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Quaderni 2004
p. 301
Marian Ghiţă,
“Dunărea
de Jos” University of Galaţi
The Western ideas represented the essential factor in generating
Romanians’ moral elevation in order to escape from the discreditable situation
of being dominated by foreign powers as well as an important means in building
both a political and a social program. Without these Western ideas, the rising
of the national conscience among Romanians from Transylvania, Wallachia and
Moldavia would have to remain in the previous spiritual lethargy that
characterized Romanians for a long time.
These assertions constituted a common place within the
Romanian historiography until several decades ago, when significant studies
started to revisit the sources and analyze in a new manner the reception
process of the so-called “Western ideas” among the Romanian intellectuals,
especially at the end of the eighteenth century and during the first half of
the next one, i.e. the period of transition of the Romanian intellectual space
from the medieval to the modern culture. The ideological impact of the French
Revolution on this space was one of these issues discussed by the Romanian and
foreign historians and is the core topic of my paper. However, a lot of
interrogations are still rising from the very beginning as it is essential to
discover how important was this impact or, as it was putted, it is necessary to
find out, in a study of this breadth, “what was the real impact within a
society where the traditions and needs were so different from those of the
West”[1].
What were its consequences within the Romanian space? How did Romanians receive
these ideas? What was their function within the political and social struggle
for three decades? These are only a few of the questions that arise when
discussing this issue. However, here I intend only to present several
preliminary considerations regarding the theme proposed for analyzing, as it evidently
requires a greater amount of pages and a more developed analysis, unlikely to
attain in my present study. For the moment, my main concern is to show the way
the Romanian intellectual and political elites approached the so-called “French
revolutionary ideas” within their political writings and the transformations
they projected to occur within Romanians’ collective mentality until the 1821
Romanian Revolution. I will dedicate another study to
p. 302
the
necessary discussion on the program of the 1821 Revolution and its connections
to the Western political and social ideas[2].
In doing these, I use several works written by
Romanian scholars, including David Prodan[3],
Nicolae Iorga[4], Vlad
Georgescu[5],
Alexandru Duţu[6], Nicolae Liu[7],
Paul Cornea[8], Eugen Lovinescu[9],
and Keith Hitchins[10]
on the Romanian political development that occurred in this period. A great
debt I own to the works written and coordinated as well as to the relevant
personal guidance given to me by Alexandru Zub[11],
whose dedication to this issue was and still is particularly inspiring.
In exploring the theme I proposed for this study, I
begin with the way Western ideas were received, namely, the Transylvanian
influence on Moldavia and Wallachia. The main carriers of these ideas were the
Romanian Transylvanian intellectuals who crossed the Carpathians as well as
their works, published or manuscripts, that circulated within the Romanian
space during the period already mentioned.
p. 303
“If there ever was a movement that was meant to strengthen the French
influence within Principalities, that was the Transylvanian School, in spite
its apparent hostility towards the French influence. One may say that this [the
French influence] was the main result of this [the Transylvanian] movement.
Everything remarkable that the Romanian education and literature will have a
generation later will be the product of the double influence, Transylvanian and
French, the second occurring as an effect of the first. The Transylvanians had
shown to Romanians this capital truth, destined to become the mainstream, the
leading idea of their entire nineteenth century civilization, i.e. that they
are not Greeks, nor Russians or Hungarians, but a people having Latin origins”[12].
This is the way Pompiliu Eliade, a Romanian Ph.D. student
in the late nineteenth century France, concluded his work dedicated to the
study of the French influence on the Romanian intellectual space during the
times I discussed here. His reflections on the ultimate role played by
Transylvanian scholars in the process of cultural development of Moldavia and
Wallachia and on the overwhelming influence that France had on the spiritual
evolution of Romania were exaggerated, being transformed by Eliade into a
stereotype, as he noticeably underestimated the local contributions to this
evolution. Moreover, there were many other ways in which the Moldavians and
Wallachians had contact with Western ideas, some of them being presented and
analyzed below.
However, these assertions are true to some extent as,
after receiving these influences, the Romanian Principalities experienced
accelerated intellectual development. Transylvanian scholars contributed to the
revitalization of Romanians’ efforts to ameliorate their late eighteenth and
early nineteenth century internal and international situation. Nonetheless, it
is rather inadequate to analyze this process of reception only on the basis of
the relationship anteriority-causality, as it is optimal to adopt a sceptical
attitude, à la David Hume: “post hoc ergo propter hoc?” Therefore, how
was this Transylvanian intellectual influence possible? How did it occur,
understanding that Moldavian or Wallachian scholars were not as backward as
perceived? Some Western political writings were known by several intellectuals
from the Principalities. Their libraries possessed the most influential Western
European written works and they were aware of the changes that occurred abroad,
especially after
p. 304
the
French Revolution[13].
This process is significant for the way the Romanian intellectual elite
approached the Western ideas, especially French or believed to be “French”[14].
France had for them (as it was the case of other European peoples as well) an
extraordinary power of fascinating prior to the outbreak of the Revolution, a
power that continued to attract them even after radical changes occurred within
Hexagon. Certainly, their attitude towards those changes was not enthusiastic,
but France was still mesmerizing them.
The increasing number of the individual libraries,
especially in the early nineteenth century[15],
as well as the attention paid for the books and journals from abroad enriched
the information received by high social strata Romanians (boyars and clerics,
especially). There were also merchants that had important libraries, as Grigore
Anton Avramie, in Iaşi, the Moldavian capital. In 1821, he had in his library
thirty one books in French[16].
The French works were predominant in the libraries possessed by several
important boyars as Iancu Balş, Iordache Rosetti–Roznovanu’s sons, Sturdza
family[17].
Certainly, the presence of these works does not mean that they were understood
and, consequently, their ideas applied in practice. It was fashionable in those
times to have in your library French books, a reason to be proud for[18].
Though, this was an important step for the Romanian intellectuals, Iordache
Rossetti–Roznovanu being one of them in that period[19].
