Traian Herseni (February 18, 1907 – July 17, 1980) was a
Romania
Romania ( ; ro, România ) is a country located at the crossroads of Central Europe, Central, Eastern Europe, Eastern, and Southeast Europe, Southeastern Europe. It borders Bulgaria to the south, Ukraine to the north, Hungary to the west, S ...
n social scientist, journalist, and political figure. First noted as a favorite disciple of
Dimitrie Gusti
Dimitrie Gusti (; 13 February 1880 – 30 October 1955) was a Romanian sociologist, ethnologist, historian, and voluntarist philosopher; a professor at the University of Iaşi and the University of Bucharest, he served as Romania's Minister of ...
, he helped establish the Romanian school of
rural sociology
Rural sociology is a field of sociology traditionally associated with the study of social structure and conflict in rural areas. It is an active academic field in much of the world, originating in the United States in the 1910s with close ties ...
in the 1920s and early '30s, and took part in
interdisciplinary
Interdisciplinarity or interdisciplinary studies involves the combination of multiple academic disciplines into one activity (e.g., a research project). It draws knowledge from several other fields like sociology, anthropology, psychology, ec ...
study groups and field trips. A prolific essayist and researcher, he studied isolated human groups across the country, trying to define relations between sociology,
ethnography
Ethnography (from Greek ''ethnos'' "folk, people, nation" and ''grapho'' "I write") is a branch of anthropology and the systematic study of individual cultures. Ethnography explores cultural phenomena from the point of view of the subject o ...
, and
cultural anthropology
Cultural anthropology is a branch of anthropology focused on the study of cultural variation among humans. It is in contrast to social anthropology, which perceives cultural variation as a subset of a posited anthropological constant. The portma ...
, with an underlying interest in sociological
epistemology
Epistemology (; ), or the theory of knowledge, is the branch of philosophy concerned with knowledge. Epistemology is considered a major subfield of philosophy, along with other major subfields such as ethics, logic, and metaphysics.
Episte ...
. He was particularly interested in the peasant cultures and
pastoral society of the
Făgăraș Mountains
The Făgăraș Mountains ( ro, Munții Făgărașului ; hu, Fogarasi-havasok) are the highest mountains of the Southern Carpathians, in Romania.
Geography
The mountain range is situated in the heart of Romania, at .
The range is bordered in the ...
. Competing with
Anton Golopenția
Anton Golopenția (May 12, 1909 – September 9, 1951) was an Austro-Hungarian-born Romanian sociologist.
Biography
Beginnings, education and early career
Born in Prigor, Caraș-Severin County, his father Simion was a lawyer originally from Pe ...
for the role of Gusti's leading disciple, Herseni emerged as the winner in 1937; from 1932, he also held a teaching position at the
University of Bucharest
The University of Bucharest ( ro, Universitatea din București), commonly known after its abbreviation UB in Romania, is a public university founded in its current form on by a decree of Prince Alexandru Ioan Cuza to convert the former Princel ...
.
Herseni became a committed
eugenicist
Eugenics ( ; ) is a fringe set of beliefs and practices that aim to improve the genetic quality of a human population. Historically, eugenicists have attempted to alter human gene pools by excluding people and groups judged to be inferior or ...
and
racial scientist
Scientific racism, sometimes termed biological racism, is the pseudoscience, pseudoscientific belief that empirical evidence exists to support or justify racism (racial discrimination), racial inferiority, or racial superiority.. "Few tragedies ...
, who discarded a moderate left-wing stance to embrace
fascism
Fascism is a far-right, authoritarian, ultra-nationalist political ideology and movement,: "extreme militaristic nationalism, contempt for electoral democracy and political and cultural liberalism, a belief in natural social hierarchy an ...
, and parted ways with Gusti over his support for the
Iron Guard
The Iron Guard ( ro, Garda de Fier) was a Romanian militant revolutionary fascist movement and political party founded in 1927 by Corneliu Zelea Codreanu as the Legion of the Archangel Michael () or the Legionnaire Movement (). It was strongly ...
. He was nevertheless protected during the anti-Guard backlash of 1938, when Gusti made him a clerk within the Social Service, part of the
National Renaissance Front
The National Renaissance Front ( ro, Frontul Renașterii Naționale, FRN; also translated as ''Front of National Regeneration'', ''Front of National Rebirth'', ''Front of National Resurrection'', or ''Front of National Renaissance'') was a Romani ...
apparatus. A leading functionary and ideologue of the fascist
National Legionary State
The National Legionary State was a Totalitarianism, totalitarian Fascism, fascist regime which governed Kingdom of Romania, Romania for five months, from 14 September 1940 until its official dissolution on 14 February 1941. The regime was led by ...
, and a figure of cultural and political importance under dictator
Ion Antonescu
Ion Antonescu (; ; – 1 June 1946) was a Romanian military officer and marshal who presided over two successive wartime dictatorships as Prime Minister and ''Conducător'' during most of World War II.
A Romanian Army career officer who made ...
, he proposed the
compulsory sterilization
Compulsory sterilization, also known as forced or coerced sterilization, is a government-mandated program to involuntarily sterilize a specific group of people. Sterilization removes a person's capacity to reproduce, and is usually done throug ...
of "inferior races", and wrote praises of
Nazi racial policy
The racial policy of Nazi Germany was a set of policies and laws implemented in Nazi Germany under the dictatorship of Adolf Hitler, based on a specific racist doctrine asserting the superiority of the Aryan race, which claimed scientific legi ...
. Indicted by the
communist regime
A communist state, also known as a Marxist–Leninist state, is a one-party state that is administered and governed by a communist party guided by Marxism–Leninism. Marxism–Leninism was the state ideology of the Soviet Union, the Cominte ...
in 1951, he spent four years in prison. He made a slow return to favors as a researcher for the
Romanian Academy
The Romanian Academy ( ro, Academia Română ) is a cultural forum founded in Bucharest, Romania, in 1866. It covers the scientific, artistic and literary domains. The academy has 181 active members who are elected for life.
