Modernism: Representations of National Culture

Titu Maiorescu: Against the contemporary direction in Romanian culture

TITU MAIORESCU: AGAINST THE CONTEMPORARY DIRECTION IN ROMANIAN CULTURE Title: În contra direcţiei de astăzi în cultura română (Against the contemporary direction in Romanian culture) Originally published: Convoribiri literare II, no. 19 (1 December 1868), pp. 301–307. Language: Romanian The excerpts used are from Titu Maiorescu, Opere, vol. I (Bucharest: Minerva, 1978), pp. 147–149, 150–154. About the author Titu Maiorescu [1840, Craiova – 1917, Bucharest]: literary critic and politician. His father was a well-known writer and Transylvanian Romanian political activist. In 1851, Maiorescu enrolled in the famous Theresianum Academy in Vienna. In 1854, he began publishing short poems and stories. In 1858, after graduating from the Theresianum, he continued his studies in Berlin and Gießen, where he submitted his doctoral dissertation. In 1861, Maiorescu returned to Romania. In 1863, he was appointed director of the ‘National College’ and professor at the University of Iaşi. In 1864, the literary group Junimea (The youth) was founded and in 1867, one of the most important journals of nineteenth-century Romania, Convorbiri literare (Literary conversations) was established. Although Junimea was not a political organization , its members were involved in politics. Maiorescu would soon become the spiritus rector of Junimea and of the cultural and political current known as Junimism. In 1866, Maiorescu published ‘On the writing of Romanian language,’ in which he proposed the establishment of the phonetic principle in Romanian spelling. His linguistic proposals were adopted in 1880. In 1867, Maiorescu published his first study of literary criticism, ‘Romanian poetry,’ which signaled the formation of a new style of critical analysis of Romanian literature. In 1872, he published ‘The new direction in Romanian prose and poetry,’ in which the critique of ‘Latinism’ of Romanian authors , namely their excess of Latin terminology, was explicitly formulated. After 1870, Maiorescu became more active in politics. Already in 1866, he had turned towards the Conservative Party and its leaders, politicians and literary critics Petre P. Carp (1837–1919) and Vasile Pogor (1833–1906). In 1871, Maiorescu became a member of Parliament. From 1884 to 1909, he taught at the University of Bucharest. In 1913, Maiorescu was the president of the conference that ended the Second Balkan War and led to the Peace of Bucharest. During the First World War, being proGerman , he refused to abandon the capital and stayed in Bucharest during the Ger- 88 THE “CRITICAL TURNS”: SUBVERTING THE ROMANTIC NARRATIVES man occupation. In his position as party leader, minister, prime minister, and political journalist, Maiorescu succeeded in alerting his contemporaries to the malfunction of modern Romanian institutions. His critical observations of Romanian literature and culture have been constantly evoked in all major debates on Romanian national identity since the late nineteenth century. After his death, Maiorescu was recognized as one of the important literary critics of modern Romanian culture, a position which remained unchallenged both during communism and after 1989. Main works: Contra şcoalei Bărnuţiu [Against the Bărnuţiu school] (1868); Direc ţia nouă în poezia şi proza română [The new direction in Romanian prose and poetry] (1872); Critice [Critiques] (1874); Literatura română şi străinătatea [Romanian literature and foreign countries] (1882); Istoria contemporană a României [The contemporary history of Romania] (1895); Discursuri parlamentare, 5 vols. [Parliamentary speeches] (1897–1915). Context The first organized criticism of the direction Romanian society had taken since late eighteenth century came from a group of young men in Iaşi who studied in Western universities, particularly in Austria and Germany. The group named itself Junimea and expressed their opinions in a journal they began publishing in 1867 under the name Convorbiri literare. The social and political philosophy of the group was very much indebted to conservative and evolutionist theories about social change and the gradual course of development (Edmund Burke, H. T. Buckle and Herbert Spencer). At the beginning of its activity, the society organized public lectures in which various foreign and domestic cultural and political ideas were discussed and criticized . The lectures were a great success and soon Junimea became the barometer of the intellectual life of Romania. The founding members of Junimea —with the exception of Titu Maiorescu—came from the aristocratic families of Moldavian society. Theodor Rosseti, for example, was the brother-in-law of Alexandru Cuza, the first prince of the united Danubian Principalities, while Petre Carp and Vasile Pogor were the scions of old boyar families. Junimea would soon attract other famous Romanian intellectuals . Among them, one should mention...