Recitindu-l pe Stahl

Abstract

In this paper, I highlight mostly ignored aspects of the work of H. H. Stahl: his stance on the issue of “national specificity,” on village culture, and on the modernization of Romanian villages through “culturalization”. Reviewing some of his popularization and scientific texts from the 1930, but also his late contributions from the 1980, show a remarkable continuity and consistency of Stahl’s vision on these subjects. And it is not the kind of vision someone would expect from a socialist or Marxist social scientist. For Stahl, the village culture was the true (and unique) Romanian culture, a peasant culture that he was very fond of. In some respects, and, in fact, not so surprisingly, Stahl, what regards “national specificity” and village culture, is much closer to (the reactionary, traditionalist, autochthonous) Mircea Vulcănescu, his monographist fellow and personal friend, than any other leftist thinker in interwar Romania.