According to its byl ...
, participating in the resumption of sociological research, as well as experimenting in
social psychology
Social psychology is the scientific study of how thoughts, feelings, and behaviors are influenced by the real or imagined presence of other people or by social norms. Social psychologists typically explain human behavior as a result of the r ...
and pioneering
industrial sociology
Industrial sociology, until recently a crucial research area within the field of sociology of work, examines
"the direction and implications of trends in technological change, globalization, labour markets, work organization, managerial practic ...
.
Formally a partisan of
Marxism-Leninism after 1956, Herseni was more genuinely committed to
national communism
National communism represents various forms in which Marxism–Leninism and socialism has been adopted and/or implemented by leaders in different countries using aspects of nationalism or national identity to form a policy independent from comm ...
. The national communist policies instituted during the late 1960s allowed him to revisit some of his controversial theses about the ancestral roots of
Romanian culture
The culture of Romania is an umbrella term used to encapsulate the ideas, customs and social behaviours of the people of Romania that developed due to the country's distinct geopolitical history and evolution. It is theorized and speculated that ...
. At various intervals, the regime appropriated his radical ideas on ethnicity, including some criticized as racist. Herseni's final works dealt with
ethnology
Ethnology (from the grc-gre, ἔθνος, meaning 'nation') is an academic field that compares and analyzes the characteristics of different peoples and the relationships between them (compare cultural anthropology, cultural, social anthropolo ...
,
national psychology National psychology refers to the (real or alleged) distinctive psychological make-up of particular nations, ethnic groups or peoples, and to the comparative study of those characteristics in social psychology, sociology, political science and anthr ...
, the
sociology of literature
The sociology of literature is a subfield of the sociology of culture. It studies the social production of literature and its social implications. A notable example is Pierre Bourdieu's 1992 ''Les Règles de L'Art: Genèse et Structure du Champ ...
, and
sociological theory
A sociological theory is a that intends to consider, analyze, and/or explain objects of social reality from a sociological perspective,Macionis, John and Linda M. Gerber. 2010. ''Sociology'' (7th Canadian ed.). Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson E ...
in general. In the 1970s, he also produced a body of works interpreting
Romanian folklore
The folklore of Romania is the collection of traditions of the Romanians. A feature of Romanian culture is the special relationship between folklore and the learned culture, determined by two factors. First, the rural character of the Romanian ...
, in which he emphasized the connections with
Indo-European
The Indo-European languages are a language family native to the overwhelming majority of Europe, the Iranian plateau, and the northern Indian subcontinent. Some European languages of this family, English, French, Portuguese, Russian, Dutch ...
and
Paleo-Balkan mythology
Paleo-Balkan mythology is the group of religious beliefs held by Paleo-Balkan-speaking peoples in ancient times, including Illyrian, Thracian and Dacian mythologies.
Horseman
The cult of the Thracian horseman, especially his depiction as a h ...
.
Biography
Origins and schooling
Herseni was a native of
Transylvania
Transylvania ( ro, Ardeal or ; hu, Erdély; german: Siebenbürgen) is a historical and cultural region in Central Europe, encompassing central Romania. To the east and south its natural border is the Carpathian Mountains, and to the west the Ap ...
, which, for most of his childhood, was an
Austro-Hungarian
Austria-Hungary, often referred to as the Austro-Hungarian Empire,, the Dual Monarchy, or Austria, was a constitutional monarchy and great power in Central Europe between 1867 and 1918. It was formed with the Austro-Hungarian Compromise of ...
province. His home village was
Iași (Jás), in what was then
Brassó County
Brassó was an administrative county (comitatus) of the Kingdom of Hungary. Its territory is now in central Romania (south-eastern Transylvania). The capital of the county was Brassó (''Brașov'' in Romanian, ''Kronstadt'' in German).
Geograph ...
(present-day
Brașov County
Brașov County () is a county ( județ) of Romania, in Transylvania. Its capital city is Brașov. The county incorporates within its boundaries most of the Medieval "lands" (''țări'') Burzenland and Făgăraș.
Name
In Hungarian, it is known ...
), where his father worked as a notary public. On his paternal side, Herseni originated from nearby
Hârseni, which gave the family its name. Born on February 18, 1907, Herseni went to school in Iași (1912–1915) and
Făgăraș
Făgăraș (; german: Fogarasch, Fugreschmarkt, hu, Fogaras) is a municipiu, city in central Romania, located in Brașov County. It lies on the Olt (river), Olt River and has a population of 28,330 as of 2011. It is situated in the historical regi ...
(1915–1924).
[Stahl (1980), p. 698] These years coincided with World War I and the recognition of
Transylvania's union with Romania: Herseni began his secondary education in a Hungarian-speaking regimen,
[Nastasă, p. 407] and passed his
baccalaureate examination in 1924, as a Romanian national.
From 1924, Herseni was a student at the
University of Bucharest
The University of Bucharest ( ro, Universitatea din București), commonly known after its abbreviation UB in Romania, is a public university founded in its current form on by a decree of Prince Alexandru Ioan Cuza to convert the former Princel ...
Faculty of Law, studying under Gusti,
Constantin Rădulescu-Motru
Constantin Rădulescu-Motru (; born Constantin Rădulescu, he added the surname ''Motru'' in 1892; February 15, 1868 – March 6, 1957) was a Romanian philosopher, psychologist, sociologist, logician, academic, dramatist, as well as left-nat ...
,
Nicolae Iorga
Nicolae Iorga (; sometimes Neculai Iorga, Nicolas Jorga, Nicolai Jorga or Nicola Jorga, born Nicu N. Iorga;Iova, p. xxvii. 17 January 1871 – 27 November 1940) was a Romanian historian, politician, literary critic, memoirist, Albanologist, poet ...
,
Ovid Densusianu
Ovid Densusianu (; also known under his pen name Ervin; 29 December 1873, Făgăraș – 9 June 1938, Bucharest) was a Romanian poet, philologist, linguist, folklorist, literary historian and critic, chief of a poetry school, university professor ...
, and
Vasile Pârvan
Vasile Pârvan (; 28 September 1882, Huruiești, Perchiu, Huruiești, Bacău County – 26 June 1927, Bucharest) was a Romanian historian and archaeologist.
Biography
Vasile Pârvan came from a modest family, being the first child of the teach ...
.
[ Ludmila Doroșencu]
"Podurile de flori mai sunt trecătoare"
in ''Biblio Polis'', Vol. 24, Issue 4, 2007 Passionate about Gusti's attempts to restructure Romanian social science around rural sociology and
participant observation
Participant observation is one type of data collection method by practitioner-scholars typically used in qualitative research and ethnography. This type of methodology is employed in many disciplines, particularly anthropology (incl. cultural an ...
, Herseni was taken on board for Gusti's field trips to
Nereju
Nereju is a Commune in Romania, commune located in Vrancea County, Romania. It is composed of five villages: Brădăcești, Chiricani (or ''Chiricari''), Nereju, Nereju Mic and Sahastru.
Nereju, Nereju Mic and Brădăcești lie along the Zăbala R ...
(1927) and
Fundu Moldovei
Fundu Moldovei (german: Luisenthal/Louisenthal or Fundul Moldawi/Fundu-Moldowi) is a commune located in Suceava County, Bukovina, northeastern Romania. It is composed of ten villages, namely: Botuș, Botușel, Braniștea, Colacu, Delnița, Delu ...
(1928). Another one of Gusti's students,
Henri H. Stahl Henri H. Stahl (also known as Henry H. Stahl or H. H. Stahl; 1901 – 9 September 1991) was a Romanian Marxist cultural anthropologist, ethnographer, sociologist, and social historian.
Biography
Born in Bucharest to a family of Alsatian and ...
, first met and befriended him at Nereju, and was impressed by the encounter. Herseni, he writes, "appeared quiet, withdrawn; and yet not lonesome", "ready to take on whoever would oppose him, whether friend or rival". He grasped complex social issues with "rapidity", and "imposed himself as one of the team leaders, obtaining for himself a rank that he would never lose". Herseni was particularly involved in a project to collect data on "pastoral sociology", while
Stanciu Stoian observed village schools and
Xenia Costa-Foru pioneered studies in the
sociology of the family
Sociology of the family is a subfield of the subject of sociology, in which researchers and academics study family structure as a social institution and unit of socialization from various sociological perspectives. It can be seen as an example of ...
.
Herseni passed his final examination in 1928, having specialized in sociology, psychology, and
pedagogy
Pedagogy (), most commonly understood as the approach to teaching, is the theory and practice of learning, and how this process influences, and is influenced by, the social, political and psychological development of learners. Pedagogy, taken as ...
, and presenting a paper on social relations as observed in Fundu Moldovei.
[Stahl (1980), pp. 698, 700] This qualified him to teach sociology at the
Gheorghe Lazăr National College, where he worked for the following school year. In 1929, he went to
Germany
Germany,, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It is the second most populous country in Europe after Russia, and the most populous member state of the European Union. Germany is situated betwe ...
for more specialization. He enlisted at the
Frederick William (Humboldt) University, where he heard lectures by
Werner Sombart
Werner Sombart (; ; 19 January 1863 – 18 May 1941) was a German economist and sociologist, the head of the "Youngest Historical School" and one of the leading Continental European social scientists during the first quarter of the 20th century. ...
,
Eduard Spranger
Eduard Spranger (27 June 1882 – 17 September 1963) was a German philosopher and psychologist. A student of Wilhelm Dilthey, Spranger was born in Berlin and died in Tübingen. He was considered a humanist who developed a philosophical pe ...
,
Richard Thurnwald, and
Alfred Vierkandt.
He published an overview of German sociology in Gusti's ''Arhiva pentru Știință și Reformă Socială'', praising it as a "lively and freely-moving science", and as a good model for sociology in "the less advanced countries".
![Colloquiul șefilor de echipă, BdG 8–9, aug–sept 1931](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/9c/Colloquiul_%C8%99efilor_de_echip%C4%83%2C_BdG_8%E2%80%939%2C_aug%E2%80%93sept_1931.JPG)
Herseni returned to
Bucharest
Bucharest ( , ; ro, București ) is the capital and largest city of Romania, as well as its cultural, industrial, and financial centre. It is located in the southeast of the country, on the banks of the Dâmbovița River, less than north of ...
in 1930, did his obligatory service in the
Romanian Land Forces
The Romanian Land Forces ( ro, Forțele Terestre Române) is the army of Romania, and the main component of the Romanian Armed Forces. In recent years, full professionalisation and a major equipment overhaul have transformed the nature of the Lan ...
, then took part in expeditions, organized by Gusti's Romanian Social Institute (ISR), to
Drăguș
Drăguș (german: Drachenbach, Traschen; hu, Dragus) is a commune in Brașov County, Transylvania, Romania. It is composed of a single village, Drăguș, part of Viștea Commune until being split off in 2004.
Drăguș is located at the western ...
,
Runcu, and
Cornova.
Drăguș, a center of the ethnographic region known as
Țara Oltului, was selected on his insistence, being located in close proximity to his native village. At Cornova, Herseni focused on the social hierarchies and segregated clans of a
Bessarabia
Bessarabia (; Gagauz: ''Besarabiya''; Romanian: ''Basarabia''; Ukrainian: ''Бессара́бія'') is a historical region in Eastern Europe, bounded by the Dniester river on the east and the Prut river on the west. About two thirds of Be ...
n community. He spent some time researching on his own at a
sheepcote in the
Făgăraș Mountains
The Făgăraș Mountains ( ro, Munții Făgărașului ; hu, Fogarasi-havasok) are the highest mountains of the Southern Carpathians, in Romania.
Geography
The mountain range is situated in the heart of Romania, at .
The range is bordered in the ...
, publishing his results in ''Boabe de Grâu'' review. He also began contributing to the
Cluj
; hu, kincses város)
, official_name=Cluj-Napoca
, native_name=
, image_skyline=
, subdivision_type1 = Counties of Romania, County
, subdivision_name1 = Cluj County
, subdivision_type2 = Subdivisions of Romania, Status
, subdivision_name2 ...
magazine ''
Societatea de Mâine'', with articles that inventoried and examined the various kinds of
social distance
In sociology, social distance describes the distance between individuals or social groups in society, including dimensions such as social class, race/ethnicity, gender or sexuality. Members of different groups mix less than members of the same gr ...
.
As Gusti's aide
In 1932, Herseni married a university and ISR colleague, Paula Gusty. She was the daughter of
Paul Gusty, a famous theater director (the similarity in surnames makes it likely, but not certain, that she was related to Gusti himself). Also that year, having lectured for a while at
Sabin Manuilă
Sabin Manuilă (or Mănuilă; February 19, 1894 – November 20, 1964) was an Austro-Hungarian-born Romanian statistician, demographer and physician. A nationalist activist during World War I, he became noted for his pioneering research into the ...
's School of Social Work,
Herseni was appointed by Gusti's an assistant professor in the University of Bucharest department of sociology, ethics and politics. Stahl claims to have been Gusti's first choice, but to have declined the position in order to suit Herseni, who, as a married man, needed a steady flow of income. As a result, Herseni was slightly better off financially than other intellectuals of his generation.
Herseni also followed Stahl's political options: he sympathized with the left-wing cell within the
National Peasants' Party
The National Peasants' Party (also known as the National Peasant Party or National Farmers' Party; ro, Partidul Național Țărănesc, or ''Partidul Național-Țărănist'', PNȚ) was an agrarian political party in the Kingdom of Romania. It w ...
, and, in 1933, contributed to center-left reviews such as
Zaharia Stancu
Zaharia Stancu (; October 7, 1902 – December 5, 1974) was a Romanian prose writer, novelist, poet, and philosopher. He was also the director of the National Theatre Bucharest, the President of the Writers' Union of Romania, and a titular memb ...
's ''
Azi
''Azi'' (''Today'' in Romanian) is a Romanian daily newspaper published in Bucharest. The paper was started in 1990.
Today was also the name of a literary magazine published monthly in Romania, from March 1932 to August 1938, under the directio ...
'' and Stahl's own ''Stânga''.
[ Zoltán Rostás]
"Fermentul unei generații. Corespondența lui Anton Golopenția"
, in ''Revista 22
''Revista 22'' (''22 Magazine'') is a Romanian weekly magazine, issued by the Group for Social Dialogue and focused mainly on politics and culture.
History and profile
''Revista 22'' was started in 1990. The first edition of the magazine was print ...
'', Nr. 1060, June 2010 He declared himself a partisan of "
social democracy
Social democracy is a Political philosophy, political, Social philosophy, social, and economic philosophy within socialism that supports Democracy, political and economic democracy. As a policy regime, it is described by academics as advocati ...
" and
class collaboration
Class collaboration is a principle of social organization based upon the belief that the division of society into a hierarchy of social classes is a positive and essential aspect of civilization.
Fascist support
Class collaboration is one of the ...
, "not a Marxist, and not a communist, but nevertheless a man of the left". An article he published in ''
Gând Românesc'' in early 1933 shows him as a
deist
Deism ( or ; derived from the Latin '' deus'', meaning "god") is the philosophical position and rationalistic theology that generally rejects revelation as a source of divine knowledge, and asserts that empirical reason and observation ...
and
Christian existentialist
Christian existentialism is a theo-philosophical movement which takes an existentialist approach to Christian theology. The school of thought is often traced back to the work of the Danish philosopher and theologian Søren Kierkegaard (1813-1855) ...
, who argued that the ''
Übermensch
The (; "Overhuman") is a concept in the philosophy of Friedrich Nietzsche. In his 1883 book ''Thus Spoke Zarathustra'' (german: Also sprach Zarathustra), Nietzsche has his character Zarathustra posit the as a goal for humanity to set for itse ...
'' where those Christians who could attain a
state of grace. The rest of the populace, Herseni argued, "are forever non-human."
Emil Cioran
Emil Mihai Cioran (, ; 8 April 1911 – 20 June 1995) was a Romanian philosopher, aphorist and essayist, who published works in both Romanian and French. His work has been noted for its pervasive philosophical pessimism, style, and aphorisms. H ...
, a philosopher of that generation, described Herseni as "passionate" about "
Heidegger
Martin Heidegger (; ; 26 September 188926 May 1976) was a German philosopher who is best known for contributions to phenomenology, hermeneutics, and existentialism. He is among the most important and influential philosophers of the 20th centur ...
's existential philosophy", with a "metaphysical sensibility" that was the mark of "true Transylvanian intellectuals, as if to compensate for the petty bourgeois spirit of middle-of-the-road intellectuals".
In 1933, shortly after the
Nazi seizure of power
Adolf Hitler's rise to power began in the newly established Weimar Republic in September 1919 when Hitler joined the '' Deutsche Arbeiterpartei'' (DAP; German Workers' Party). He rose to a place of prominence in the early years of the party. Be ...
, Herseni visited
Berlin
Berlin ( , ) is the capital and largest city of Germany by both area and population. Its 3.7 million inhabitants make it the European Union's most populous city, according to population within city limits. One of Germany's sixteen constitue ...
, befriending there the anti-Nazi Romanian
Petre Pandrea Petre is a surname and given name derived from Peter. Notable persons with that name include:
People with the given name Petre
* Charles Petre Eyre (1817–1902), English Roman Catholic prelate
* Ion Petre Stoican (circa 1930–1990), Romanian v ...
