Petre Andrei. Croquis of a political-ideological portrait
In order to sketch a political-ideological portrait of Petre Andrei one needs to analyze both the doctrine of the party to which he belonged and the elements implied by an extended definition of ideology: the philosophical theories, the beliefs and the values embraced by the scholar. In this sketch I shall focus on two traits: the doctrine of the Romanian Peasants’ Party and anti-totalitarianism. The elements of the former are visible both in his parliamentary speeches and in his scientific works. The same is also true in the case of the latter. The defining trait of Petre Andrei’s personality is the coherence specific to people with strong characters. This coherence is identifiable both by comparing his scientific works with his parliamentary speeches and his scientific and speech-related outputs with his political actions
Keywords: anti-totalitarianism, Bolshevism, democratism, fascism, ideology, parliamentary, Petre Andrei, politics, scientific, Peasants’ Party
Petre Andrei. The parliamentary lesson of a national pedagogue
This study focuses on an aspect which is pervasive in the concerns embraced by Petre Andrei in his activity as a member of parliament during the National Peasants’ Party legislature throughout the period 1928-1933: education. During his spell in office, this scholar from Iaşi was not only a deputy in the Inferior Chamber of the Romanian Parliament but also a vice-secretary of state within the Ministry of Public Instruction and Religious Affairs. The scholar’s speeches and interventions as a rapporteur for a series of fundamental laws, in response to the objections of other members of parliament or as chairman of formal meetings, sketch the portrait of a politician who never forgot that, first of all, he was a Teacher. As a matter of fact, Petre Andrei’s work and destiny cannot be properly understood if we ignore what the scholar thought about the role of education and, within this framework, about the mission of universities and university teachers in particular.
Keywords: Petre Andrei, education, university, sociology, pedagogy, Romanian Parliament
Academic sociology in Iaşi from its origins to Petre Andrei
This article argues that Romanian sociology (and particularly that developed in Iaşi) reached an apogee during the first half of the 20th century through Petre Andrei’s works. The principle of antecedents is also true in the case of this sociologist because he was formed and stimulated, at least in the first part of his career, by Professor D. Gusti. Therefore, scientific knowledge does not come at once and entirely but the precursors of a field may be considered pioneers and innovators or providers of cultural capital who prepare and push forward the emergence of great creative personalities. To understand superficially or to neglect and disdain the activity and the contributions of predecessors in the field of sociology means to lose important guidelines and sources which would enrich our knowledge of the personalities who marked the groundwork of this field. In other words, in order to understand as well as possible the scientific and professional outputs of the most famous professor of sociology from Iaşi – Petre Andrei – we should know not only the superlatives of his work but also the things accomplished, in the same fields of analysis, by the most famous of his predecessors.
Keywords: Petre Andrei, academic sociology, Romanian sociology, history of sociology, calitative sociology
Ideological aspects in Petre Andrei’s political sociology
The main intention of this article is to recover a particular way of thinking about politics. It is a way of interpreting political reality situated on the border between philosophy and sociology but which encompasses, in my opinion, a strong ideological resonance. I believe that this resonance is identifiable in the works of Petre Andrei, one of the few sociologists who wrote his thoughts at the beginning of the past century and was immediately acknowledged internationally. More precisely, I believe that one of the fundamental dimensions in Petre Andrei’s works is the one which wagers on the presence of an ideological position. Born in 1891, the Romanian philosopher and sociologist witnessed a series of political events which left a strong mark on the 20th century and my supposition is that this mark is to be found at the level of the ideological interpretation expressed by Andrei in his sociological and political endeavors. Being a personality involved in the spirit of his time, attentive to the evolution of social-political realities, he produced “in real time” – as we would say today – a series of analyses which are now helping us capture the nuances of his social and historical context.
Keywords: Petre Andrei, ideology, interpretative sociology, revolution, fascism, democracy, ideological analysis
Petre Andrei – the integral vision of social reality
This study aims homage to Professor Petre Andrei’s scientific thinking by reaffirming the meanings contained in his sociological work marked by ideea of social integrality. From clarifying the nature of social reality to outlining a epistemology of sociological science and to specifying the principles of sociological scientific method of research, Petre Andrei presents us a scientifical modern, powerful and elegant conception about man and society.
