”, the monk asked him next, and the
master replied: “Zen.”4. The master’s answers, which seem to be simple repetition, are
actually the echo itself. For the enlightenment of the monk’s mind there seems to be no
other solution than affirming that something is what it is, that Reality must be accepted
in its essence, without analysing its concepts, without going through circular reasoning.
Zen philosophy is, generally, that of Mahayana Buddhism, but it separates itself by its
own methods of understanding the path to satori. To see in human existence Reality
itself and to pay unlimited attention to the inner experience of “intuitive understanding”5
are ways to knowledge suggested by Zen philosophy:
“The idea that the ultimate truth of life and of things generally is to be
intuitively and not conceptually grasped, and that this intuitive apprehension is the
foundation not only of philosophy but of all other cultural activities, is what the Zen
form of Buddhism has contributed to the cultivation of artistic appreciation among the
Japanese people.”6.
This “intuition”, a fundamental ontological quality, which comes in direct
contact with Reality, establishes a relationship between Zen Buddhism and art, as both
try to reveal “the mystery of life” in a way different from intellectual, logical and
rational analysis. If satori is resonance with a “spiritual rhythm”, art, in its turn, has its
own mystery (myō), also called in Japanese yūgen, or the instant of eternity in this world
of permanent change.
It has been said about the haiku that it reflects the Japanese character in many
ways:
“We humans, however fiercely or desperately we may strive or struggle, can
never go beyond this. All that we can do then is to write a haiku appreciating the fact,
without asking why or how. This we may say is a kind of resignation. But the Japanese
do not grumble, nor do they curse as most Western peoples do; they just accept
cheerfully and with humor.”7.
A culture deeply permeated by the philosophy of Zen Buddhism and a language
characterised by ambiguity and a high degree of textual indeterminacy8 have created a
1
Issa, in Blyth, A History of Haiku, 411.
3
Ibid., 2.
4
In Suzuki, Zen and Japanese Culture, 34.
5
Ibid., 218.
6
Ibid., 219.
7
Ibid., 231.
8
Ikegami, Introduction: Semiotics and Culture , 5.
2
464
favourable background for an artistic genre such as the haiku. This poetic formula,
whose shortness could guarantee formal perfection and whose simplicity could stand
witness for depth, thus manages to fulfill a double myth1: that of classical form, which
makes proof of art out of concision, and the romantic myth, which gives preference to
the truth expressed through/by improvisation.
1
465
Imagining Stories about Other Characters
in Virginia Woolf and Graham Swift:
The Role of Imagination in Creating Fiction
Irina-Ana DROBOT
Technical University of Civil Engineering Bucharest
Department of Foreign Languages and Communication
Keywords: imagination, Virginia Woolf, Graham Swift, fantasy, fiction, lyricism.
Abstract. The paper aims to analyze when characters in Woolf and Swift imagine
stories about other characters and why, as well as what the other implications of this are.
What part does imagination play in creating fiction? What theories of imagination best
explain their characters’ attitude? How is imagination connected with lyricism?
I try to find the occasions which lead to characters’ imagining stories about other
characters in both Woolf and Swift. It seems that in both authors we may speak about
common aspects such as metafictional concerns or about the creative imagination of the
Romantics. Imagining stories about other characters (in fact, brief scenes) leads to the
underlining of the subjective aspect in both authors which is a feature of lyricism. Poetic
aspects of prose are highlighted by the use of imagination, artistic creation, and
subjectivity.
*
1. Motivation
In both Virginia Woolf and Graham Swift there are characters who imagine stories
about other characters. This is the case of the narrators in some of Woolf’s short stories,
of Peter in Mrs Dalloway and of George Webb in the novel The Light of Day and of
Prentis in Shuttlecock by Swift.
In An Unwritten Novel, the narrator imagines a story about a passenger she sees
while in a train, without knowing anything about the person. She even gives her an
imaginary name: Minnie Marsh. Woolf uses this short story to make some statements on
how a writer should break up with the conventions of the realist novel. Other short
stories by Woolf where a character imagines stories about other characters are: Moments
of Being: Slater’s Pins Have No Points and The Lady in the Looking-Glass. A
Reflection. In The Light of Day, detective George Webb imagines scenes featuring
Kristina and Sarah and even their feelings in various situations. He builds his stories
based on things he hears about Kristina from what Sarah tells him, which he completes
with details of his own imagination. George Webb was hired by Sarah to make sure that
her husband’s affair was truly over, that he really parted from Kristina. Events that occur
throughout this time lead George into Sarah’s past. In Swift’s novel Last Orders, Amy
466
imagines where her husband’s friends and family are in their journey to throw her
husband’s ashes into the sea at Margate.
Both authors alternate the stories belonging to the imagination of the two
characters with a reality which could be called objective. Although the situations in the
two writings are a little different, they have in common the workings of imagination. So
do other instances of imagining something from a character’s past or even future will be
examined, in Mrs. Dalloway by V. Woolf and Shuttlecock by G. Swift. Peter Walsh
predicts that Clarissa will become a very good hostess and marry Mr. Dalloway, while
Prentis tries to find out whether his father was a hero (he makes up certain scenes which
are not written in his father’s book). Clarissa even imagines what her life would have
been like if she had married Peter.
Other characters imagine stories about other characters in Woolf’s novel Night
and Day or in Graham Swift’s novels Out of This World and Ever After. These and other
situations in other novels as well will be analyzed in this paper.
This paper aims at investigating what happens when characters imagine stories
about other characters, whether they think about artistic creation or whether they just
make suppositions while trying to better understand what went on in their mind when
acting in a certain way in certain situations. These are occasions for looking at
similarities and differences or continuities between Modernism and Postmodernism,
especially in terms of the borders of fiction, illusion, reality, creation of possible worlds,
perception of reality. The way the two authors’ writings fit into these trends will also be
examined. Moreover, the way Freud’s theories on day-dreaming, fantasy, mental
representation or theories of the Romantic poets on imagination may provide an
explanation for the characters’ imaginings will be taken into account.
2. Reasons for imagining stories
The reasons for imagining certain scenes or even stories about other characters may be
related to illustrating the process of writing fiction (and expressing an opinion related to
literary trends), to an attempt of understanding the past or future of a character and thus
even his/her personality. How real it is what others imagine brings into question the
theory of projection in psychoanalysis, which holds that what we see in others may be
an image of ourselves, reflecting our own thoughts, feelings, desires.
2.1. Imaginative or artistic creation
According to Justin Wintle1, the “workings of creative imagination” is “the single great
theme in Virginia Woolf’s novels”. Wintle relates the “workings of creative
imagination” to the purpose of “shaping different visions of order”. Indeed, characters in
Woolf have moments of being in order to make sense of the world, to have a vision of
the world as a coherent whole, in order to escape the feeling of the chaos of existence.
They try to reach a better understanding of the surrounding world.
In An Unwritten Novel, the unnamed first-person narrator presents a story that is
not finished. The focus is, in fact, on the process of story-telling.
The journey, which may also be interpreted as “from one age of fiction to the
next” is an occasion for the narrator “to construct the fictional life of an elderly woman
1
Justin Wintle, Makers of Modern Culture (London: Routledge, 2002), 580.
467
sitting opposite, whom s/he names Minnie Marsh. Ironically all the situations and
background which make up Minnie’s life draw from worn out realist conventions and
constitute a parody of them, a fact which stands in opposition with the narrative mode
that the narrator uses – the so-called stream-of-consciousness – as well as with the
process of alluding to the complexities of creating fiction within fiction and, above all,
character in fiction.”1
The narrator begins to imagine a story about the character Minnie Marsh
because of the woman’s sad look.
The narrator imagines for Minnie Marsh “a contemptuous sister-in-law she is
going to visit, an unspecified crime she committed in the past, an ailing mother she
nursed faithfully for many years and a lurid travelling salesman she has to confront at
her brother’s house. Even though the narrator claims that all this unhappiness is “life’s
fault. Life imposes her laws; life blocks the way”2, to the reader it is much more the
conventions of sentimental fiction which seem to determine Minnie’s life.”3
Other characters in Woolf’s short stories are also used to illustrate imagination
to create a life for characters they think or wish to understand. While literary techniques
are not discussed explicitly like in An Unwritten Novel, there are similarities with the
other two short stories: the same imagined life and the same return to reality, where what
is imagined proves to be false.
In Moments of Being: Slater’s Pins Have No Points, Fanny Wilmot, Miss
Craye’s pupil, realizes that her piano teacher has an ordinary life, too, following her
remarks about Slater’s pins. From that moment on, Fanny imagines a life for Miss Craye
based on some facts and remarks:
““Slater’s pins have no points—don’t you always find that?” said Miss Craye,
turning round as the rose fell out of Fanny Wilmot’s dress, and Fanny stooped, with her
ears full of the music, to look for the pin on the floor.
The words gave her an extraordinary shock, as Miss Craye struck the last chord
of the Bach fugue. Did Miss Craye actually go to Slater’s and buy pins then, Fanny
Wilmot asked herself, transfixed for a moment. Did she stand at the counter waiting like
anybody else, and was she given a bill with coppers wrapped in it, and did she slip them
into her purse and then, an hour later, stand by her dressing table and take out the pins?
[...]”4
The previous quote represents a moment of being. Hearing what Miss Craye
says, her student has a “shock” which leads to her imaginings about her teacher. What
she has just found out is unexpected to her. She begins to make suppositions on her
1
Laura María Lojo Rodriguez, “Parody and metafiction: Virginia Woolf ’s ‘An Unwritten
Novel’”, Links & Letters 8 (2001), http://www.raco.cat/index.php/linksletters/article/
viewFile/22738/22572, 75.
2
Virginia Woolf, An Unwritten Novel, in Monday or Tuesday (USA: Kessinger Publishing,
2004), 112.
3
Elke D’Hoker, “The role of the imagination in Virginia Woolf’s short fiction”, Journal of the
Short Story in English 50 (spring 2008), special Virginia Woolf issue, http://jsse.revues.org/
index692.html.
4
Virginia Woolf, Moments of Being: Slater’s Pins Have no Points, in A Haunted House (Mariner
Books, 2002).
468
teacher’s life and feelings. As we can see in Virginia Woolf and the essay, by Beth
Carole Rosenberg and Jeanne Dubino1, in Slater’s Pins Have No Points, the title
sentence “occasions a complex and poetic personal history”.
Fanny remembers what her teacher had said at various times about her past and
she fills in the missing details in her imagination:
“One could imagine every sort of scene in her youth, when with her good blue
eyes, her straight firm nose, her air of cool distinction, her piano playing, her rose
flowering with chaste passion in the bosom of her muslin dress, she had attracted first
the young men to whom such things, the china tea cups and the silver candlesticks and
the inlaid table, for the Crayes had such nice things, were wonderful; young men not
sufficiently distinguished; young men of the cathedral town with ambitions. She had
attracted them first, and then her brother’s friends from Oxford or Cambridge. They
would come down in the summer; row her on the river; continue the argument about
Browning by letter; and arrange perhaps, on the rare occasions when she stayed in
London, to show her Kensington Gardens?”
Fanny realizes the possibilities of imagining stories about her teacher. She can
create anything starting from what Mrs Craye had said in reality about her past. Not
knowing too many details leads to imagining almost anything:
“One could make that yield what one liked, Fanny Wilmot thought, single out,
for instance, Mr. Sherman, the painter, an old friend of hers; make him call for her, by
appointment, one sunny day in June; take her to have tea under the trees. (They had met,
too, at those parties to which one tripped in slippers without fear of catching cold.) The
aunt or other elderly relative was to wait there while they looked at the Serpentine. They
looked at the Serpentine. He may have rowed her across. They compared it with the
Avon.”
Fanny is aware that in imagining stories, she is in control, meaning that she can
imagine what she wishes. In doing this, she may project her own wishes or just her own
impressions about Mrs Craye. She can create a character Mrs Craye of her imagination,
different from the real one in certain respects. At the same time, Fanny is aware that she
is, after all, mostly making supppositions, e.g.: “He may have rowed her across.”
In The Lady in the Looking-Glass. A Reflection, the narrator begins to imagine
something about the life of her friend, Isabella Tyson. What happens is similar to the
situation in Moments of Being: Slater’s Pins Have No Points. The narrator believes that
“it was strange that after knowing her all these years one could not say what the truth
about Isabella was”2. The narrator thinks that she doesn’t know anything for sure about
the inner world of her friend, Isabella: “[i]t was absurd, it was monstrous. If she
concealed so much and knew so much one must prize her open with the first tool that
came to hand – the imagination”3. Her friend tries to imagine something about her
thoughts on life, death, happiness, regret.
In An Unwritten Novel, the narrator thinks about a story in a novel. She
imagines what she can, but she remains aware of the fact that reality may be different.
1
Beth Carole Rosenberg and Jeanne Dubino, eds., Virginia Woolf and the Essay (New York: St
Martin’s, 1997), 186.
2
Woolf, Virginia, Moments of Being: Slater’s Pins Have no Points, 216.
3
Ibid., 217.
469
She will never truly know the woman she had imagined the story about. In the other two
short stories, the persons are known up to some extent and the characters do not think
about novels.
In Virginia Woolf’s novel The Waves, Bernard is a character who tells stories
about other characters to his friends. His stories are thus made public, shared. An
example is his story about Dr Crane:
‘When Dr Crane lurches through the swing-doors after prayers he is convinced,
it seems, of his immense superiority; and indeed Neville, we cannot deny that his
departure leaves us not only with a sense of relief, but also with a sense of something
removed, like a tooth. Now let us follow him as he heaves through the swing-door to his
own apartments. Let us imagine him in his private room over the stables undressing. He
unfastens his sock suspenders (let us be trivial, let us be intimate). Then with a
characteristic gesture (it is difficult to avoid these ready-made phrases, and they are, in
his case, somehow appropriate) he takes the silver, he takes the coppers from his trouser
pockets and places them there, and there, on his dressing-table. With both arms stretched
on the arms of his chair he reflects (this is his private moment; it is here we must try to
catch him): shall he cross the pink bridge into his bedroom or shall he not cross it? The
two rooms are united by a bridge of rosy light from the lamp at the bedside where Mrs
Crane lies with her hair on the pillow reading a French memoir. As she reads, she
sweeps her hand with an abandoned and despairing gesture over her forehead, and sighs,
“Is this all?” comparing herself with some French duchess. Now, says the doctor, in two
years I shall retire. I shall clip yew hedges in a west country garden. An admiral I might
have been; or a judge; not a schoolmaster. What forces, he asks, staring at the gas-fire
with his shoulders hunched up more hugely than we know them (he is in his shirtsleeves remember), have brought me to this? What vast forces? he thinks, getting into
the stride of his majestic phrases as he looks over his shoulder at the window. It is a
stormy night; the branches of the chestnut trees are ploughing up and down. Stars flash
between them. What vast forces of good and evil have brought me here? he asks, and
sees with sorrow that his chair has worn a little hole in the pile of the purple carpet. So
there he sits, swinging his braces. But stories that follow people into their private rooms
are difficult. I cannot go on with this story. I twiddle a piece of string; I turn over four or
five coins in my trouser pocket.’“
Neville has the following reaction to his friend’s story: “‘Bernard’s stories
amuse me,’ said Neville, ‘at the start. But when they tail off absurdly and he gapes,
twiddling a bit of string, I feel my own solitude. He sees everyone with blurred edges.”1
Hassan2 draws attention to the Romantics’ view of dreams such as the ones
previously presented of characters in Woolf and Swift: “The Romantic exalts the artist
who does not give a material form to his dreams – the poet ecstatic in front of a forever
blank page, the musician who listens to the prodigious concerts of his soul without
attempting to translate them into notes.” This is, Hassan specifies, a quotation from
Mario Praz in The Romantic Agony.
1
Virginia Woolf, The Waves (New York: Mariner Books, 1950).
Ihab H. Hassan, The Postmodern Turn. Essays in Postmodern Theory and Culture (Ohio State
University Press, 1987), 15-16.
2
470
2.2. Detective work: investigating the past
We get our perception of Kristina mainly by means of George’s presuppositions and
imaginings (when we are not given Sarah’s account of her experience with her).
According to him, police work is “fifty per cent in your head”1. He imagines a lot, for
example what Kristina does in Geneva or Dubrovnik, or the beginning of Bob’s meeting
Kristina, the beginning of the affair and its development, its progress. He is actually
inventing it all. Sometimes he acknowledges this, and sometimes he presents his
guesswork as fact. No one has observed these scenes. For instance:
“I know what he’d have thought: a thought that had never occurred to him
before then. The nape of Kristina’s turned, shuddering neck. That he couldn’t do it,
could he? It wouldn’t be permitted, would it? That simple, obvious and healing thing
Sarah was doing. Put his arms around her. You have to picture the scene. Even when
they had that flat in Fulham. Because of the mad thrill of it. Even that last autumn, after
the picture had changed – after the Croats had won. A last walk in the woods. They
shuffle through last year’s leaves. September: this year’s leaves still form a screen. He
brushes bits of leaf, twig, bark from her back. A sort of ritual by now. She’s wearing that
old outdoor jacket. It’s his. They’re still wet and bruised with each other. And she’s
already aware how this may be a memory soon. An English wood. Bracken and bramble
and silver birch. There was a reason once why she came to this country. But she’s still a
student of English words – and he’s her teacher now. She scuffs at something at her feet
and stoops and looks. The hair parts from her neck. She knows the word ‘mushroom’
but she’s forgotten, if she ever learnt it, the other word. ‘Toadstool,’ he says, and they
both have to think about it while he explains a bit more.”2
Sarah feels compassion for Kristina, which is how it all starts:
“She’d never seen Kristina cry before. She’d seen the student with the frown
and the dark eyes that were dark in some extra way, but she’d never seen her cry.”
George imagines the scene from here:
“I can see it. You have to put yourself in this scene. The two of them in the
kitchen. The girl sobbing and Sarah holding her, as if there was no question who needed
protecting.”
Kristina seems at times to have lost the capacity to feel, but this may come only
from George’s wondering about her.
We get our perception of Kristina mainly by means of George’s presuppositions
and imaginings (when we are not given Sarah’s account of her experience with her).
In Shuttlecock, Prentis, while reading his father’s adventures as a World War II
spy, begins to suspect that his father was not really the hero his book claimed him to be.
A discussion with his boss leads him to wonder if what is written in his father’s
autobiographic book is true. Afterwards, he reads the book and while doubting, he
imagines alternative scenes. His father cannot talk now and Prentis can only imagine
what could have happened when his father was interrogated by the SS. Prentis begins to
suspect that his father had talked then. His father suffered a breakdown which left him
speechless. Prentis visits him regularly in a mental institution. Prentis had started reading
1
2
Graham Swift, The Light of Day (London: Penguin Books, 2004), 273.
Ibid., 80-81.
471
the book “hoping Dad would come out; hoping to hear his voice”1. As that is not
possible, he makes use of his imagination.
The situation of Swift’s characters George Webb or Prentis differs from those
of Woolf’s characters in the previous sections in that their purpose is more similar to the
one of a detective. Woolf’s characters are wondering about other characters they realize
they didn’t know so well after all or about whom they are aware they are imagining
things (An Unwritten Novel) as they don’t know the person and will never see her again.
However, what George Webb imagines about Kristina will remain mostly without
confirmations, just as in the case of An Unwritten Novel. George will never talk to
Kristina and he will never know what she will be doing when she arrives home in
Croatia. All the while, however, he imagines various details and scenes about her and he
does this in a lyrical way, similar to characters in Woolf. Prentis imagines stories about
his father in a similar way, and in his case too he will never receive confirmation for a
final version of the story, as his father can no longer speak. The search for truth is up to a
point very important to George Webb until he decided to destroy the evidence.
There are metafictional comments in Shuttlecock, with reference to both war
memoir and the book consisting of Prentis’ confessions:
“And then one day […] I stopped reading Dad’s book. I inquired no further.
How much of a book is in the words and how much is behind or in between the lines?
Perhaps it is best not to probe too deeply into those invisible regions, but to accept on
trust what is there on the page as the best showing the author could make. And the same
is true perhaps of this book (for it has grown into a book) which I have resumed now
after a six months’ lapse, only to bring to its conclusion. […]”2
There is a reference to novel writing and perception in novels in Prentis’
discussion with Quinn, his boss. When Quinn suggests an alternative story about his
father, Prentis asks him: “Was he a traitor?” I blurted out naively – as if Quinn were
omniscient.”3
Quinn points out to other reasons for imagining stories, namely of hiding, of
changing the truth. They talk about the pages where Prentis’ father describes his escape.
Quinn tells Prentis:
“He knew the Chateau, and the region – and perhaps he had – like you – a
strong imagination. If he wanted to invent an escape story he could have done so. I’m
just pointing this out, not disagreeing with you.”4
Here Quinn offers a theory of imagination that applies to the way characters
perceive other characters but also about the way characters in a novel write a novel of
their own, even though it should have been a memoir, containing only facts. From this
point of view, the war memoir may be seen as an imaginative creation of Prentis’ father,
in a similar way to the “unwritten novel” in Woolf’s short story with this title. Quinn
even says that if the story in the memoir was so convincing it could be because even the
author wanted to believe what he imagined. Quinn draws attention to the many
interpretations possible, which are as many as points of view, as many as characters.
1
Graham Swift, Shuttlecock (London: Picador, 1997), 199.
Ibid., 214.
3
Ibid., 186.
4
Ibid., 186.
2
472
A character who is similar to George Webb or to Prentis is Bill Unwin in
Swift’s novel Ever After. Like Prentis, he imagines a lot trying to reconstruct the life of
one of his ancestors from the manuscript he has left: “I imagine, I invent”1, “I see him”2,
“I conjure him up, I invent him”3, “You have to picture the scene”4 are some of the
examples emphasized by Malcolm5.
“Unwin does not emphasize the invention that lies behind narrative exclusively
in relation to the distant past. Even more recent events […] are clearly presented as
reconstructions via imagination.”6. He imagines, like George Webb imagines scenes
with Kristina and Bob, his wife Ruth quarrelling as a child with her mother while Bob
tries to break the conflict, and a whole scene he has not seen when he notices Gabriella’s
bottle of perfume in Potter’s car.
2.3. Predicting the future
Peter’s comment that Clarissa would be the perfect hostess, which occurred in their
youth, is remembered by an older Clarissa and by an older Peter. In fact, his “prediction”
was right.
Clarissa remembers:
“It was the state of the world that interested him; Wagner, Pope’s poetry,
people’s characters eternally, and the defects of her own soul. How he scolded her! How
they argued! She would marry a Prime Minister and stand at the top of a staircase; the
perfect hostess he called her (she had cried over it in her bedroom), she had the makings
of the perfect hostess, he said.”
The reason why Peter is able to predict Clarissa’s future is because he analyzes
her and he understands what she is like.
For this same reason, Peter experiences a revelation during dinner:
“He sat down beside her, and couldn’t speak. Everything seemed to race past
him; he just sat there, eating. And then half-way through dinner he made himself look
across at Clarissa for the first time. She was talking to a young man on her right. He had
a sudden revelation. “She will marry that man,” he said to himself. He didn’t even know
his name.”
Peter is right in his predictions because he knows his friend and because he
interprets her very well, but his predictions may also be interpreted as moments of being,
as Woolf calls them.
In The Light of Day, George Webb keeps saying that his assistant, Rita, will
leave him. He expects this to happen yet we are not told by the time the novel ends if
this happens. Rita is in love with George but he falls for Sarah, his client. Towards the
end of the novel, George thinks: “Rita might have left me a year ago. I know she’s going
to leave me now.”7 It’s normal to assume this if he takes into account that she is in love
1
Graham Swift, Ever After (New York: Vintage Books, 1992), 138.
Ibid., 139.
3
Ibid., 155.
4
Ibid., 197.
5
David Malcolm, Understanding Graham Swift (South Carolina: University of South Carolina
Press, 2003), 138.
6
Ibid., 138-139.
7
Swift, The Light of Day, 322.
2
473
with him and that she hopes him to be in love with her too. If this does not happen, she
will have no reason to stay and work for him.
Rita herself makes a prediction, which however turns out to be wrong. “Rita said,
‘It’ll fade.’”1 referring to George’s love for Sarah. She could have been right, considering
Sarah was in prison and George would only see her for some days. Rita told him:
“Look at me, George. The goods may be past their best, but at least you’ve seen
what you’re getting. Think about it, George. You haven’t ever seen her naked.”2
We witness George saying that his love for Sarah didn’t fade, contrary to Rita’s
prediction, yet the novel’s open ending leaves room for various doubts. Anything can
happen in the future.