. He took his
Ph.D.
A Doctor of Philosophy (PhD, Ph.D., or DPhil; Latin: or ') is the most common degree at the highest academic level awarded following a course of study. PhDs are awarded for programs across the whole breadth of academic fields. Because it is a ...
in 1934, with the dissertation paper ''Realitatea socială'' ("Social Reality"), an "essay in regional
onthology
In metaphysics, ontology is the philosophical study of being, as well as related concepts such as existence, becoming, and reality.
Ontology addresses questions like how entities are grouped into categories and which of these entities exis ...
". It earned praise from Gusti, who called Herseni "one of the most gifted and educated
outhsof today's generation", one promising to "enrich Romanian sociology and philosophy with very valuable works."
Stahl recalls that only Herseni could match his teacher's "surprisingly vast erudition" and "systematization" of received knowledge; he was also among the more loyal of Gusti's gifted disciples, effectively replacing
Petre Andrei
Petre Andrei (June 29, 1891 – October 4, 1940) was a Romanian sociologist, philosopher and politician.
Biography Origins and work
Born in Brăila into a family of low-ranking civil servants, Andrei attended Nicolae Bălcescu High School from ...
, who had spoken out against the ISR. Herseni was an enthusiastic promoter of sociological campaigns, famous as the ISR's "
polygraph
A polygraph, often incorrectly referred to as a lie detector test, is a device or procedure that measures and records several physiological indicators such as blood pressure, pulse, respiration, and skin conductivity while a person is asked an ...
" and as Gusti's most orthodox interpreter. According to Stahl, Herseni intended to both popularize sociology and give it "philosophical depth", treating the two tasks as equally important. Taking a
neo-Kantian
In late modern continental philosophy, neo-Kantianism (german: Neukantianismus) was a revival of the 18th-century philosophy of Immanuel Kant. The Neo-Kantians sought to develop and clarify Kant's theories, particularly his concept of the "thin ...
approach to science, Herseni believed that a sound
phenomenological
Phenomenology may refer to:
Art
* Phenomenology (architecture), based on the experience of building materials and their sensory properties
Philosophy
* Phenomenology (philosophy), a branch of philosophy which studies subjective experiences and a ...
inquiry needed to clarify the position and limits of
social constructionism
Social constructionism is a theory in sociology, social ontology, and communication theory which proposes that certain ideas about physical reality arise from collaborative consensus, instead of pure observation of said reality. The theory ...
, or, as Stahl puts it, to find out "whether there is a 'social' reality, as distinct from 'natural' and 'spiritual' realities."
Moreover, Herseni explored the challenges of sociological
epistemology
Epistemology (; ), or the theory of knowledge, is the branch of philosophy concerned with knowledge. Epistemology is considered a major subfield of philosophy, along with other major subfields such as ethics, logic, and metaphysics.
Episte ...
and the methodology of participant observation. He believed that objectivity could only be attained with self-imposed limitations and a laborious, preferably collective and
interdisciplinary
Interdisciplinarity or interdisciplinary studies involves the combination of multiple academic disciplines into one activity (e.g., a research project). It draws knowledge from several other fields like sociology, anthropology, psychology, ec ...
, research program. Largely "
empirical
Empirical evidence for a proposition is evidence, i.e. what supports or counters this proposition, that is constituted by or accessible to sense experience or experimental procedure. Empirical evidence is of central importance to the sciences and ...
", Herseni and Stahl's sociology took distance from the "
transcendentalist" approach of social scientists such as
Mircea Vulcănescu
Mircea Aurel Vulcănescu (3 March 1904 – 28 October 1952) was a Romanian philosopher, economist, ethics teacher, sociologist, and far-right politics, far-right politician. Undersecretary at the Ministry of Finance from 1941 to 1944 in the ...
, with whom they first clashed in Fundu Moldovei. By 1938, their highly localized
qualitative approach was conceding ground to a
quantitative
Quantitative may refer to:
* Quantitative research, scientific investigation of quantitative properties
* Quantitative analysis (disambiguation)
* Quantitative verse, a metrical system in poetry
* Statistics, also known as quantitative analysis ...
"zonal" tactic, which was favored by Gusti and
Anton Golopenția
Anton Golopenția (May 12, 1909 – September 9, 1951) was an Austro-Hungarian-born Romanian sociologist.
Biography
Beginnings, education and early career
Born in Prigor, Caraș-Severin County, his father Simion was a lawyer originally from Pe ...
.
Herseni adopted a tactic of publishing his work in stages, from raw studies in ''Societatea de Mâine'' to monographic series, and finally to synthetic volumes and brochures. One such work was printed at Gusti's expense, as ''Monografia sociologică; rostul, metoda și problemele ei'' ("The Sociological Monograph; Its Purpose, Method and Issues"), then reissued in 1934 as ''Teoria monografiei sociologice'' ("The Theory of Sociological Monographs"), to be used as a standard ISR manual. Gusti also backed Herseni's candidature as chair of the
University of Cluj sociology department, vacated after
Virgil Bărbat's death. The project failed when local academics elected one of their own, Constantin Sudețeanu, and prompted a much-publicized scandal.
Fascist dissent
Unlike Gusti, Herseni shied away from public speaking,
[Stahl (1980), p. 701] but was one of the ISR speakers at the 12th Congress of the
International Institute of Sociology
The International Institute of Sociology (IIS) is a scholarly organization which seeks to stimulate and facilitate the development, exchange, and application of scientific knowledge to questions of sociological relevance. Membership is open to all ...
(IIS), held in Brussels in August 1935.
[Bulgaru, p. 18] He continued to publish his sociological sketches in various magazines and newspapers. In addition to ''Societatea de Mâine'', ''Gând Românesc'', and the ISR's ''Arhiva pentru Știință și Reformă Socială'' and ''Sociologie Românească'', these include ''
Familia'', ''
Tribuna
''Tribuna'' (russian: Трибуна) is a weekly Russian newspaper that focuses largely on industry and the energy sector.