Keywords: Petre Andrei, attributes of social reality, Petre Andei’s integral sociology, sociological epistemology, Petre Andei’s integral sociological method
Petre Andrei and the construction of social capital
In the complex landscape of the reconfiguration of social structures and values in interwar Romania, Petre Andrei gave substance to the democratic movement, disagreeing with the new extremist ideological constructs (Fascism and Bolshevism), which attracted a series of intellectuals and large portions of a population who lacked political culture. In his sociological and philosophical works, Petre Andrei favored the intellectual’s need to get politically and socially involved in order to raise the nation’s spirit, through culture. His intellectual project was not limited to the assertion of democratic and cultural principles but it also encompassed political-administrative action, as a minister of Education, and his actual contribution to the educational toolbox of young people. From this perspective, we believe that Petre Andrei was an exemplary builder of social capital in the 1930s in Romania.
Keywords: intellectuals, social capital, culture, democracy
Elements of the metaphysics of ideal in Petre Andrei
Within the narrow framework of Romanian culture and the all-encompassing framework of European culture Petre Andrei’s name is famous for both the sociology he developed and his contributions in the field of the philosophy of values. However, the theorist is more known as a sociologist and less as a philosopher, although he also gave lectures in this fild. P. Andrei’s philosophical contributions, even if less ample than his other ones, did not lack in axiological relevance or in due acknowledgement. In the preface of the book Filosofia valorii (The Philosophy of Value), D. Gusti wrote in 1945: “unlike most foreign writings, which are insufficient or partial, even today, 27 years after it was written, Petre Andrei’s work is remarkable by the way it presents the issues of value with their systematic connections and all their main forms” (D. Gusti, 1945).
Keywords: ideal, metaphysics, philosophy of value, social level, psychological level, total pesimism, total optimism
Petre Andrei’s plea for a culture of liberty
By its mission, culture should be closely connected with the ideal of a free and creative assertion of the human being. But this request has not always been completely asserted and in the course of history there has been many a situation when people attempted and even succeded, temporarily, to subordinate culture to power agents, to transform it into an instrument used to manipulate and dominante man or to enslave man’s personality. Such a situation emerged in Europe during the interwar period, a period in which the creative personality of the Romanian philosopher and sociologist Petre Andrei manifested itself most completely.
Keywords: Petre Andrei, critical reason, culture, liberty, University, fascism, totalitarianism
The relationships between politics and morality in Petre Andrei’s view
The relationship between morality and politics, due to its status as an ancient but still pressing problem of the history of social thought has been approached in different ways. The present paper highlights the way this relationship is seen by theRomanian savant Petre Andrei. We explore the main directions in the study of the connection between the two concepts, as they are presented by Petre Andrei and also his thoughts on how to find a middle-ground between the theoretical approaches. The first point of view that we present takes politics and moral norms and puts them on the same level; sometimes it even subordinates politics to morality. The second perspective considers that politics overruns morality. As Machiavelli preaches, the morality of the leader, of the state is different than the common morality. And we have a “third way”, that of an irreducible opposition of the two concepts. The Romanian sociologist and philosopher analyses the possibility of reconciliation of the apparently opposed views on the relationship between morality and politics, by finding a common ground,that the political leaders must embrace in order to avoid the dangerous crisis of morality.
Keywords: politics, morality, political morality, moral law, political interest, political leaders, state reason.
