Making the Intermediaries: The Romanian Book Market in the Second Half of the Nineteenth Century Between Economics and Culture

Abstract

Listen

Translate article

The present paper is the first introductory entry of a research project that largely questions the autonomy of Romanian publishing infrastructure during the last part of the nineteenth Century (1860-1900). More specifically, I endeavor to shape the limits of the professionalization of the Romanian publishing field in the last decades of the nineteenth Century, a pivotal period regarding the establishment of the professional profile of the publisher and the role of intermediaries in the local literary field. The degree of professionalization is understood concerning the field’s degree of autonomy. As a minor culture that after the 1848 Revolution built the national agenda around the foundation of national cultural and linguistic identity, the Romanian publishing field faced two great impediments: the subsumption of the editorial agenda by national stakes, and a poor educational and academic infrastructure. The latter affected the formation of specific competencies of cultural agents responsible for the dissemination of cultural products, on the one hand, while the former is responsible for the reduction of readership, on the other. The involvement of foreign intellectuals in Romanian literary life compensated for this lack of skills in making culture, especially in widening access to culture. Furthermore, the economic aspect made difficult publishing activities by the insertion of this quite fragile economic sector into the market system. This fact determined publishers to ultimately replace the cultural and literary stakes with commercial ones. From this standpoint, publishers and editors are first defined as merchants and then as cultural agents. The introduction of the first copyright legislation, in 1862, does not balance the asymmetric relationship between writers and publishers, both interests revolving rather out of pure cultural recognition and symbolic gain. Thus, I attempt to highlight the significant contributions of foreign intermediaries especially concerning the economic and national constraints.