The Interwar Perspective of the School of Cluj on the Sociological School of Bucharest
The sociological school of Bucharest was the pinnacle of interwar Romanian sociology. While on the face of it, the Romanian sociology of the period under discussion was almost entirely identified with monographic sociology, inside its field there were several “schools, groups or trends” advocating irreconcilable theories and unwilling to collaborate. This explains in part the dim impact of D.Gusti’s monographic school on the other Romanian, chiefly academic, centers.
In the case of Cluj, the response of academic sociology to D. Gusti and his sociological school oscillated between almost complete disregard (Virgil I. Bărbat) and critical analysis of sociological monograph in its twofold aspect of theory and method (George Em. Marica), accompanied by E. Sperantia’s rather balanced perspective. The latter valued Gusti’s extensive program of understanding social reality, emphasizing the new elements it contained in relation to the previous trends in sociological research, but also “recorded” the criticism of the method, and concluded that Gusti’s work was “manifold useful socially and nationally”.
In conclusion, we believe that whereas in what concerns his doctrine D. Gusti was perceived differently in various cultural-scientific centers of our country or even within the same center, the impact of his personality and his monographic school on social research in the interwar age was obviously positive.
Keywords: D. Gusti, monographic sociology, interwar sociology in Cluj, sociography, “Societatea de mâine” research group, the group around “Gând Românesc”.