Volume XXVII (2022), no. 1

Contents

Studies

Ioan BOLOVAN, Adina CORNEA
Institution:
Babeș-Bolyai University, Cluj-Napoca. The Romanian Academy, Cluj-Napoca Branch.
Email:
ioanbolovan62@gmail.com, adina.cornea@yahoo.com
Abstract

The goal of the present paper is to show how  both in  the  autumn  of 1918 and before the Union of Transylvania with Romania on 1 December 1918, liberalism and nationalism steered the course of the Romanian nation in Transylvania as it entered the modern era. Romanians had  accumulated democratic experience over several decades, with effective results in managing ecclesiastical, educational, cultural, social and economic  problems. Our attempt   at reconstructing the destiny of the Romanian civil society in the process of laying the democratic foundations of the Union of 1918 has revealed the complex political, economic  and social transformations of the Habsburg monarchy from  the 1848 revolution to the First World War.

Full Text

Ela COSMA
Institution:
The Institute of History “George Barițiu” of the Romanian Academy, Cluj-Napoca
Email:
ela_cosma@yahoo.com
Abstract

The study presents Transmissionales in causa Possesionis Resinar contra Liberam Regiamque Civitatem Cibiniensem 1784, a manuscript volume of 1,318 pages, preserved at the Church Museum of the Bishops’ House in Rășinari, Sibiu county, transcribed entirely and translated partially by a group of medieval and modern history researchers from the “George Barițiu” Institute of History of the Romanian Academy in Cluj-Napoca. As the urbarial trials filed in court by the Romanian inhabitants of Rășinari against the Saxon Magistrate of  the Sibiu city  and seat lasted over half a century (1735-1784), these Transmissionales fully  reflect the course followed by the civil juridical documents (regarding either legal actions or procedures) in South Transylvania during the 18th century. The article also shows the contents, structure, as well as an essential chronology of the  volume of Transmissionales, followed by its  comprehensive  annexes  (including the conscription of Rășinari from 1754-1784, diplomas and juridical documents from the 13th-18th centuries).

Full Text

Ionuț COSTEA
Institution:
Babeș-Bolyai University, Cluj-Napoca
Email:
costea06@yahoo.com
Abstract

The consumer culture in socialism, the socialist advertising and fashion in Romania in the 1970s are historical research subjects that outline the fundamental context for the analysis of the visual documents represented by the advertising published in the Moda [Fashion] magazine. Considering the means of disseminating the advertising message, namely through the Moda magazine, the characteristics of the advertising discourse present over time in its issues and of the audience sphere (in Romania and abroad), the elements that compose the message of the advertisement and the photomontage directly, the present study also notes the touristic connotation of the advertising message. The advertisement represents a tourism incentive and stimulation, despite the fact that its foreground contains the efforts for promoting a lifestyle and a clothing model, as well as the means for procuring it. The main goal of the present study resides in the contextualisation of socialist advertising in several registers of historical and economical analysis (regarding consumption in socialism), of the socialist advertisement in particular and of the interpretation of the power discourse on the presentation of the modern lives of the citizens of modern socialist Romania in the 1970s (fashion and the promotion of tourism are associated with the daily modern socialist culture).

Full Text

Camelia DINU
Institution:
University of Bucharest
Email:
camelia.dinu@lls.unibuc.ro
Abstract

The present study analyses the novel Death’s Lover (1990) by  the Yugoslav writer Miodrag Bulatovid. The main character is the controversial figure Vlad Dracula, also known as Vlad the Impaler, a medieval Romanian prince. The  first part of the study identifies the elements that remain true to the historical chronicle thereby giving the text the character of a documentary. From this point  of view, the novel is a demystifying account of Dracula, the Western European- constructed fictional vampire, and a rehabilitation of the Eastern European historical figure Vlad the Impaler. The second part of the study identifies and analyzes the mechanics and belletristic discursive strategies which appear in the novel, among which are: the frame story structure and framing device; elements   of psychological portraiture; the use of rhetorical figures such as hyperbole, allegory, antithesis; the creation of suspense; the existence of a plot twist; the alternation of first person narration with third person narration; the use of aesthetic and literary mechanisms such as understatement, irony and the grotesque. The result is a work of creative nonfiction that explores and reconstructs history through fictional means. The third part of the study explores the political and ideological motives underlying Bulatovid’s revalorization of Vlad Dracula, a cruel prince obsessed with battling the Ottoman Empire, in the context of the disintegration of Yugoslavia and the intensification of  nationalist  tendencies and ethnic cleansing.

