Cultural Colonies: France and the Romanian Imagination

Abstract

Click to increase image sizeClick to decrease image size Notes Notes 1. Far from depicting this relationship as being one-sided, it must be emphasized that while Romania long enjoyed its ties to France, France also depended on Romania as a satellite of its cultural empire in the nineteenth century. The French hoped to enhance their country's international prestige by preserving the balance of power in Eastern Europe. 2. Paul E. Michelson points out that “most of the accounts which present themselves as historical analyses of this crucial subject are in the nature of historical myth rather than descriptions of historical reality” (8–9). This remark certainly holds true for P. Eliade's study, which put forth the claim that Romanian development “was not merely a question of borrowing or imitating France, but a wholesale transformation by adoption. The transformation of ‘The Rumanian public spirit’ owed ‘exclusively’ to French influence and no other” (16). Ultimately Eliade develops a theory of myth and functions of myth in society. What does this say about his own understanding of Romanian national identity, itself containing a mythical dimension, i.e. highly mythified? 3. The Ottoman Empire and Poland represented, however, important entities to the French security system. The French could hardly afford to ignore the area in between and thus the Principalities were a cause of concern given the capricious princes who often forgot their position as Ottoman functionaries and pursued interests counter to the Empire (see Campbell 11). 4. See Jules Michelet, Principautés danubiennes; Edgar Quinet, Les Roumains; and Marin Bucur, Jules Michelet si revolutionarii Români (Cluj: Napoca, 1982).