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The Union of the “Two Cultures”
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*
I would like to thank Lorenzo Volpe (Ph.D. candidate in Molecular Medicine) for the intellectual stimulus
and the genuine interest in research and culture. I would like to thank him for linguistic advices too. Moreover, I
would like to express my gratitude to Chiara Lazzara and Silvia Marrone for the linguistic recommendations.
1
See Wallerstein (1974): his approach and methodology for studying historical systems – notably, the
capitalist world-economy – are both pretty different from mine. His inquiry, in (too) short, could be defined as
purely systemic. My inquiry, conversely, reckons a system as fluidly structured, multi-constructed and not based
on a stiffly path-dependent evolution. In other words, an historical system has a (quasi-)opened historical
trajectory according to its nature. It is a multilevel analysis in which the system is clear only in its overall
but
layered (system-structure(s)-processes-agents) investigation. See also: Prigogine & Stengers (1984); Braudel
(1984); McMichael (1990); Arrighi (1994).
2 I maintain we need not to throw away but to re-calibrate the weight of technicality in our scientific culture,
harmonizing and balancing it with an encompassing holistic perspective. We need medietas at least. We need a
substantial holistic but segmented, integrated but stratified and compared – in one word, complex – insight on
reality
and
History.
The German Prince and the Romanian Political Elite: Crossing Important Political and
Cultural Borders at the Beginning of Charles I’s Reign (1866-1871)
Cosmin-Ștefan Dogaru
1. Introduction
Expecting Charles of Hohenzollern-Sigmaringen, a German prince, to accede to the throne of
Romania in May 1866 was an important progress in the Romanian 19
th
-century politics,
gradually determining
the modernization process of the Romanian state that had been initiated
and supported by the Romanian political elite already for a long time.
For the foreign prince, Charles of Hohenzollern-Sigmaringen, Romania signified
a challenge, but in time became an arduous mission. He managed to ensure a new type of
political conduct in the Romanian realm and to pursue the West European model in that. The
political elite attained a compromise by choosing a foreign prince and deciding that the local
prince was an already outdated option. In addition, the foreign prince departed his realm and
the environment in which he was raised up (from a social, political, cultural viewpoint etc.)
and decided to become the ruler of an unknown country.
2. Method
My research laboratory matches the field of political history and, subsequently I will mostly
focus on the part carry out by Charles I and the Romanian political elite regarding important
political and cultural borders in the years 1866-1871, signifying an essential phase in
accordance to the
construction process of the Romanian state. Nonetheless, the main objective
of this article is to analyze a sort of consensus, accomplished between Charles I and the
Romanian political elite at the beginning of his reign. Therefore, both Charles I and the
political elite managed to overcome essential political and cultural borders in that period.
My methodological quest, which is also an important topic for the contemporary
historical research, assumed the challenge of analyzing historical facts and data from the
political science register. My aim is to work with specialized historical and political literature
while examining various sources of that era:
memories, speeches, discourses etc.
3. The political regime on the eve of 1866: the foreign prince – a feasible solution for
Romania
Starting to the nineteenth century, the construction of the modern Romanian state knew
several stages, nonetheless the spearhead continued to be the boyars’ children who studied
abroad. Having a unique chance, they detected the need of remodeling the country
(concerning the state organization and the society in general).
In Romania, the antagonism between the liberals and the conservatives was more
pronounced after 1848, when both political orientations gradually became two political
groups. In that time, the emerging political elite had well defined objectives: autonomy; the
union between Wallachia and Moldavia; electing a foreign prince; having a representative
government.
Progressively, these aims had been accomplished.
After 1848, the boyars’ children, who were educated abroad in that period
(especially in France), return in exile and became, in the second half of the 19
th
-century, the
future political leaders of the country. In this regard, it can be acknowledged the fact that: