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Literature and the Symbolic Engineering of the European Self

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 February 2009

Monica Spiridon
Monica Spiridon
Affiliation:
University of Bucharest, Romania
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Abstract

My study draws on the construction of a pro-European identity in modern Romania, a process set in motion by two main engines: a political one (the export around 1848 of the Great French Revolution, in a ‘tamed’ version, to Eastern Europe) and a cultural one (the emergence of Paris as the capital-city of European modernism). Born at the periphery of the continent, the Romanian identity project puts on display a series of insightful dimensions: a logic of homogenization, a centripetal pull towards centralization, linguistic standardization and unity, against any centrifugal forces of cultural difference, a top-down dynamics and, finally, an imaginary self-colonizing drive. As illustrated by the Romanian case, the paradigm of European nationalism opened up new ways of linking nation-building to the needs of modern societies and the interests of professional elites.

Information

Type
Focus: European Literature
Information
European Review , Volume 17 , Issue 1 , February 2009 , pp. 149 - 159
Copyright
Copyright © Academia Europaea 2009

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