From the Romanian clerics, a notable example is the bishop Chezarie of Râmnic,
who bought in 1778 “L’Encyclopédie” the notorious corpus being also present in
the libraries of the bishop Iacob Stamate and of the archbishop Filaret[20].
p. 305
Nevertheless, in order to comprehend the influences
that Transylvanians exercised on Romanians across the Carpathians one must first
be aware of the political evolution of the Transylvanians, especially from the
second part of the eighteenth century on. Encouraged by their knowledge and
ideas spread all over Europe concerning natural rights as freedom of
conscience, freedom of choosing, natural equality based rationally on pacts or
contracts that represent the fundaments of the human society, Transylvanian
scholars initiated a political struggle to gain (or regain) their political
rights. This was not an easy task as, though Romanian inhabitants represented
the most numerous people within Transylvanian Principality, they were not
considered a “natio” (“nation” understood in a political sense, of having
political rights)[21].
In spite of their dynamic initiatives in the late eighteenth century, the
opposition to their demands was too strong to be overcome easily.
The Supplex Libellus Valachorum (The Petition of
Romanians’ Demands) from 1791 –written by Romanian scholars that were a part of
the so-called “Transylvanian School” (“Şcoala Ardeleană” in Romanian)– is an
illustrative example in this respect. These Romanian intellectuals were
convinced of the justness of their arguments based on the principles of the
Enlightenment. That the writers of the Supplex Libellus Valachorum were
influenced by the Enlightenment (and especially by die Aufklärung, the moderate
“variant”) is accepted by many within Romanian historiography. Though,
important historians as Nicolae Iorga, David Prodan and Vlad Georgescu as well
as the philosopher Lucian Blaga emphasized the local particularities of the
Enlightenment from Transylvania as a part of the European intellectual and
political movement[22].
According to David Prodan, the new ideas (hence Aufklärung’s perspective) used
by Romanian intellectuals from Transylvania, “favoured everybody’s rights,
liberty, equality, but yet not the privileges” although only through their
elimination be achieved the status of having at least an illusion of the
“equality”[23]. However,
the 1791 Supplex represents a culminating point of a several decade effort made
by the Transylvanian scholars during the eighteenth century in order to gain
the rights and the political liberties of the Romanian nation from
Transylvania. In this respect, a remarkable impulse was the activity of Joseph
II, whose death produced a great sorrow among the Romanians from Transylvania.
The Romanian Petition represents in itself a sort of last homage to the
Emperor, which is seen as:
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“our
most virtuous and magnificent prince Joseph the second, who understood the pure
and simple rights of both the man and the citizen, who have seen with his own
eyes and who completely convinced himself that Romanian nation is the most
numerous and the most helpful in war or peace times from all the nations of the
Principality; therefore, wanting to fulfil his most righteous prince mission in
order to give again the rights to citizens, in order to overcome any mischief
or disruption between the nations, leaving aside all the prejudices of those
that were against it, he often compassionate decided that in the future, being
eliminated completely every unjust discrimination of inequality, the Romanians,
even without having in mind their nationality or religion, to fully enjoy the
same rights and benefices, exactly the other peoples from this Principality
and, therefore, as they have equal obligations in proportion, to acquire equal
rights and benefices as well”[24].
These praiseworthy words dedicated to the Emperor
represents not only evidence that the writers of the Supplex have known the
principles stated by La Déclaration des Droits de l’Homme et du Citoyen, but
also a synthesis of the demands that are included within the entire Petition.
Although it could easily represent a preamble to the Petition, this passage was
“strategically” placed in its middle, in order to put the justness of the
Romanian nation’s demands under the vindication of the enlightened Emperor’s
desires.
Many ideas of Enlightenment’s synthesis-document are
found within the text of Supplex, with the exception of those that are to touch
the social aspect of the French Revolution’s demands, an option that had
understandable reasons. The idea that the social differences that are based
only on the public utility allowed the Supplex’s authors to introduce within
their petition various arguments concerning the number of the population as
well as their participation in the public life. From these premises results the
conclusion that a differentiation must not be operated in Principality’s social
life on the basis of this participation as, “it is known already” Romanians are
the ones that contributed the most to it[25].
Analyzing the problem of the juridical arguments of
the Romanian demands included within the 1791 Petition, a Romanian scholar,
Vladimir Hanga, showed that besides the principles of natural right, civil
society and of some old capitulations, the
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Supplex
was based on “an argument who’s practical juridical value results from
Transylvania’s demographic reality: the right that is conferred by their major
number”[26].
Even if the Romanians from Transylvania had chosen to
follow the path of moderate action[27],
and not a radical one, the way to react was precisely the writing of the
petition. In this respect, they considered that this way of resistance should
be permitted within the spirit of the rights of a nation that, by its number,
surpasses all the others from the Principality. By its seventh article, La
Declaration already stated the “right to resist to oppression” as one of the
“natural and imprescriptibly human” rights.
According to the petitioners, the consideration of the
Romanian nation as being a tolerated one can not be admitted if the principle
of long-standing in Transylvania is taken into account. The fact that several
new articles were introduced within the Aprobatae Constitutiones between 1549
and 1653 is also mentioned by the petitioners as an attack on the Romanian
nation. The reason for arguing against these articles was that they infringed
the rights of man and citizens. Since the laws that stipulate these denigrating
names and these limitations of rights regarding the Romanian nation do not
exist, the action of the “three nations” was both illegal and without
historical foundation. This infringement did not take into account the
agreement that established for Hungarian and Romanian nations to have equal
rights. The violation of this benevolent “pact” concluded by “giving their
right hand” would lead to war and, hence, to a loss of the general happiness.
