REVIEW: Zoltán Rostás, Theodora-Eliza Văcărescu, eds. In honorem SANDA GOLOPENȚIA

Abstract

This volume is a surprise-gift offered by the informal research and debate group coordinated by Professor Zoltán Rostás, dedicated to Sanda Golopenția. A prestigious researcher, she is the daughter of the well-known sociologist Anton Golopenția, member of the Bucharest Sociological School. The volume brings together fifty-one studies, pieces of research, archive notes, essays, letters, prose, poems, which the editors have gathered from valued members of the global academic community, with whom Sanda Golopenția has exchanged messages. In this comment I have chosen to focus on several of the diverse interests and passions of Sanda Golopenția (S.G.). She brought significant contributions to linguistics, ethnography, semiotics, theater, sociology, and social history, among others. Among these, I will discuss selected aspects that are highly relevant to the Sociological School of Bucharest and to the activity of her parents, Anton Golopenția and Ștefania Cristescu- Golopenția, as also highlighted by the study authors. This short list includes: 1) A comprehensive profile of Sanda Golopenția’s life and career, which sheds light on the history of the Bucharest Sociological School; 2) “The Epistolary Rhapsody” – a benchmark achievement within the frame of modern historiography; 3) The reconstruction of a major chapter in the history of sociology, serving as a window towards a “total editorial fact”; 4) The project of interventionist sociology, comprised in the student campaigns of the Social Service in Romanian villages, aiming for the emancipation of the peasantry, which was also a strategic component in the national mass-media of that time; 5) Sanda Golopenția’s personality, serving as an inspirational model for young and aspiring intellectuals.