Volume XXIII (2018), no. 1

Contents

Studies

Doru RADOSAV
Abstract

“Ground level” memory as the autobiographical memory that records historical events in a personal manner in the construction of identity and of the multiple self can be a means of attenuating the oversimplifications made by historians and by psychologists in establishing the motivations of the participants in the event. In the context of the cultural history of war from a fundamental perspective, the history of war was reassessed throughout the years as a state of being of a world in which the “civic militancy”, from the Antiquity to the modern era, subsisted or was transmitted by “a history of memory”, by a cultural memory of war understood as a true “pantheon” of the greater history of western civilisation.  The culture of war and of the battles from the viewpoint of the new cultural history, following a fundamental work of A.J. Lynn on the “combat culture”, essentially seems to be not a reconstruction of events, but rather a cultural interpretation of war, its memory and its instrumentalisation. The “ground level” memory of war in its development can be outlined by a polymorphism or by a complex scope that corresponds with the complexity of “first-hand” history. Seen from the “ground level”, besides the polymorphic descriptions and interpretations, war deconstructs a reality and multiplies it from the viewpoint of the timeline of the experience and the timeline of the recount. The moment of the historical fact confronts the moment of the memorable fact, a unique historical moment and a multiple personal moment, a subjective time (biographic time) and an objective time (historical time), a closed, sorted time and an open time, fluctuating between the speakable and the unspeakable  (according to G. Agamben), a definitive time and a reproductive time. The testimonies carry a “cultural memory”, they were created within the cultural horizons of the soldiers, by their worldviews, by the ideas and obsessions of the soldiers as delegates of the socio-cultural environments from which they originated.

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Corina CROITORU
Abstract

Starting from the observation of the canonical periodisation of Romanian literature into antebellum, interbellum, and postbellum, this study aims for a critical recovery of the taboo segment, on bellum poetry, with a focus on Romanian poetry inspired by the First World War among war veteran writers. The goal is to prove that the careful analysis of Romanian war poetry can reveal not only the profile of a minor genre that is meant to record the seismic clash between man and history, but actually trace the path of a major search for language that is capable of expressing the magnitude of such a clash.

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Tóth SZILÁRD
Abstract

In the last years, the research of the history of Ferenc József University of Cluj has seen a new upswing, mainly due to the cooperation between the research groups from the Universities of Szeged and Cluj. The author of this paper is a member of these research groups, who has been commissioned to research the interaction between the University and Cluj in the framework of the monograph of university history to be published in 2021. Given the fact that it is the centenary of World War I, the aim of this study is to analyse the effects of World War I on Cluj and the University as well. The target of the research is exploring and analysing new sources, since the studies on the history of the University dealing with this topic refer almost exclusively to the memories of Sándor Márki, and there are some cases when this source, too, is misinterpreted. At the same time, the so-far published works of the university history hardly ever refer to archival sources. This is mainly due to the fact that the misfortunes of these archival sources (fragments being located in the archives of three different states) made them inaccessible for researchers. The records of the University Council of the University of Cluj and the records of the Faculty of Humanities have been digitalised in cooperation with the University of Szeged, further processing of these may lead to uncovering new information.

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Alexandru PĂCURAR
Abstract

After the unification of Transylvania with Romania, the Ruling Council’s major desiderata included the establishment and organization of Romanian higher education at the University of Superior Dacia in Cluj, as well as starting the first academic year in the autumn of 1919. Among those who answered the call launched by the founding Rector, Professor Sextil Pușcariu, was Dr. Ștefan Jarda, a specialist in legal studies, who served as General Secretary of the Cluj-based University from 1 October 1919 until his untimely death, on 6 March 1927. Born into a historical family from the Năsăud area, with a long “pedagogical” tradition, Ștefan Jarda graduated from the Faculty of Law of Universitas Litterarum Regia Hungarica Francisco-Josephina Kolozsváriensis, becoming its first Secretary General after it was turned into a Romanian university and contributing to laying and strengthening its foundations. His activity was held in very high regard and his untimely death sparked many regrets.

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Zsuzsanna LENGYEL
Abstract

The hermeneutical circle is one of the most fundamental but up to now contentious doctrines  with a long tradition in the history of hermeneutics. In what follows, the purpose of my contribution is to reconsider the Heidegger–Gadamer dialogue on the circle (Zirkel, Zirkelhaftigkeit), with an emphasis on how they shed new light on the whole issue.

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Florian Dumitru SOPORAN
Abstract

The developments which generated the downfall of the unity of Roman Christianity and the building of protestant churches are considered a turning point in the history of civilisation. The historical writing continues to debate on their meanings and consequences, and their dialogues with social sciences and with theology stimulates the genesis of new concepts and theories. The history of the first phases of the Reformation is equally the history of various confessional and political experiences involving the nations and churches from East-Central Europe and their importance for the general dynamics of religious pluralism are illustrated by three issues: the Hussite revolution, the genesis of a strategy regarding the Orthodox communities from Transylvania and the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, and a possible Orthodox Reformation.

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Dana VAIS
Abstract

Catalogues of type projects have been essential to mass housing production in communist Romania. The paper investigates how they evolved during the 1960s and the 1970s, the centralized system of institutions that designed, disseminated and applied them, the research activity that was invested in them, their problematic relationship with prefabrication, the international context that influenced them, and their hierarchizing effect on places and on architects. Researching these catalogues can provide a better understanding of the large housing estates that have shaped Romanian cities since the early 1960s and which define them even today.

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Book reviews

Mircea MARTIN, Christian MORARU, AND Andrei TERIAN (eds.)
Reviewed by
Florina ILIS
Email:
florina.ilis@bcucluj.ro
Abstract