Helen Ambrose in Woolf’s novel The Voyage Out is another character who
makes predictions. She feels that something bad is going to happen. According to
Winifred Holtby3, Helen has “presentiments of disaster” “in the Indian village”. Helen
also sees “beneath the trivialities of tea-table conversation” that “great things were
happening – terrible things, because they were so great. Her sense of safety was shaken,
as if beneath twigs and dead leaves she had seen the movement of a snake. It seemed to
her that a moment’s respite was allowed, a moment’s make-believe, and then again the
profound and reasonless law asserted itself, moulding them all to its liking, making and
destroying.” Chapter XIX of the novel goes on in telling us the following about Helen:
“She looked at Rachel walking beside her, still crushing the leaves in her fingers and
absorbed in her own thoughts. She was in love, and she pitied her profoundly.” Helen
has a moment of being, a moment of revelation, which is similar to the ones experienced
by Peter. Helen’s predictions will prove true as well. She pities Rachel and Rachel will
finally die before being able to continue her love. This prediction serves as anticipation
in the novel. Helen proves to have a very good intuition.
In Night and Day, we find out that Ralph had pictured a part of the scene which
then takes places with Katharine:
“Further, her still look, standing among the orchids in that hot atmosphere,
strangely illustrated some scene that he had imagined in his room at home. The sight,
mingling with his recollection, kept him silent when the door was shut and they were
walking on again.” (Chapter XXV)
We don’t know much about what he had imagined, yet this fragment shows that
he had been thinking a lot about Katharine and that such a brief portion of the scene may
function as a prediction coming true. He had analyzed Katharine enough to know about
some of her reactions.
2.4. Reflections
In Mrs. Dalloway, Clarissa lives Septimus’ death in her imagination. She wasn’t a
witness and she didn’t even know Septimus. Using her imagination is a way to help her
begin her reflections on death. Leaska, in The Novels of Virginia Woolf from Beginning
to End, underlines that Clarissa experiences both fear and “urge toward death”4. One of
1
Ibid., 321.
Ibid.
3
Winifred Holtby, Virginia Woolf. A Critical Memoir (London: Continuum, 2007), 65.
4
Mitchell A. Leaska, The Novels of Virginia Woolf: From Beginning to End (The City University
of New York: The John Jay Press, 1977), 89.
2
474
Clarissa’s memories becomes significant when linked to what she has heard about
Septimus’ suicide: “She had once thrown a shilling into the Serpentine, never anything
more. But he had flung it away”1. In this case, one might say that imagination is used in
relation to perception. Clarissa’s imaginings allow her to express her perception of
Septimus’ suicide and on the issue of death:
“[…] He had killed himself—but how? Always her body went through it first,
when she was told, suddenly, of an accident; her dress flamed, her body burnt. He had
thrown himself from a window. Up had flashed the ground; through him, blundering,
bruising, went the rusty spikes. There he lay with a thud, thud, thud in his brain, and then
a suffocation of blackness. So she saw it. But why had he done it? […] They went on
living (she would have to go back; the rooms were still crowded; people kept on
coming). They (all day she had been thinking of Bourton, of Peter, of Sally), they would
grow old. A thing there was that mattered; a thing, wreathed about with chatter, defaced,
obscured in her own life, let drop every day in corruption, lies, chatter. This he had
preserved. Death was defiance. Death was an attempt to communicate; people feeling
the impossibility of reaching the centre which, mystically, evaded them; closeness drew
apart; rapture faded, one was alone. There was an embrace in death.
But this young man who had killed himself—had he plunged holding his
treasure? “If it were now to die, ‘twere now to be most happy,” she had said to herself
once, coming down in white.
Or there were the poets and thinkers. Suppose he had had that passion, and had
gone to Sir William Bradshaw, a great doctor yet to her obscurely evil, without sex or
lust, extremely polite to women, but capable of some indescribable outrage—forcing
your soul, that was it—if this young man had gone to him, and Sir William had
impressed him, like that, with his power, might he not then have said (indeed she felt it
now), Life is made intolerable; they make life intolerable, men like that?
Then (she had felt it only this morning) there was the terror; the overwhelming
incapacity, one’s parents giving it into one’s hands, this life, to be lived to the end, to be
walked with serenely; there was in the depths of her heart an awful fear. Even now, quite
often if Richard had not been there reading the Times, so that she could crouch like a
bird and gradually revive, send roaring up that immeasurable delight, rubbing stick to
stick, one thing with another, she must have perished. But that young man had killed
himself. […]
It was due to Richard; she had never been so happy. Nothing could be slow
enough; nothing last too long. No pleasure could equal, she thought, straightening the
chairs, pushing in one book on the shelf, this having done with the triumphs of youth,
lost herself in the process of living, to find it, with a shock of delight, as the sun rose, as
the day sank.”
Amy in Last Orders reflects on her life with her husband while she imagines
where his friends and family are and what they are doing as they have gone on the
journey to Margate to throw her husband’s ashes into the sea at Margate. She has
refused to come with them on the journey; instead, she accompanies them in her
imagination, she wonders what they are doing at certain moments. For instance:
1
Ibid., 280; 202.
475
“Well they must be there by now, they must have done it. Tipped him in,
chucked him. For all I know, they’re making a day of it, they’re out on a spree, donkeyrides all round, now the job’s done, down there in Margate.”1
Clarissa, the character in Mrs. Dalloway, on a different occasion imagines her
life if she had married Peter after she meets him in the present: “[…] If I had married
him, this gaiety would have been mine all day.” Freedman2 notices that “[…] the entire
scene is captured in the vision of this imaginary life as a play. The collapse of the
moment becomes the end of the play; it is “now over” and Clarissa is collecting her
things.”
Clarissa talks to Peter in her imagination:
“Take me with you, Clarissa thought impulsively, as if he were starting directly
upon some great voyage; and then, next moment, it was as if the five acts of a play that
had been very exciting and moving were now over and she had lived a lifetime in them
and had run away, had lived with Peter, and it was now over.”
While investigating the past or imagining the lives of other characters may also
be classified as reflections, they imply more than just that.
Reasons why a minor character in the novel Orlando by Virginia Woolf are
already given after describing his brief moment of imagining:
“But though it was probably cowardice, or love of hot ale, that led Mr Dupper
to imagine his Lordship safe among the tombs so that he need not go in search of him, it
may well have been that Mr. Dupper was right.”
Nothing is certain, however.
In Woolf’s novel Night and Day, Ralph imagines a few moments while he is
with Katharine:
““But which way are you going?” Katharine asked, waking a little from the
trance into which movement among moving things had thrown her.
“I’m going to the Temple,” Ralph replied, inventing a destination on the spur of
the moment. He felt the change come over her as they sat down and the omnibus began
to move forward. He imagined her contemplating the avenue in front of them with those
honest sad eyes which seemed to set him at such a distance from them. But the breeze
was blowing in their faces; it lifted her hat for a second, and she drew out a pin and stuck
it in again,--a little action which seemed, for some reason, to make her rather more
fallible. Ah, if only her hat would blow off, and leave her altogether disheveled,
accepting it from his hands!” (Chapter VI).
Ralph is one of the characters who imagines a different reality, a reality which
would be better for him.
At some other point in the novel, however, Ralph imagined, briefly, a different
reality which is negative:
““I would marry her in St. Paul’s Cathedral,” Ralph replied. His doubts upon
this point, which were always roused by Katharine’s presence, had vanished completely,
and his strongest wish in the world was to be with her immediately, since every second
he was away from her he imagined her slipping farther and farther from him into one of
those states of mind in which he was unrepresented.” (Chapter XXXIII)
1
Graham Swift, Last Orders (New York: Vintage Books, 1997), 228.
Ralph Freedman, The Lyrical Novel: Studies in Hermann Hesse, Andre Gide, and Virginia
Woolf (New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 1963), 219.
2
476
The reason for this scenario is given immediately afterwards: “He wished to
dominate her, to possess her.” He fears that he might lose her if he is not always with her.
Katharine has a moment where she herself imagines a different reality, although
she afterwards becomes rational again. After she finds about about some letters, she
wonders what would Ralph and Mary say about them. Then she imagines a more
convenient reality, where she could escape such problems:
““What would Ralph Denham say to this?” thought Katharine, beginning to
pace up and down her bedroom. She twitched aside the curtains, so that, on turning, she
was faced by darkness, and looking out, could just distinguish the branches of a planetree and the yellow lights of someone else’s windows.
“What would Mary Datchet and Ralph Denham say?” she reflected, pausing by
the window, which, as the night was warm, she raised, in order to feel the air upon her
face, and to lose herself in the nothingness of night. But with the air the distant humming
sound of far-off crowded thoroughfares was admitted to the room. The incessant and
tumultuous hum of the distant traffic seemed, as she stood there, to represent the thick
texture of her life, for her life was so hemmed in with the progress of other lives that the
sound of its own advance was inaudible. People like Ralph and Mary, she thought, had it
all their own way, and an empty space before them, and, as she envied them, she cast her
mind out to imagine an empty land where all this petty intercourse of men and women,
this life made up of the dense crossings and entanglements of men and women, had no
existence whatever. Even now, alone, at night, looking out into the shapeless mass of
London, she was forced to remember that there was one point and here another with
which she had some connection. William Rodney, at this very moment, was seated in a
minute speck of light somewhere to the east of her, and his mind was occupied, not with
his book, but with her. She wished that no one in the whole world would think of her.
However, there was no way of escaping from one’s fellow-beings, she concluded,
and shut the window with a sigh, and returned once more to her letters.” (Chapter VIII)
On some other occasion, Katharine tells Ralph the following:
“You come and see me among flowers and pictures, and think me mysterious,
romantic, and all the rest of it. Being yourself very inexperienced and very emotional,
you go home and invent a story about me, and now you can’t separate me from the
person you’ve imagined me to be. You call that, I suppose, being in love; as a matter of
fact it’s being in delusion. All romantic people are the same,” she added. “My mother
spends her life in making stories about the people she’s fond of. But I won’t have you do
it about me, if I can help it.”“ (Chapter XXVII).
Katharine tries to make Ralph think more realistically. She is aware that there
are plenty of stories made up about herself or about other characters. The stories indicate
the way a character is perceived by the other characters.
3. Perception, subjectivity and imagination
The characters in Woolf and Swift previously mentioned offer to the reader their own
perception on other characters and events in their past or present.
The influence of the theories of Sigmund Freud and Ernst Mach may be visible
in this case. They claimed that “the mind had a fundamental structure, and that
subjective experience was based on the interplay of the parts of the mind” in the 1880s1.
1
Wikipedia, Modernism, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Modernism.
477
The unconscious plays an important part in perceiving reality in a subjective way,
according to Freud. Drives, instincts form a subjective version of reality.
What we bring into our perception of the world could even be projection,
according to psychoanalytic theory. We perceive the world as we ourselves see it, due to
various reasons, not as it actually is. There is both objectivity and subjectivity when
perceiving the world. We rely on common understanding in order to function in this
world and not remain alone in our constructed world, yet we also bring our own
subjectivity. Our mind forms an inner reality, feelings, ideas regarding how we view the
world. The idea that the mind is not only a passive receptor is also found in Freud. The
mind is active in forming a reality when perceiving it.
Such theories may explain why some characters begin to imagine stories about
others in Woolf and Swift. They describe their own view on these characters, they may
even bring something that says more about themselves than about the character
described. Obviously, they can imagine what they would themselves do or think in a
certain character’s place or even make that character act as they would unconsciously or
consciously wish.
Imagination may play an important part in such cases. Some characters’
perception on other characters is influenced by it.
Woolf seems to draw our attention to the Modernist emphasis on subjectivity
and inner life. The inner life of certain characters is imagined due to the wish to be
known and understood.
4. Day-dreaming, fantasy, creativity
Could we say that in this case such characters are day-dreaming about others? Are these
fantasies?
According to Freud, “a fantasy is a product of the imagination in the form of a
script in the theatrical or cinematic sense and deployed in support of a wish-fulfillment. It
may be a conscious creation, a daydream created by the subject to procure an imaginary
satisfaction that is erotic, aggressive, self-flattering, or self-aggrandizing in nature.”1
According to Wikipedia2, “daydreams may involve fantasies about future
scenarios or plans, or reminiscences about past experiences […]”. Very vivid mental
images are also one of their characteristics.
The fantasy is defined by The American Heritage Dictionary of the English
Language3 as “An imagined event or sequence of mental images, such as a daydream,
usually fulfilling a wish or psychological need.” Britannica Concise Encyclopedia4 tells
us that a fantasy consists of “Mental images or imaginary narratives that distort or
entirely depart from reality. Primary fantasies arise spontaneously from the unconscious,
1
Michèle Perron-Borelli, and Roger Perron, Fantasme, Action, Pensée (Algiers: Éditions de la
Société algérienne de psychologie, 1997).
2
Wikipedia, Daydreams, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daydream
3
The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
Publishing Company, 2010).
4
Britannica
Concise
Encyclopedia,
Fantasy,
Britannica.com,
2008,
http://encyclopedia2.thefreedictionary.com/_/gr.aspx?url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.britannica.com
%2Fsearch%3Fquery%3Dfantasy&source=Britannica
478
while secondary fantasies are consciously summoned and pursued. […] In adult life it is
crucial to creative thinking and the making of art. […]”
These theories may partly hold in the case of characters that imagine stories
about other characters in Woolf and Swift. Sometimes in imagining something the
characters are influenced by how they would want reality to be like. They bring their
own contribution and make up a reality as they see it or maybe as they want to see it.
The writer of the unfinished novel in Woolf’s short story makes use of her
creativity and finally she realizes that reality is different. The narrators in Woolf’s
Moments of Being: Slater’s Pins Have No Points and The Lady in the Looking-Glass.A
Reflection try to understand their teacher and their friend, respectively. Their
conclusions are similar, in the end. For Fanny, what she imagines about her teacher
comes from her own thoughts and feelings. There are remarks of Miss Craye which
Fanny changes, for instance Miss Craye’s remark that “It’s the use of men, surely, to
protect us”, which turns into Fanny’s “It was the only use of men, she had said”1.
Fanny’s imagined desire of Miss Craye “to break the pane of glass which separated
them from other people”2 reflects her own desire to understand the person behind the
teacher. Fanny seeing Julia Craye as a strong, independent woman who turns down a
suitor so as not to “sacrifice” her freedom3 recalls Fanny’s remark that she doesn’t “want
protection [from men].”4
Prentis imagines different stories about his father, in one he is a hero, in the
other he is no longer a hero and thus no longer perfect. After this, Prentis himself no
longer feels perfect and no longer has misunderstandings with his family. His attitude
towards them and himself changes.
The dog Flush, in Woolf’s novel entitled Flush. A Biography, is anxious as he
doesn’t understand what is going on with his mistress as she exchanges letters with the
poet Browning. He fears changes in his relation to his mistress and he imagines the poet
as a stranger he fears:
“Yet, he argued, what was there to be afraid of, so long as there was no change
in Miss Barrett’s life? And there was no change. No new visitors came. Mr. Kenyon
came as usual; Miss Mitford came as usual. The brothers and sisters came; and in the
evening Mr. Barrett came. They noticed nothing; they suspected nothing. So he would
quieten himself and try to believe, when a few nights passed without the envelope, that
the enemy had gone. A man in a cloak, he imagined, a cowled and hooded figure, had
passed, like a burglar, rattling the door, and finding it guarded, had slunk away defeated.
The danger, Flush tried to make himself believe, was over. The man had gone. And then
the letter came again.”
To George, it may be easy to imagine Bob’s falling in love with Kristina as he
himself had fallen in love with Sarah. Moreover, he had become more imaginative, more
careful with using language since he met Sarah. Peter imagines Clarissa in the future and
his assumptions prove right. He feels that Clarissa will reject his marriage proposal. As
1
Virginia Woolf, The Lady in the Looking-Glass. A Reflection, in A Haunted House (Mariner
Books, 2002), 211.
2
Ibid., 210.
3
Ibid., 212-13.
4
Ibid., 211.
479
this happens after he sees Clarissa’s reaction to Mr. Dalloway, his prediction is based on
his analysis of Clarissa and thus on his judgement. He most likely notices changes in
Clarissa’s behavior, and there may also be his fear of losing her which makes him have
such thoughts.
George’s prediction that Rita may leave him as an associate at work comes
from his knowing that she is in love with him but he doesn’t love her. Sometime Rita
may most likely stop hoping and decide to leave. Rita’s prediction that George’s love for
Sarah will fade comes most probably from her common sense judging of the situation
but also from her own desire to have George single again and maybe for herself.
Peter also experiences feelings of insignificance, of low self-esteem. This can
be noticed in the scene at Bourton when Mr Dalloway wins Clarissa from him:
“And all the time, he knew perfectly well, Dalloway was falling in love with
her; she was falling in love with Dalloway; but it didn’t seem to matter. Nothing
mattered. They sat on the ground and talked—he and Clarissa. They went in and out of
each other’s minds without any effort. And then in a second it was over. He said to
himself as they were getting into the boat, “She will marry that man,” dully, without any
resentment; but it was an obvious thing. Dalloway would marry Clarissa.
Dalloway rowed them in. He said nothing. But somehow as they watched him
start, jumping on to his bicycle to ride twenty miles through the woods, wobbling off
down the drive, waving his hand and disappearing, he obviously did feel, instinctively,
tremendously, strongly, all that; the night; the romance; Clarissa. He deserved to have
her.”
As Leaska notices, Peter “has essentially encouraged a situation which insures
his failure”1. This can be seen in the novel Mrs Dalloway:
“For himself, he was absurd. His demands upon Clarissa (he could see it now)
were absurd. He asked impossible things. He made terrible scenes. She would have
accepted him still, perhaps, if he had been less absurd.”
Leaska goes on saying that “[…] when he can actively thrust onto someone else
his own sense of nothingness, Peter can then passively remain the innocent victim. With
or without active agent, however, his inclination toward self-defeat becomes a recurrent
pattern and explains why ‘he had never done a thing they had talked of’ […]”2.
According to Freud, the artist can choose and make changes in the unconscious
material. This and the way the artist transforms his egotistic fantasies into something
acceptable for public appreciation could be regarded as parts of the artist’s gift. The
fantasies of a man of artistic talent give us pleasure, while those of an ordinary daydreamer could leave us indifferent, or bore or disgust us; or, while we might find that the
fantasies of an ordinary day-dreamer have something in common to ours, his ‘work’
would not have the same value as a true, gifted artist’s, and the day-dreamer will not be
interested in sharing his ‘work’ and reworking it for the public.
The main character “speaking” to the reader in An Unwritten Novel is the
closest to the artist. The artist uses a monologue both to create a story by the use of
imagination and to comment on literary technique. The other characters who show their
imagination to the reader in Moments of Being: Slater’s Pins Have No Points and The
1
2
Leaska, The Novels of Virginia Woolf: From Beginning to End, 97.
Ibid., 96.
480
Lady in the Looking-Glass. A Reflection are not conscious about literary technique, yet
they also create a life for the characters they find interesting for this or wonder about
their life. The other characters are not ordinary day-dreamers either. Their fantasies are
used in order to gain the reader’s interest. They are not explicitly artists creating public
fantasies, but their fantasies are used by the author to fit in the novel for a purpose.
While in the real world maybe they would be fantasies belonging to an ordinary daydreamer, they are different as they belong to characters in novels. Their fantasies
concern themselves (Prentis) but they may also concern close ones (Peter’s imagined
predictions about Clarissa) or even be relevant to understanding a situation (detective
George). Peter’s predictions function as anticipations in the novel, Prentis tries to
analyse and understand his father’s past and even himself and his relationship with his
father and with his family, detective George Webb tries to understand the reasons of
characters who come to have an affair.
Malcolm1 notices how characters in Swift’s novel Out of This World “conceive
of other possibilities”; they imagine other situations in which their lives would be
different. These are “all hypothetical possibilities and imaginings, […] a kind of refuge
from an awful reality.” Harry Beach imagines how life would have been different if he
had accepted to work for his father’s company or if his father had not ignored him after
his mother’s death. Sophie imagines a version of life where Uncle Edward doesn’t die
and where he is visited by Sophie and her father.
5. Coleridge’s theories on imagination
Coleridge defines two types of imagination: primary and secondary. Primary
imagination is spontaneous, while secondary imagination means creating consciously.
There is also fancy, which is “the lowest form of imagination”. “With fancy there is no
creation involved; it is simply a reconfiguration of existing ideas.”2
Ralph Freedman (1963) sees Woolf’s moments of being as instances of
Coleridge’s primary imagination. Indeed, these moments are spontaneous, they are
visions, revelations which occur naturally. Characters make no conscious effort in
creating these visions.
Characters such as Rhoda or Bernard in The Waves have “flight of
imagination.”3 These are spontaneous and thus instances of primary imagination. For
instance, Rhoda in her imagination “converts petals into a fleet of ships”4. Lily, the artist
in To the Lighthouse, also used imagination in creating her painting of Mrs Ramsay.
“I’ve had my vision,” she says after her painting is finished. Throughout the novel she
has struggled not to create something consciously but to create it spontaneously.
The stories characters imagine about other characters which are presented in
this paper seem to contain features of several of Coleridge’s types of imagination.
Peter’s vision of Clarissa as Mr Dalloway’s wife is spontaneous, and thus it’s
part of primary imagination. Clarissa’s sympathizing with Septimus is spontaneous as
1
Malcolm, Understanding Graham Swift, 15.
Rider, Shawn, Wordsworth and Coleridge: Emotion, Imagination and Complexity,
http://www.wdog.com/rider/writings/wordsworth_and_coleridge.htm
3
Freedman, The Lyrical Novel: Studies in Hermann Hesse, Andre Gide, and Virginia Woolf, 251.
4
Ibid., 251.
2
481
well, yet this vision comes after she makes some connections with experiences of her
own, thus it’s partly conscious imagination. All other instances of characters imagining
stories about other characters (including Clarissa’s thinking about Septimus) may be
linked to Freud’s theories on day-dreaming. Characters are partly conscious that they are
imagining. They are imagining possible scenarios. Such instances may also fit in a bit
into Coleridge’s “fancy”: characters use parts of what they already know when
imagining something. But this doesn’t mean that there is no creation. They imagine
something starting from what is real. Real characters are used as the protagonists of
happenings imagined by other characters.
Such situations are opposed to what Rhoda imagines in the example given
previously, which is something very much removed from reality and which does not
involve imagining a story about another character. Lily Briscoe does not create a story,
but an image, presented according to the way she perceived Mrs Ramsay.
For Septimus, reality and his imaginings are no longer distinct from one
another. He is no longer aware that what he sees is not real (especially his friend Evans
who is dead). From this point of view, a common feature of characters imagining stories
about other characters is that they are aware of the difference between imagination and
reality. They are aware that when they make suppositions or try to imagine what a
certain character did or felt are not necessarily the same thing with reality. They imagine
a possible reality and are aware of this. They imagine alternate realities.
The case of Peter and his vision of Clarissa’s future marriage with Richard
Dalloway is, however, different. Here Peter doesn’t make any suppositions. He just sees
this and later we have the confirmation. This is not a simple reflection on alternate
realities. Due to this reason, this moment is the closest to what Coleridge calls primary
imagination (Peter’s vision is spontaneous).
There is another Romantic poet whose theories are to be found in Woolf.
Freedman notices that Woolf’s “analysis of mental experience sometimes recalls
Wordsworthian definitions – the artist’s conscious reconstruction of unconsciously
assembled impressions recollected in tranquility.”1 What Wordsworth claims may be
found in Freud’s theory of day-dreaming. What characters imagine about other
characters contains both unconscious and conscious elements. On the one hand they are
aware that they are imagining something, while on the other hand their imagination
contains unconscious elements. Unconsciously, they may be aware of certain things, or
they may imagine the stories according to their own wishes, projections and so on.
6. Visionary imagination. Lyricism.
Ali Güneş2 notices that the use of a highly developed visionary imagination and capacity
for intense states of feelings (the working of memory bring both feelings of terror and
joy) as well as the use of a narrative technique similar to that of the Romantics were
among the Romantic elements mentioned by critics in Mrs Dalloway. Critics like
Daiches, Freedman, Troy, Beja, Edel, Forster, Bradbury, or Philipson acknowledge that
Woolf’s representation of intense or visionary states of feeling is similar to lyric poetry.
