The Making of Modern Romanian Culture
Summary
The feel-good place to buy books
The Making of Modern Romanian Culture by Alex Drace-Francis
This book challenges the notion that Western ideas were essential to Romanian development. It is a fascinating story of how a national culture is born. This book provides a history of the development of literary culture and the printed word in Romania. How do literacy and the development of literary culture promote the development of a national identity? The Making of Modern Romanian Culture examines the development of both a literary tradition and institutions aimed at promoting literacy in Romania in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries - from Romanians under the control of the Austrian Empire in the eighteenth century to revolt in Romania under Tudor Vladimirescu in 1821 to Carol, the first King of Romania, crowned in 1881. Alex Drace-Francis combines analysis of education systems, book production, and the periodical press with case studies of key thinkers such as Mihai Eminescu, Ion Luca Caragiale and Titu Maiorescu to trace Romania's cultural and literary development. He offers a criticism of the idea that the 'penetration of Western ideas' was essential to modernism to place literacy and identity within both a Romanian and a global context.
'An enormously erudite study.. for anyone interested in the origins of modern Romanian literary production and education in the context of the Enlightenment, modernization, and state-formation this is an indispensable book.' - Irina Livezeanu, author of Culture and Politics in Greater Romania, in the Journal of Balkan and Near Eastern Studies; 'Alex Drace-Francis has produced a highly accurate and often outstandingly subtle piece of research. This British scholar observes things that his Romanian colleagues, being too familiar with them, have tended to overlook' - Ovidiu Pecican, Observator cultural; 'Solid and extremely well informed, Alex Drace-Francis's book not only brings together a great mass of information and hypotheses, but also asks important questions about a cultural legacy whose investigation is still plagued by stereotypes.' - Mircea Anghelescu, Romanian review of book history
Alex Drace-Francis is a Research Fellow in the Department of History at the School of Slavonic and East European Studies, University of London.
| SKU | Unavailable |
| ISBN 13 | 9781845110666 |
| ISBN 10 | 1845110668 |
| Title | The Making of Modern Romanian Culture |
| Author | Alex Drace-Francis |
| Series | International Library Of Historical Studies |
| Condition | Unavailable |
| Binding Type | Hardback |
| Publisher | Bloomsbury Publishing PLC |
| Year published | 2005-11-25 |
| Number of pages | 272 |
| Cover note | Book picture is for illustrative purposes only, actual binding, cover or edition may vary. |
| Note | Unavailable |