The The Precarious Nature of Romanian Identity and Nationality: The Intellectuals’ National Identification Process through Youth, Peasants, and Jews in the Interwar Period. (Part I)

Abstract

The first part of a two part series, this article explores the confluence of Romanian intellectual culture in the interwar period, with a distinct concentration on the particularity of Romanian identity and its transformation amid the changing rhetoric of plurinationality. Ultimately the process by which a concrete Romanian identity was formed within the rhetoric of intellectuals was the result of elements of differing views of nationality, the Romanian peasantry, and Christian Orthodoxy all of which were salient elements of Romanian society during the rise of extremists groups such as the Iron Guard. This article explores the way numerous Romanian intellectuals understood and defined their own and the nation‟s identity by projecting certain elements upon the Jewry through their own work, thus adding a new layer of complexity to the way that we understand the rise of right-wing extremism in Romania in the 1920s and 1930s.