1
Güneş, Ali, “William Wordsworth’s ‘Double Awareness’ of Memory in Virginia Woolf’s ‘Mrs
Dalloway’”, Doğuş Üniversitesi Dergisi 4 (2) 2003: 183-196.
2
482
Woolf herself viewed her attempts in this way: in Modern Fiction, she wrote that the
artistic consciousness or creativity was important to her, because it was more intuitive,
more poetic.
The Romantic poets show their influence on Woolf’s and Swift’s novels. In
both Woolf and Swift there are, aside from echoes from some of their poems, moments
of vision, of revelations, moments that are experienced intensely. Feelings, views on
reality are expressed by means of images, by means of poetic descriptions. Imagination
was very important for the Romantics. It offered access to see beyond the surface of
reality, to see beyond reason, to modify the external world according to one’s individual
views. The poet had the role to share his vision with the rest of society. He was the
visionary.
In Virginia Woolf’s novel The Waves, Rhoda imagines a story about herself:
“I imagine these nameless, these immaculate people, watching me from behind
bushes. I leap high to excite their admiration. At night, in bed, I excite their complete
wonder. I often die pierced with arrows to win their tears. If they should say, or I should
see from a label on their boxes, that they were in Scarborough last holidays, the whole
town runs gold, the whole pavement is illuminated. Therefore I hate looking-glasses
which show me my real face. Alone, I often fall down into nothingness. I must push my
foot stealthily lest I should fall off the edge of the world into nothingness. I have to bang
my head against some hard door to call myself back to the body.’“
Her experience is very close to a vision, but it may also be considered as a daydream.
Characters who imagine stories about other characters may share their vision
with the others or not. However, they always let the reader know about it. Whether they
share it or not reminds of Freud’s theory of creativity. There are fantasies which are
made public and fantasies which remain private. Some fantasies would never be
appreciated by others. This is because they have personal meaning (for instance, Peter’s
predictions about Clarissa’s marriage or her becoming a perfect hostess). They have
personal meaning, they are kept private, yet at the same time they are part of novels,
which are in their turn public fantasies. In Swift’s novel Shuttlecock, Prentis’ father has
written his war memoir, which is read by his son, who analyses it and reflects deeply on
it. In fact, Prentis’ father creates a public fantasy, as his war memoir is up to a point a
reflection of reality and the other part of it is fantasy suited to create his image as a war
hero. In this sense, Prentis’ father may be seen as imagining a story about himself in his
war memoir. Prentis’ father is both a real character and an imaginary one for those who
read his memoir, his son included, until he begins to question his father’s deeds. His
father had made changes to reality, he had mixed it with imagination. In his case,
however, this is not simple creativity; it means lying.
In relation to characters’ identity, Woolf intended to show “the right relationship
[...] between the self you know and the world outside.”1 Here there is also the characters’
“enduring struggle with the facts”2 of their existence. From here, moments of vision and
thus of poetry occur. It is from perceiving the world in their own way that such moments
appear.
1
2
Virginia Woolf, Letters to a Young Poet, 1932.
483
According to Freedman1, as he refers to Woolf’s novels, “The poet’s
imagination becomes the novelist’s task of representing moments precisely and of
gathering them in adequate forms. Imagination in prose narratives unites the formal
awareness of isolated moments with the outer universe and the portrait of manners.”
Imagination is connected with lyricism. Aspects of everyday life become more
interesting, they are expressed in an imaginative way by means of lyricism.
7. Borders between fiction, illusion and reality
Irene Simon notices that “It is just the purpose of Virginia Woolf to abolish the
distinction between dream and reality; she effects this by mixing images with gestures,
thoughts with impressions, visions with pure sensations, and by presenting them as
mirrored on a consciousness.”2 Do the details of Minnie’s life imagined by the narrator
correspond to her actual situation? This is not what matters most. We get to see two
different points of view, in fact: the first-person narrator’s imaginative one and then we
see what the narrator discovers in time about Minnie. Her assumptions do not prove to
be true, but they sounded quite real until then. It was a convincing story.
With Modernism, reality is no longer objective. There are individual perspectives
of reality. According to Postmodernism, reality is a construct. In Postmodernist fiction,
there are multiple perspectives and interpretations on and of reality.
Woolf, in An Unwritten Novel, creates what Linda Hutcheon called “fiction
about fiction”, when she referred to Postmodernism. Just like the Postmodernists, Woolf
contradicts the conventions of Realism in her metafictional short-story. What
metafiction does “is simultaneously to create a fiction and to make a statement about the
creation of that fiction.”3
The stories imagined in Moments of Being: Slater’s Pins Have No Points and The
Lady in the Looking-Glass. A Reflection are also convincing until the end comes and
shows something else about the characters whose life is imagined. What Fanny imagines
about her teacher comes, in fact, after what she imagines about herself, from what she
herself wishes. What is found out about Isabella in the end is that she was “perfectly
empty” and had “no thoughts” at all,4 unlike what her friend imagined about her inner life:
“And there was nothing. Isabella was perfectly empty. She had no thoughts. She
had no friends. She cared for nobody. As for her letters, they were all bills.”
What Peter Walsh does with his “predictions” is more than just fiction. His
predictions become real in the novel. He has moments of vision which go beyond reality.
We never know whether the scenes George Webb imagines between Kristina
and Bob were ever real or ever happened. There are details which belong only to his
imagination. Prentis finds out that reality may be different from his imagination when he
tries to understand his father from the book he has written. Here, Swift appears to
illustrate a fiction which is questioned. The book written by Prentis’ father appears to be
only imagination. The truth is uncertain, but most likely Prentis has lived with the
1
Ibid., 205.
Irene Simon, “Some aspects of Virginia Woolf’s Imagery”, English Studies 41 (1960): 180-96.
3
Linda Hutcheon, Narcissistic narratives: The metafictional paradox (London: Methuen, 1980.)
4
Woolf, The Lady in The Looking Glass. A Reflection, 219.
2
484
illusion that his father had been a hero. His father cannot speak and Prentis cannot hear a
convincing answer from him.
Prentis believes that his father’s memoir, which he has read many times, is getting
“not more familiar but more elusive and remote”1. What is strange to him is that his father
offers, mostly, just a descriptive account of what he went through. He rarely mentions his
feelings, and mentioning them mostly “in a bluff, almost light-hearted way,” makes the
story in his book look like “some made-up adventure story”.2 His whole father’s book
looks “like fiction, like something that never really took place”.3 Only the parts describing
his father’s capture, torture and escape make the following impression on Prentis: “These
pages are more vivid, more real, more believable than any other part of the book. And yet,
strangely enough, this is because the style of Dad’s writing becomes - how shall I put it? more imaginative, more literary, more speculative”.4
“Is it important to be heroic?” a review of Shuttlecock in Punch magazine5 asks.
This question sums up what happens with Prentis after seeing his father’s adventures as
a spy from a different perspective, which changes his relationship with his father and
with his family. He is no longer making use of too much authority over his family. He
no longer feels as if he has to be a hero himself in order to get his sons’ attention.
Prentis interrogates the narrative of his father in a Postmodern way. Moreover,
he finds another reading of his father’s book.
His father’s book is an example of blurred boundaries between reality and
fiction. He was supposed to write a memoir, to present reality, yet he was also creative,
changing facts. However, in his case, being creative equals to being a liar. Everyone had
believed him he was a hero. His son struggles to preserve this version for the others. He
destroys the evidence that shows what actually may have happened.
Characters in Woolf and Swift describe imagined scenes as though literally
“seeing” them.
There is a duality between imagination and fact6 in Woolf. This occurs in Swift
as well.
Imagined scenarios are more or less removed from possible reality. Amy’s
seems very close to reality. She tries to imagine where her husband’s friends are on their
journey. She knows her husband’s friends, she knows the way to Margate, she knows
that they are together during their trip. Woolf’s short stories An Unwritten Novel,
Moments of Being: Slater’s Pins Have No Points and The Lady in the Looking-Glass. A
Reflection present the imagined scenarios as not real, but just inspired from reality.
Nothing is certain and the characters who are part of stories are not very well-known.
The situation in An Unwritten Novel is similar to Shuttlecock, with the exception that the
fantasy in the memoir was made public, not kept by Prentis’ father to himself. Peter’s
1
Swift, Shuttlecock, 52.
Idem.
3
Swift, Shuttlecock, 52.
4
Stef Craps, Trauma and Ethics in the Novels of Graham Swift (Brighton: Sussex Academic
Press, 2005), 106-07.
5
Barry J. Fishman, Shuttlecock: An Introduction, 1989, http://www.postcolonialweb.org/uk/
gswift/shuttle/shuttleinto.html
6
2
485
predictions are confirmed later in the narrative. Clarissa’s imagined life with Peter is
clearly imaginary, as she is aware that she is only day-dreaming. George’s
presuppositions about Kristina in The Light of Day are neither confirmed nor
disconfirmed in the narrative. They do, however, sound likely to have happened in a
similar way. He doesn’t know Kristina personally, however, and it’s not likely Kristina
has spoken or behaved exactly the way George described her in his imagined scenes.
Katharine tries to draw Ralph’s attention to the border between reality and
fiction when she talks to him about the difference between the way he imagines
(perceives) her and the way she actually is. Moreover, she extends her reflections to the
same difference between imagining stories about characters and the way they actually
are like in reality.
Perceiving the world according to one’s subjective perspective illustrates this as
well as their creating stories about other characters. Their stories are based on real
characters and sometimes real situations. There is also a blending between poetry and
prose in creating the lyrical novel.1 Inner and outer experience are combined in such
novels.2
Kaivola notices contradictions as part of the lyrical novel in Woolf. Such
contradictions, ambiguities are reconciled in lyrical novels. Karen Kaivola points out the
ambivalences in Woolf. Starting with the ambivalence between art and politics (as
Woolf includes in her writings political and social critiques, but by means of her lyrical
fiction she “obscures” them), Kaivola goes on to point out that Woolf’s lyrical novels
shape experience yet protect the self from a “hostile world” and that there is even a
“dissolution of boundaries between the perceiver and the external world”3 which leads
to ambivalence.
The distinctions between reality and fiction often blurred in both Woolf and
Swift in these cases. With Woolf, however, we are given an ending which shows us
something else than what is imagined during the short stories. What is imagined is
replaced by something else. It is only in Mrs Dalloway that Peter’s predictions prove to
become true. With Swift, we don’t know whether what George or Prentis imagine is in
fact true. We are only given George’s imagined view of certain scenes and only Prentis’
final imagination of the story of his father who is no longer a hero. However, whether
his father was a hero or not is not yet clear. We are only given a possibility to doubt the
truth of his father’s novel. Nothing is clarified by the end of the novels and neither
readers nor characters know anything for sure.
According to Robert Olen Butler, in From Where You Dream: The Process of
Writing Fiction, fiction becomes fiction from the moment it happens in someone’s
imagination. Until then, fiction is, according to Butler, ink on paper, letters from the
alphabet brought together, words, sounds, syntax and so on. Finally, Butler claims,
fiction becomes “an evocation of sensual experience inside the reader’s mind.”4 This
shows the important role played by imagination, not only in lyrical fiction but in fiction
1
Ibid., 185.
Ibid., 186.
3
Idem.
4
Robert Olen Butler, From Where You Dream: The Process of Writing Fiction (New York:
Grove Press, 2005).
2
486
generally speaking. Bradbury1 states that, in poetics, “there is the presumption that
fiction itself is a creative power”. Characters who imagine stories about other characters
may be regarded as an example of fiction within fiction, regardless of how long or short
what they imagine is.
Woolf’s essay on Turgenev contains, according to Freedman, the explanation of
“her “mature concept of ‘imagination’ [...] A truly symbolic vision, she held, must
represent two incompatible efforts in an ideal form: that of ‘observing facts impartially’
and of ‘interpreting them symbolically’. Emotions [...] obtain their existence from a
vision of ‘incompatible things’ drawn together in single instances of illuminated
perception. Radiating from ‘some characters at the centre’, a succession of these
emotions replaces the succession of events to create a form embodying life as a whole.”2
Hassan3 offers his views on Modernism and Postmodernism as not clearly
delimited from one another. Modernism may be a continuation of Postmodernism. They
may also be seen as coexisting. Such views may account for the common aspects in
Virginia Woolf and Graham Swift. Hassan4 lists experimentalism as a feature of both
trends. Innovation is associated with Modernism (this is the case with Woolf). Swift’s
time also shows a desire to be innovative, to shock readers. The “fusion of forms”, the
“confusion of realms” are features related to innovation in Postmodernism, as well as
“fantasy, play humour [...]”5. Hassan6 sees imagination as one of the “ambiguous
aspects” of the Postmodern concept of indeterminacy.
8. Conclusions
Imagination is, mostly, the source of the narrator’s perceptions when s/he imagines
something about certain characters. The questions that come after reading Woolf’s short
stories is if one can truly know or understand another person, or how that other person
can be differently perceived. At the same time, what prompts a character to imagine a
story about another character is a word, a situation of reflecting, of searching for answers
which serves as a starting point for a moment of being, of vision.
Fanny begins to imagine a life for her teacher after she experiences a moment of
being: “[A]ll seemed transparent for a moment” and she really „sees” Miss Craye. A
similar revelation makes Peter able to “see” Clarissa’s future. The other stories show a
wish to understand someone else.
An Unwritten Novel is an example of metafiction, while the other short stories
by Woolf can also be interpreted as illustrating a story inside another story. These short
stories allow different ways of perceiving the same characters. They are examples of
multiple points of view, multiple perspectives, not just one. What in the end shows that
what was imagined was not true may be a proof of the fact the narrators’ imagination is
determined by literary stereotypes and conventions. This explanation may hold true not
1
Malcolm Bradbury, Possibilities. Essays on the State of the Novel (Oxford: Oxford University
Press, 1973), 15.
2
3
Ihab H., Hassan The Postmodern Turn. Essays in Postmodern Theory and Culture, 25-33.
4
Ibid., 34-45.
5
Ibid., 44.
6
Ibid., 65.
487
only for An Unwritten Novel, but also for Woolf’s other two short stories mentioned in
this paper.
In Swift’s novels, as mentioned in this paper, we don’t know with certainty
whether what is imagined is what is real. This is how a Postmodernist feature, lack of
one truth, lack of one true way of perceiving reality, is illustrated. In Shuttlecock,
however, there are some files which are supposed to speak a certain truth and which are
to be found in the police archives. With those files destroyed, however, access to truth is
no longer totally possible. Rita’s predictions about George’s love for Sarah have an
uncertain ending that we as readers don’t know. The same happens with George’s
feeling that Rita will leave him. The outcome of these predictions is left ambiguous.
Ambiguity is also felt in Woolf, considering that one can never truly know
another character, like in her short stories. This holds true for most situations of
imagining stories about other characters. Moreover, ambiguity contributes to revealing
various sides of characters, be they imaginary, and thus possible or unrealistic. Various
sides of other characters may be seen as a contribution to fluid identity, which is specific
to lyricism. Aside from changing in time, identity is in progress and flexible according
to the way characters are perceived by other characters. Identity is flexible as it changes
in time as well as in the imagination of the others.
Characters imagine not only in order to create, to daydream, but also in an
attempt to solve certain problems (especially detective George Webb) or to better
understand a person (some of Woolf’s characters wonder how certain persons are, or
even judge them, while Swift’s character Prentis tries to understand his father and
himself).
Imagination is associated with the visionaries in Romantic poetry but it is also
linked to metafiction in some cases or to subjective perception, to ambiguity.
488
“Love of Words” – “Love of Wisdom”
Philology and Philosophy from a Hermeneutical Perspective*
István M. FEHÉR
Eötvös Loránd University, Budapest
Andrássy University, Budapest
Keywords:
philology,
„Begriffsgeschichte”
hermeneutics,
interpretation,
history,
Gadamer,
Abstract: In Gadamer’s hermeneutics the relationship of philology to philosophy, viz.,
hermeneutics, often became a focus of his reflection. Thereby he underlined “the inner
connection between the words ‘philology’ and ‘philosophy’”: philology is “the love of
the logoi” and philosophy means “the love of the ‘sophos’.” Philology seems to precede
hermeneutics, but the establishing of a text always involves necessarily interpretive
work. It is a positivistic prejudice to believe that philology can do without interpretation,
that is, hermeneutics. What Gadamer calls “conceptual history” [Begriffsgeschichte],
and what he is pursuing as such, is precisely this inner interconnectedness of philology
and philosophy, or philology and hermeneutics. This is in some sense Gadamer’s
“method.” The first part of the paper argues that the interconnectedness of philology and
philosophy, with each side referring to the other, is central to Gadamer‘s work; it is the
“element” in which Gadamer‘s writings move. The second part investigates the relation
of philology to history, concentrating on Gadamer’s thesis according to which philology
is “Freude am Sinn, der sich aussagt”, while history is “Forschung nach Sinn, der
verhüllt ist.” The third part centres around Gadamer’s characterization of the relation of
philology to philosophy. Both share a love for the logoi, viz., wisdom expressing itself
in words, and that constitutes their neighbourhood. But something such as “text” has a
different meaning for philology or philosophy. It is the wording of a text that philology
concentrates upon, whereas philosophy aims at “meaning.” Philosophy does not possess
a language of its own, and that is why the effort of the philosophical concept does
embody in ever newer linguistic forms. Philology tends to be true to (the wording of) the
text, while philosophy is interested first and foremost in the sense or meaning of what is
being said by the text. Philology is interested in the word, philosophy aims at
understanding the matter. Philosophy is thus an unended conversation, where there is no
first word any more than there is a last one. The lover of wisdom must be a lover of
words, for there is no wisdom without words. Still, wisdom is not exhausted in words.
Those who love words or speeches are not necessarily friends of wisdom. Wisdom is,
for Plato, beyond the words. Love of words and love of wisdom, therefore, overlap, but
do not totally coincide with one another.
*
This research was supported by the European Union and the State of Hungary, co-financed by
the European Social Fund in the framework of TÁMOP 4.2.4. A/1-11-1-2012-0001 ‘National
Excellence Program’.
489
*
The relationship of philology to philosophy and the humanities
(Geisteswissenschaften) is an object of frequent reflections in Gadamer’s hermeneutics.
In what follows, I should like to sketch some of the characteristic aspects of this
relationship, and I wish to do so in a way appropriate for this relationship (very tight in
Gadamer’s conception): namely, both textually, by focusing on certain loci of
Gadamer’s works, and – inseparably from it – by concentrating also on their
interpretation. I wish to comply with the methodological and knowledge claims of
philology with the first attempt, and those of philosophy with the second, in so far as the
research of textuality and the wording of the text is traditionally an interest of philology,
while interpretation is an interest of philosophy. The (tight) relationship of the two will
be discussed from a hermeneutical perspective, whereby it is to be taken into account
that hermeneutics itself represents a specific philosophical perspective. There is hardly
any reason to be puzzled by this claim since philosophy being the highest and most
comprehensive perspective of all, the discussion of its relationship with any discipline
can only take place from the point of view of one particular philosophy; it would be a
superfluous and unproductive effort to attempt transcending philosophy towards a
higher instance beyond philosophy (a kind of super-philosophy) or place it under the
yoke of an instance which would not subsequently prove to be itself a philosophy. Every
kind of super- or meta-philosophy is and remains philosophy in the last instance.
I.
“Philology” and “philosophy”: word and meaning – the meaning of the word
According to our initial definition, philology focuses its attention on textuality and the
wording of the text – “a philologist is a friend of eloquence”,1 philology is “the love of
words”2 – and its activity is centred on the discussion of authoritative texts. If philology
1
GW 1, 343: “Freund der schönen Reden”. – Bibliographical note: Gadamer’s complete works
are cited with the abbreviation GW (Gesammelte Werke, vols. 1–10, Tübingen: Mohr, 1985–
1995), Heidegger’s complete works with the abbreviation GA (Gesamtausgabe, Frankfurt am
Main: Klostermann, 1975–), followed by volume number, comma, and page numbers. Other
abbreviations: SZ = Martin Heidegger, Sein und Zeit, 15th ed., Tübingen: Niemeyer, 1979; BT =
Martin Heidegger, Being and Time, trans. John Macquarrie and Edward Robinson, New York:
Harper & Row, 1962; TM = Hans-Georg Gadamer, Truth and Method, 2nd revised edition,
revisions by Joel Weinsheimer and Donald G. Marshall, New York: Crossroad, 1989, reprinted
London/New York: Continuum, 1999 (the citations below refer to the 2006 reprint of the 2004
edition)
2
Karl Otto Conrady: Einführung in die neuere deutsche Literaturwissenschaft (Hamburg,1966),
27, cited by Gerhard Jäger: Einführung in die klassische Philologie (München: C. H. Beck, 1980,
3rd ed. 1990), 11.: “Liebe zum Wort”. Now and in what follows I shall disregard what Jäger and
other historians of philology do not fail to mention, namely, that at its beginnings philology most
naturally included the problem of meaning (“Sinn”) in addition to the matter of wording
(“Wortlaut”), i.e., that which we now call a hermeneutical dimension. (See e.g. Rudolf Pfeiffer,
Geschichte der klassischen Philologie. Von den Anfängen bis zum Ende des Hellenismus
[München: C. H. Beck, 1982], 18.: “Philologie ist die Kunst, die literarische Tradition zu
verstehen, zu erklären und wiederherzustellen.”) The removal of the problem of meaning from
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focuses on textuality and the wording of the text (Wortlaut), then, seen from here, one
can state in summary that the main concern of hermeneutics is meaning (Sinn), and its
relationship with philology can be described with the following particular question:
“What is the meaning of that which (literally) sounds like this and this?” Philology and
hermeneutics therefore mutually complete each other and are strongly inter-referential,
but the above description may still suggest that the two questions just formulated –
concerning the wording of the text and the meaning of those words – make up some
kind of a sequence: the meaning of the wording of the text (the successive series of
words) can evidently only be tackled, the interpretation of the text can only be engaged
once the wording of the text has previously been established with considerable certainty.
In this case then philology would precede hermeneutics (philosophy), and hermeneutics
would be parasitic upon philology.
Although there may be some – rare – cases in which this pattern might work,
still, in the vast majority of philological-hermeneutic activity, and thus in most life-work
and historical critical editions it fails, since text establishment itself takes place not under
laboratory conditions, in a space void of interpretation. I have recently tried to argue for
this point in a more detailed study.1 If philology and hermeneutics are mutually
intertwined, then any kind of philology exempt from philosophy can only seem to be
possible and desirable from the perspective of a positivistic approach feeding on the
illusion of a “pure” philology – however, this positivistic approach is itself a particular
philosophy. A philosophy, let it be added, which is unaware of itself as philosophy or
reluctant to acknowledge or identify itself as such; it is, as it were, an “anti-philosophical
philosophy” in the strong sense, which of course occurs in the history of philosophy
with certain – regretful – frequency.2
philology, its so-called “dehermeneutization” is a historical development, more precisely one of
modernity, primarily resulted from the influence of 19th century positivism, which partly also
explains why hermeneutics both as a denomination and as a discipline was formed in the period
of modernity.
1
“István Fehér M., Szövegkritika, kiadástörténet, interpretáció. A történeti-kritikai és az
életműkiadások filológiai-hermeneutikai problémái” (Textual Criticism, Edition History,
Interpretation. Philological and Hermeneutical Problems of Historical-Critical and Life-Work
Editions), in Pál Kelemen, Zoltán Kulcsár-Szabó, Attila Simon, György Tverdota, eds. Filológia –
interpretácó – médiatörténet (Philology – interpretation – media history), (Budapest: Ráció, 2009),
56–151. Also in English: “Textual Criticism, Edition History, Interpretation. Philological and
Hermeneutical Problems of Historical-Critical and Life-Work Editions,” Philobiblon –
Transylvanian Journal of Multidisciplinary Research in Humanities vol. 17 no. 1 (2012): 114–181.
2
For more on “anti-philosophical philosophy,” see my remarks in relation to Husserl and Fichte:
István Fehér M., “Bevezetés” (Introduction) in Edmund Husserl: A filozófia mint szigorú
tudomány (Philosophy as a Strict Science) (Budapest: Kossuth, 1993), p. 10f and note 20 on p.
