From Scholarly to Social Emancipation: Reflections Regarding the Academic Peregrination of Romanian Women to Western Universities

Abstract

This research article questions and analyzes the impact of academic peregrination to Western European Universities upon the career paths of Romanian women, in the last part of the 19th century and the first half of the 20th century. It highlights various patterns regarding the ways the Romanian women who studied abroad subsequently chose to put into practice their hardearned knowledge. Based on a number of individual feminine biographies, it examines how these women forged careers in the Romanian educational and scientific world (with a particular interest on higher education institutions) or, as an alternative, how they became important figures in the charitable sector. For the most part, the Romanian female students trained in Western Europe between 1880 and 1945 had a significant contribution to the modernization of their country of origin. They equally influenced the gradual change of women’s social, economic and cultural status in Romania and in Europe, thus further bridging the gap between the eastern and the western states.