The Supplex also asserted that the Romanian nation has
equal rights with those possessed by other nations living in the Principality
of Transylvania. This statement is based on several important arguments used
extensively by the petitioners. According to them, as there are no laws that
forbid the manifestation of rights stipulated by the “pact” (the usage of these
rights not being harmful to society) that the Romanians are representing the
most numerous nation (and the oldest one living in Transylvania) and that they
are as well the nation that participates in a greater level to the collective
life (excepting the political one), it is clear that they deserve to be treated
at least as equals to the other nations living within the Principality. These
are the reasons that led them to believe that, if someone analyses
Transylvanian historical, political, social reality, these “other nations”
should be considered as being “admitted” to live within Transylvania and not
the Romanian nation which has at least equal rights to participate to the
political life.
p. 308
As envisioned by the petitioners, the political level
was the most important issue touched within their demands. They knew that the
number of people has the greatest weight in politics, if democracy (especially
the aspect of the rule of majority) was to be accepted as valid for the
Transylvanian society. Consequently, the Romanian nation was on the way to
become, politically, the most powerful and, therefore, even the question of
being equal to the others will be surpassed as the Romanians (and of course
their leaders) would have the leading role within Transylvanian political life[28].
Due to the fact that by creating these additions,
Romanian nation’s participation in Principality’s political life was limited,
the petitioners declared that their equal rights with the other nations from
the Principality were infringed, as until the middle of the seventeenth century
the Romanian nation was indeed a natio. The fifth demand addressed to Leopold
II, the Habsburg emperor, states that “all the inhabitants of the Principality,
without any differentiation concerning their nation or religion, should use and
enjoy the same liberties and benefices and they should have the same duties
according to their powers”. Even if the language and the style of the phrase
used are baroque, the way the ideas stated within the Romanian demands are
formulated shows the Enlightenment framework. The quintessence of the Supplex
was the request “to register again” the Romanian nation as a political nation,
even if this meant Transylvania’s “fundamental transformation” as Vlad
Georgescu underlined. And, as the Romanian historian ironically puts it, “that
was of course understood both by the Emperor and his counsellors when they
rejected it”[29].
However, the Petition remains one of the most
important political writings if not “the most important political act of the
Rumanians in the eighteenth century”[30].
Even if it was not accepted, the Supplex Libellus Valachorum was constructed
using Enlightenment’s intellectual ideas and represented a turning point in
Transylvanian
p. 309
Romanians
political struggle to (re)gain the rights and liberties that they deserved
according to the new intellectual frameworks of late eighteenth century
European society. It suggested that they indeed were citizens of the new world
that was constructed by the political philosophy of the Enlightenment. The
Enlightenment in Transylvania (and especially among the Transylvanian
Romanians) was a curious mélange of natural law, rationalism, and optimism that
were drawn from the West, and nationalism whose origins are found in purely
local conditions. It is not a coincidence, stresses Hitchins, that
“the
first tangible signs of national awakening among the Rumanians manifested
themselves at this time. In the thought of the Enlightenment they discovered
new justification for their claims to equality with their Magyar, Saxon, and
Szekler neighbours. For example, they applied the notion of ‘natural’ civil
equality between individuals to the relationship between whole peoples, and
they accepted wholeheartedly the myth of the social contract as the foundation
of society and as the guarantee of the rights of all those who composed it”[31].
However, Transylvanian Romanian scholars did not
believe that they should attack the feudal system. The explanation for this was
offered by Paul Cornea who argued that “generally, Enlightenment Transylvanian
men are characterized as being reformers and not revolutionaries”[32].
In spite of the method of sending petitions to the
Emperor or that the decision from the Habsburg Empire was not as they expected,
in 1804 another petition was written. As they also did not succeed in
(re)gaining their desired rights and liberties[33],
this method of demanding their rights was abandoned until the fourth decade of
the nineteenth century[34].
Profoundly affected by “political nations’” vexatious attitudes, several
Transylvanian Romanian scholars began an “exodus” from the Romanian
Principalities. This Transylvanian emigration led to the expansion of the
French influence within the Romanian Principalities, especially by “the
awakening of the Latinity sentiment” as Pompiliu Eliade stressed[35].
Nonetheless, within the Romanian space across the Carpathians,
in 1791, a petition possessing “the French spirit” was already written. The
author, Ioan Cantacuzino, gave it to Russian and Austrian diplomats that were
meeting at Siştov, in 1791, during the peace conference that ended the
Russo-Austro-Turkish war. He asked for the elimination of the rajas as well as
the redrawing of the border to the Danube streambed and a declaration of
Romania’s neutrality, under Russian and Austrian protectorate, and the
allowance to have a national army. The argument was simple in this
p. 310
sense:
Romanians form a “nation” and in this regard they can not go back to the status
they had before it. An important demand is that a prince must be elected not
only by the boyars but also by the three estates, “having the memory of the
things that happened at Versailles, in 1789, by the creation of the National
Assembly” as N. Iorga remarked[36].
In spite of all these, nothing concrete was demanded for the lower social
categories, except the idea of liberation from the serfdom. Hence, the
Enlightenment preferred by Cantacuzino was one within the limits of the
existent social and political system, “without touching the feudal
relationships”[37]. In
addition to the Transylvanian petitions, those realized by Moldavians and
Wallachians had little success. With few exceptions, when Russia intervened for
the Principalities (but really in its own interest), the Tsarist Empire as well
as the Austrian brought only disasters for the Romanian Principalities. Hence,
it is not a surprise that the elites changed their mind and began to look
towards Western Europe where Napoleon’s star begun to rise.
In 1802, a project concerning the implementation of
certain “aristocratic-democratic republic” was elaborated. The project that was
attributed by the Romanian historian Emil Vârtosu to a boyar named Dimitrie
Sturdza[38].
This document was studied in great length, as its author argued for a type of
government, based on three estates or powers (“divanuri”) that were supposed to
separate the power between them within this “republic”. The judiciary estate
should, according to the author, judge anyone without differentiation “but it
never could imprison an accused person until his guilt is proven”[39].
The citizen that financially contributed to the wealth of the state can not be
forced to give money “without being assured that this sum is really needed by
the republic”[40]. However,
the egalitarian spirit is missing from the Moldavian and Wallachian petitions
since it formed on the political goals of the elite, as it was the case of the
1804 Moldavian “petty boyars” that redacted a pamphlet in which they pretended
equality in privileges with the great boyars. In spite of these limits, the
great boyars argued that this pamphlet was a reminder of “he French
insubordination’s spirit” provoking “the first
p. 311
political
reaction organized by the state against the influences of the French Revolution
ideas”, as Nicolae Liu emphasized[41].