19f. (Fichte wrote, among other things, that “you can not convince the Dogmatist by the proof just
stated, however clear it may be, for you can not bring the proof to his knowledge, since he lacks
the power to comprehend it”; and that dogmatism therefore “is no Philosophy at all, but merely an
impotent assertion. Idealism is the only possible remaining Philosophy.” See First Introduction to
the Science of Knowledge, trans. Adolf Ernst Kroeger, http://en.wikisource.org/
wiki/Introduction_to_Fichte's_Science_of_Knowledge. I should now like to add one more
consideration of Fichte’s which is probably an even more pertinent formulation of the matter;
Fichte speaks here about an insight which denies the inner essence of any insight , “an insight into
491
Heidegger’s recurrent observations offer a good description of the relationship
of philology or any other discipline to philosophy. These observations span across
decades (from the 1910s to the 1950s-1960s), and show a significant consistency and
similarity both in formulation and in meaning. For a thinker formed in the intellectual
climate and influence of neo-Kantianism and phenomenology it was evident from the
very beginning that philosophy fulfils a basic, or rather foundational function in its
relation to sciences – both natural, and historical or cultural disciplines. This is a selfthat which by its very nature cannot admit of it” (Fichte, Destination of Man, trans. Percy Sinnett,
London: Chapman Brothers, 1846, 68 [“etwas einzusehen, das gegen das innere Wesen aller
Einsicht streitet”; Fichtes Werke, ed. I. H. Fichte, Berlin: De Gruyter, 1971, vol. 2, 246]). The
same structure and problem appears in Sartre’s concept of bad faith. For this, see István Fehér M.,
“Irónia és szolidaritás” (Irony and solidarity), in Miklós Nyírő, ed., Filozófia a globalizáció
árnyékában: Richard Rorty (Philosophy in the shadow of globalization: Richard Rorty)
(Budapest: L'Harmattan, 2010), 40.: “Bad faith is for Sartre primarily a kind of faith; and
precisely such […] that its very first act is nothing else than a decision (concealed even before
itself) about the nature of faith itself – a decision […] by which this faith renders a nonconvincing, non-evident evidence as the criterion of evidence.” See Jean-Paul Sartre, L'être et le
néant. Essai d’ontologie phénoménologique. Édition corrigée avec index par Arlette ElkaïmSartre, Paris: Gallimard (collection Tel), 1998, 103: “[...] la mauvaise foi est foi. [...] le projet de
mauvaise foi doit être lui-même de mauvaise foi [...] Ce projet premier de mauvaise foi est une
décision de mauvaise foi sur la nature de la foi”. See also Heidegger’s formulation:
“Verständigkeit mißversteht das Verstehen”. (Sein und Zeit, § 63., Tübingen: Niemeyer, 1979,
315; approximately: “Everyday understanding misunderstands understanding”). If any kind of
“anti-philosophical philosophy” is also philosophy – even if it is such that is unaware or ignorant
of itself as philosophy – then this implies that we cannot get rid of philosophy, and this is also
expressed by the thesis shared by many philosophers that all people (and not only philologists) are
philosophers, or all people philosophize. See e.g. Karl Jaspers, Provokationen. Gespräche und
Interviews, ed. Hans Saner (München: Piper-Verlag, 1969), 176. “Philosophizing happens in
every person. A professional philosopher can only lend it greater clarity.” (“Philosophieren ist
das, was in jedem Menschen geschieht. Der Philosoph von Beruf kann das nur zu grösserer
Klarheit bringen”.) Ibid. 186. “In fact everybody philosophizes without being aware of it, and
without calling it philosophy” („In der Tat philosophiert auch jeder, ohne dass er sich dessen
bewusst ist, ohne es selber Philosophie zu nennen”). In parallel with Jaspers, Heidegger also
formulated this idea several times during his lifetime, one of the best known of these is found at
the end of his inaugural lecture: “We cannot situate ourselves into metaphysics since – inasmuch
as we exist – we are always already in it. […] Inasmuch as man exists, philosophizing also
happens in a certain way. Philosophy – what we call as such – is nothing else than the bringing in
motion of metaphysics […]” (“Philosophie – was wir so nennen – ist das In-Gang-bringen der
Metaphysik”) Heidegger: “Was ist Metaphysik?” in Heidegger, Wegmarken (Frankfurt/Main:
Klostermann, 1967). 19. One of Heidegger’s main concerns is that the introduction to philosophy
is impossible because we are already within philosophy, that is, there is no place “outside” it from
where this introduction could be started (see e.g. GA 27, 3.; GA 50, 90f), what can be achieved is
that philosophy resting inside us may be woken. (cf. GA 27, 4), but the situation is in any case
such that “philosophy is something that concerns everyone” (GA 29/30, 22), “being human is the
same as already philosophizing” (GA 27, 3). For other places and thinkers (Kant, Hegel, Husserl)
see note 30 of my study “Nemzet, filozófia, tudomány. A hazai filozófiai munkálkodás ágai és jelentősége” (Nation, philosophy, science. Branches and significance of domestic philosophical
research), Existentia II 1–4 (1992): 495–540; here 523f.
492
interpretation of the function or character of philosophy which goes back to Aristotle
and played a particularly dominant role in the age of German Idealism. (That philosophy
is a science about science, a science of science which cannot borrow its scientific
character from any other science, but it plays a fundamental role concerning the
founding of any science – with respect to the basic theses which can no longer be
justified by the sciences themselves – is a view most clearly formulated by Fichte).1 In
the introduction of his magnum opus, Heidegger emphasizes that the philosophical
research directed to the foundation of the basic concepts of sciences “must come before
positive sciences.”2
In the mid-1910s, in his habilitation lecture on the concept of time Heidegger
claims that “the research methods of various sciences operate with a determined basic
terminology, and it is the job of the theory of science to reflect on the logical structure of
these”; or, according to another formulation, “the clarification of the logical foundations
of the research methods of individual sciences is the task of logic and the theory of
science”.3 In his lectures in the second half of the 1920s Heidegger argued in this respect
that “mathematics can never be understood mathematically, and no philologist will
explain the essence of philology philologically.”4 Some ten years later, in the 1930s, he
wrote: “Geology can be researched geologically just as poorly as philology can
philologically.”5 A particularly illuminating discussion with reference again to philology
is contained in one of Heideggers’s lectures on Nietzsche: “What mathematics is can
never be determined mathematically; what philology is can never be discussed
philologically; what biology is can never be explained biologically. To ask what a
science is, is to ask a question that is no longer a scientific question. The moment he or
she poses a question with regard to science in general, […], the inquirer steps into a new
realm, a realm with claims and forms of proof and evidence quite different from those
that are customary in the sciences.”6 The commentaries formulated in an interview given
1
See first of all Fichte’s writing “Über den Begriff der Wissenschaftslehre oder der sogenannten
Philosophie”, which is quite telling already in its title: what is commonly called philosophy, the “socalled philosophy” is claimed to be nothing else in fact than “the science of science”
(Wissenschaftlehre) (Fichtes Werke, ed. I. H. Fichte [Fotomechanischer Nachdruck. Berlin: De
Gruyter, 1971], 27–81., in particular 43, 45, 48, 56.) That one of the primary tasks is the
investigation and clarification of the “essence” of theory, that is, of all the possible types of theories,
and as such, of “the ideal essence of science”, and that consequently philosophy is none other than
the “theory of theories, the science of sciences”, appears with a compelling forcefulness at
Heidegger’s master, Husserl; see Edmund Husserl, Logische Untersuchungen, Vol. 1, Prolegomena
zur reinen Logik, § 66. (Tübingen 1980; first ed. 1900), 241f. Cf. also § 71, ibid., p. 254: “And if
science constructs theories for the systematic solution of its problems, then the philosopher asks
what is the essence of theory, what is it that makes a theory possible at all, etc.”
2
“Solche Forschung muß den positiven Wissenschaften vorauslaufen; und sie kann es. Die Arbeit
von Plato und Aristoteles ist Beweis dafür” (SZ 3. §., 10.)
3
GA 1, 417.
4
GA 27, 38.
5
Martin Heidegger, “Die Bedrohung der Wissenschaft”, ed. H. Tietjen, in Zur philosophischen
Aktualität Heideggers, ed. D. Papenfuß und O. Pöggeler, vol. 1: Philosophie und Politik (Frankfurt a. M., 1991), Vol. 1, 5–27, here 12.
6
Heidegger, Nietzsche, trans. David Farell Krell, vol. 1-2 (San Francisco: Harper & Row, 1979–
1987), 112.
493
by Heidegger in the 1960s can also be added to the considerations cited above, as a sort
of explanation of these: „Physics works with the concepts of space, time, and motion.
What space, time, and motion are cannot be decided by science as science. [...]. With the
help of physical methods I cannot, for example, say what physics is”.1 This is not less
valid, besides philology, in relation to all other fields of the humanities, as formulated in
the 1950s. “Historical science researches, for example, a specific epoch according to its
most various aspects, but it never inquires into what history is. In a historical way one
will never find out what history is, any more than a mathematician can, through
mathematical methods, that is, by his own science, by mathematical formulae, show
what mathematics is.”2
Heidegger’s considerations can be illuminated as follows. If, say, the essence or
research method of geology is the excavation of rocks, then one would never be able to
find out what geology was by the excavation of rocks, even if one were to find a steel
case containing the definition of geology on an old, yellowed piece of papyrus. This is
because one should also be able to read and understand what is written on that papyrus,
and that is not a specifically geological operation. In mathematics, one operates with
numbers, but it is impossible to elaborate the concept of mathematics by “counting” or
“computing” based on numbers or mathematical operations; or one is never able to find
out what physics is by physical experiments made in laboratories–the way, for example,
in which, according to a famous Kant-citation, “Galilei experimented with balls of a
definite weight on the inclined plane.”3 One can never discover what history is by going
to, and researching in, archives or libraries – while, obviously, one very often does just
that kind of thing during historical research of a certain historical subject (just like in
physics one very often pursues laboratory experiments) and has indeed to do so if one
intends to obtain scientifically founded results. What philology is, we can never find out
concentrating solely on how a text sounds – provided we proceed in a “purely”
philological way (and not sneak in just a drop of philosophy or hermeneutics, as is often
the case), that is, we deprive the text and all punctuation from their meaning, make it
“senseless”, and only care for, and concentrate on, elements of form. If we proceed by
suspending all kinds of understanding and meaning then we only see various patterns
and cannot so much as even identify the letters: what we mostly “see” will then be
intricate lines and senseless scribbling,4 and we could not recognize mistaken or crossed1
Martin Heidegger im Gespräch, ed. Richard Wisser (Freiburg/München: Alber, 1970), 72.
republished in; G. Neske, E. Kettering, eds., Antwort. Martin Heidegger im Gespräch (Pfullingen:
Neske, 1988), 24. (see also GA 16, 705.)
2
Was heißt Denken? (Tübingen: Niemeyer, 1954), 4th ed. 1984, 56.
3
See Kant, The Critique of Pure Reason, trans. J. M. D. Meiklejohn (Preface to the second
edition), http://www.gutenberg.org/files/4280/4280-h/4280-h.htm
4
In fact, the problem is even more complicated, and the presupposition taken here as a basis for
sake of simplicity is only valid in this context, temporarily, while in other contexts it is not. Seen
from here, the scribbles and senseless lines are not completely meaningless in fact; what is more,
taking the argument further, the very concept of “senselessness” is not without any meaning: if it
were, then we could not understand as meaningful statements such as “What you are saying is
complete nonsense” (that we understand it as such, is proved by the fact that we can react to it
appropriately, that is, sensibly, saying “Sorry”, “You are too strict,” etc., if the concept of
“nonsense” would be meaningless, we obviously could not say anything like this). From a
494
out letters or words, misspelling or mistyping as such. How should we know if
encountering “ł” we had to do with a cross-out or a letter? And how do we know at all
what “cross-out”, “deletion”, “correction” are?
In conclusion, the question of what philology is cannot be discovered
philologically, since it is not a philological, but a philosophical issue. Nevertheless, the
starting point of Gadamer’s seminal study about Wilamowitz-Moellendorff – to which I
shall repeatedly return in the following – would seem to acknowledge the primacy of
philology. Philologists are known to start with words, Gadamer writes, therefore it is
natural to start the discussion of the relationship of philology and philosophy with the
analysis of the words “philology” and “philosophy”.
This primacy is only apparent nonetheless, for the attention paid to the word is,
as we shall see, none other – indeed, it cannot be other – than the attention paid to the
meaning of the word. If philology means “Liebe zu den logoi” (“the love of words”) and
philosophy is “Liebe zum »sophon«” (which I translate not quite literally as “the love of
wisdom”), then these definitions are only worthwhile if – one way or another – we
understand them. In this context, what Gadamer writes in the continuation of the text is
quite remarkable: “Whoever knows something of the Greek language and tradition can
hear it at once how near the two concepts are to each other, or more precisely, how they
flow into one another and overflow from both sides.”1 Now, whoever knows something
about philosophical hermeneutics or hermeneutical philosophy is imediately aware that
when we turn to the words “philology” and “philosophy”, we actually perform
understanding and interpretation, that “hearing” has a special importance for
hermeneutics, first in the sense of that “old recognition” that Gadamer speaks about in
his main work, namely that “hearing has primacy over seeing” (“the hermeneutical
phenomenon, as Aristotle had already recognized, is based on the priority of hearing”),2
and second, because, in strong connection with the first, hearing is inseparably linked to
understanding and interpretation. Heidegger rightly said in relation to the sometimes
inseparable connection between hearing and understanding that “[i]f we have not heard
'aright', it is not by accident that we say we have not 'understood'.”3 (For instance, when
the phone is crackling, or the voice is distant and fading, and various noises are heard in
the line, we often say – and often in a loud, shouting voice – “What? I can’t
understand!” when in fact the case is such that “I can’t hear”, or rather I can’t hear it
well enough to understand the words, the meaning of the words, for acoustically
hermeneutical perspective then it can be questioned whether there is at all anything like a “space
deprived of meaning”; and whether the concept of nonsense as a kind of strictly defined liminal
concept is not located within this space. There is a certain similarity in this respect with
Wittgenstein’s thesis: “Every sentence must already have a meaning” (Tractatus logicophilosophicus, 4.064: „Jeder Satz muss schon einen Sinn haben”; emphasis in the original).
1
Gadamer: “Philosophie und Philologie. Über von Wilamowitz-Moellendorff“, in: GW 6, 271–
277., here: 272.: „Wer etwas von griechischer Sprache und Überlieferung weiß, hört sofort, wie
nahe beide Begriffe einander sind, oder besser: wie sie ineinanderfließen und nach beiden Seiten
überfließen” (my italics, I. M. F.)
2
GW 1, 466.
BT 206 (= SZ 34 §, p. 163.: “Wir sagen nicht zufällig, wenn wir nicht »recht« gehört haben, wir
haben nicht »verstanden«.”). Cf. also: “Das Dasein hört, weil es versteht.”
3
495
speaking I did hear something – the way one hears noises). Therefore the proximity of
philology and philosophy emphasized by Gadamer is shown already in the fact that
hermeneutics, that is, philosophy is originally inherent in this apparently purely
philological definition starting from, and based upon, the word, it has already been
tacitly activated, consciously or unnoticed.
Gadamer explicitly claims however that the primacy of philology over
philosophy is only apparent, and the positivistic scheme described above is merely an
illusion. He writes that in classical philology seminars during his university years the
following was customary: “First one had to reconstruct the text (and even had to
translate it), then had to interpret it”. From his own hermeneutic viewpoint, Gadamer
does not fail to add how naïve and doubtful this description is: “How a text should be
reconstructed or what is more, even translated before the master strokes of interpretation
had done their job – this question was never raised. This was of course a didactic
simplification which does not mirror the true process of understanding. Obviously, one
can only reconstruct a text once one understood it. This way we learnt that […]
interpretation is not only the central form of access to the world, but also that of access
to the texts of tradition. We never find ourselves at a point where we should merely
record an unquestionably given text […] […] It is not so, as if the text were an
unquestionable givenness for us and interpretation a subsequent procedure that we
undertake on the text.”1
It is true of course, Gadamer immediately adds, that “We want and must
understand only what stands [written] there [in the text]. But do we know what stands
there before we understand it?”2 It is also true that “in debatable questions we always
and again interrogate the text itself, and that in this respect the text has the last word. But
we know at the same time that it is always already a text under interrogation that stands
in the net of interpretive questions and that the voice of the text will now be listened to
[not in general, but] with respect to the answers to be given to those questions.”3
The strong connection and interdependence of philology and philosophy
(hermeneutics) can be recognized from other angles as well. Generalizing from what has
been said above, one could say: if we ask what philology is, at a closer look we actually
1
GW 6, 276. : “Da hatte man erst den Text herzustellen (und sogar zu übersetzen), und dann hatte
man ihn zu interpretieren.. Wie man einen Text herstellen und gar übersetzen soll, bevor alle
Künste der Interpretation das Ihre getan haben, wurde dabei nicht gefragt. Das war natürlich eine
didaktische Vereinfachung, die den wahren Prozeß des Verstehens nicht abbildet. Daß man einen
Text erst herstellen kann, wenn man ihn verstanden hat, ist offenkundig. So lernten wir [...], wie
sehr Interpretation nicht nur der zentrale Form des Weltzugangs. sondern auch die des Zugangs
zu den Texten der Überlieferung ist. Wir befinden uns nie auf einem Punkte der bloßen
Aufnahme des fraglos gegebenen Textes [...].[...] Es ist nicht so, als ob der Text für uns eine
fraglose Vorgegebenheit wäre und die Interpretation eine nachträglich eingestellte Prozedur, die
man an dem Texte vornimmt.”
2
GW 6, 276.: „Nur was da steht, wollen und sollen wir verstehen. Aber wissen wir, was da steht,
bevor wir verstehen?”
3
GW 6, 276.: “Gewiß bleibt es dabei, daß wir in strittigen Fragen immer wieder den Text selber
befragen, und daß insofern der Text das letzte Wort hat. Aber wir wissen zugleich, daß es immer
schon ein befragter Text ist, der unter Interpretationsfragen gestellt wird und nun auf seine
Antowort hin abgehört wird.”
496
dwell on the self-interpretation of philology, or rather (since it has more than one selfinterpretations) the historical variations of its self-interpretation,1 on how philology
understood itself historically from time to time, and how, by which terms it accounted
for its activity – and thereby we are engaged in doing hermeneutics. For we are not only
interested in how the self-interpretations sound, but no less in what the words occurring
1
The statement that the question of what philology is refers in fact to the self-interpretation of
philology, a possible objection may sound, seems to contradict that previously consentingly cited
Heideggerian statement (to be re-quoted again some lines below) that “what philology is can
never be discussed philologically [i.e., by philology’s self-interpretation]” This remark is, I think,
fully legitimate, but at a closer look it seems that there is no contradiction after all, and there is no
need to withdraw or reformulate the original formulation, only to make it more precise and
contextualize it. First of all, one should differentiate the question “What is X?” Heidegger’s
explanation in his late writing Was ist das – die Philosophie? is illuminating in this respect: The
Greek equivalent of the “was ist das?”-type question, explains Heidegger, is ti estin. This question
is ambiguous, that is, it can be asked in multiple ways. For example, we may ask: “What is that in
the distance?”, to which the answer could be “a tree”. “The answer consists in naming something
that we do not recognize very clearly”. However, we may ask further questions, such as: “what is
it that we call a »tree«?” Now, “by a question asked like this we can get closer to the Greek ti
estin. This is the form of questioning elaborated by Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle. They ask for
example: What is beauty? What is knowledge? What is nature? What is movement? („Was ist
dies – das Schöne? Was ist dies – die Erkenntnis? Was ist dies – die Natur? Was ist dies – die
Bewegung?”; see Heidegger: GA 11, 11.) – Now, in the statement “what philology is can never
be discussed philologically” the question “what is philology” is asked in this latter, typically
philosophical way, as an essential question (Wesensfrage) about the totality of the thing and its
nature, to which philology cannot answer since the question – as it asks about the totality, the
essence of philology – leaves the territory of philology (just as the questions “what is
physics/history/mathematics?” leave the territory of physics/history/mathematics) behind, insofar
as – to use an enlightening Heideggerian term – it “asks beyond” it (the expression occurs, e.g., in
his inaugural lecture: “Metaphysik ist das Hinausfragen über das Seiende”; GA 9, 118.; the
expression “Hinausfragen über” occurs also elsewhere, e.g., GA 24, 399). But the question “What
is philology?” cannot only be asked this way. It can be posed to philologists simply as an inquiry:
“What is philology all about?” “What do you philologists actually do?”, to which the answer
could be: “we compare manuscripts”. In this sense there is no reason why we should not turn to
philology itself to gain information about philology, and find out many relevant things about it,
such as how they understood their own activity in various times (but we must interpret what we
hear, and this is the most important thing here). There is one more point of view: in what has been
said above the emphasis falls not on self-interpretation, but on self-interpretation; so, if it were
about interpretation/explanation by a foreigner (this rather awkward expression tries to translate
Fremdbestimmung on the pattern of Selbsterfahrung–Fremderfahrung), it would also change
nothing, since interpretation by an alien is also interpretation. “We are not only interested in how
self-interpretations sound, but in their meaning as well”, says the following sentence, and it would
be so even if not self-interpretation but interpretation by an alien occured in the sentence. One
more clarifying remark: the text contains the phrase “at a closer look” (and I speak nevertheless
about “self-interpretation”) because according to the hermeneutics of good will, which I advocate,
one should ask first those who are primarily involved about their own affairs; they can supposedly
say much more interesting and relevant things about themselves than “foreigners”, “outsiders”,
let’s say physicians or geologists (even if they were not be able to have a comprehensive view
over their discipline without stepping over to philosophy).
497
in the self-interpretations mean. That is why one cannot answer merely philologically
(that is, through the positivistic self-interpretation of philology), as Heidegger remarked,
what philology is. In other words, we could not even get, or have access, to philology (to
the meaning of philology) without hermeneutics. The best question therefore that may
be put when encountering people insisting on “pure” philology might sound as follows:
“So do you understand philology as something in which understanding and
interpretation have no role to play?”
II.
History of concepts as the hermeneutic unity of philology and philosophy
in Gadamer’s work
If we digress a little and have a look at the whole of Gadamer’s work, apart from
singular textual places, it is immediately apparent how strongly philology and
philosophy are connected in it. What Gadamer calls, in accordance with a long and
respectable tradition, “conceptual history” [Begriffsgeschichte], and what he is pursuing
as such, is in fact nothing other than this strong interconnectedness of philology and
philosophy, or philology and hermeneutics. Even if the opinion is formulated sometimes
that the “and” in the title of Gadamer’s main work (Truth and Method) means not so
much a connection, a conjunction as rather a separation which opposes truth and
method, almost in the sense of “either truth or method”1 (but at least in the sense that
“truth is not given only and exclusively by or in method”), it is still legitimate to argue
that Gadamer only opposed or criticized the method in a modern sense; or, to put it
differently, in its modern sense,2 and if we disregard this, Gadamer’s whole work does
1
See e.g. the review of Ernst Tugendhat “The Fusion of Horizons”, reprint in Tugendhat,
Philosophische Aufsätze, (Frankfurt/Main, 1992), 428. See also Richard E. Palmer:
Hermeneutics. Interpretation Theory in Schleiermacher, Dilthey, Heidegger, and Gadamer
(Evanston: Northwestern University Press, 1969), 163: “[...] the title of Gadamer's book contains
an irony: method is not the way to truth [...]”; also Richard Rorty: Philosophy and the Mirror of
Nature, (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1979), 360. “[...] it would be reasonable to call
Gadamer's book a tract against the very idea of method [...]”. From more recent literature, see
Günter Figal: “Philosophische Hermeneutik – hermeneutische Philosophie”, Hermeneutische
Wege. Hans-Georg Gadamer zum Hundertsten, ed. G. Figal, J. Grondin, D. Schmidt, (Tübingen:
Mohr Siebeck), 2000, 335–344., here 335. (“»Wahrheit und Methode« – der Titel ist eher im
Sinne von »Wahrheit oder Methode« gemeint [...]”); Robert Sokolowski: “Gadamer’s Theory of
Hermeneutics”, The Philosophy of Hans-Georg Gadamer, The Library of Living Philosophers,
vol. XXIV, ed. Lewis E. Hahn, (LaSalle, Il., Open Court Publishing, 1997), 223–232, here 227.:
(“[...] of course, the title of Truth and Method is ironic: truth requires prudential application and
evaluation, not just procedural methodology”)
2
See e.g. GW 1, 13, 29, 463, 467 ff.; GW 2, 37 ff, 186 ff. The thesis that the Gadamerian critique
of the method is based on a typically modern, even positivistic understanding of the method is
thoroughly analyzed in: Joel C. Weinsheimer Gadamer’s Hermeneutics. A Reading of Truth and
Method (New Haven and London: Yale Univesity Press, 1985, see p. 2 ff). Weinsheimer rightly
remarks that Gadamer “challenges the dominion of method through a history of the humanistic
tradition”, ibid., 2). To this, it could be added that Gadamer sketches the history of the humanistic
tradition precisely by the reconstruction of the history of certain concepts characteristic for this
tradition (Bildung, sensus comunis, etc.). In a certain sense the Begriffsgeschichte can rightfully
be called Gadamer’s “method” – not merely in the reconstruction of the humanistic tradition, but
498
have a kind of particular, well-defined method, that of the history of concepts. This
means that Gadamer introduces his own philosophical concepts not by definitions for
instance, but precisely by reconstructions and examinations of concepts, and uses
(“understands”) these concepts afterwards in this reconstructed sense. The meaning and
stake of the historical reconstruction of concepts is not to offer an “objectively correct”
history of a concept – while of course it does not wish to ignore reality and knowledge
claims are apparent in them – but rather the fact that philosophical analysis should
clarify and legitimate beforehand the concepts it uses (and their definite meaning)
precisely by the historical reconstruction of the meaning of these concepts. Gadamer’s
concepts acquire their special meaning in virtue of these historical reconstructions, and
this is the task they have to fulfil.