History
Tribunas published its first publication in July 1969. Until 1990, the newspaper titled the ''Sotsialisticheska ...
'', ''
Revista Fundațiilor Regale
''Revista Fundațiilor Regale'' ("The Review of Royal Foundations") was a monthly literary, art and culture magazine published in Romania
Romania ( ; ro, România ) is a country located at the crossroads of Central Europe, Central, Eastern ...
'', ''Independența Economică'', and ''Semne''.
Herseni was also a social-science columnist for ''
Viața Românească
''Viața Românească'' (, "The Romanian Life") is a monthly literary magazine published in Romania. Formerly the platform of the left-wing traditionalist trend known as poporanism, it is now one of the Writers' Union of Romania's main venues.
Th ...
'', added to the editorial team by
Mihai Ralea
Mihai Dumitru Ralea (also known as Mihail Ralea, Michel Raléa, or Mihai Rale;Straje, p. 586 May 1, 1896 – August 17, 1964) was a Romanian social scientist, cultural journalist, and political figure. He debuted as an affiliate of Poporanism, the ...
, the left-wing sociologist.
[Camelia Zavarache, "Geometria unei relații complexe: elite, modele ale modernizării statale și regimuri politice în România secolului XX", in Cristian Vasile (ed.), ''"Ne trebuie oameni!". Elite intelectuale și transformări istorice în România modernă și contemporană'', ]Nicolae Iorga Institute of History
The Nicolae Iorga Institute of History ( ro, Institutul de Istorie „Nicolae Iorga”; abbreviation: IINI) is an institution of research in the field of history under the auspices of the Romanian Academy. The institute is located at 1 Bulevardul A ...
& Editura Cetatea de Scaun, Târgoviște, 2017, , p. 255 Falling more in line with the ''Societatea de Mâine'' group, and influenced by physician
Iuliu Moldovan Iuliu is a Romanian male given name derived from Latin ''Iulius''. The female form is Iulia. In other cases Iuliu is the Romanianized form of the Hungarian name Gyula.
People named Iuliu:
* Iuliu Barasch
*Iuliu Baratky
*Iuliu Bodola
* Iuliu Cor ...
, Herseni became a visible supporter of
eugenics
Eugenics ( ; ) is a fringe set of beliefs and practices that aim to improve the genetic quality of a human population. Historically, eugenicists have attempted to alter human gene pools by excluding people and groups judged to be inferior or ...
and
biopolitics
Biopolitics refers to the political relations between the administration or regulation of the life of species and a locality's populations, where politics and law evaluate life based on perceived constants and traits. French philosopher Michel Fo ...
, introducing eugenicist language to works he wrote alongside Gusti.
This interest soon veered into
scientific racism
Scientific racism, sometimes termed biological racism, is the pseudoscience, pseudoscientific belief that empirical evidence exists to support or justify racism (racial discrimination), racial inferiority, or racial superiority.. "Few tragedies ...
and
fascism
Fascism is a far-right, authoritarian, ultra-nationalist political ideology and movement,: "extreme militaristic nationalism, contempt for electoral democracy and political and cultural liberalism, a belief in natural social hierarchy an ...
, possibly inspired to Herseni by another eugenicist,
Iordache Făcăoaru; like Făcăoaru, Herseni viewed
antisemitism
Antisemitism (also spelled anti-semitism or anti-Semitism) is hostility to, prejudice towards, or discrimination against Jews. A person who holds such positions is called an antisemite. Antisemitism is considered to be a form of racism.
Antis ...
as natural and beneficent, eventually affiliating with the radically fascist
Iron Guard
The Iron Guard ( ro, Garda de Fier) was a Romanian militant revolutionary fascist movement and political party founded in 1927 by Corneliu Zelea Codreanu as the Legion of the Archangel Michael () or the Legionnaire Movement (). It was strongly ...
. In 1944, Herseni described his joining of the Guard as a conscious rebellion against the establishment, prompted by his losing the (supposedly rigged) competition at Cluj. He was, according to cultural historian
Lucian Boia
Lucian Boia (born 1 February 1944 in Bucharest) is a Romanian historian. He is mostly known for his debunking of historical myths about Romania, for purging mainstream Romanian history from the deformations due to ideological propaganda. I.e. as ...
, one of the more notorious Iron Guard figures among the university staff, in line with
P. P. Panaitescu
Petre P. Panaitescu (March 11, 1900 – November 14, 1967) was a Romanian literary historian. A native of Iași, he spent most of his adult life in the national capital Bucharest, where he rose to become a professor at University of Bucharest, ...
,
Radu Meitani,
Vladimir Dumitrescu, and
Radu Gyr
Radu Gyr (; pen name of Radu Ștefan Demetrescu ; March 2, 1905, Câmpulung-Muscel – 29 April 1975, Bucharest) was a Romanian poet, essayist, playwright and journalist.
Biography
Early life
Gyr was the son of actor Ștefan "Coco" Dumitres ...
.
Their extremist position was conspicuous enough that the more centrist Moldovan felt obliged to distance himself from both his disciples. By 1935, Herseni had also come to sympathize with a fascist dissidence which divided the Gustian movement: although attacked by
Ernest Bernea in ''Rânduiala'' magazine, which spoke for this counter-current, he parted ways with Stahl over political stances. At the time, moderate left-wingers such as Stahl and Golopenția, witnessing the internecine conflicts between the Guardist supporters and the radical-left group headed by
Gheorghe Vlădescu-Răcoasa
Gheorghe Vlădescu-Răcoasa (October 22, 1895–December 17, 1989) was a Romanian sociologist, journalist, left-wing politician, and diplomat.
Biography Origins and work with Gusti
Born in Răcoasa, Vrancea County, his parents were Constanti ...
, began equating Herseni's politics with an egotistic social climbing.