Another petition in 1807 was addressed to Napoleon
himself (but the author had also in mind to obtain help from all the “European
Christians” for saving the Romanians from “the most frightening slavery” for
rising them to the “rank” of a free and independent nation)[42].
For realizing these aims, a union of Moldavia with Wallachia was required. In
this respect, the Moldavian project even provided two names for the future
state that was supposed to have only one government and sovereignty: “The Great
Wallachia” (a name already modern) or … “Dacia”[43].
Hence, the memories of the glorious ancient periods were still fresh and vivid.
The arguments brought into discussion (that
recommended the union) reveal a visionary person. The author provides many
arguments, as he is concerned in discussing Romanian geography, their similar
laws as well as their identity of language. He argues that there were desirable
a prince with foreign origins (French or Italian), a representative regime, the
elimination of the Russian protectorate and the foundation of state sovereignty
on a formal guarantee of the Great Powers[44].
These suggest his concern about the immediate and the later Romanian
Principalities’ future.
An
essential argument in supporting the assertion that the intellectual
development of Romanians from Moldavia and Wallachia was sustained by
Transylvanian influences is represented by the proposal regarding the
colonization of these two countries with French and Italian citizens. This idea
represents an anamnesis of an historical fact from ancient times, when Dacia,
after being conquered by the Romans, was colonized by them in order to
strengthen the process of administrating the province as well as to support the
Romanization of the conquered Dacians[45].
These ideas and references did not appear without
reason within the Romanian space. Even Parant, the French Vice-consul in Iaşi,
the Moldavian capital, emphasized that French political literature circulated
in that period in Romanian translation. He remarked that “for those few boyars
that are able to think rationally, the French Revolution has some charm; they
love to hear about it; they can not stop approving it partly, or at least to
admire the progresses”[46].
Parant hoped that the study of the “French
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Principles”
already enjoyed by the youths of Hospodar’s Court, will provoke “their useful
influence”[47].
Even the study of the journals that are bought by
Romanian upper social classes provides inspiring revelations concerning the
“French principles”. Besides Mercure de France, there were many other journals
in German, Hungarian and Greek that had an important impact by offering not
only news but also (as it was the case of Magyar Kurir and Efimeris) by
publishing La Déclaration des Droits de l’Homme et du Citoyen and other French
revolutionary constitutional documents[48].
However, after 1807 (and especially after 1812, after
Napoleon’s Russian fiasco), the Romanian petitions focused on a critique of the
Fanariot rulers’ regime, accusing the presence of the foreign elements within
Principalities’ administrative system[49].
According to Vlad Georgescu, the most determined Romanian political writer was
Iordache Rosetti–Roznovanu, whose 1817-1818 reform projects referred to the
exclusion of the Greeks from any office within the Romanian Principalities,
admitting their presence only when it is related to the Fanariot hospodar’s
court. Accompanied by his son, Nicolae, he responded to the Ottoman attempts
for strengthening the authority of the Fanariot hospodars, by writing numerous
petitions in order to obtain the limitation of the ruler’s authority within a
legal framework for stopping the possibility of abuses[50].
The development of Principality Romanians’ critical
conscience and the utilization of the new juridical arguments demonstrate that
the rights and the political liberties that they desired were transformed into
the core of their political writings. This transformation was sustained by the
Romanian Transylvanians that were providing the intellectual tools for doing
all these. In this respect, Nicolae Isar stresses that the source of the Enlightenment ideas that are to be found
within the Romanian Countries has to be searched within the national, social
and political realities from these countries. These realities, Isar believes,
explain the receptivity to the Western ideas. The fact that the ideas of the
political rising of the Romanian people by using culture to achieve this goal –
in a unitary framework – were developed first in Transylvania it is concluding
in this sense. After its appearance, the Transylvanian School constituted a
burning-point of the Enlightenment ideas that were spreading within the other
Romanian provinces as well; the circulation of the Enlightenment ideas within
these provinces it is closely linked to the rising of Romanians’ national
conscience[51].
Discussing the issue of the movements that propagated,
under various forms, the French influence within the Principalities, Pompiliu
Eliade remarked that these influences came from all the four cardinal points.
From the South due to the Fanariot
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Greeks;
from the East – the Tsarist armies that constituted, due to the upper officers,
a real French influence of the Russians[52];
from the West, due to the Revolution men that were making known the old as well
as the new France; from the North, due to the Transylvanian Romanians that, at
the right time, awakened within the Principalities “the Latin origin sentiment”[53].
The revival of this idea came exactly in time as only
in this way the Romanians from the Principalities could oppose Greek culture
and civilization (the Latin) at least equal as far as the intellectual results
were concern. D. Popovici also remarked that within the Ottoman Empire the
Greeks spoke to and in the name of the other subjugated peoples because they
were considered representatives of the Hellenic civilization that conferred to
them a prestige almost “magical”[54].
The idea of having a common origin was reasserted due
to the Transylvanian Romanians and it became fruitful, as in Moldavians and
Wallachians’ point-of-view it had the power to unite all Romanians within the
same state[55]. As E.
Lovinescu stated, “the Latinist movement” inseminated “the science, and even
more, the consciousness of Romanian people’s existence”[56].
However, this process was not realized through
Transylvanians’ simple presence within the Principalities. Their cultural activity
constituted an important impulse to Moldavians and Wallachians’ spiritual
evolution. The efforts of Samuil Micu, Gheorghe Şincai and Petru Maior (“three
knights of the national ideal” as N. Iorga named these representatives of the
“Transylvanian School”[57])
were helpful. Micu wrote Istoria,
lucrurile şi întâmplările românilor (The history and the facts that
happened to Romanians) that circulated in many manuscript-copies, being
published only in 1861 in Bucharest. Another of his works, De origine Daco-Romanorum, circulated as well as the previous one
as a manuscript. In comparison with Micu, Şincai secretly published (starting
with the year 1807) fragments from his impressing Hronica românilor (Romanians’ chronic). His work was published only
in 1853, in Iaşi[58].