At first sight, the recourse to the history of concepts may seem pure philology,
and it undoubtedly contains a good deal of it indeed. But this is a history interpreted and
understood over again, one which becomes the object of reconstructing interpretation
from the horizon of the present and by the effect of determined motifs. Apart from this, a
concept hardly has any kind of final-ultimate history “in itself” which would stand on its
own solidly and immovably, and which could be reconstructed “objectively”, as if from
above. At a closer look, the method of introducing new meanings of concepts by way of
the historical analysis of these concepts is determined by a well-defined philosophical
conviction. According to this, the philosophical concepts gain “their determined
meaning not by an arbitrary choice of description [willkürliche Bezeichnungswahl]”, but
“starting from their historical origin”, and “it is part of a legitimate critical
philosophizing that he tries to explain his own concepts in a historical way as well.”1
The history of concepts understood correctly “is not one kind of historical method or a
mere historical introduction to some systematic questioning […], but an integrative
instance of the philosophical movement of thought, a way on which we justify our own
conceptuality.”2
In his afterword for the third edition of his main work, and also in reaction to
the debates and criticisms formulated meanwhile, Gadamer returned to this point once
more: “Against the historical elucidation of concepts that I advocate in my book and
practice as well as I can,” he wrote, “ Kamlah and Lorenzen object that the court of
tradition can pronounce no sure and unequivocal verdict. Indeed not. But to be
responsible before that court—that is, not to invent a language commensurate with new
insights but rather to retrieve it from living language—seems to me a legitimate demand.
because of its omnipresence and importance in the whole of his work, as I shall try to prove it in
what follows.
1
Gadamer: “Die Begriffsgeschichte und die Sprache der Philosophie”, GW 4, 78–94, here 79., 91.
2
GW 4, 92. Such a perception of the history of concepts is very close to how the young
Heidegger distanced himself from the perception of phenomenology as a pre-science
(Vorwissenschaft). Just like the history of concepts for Gadamer, for Heidegger phenomenology
was not merely a pre- (or auxiliary) science only meant to make preliminary conceptual
clarifications which would serve as a basis for actual philosophical analyses in the second round.
(see Heidegger: Phänomenologische Interpretationen zu Aristoteles (Anzeige der
hermeneutischen Situation), hrsg. H.-U. Lessing, Dilthey Jahrbuch für Philosophie und
Geschichte der Geisteswissenschaften 6, 1989, 237–268, here: 247; see now GA 62, 365.) See
also the quotation in footnote 1.
499
Philosophy can fulfill it only when the path from word to concept and from concept to
word is kept open in both directions. It seems to me that, in defense of their own
procedure, even Kamlah and Lorenzen appeal to the authority of linguistic usage. Of
course it yields no methodical construction of a language through the gradual
instauration of concepts. But making the implications of conceptual words conscious is a
‘method’ too—and, I think, one commensurate with the subject matter of philosophy”1
A retrospective reflection of Gadamer’s confirms the starting point. Indeed,
Gadamer defined the aim of his main work at the beginning as follows: “The conceptual
world in which philosophizing develops has already captivated us in the same way that the
language in which we live conditions us. If thought is to be conscientious, it must become
aware of these anterior influences. A new critical consciousness must now accompany all
responsible philosophizing which takes the habits of thought and language built up in the
individual in his communication with his environment and places them before the forum
of the historical tradition to which we all belong. The following investigation tries to meet
this demand by linking as closely as possible an inquiry into the history of concepts with
the substantive exposition of its theme”.2 The concept-historical questioning and analysis
serves the exposition of the subject to be discussed, it does not need to be “true” “in itself”.
1
TM 565 (= GW 2, 460.) It is worth mentioning that Gadamer uses the concept of method in a
completely positive sense from another point of view as well. Although he critically opposed the
“ideal of method of modern science”, and therefore his explorations “started from his
dissatisfaction with the modern concept of method”, so in this respect it is especially important
that he emphatically mentions Hegel’s explicit reference to the Greek concept of method, as
where his dissatisfaction with the modern concept of method derived from, and which can justify
this dissatisfaction. (GW 1, 467) This method – or rather the method in this sense – is not “the
activity that we do with the thing,” not “our own activity with the thing,” but “the activity of the
thing itself” [nicht unser Tun an der Sache, sondern das Tun der Sache selbst]. He writes,
“[Hegel] criticized the concept of a method that dealt with the thing but was alien to it, calling it
‘external reflection.’ The true method was an action of the thing itself. . [...] Certainly, the thing
does not go its own course without our thinking being involved, but thinking means unfolding
what consistently follows from the subject matter itself. It is part of this process to suppress ideas
‘that tend to insinuate themselves’ and to insist on the logic of the thought. Since the Greeks we
have called this dialectic . In describing the true method, which is the activity of the thing itself,
Hegel quotes Plato, who loved to show his Socrates in conversation with young men, because
they were ready to follow where Socrates' questions led, without regard for current opinions. He
illustrated his own method of dialectical development by these ‘malleable youths,’ who did not
parade their own ideas but rather avoided obstructing the path on which the subject matter led
them. Here dialectic is nothing but the art of conducting a conversation” (TM 459f. = GW 1,
468). Gadamer’s resistance to method is only directed to that sense of method which became
prevalent in modernity.
2
GW 1, 5 (italics I M.F.). See also GW 2, 113: „So liegt aller philosophischen Arbeit des Begriffs
eine hermeneutische Dimension zugrunde, die man heutzutage mit dem etwas ungenauen Wort
‚Begriffsgeschichte‘ bezeichnet. Sie ist nicht eine sekundäre Bemühung und meint nicht, daß man
statt von den Sachen zu reden, von den Verständigungsmitteln spräche, die wir dabei gebrauchen,
sondern sie bildet das kritische Element im Gebrauch unserer Begriffe selbst“ (italics I M.F.) Cf.
also with Gadamer’s preface for the Italian edition, where he also emphasizes the importance of
this “method”: Prefazione all’edizione italiana“, Gadamer: Verità e metodo (Milano: Bompiani,
1983), XLVIII.
500
The interconnectedness of philology and philosophy is in this respect that Hegelian
“element” or “ether” in which Gadamer’s work moves.1 It expresses the method or
procedure of this philosophy, and thereby it forms the basis of related reflections.
Therefore it is the praxis, the method which must be taken into account first, before turning
to the analysis of the theoretical considerations. What Gadamer claimed about
hermeneutics in general is also valid here: “praxis came first”.2 Gadamer originally studied
classical philology in addition to philosophy, and so he could say: “Actually I have
become something of a classical philologist in the meantime”.3 It was the “direct result” of
his 1927 paper about the Protreptikos, which contained detailed critical remarks about
Werner Jaeger, to have “presented Gadamer as a solid classical philologist”, writes Jean
Grondin in his biographical work.4
III.
Philology and history
So far I have sketched the relationship of philology and philosophy starting from the
meaning of the words, with a digression to Heidegger and on the basis of a view of
1
For Hegel, “ether” means “das reine Selbsterkennen im absoluten Anderssein” (pure selfknowledge in absolute other-being), which is at the same time “the basis and ground of sciences”,
and for him, “the beginning of philosophy raises the presupposition or requirement that
consciousness should be in this element”. (G.W.F. Hegel, Phänomenologie des Geistes, Theorie
Werkausgabe, ed. E. Moldenhauer, K.M. Michel, (Frankfurt/Main: Suhrkamp, 1970), Vol. 3, 29.
Similarly, with Gadamer – in order to correctly understand his message – we must always reside
in the philological-hermeneutical “ether” or “element” of the history of concepts.
2
Gadamer, GW 2, 492. Cf. ibid., 493 ff.: „What I have taught, was primarily a hermeneutic
praxis, the art of understanding and making understood.” (“Was ich lehrte, war vor allem
hermeneutische Praxis. Hermeneutik ist vor allem eine Praxis, die Kunst des Verstehenes und des
Verständlichmachens.”) See also ibid., 92., 301., 309., as well as the article „Hermeneutik“ in
Historisches Wörterbuch der Philosophie, ed. J. Ritter, vol. III, column 1061–1073, here 1061.
(Gadamer writes in relation to this: “That which must be practiced first of all is the ear, the
sensitivity towards the preliminary determinations […] hidden in concepts” (ibid., 494), and this
further enforces what we have said about hearing as a primarily hermeneutical ability; cf.
footnotes 1 and 2. Gadamer writes in his masterwork in a historical retrospective: “Actually, the
history of understanding has been accompanied, since the days of classical philology, by
theoretical reflection. But these reflections have the character of a ‘technique’—i.e., they try to
serve the art of understanding [...] But now understanding as such becomes a problem. The
universality of this problem shows that understanding has become a task in a new sense, and
hence theoretical reflection acquires a new significance. [...] It is no longer a set of techniques
guiding the practice of philologist or theologian. Schleiermacher, it is true, calls his hermeneutics
a technique, but in a quite different, systematic sense. He seeks the theoretical foundation of the
procedure common to theologians and philologists by reaching back beyond the concerns of each
to the more fundamental relation—the understanding of thought” (TM 179).
3
GW 2, 488.: „In Wahrheit war ich inzwischen ein Stück klassischer Philologe geworden, schloß
dieses Studium mit dem Staatsexamen ab (1927)”. See also GW 8, 375.
4
J. Grondin, Hans-Georg Gadamer. Eine Biographie (Tübingen: Mohr, 1999), 146. The
mentioned paper: „Der aristotelische Protreptikos und die entwicklungsgeschichtliche
Betrachtung der aristotelischen Ethik”, Hermes: Zeitschrift für klassische Philologie 63 (1928),
138–164., reprinted in GW 5, 164–186. See also H.-G. Gadamer: Die Lektion des Jahrhunderts.
Ein philosophischer Dialog mit Ricardo Dottori (Münster – Hamburg – London: LIT Verlag,
2002), 29., 142.
501
Gadamer’s work as a whole. In what follows, I shall focus on some aspects of this
relationship as detailed or represented by Gadamer. The way in which Gadamer depicts
this relationship is not independent of how he elucidates the relationship of philology
and the humanities (Geistwissenschaften), primarily history, therefore I shall attempt to
reconstruct first the way Gadamer viewed this relationship.
In the first place, it should be noted that the adjective “philological” often
appears in the first parts of Gadamer’s masterwork together with another adjective,
“historical” (“historical-philological”, or “historian-philologists”, etc.)1 In the beginning
– that is, “historically” – philology was not restricted to historical studies. Referring back
to Gadamer’s above quoted definition, one could say: philology is not only the “love of
words”, and the philologist is not only “the friend of fine speech” insofar as he wishes to
reconstruct those texts of the past which preserved these “fine speeches”. Rather, he
wants to produce these “fine speeches” himself, therefore – as Gadamer claims – he acts
as an imitator, and that is precisely the importance of philology for Renaissance
humanism.
Fine speeches are exemplary. “One must not forget”, writes Gadamer in Truth
and Method, that “that the highest aim of the humanist was not originally to
‘understand’ his models, but to imitate or even surpass them. Hence he was originally
obligated to his models, not only as an expositor but also as an imitator—if not a rival.”2
In one of his writings preceding the Truth and Method he emphatically drew attention to
the fact that the research of history is not merely motivated by the acquisition of
knowledge, a simple reconstruction of the past, but also by a search for a model: “Denn
unser Verhalten zur Überlieferung begnügt sich nicht damit, daß wir sie verstehen
wollen, indem wir durch historische Rekonstruktion ihren Sinn ermitteln. [...] selbst der
Philologe könnte sich eingestehen, daß das, was er in Wahrheit tut, mehr ist als dies.
Wäre das Altertum nicht klassisch gewesen, das heißt vorbildlich für alles Sagen,
Denken und Dichten, dann gäbe es keine klassische Philologie. Das gilt aber auch auch
für alle andere Philologie, daß in ihr die Faszination des anderen, Fremden oder Fernen
wirksam ist [...]. Die eigentliche Philologie ist nicht Historie allein, und zwar deshalb,
weil auch die Historie selber in Wahrheit eine ratio philosophandi ist, ein Weg,
Wahrheit zu erkennen.”3
If we look at history like this – namely, not merely “historically”, as something
that used to be once, but now it is gone, exists no more, and about which we only want
to acquire various pieces of information, while these pieces of knowledge leave us
untouched and unchanged, but as something that has effect on us, sets models before us,
and which is not contrary to truth so that it is directly “the way to the knowledge of the
truth” – if that is the primordial way we relate to, and have to do with, history in the first
place then we find essential parallels between philology and history: “philology and
literary criticism on the one hand and historical studies on the other,” “both perform an
act of application that is different only in degree.”4 These essential parallels continue to
the modernity as well, when both history and philology leave behind their particular
1
TM 193.
TM 193.
3
“Was ist Wahrheit?”, GW 2, 55.
4
TM 336.
2
502
normative-applicative aspect. The situation is now the following. “A person trying to
understand a text, whether literary critic or historian, does not, at any rate, apply what it
says to himself. He is simply trying to understand what the author is saying, and if he is
simply trying to understand, he is not interested in the objective truth of what is said as
such, not even if the text itself claims to teach truth. On this the philologist and the
historian are in agreement.”1 I must remark however that indifference towards the
“objective truth of the message,” as something about which philologists and historians
agree, separates both – as we shall see later on – from the philosopher, who is interested
in precisely that issue.
The contemporary historian relates himself to the “texts of the past” in such a
way that “he is trying to discover something about the past through them. He therefore
uses other traditionary material to supplement and verify what the texts say,”2 his access
to texts is fundamentally different from the philologist’s. The historian “considers it as
more or less of a weakness when the philologist regards his text as a work of art.”3 The
historian wants to see through his texts, not understand them; the text appears for him as
the “expression” of something which is not expressed in the texts themselves, but
remains in the background. The historian “will always go back behind [the texts] and the
meaning they express to inquire into the reality they express involuntarily.”4 In this
respect, there is some tension emerging “between the historian and the philologist who
[originally] seeks to understand a text for the sake of its beauty”.5 “There is a
fundamental conflict here between the historical and the literary consciousness, although
this tension scarcely exists now that historical consciousness has also altered the
orientation of the critic. He has given up the claim that his texts have a normative
validity for him. He no longer regards them as models of the best that has been thought
and said, but looks at them in a way that they themselves did not intend to be looked at;
he looks at them as a historian. This has made philology and criticism subsidiary
disciplines of historical studies;” and in parallel with this, classical philology became
Antiquity research.6 The philologist became “a historian, in that he discovers a historical
dimension in his literary sources. Understanding, then, is for him a matter of placing a
given text in the context of the history of language, literary form, style, and so on, and
thus ultimately mediating it with the whole context of historical life. Only occasionally
does his own original nature come through.”7
Gadamer tended to look upon this development of modernity with quite some
resignation, due to his hermeneutical starting point and his hermeneutical sympathy
about the original meaning of philology. Although the tension between historians and
1
TM 330f.
TM 331.
3
TM 331.
4
TM 332.
5
TM 332. The quote by Gadamer in footnote 4 seems to contradict this, but I think this
contradiction can be dissolved by my explicative addition in square brackets. Gadamer alternately
uses a – let’s say – ideal or classic self-interpretation of philology and a secondary, historically
created one, which is adapted to history perceiving itself as positivistic. See the followings for
more on this.
6
TM 332.
7
TM 333.
2
503
philologists has gradually disappeared, insofar as some sort of a historical perspective or
approach turned out to have the upper hand, that is, the humanities were put “under the
alien control of historical studies”.1 However, it is not very clear whether this was indeed
a welcome development, and the question can definitely be asked “whether the claim of
historical consciousness to be universal is justified.” This legitimacy seems questionable
for Gadamer, primarily with respect to philology.2 Gadamer returns here to the original
meaning and humanistic embeddedness of philology, so his conclusion reads: “The
critic is ultimately mistaking his own nature, as a friend of eloquence, if he bows to the
standard of historical studies. If his texts possess an exemplary character for him, this
may be primarily in regard to form. The older humanism fervently believed that
everything in classical literature was said in an exemplary way.”3
Inasmuch as the philologist’s job according to the original self-interpretation of
philology is to “weave a little further on the great tapestry of tradition that supports us” it
would seem plausible to ask whether “criticism and philology can attain their true
dignity and proper knowledge of themselves by being liberated from history.”4
However, this would be an ambiguous and hardly feasible solution. Therefore philology
should free itself not so much from history, but – to be more precise – from a particular
kind of self-understanding of history, namely, the one following the ideal of knowledge
of the natural sciences. In fact, it is precisely this self-understanding of history that
history itself had better get rid of (this state of affairs can be expressed by the following
paradoxical formulation: the science of history must free itself from history, i.e., from
the self-understanding of history prevalent in modernity). “Perhaps not only the
approach of the critic and philologist but also that of the historian should be oriented not
so much to the methodological ideal of the natural sciences”; in this case “the relation
between literary criticism and historical studies suddenly appears quite different.”5
In summary, Gadamer recognizes the unity of history and philology, which he
expresses by the thesis that I have previously quoted: “philology and literary criticism on
the one hand and historical studies on the other,” “both perform an act of application that
is different only in degree.”6 The explanation connected to this thesis is also worth being
quoted: “If the philologist or critic understands the given text—i.e., understands himself
in the text in the way we have said—the historian too understands the great text of world
history he has himself discovered, in which every text handed down to us is but a
fragment of meaning, one letter, as it were, and he understands himself in this great text.
Both the critic and the historian thus emerge from the self-forgetfulness to which they
had been banished by a thinking for which the only criterion was the methodology of
modern science. Both find their true ground in historically effected consciousness.”7
Two decades later, looking back self-critically on his masterwork, Gadamer
refined his position. The opposition of historians that he met with made him realize, he
wrote, that he approached too much the particular ways of historical understanding to
1
TM 334.
TM 333.
3
TM 333.
4
TM 334.
5
TM 334.
6
TM 336.
7
TM 336.
2
504
philological understanding. For the history as a whole, which is the subject of the
historian’s research, is not a text in the same sense as the subject of a philologist’s
research, written texts. “Texts” are not available to historians the same way as to
philologists; the historian has to reconstruct first his basic text, “history”. A historian
must know of course literary and other kinds of texts, just as a philologist must often
reconstruct and review his texts, so a historian must be a little bit of a philologist, and the
philologist must be a historian to a certain extent. However, the meaning that one arrives
at in the two cases is distinct. The meaning of a text is what the text wants to say.
However, the meaning of an event is what the historian can make of it based on the texts
and other documents, and often by reassessing the intention of these texts. In the light of
these new considerations, philology could be defined, or its original Greek meaning
could be rendered, as: “Freude am Sinn, der sich aussagt” (Joy over the meaning that
utters itself), while history as: “Forschung nach Sinn, der verhüllt ist” (Search for the
meaning which is hidden) – the difference between the two hints to two kinds of
understanding.1 One rejoices over the meaning, the other searches for it.
IV.
Philology and philosophy
In the discussion above I only used the definitions of philology and philosophy given by
Gadamer at the beginning of his study on Wilamowitz as a methodological starting
point, from which I turned towards formulating general considerations, but did not go on
with their content analysis. I now wish to continue with this, and in the conclusion take a
closer look at some traits of the Gadamer’s understanding of the relationship between
philology and philosophy.
If philology means “Liebe zu den logoi” (the love of words), and philosophy is
“Liebe zum »sophon«” (the love of wisdom), then – I quoted Gadamer – “Whoever
knows something of the Greek language and tradition can hear it at once how near the
two concepts are to each other, or more precisely, how they flow into one another and
overflow from both sides.”2 Gadamer emphasizes the proximity of the two concepts
starting from the counter-concept of philology, misology, as it appears in Plato. This
latter concept is similar to that kind of hatred of men, misanthropy, which comes into
being when someone trusts people imprudently, with no good reason, and after being
disappointed several times because of this, “he ends by being in continual quarrels and
by hating everybody and thinking there is nothing sound in anyone at all.”3 By analogy,
someone becomes a misologist – hater of the logos (words, arguments, speeches) – by
hastily trusting them first, believing their truth without having enough experience in this
field, then later finds them false, and when this is repeated several times, he does not
blame himself or his deficient knowledge, but comes to hate the logos and thinks he is
the wisest, because he arrived to the conclusion that there is nothing healthy, nothing
solid either in things or in speeches/arguments.4 Gadamer writes in summary of this,
1
„Zwischen Phänomenologie und Dialektik. Versuch einer Selbstkritik”, GW 2, 20
GW 6, 272.
3
See Plato, Phaedo, 89d,e. http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3 Atext%
3A1999.01.0170%3Atext%3DPhaedo%3Asection%3D89d
4
Ibid., 90c. With regard to misology Kant’s considerations are also important; see his Logik. Ein
Handbuch zu Vorlesungen, ed. G. B. Jäsche, Kant, Schriften zur Metaphysik und Logik. 2,
2
505
“Die Gefahr ist, daß bei dem Scheitern der Suche nach Wahrheit die Liebe zu den
Logoi, die die Liebe zum Denken ist, in Misologie, Skepsis, Verzweiflung am Denken
umschlägt. Philosophie ihrerseits meint die Liebe zum ‚sophon‘, und das hat den
weitesten Sinn der Liebe zu dem, was jenseits aller Berechenbarkeiten und aller
Verheißungen von Nutzen und Gewinn anziehend ist – wie alles Schöne. Der Philologe,
der die Logoi liebt, und der Mann, dessen theoretische Leidenschaft über den Nutzen
und Nachteil des alltäglich Pragmatischen hinausstrebt, scheinen also fast dasselbe.”1
The proximity or community of philology and philosophy visibly feeds on the
relationship between the love of words/speech and love of wisdom. For wisdom, the
contemplation of ideas – as Gadamer argued in the third part of his main work2 – lies for
Plato in a realm beyond words, the soul’s conversation with itself remains “voiceless”, it
has no “language” of its own. On Gadamer’s view, in virtue of the sophists’ abuse of
words, Plato had to distinguish between linguistic correctness and objective truth,
therefore being was to be known purely by itself, without the help of words. Since Plato
also formulated strong reservations with respect to the ability to transmit philosophy
Werkausgabe, ed. W. Weischedel, vol. 6. 449.: „Der die Wissenschaft hasset, um desto mehr aber
die Weisheit liebet, den nennt man einen Misologen. Die Misologie entspringt gemeiniglich aus
einer Leerheit von wissenschaftlichen Kenntnissen und einer gewissen damit verbundenen Art
von Eitelkeit. Zuweilen verfallen aber auch diejenigen in den Fehler der Misologie, welche
Anfangs mit großem Fleiße und Glücke den Wissenschaften nachgegangen waren, am Ende aber
in ihrem ganzen Wissen keine Befriedigung fanden”.
1
GW 6, 272.