Herseni's Iron Guard affiliation also ruined his relationship with Gusti: he abandoned his editorial office at the ISR's magazine, ''Sociologie Românească'', to be replaced by Golopenția, who was now Gusti's most treasured companion. Herseni also lost his post of assistant professor at the university,
moving closer to the regional sociological school of
Bukovina
Bukovinagerman: Bukowina or ; hu, Bukovina; pl, Bukowina; ro, Bucovina; uk, Буковина, ; see also other languages. is a historical region, variously described as part of either Central or Eastern Europe (or both).Klaus Peter BergerT ...
, which was headed by Guardist
Traian Brăileanu
Traian Brăileanu or BrăileanAndrei Corbea-Hoișie, "'Wie die Juden Gewalt schreien': Aurel Onciul und die antisemitische Wende in der Bukowiner Öffentlichkeit nach 1907", in ''East Central Europe'', Vol. 39, Issue 1, 2012, p. 22 (September 14, ...
, becoming a regular contributor to Brăileanu's journal ''Însemnări Sociologice''. Together with his wife, who was acting as his secretary and unsigned co-author,
he returned to Țara Oltului to study the youth "posses" (''cetele de feciori'').
His split from the Bucharest school was not definitive: in 1935, together with Gusti, he wrote the sociology textbook for high school seniors. The next year, he participated in the ethnographic expedition to
Șanț
Șanț ( hu, Újradna; german: Neurodna) is a commune in Bistrița-Năsăud County, Transylvania, Romania. It is composed of two villages, Șanț and Valea Mare (''Máriavölgy'').
The commune is located in the northeastern corner of the county, ...
, alongside Gusti, Stoian,
Constantin Brăiloiu
Constantin Brăiloiu (13 August 1893 in Bucharest – 20 December 1958 in Geneva) was a Romanian composer and internationally known ethnomusicologist.
Brăiloiu was born in Bucharest. He studied in Bucharest (1901–1907), Vienna (1907–190 ...
,
Lena Constante
Lena Constante (June 18, 1909 – November 2005) was a Romanian artist, essayist and memoirist, known for her work in stage design and tapestry. A family friend of Communist Party politician Lucreţiu Pătrăşcanu, she was arrested by the Comm ...
,
Jacques Lassaigne,
Jozsef Venczel, and
Harry Brauner
Harry Brauner (24 February 1908 – 11 March 1988) was an ethnomusicologist, composer, and professor of music from Romania.
Life
Brauner was born in Piatra Neamț into a Jewish family with many children, including his elder brother, Victor, w ...
, and contributed to a special homage issue of ''Arhiva'', where he honored Gusti's "sociological, ethical and political system". He and Gusti also published, at
Cartea Românească
Cartea Românească ("The Romanian Book") is a publishing house in Bucharest, Romania, founded in 1919. Disestablished by the Communist Romania, communist regime in 1948, it was restored under later communism, in 1970, when it functioned as the off ...
, ''Elemente de sociologie cu aplicǎri la cunoașterea țării și a neamului nostru'' ("Elements of Sociology as Applied to the Study of Our Country and Our Nation"), a
geopolitical
Geopolitics (from Greek γῆ ''gê'' "earth, land" and πολιτική ''politikḗ'' "politics") is the study of the effects of Earth's geography (human and physical) on politics and international relations. While geopolitics usually refers to ...
tract. It was partly inspired by, and partly opposed to, the theories of
Friedrich Ratzel
Friedrich Ratzel (August 30, 1844 – August 9, 1904) was a German geographer and ethnographer, notable for first using the term ''Lebensraum'' ("living space") in the sense that the National Socialists later would.
Life
Ratzel's father was the ...
, and was highly skeptical of both
geographical
Geography (from Greek: , ''geographia''. Combination of Greek words ‘Geo’ (The Earth) and ‘Graphien’ (to describe), literally "earth description") is a field of science devoted to the study of the lands, features, inhabitants, and ...
and
biological determinism
Biological determinism, also known as genetic determinism, is the belief that human behaviour is directly controlled by an individual's genes or some component of their physiology, generally at the expense of the role of the environment, whether i ...
.
Herseni was able to outmaneuver his rival Golopenția, who was largely absent from the country during that interval. When he returned, Herseni offered a "truce", which included ceding Golopenția some of his classes at university. In 1937, Gusti included Herseni on his team for the IIS Congress, which was held in tandem with
Paris Expo. He lectured there on the "social equilibrium of the Romanian village". Herseni alternated such work with political writing. Also in 1937, he wrote a propaganda tract for the Iron Guard and the workers' movement, which was confiscated by the authorities upon publication. The text was a polemic with the
Communist Party
A communist party is a political party that seeks to realize the socio-economic goals of communism. The term ''communist party'' was popularized by the title of ''The Manifesto of the Communist Party'' (1848) by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels. A ...
, which Herseni described as having a "
Jewish doctrine", whereas the Guard genuinely represented workers. As noted by historian Adrian Cioflâncă, Herseni's credo had "great similarities with communist discourse", endorsing nationalization, a minimum wage, and social insurance, and a "work-based hierarchy" throughout society.
![Serviciul Social logo](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/97/Serviciul_Social_logo.svg)
From 1938, democracy was suspended in Romania, and
King
King is the title given to a male monarch in a variety of contexts. The female equivalent is queen, which title is also given to the consort of a king.
*In the context of prehistory, antiquity and contemporary indigenous peoples, the tit ...
Carol II
Carol II (4 April 1953) was King of Romania from 8 June 1930 until his forced abdication on 6 September 1940. The eldest son of Ferdinand I, he became crown prince upon the death of his grand-uncle, King Carol I in 1914. He was the first of th ...
, an enemy of the Iron Guard, took charge of political and social affairs, creating a mass quasi-fascist party, the
National Renaissance Front
The National Renaissance Front ( ro, Frontul Renașterii Naționale, FRN; also translated as ''Front of National Regeneration'', ''Front of National Rebirth'', ''Front of National Resurrection'', or ''Front of National Renaissance'') was a Romani ...