An important role “in creating the Romanian credo” is
played by Petru Maior, who was a “censor and a corrector of Buda University’s
typography”[59]. The peak
of his activity as editor and writer is the publication of his work Istorie pentru începutul Românilor în Dachia
(History for the beginning of Romanians in Dacia). It appeared in 1812 in Buda,
and after one year another important work was published, namely Istoria Besearicii Românilor (History of
Romanians’ Church). These works represented,
p. 314
according
to N. Iorga, “a pleading, a defending of rights, as well as that made in the
old petition, but in a real superior way of doing it”. The petition recalled by
Iorga was, certainly, the one from 1791, Supplex Libellus Valachorum[60].
As far as the Transylvanian scholarly works were
concerned, N. Iorga believed that these works, and especially Maior’s History,
were spread within the Romanian Principalities across the Carpathians,
“becoming more and more the fundamental work of people’s rights”[61].
All of these Transylvanian literary and national movements found an immediate
response among Romanian Principalities’ boyars that started to compete with
each other in buying the works that were written by Transylvanian Romanians.
As Pompiliu Eliade remarked,
“From
now on their libraries are constituted from three well defined categories of
books: the French books, that are arranged in a way in which they could be
better seen; the Greek books bought in order to flatter the rulers of the day;
finally, the Romanian books, the ones that were read the most, because they
were written in their own language and they contained more understandable
things”[62].
Along with the fame of the Transylvanian was the reputation
of the schools in the province. As sending their children to Transylvania was a
hard thing to do, the Romanian boyars found a solution by opening schools
within the Romanian Principalities. Only after Moldavian and Wallachian
students finished the general education system in these new schools, they were
considered good enough to be sent to the same schools as the students from the
Blaj School. Another solution, more practical, was to bring within the Romanian
Principalities some Transylvanian professors for those schools that already
existed[63].
This was exactly what it was attempted by Veniamin Costachi, the Moldavian
Mitropolite. The first efforts were made in 1815, but he succeeded in doing
what he planned only in 1820, when several former students of the
“Transylvanian school” intellectuals came to Iaşi. Therefore, the Socola
seminary became a center where the Romanian educational system was implemented[64].
An illustration of the things already mentioned is
Gheorghe Asachi, a Transylvanian intellectual who was sent by his father, Lazăr
Asachi, to Lemberg, Vienna and Rome in order to study and become a scholar. He
proves his special intellectual capacities by gaining a doctoral degree in
philosophy in the first city, by studying engineering in the second, and by
studying astronomy and painting in the third. Being conscious of his duties
that he had to assume the moment he came back to the Romanian intellectual
space, he opened a course of applied mathematics at the Greek Academy in the
Moldavian capital. In this position, Gheorghe Asachi had great pride of
presenting,
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after
five years, the topographic plans made by his students, for whom he also
realized several treaties. He also had in mind to continue the work started by
his father, by initiating a trip to Transylvania to find teachers for Moldavian
schools. He convinced the Transylvanian professors from the Iaşi seminar to
come to the capital of Moldavia in order to support Moldavian Mitropolite’s
efforts[65].
A significant change was made within the Romanian
country from the South of Carpathians by Gheorghe Lazăr, a Transylvanian
professor who crossed the mountains in 1816 to live in Wallachia[66].
As a student, he had the opportunity to be exposed to the French Revolution
ideology and he was taught military engineering while Vienna was occupied by
Napoleon. According to Nicolae Liu, “Lazar was almost forced to leave his natal
region due to the fact that he openly expressed his attachment for the French
Emperor” during his “Cent Jours”[67].
He was also animated by the ideal of creating a Romanian educational system and
his efforts reached realization in its reestablishment by founding “the School
from the Saint Sava Lyceum.” Besides courses in arithmetic, geometry, ethics
and grammar he accorded great importance to a national history course. During
this course, he told stories about the Transylvanian movement, he read from
Moldavian chroniclers as well as from Maior’s History and Şincai’s Chronic. He
became the mentor of an entire generation of scholars, who no longer identified
themselves as Wallachians or Moldavians, but as Romanians. Since 1818, his
school became “the most famous and flourishing from Wallachia until 1821” as
Pompiliu Eliade emphasized[68].
His patriotic lectures were founded on two fruitful
principles: the affirmation of Romanians’ Latin origin and a continuous protest
against foreign domination. These two were enough for him to provide vivid
memories to his students. The words written by the 1848 revolutionary Ion
Heliade Rădulescu are eloquent in this respect: “his cathedra seemed as being a
pulpit; one could even see how his chest was beating. With the hands full in
any occasion, he spread the seeds of the Romanianness and the nationality”[69].
p. 316
Though, for almost a century, the Romanian people
lived separately between “the Cross’ Scylla and the Charybda of the Half-moon”[70].
The idea of Romanian unity was kept in spite of these difficult circumstances
and the national ideal was achieved in 1918 when the Great Romania was finally
created. These thoughts were far away even from hoping at the beginning of the
third decade of the 19th century. The 1821 Romanian Revolution had
to confront difficult international circumstances that influenced its evolution[71].
More, when studying the way it emerged and developed until its dramatic end,
one must also take into account the political, economical and social situation
of both Romanian Principalities, even if revolutionary actions took place
mainly in Wallachia. It is difficult to separate when contextualizing the
political and economic discussion from the social, as there is an evident
mélange between them within society. Nevertheless, the social aspect of the
1821 Romanian Revolution was strongly emphasized, especially by its leader,
Tudor Vladimirescu.
