The Shrewd Ecumenicism of the Encyclopaedia of Romania: Biopolitics, Ethnic Cooperativism, and the Peasant State
The thesis of this article is that The Encyclopaedia of Romania was embedded within, as well as helped to define, a large and shifting biopolitical field of human sciences and governmentality. The cognitive interest of this field resided in searching for a template of national subject-making cum citizenship creation. Crucial to this undertaking was the diagnosis of blockages hindering the transformation of the Romanian peasants, seen irrespective of ideological bent as the putative bearers of “nationhood”, into active political subjects, insofar as, like in any nationalist endeavor, said citizen-subjects were preferred over purely autonomous political agents. I substantiate these arguments by focusing on two contributors to the Encyclopaedia, namely the philosopher Constantin Rădulescu-Motru (1868-1957) and the economist Gromoslav Mladenatz (1891-1958).The cross-disciplinary intersection of Rădulescu-Motru’s philosophy of culture with Mladenatz’s cooperativist ideas makes manifest the biopolitical presuppositions of the intellectual and ideological field structuring the Encyclopaedia of Romania.
Keywords: Encyclopaedia of Romania, biopolitics, Constantin Rădulescu-Motru, Gromoslav Mladenatz, cooperativism,
nationalism, citizenship
1. Ion Matei Costinescu, “On Modernity and Nation-Building in the Projects of the Bucharest Sociological School, Revista Transilvania, no. 11-12 (2012), 79-85; Ion Matei Costinescu, “The Nation as Epistemic Regime: On the Bucharest Sociological School, State Consolidation, and Interethnic Relations ”, Sfera Politicii, no. 175(2013), 70-76.
2. Dimitrie Gusti, „O Enciclopedie Românească”, in Dimitrie Gusti, C. Orghidan et al. (eds.), Enciclopedia României, Vol. 1 – Statul, (Bucureşti: Imprimeria Naţională, 1938), VII.
3. See, for example, Keith Hitchins, Rumania, 1866-1947, (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1994); Irina Livezeanu, Cultural Politics in Greater Romania, (Ithaca & London: Cornell University Press, 1995).
4. See Michel Foucault, The Birth of Biopolitics: Lectures at the Collège de France 1978-1979, trans. G. Burchell, (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2008); 1-22; Michel Foucault, “Governmentality”, in G. Burchell, Gordon & P Miller (eds.), The Foucault Effect: Studies in Governmentality, (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1991), 87-104.
5. Constantin Rădulescu-Motru, Cultura Română şi Politicianismul, (Bucureşti: Librăria Socecu, 1904), III. All translations from Romanian are mine.
6. Ibid., III-IV.
7. Ibid., 124.
8. Ibid., 124-125.
9. Madgearu and Manoilescu largely agreed about Romania’s dependent status in what today is the world-system analysis sense of the term. However, they came to have sharply divergent political views. Whereas Madgearu militated for a politically democratic state in which the peasantry as a class would hold political power, Manoilescu regarded the peasantry as a much more heterogeneous social category. Initially, he believed that peasants’ interests would best be served in a conventional democratic state, yet by 1934 he had come around to a much more dirigiste vision. The only way to overcome economic underdevelopment was through the rational organization of the rural economy in large productive units capable of producing surplus, as well as by promoting industrialization though enforced savings. This, he felt, would best be achieved through a corporatist state structure. A most significant aspect of such a mode of organization was the social mission of corporative bodies, since they were meant to inculcate the practical habits of cooperation and imbue the working population with a new sense of social discipline and national solidarity. For an analysis of Madgearu’s and Manoilescu’s economic theories see Joseph Love, Crafting the Third World: Theorizing Underdevelopment on Romania and Brazil, (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1996). A more detailed exposition of their political views can be found in Virgil Madgearu, “Doctrina Ţărănistă”, in Dimitrie Gusti, Nicolae Iorga et al., Doctrinele Partidelor Politice. 19 Prelegeri Publice Organizate De Institutul Social Român, (Bucureşti: Cultura Naţională, 1924), 65-88; Mihail Manoilescu, Filozofia şi Doctrina Corporatistă, (Bucureşti: Tipografia ziarului „Universul”, 1934).
10. Rădulescu-Motru, Românismul. Catehismul Unei Noi Spiritualităţi, (Bucureşti: Fundaţia Pentru Literatură şi Artă „Regele Carol II”, 1936), 14.
11. Ibid., 31-32.
12. Rădulescu-Motru, Ideologia Statului Român, (Bucureşti: Tipografia Bucovina, 1934), 34
13. Ibid., 26-27.
14. Ibid., 28.
15. For more on this topic see Marius Turda, “The Nation as Object: Race, Blood, and Biopolitics in Interwar Romania”, Slavic Review, Vol. 66, no. 3(2008), 413-441.
16. Rădulescu-Motru, „Psihologia Poporului Român”, in Enciclopedia României, Vol. 1. Statul, 162.
17. Sabin Manuilă and D.C. Georgescu, “Populaţia României”, in Enciclopedia României, Vol. 1. Statul, 133-160.
18. Ibid., 161-162.
19. Ibid., 162-163, 166-167.
20. Ibid., 167.
21. Rădulescu-Motru, Ideologia Statului Român, 33.
22. Gromoslav Mladenatz, „Posibilităţile şi Dificultăţile Cooperaţiei în Satele Româneşti”, Sociologie Românească, Anul II, no.2-3 (1937), 108-109.
23. Dimitrie Gusti, Sociologia militans: Spriritul cooperatist şi propaganda pin fapte, apud. Mladenatz, “Posibilităţile şi Dificultăţile Cooperaţiei în Satele Româneşti”, 109.
24. Attila Gábor Hunyadi, “National Economic Self-Organization Models”, in Attila Gábor Hunyadi (ed.), State and Minority in Transylvania. Studies on the History of the Hungarian Community, 1918-1989, trans. M. Caples, (New York: Distributed by Columbia University Press, 2012), 27-30.
25. See Maria Larionescu, „Economia Socială şi Cooperaţia în România. O Perspectivă Socioistorică Comparată”, Revista Calitatea Vieţii, Vol. XXIV, no. 2 (2013), 115-117.
26. Constantin Rădulescu-Motru, Ideologia Statului Român, 33.
27. See Larionescu, “Economia Socială şi Cooperaţia în România”, 120-121; Elena Dragomir, “Development Characteristics of Interwar European Periphery: The Case of Romania and Lithuania’s Agriculture”, Revista Română Pentru Studii Baltice şi Nordice, Vol. 2, no. 1,(2010), 60-62.
28. Gromoslav Mladenatz, „Politica Cooperativă”, in Dimitrie Gusti, C. Orghidan et al. (eds.), Enciclopedia României, Vol. 4. Economia Naţională – Circulaţie, Distribuţie, Consum, (Bucureşti: Imprimeria Naţională, 1943), 631.
29. Dragomir, “Development Characteristics of Interwar European Periphery”, 62.
30. Mladenatz, „Politica Cooperativă”, 631.
31. By way of comparison, the previously discussed essay by Rădulescu-Motru’s comprised only seven pages and even Manuilă’s and Georgescu’s demographic survey did not exceed twenty seven pages.
32. Ion N. Finţescu, „Legislaţia Cooperativă” in Enciclopedia României, Vol. 4 .Economia Naţională – Circulaţie, Distribuţie, Consum, 621-627.
33. Mladenatz, „Politica Cooperativă”, 632.
34. Zoltán Rostás, Strada Latină nr. 8, (Bucureşti: Curtea Veche, 2009), 8.
35. Manoilescu, Filozofia şi Doctrina Corporatistă, 5-6.
