Émigrants et réviseurs scolaires dans la Valachie de la première moitié du XIXe-siècle: transfert intellectuel et construction nationale. Étude de cas: Ioan Maiorescu

Abstract

The 19th century redefined the place of nations within empires. Enlightenment ideas of mother-tongue education, natural rights and liberty join the imperial center’s aim to attract loyalties, gain allegiance, create economic wealth and educate a citizenry attached to the state. In south-eastern Europe, the fragile coexistence of three empires (Ottoman, Russian and Austrian) was disrupted by the way in which the neighboring ethnic groups intended to adjust the Enlightenment ideas to suit the development of their own cultures. The present study traces the transfers brought by the Transylvanian intellectual émigrés to the field of education from Austrian Transylvania to the neighboring Ottoman principality of Wallachia. Coming from the ranks of the Greek Catholic intellectuals – an intermediary stratum between the imperial center, the privileged aristocracy and the majority of Romanian peasants – they pursued, at the same time, their professional development and the rise of literacy in Wallachia. As school inspectors, they intervened administratively and pedagogically in the school network recently established in Wallachia. Their leader, Ioan Maiorescu, questioned the Russian-style model of modernization and called for adapting Western models to the local reality to further the aim of cultural emancipation