I am not going to analyze
here the 1821 “revolutionary program”. To find how some of the “French
revolutionary ideas” synthesized within “La Declaration”. were received by the
leader of the 1821 Revolution and adapted to the mentality of his program receivers,
hence in relation to their tradition, conceptions or perspectives both on the
Romanian political and social reality and its possible transformation according
to those ideas represents my main concern within a forthcoming study. As
concerning the period already discussed, it is important to emphasize that the
ideological impact of the French Revolution on the Romanian intellectual space
was rather inconsistent, due to the fact that the Romanian intellectual elite
from Transylvania, Moldavia and Wallachia was, in a great measure, the
political, economical and social leading category as well. The Romanian
realities were so different in comparison not only to those from France but
also to the situation from the region. Distinctions existed even between Moldavia
and Wallachia, separated and similar in the same time. The partition appears
evident when comparing the Romanian Principalities to Transylvania, not only in
geopolitical terms but also within the so-called “collective mentality”.
Important disparities are to be traced when analyzing both the needs and
demands existing and expressed within the political writings from the period
(reform projects, petitions or even history works). The
p.
317
French
Revolution was fascinating and revolting in the same time as, for those times
and realities the moderate manner of meliorating their situation was optimal.
Even by appealing to the “good-will” of the Habsburg Emperor or to the Tsar.
And, when their will was affecting Romanian Principalities’ interests, to maintain
the traditional way of prostrating before the still-mighty Sultan. The 1821
Romanian Revolution was not an exception from this rule.
For this material, permission is granted for
electronic copying, distribution in print form for educational purposes and
personal use.
Whether you intend to utilize it in scientific purposes, indicate the
source: either this web address or the Quaderni della Casa Romena 3
(2004) (a cura di Ioan-Aurel Pop e Cristian Luca), Bucarest: Casa Editrice dell’Istituto
Culturale Romeno, 2004
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commercial use.
© Şerban Marin, June 2005,
Bucharest, Romania
Last updated: July 2006
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[1] Alexandru Zub, La
sfârşit de ciclu. Despre impactul Revoluţiei franceze [At the end of the
cycle. On the impact of the French Revolution], Iaşi, 1994, p. 23.
[2] In writing these articles I made use of many of my
assertions already included within my Central European University M. A. in
History Thesis, Influences of the French
Revolution ideas on the program of the 1821 Romanian Revolution, Budapest,
2002, supervised by Professor Lászlo Kontler and Professor Sorin Antohi, to
whom I present here my gratitude.
[3] David Prodan, Supplex
Libellus Valachorum. Din istoria formării naţiunii române [The Petition of
Romanians’ Demands. From the history of constructing the Romanian nation],
Bucharest, 1984.
[4] Nicolae Iorga, Istoria
Românilor [History of Romanians], vol. VIII, Bucharest, 1938.
[5] Vlad Georgescu, Istoria
ideilor politice româneşti [History of the Romanian political ideas],
Munchen, 1987, [infra, Istoria ideilor];
Idem, Ideile politice şi iluminismul în
Principatele Române, 1750-1831 [The political ideas and the Enlightenment
in the Romanian Principalities, 1750-1831], Bucharest, 1972 [infra, Ideile politice].
[6] Alexandru Duţu, Sinteză
şi originalitate în cultura română modernă. 1650-1848 [Synthesis and
originality in the modern Romanian culture. 1650-1848], Bucharest, 1972; Idem, Cultura română în civilizaţia europeană
modernă [The Romanian culture in the modern European civilization],
Bucharest, 1978; Idem, Literatura
comparată şi istoria mentalităţilor [The comparative literature and the
history of mentalities], Bucharest, 1982; Besides many other works written by
the prodigious Romanian historian, see also Idem, Ideea de Europa şi evoluţia conştiinţei europene, [The idea of
Europe and the evolution of the European conscience], Bucharest, 1999, as well
as the work he coordinated Sud-Estul
European în vremea Revoluţiei Franceze [South Eastern Europe in French
Revolution’s times], Bucharest, 1994.
[7] Nicolae Liu, Revoluţia
franceză, moment de răscruce în istoria umanităţii [The French Revolution,
a turning point in humanity’s history], Bucharest, 1994 [infra, Revoluţia
franceză].
[8] Paul Cornea, Originile
romantismului românesc. Spiritul public, mişcarea ideilor şi literatura între
1780-1840 [The origins of the Romanian Romanticism. The public spirit,
movement of ideas and literature between 1780-1840], Bucharest, 1972.
[9] Eugen Lovinescu, Istoria
civilizaţiei române moderne [History of the Romanian modern civilization],
Bucharest, 1972.
[10] Keith Hitchins, Conştiinţă
naţională şi acţiune politică la Românii din Transilvania, 1700-1868 [The national conscience and
political action at Romanians from Transylvania, 1700-1868], Cluj-Napoca, 1987.
For an English version of Hitchins’ research on the Transylvanian intellectual
and political development in this period, see his work on Idem, The Rumanian National Movement in
Transylvania, 1780-1849, Cambridge, 1969.
[11] See Al. Zub, op. cit. and Idem [ed.], La Révolution française et les Roumains,
impact, images, interpretations [The French Revolution and the Romanians],
Iaşi, 1989, [infra, La Révolution].
[12] “Due to this idea, the Romanians will keep from their
relations to other peoples only the French influence mediated by them and they
will get closer and closer to France, from whom they will take all the forms of
civilizations, all the literary, social, political inspirations […] the
characteristically aspect of the French influence in Romania being the Latin
one. This is why France, that was for a moment for the other European peoples
«the Great Nation» always remained for Romanians «our older sister, France»”.
And when Romanians, Wallachian and Moldavians, say these words, they can not
forget those who inspired them, “their Transylvanian brothers”, Pompiliu
Eliade, Influenţa franceză asupra
spiritului public în România. Originile [The French influence on the public
spirit in Romania. The origins], Bucharest, 1982, p. 260.
[13] N. Liu, op. cit., pp. 315-357; see especially
his article, Idem, Cartea şi biblioteca, mijloace de cunoaştere şi de
apropiere în istoria relaţiilor române-franceze [The book and the library,
means to know and to rapprochement within
the history of Romanian-French relations], in “Studii. Revistă de istorie”, 38,
no. 3, 1985 [infra, Cartea şi biblioteca].
