Biedermeier Cultural Intertextualtty in Transylvania: The Case of Ioan Slavici

BIEDERMEIER CULTURAL INTERTEXTUAUTY IN TRANSYLVANIA: THE CASE OF IOAN SLAVlCI Virgil Nemoianu In this article I will try to delineate a line of thinking about culture and literature in Transylvania and, by extension, in Central and Eastern Europe, that can be ofuse in our critical understanding ofthe past, as well as of the present in this part of the world. My central idea is that in Transylvania (which may serve as a convenient sample for a class with numerous other members in the same part ofthe world: Bohemia for instance, or Galicia, Dalmatia, Slovenia, and many others) we witness over the centuries a superposition or a cohabitation oftwo, three, four, sometimes even more cultural levels differing ethnically, stylistically, socially, historically, linguistically, religiously and in numerous other ways. Over the centuries this multilayered and pluricentered kind of structure led to many conflicts and frictions, some of which are still alive. Nevertheless, there also developed over the centuries powerful unifying and mediating cultural forces that allowed coexistence and an easy commerce among the sectors of the same regional society. In Transylvania and elsewhere, an important force for communication and unity was the cultural experience of the Biedermeier , which different groups underwent equally and which marked them for almost two centuries. The writings ofloan Slavici provide an example of the way in which the Biedermeier cultural tradition could function as a lubricant and a power towards defusing segregation. I will first describe briefly the socio-cultural position ofTransylvania, as I see it, and will then, equally concisely, try to define the Biedermeier or, more specifically, the Biedermeier in Transylvania. An even shorter description of the life and work of loan Slavici will precede an explanation ofthe way in which these processes are absorbed aesthetically and channelled by Slavici. First, a few words about Transylvania. This province of modern Romania has undergone dramatic changée over the centuries, but its agitated history is—over long stretches—imperfectly known. We do know that in the centuries preceding A.D. 1 it was inhabited by the Dacians, a family ofthe Thracians, and it was thereafter for almost two hundred years part ofthe Roman empire. We also know with certainty that around A.D. 1000 it became part of the newly formed Hungarian Kingdom which incorporated several small local principalities already existing on Transylvanien territory at the time. It is equally certain that at least by 1600 the Romanian population constituted the numerical majority there, while the political and cultural hegemony was held until close to World War I by the Hungarian population. The main points of dispute are: (a) whether there was continuous Daco-Roman inhabitancy from A.D. 275 to A.D. 1000; and (b) whether the Romanian demographical preponderance in Transylvania predated 1600. I am inclined to answer "yes" to both questions, but I doubt whether we will ever know this for certain. In any case, these points are peripheral to my argument. 62 THE COMPARATIST My central observation is different, and it would be hard to contradict. The East Central European area in general, and specifically Transylvania, are characterized by a (largely) peaceful coexistence of different cultures inside limited areas, until the nineteenth century. One example would be northernTransylvania, an area known as Maramures or Marmarosz. There, in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries for example, the feudal culture of the Hungarians, the peasant culture ofthe Romanians (withremarkably original achievements such as the wooden churches), and the inward-looking culture ofthe Jewish community flourished side by side, with little interference or interaction beyond some basic mihtary-adrninistrative-taxation mechanisms. The same situation can be recognized in other parts of Transylvania and at other points as well. Even inside the Magyar-speaking population , the rural Szeklers who settled in Eastern Transylvania were regarded as a separate natío and the emergence ofUnitarianism among them was to have important consequences in the rest ofthe world, but had hardly any echo in other parts of Transylvania, even among the Hungarians. The Protestant (and somewhat patrician) German Saxons ofsouthern Transylvania communicated very little with the rural and Catholic Swabians ofthe Banat (Southwest ofTransylvania) and, until the nineteenth century, did not regard themselves as belonging to the same community...