Constructions and Deconstructions of Cultural Identities in Greater Romania. B. Fundoianu and the Self-Colonizing Metaphor

The article “Constructions and Deconstructions of Cultural Identities in Greater Romania. B. Fundoianu and the Self-Colonizing Metaphor” proposes a general overview of two dominant narratives in cultural identity discourse in Greater Romania: the traditionalist and the modernist one. Even though the proponents of each of the tendencies have a different vision of constitutive elements which Romanian identity consists of their aspirations are similar: they want to define Romania’s place in the changed political system in Europe after World War I. Furthermore, they attempt to answer the following question: what path of evolution should the new-born country follow? However, the article also presents a critical approach to the ideas and myths circulating in intellectual milieus after 1918. Hence, the second part of the study analyzes two essays: “Preface” to Images and Books from France and “Critical Spirit in Romanian Culture,” published by a Romanian Jewish author B. Fundoianu (1898–1944). Through his texts, the young essayist builds a counter-narrative which exposes the danger of blind search for national specificity and encourages Romanian intellectuals to use the “critical spirit” as the main tool in the processes of modernization. Denominating Romania “a French cultural colony,” Fundoianu draws attention to the dilemmas discussed in the article through the prism of the category of “self-colonization,” introduced to the discourse about Central and South-Eastern Europe by the contemporary Bulgarian historian Alexander Kiossev.