Franța și diplomația culturală în Principatele Române (1711-1815)

Abstract

The study analyses the Romanian society from Moldavia and Walachia during the historical period between 1711 and 1815. Our perspective is not chronological because we are trying to reveal the conceptual aspects behind the cultural diplomacy of the Romanian policy makers during the transition to the modern era. Our approach has the purpose to show the transitional status of Walachia and Moldavia, and for this reason we selected the cultural image of the Western Europe, but from the standpoint of French revolutionary perspectives. Our initiative represents a reinterpretation of the analytical model suggested by Pompiliu Eliade, which means that the importance of the Phanariot historical moment will never be closed for further studies. Therefore, our main resources are the books written by Paul Cernovodeanu, Constantin C. Giurescu, Paul Cornea, Larry Wolff, Bogdan Murgescu, Dan Horia Mazilu and Mircea Anghelescu. The main influence of the French society in the Romanian cultural and political environment of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries had the purpose to reinforce the national identity towards a historical search for continuity. If we look back into the modernization process of the Romanian institutions from the mentioned period we could say, in a philosophical way that the Romanian society made a leap into the history and became aware of the signs that revealed the gap between the west and the east of Europe.