[14] On the fascination exercised by the French model in
comparison to the English one, see Robert Mandrou’s L’Europe absolutiste. Raison et raison d’État, 1649-1775, Paris,
1977; fragments from this work were discussed, translated in Romanian and
anthologized by Al. Duţu in Dimensiunea
umană a istoriei. Direcţii în istoria mentalităţilor [History’s human
dimension. Directions within the history of mentalities], Bucharest, 1986], pp.
155-164.
[15] Idem, Coordonate
ale culturii româneşti în secolul XVIII. 1700-1821. [Coordinates of the
Romanian culture in the eighteenth century. 1700-1821], Bucharest, 1968, pp.
8-10.
[16] N. Liu, Cartea şi biblioteca, p. 291.
[17] Ibidem, p. 290.
[18] P. Eliade, op. cit., p. 250.
[19] V. Georgescu, Istoria
ideilor, pp. 187-188.
[20] Emanuel Turczynski, De la Iluminism la Liberalismul timpuriu. Vocile politice şi
revendicările lor în spaţiul românesc [From the Enlightenment to the early
Liberalism. The political voices and their demands within the Romanian space],
translated by Irina Cristescu, Bucharest, 2000, p. 51. Nevertheless, in order
to comprehend the influences that Transylvanians exercised on Romanians across
the Carpathians one must first be aware of the political evolution of the
Transylvanians, especially from the second part of the eighteenth century on.
Encouraged by their knowledge and ideas spread all over Europe concerning
natural rights as freedom of conscience, freedom of choosing, natural equality
based rationally on pacts or contracts that represent the fundaments of the
human society, Transylvanian scholars initiated a political struggle to gain
[or regain] their political rights.
[21] For the medieval significances of the term natio see David Prodan’s considerations
in op. cit., pp. 112-121.
[22] N. Iorga, op. cit.; Lucian Blaga, Gândirea românească în Transilvania în
secolul al XVIII-lea [The Romanian thinking in eighteenth century
Transylvania], Bucharest, 1966; D. Prodan, op. cit.; V. Georgescu, Istoria ideilor and especially Idem, Ideile politice. Foreign scholars
admitted this point-of-view, an illustrative example being Keith Hitchins. He
also stresses the complex process of the adaptation of the Enlightenment ideas
coming from Western and Central Europe that occurred in Transylvania, leading
to the formation of the “Transylvanian School”, see his work The Rumanian National Movement in
Transylvania, pp. 112-134.
[23] D. Prodan, op. cit., p. 365. Hence, Romanian
demands were still following Josefinist notorious adagio “anything for the
people, nothing through the people”.
[24] Ibidem, p. 476. The complete Romanian
translation of the Petition in Ibidem, pp. 468-480.
[25] Because the social message was not included within
the Petition may underestimate “Supplex”‘s importance and arguments. Especially
when the petitioners were speaking about the “number” as being one of the most ardent arguments that was meant to
speak on their behalf. The lack of a social demand made this petition to loose
its validity, as, by number, the most important of the Romanian nation was
constituted from the peasants and not from the nobility and even not from the
bourgeoisie as the Romanian nation in those times was lacking both. Moreover,
the Petition was signed “Your most sacral Highness’, most humble and eternally
faithful subjects, the Clergy, the Nobility, the Military and the Township
Estate of the entire Romanian nation from Transylvania”. Hence, without
including the peasants. Of course, this attitude was influenced by the way the
term natio was understood in that
time.
[26] Vladimir Hanga, Argumentele juridice ale
revendicărilor româneşti din Supplex Libellus Valachorum [The juridical
arguments of the Romanian demands from the Supplex Libellus Valachorum], in
“Studii. Revistă de istorie”, 29, no. 1, 1976, pp. 105-113. In this sense,
Hanga remarked that in this period “the Western ideas according to whom the
national wealth depends on the population number” penetrated in Austrian
Empire. “By stressing the production from agriculture, the Physiocratism
particularly reveals the importance of the workers from agriculture as well as
the role of population’s growth”, Ibidem, pp. 110-111.
[27] Due to Principality’s circumstances that did not
permit a more radical measure.
[28] It is also obvious that they did not intend to say all
these openly as they had to follow
the diplomatic way of dealing with all these very delicate issues. They
stressed the role of law, being concerned to rise mainly
juridical issues. That is why they argued that even those collections of laws,
named “The Approved Constitutions” [“Aprobatae
Constitutiones”] were created without having the participation and the
official acceptance of Romanians. The fact that the Romanian nation did not
have representatives [that were supposed to state its position towards these
“Constitutiones”] rises even the possibility of not admitting them as being
legally created [i. e. without having legitimacy]. They were mentioning this
possibility as it was known that “the law represents the expression of the
general will” and that “all the citizens have the right to bring their
contribution, personal or through their representatives, to the creating
process of the law” [according to La
Declaration’s sixth article]. The reality was different than it should have
been, in Romanians’ opinion. These “Constitutions” were elaborated only by the
“Unio Trium Nationum” without having
the contribution of the Romanian nation’s representatives. Hence, it was very
clear that those articles were introduced on purpose within the collections of
laws, exactly to be “very harmful” to the Romanian nation and to its religion.
However, in spite of many inconsistencies, these collections of laws were
applied within the Principality. These “very harmful things” are quoted within
the Supplex in order to realize both
a better perspective and understanding of the situation as well as to create an
emotional attitude among the readers of the petition.
[29] V. Georgescu, Istoria
ideilor, p. 224.
[30] K. Hitchins, op. cit., p. 119.
[31] Ibidem, pp. 58-59.
[32] P. Cornea, op. cit., p. 472.
[33] Even if this time the petition’s author stressed the
social aspect by including demands concerning the peasants, in comparison with
the 1791 “Supplex” See D. Prodan’s Încă
un Supplex Libellus românesc. 1804 [Another Romanian Supplex Libellus.
1804], Cluj-Napoca, 1970.
[34] D. Prodan, Supplex
Libellus Valachorum, p. 334.
[35] P. Eliade, op. cit., pp. 227-260.
[36] N. Iorga, op. cit., pp. 69-70.