2
“That the true being of things is to be investigated ‘without names’ means that there is no access
to truth in the proper being of words as such [...] thought is so independent of the being of words
[...] that the word is reduced to a wholly secondary relation to the thing. It is a mere instrument of
communication, the bringing forth (ekpherein) and uttering (logos prophorikos) of what is meant
in the medium of the voice. It follows that an ideal system of signs, whose sole purpose is to
coordinate all signs in an unambiguous system, makes the power of words (dunamis ton
onomaton)—the range of variation of the contingent in the historical languages as they have
actually developed—appear as a mere flaw in their utility. This is the ideal of a characteristica
universalis” (TM 414 = GW 1, 418.) For more on this point, see István M. Fehér, „Wort und
Zeichen: Die strukturalistisch-semiotische Sprachauffassung aus hermeneutischer Sicht,”
Hermeneutik und die Grenzen der Sprache. Hermeneutik, Sprachphilosophie, Anthropologie, eds.
Ulrich Arnswald, Jens Kertscher and Louise Röska-Hardy (Heidelberg: Manutius Verlag, 2012),
91–109; “Művészet, esztétika és irodalom Hans-Georg Gadamer filozófiai hermeneutikájában”
(Art, aesthetics and literature in Hans-Georg Gadamer’s philosophical hermeneutics), Az irodalmi
szöveg antropológiai horizontjai. Hermeneutika és retorika (Anthropological horizons of the
literary text. Hermeneutics and rhetoric), eds. Gábor Bednanics, László Bengi, Ernő Kulcsár
Szabó, Mihály Szegedy-Maszák (Budapest: Osiris, 2000), 15–67, especially note 261; Idem,
“Kunst, Ästhetik und Literatur in der philosophischen Hermeneutik Hans-Georg Gadamers,” in
Epoche – Text – Modalität. Diskurs der Moderne in der ungarischen Literaturwissenschaft, eds.
E. Kulcsár-Szabó, M. Szegedy-Maszák (Tübingen: Niemeyer, 1999), 1–49. Idem, “Irodalom és
filozófia – irodalmi szöveg és filozófiai szöveg” (Literature and philosophy – literary text and
philosophical text), Irodalomtörténet 2 (2008): 155–187, here mainly part IV and following;
Idem, “Szóbeliség, írásbeliség, hagyomány. A kommunikáció filozófiája és a hermeneutika”
(Orality, literacy, tradition. The philosophy of communication and hermeneutics), Pro
Philosophia
41
(2005):
3–56,
here
p.
34
ff.
See
online:
http://www.c3.hu/~prophil/profi051/feher.htm
506
through writing,1 it means for us that in the proper sense of the term, philosophy has no
texts.
We have already seen that, for Gadamer, “[e]s ist nicht so, als ob der Text für
uns eine fraglose Vorgegebenheit wäre und die Interpretation eine nachträglich
eingestellte Prozedur, die man an dem Texte vornimmt.”.2 However, here it must be
added: the “text” – which must be produced by both a philologist and a philosopher by
way of interpretation – means something entirely different for the philologist and the
philosopher. The history of the self-interpretation of philology – starting from the joy
over fine words/speeches to the joy over thoughts and accounts to the later principle of
“fidelity to the text” which lies at the centre of the Alexandrian and modern concept of
philology – this history consistently shows that the way a text sounds, the establishment
of the text is not only connected with the philologist’s interpretation, but in a sense it
stands in the focus of his understanding. By contrast, the wording of the text has no
primary importance for a philosopher (and hence, let me add, philosophers are
notoriously prone to make philological omissions, since they are interested not in the
words, but in the spirit of a text); for him, it is unambiguous that words and sentences
stretch towards or reach for something and remain for ever distant from the realm of
what the “effort of the concept” is being directed to.3 When Gadamer characterized
philology as defined in all its periods by the “fidelity to the text” (“Treue zum Text”),
then it may be legitimate to add – completing the Gadamerian thought and hopefully
being faithful to Gadamer’s intentions – that philosophy is characterized by “Treue zum
Sinn”, “fidelity to the meaning”.
1
The meaning of writing is “to remind him who knows the matter about which they are written”,
and “[…] the best of them really serve only to remind us of what we know” (Plato, Phaedrus, 275d,
278a,
http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.01.0174%3Atext%3
DPhaedrus%3Asection%3D275d,
http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.01.0174%3Atext%3D
Phaedrus%3Asection%3D278a) Words therefore do not automatically get to the thing, the
objective truth of the thing. On the contrary: only he who already knows the thing can measure
the truth of the words. See also Plato, Letters, VII, 341c-d: “There does not exist, nor will there
ever exist, any treatise of mine dealing therewith. For it does not at all admit of verbal expression
like other studies, but, as a result of continued application to the subject itself and communion
therewith, it is brought to birth in the soul on a sudden, as light that is kindled by a leaping spark,
and thereafter it nourishes itself.” (http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3
Atext%3A1999.01.0164%3Aletter%3D7%3Apage%3D341)
2
GW 6, 276.
3
GW 6, 277.: “Der Wortlaut des Textes, die Herstellung des Textes ist für den Philologen mit
seiner Interpretation nicht nur verbunden, sondern bleibt in gewissem Sinne im Zielbereich seines
Verstehens. Dagegen hat für den Philosophen der Wortlaut des Textes kein primäres Interesse;
für ihn steht allzusehr fest, da Worte und Sätze nach etwas hinlangen und von dem Bereiche
dessen entfernt bleiben, dem »die Anstrengung des Begriffs« gilt.” I tried to render the meaning
of the Gadamerian thought by paraphrasing his text, therefore I did not quote of literally for the
sake of the meaning. The “effort of the concept” (Anstrengung des Begriffs) is Hegel’s
expression: he writes in the preface to the Phenomenology of the Spirit: „Worauf es [...] bei dem
Studium der Wissenschaft ankommt, ist, die Anstrengung des Begriffs auf sich zu nehmen”
(Hegel: Phänomenologie des Geistes, Theorie Werkausgabe, Vol. 3, 56).
507
Obviously, meaning cannot be accessed without words, or language and text in
general. Philosophy is also dependent on logoi, but for philosophy it takes the shape of
an infinite conversation – one in which there are quite a lot of words, but in which the
first and (especially) the last “word” – the word expressed in its unsurpassable perfection
and philological beauty – does not exist. That is why there is no exemplariness and
imitation in philosophy, but (instead) starting anew over and over again, a destruction or
“repetition-recovery” (Wieder-holung) in a Heideggerian sense. If philosophers take
their texts and “wie Pénélope ihr Gewebe immer wieder auftrennen, um sich für die
Heimkehr ins Wahre aufs neue zu rüsten”,1 then it requires indeed the “effort of the
concept”.
Gadamer’s discussion of the relationship between philology and philosophy in
his study on Wilamowitz is not unique in his oeuvre: thoughts and formulations akin to
these in various forms and depths are found also in his masterwork, and other
subsequently published papers. Gadamer examines in detail in his masterwork
Schleiermacher’s famous thesis “that the aim is to understand a writer better than he
understood himself”.2 His final conclusion is as follows: “Understanding is not, in fact,
understanding better, either in the sense of superior knowledge of the subject because of
clearer ideas or in the sense of fundamental superiority of conscious over unconscious
production. It is enough to say that we understand in a different way, if we understand at
all.” However, at an earlier stage of his investigations he manifested more
“understanding” for Schleiermacher’s thesis, precisely because he drew a clear
difference between how Schleiermacher and himself understood the concept of
understanding. Gadamer’s own thesis, namely that “we understand in a different way, if
we understand at all”, takes as its basis the hermeneutical, and therefore radically
historical meaning of understanding going back to Heidegger, while he does not
disregard the fact that Schleiermacher’s thesis is based on a completely different concept
of understanding. He writes that Schleiermacher “sees the act of understanding as the
reconstruction of the production. This inevitably renders many things conscious of
which the writer may be unconscious.”3
Gadamer criticizes this romanticist concept of understanding, but he does not
overlook the fact that from this perspective Schleiermacher’s thesis is utterly valid: “In
fact, he writes, Schleiermacher’s “formula, understood in this way, can be regarded as a
principle of all philology, insofar as the latter is regarded as the understanding of artful
discourse. The better understanding that distinguishes the interpreter from the writer
1
"Zur Phänomenologie von Ritual und Sprache", GW 8, 430. In context: “Philosophieren ist
vielmehr eine beständige Selbstüberholung aller ihrer Begriffe, wie ein Gespräch eine ständige
Selbstüberholung durch die Antwort des Anderen ist. Deshalb gibt es eigentlich keine Texte der
Philosophie in dem Sinne, in dem wir von literarischen Texten sprechen - oder von
Gesetzestexten oder von der Heiligen Schrift. So wahr sich die Erfahrung der Menschen unter den
geschichtlichen Bedingungen ihres Lebens und ihrer Schicksale bildet, so formen sich die Worte
und Antworten, die neue Fragen zu stellen erlauben. Daher ist die
Geschichte der Philosophie ein durchgehender Dialog mit sich selbst. Die Philosophen haben
keine Texte, weil sie wie Pénélope ihr Gewebe immer wieder auftrennen, um sich für die
Heimkehr ins Wahre aufs neue zu rüsten.”
2
TM 191.
3
TM 191.
508
does not refer to the understanding of the text's subject matter [Verständnis der Sachen,
von denen im Text die Rede ist],but simply to the understanding of the text [Verständnis
des Textes],—i.e., of what the author meant and expressed.”1
“Understanding of the text's subject matter” and “understanding of the text” are
not necessarily the same. The thing can only be accessed of course through the text – or,
rather, the understanding of the thing can only be accessed through the understanding of
the text –, but in spite of it the text does not become of interest as a text – not in its
sounding form or composition, its grammatical-aesthetic quality, nor in the context of its
historical embeddedness or the abundance of its explicit or implicit references.
“A person trying to understand a text, whether literary critic or historian, [...] is
not interested in the objective truth of what is said as such, not even if the text itself
claims to teach truth. On this the philologist and the historian are in agreement,” we
quoted Gadamer in the third part,2 noting that, as we shall see later on, the indifference
about the “objective truth of the message” distinguishes both from the philosopher, who
is interested in precisely that. At this point one can refer back to this quote, which tacitly
acknowledges – twenty years in advance, still implicitly (the Truth and Method
appeared in 1960, the Wilamowitz-study in 1982) – the philosopher’s relationship with
the text (not yet thematized specifically in Gadamer’s masterwork), when stating that
neither the historian nor the philologist “is interested in the objective truth of the
message […] as such”. At this point, we can also refine the formulation of the
“understanding of the thing” as found in Truth and Method in the sense that “the
understanding of the thing” is nothing else in fact that “the understanding of the
objective truth of the thing”. The “understanding of the text”, by contrast – as “the
understanding of what the author thought and expressed”, and in which respect it is very
much possible to understand the author better than he understood himself – is something
similar to understanding a text written in a foreign language (incidentally, the
philologists’ texts are often indeed written in foreign languages). As Gadamer writes: “A
person who learns to understand a text in a foreign language will make explicitly
conscious the grammatical rules and literary forms which the author followed without
noticing, because he lived in the language and in its means of artistic expression. The
same is true of all production by artistic genius and its reception by others.”3 The interest
of hermeneutics as philosophy is not directed towards “individuality and what it thinks
but [towards] the truth of what is said.” Therefore, “a text is not understood as a mere
expression of life but is taken seriously in its claim to truth,”4 and this is what
“understanding” (or its original meaning) lies precisely in: “understanding means,
primarily, to understand the content of what is said, and only secondarily to isolate and
understand another's meaning as such.”5 This philosophical-hermeneutical interest dies
1
TM 191 (=. GW 1, 196). (Italics mine, I. M. F.)
TM 330f.
3
TM 191 (= GW 1, 196).
4
TM 296 (= GW 1, 302).
5
TM 294 (= GW 1, 299). On the fundamental anti-psychologism of hermeneutics, according to
which “the important thing for understanding [...] is [...] understanding the subject matter, the
substantive insight”, and it is a question of “neither a historical nor a psychological genetic
procedure,” see TM 183 (= GW 1, 186). This consideration is formulated in various contexts and
2
509
out or is left in the background in the understanding of the text as text – or in the
understanding that thematizes the text as text.
Similarly to texts as objects of philology, philosophy is also “connected to
language”, and it articulates its particular existence in the context of language. But “die
Sprache der Philosophie überholt sich beständig selbst -- die Sprache des Gedichts [...]
ist unüberholbar und einzig.”1 The “beständige Selbstüberholung aller ihrer Begriffe”2 is
not merely incidental for philosophizing: it is in fact the very essence of philosophy.
That is the reason why there are, properly speaking, no philosophiccal texts in the sense
in which we speak of literary texts; “die Philosophen haben keine Texte, weil sie wie
Penelope ihr Gewebe immer wieder auftrennen, um sich für die Heimkehr ins Wahre
aufs neue zu rüsten.”3 Philosophy is like a conversation which “eine ständige
Selbstüberholung durch die Antwort des Anderen ist”;4 philosophical “Denken ist dieses
ständige Gespräch der Seele mit sich selbst.”5 Philosophical texts are “nur
Zwischenreden in dem unendlichen Gespräch des Denkens”,6 “Interventionen in einem
ins Unendliche weitergehenden Dialog”.7
As long as Gadamer organizes his entire concept of language around the notion
of conversation and speech,8 it is understandable why philosophy cannot possibly have
“texts” in a philological or literary sense: namely, it cannot for the sake of the
continuation of conversation, of the “Fortgang des denkenden Gesprächs der Seele mit
sich selbst.”9 If there should be philosophical texts in the precise sense that we speak
about philological or literary texts, then this would mean at the same time the end of
conversation.
The inner cohesion and mutual connection of philology and philosophy is
admirably expressed by Gadamer at the end of his study on Wilamowitz: “Wir wissen
places in Gadamer’s masterwork, see GW 1, 340, 378, 389, 398, the most important being
probably the last one, where he writes: “the written word makes the understanding reader the
arbiter of its claim to truth. The reader experiences what is addressed to him and what he
understands in all its validity. What he understands is always more than an unfamiliar opinion: it
is always possible truth” (TM 396, italics I.M.F.).
1
“Philosophie und Literatur” (1981), GW 8, 240–257, here 256. Cf. “Schreiben und Reden”
(1983), GW 10, 354–355; here 355.
2
“Zur Phänomenologie von Ritual und Sprache” (1992), GW 8, 400–440, here 430.
3
“Zur Phänomenologie von Ritual und Sprache”, GW 8, 430. See "Philosophie und Literatur",
GW 8, 237: "Die gemeinsame Voraussetzung allen Philosophierens ist, daß die Philosophie als
solche keine Sprache hat, die ihrem eigenen Auftrag angemessen ist. Die Form des Satzes, die
logische Struktur der Prädikation [...] ist zwar unvermeidbar [...]. Aber sie macht die irreführende
Voraussetzung, als wäre der Gegenstand der Philosophie gegeben und bekannt wie die
beobachtbaren Dinge und Vorgänge in der Welt. Die Philosophie bewegt sich jedoch
ausschließlich im Medium des Begriffs [...]".
4
“Zur Phänomenologie von Ritual und Sprache”, GW 8, 430.
5
“Philosophie und Literatur”, GW 8, 257.
6
“Hermeneutik auf der Spur”, GW 10, 173.
7
“Philosophie und Literatur”, GW 8, 256.
8
See GW 1, 372 ff. See in particular 384: “Jedes Gespräch setzt eine gemeinsame Sprache
voraus, oder besser: es bildet eine gemeinsame Sprache heraus“ (= TM 371: “Every conversation
presupposes a common language, or better, creates a common language.”
9
GW 8, 257.
510
alle, daß es auf das »sophon« ankommt, auf das, was eigentlich zu wissen not wäre, und
wir wissen zugleich, daß wir Erben sind -- wir alle und von jeher -- und daß wir damit
auf die Logoi verwiesen sind, auf die Teilhabe an einem Gespräch, das über uns
hinweggeht und das allein uns die Sprache und die Sichtweite gibt, die uns leiten
können.”1
V.
Possible conclusions
This paper has proposed to examine the views of an eminent 20th-century philosopher on
the relationship of philology and philosophy by making use of and applying philology
and philosophy alike. It has searched for related passages, and has tried to reconstruct
their meaning, that is, interpret them – pursuing philology with the former, and
philosophy/hermeneutics with the latter. It has questioned the relationship between
philology and philosophy by initiating and putting in motion both from the very
beginning – as living examples of “affiliation,” “belonging” to the object in the
hermeneutical sense, that of the Gadamerian Zugehörigkeit. What we have questioned
determined our way of questioning, and turned us into its questionees, those being
interrogated. We could not really have proceeded otherwise. We can only hope that
these interpretations have conveyed some relevant insights. At any rate, if nothing else,
then this twofold activity, applying philology and philosophy alike, the fact that when
questioning philology and philosophy any kind of answer can only be given with a
simultaneous application of both, that is, strictly speaking, that neither of them can be
“suspended” in an absolute sense – a practice which precedes reflection and
subsequently makes it possible –: all these moments are appropriate to show that it is
hardly possible to detach or isolate philology and philosophy.
“Love of words” – “Love of wisdom”: to conclude, I return to Gadamer’s
definitions, which appear also in the title of this paper. Who loves wisdom, loves words
as well, since there is no wisdom without words. But even if there is neither wisdom nor
love of wisdom without words, love of wisdom – and this can be one of the possible
conclusions and ongoing considerations of the above analyzed Gadamerian texts – is not
confined to words or speeches made up of words. Who likes words and speeches, is not
necessarily a friend of wisdom too. Wisdom for Plato is beyond words. “Love of words”
and “love of wisdom” – of wisdom, as a love for something that is beyond words, for
which there is (literally) no word – partly overlap, but do not coincide. If they should
there would be no difference between philology and philosophy at all.
The friend of wisdom loves the word, and searches in words, speeches and texts
that which is beyond them; as soon as he thinks he has found it he names it again with
another word. Understandably, he does so by an imperfect word (since the thing is
important, not the word), by which he offers his successors the possibility – and urges
them as well – to reiterate their effort (the effort of the concept). At the end of this effort
a new word is born – which is still not perfect and final. The philologist is a completary
member in this process, whose love of words and speeches becomes the love of “the
sounding word”, which – once it is obtained – is final and unsurpassable. Therefore in
the centre of the philologist’s range of vision there is nothing beyond the words. His
1
GW 6, 277.
511
eyes focus on the wording, and slips over the “thing”, the “objective truth of the thing”,
or rather, such thing does not exist for him at all (while he continues to employ the
concepts of “thing” and “truth” in a new sense); the philosopher focuses on the latter,
and fails to see the “word” – his gaze slips over it – and in his conceptual effort he does
not find the “word”, the final word (while he continues to talk, use words, and create
new ones). It is by this displacement of emphasis and balance that the philologist and the
philosopher complete and relate to each other.
Translated by Emese Czintos
512
MISCELLANEA
513
514
About The Way We Should – Reconsidering Our Energy Sources
– Review –
Amália SOÓS
Keywords: social ethics, critique of economic sciences, politics, perfect market, future
research, climate change, planet renovation, renewable energy, solar age, solar energy,
intelligent and competent planning
Email: [email protected]
*
The name of Roland Mösl is already well-known among the computer scientists and
the researchers of solar energy. The task which made him popular was the writing, in
1991, of the concept of a solar power house, the Gemini Haus. He's also the founder of
the Planetary Engineering Group Earth, working his entire life on new concepts and
inventions in order to lead humanity to the age of solar energy.
I would say that Roland Mösl's most recent book, the Calculation ERROR (A
publication of PEGE, Salzburg–St. Leonhard, 2013) leads me to the reverse of the
feeling once promoted by the popular song of the Scorpions band. There is no “Wind of
Change,” there is only the greed and the ambition of the moment, and it needs such
works to make us see how manipulated we are. I cannot present in this paper all the
interesting key-aspects of Mösl's book, I cannot even pretend that I understand all the
technical information, I was not even reading it with the eyes of a scientist. Yet, I find it
useful not just for architects, engineers and researchers of the fields of planetary energy.
Far more than that, it is a book for every simple consumer and for every man
accomplishing political actions, a book about the mission Mösl thinks he has.
It is a well-known fact and does not surprise anybody any more that global
energy resources will run out in a couple of decades, and public and political discussions
touch on the necessity of alternative energy resources. Yet, the problem is that initiatives
remain merely at the level of discussions, and even discussions represent not a loyal
mirror and knowledge of the facts, but often some corporate or economical-political
interest. This idea explains why Mösl's book is titled the Calculation ERROR. Let a
short citation stay instead of my explanation: “Humanity is in a civilization jump since
two centuries. Before the civilization jump was only renewable energy, mainly biomass.
After the civilization jump will be only renewable energy, mainly sun and wind. To start
the civilization jump, by using fossil energy to boost the development was right, a
necessary development. Half-century ago, humanity reached space, reached the
technology level – to fulfill the civilization jump. Phase out fossil energy – Phase in
renewable energy, to have a high-tech civilization – for the next some billion years. But
there is a deadly calculation error – The death calculation, namely that it is cheaper to

Roland Mösl, Calculation ERROR: The Downfall of USA+EU by Worshipping a Destructive
Cult (A publication of PEGE) (Salzburg–St. Leonhard, 2013), 412 p. ISBN 978-3-9503506-0-9
515
succumb than to survive, that it's cheaper to destroy than to maintain.” This is the speech
he said at the Gusi Peace Prize ceremony in 2011 and this is the reason why Mösl
considers necessary to present all sides of the renewable energy problem.
To say the truth, environmentalists seem to be able to convince a minor part of the
global population that they represent mankind's greatest interests. The possible
perspectives of our planet’s future are not so many (due to global contamination and the
greenhouse effect, for example, but there are many more reasons). Even so, if the human
nature is based on egoist instincts or the society on the idea of individual welfare, we
cannot expect people to give up on technological advantage and comfort. Among Mösl's
intentions is to clarify that environmental fundamentalism cannot lead to success, and,
instead of promoting lifestyles that conquer just a few conscious and rich people, we
should invest energy and money into the research of all the ways we can reach and
preserve solar and wind energy. Renewable energy could be a longtime solution, only that
problems cannot be monopolized by a single sector. Neither economic sciences, nor green
policy, nor engineering alone can pretend to provide the solution. As we can read,
solutions are across the boundaries of disciplines. The problem of the end of fossil energy
resources requires cross-sector research and more than the consciousness of the present.
Even those who are not fans of the global conspiracy theory, reading this book,
could ask themselves why governments, even the rich ones, fail to see the priority of
changing environmental policy, since the knowledge required for this change is already
ours.
The greatest aim of Mösl's work is the attempt to find the allies for the solar
age. In order to succeed, he explains technical possibilities and even the estimated costs
of solar energy equipments, because, as he thinks, public opinion is formed by an
industry paid and maintained by the powerful economic and corporate interests. As we
know, corporate lobby – clandestine and public as well – is one of the greatest political
powers. According to his work, renewable energy needs to gain for itself the industry,
the investors as well as the simple people: the car drivers, the consumers, and the
environmental fundamentalists. Further, he gives series of examples of some recent
political mistakes, when governments could have given a chance to the future, exposing
what should have been done and what was actually done (for example after the oil crisis
in 2008).
Mösl thinks the solution for the energy-problem is not “renounce and reduce”,
but the passage to electric mobility and the production of renewable energy surplus. Of
course, we cannot tell that his ideas are so ingenious, since we heard them before, but
consistently argued and explained, combined with the awareness of liability, they seem
the only solution to save mankind from the fast coming disaster. It is exactly this
profound awareness of making part of mankind that I find extremely important. Most
people do not like to hear about disasters and we all have the tendency not to take
environmental problems too seriously. It still requires a lot of work to become aware that
ours is not the only generation which has to live on the earth, and that responsible life
means responsible actions for protecting what is given. Reading this book, the first thing
I remembered was The Physicians, by Friedrich Dürrenmatt, because we are in a similar
situation. It is not by accident that Mösl used comparison between the Second World
War and the ecological disasters which can result from our lifestyle and attitude.
Nowadays, with the opulence of sciences and the complexity of technologies, with the
516
greed of the free market investors and the wars carried sometimes for unknown or minor
reasons, it is more and more difficult to choose between the good and the bad things. It
is at least admirable if a man has such powerful convictions about the mission he has to
accomplish.