Full Text

Hyub LEE
Institution:
Chosun University, Gwangju, Korea
Email:
hyublee@chosun.ac.kr
Abstract

The modernization’s intervention with human bodies  around  the  1970s in Korea is epitomized in Cho Se-hui’s The Dwarf and Cho Sunjak’s “Young-ja’s Heyday.” In The Dwarf, the protagonist as Other represents the powerless low classes, especially manual labourers. Utilized like mechanical tools, his grotesque body is reified. Having lost one arm while working as a labourer,  Young-ja  becomes a prostitute, a sexual commodity. Both marginalized characters, who dreamed of escaping from the reality, die when they lose the exchange values of their bodies. Both best-sellers implicitly criticize the dominant capitalistic system that exploits low-class bodies to the extent of dehumanization.

Full Text

Ioana-Ciliana TUDORICĂ
Institution:
Babeș-Bolyai University, Cluj-Napoca
Email:
ciliana.tudorica@gmail.com
Abstract

This study focuses on the dual function of Japanese calligraphy ( shodō): expressive and pragmatic. The study will assess the way in which the calligrapher’s ideas are conveyed through shodō and how the public  perceives them, illustrating  the importance of both visual and linguistic components of calligraphic works.  In order to highlight this phenomenon, two works created by contemporary Romanian calligrapher Rodica Frențiu will be analysed: 情Passion and雪月花 Snow. Moon. Flower. Conclusions show that the two functions are closely linked and  present  within each calligraphic work, as they help the calligrapher express their vision and later on support the public to understand it.

Full Text

Tibor SCHWENDTNER
Institution:
Eszterházy Károly Catholic University
Email:
schwendtner.tibor@gmail.com
Abstract

According to Foucault,  the purpose of  the Nietzschean genealogy is  not to “restore an unbroken continuity”, on the contrary, it is to  show  dispersion, error, accident, “to follow the complex course of descent”. Contrary to this view, the present study emphasises that Nietzsche’s genealogy, cannot be seen as reconstructions of fragmented little stories, but a  large-scale  experiment  that tells the transcendental history of European humanity, while employing a pluralistic diversity of approaches, primarily the naturalist-psychologist and the metaphysical-historico-philosophical perspective. Nietzsche gave a psychologist explanation of how man became a metaphysical being.

Full Text

Andrei MARINCA
Institution:
Babeș-Bolyai University, Cluj-Napoca
Email:
paul.marinca@ubbcluj.ro
Abstract

In this paper I examine the theories of the Mu‘tazilite Abū l-Huḏail al-ʿAllāf  (d. ca. 841) and Abū Isḥāq Ibrāhīm an-Naẓẓām (d. 845) with respect to the atomistic structure of reality. The former was one of the first promoters of an atomistic theory in Islamic lands, while the latter was an influent adversary of kalām atomism. I also describe the transfer of this debate into the domain of Arabic philosophy, by examining the anti-atomistic arguments of two Arabic philosophers, Abū Zakarīyā’ Yaḥyā ibn ʿAdī (d. 974) and Abū-ʿAlī al-Ḥusayn ibn-ʿAbdallāh Ibn Sīnā/Avicenna (d. 1037), with a close focus on the popular argument of the sphere touching a plane. Finally, I argue that Avicenna’s interpretation of said argument might have influenced the debates on the continuum in the Latin world.

Full Text

Raluca-Nicoleta ROGOVEANU
Institution:
Ovidius University, Constanta
Email:
ralucarogoveanu@gmail.com
Abstract

This study works towards a more thorough understanding of the concept    of Romanian ethnicity in the United States, through an analysis of two heritage centers in the United States, the Romanian Folk Art Museum in Philadelphia and the Heritage Organization of Romanian Americans in Minnesota. Construed as agencies which shape the way we understand the past and future of Romanian diasporic communities rather than as unbiased repositories of ethnic information, the two institutions are explored in terms of scope, agenda and impact. My description focuses on the resources of such institutions enlisted towards collecting, preserving and providing access to  materials that document the settlement and development   of Romanian ethnic groups in different American states.

Full Text

Book reviews

Keith KHAN-HARRIS
Reviewed by
Anca CHIOREAN
Email:
anca_chiorean91@yahoo.com
Abstract
Tim GAZE
Reviewed by
Rodica FRENȚIU
Email:
rfrentiu@hotmail.com
Abstract
Mariana CERNICOVA-BUCĂ, Liliana CISMARIU, Daniel CIUREL, Gabriel-Mugurel DRAGOMIR, Vasile GHERHEȘ
Reviewed by
Simina ȘIMON
Email:
simona.simon@upt.ro
Abstract