The principle of administrative decentralisation according to Petre Andrei
Petre Andrei is an interwar personality who is famous for his contribution to the development of social sciences in Romania (founder of the system of sociological sciences) and for his activities within the department of sociology of the University of Iaşi and less known for his political activities. On the scene of politics he activated under the flag of the National Peasants’ Party. As a sub-secretary of state within various ministries or as the minister of education he was acknowledged for his competence, for the seriousness with which he approached his work and for the courage to express his opinions openly. An example of this is the presentation he made in July 1929 regarding the proposed new law on the organisation of government according to the principle of decentralisation. Increasing the autonomy of local communities was a measure much needed by the Romanian society, which suffered from the negative effects of centralism that materialised in “indiscriminate favouritism”, the substitution of competence with complacency and the “complete sacrificing” of general interest in favour of personal gain. The speeches he gave in Parliament and in various electoral meetings, his open stands against abuse, regardless of the form it could have taken, are a measure of his involvement in the affairs of the city. The sudden end of his political career shows that his personality was an inconvenience for the Romanian far-Right during the interwar period.
Keywords: Petre Andrei, sociology, politician, National Peasants’ Party, the principle of administrative decentralisation
Petre Andrei: antifascism as individual value
One of the most important Romanian sociologist and social thinker, Petre Andrei, wrote in 1927, an outstanding study about fascism. Few years before the expansion period of Fascism, Nazism or Legionarism, Petre Andrei understood the great negative impact that a doctrine like fascism can have on people’s belief if the social context (e.g. post-war crisis period) allows to a dictatorial regime to gain the political power. The great virtue of this study is the systematic approach of origins, developing factors and possible consequences of a social movement that became a party only because the context was favourable. Nationalism, mesianism, imperialism, clericalism, anti-democratic and anti-parliamentarist ideas were reason for Petre Andrei to infer that fascism, like any other dictatorship, will generate bad consequences for its partisans. The history proves he was right. This article tries to demonstrate that “Fascism”, beyond demonstrating that Professor Petre Andrei was a great intellectual and sociologist, proves he had a profound democratic and progressist mentality that made him to have an anti-totalitarist and antifascist attitude in his life and activity. That’s why we consider antifascism was for Petre Andrei an individual life value not just an intellectual position.
Keywords: antifascism, totalitarian political doctrines, interbelic sociologist, Petre Andrei.
Petre Andrei and the public accountability of the intellectual in modern Romanian society
In order to identify several characteristic aspects of the way the intellectuals got involved into modernizing Romanian society, this paper aims at presenting the profile of an intellectual from Iaşi who belonged to the academic environment and who lived during the interwar period. He was politically and publicly involved, characteristics that bring into discussion the complexity of his controversial relation between an intellectual and politics. This approach requires rethinking the meaning of the term intellectual. If Petre Andrei is seen in the context of political pathologies and sideslips of the interwar period, he represents an alternative intellectual model for all those who justified, directly or indirectly, the proliferation of the extremist political thinking and actions. His discourse is rational, democratic and his actions are supported by the values he promoted. His final act, of exerting the supreme individual freedom, even strengthens his way of thinking, and the link between the world of facts and the world of values, the compatibility between politics and morals, all of this justifies us to affirm that Petre Andrei lived and died like a genuine intellectual.
Keywords: romanian political modernity, modernization, intellectual, political rationalism, public accountability.
On education and dysfunctions in contemporary Romanian society. The contemporary nature of Petre Andrei’s vision
Starting from Petre Andrei’s visionary conception, which, in its entirety, referred to a wide array of issues specific to the interwar society, this study focuses on a series of dysfunctions visible in the Romanian society from a perspective which belongs to recent history.
As the themes covered in the scholar’s works are too large to be confined to a few pages, this article concentrates on the analysis of the current Romanian education system and takes as reference Petre Andrei’s ideas.
The contemporary nature of the things he noticed almost a century ago is truly spectacular. Moreover, what he conveyed is particularly useful if we wish to capture the mechanisms which allow the perpetuation of failures. What we attempt to show here is a brief inventory of some of the most harmful dysfunctions while trying to reveal their deep-rooted causes.
Without pretending to produce an all-encompassing analysis of Petre Andrei’s work, we are only making un incursion which would help us to apply the principles he employed in the analysis of society. Beyond the historical perspective, we are particularly interested in the educational field and, specifically, in the Romanian education seen from an axiological standpoint.
Keywords: Petre Andrei, dysfunctions, education, interwar society, contemporary society