The sceptical would say: of course, theoretically speaking it is easy to accept
that the intelligent, competent planning of research and resources, the admission of
climate change and of the necessity of planet renovation, the new economic strategies
can lead to the so called solar age. They would say that Mösl is an idealist, since
immediate welfare and profit is much more attractive than a future without us. Are we
prepared, morally speaking, to take such responsibility for the planet? What are the
fundamental human values today? It is one topic of them in political discussions, and
another one in the political actions? This book is an answer to this question, and I ask the
readers to answer it too.
Cultural Benefits of Death.
A Review of Irina Petraş’ Book Death upon the Bearer
Adriana TEODORESCU
1 Decembrie 1918 University of Alba Iulia
Keywords: Irina Petraş, death, literature, knowledge of death, representation of death
*
Irina Petras’s book – Moartea la purtător: stări şi cuvinte (Death upon
1
the Bearer: feelings and words) – appeared at The Academy of Economic Studies in
Bucharest in 2011, which is in my opinion an almost defiant fact if we think about the
aspect that death is, as Robert Kastenbaum would say, the enemy that economy should
fight in silence, establishing systems that prevent and erode. The work retakes partially
the ideas and literary analyses from Ştiinţa morţii (Death Science) but it orients them in
a new direction – the present desire to write a book about death, the previously existent
desire that remained unsatisfied by the two volumes of Ştiinţa morţii (the first one
appeared at Dacia printing house, Cluj in 1995, and the second one in 2001, at Paralela
45 printing house. This is actually a way of stating that writing a book about death
cannot represent an objective fully accomplished – something that was surely known
and assumed by Irina Petraş – and this is why it functions as a trigger agent of the
creative-thanatic impulses.
There are three major identifiable levels in the construction of the book
Moartea la purtător and three afferent manners of using the meanings generated by the
1
Irina Petraş, Moartea la purtător: stări şi cuvinte (Death upon the Bearer: feelings and words)
(Bucharest: Editura ASE, 2012), 249 p., ISBN 978-606-505-563-6.
517
configuring way of the death theme in this context. First of all, a more general level, as
death matters here basically in a profound human way; but, at the same time, this is a
specific and specialized level: the manner of death representation, beyond the
humanistic core that it keeps unaltered, is through the death theories (Edgar Morin,
Philippe Ariès, Emmanuel Lévinas, Jean Ziegler, Vladimir Jankélévitch etc.). When it is
not represented in this way, death is subdued to the author’s tendency to philosophise
(not in the pejorative manner) and to place the text in a philosophic discourse. More
elements are subject to cultural deconstruction, and they are part of the postmodern
death paradigm, as the obsession for fitness, medical power, immorality substitutes etc.
This first level is the theoretization of death and it has a high relevance for the inter- and
multi-disciplinary areas of thanatology or death studies, found in the introductory part of
the book but present in a slightly dispersed manner, in an amalgam with actual literary
analyses (in a logical way and lacking useless digressions throughout the entire book).
The second level is the one of literary history. During this one, literature in its
various occurrences, unrestricted to a certain period and not reduced to a national or
cultural space, not even situated under the same literary and value standard, unveils its
multiple relations with death. We are actually in a history of thanatic and literary
representations, not in a chronological hierarchy but in a diversity context with slightly
exhaustive ambitions, while the author’s verve from one literary work to another
determines the reader to believe that this chain of literary representations of death would
not end soon. Among the analyzed works there are some Romanian writings that are not
that famous, such is the case of the short story Înainte de moarte (Before Death) by
Marin Preda, old and new writings of the Romanian and universal literature. Be it the
case of cult or popular ones: The Reader by Bernard Schlink, O victorie covârşitoare
(An Overwhelming Victory) by Aurel Pantea, the fairy tale collected by Petre Ispirescu
Tinereţe fără bătrâneţe şi viaţă fără de moarte (Youth without Agedness and Life
without Death), Vântureasa de plastic (The Plastic Shovel) by Marius Chivu, Rădăcina
de bucsău (Root of the Rush) by O. Nimigean, Ion Zubaşcu with his book Moarte de om.
O povestire de viaţă (Death of a Man. A Life Story), and the examples may continue.
But Irina Petras is not afraid of approaching masterpieces of the universal literature as
The Death of Ivan Ilyich by Leo Tolstoy, The Red Death by Edgar Allan Poe, and The
Last Chapter by Knut Hamsun, etc. In the pseudo-summary of the book there are over
90 authors whose writings are discusses in the book. Moreover, the analysis of the
literary works slips often in the analysis of the literary critique that has approached them,
so that the death theme and inclination tends to spread in a fractal manner. The author
identifies five great categories of death representation in literature: the cogitated death
(meditative-philosophical), the tasted death (the privilege of being desperate), the sniffed
death (installing in passing), the paraffin death (defying from the distance) and the
other’s death (in proximity).
The manner of examining the thanatical competences of the literary works is an
accurate and alerted one, as if being in an emergency of confessing. There is not much
waiting at a single writing; the books call each other in an unpredictable way, careless
for the time and author they belong to, aspect that unites them being death itself in its
various literary and conceptual hypostases. In a metaphorical perspective, we may
affirm that Irina Petraş’s writing is a surprising, philosophic and detective book, where
the main character is death, committing a series of crimes (situated at the junction of
518
carnal and symbolic) that require a secondary character for interpretation. Anyway, the
submerged demonstration, with no strikingly visible aspects, is that literature proves to
be one of the privileged headquarters of death. Irina Petraş indicates the common root
between literature and death as being the process of fictionalization. In front of the
inexorable death, the necessity of entering fiction is triggered: an active opposition
towards human mortality while, at the same time, literature almost overlaps with the
meaning of fiction, or at least it includes fiction. And this is how a fragment of Irina
Petraş’ book sounds (a fragment that dissolves the idea that there would be a superior
discourse on death): “I have intersected serious books about death with fictional
literature, because in front of death the human texts are fictions, no matter where they
start – from the data provided groping, from science or from the ones extracted from
pure and simple experience and backed by the writing talent”1.
The third level is of the literature itself and it is a plural one, constituted in more
strata consistent with the number of the analyzed literary works. The succession of the
writings and their possibility of relating with each other are of no importance, only the
relevance of death for the literary destiny of each book. For instance, a book
consultation in order to obtain critical information on a certain book could have as a
benefit the change of traditional perspective on a Romanian or universal work if the
work is characterized by a period of interpretative suffocation or it is considered passé,
as Susan Sontag would say; however, informing about a relatively recent literary writing
could raise the interest of the reader for the author of that particular book or for other
works of his. Eminescu’s Luceafărul (The Evening Star) regains freshness when it is
interpreted as a valorization of mingling death and immortality, while Caragiale’s
typical character Mitică seems to wear new clothes when the author uncovers him as
being incapable of dying.
All three levels are crossed by the personal dimension of death in a manner that
makes Irina Petraş’s book a sample of more than an involuntary application of a
methodology of transdisciplinarity, as it is presented in Basarab Nicolescu’s meaning.
This does not mean the inherent presence of the subject in any object subdued to the
research process but the explicit expression of a personal opinion on social, cultural and
philosophical aspects of death – an opinion that is transparent even in the literary
analyses, and surely not to their prejudice.
The personal level has two other sub-levels – the personal conceptual and
personal experiential. During the first one we may detect the personal conceptions on
death of Irina Petraş as a human, although she is permanently accompanied by the
shadow of a specialist in literature and theoretician (although philologist) of death. The
personal experiential level is discovered when the author Irina Petraş is not afraid of
sharing with the readers fragments of her own experience as a mortal and person who
lives near other mortals. There are some significant fragments – parents’ death, the
storm that brought their disappearance in her life and rethinking and reassuming her own
mortality as a consequence.
What we may identify as specific to the author’s death conception is the
positive significance of death. In a Heideggerian style, death is understood by Irina
Petraş as being a constitutive part of the human being in general and especially her own
1
Ibid., 26.
519
(“death enters naturally defining me”1). Death as an intra-vital process, as the authors
puts it, and as a terminus point is characterized by normality, naturality and it includes
some benefits, while two of them are more consistent: growing the ethic, affective and
social quality of individual’s life who accepts himself as being under the sign of death,
hallmarked from his birth by this (“if you don’t think yourself from the perspective of
death in ambush, you are allowed to do anything, usually bad things, as you have always
time to grow better in a delayed future with indifference”2 or “Many of the evils of
contemporary society come from people that think of themselves as being immortal or
they live as if they were”3) and openness to creation (“literature in general is ars
moriendi”4). Besides, creation is the only antidote accepted by Irina Petraş against death,
as she manifests her disapproval towards any form of confiscating the human mortality
(through which manipulation becomes possible5), be it the case of a belief in the
afterlife, in religion or in other delusions. As she seems to be convinced that the human
being is, as Heidegger theorizes, a being-unto-death, the tentative of mortality extraction
from (self)-representation equates with an alteration of its humanity. Another element
that concerns the personal conception on death of Irina Petraş and which settles it in a
divergent relation towards a death anthropologist as Louis-Vincent Thomas is funeral
rituality deconstruction as adjuvant of collective assuming and living of death. The
funeral ritual is not departing too much from the “show and social scandal that
accompany death”, which is repulsive for the author, and the ceremonial in general, not
only the funeral is considered a form of diminishing the authenticity of living. An
indicator of the fact that we may talk about a personal level of Irina Petraş’s writing is
naming the analyzed writers fictional witnesses.
Before we end our report on this book, which deserves to be read with close
attention not only by the passionate readers of literature, of specialists in human areas,
but also by passionate researchers of the subject of death, we linger on two major
concepts of Irina Petraş which relate to the personal conceptual sub-level, being possible
to classify them, to a certain degree, in the level of death theoretization: deathness and
death science. Death science – a collocation of Eminescian inspiration – covers two
meanings: of knowing, having some information and of “knowing to do something, to
master an art”6. The author considers that death must be known and learned; in other
words, the information, knowledge on death must be passed in life practices. What the
entire book proves is that literature offers the occasion of acquiring a very good
knowledge of death. The other term, deathness, invented by the author, is desirable to be
an extrapolation, a refinement of mortality in the sense of a higher dynamism of death.
Summing up, we conclude that the benefits of Irina Petraş’s book about death
and literature are cultural. No matter what we keep in mind from the plurality of
meanings of this always too large concept – culture – those that relegate to a series of
social practices and discourses, resulted after infinite crystallizations, or those that
1
Ibid., 6.
Ibid.
3
Ibid., 17.
4
Ibid., 18.
5
Ibid., 16.
6
Ibid., 5.
2
520
indulge culture with refined and slightly elitist pallets. We must add a small amendment:
including the personal level (in the writing strategy of the book) in any of these semantic
vectors of culture. Thus, we may say that there is a benefit of being aware and knowing
death as a universal phenomenon and yet reflected in multiple manners by literary
works, just as there is the possibility that the reader experiments the revelation of his
own mortality (and then of a new beginning of ars moriendi), of his own deathness
culturally and literally mediated, as Irina Petraş highlights. And this final stating doesn’t
need to seem paradoxical, as, in the end, any death revelation is susceptible to have been
suffered previous mediations.
The Devil’s Chum
Thoughts on the Book by Gyula Vadas and Albert Veress 
– Review –
Lajos BALÁZS
Ethnographer
Keywords: suicide, prevention, social and ethnographic survey, universal literature
introspection.
*
I often feel that we inadvertently restrict the meaning of the term “orderly
Szekler community” in our discourses. As if it applied only to the material world and
environment and the economical conduct and not to the social life of the community. As
if the human existence fell prey to anarchy. In fact, that is not the case at all. Only that
we do not want to recognise the organic unity of things, namely, that there are PEOPLE
living behind the land and objects. And the orderliness, as a principle, is also a public
need even against the individual’s own character.
The community used to remonstrate and sanction not only those who did not
keep their houses and the porches clean, who polluted the environment, did not care for
the animals or damaged the wealth of others a.s.o., but also those who broke the laws
and rules of social cohabitation and ignored the customs of human existence even in
case of certain setbacks. Basically there were three expectations in a community, as
follows:
- Children should be born and raised in the family.
- Marriage should be preceded by a thorough reciprocal befriending and
consensus is needed by the two families.
* Gyula Vadas, and Albert Veress, Az ördög cimborája – A felcsíki öngyilkosságokon túl... (The
devil’s chum. What is behind the suicides in Felcsík) (Csíkszereda [Miercurea Ciuc, RO]: Státus,
2012), 303 p. ISBN 978-606-8052-58-8
521
- Life comes from God and only he can take it away.
So I summarise the basic folk philosophy behind the psychic, behavioural,
sentimental, spiritual and social attitude, and behind the orderly responsibility towards
the individual and the community.
All those who acted, or are acting against these principles, are sanctioned
according to the general and particular popular rule of law by the rural communities.
Single incidents are also dealt with, as they could lead to social erosion and so
endangering the life of communities, whatever setback generated it. An outsider can
easily consider these community laws as being unmerciful, but all those living inside the
community know that whoever breaks the norm, in fact endangers the existence of it. I
must note that the purpose of the sanctions is to generate a sense of shame. A famous
psychologist says that “this is not a sense of guilt, this is a feeling of diminished
worthiness.”1 We experience shame – adds the author – “when the defeat or annoyance
is produced in the presence of others, or, we think that others could get knowledge of
it.”2 I must also add that people living together are particularly sensitive to disgrace, to
how others see their social performance, and whether they fall into the category of
“good-for-nothing” persons, in Szekler phrasing. Although differenciated, the bastard,
the sinful girl, the absconded girl, the woman or girl aborting or killing the baby, the
suicidal, the bachelor and spinster – are all seen as having diminished worthiness on the
rural society’s “human market”, using a modern expression.
Well, from this norm has the label “diminished worthiness” arisen for those
who defy the third basic principle. He/she is “The Devil’s Chum”, who stepped out of
the circle of humanly companionship, turned his back on it and came together with the
ugly and evil, with the opposite of God; in other words, interfered with the work of the
Creator, bid defiance to it and he himself ended his own life. According to the ancient
religion of the old Hungarians well before the Settlement in Hungary, man has to get to
terms with both mortals and saints. In this view, the suicidal person broke up the pact
with both sides.
As we infer from the previous, otherwise incomplete ethnological description,
the deviant behaviour of suicide raises a complex and intricate array of problems within
the framework of the universal civilization as well as the local popular culture. And that
gains even more importance as this unfortunate human deed, and the mystery that
surrounds it, is also studied by other disciplines such as psychology, psychiatry,
theology, criminology, statistics, popular religious beliefs, etc.
Death will always cause some astonishment, induce bad feelings, but the death of
a suicide will spark a multitude of questions, forcing us to look for cause-and-effect
correspondences; everyone close or far would instantly become a sociologist trying to
work out explanations, and so an abundance of folklore generated by gossip will go
around. And that will grow, as there is no unanimous official information available. Not
even Nature and the cosmic world will remain indifferent to the suicidal deed: “Someone
killed himself,/ and that caused this bad weather...” I am quoting Petőfi the poet, but I
could as well quote numbers of Hungarian and other writers who, according to common
belief, linked some unusual meteorological event with someone’s suicidal act.
1
Jenő Ranschburg, Szeretet, erkölcs, autonómia (Love, morals, autonomy) (Budapest: Gondolat,
1984 [1993]), 138.
2
Ibid., 137.
522
With these thoughts I wish to present the outstanding scientific undertaking of
Vadas Gyula and Veress Albert, the duo of authors from Pécs, Hungary, and Csikszereda
[Miercurea Ciuc], Romania, respectively. I would also call it an adventure, as the book
“The Devil’s Chum” attempts to answer the big WHY?, as this very question dominates
the suicidal act both on an individual and communal level. That word makes the title of an
essay of the late Transylvanian Reformed bishop Sándor Makkai, in wich he struggles to
find answers to the historical causes of the lost battle at Mohács. Is there an answer to
something so deeply mysterious? Is there an escape from some place where you either hit
a wall or fall into a chasm whatever direction you take? And if there is no answer to be
found, is it worthwhile trying? Can you just quietly watch with helpless indifference how
fatality erodes your community or your nation? THE OUTCRY! – is it only used to
encourage work, creation and reconstruction, or is it able to stop self-destruction? Whose
duty or moral obligation is to undertake such a task?
Well, this task – with all its virtue and risks – was undertaken by two
outstanding intellectuals. One, a sociologist from Pécs, Hungary, and the other, a
psychiatrist from Csíkszereda, Romania, both having been fighting and studying suicide
for decades in their territories.
The authors were the first to undertake the task of exploring the suicidal
phenomenon in 1990 in Transylvania, Romania, and were among the pioneers of
Romanian medical sociology. They carried on till 2012, without an institutionalized
research establishment, only by attracting colleagues and experts to the cause. So they
created the foundation of the scientific research of suicide without antecedents in
Szeklerland – Transylvania. They did that by elaborating and building up the
methodology of a referential system of study. Besides organizing conferences, they
carved out the first milestone of the region’s scientific research – a book with yellow
cover to become the main reference for scientific research in the domain for all
interested experts. Although the book focuses mainly on several rural communities in
Felcsík region, it grew still into a broader work encompassing the comparative history of
suicidal sociology on a European level, due to the wise approach of the authors. In other
words, they display the European “devil and chum” panorama before the eyes of the
reader and researcher in a continental space-time dimension. Still, they never lose sight
of life pulsating at home. Using this concentric imaging method they blatantly unearth
our hidden preconceptions, stating that we are basically a suicidal nation, while
uncovering the contrasting causes and the emerging questions and their national, ethnic,
professional, religious, social, cultural and educational aspects. With interdisciplinary
methods they search for the tiny light-spot with the help of which they would stumble
upon the mysteries of the powers of darkness. In this pursuit they order and rate the
causes of suicide.
B. Brecht says: “there are as many answers as questions”. I believe that the
mere listing of the causes can as well be the starting point of any activity program. The
book has a great merit – no scientific status could otherwise be invoked – that it also
provides solution strategies instead of just worthless lamentation. Alcohol is the leading
issue in the variants of causes. But the suggested solution is not a mechanical one such
as: “Limit alcohol consumption!”, but the gradual restoration of the multi-generation
families, and the rethinking of the importance of the family as an institution. All that
would encourage the improvement of all other causes as well, directly or indirectly. The
523
differentiated and comparative presentation of the causes in the local communities, and
also in London, even in France and Germany, would raise the need of creating special
sections within the ministries of welfare among Hungarians.
“The Devil’s Chum” is also the book of the eternal dilemma of mankind, the
dilemma of choice. Is it possible or not to rebuild our lives and return to normal? Cantata
Profana by composer Béla Bartók suggests that it is impossible. In the saga, the cursed
young men who had been turned into deer cannot come back anymore, because their
antlers will not press through the door, their feet will not tread ash but only dead fallen
leaves, their mouths will not drink out of glasses. They have turned into animals, and the
wild woods became their world and territory. So here we see the syndrome of the
individual’s diminished value!
Writer Eliade states that “if something breaks, we should return to the origins.
We should remake the moment of creation, continuously repeating cosmogony”. I
believe I find the authors’ professional credo right in this idea. It reminds me of Zorba
the Greek, who teams up with a construction engineer to build a route on rough terrain
to bring down huge boulders blasted somewhere very high up on the mountain. The
impressive construction fell apart at first attempt, and the intellectual engineer
contemplates suicide. But Zorba the carpenter exclaims: “Have you ever seen a more
beautiful, more magnificent destruction?!”, while starting to dance to some unheard tune
deep down his inner self, dragging the astonished engineer into dancing more and more
wildly – and so the idea of a new start emerges from the ruins. Here lies the mystery and
the recurring message as a strategic question: paying attention to one another, the effect
and moral power of leaning on one another’s shoulders.
I will quote one other example from literature. (By the way, the authors
reasonably blame artists and writers, as they often suggest suicide as a means of solution
in their works). Well, I am thinking of Švejk the worthy soldier who waves good bye to
his fellow mates by saying that they would meet again for a beer at 6 o’clock after the
war at their favourite pub. One of them returned from a professional desolation after
being grabbed and pulled back and being offered an immediate alternative, another one
believed in a return thinking of pleasures of the flesh and an active social life.
I purposefully avoided quoting from the multitude of concrete cases. The
readers should find them themselves. They should think about them and look for and
even find solutions. My task is to raise a keen interest towards the analyses offered, and
towards the multitude of cause-and-effect relations presented in the work. The book
entitled “The Devil’s Chum” is actually the outcrying voice of our demographical state.
An indirect outcry for life, for the child, for the human being, and a direct one for the
appreciation of life, for the rise of the physical strength of our communities, of their
creating power, their spiritual and physical efficiency and public morals being in sharp
contrast with self-weakening.
Let my appreciation and my thanks to the authors be also an encouragement for
you to buy the book.
524
The Eternal and … Non-Eternal Woman
– Review* –
István KIRÁLY V.
Keywords: feminism, feminist philosophy, applied philosophy, discrimination
Email: [email protected]
*
Women’s roles and even the patterns and “ideals” of femininity have changed
enormously – in certain respects even essentially – in the course of the past hundred
years. Especially so in the western societies, cultures and civilizations, which now
promote in their official policies the equality of women and men, and often also the idea
of their positive discrimination. For, if one starts to think about it, a hundred years ago in
these very countries women had no right to vote, or access to universities…
The changes we speak about have not occurred “out of nothing” – that is, as
results of an evolution without convulsions – while at the same time they still not reach
to all levels of life, and especially daily life. They are the results of an ongoing struggle,
fought primarily by the women themselves, but – let us not forget – also the results of
global conflagrations called “world wars”, when women had to take upon themselves
duties and roles traditionally belonging to men. Which they could face, then again, with
remarkable and incontestable dignity.
Despite this, the feminist movement and ideology have not lost their “object” or
objectives, but are still valid today both in the public and private space. The
problematics of feminist philosophy, ideology and research is closely linked today with
those of “gender studies”, concentrating – beyond the problems and ideologies of
discrimination – on the emphasis of differences in perceiving the world and its problems
depending on gender characteristics. Which only enrich of course our specific human
possibilities of being.
The book of Ancuţa-Lăcrămioara Chiş exemplarily illustrates all these, all the
more profoundly as her research is in fact, with regard to its essence and genre, an
authentic investigation of applied philosophy. However, since the term of “applied
philosophy” tends to become these days a commonplace even in the “specialized”
literature, and with it, a sort of usual and yet unproblematic intention, it would do no
harm to dwell a little on it with more emphasis and outline.
In my concept and experience, such an investigation of applied philosophy1
must generally satisfy certain fundamental and organic “conditions”, not at all easy to
*
Ancuţa-Lăcrimioara Chiş, O critică a conceptului de discriminare din perspectiva feminismului
(A critique of the concept of discrimination from a feminist perspective) (Cluj-Napoca: Argonaut,
2012), 247 p. ISBN 978-973-109-363-5
1
For details, see also István Király V., Fenomenologia existenţială a secretului – Încercare de
filosofie aplicată (The existential phenomenology of the secret – an attempt of applied
philosophy) (Piteşti–Bucharest–Cluj-Napoca: Editura Paralela ’45, 2001), mainly 9–75.
525
meet. Which, consequently, are also not at all “formal” or external! Therefore their
apparent “enumeration” in what follows also aims at their organic co-pertinence.
Firstly, any research of applied philosophy “must” properly and explicitly be a
thematic one. Not any research that has a “subject” is automatically also “thematic” on
this account! Only that which conquers and acquires its own theme! Explicitly and by
efforts, and also by implication and the explicit existential acceptance of its own
theme. This theme is then always also thematized – again explicitly and articulately –
from the perspective of, and with regard to, both its problematicness and its
emancipatory meanings or horizons of possibilities, just as explicitly undertaken.
These emancipatory horizons and possibilities, once undertaken, must be opened and
outlined by the research itself to a certain extent.
Secondly, any such study “must” be in fact – as it is natural for a serious
enterprise – inter- or even multi-disciplinary. That is to say, the research must bring to
surface and outline-articulate its theme and challenges precisely in the multiplicity and
diversity of disciplines and in the current and historical complexity of its aspects and
connections.