[37] D. Prodan, Supplex
Libellus Valachorum, p. 380.
[38] Emil Vârtosu, Napoleon
Bonaparte şi proiectul unei “Republici aristo-dimocraticeşti” în Moldova, la
1802 [Napoleon Bonaparte and the project of an “Aristocratic-Democratic
Republic” in Moldavia, in 1802], Bucharest, 1947; the document was attributed
to the same Ioan Cantacuzino, who probably wrote it around 1784-1785, by Iuliu
C. Ciubotaru, N. A Ursu, Un proiect românesc de republică din secolul XVIII
[A 18th century Romanian republican project], in “Anuarul
Institutului de Istorie şi Arheologie «A. D. Xenopol»”, XXIV/1, 1987, pp.
181-196; N. Liu generally agrees with this idea, when discussing the project,
in Idem, Revoluţia franceză, pp. 321-322.
[39] I. C. Ciubotaru, N. A. Ursu, op. cit., note
43.
[40] Ibidem; N. Liu also argues that this
constitution project “pursued the replacement of the oriental autocratic
monarchy by a system that had to take into account the mixed principle from L’esprit de lois” as it was desirable an
accomplishment of the separation of powers system. “It referred at one moment
to England’s constitutional system, by tacitly using French constitutional
stipulations” in Idem, Revoluţia franceză, p. 322.
[41] Ibidem, p. 323.
[42] Emil Vârtosu, Napoleon Bonaparte şi dorinţele
moldovenilor la 1807 [Napoleon Bonaparte and the Moldavians’ desires in
1807], in “Studii. Revistă de istorie”, 18, no. 2, 1965, p. 410; the name of
the petition’s author is still debatable, therefore I will not mention it in
the following discussion, as I am mainly interested in analyzing the text per se.
[43] Ibidem, p. 405.
[44] Ibidem, pp. 405-410.
[45] Ibidem, pp. 405-406.
[46] “Il est même a remarquer que la Révolution
Française, pour la petite portion des boyards qui savent raisonner, n’est pas
absolument sans charme; ils aiment que leur en parle; ils ne sauraient
s’empêcher de l’approuver en partie, d’en admirer du moins les
progrès”, quoted in N. Liu, Revoluţia franceză, p. 322.
[47] “Leur douce et bienfaisante influence” quoted in Ibidem.
[48] Ibidem, p. 318.
[49] V. Georgescu,
Istoria ideilor, pp. 187-188.
[50] Idem, Ideile
politice, pp. 108-109.
[51] Nicolae Isar, Aspecte ale mişcării iluministe din
Moldova la începutul secolului al XIX-lea (până la 1821) [Aspects of the
Enlightenment movement from Moldavia in the early nineteenth century (until
1821)], in “Studii. Revistă de istorie”, 22, no. 6, 1969, p. 1127.
[52] Of course with the inherent limits revealed by P.
Eliade, op. cit., pp. 147-158.
[53] Ibidem, p. 227.
[54] D. Popovici, La littératurre roumaine à l’époque des
Lumières [The Romanian literature
in Enlightenment époque], Sibiu, 1945, p. 60.
[55] E. Lovinescu, op. cit., pp. 73-74.
[56] Ibidem.
[57] N. Iorga, quoted in E. Lovinescu, op. cit.,
pp. 73-74.
[58] P. Eliade, op. cit., p. 245.
[59] Ibidem.
[60] N. Iorga, op. cit., pp. 165-171.
[61] Ibidem.
[62] P. Eliade, op. cit., p. 250.
[63] Ibidem, pp. 251-252.
[64] Ibidem, pp. 253-254.
[65] Ibidem.
[66] E. Turczynski considers Asachi and Lazăr as
“petit-bourgeois” that explains their eagerness to learn in order to achieve a
social status, which otherwise it was hard to reach, in Idem, op. cit.,
p. 58.
[67] N. Liu, Revoluţia franceză, p. 327.
[68] P. Eliade, op. cit., pp. 256-257. However, the
accomplishments of the Greek Academies from Iaşi and Bucharest should not be
omitted, as they sustained an education system in the Romanian Principalities
and allowed to many Romanians [so, not only to Greeks] to study there, even if
in Greek. Among these Romanians, many became intellectual personalities in the
early nineteenth century Romanian Principalities. Due to their contribution,
there occurred a replacement of the “Greek” Enlightenment by the Romanian
system of education as well as by the “Romanian” Enlightenment. A useful work
on this issue was written by Ariadna Camariano–Cioran, Academiile domneşti din Bucharest şi Iaşi [The princely academies of Bucharest and Iaşi], Bucharest, 1971,
especially pp. 214-241 and pp. 257-261.
[69] P. Eliade, op. cit., p. 258.
[70] Gheorghe Platon, Conştiinţa naţională românească,
geneză, dezvoltare, orizont european [The Romanian national conscience,
genesis, development and European horizon], in De la constituirea naţiunii la Marea Unire. Studii de istorie modernă
[From nation’s birth to the Great Union. Studies in modern history], vol. I,
Iaşi, 1995, p. 17 [infra, De la
constituirea naţiunii la Marea Unire, vol. I].
[71] The latest works that are discussing the 1821
Romanian Revolution in relation to the international situation in the early
nineteenth century Europe, are those of Dan Berindei, Revoluţia română din 1821 [The Romanian Revolution from 1821],
Bucharest, 1991; Gheorghe D. Iscru, Revoluţia
română din 1821 [The 1821 Romanian Revolution], Bucharest, 1996 and D. Berindei, Diplomaţia românească modernă de la începuturi la proclamarea
independenţei de stat.1821-1877 [The Romanian diplomacy from its beginnings
to the proclamation of state’s independence. 1821-1877], Bucharest, 1995,
especially pp. 7-34; useful information are to be found within Idem [ed.], Istoria Românilor [History of the
Romanians], vol. VII/I, Constituirea
României moderne. 1821-1878 [The building of Modern Romania. 1821-1878],
Bucharest, 2003, pp. 3-15 [infra, Istoria
Românilor, vol. VII/I].