Thirdly and lastly, an applied philosophy research must by all means – and
again, as it is just natural for a serious study – gain, acquire and represent, explicitly and
analytically, sui generis philosophical points of views and interrogations! By which the
investigation ensures meditative possibilities and means with the help of which it
achieves the understanding, interpretation and application of its theme that we, humans,
can only grasp with the help of, and through the exercise of philosophizing in such a
way and on such a level of insight which would indeed respond and correspond to
current, historical and existential challenges by which the theme under discussion
“affects” and burdens us. Both ontologically and existentially-historically.
Therefore these will be the considerations that will guide my presentation and
analysis of the most decisive aspects of the book under scrutiny.
Thematically speaking, the research discusses or more precisely explicitly
thematizes the phenomenon (“concept”) of discrimination, in the first place through a
particularly feminist perspective, which is followed and analyzed in a systematic way.
And also critical and constructive, let me add, on the basis of a clearly formulated,
thematically organic, inherent hypothesis. This hypothesis “… starts from the premise
that philosophical and social approaches are sexist, masking discrimination as gender
norms which prove to be biased, one-sided and limited in what regards the perception of
the woman, the feminine, and the female. The plurality of forms of discrimination is
known too little or at all, and it is denied through the lens of patriarchy which considers
that the discrimination of women is only a past form of prejudice”.1
As a result, the research focuses precisely on the problem of the discrimination
of women. That is, a problem which is ancient and extremely contemporary as well. It
covers and even dominates (in varied and specific forms over different ages) the entire
history of mankind, from the passage of its global organization from gynocracy to
androcracy. That is, from the beginnings of the passage from matriarchy to patriarchy.
But which, in a certain, particular and significant way, “reaches” even to this day. For, as
stated in the book, “Despite numerous changes of mentality and remodelling of the
1
Ancuţa-Lăcrimioara Chiş, O critică a conceptului de discriminare din perspectiva feminismului, 12.
526
concepts regarding the role and status of women in the family and society in the last two
hundred years, the discrimination of women persists, and its forms evolve in parallel
with social and cultural changes”.1
The research exposes and analyzes the historical and current situation at its
main and decisive periods, moments, tendencies and elements, both from historical and
historiographic perspectives, as well as sociological, economical, political, juridical,
anthropological (e.g. feminine death), psychological, psycho-social ones, etc. But also
from mental, cultural and even “spiritual” perspectives. So, in an emphatically and
explicitly multi- and interdisciplinary approach.
These analyses finally lead – at a sui generis philosophical level – to the
following fundamental thesis: “…there are no ontological or axiological foundations for
the discrimination of women, the patriarchy is an artificial historical construct, which
accordingly has a beginning and an end.”2 Since serious Introductions are written in fact
when the work is finished, this fundamental thesis is formulated already at the
beginning of the book.
The textual analyses are based on a constant endeavour for critical examination
and clarification of the concepts used. In addition, they are also done so that these analyses
and clarifications do not appear as simple external methodological “manners” or
“exigencies”, but participate organically and inherently in the unfolding and articulation of
the investigation. Nothing illustrates or argues more for this claim than the very fact that,
although the meditation is claimed with explicit clarity to be run “from a feminist
perspective”, it does not simply or mechanically line up with, or get inserted into, one of
the already “given” “types” of feminism, but, on the contrary, it feels the need of an
interior reflection of its own and an explicit critical analysis of feminism itself.
And this reflexive and critical-constructive consciousness – the consciousness
that I consider, with Lucian Blaga’s expression, a sui generis “philosophical
consciousness” as it drives towards the articulation and opening of everything that Blaga
calles “the horizon of problems” – gives birth, in the work analyzed here, to an
extremely detailed and sophisticated insight into the (historical, ideological,
methodological, etc.) variations of feminism as an ideology, a philosophy and even as
politics, attitude and mentality. This insight, based on criteria general at the start, but
getting more sophisticated and detailed as the analysis unfolds, results in an essential and
personal typology of feminisms.
With a similarly explicit and sui generis philosophical approach, the work also
presents the decisive periods of the history of philosophy. This illustrates with clarity
and argumentation that philosophy – so precisely that which has called and understood
itself as the “love and friendship of wisdom” for thousands of years – was, throughout
its entire history, one of the forms and modalities of imposing, and also justifying and
legitimating the historical and existential discriminations against women.
The textual analyses do not avoid the ancient mythological forms and
modalities of discriminations which penetrated into written culture and perpetuated by
the works of Hesiod and Homer, nor those which were later systematized and fixed by
religions and theologies which, becoming official, dominated (for millennia!) not only
1
2
Ibid., 7.
Ibid., 14.
527
as justifications for the discriminatory practices against women, but even as initiators of
such practices, diversifying and deepening them.
Therefore I consider it a mental, philosophical and existential merit of the book
that the author undertakes, perhaps somewhat even “against” her education and personal
background, a lucid, critical and responsible analysis of the history of the Christian West
which we still inhabit today.
This aspect also belongs, essentially and authentically, to the sui generis
philosophical nature of the research. In the first place, I think of the process of
emancipation and a properly emancipatory result which – most certainly – happened
to the researcher herself in the course of her work. At the same time, I wish to underline
that philosophy is always, authentically, not only a cognitive or epistemological etc.
advancement and insight into a certain subject that we repeatedly confront in its present
and current existential challenges, but also the philosophizer’s work over his/her own
existence. Which thus opens up new horizons and possibilities of being.
Of course, this is not merely about new possibilities of being “only” for women,
but for our entire mankind. Which, as a species, is characterized by an ontological
difference of gender. That is, “female/feminine” and “male/masculine”. But it is a
specifically “human” possibility and characteristic to turn this inherent difference into
discrimination. It is therefore the particular possibility of us humans to restrict the
authenticity of our possibilities! Through prejudices, false and ignorant judgments,
myths and traditions. Traditions that we are rarely willing to deconstruct and reconstruct
in an overtly hermeneutical, existential and ontological way.
The book that we are now speaking about invites to this, or rather does precisely
this. It is therefore an excellent source and exercise of meditation for any of us,
becoming day by day ever more inevitable. For, indeed: “The philosophical discussion
of the concept of discrimination is necessary by comparison with the classic [patriarchal]
categories in order to underline the specificity of this concept from the perspective of
feminism, its status of abstract entity, as well as its relation to social-political realities.”1
This does not only mean the critique and deconstruction of the patriarchal system, but
also the critique of various types of feminist theories and intentions, emphasizing their
exaggerations and ideological deficiencies, concentrating on the critical analysis of the
concept of “discrimination”. Wherefrom derives the fundamental truth that:
“discrimination is not an empirical notion, but a system of items, produced or imposed
in specific social, cultural, political and economical situations; the concept of
discrimination is the result of autonomous empirical data; discrimination has an
extensive side (used in public) and an individual one (connected to personal attitudes
and experiences); the concept of discrimination can exist even if it is not formulated
scientifically, by the simple observation of the differences between the sexes,
transformed into deficiencies or qualities based on subjective criteria of eligibility; the
notion of discrimination had an evolutional character, as women’s subordination had
been understood differently in various times.”2 And which, instead of being some kind
of stupid war between the sexes, should rather be an attempt to a responsible acceptance
of a difficult, but inevitable and intelligent fight against the discrimination of women.
1
2
Ibid., 7.
Ibid., 20.
528
Therefore, the author’s analyses reach to the detailed investigation of various
types of feminisms – resulting, as I have said, in a personal, comprehensive and critical
typology of these – made up on the basis of the extremely strong criterion of the type of
discrimination revealed by various orientations or trends.
To conclude, all these qualities make the reading of the volume now reviewed a
true and authentic philosophical experience: not only of “thinking” and “meditation”,
but an emancipatory existential experience for each and every one of us. Regardless of
“sex” or “gender”.
Translated by Emese Czintos
The Spirit of Geometry
– Review –
Adriana STAN
Keywords: mathematics, paradigm, creativity, interdisciplinarity, essential ideas
*
Bogdan Suceavă is well-known to the Romanian literary public
especially for several acclaimed novels (Venea din timpul diez, Miruna, o poveste,
Vincent nemuritorul, Noaptea când cineva a murit pentru tine1) which established him
as one of the household names of the 2000s’ new wave of Romanian fiction. An acute
observer of Romanian cultural realities, from a vantage point that might be due to his
geographical distance, the author has also been, within the last decade, a constant
presence in local cultural journals. However, both culturally and professionally, Bogdan
Suceavă enjoys a double-faceted status whose imprint and consequences bear upon his
perspective, opinions and style of writing. Because not only has the author lived the
experience of two very different cultures – the Romanian and the North-American one –
but he also is accomplished in two fields the common view usually regards as perfectly
separate: literature and mathematics. Anyway, the current professor of geometry at
California State University, Fullerton faces neither complexes nor limitations from his
dual formation and (somehow) intermediary positioning: on the contrary, he has been
able to turn them into the premises of an integrate vision and a complex dialogue of
domains. It is a feat that his 2013 volume, Memorii din biblioteca ideală (Memoirs from
an Ideal Library)2, fully succeeds in achieving.
His recently published essays resort in varying but always compelling degrees to
the history of ideas on configuring an intellectual autobiography which constantly
1
Coming from an Off-Key Time, trans. Alistair Ian Blyth (Northwestern University Press, 2011);
Miruna, a Tale; Vincent the Immortal; The Night Someone Died for You.
2
Bogdan Suceavă, Memorii din biblioteca ideală (Memoirs from an Ideal Library) (Iaşi: Polirom,
2013), 224 pp. ISBN print: 978-973-46-3442-2; ISBN eBook: 978-973-46-3649-5.
529
touches upon larger problems concerning the dynamics of creativity, the formation of
the individual and the circulation of ideas, the shift of paradigms and the formative role
of culture. Bogdan Suceavă recalls several personal experiences that shaped his
scientific identity and describes people and books that influenced him over the years,
from the Romanian childhood and youth years to the American maturity years. In short,
he tries to explain – or, better said, to comprehend – how mathematics, and geometry in
particular, have become, in all senses of the term, a part of his life. However his
sometimes inherently nostalgic look back is neither overtly sentimental nor selfcentered, as the essayist does more than merely dissect the fabric of his own formation.
In fact, through personal example, Bogdan Suceavă reflects upon the wider topic of
intellectual formation, as related to a given cultural context with its corresponding
system of ideas but also to the role of individual innovation within that context.
Consequently, there are several generic questions circulating, like a dense thematic
thread, through the essayist’s particular confessions. What is, beyond its technical
applicability, the relevance of mathematics as a “profound science” and an “ethical
model”? What (spiritual, not only practical) skills does learning of geometry enhance in
school and university students? How does a scientific discipline emerge, evolve, connect
with real life and eventually fade out? How do scientific ideas arise and to what extent
do the individuals’ “revelatory experiences” trigger them? In all such topics, the author
approaches the domain of mathematics from both sides: in its advanced research
potentialities as well as in its mass education valences.
Anyway, Bogdan Suceavă’s dilemmas and meditations gather around two basic
standpoints. One is his firm belief in the human, almost affective, irradiance of ideas.
The professor of geometry, and the passionate historian of mathematics, has learned that
even the most abstract of mathematical ideas are deeply embedded in personal
experiences; they are often shaped by people’s sudden intuitions, fostered by their
particular obsessions and creativity (as was the case with Meusnier or Sophie Germain);
on the other hand, it is often ideas themselves that shape people, by training their rational
thinking, their logical faculties and even moulding their ontological views. Therefore,
more than purely technical implications, mathematical science has a certain humanist
relevance: it enables scientific progress, but also shapes ways of thinking and
perceiving. No wonder then that Bogdan Suceavă argues for a more efficient integration
of geometry as core discipline within the education system and discusses the adequacy
of present curricula to the practical needs of contemporary students in the view of their
upcoming professions. The author emphasizes in this respect the importance of
foundational mathematics as compared to its analytical variants: even on the freshest of
minds, for example, foundational geometry can act as a catalyst of intelligence, of
logical perception and of our discerning faculties. But he also hints at a deeper meaning
of mathematical education in helping people cope with the chaos of contemporary life
by restoring a lost sense of clarity and order: “Mathematicians are meant to re-balance
reality after politicians, administrators, religious figures and advertisers have spread their
lies. (…) One of the oldest dreams of mankind has been to live in a world where things
should be as clear as within a perfect axiomatic system”. In such manner, the essayist’s
meliorist approach acquires enthusiastic ethical overtones. He argues for the underlying
values of science and describes mathematics as a sort of corrective to our world-views.
In the context of the Romanian culture which has been, especially in the post-war
530
period, mainly literary-focused, such a pro-domo pleading appears as refreshingly
original, so the more as it is given by a hybrid personality (a mathematician-writer) in
support of a domain whose relevance our rather confined culture has not yet considered
to its full consequences.
As a matter of fact – and here lies the other basic standpoint of the essays
discussed –Bogdan Suceavă asserts a holistic intellectual point of view advocating for
the existence of deep connections between disciplines and domains of knowledge.
However, his arguments in this respect don’t necessarily come in the fashion of the
official interdisciplinary discourse, for several decades now a bona fide trend of Western
education, but rather ensue naturally from the author’s assumed double-fold experience.
Because by finding expression in two distinct medias (through figures and through
words), Bogdan Suceavă has come to understand on his own that scientific and artistic
domains can resort, beyond their many surface discrepancies, to shared underlying
principles, to shared stances towards reality. In his opinion, “our vision is not whole if
we only focus on literature or if we only deal with one of the exact sciences. A rounded
path should encompass depths from both territories”. The idea of a “rounded”
perspective or a “rounded version of reality” appears almost rhythmically along the
essays discussed.
Indeed, despite its austere and self-referential aspect, mathematics is endowed
with attributes of generality and depth which make it a privileged domain whence to
imagine intellectual connections. After all, the fact of being constructed on a limited set
of axioms is more obvious in the case of mathematics than of other domains. Literature
is also built on certain axioms, yet they are usually buried under dense strata of poetic or
fictional matter. Mathematics, on the contrary, provides the very “exercise of
essentialisation, an art of precision, of retreat towards the ultimate principles of matter”.
However, both mathematics and literature attempt to tell the essential and reach “the
truth hidden beyond the cosmetics of reality, beyond the lies we tend to believe or
follow”. Just like literature reveals in all its greatness when it reaches, no matter how
fugitively, the essential, so does geometry become most interesting “in the parts of
theory where there are only few principles left and where the scale of possible universes
can lean in any side”.
Actually, in the Romanian cultural history, literature and mathematics came
closest in the inter-war work of Ion Barbu, a great innovator both in the field of
geometry and of Modernist poetry. As expected, Bogdan Suceavă finds here an
excellent terrain to investigate the extent and consequences of such a common stem of
knowledge. Two of the best essays of the book analyze Ion Barbu’s poetics in relation to
his mathematical research, but also to the scientific paradigm dominant in the third
decade of the 20th century. The essayist first points out the fact that scientific and artistic
ideas circulated more tightly knit during the period, before domains acquired stricter
confines and types of knowledge became more specialized. The author is thus able to
reveal the literary consequences exerted by certain previous revolutions from the field of
geometry upon the Modernist Romanian poetry. The most famous literary volume of
Ion Barbu (Joc secund/ Secondary Game), a leading figure of Romanian Modernism,
was elaborated under the strong influence of the mathematical system of ideas (Felix
Klein's Erlangen's Program) the poet was familiar with and innovated within, as a
researcher himself. Literary criticism generally considered Barbu’s intricate poems, with
531
their twisted syntax, abstruse metaphors and un-referential words an extreme case of
hermeticism and self-sufficient language typical of the High Modernism. On the
contrary, by reading them against the background of a specific mathematical paradigm,
Bogdan Suceavă proves that Barbu’s poems are not merely hermetic, but have a precise
substance and content, as they describe “an ideal axiomatic of the entire world”. These
subtle, grounded observations are no less than revelatory to Romanian literary history.
All in all, they illustrate by a perfect example several theses Suceavă has been dwelling
on all along the current essays: the creative side intrinsic to the scientific drive, the deep
structural communication of domains, the irradiating force of mathematics and the
possibility to assume it as a lived experience.
Written in the free style of remembrance and interrogation, Bogdan Suceavă’s
essays complete the profile of a complex intellectual figure and provide substantial
topics of reflection. They deal symbiotically with the thematic of geometry and
literature, both of which the author loves in full awareness. It is his pragmatic, albeit
passionate approach that succeeds in persuading us that things look clearer, and closer to
a “fuller version of reality”, when we regard them from outside common confines of
domains.
O telenovelă socialistă (A Socialist Soap Opera)
– Review –
Andrei SIMUŢ
Babes-Bolyai University
Keywords: autofictional Bildungsroman, personal history, parody of propaganda,
Communist regime
*
Those who have already read Doru Pop’s previous books will be surprised after
reading his latest accomplishment, O telenovelă socialistă (A Socialist Soap Opera) an
autofictional romance which unfolds during the last two decades of Ceauşescu‘s regime.
Doru Pop is currently associated professor at the Faculty of Theatre and Television,
UBB, and his books have covered a quite diverse list of topics and academic fields:
theories of the mass media and its phenomena, ideologies and political discourses (Mass
Media şi democraţia [Mass media and democracy], 2002; Mass media şi politica [Mass
media and politics] 1999), the philosophy of the visual perception and the history of its
theories (Ochiul şi corpul. Modern şi postmodern in filosofia culturii vizuale [The eye
and the body. Modernism and postmodernism in the philosophy of visual culture],

Doru Pop, O telenovelă socialistă (A socialist soap-opera) (Bucharest: Cartea Românească,
2013), 238 p, ISBN 978-973-23-3000-5
532
2005). He has also investigated in his articles the Romanian New Cinema of the postcommunist years and has published a satirical but accurate diagnosis on Romanian
political leaders, and their representations in mass media (Alegerile naibii. Fals tratat
despre metehnele imaginarului politic autohton [Elections like hell. A false treatise
about the defects of the Romanian political imaginary], 2007). We could have well
anticipated another book on ideologies and political messages, not an autobiographical
Bildungsroman written in the first-person narrative, which also fulfils the initial
expectation: A Socialist Soap Opera is, among many other things, an anatomy of the
discourses from the Communist era, from the public sphere to the private, from its
altered, ideologized fairy tales to the political jokes. It is also a parody of propaganda
and an account of its intrusions in all the aspects of everyday life.
Those familiar with the latest Romanian autofictional accounts focused on the
last years of the Communist era written by authors belonging to the same generation
could expect certain nostalgia in Telenovelă socialistă, a playful and ironic nostalgia
which was counterpoised by these young authors to the official condemnation of the
Communist regime. However, Doru Pop’s style tends to submerge the inevitable
nostalgic tone into a more sombre and often sarcastic prose, which renders a bleak
atmosphere, in spite of the comedy played on the surface, the comedy of the self. In this
respect, it is useful to note that the book opens with two dark assumptions on death. The
narrator places his confession under the imminence of death, as he realizes at a funeral a
strange coincidence: all his male relatives, including his father, died when they reached
their forties. The first chapter offers another important dimension of the plot of this
Bildungsroman: the narrator’s quest for his father, struck by a mysterious and premature
death, an episode which is mentioned several times, but never fully described. The
minute account of this essential scene is missing as the traumatic event escapes the
direct visualization and it is postponed several times during the narration. The narrated
time revolves around the year 1975, the year of this crucial event which also has the
function to structure the entire web of memories.
To write an autobiographical novel is a risky and difficult endeavour, mainly
because of the subject matter, which is difficult to be put in a structured narration. The
complex labyrinth of remembrances tends to dissolve the narration and fragment it. In
the absence of powerful characters and events, the narration becomes an exploratory
essay on various topics regarding the archaeology of Communism. Doru Pop brilliantly
surpasses this centripetal impulse of the autobiographical and the essayistic drive
towards reconstructing a long lost era, skipping swiftly through various types of
discourses, changing the tone and rendering the characters through their words: the
stepfather is present with a short anthology of his favourite expressions (“Dicţionar de
tată vitreg”/ “Dictionary of a stepfather”) and Rebeleş, another memorable character,
offers a comic counterpart to the main plot with his interludes, sayings, and re-told fairy
tales (“Interludiu de basm: Povestea lui Făt-Frumos”; “Scrisoarea lui Făt-Frumos către
Harap-Alb”).
Doru Pop manages to enact the analogy between the personal history and the
history of communism. Its downfall is gradually dramatized in the discourse, and this
becomes very clear in Chapter VIII, with a short fragment on hatred (“Cât de dulce
gustul urii”) which functions as a climax both for the structure of the book and for the
personal account of Communism. Since the Stalinist purges, totalitarian regimes have
533
been traditionally linked with rituals of hatred in the history of their representations, but
here Doru Pop offers a unique insight into the archaeology of a lost era, gathering almost
all the characters of his story. The chapter also functions as an amplified metonymy for
everyday life in Communism (and also for the entire book) through its favourite objects
(toys, cigarettes - Carpati, cars - Dacia 1100), customs, food, dreams, images (cartoons Popeye, the sailor man), games, teachers (the teacher of political economy), book
collections.
Doru Pop had to surpass another difficulty, regarding the context of the past
decade, when a long list of autobiographical accounts of the Communist era appeared
and most of them were written by authors belonging to the same generation. Since 2006,
the year of the official condemnation of the communist regime, this phenomenon was
also reflected by the Romanian cinema, especially by the directors belonging to what
was labelled as the “Romanian New Cinema”, from Cătălin Mitulescu’s How I spent the
End of the World (2006) to the collective project, Tales from the Golden Age (2009). A
Socialist Soap Opera stands apart from all these examples: it is a more radical
examination of the past which leaves no room for the saccharine nostalgia; beyond the
obvious talent of the author for comedy there is a more profound meditation on the
passage of time, death and the difficulty of recovering the time lost.
534
PREVIOUS VOLUMES OF PHILOBIBLON
Volume I. Number 1–2 / 1996 134 p. (Culture, Books, Society: Europeanism and
Europeanization; Librarianship: A Changing Profession in a Transitional
Society: Data – Conditions – Possibilities; The Special Collections of the
Library)
Volume II. Number 1 / 1997 136 p. (Culture, Books, Society: Axiological Openings
and Closures; A Changing Profession in a Transitional Society: Data –
Conditions – Possibilities; Varia: The Special Collections of the Library;
Miscellanea)
Volume II. Number 2 / 1997 237 p. (Culture, Books, Society: Existential Dispositions;
A Changing Profession in a Transitional Society: Data – Conditions –
Possibilities; Varia: The Special Collections of the Library; Miscellanea)
Volume III. Number 1–2 / 1998 319 p. (Culture, Books, Society: Dictionaries –
Backgrounds and Horizons; A Changing Profession in a Transitional
Society: Data – Conditions – Possibilities; Varia: The Special Collections of
the Library; Miscellanea)
Volume IV–V–VI–VII. 1999–2002 538 p. (Culture, Books, Society: History and
Memory; A Changing Profession in a Transitional Society: Data –
Conditions – Possibilities; Varia: The Special Collections of the Library;
Miscellanea).
Volume VIII–IX. 2003–2004 573 p. (Culture, Books, Society: Censorship and the
Barriers of Freedom; A Changing Profession in a Transitional Society: Data
– Conditions – Possibilities; Varia: The Special Collections of the Library;
Miscellanea).
Volume X–XI. 2005–2006 603 p. (Culture, Books, Society: Music and Existence;
Librarianship: Hermeneutica Bibliothecaria: Data – Conditions –
Possibilities; The Special Collections of the Library; Miscellanea).
Volume XII. 2007 457 p. (Culture, Books, Society: Adrian Marino and His Horizons;
Volume XIII. 2008 672 p. (Culture, Books, Society: Living and Dying Life;
535
Volume XIV. 2009 602 p. (Culture, Books, Society: The Environment;
Volume XV. 2010 601 p. (Science, Culture, Books, Society: Time, Past, Future,
History; Librarianship: Hermeneutica Bibliothecaria: Data – Conditions –
Volume XVI. Number 1. (January-June) 2011, 1–285 p.; MAN – BOOK –
KNOWLEDGE – SOCIETY, Miscellanea
Volume XVI. Number 2. (July-December) 2011, 286–634 p.; MAN – BOOK –
Volume XVII. Number 1. (January-June) 2012, 1-316 p.; MAN – BOOK –
Volume XVII. Number 2. (July-December) 2012, 317- 634 p.; MAN – BOOK –
Volume XVIII. Number 1. (January-June) 2013, 1-236 p.; MAN – BOOK –
536

PHILOBIBLON

Transcription

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