. Gusti was co-opted into this project, and assigned to lead the Social Service, which, as Stahl notes, was a positive venue for social improvement, but also a potential "tool" for Carol's authoritarianism. Despite his Guard affiliation and his approval of the
death squads
A death squad is an armed group whose primary activity is carrying out extrajudicial killings or forced disappearances as part of political repression, genocide, ethnic cleansing, or revolutionary terror. Except in rare cases in which they are ...
, for which he was denounced by Stancu in ''Azi'', Herseni was spared scrutiny, and probably never detained. Resuming his work at the university, he evaluated
Jewish
Jews ( he, יְהוּדִים, , ) or Jewish people are an ethnoreligious group and nation originating from the Israelites Israelite origins and kingdom: "The first act in the long drama of Jewish history is the age of the Israelites""The ...
students such as Theodor Magder. According to Magder, Herseni showed himself to be "very demanding, but also very fair", in that he did not discriminate on an ethnic basis.
Drafting Herseni into the Social Service, Gusti assigned him to teach a specialized course in rural sociology at the Bucharest sociology department, making him a referent and director of research at the ISR. There was also a rapprochement between Gusti and Brăileanu, which Herseni himself mediated. During July 1938, Herseni, Stahl and Vlădescu-Răcoasa where in Paris, attending the IIS 13th Congress, which voted to hold its next session in Bucharest. He also directed rural sociology campaigns in Țara Oltului, publishing his findings as a series of volumes. These were set to mark the IIS congress, which was ultimately canceled by World War II. He published fragments from his
history of sociology
Sociology as a scholarly discipline emerged, primarily out of Enlightenment thought, as a positivist ''science of society'' shortly after the French Revolution. Its genesis owed to various key movements in the philosophy of science and the phi ...
courses in various installments between 1938 and 1941 as well as a manual on the drawing of
sociogram
A sociogram is a graphic representation of social links that a person has. It is a graph drawing that plots the structure of interpersonal relations in a group situation.
Overview
Sociograms were developed by Jacob L. Moreno to analyze choice ...
s.
[Stahl (1980), p. 703]
National Legionary doctrinaire
The looming threat of war and Romania's rapprochement with
Nazi Germany
Nazi Germany (lit. "National Socialist State"), ' (lit. "Nazi State") for short; also ' (lit. "National Socialist Germany") (officially known as the German Reich from 1933 until 1943, and the Greater German Reich from 1943 to 1945) was ...
sent the Gusti school into its final crisis: in summer 1940, Stahl was drafted and sent to work on the "futile" task of building up defenses; Herseni helped him obtain his Ph.D., intervening with the university leadership.
[Stahl (1981), p. 399] This was just before the downfall of the National Renaissance Front, brought on by the
Second Vienna Award
The Second Vienna Award, also known as the Vienna Diktat, was the second of two territorial disputes that were arbitrated by Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy. On 30 August 1940, they assigned the territory of Northern Transylvania, including all ...
, which saw Romania ceding
Northern Transylvania
Northern Transylvania ( ro, Transilvania de Nord, hu, Észak-Erdély) was the region of the Kingdom of Romania that during World War II, as a consequence of the August 1940 territorial agreement known as the Second Vienna Award, became part of ...
to
Hungary
Hungary ( hu, Magyarország ) is a landlocked country in Central Europe. Spanning of the Carpathian Basin, it is bordered by Slovakia to the north, Ukraine to the northeast, Romania to the east and southeast, Serbia to the south, Croatia a ...
. In the political chaos that followed, Gusti became a political suspect, and Carol ordered his own Social Service to be shut down by ''
Siguranța
Siguranța was the generic name for the successive secret police services in the Kingdom of Romania. The official title of the organization changed throughout its history, with names including Directorate of the Police and General Safety ( ro, Di ...
'' policemen.
The
Prime Minister
A prime minister, premier or chief of cabinet is the head of the cabinet and the leader of the ministers in the executive branch of government, often in a parliamentary or semi-presidential system. Under those systems, a prime minister is not ...
of the time,
Constantin Argetoianu
Constantin Argetoianu ( – 6 February 1955) was a Romanian politician, one of the best-known personalities of interwar Greater Romania, who served as the Prime Minister between 28 September and 23 November 1939. His memoirs, ''Memorii. Pentru ...
, later referred to the Service as a "bad memory".
[ Stelian Neagoe, ]Constantin Argetoianu
Constantin Argetoianu ( – 6 February 1955) was a Romanian politician, one of the best-known personalities of interwar Greater Romania, who served as the Prime Minister between 28 September and 23 November 1939. His memoirs, ''Memorii. Pentru ...
"Din însemnările zilnice ale lui Constantin Argetoianu (41)"
in ''Jurnalul Național
''Jurnalul Național'' is a Romanian newspaper, part of the INTACT Media Group led by Dan Voiculescu, which also includes the popular television station Antena 1. The newspaper was launched in 1993. Its headquarters is in Bucharest
Bucharest ...
'', January 14, 2011
On September 6, 1940, the Iron Guard took power in Romania, proclaiming the
National Legionary State
The National Legionary State was a Totalitarianism, totalitarian Fascism, fascist regime which governed Kingdom of Romania, Romania for five months, from 14 September 1940 until its official dissolution on 14 February 1941. The regime was led by ...
, with General
Ion Antonescu
Ion Antonescu (; ; – 1 June 1946) was a Romanian military officer and marshal who presided over two successive wartime dictatorships as Prime Minister and ''Conducător'' during most of World War II.
A Romanian Army career officer who made ...
as the ''
Conducător
''Conducător'' (, "Leader") was the title used officially by Romanian dictator Ion Antonescu during World War II, also occasionally used in official discourse to refer to Carol II and Nicolae Ceaușescu.
History
The word is derived from the Rom ...
''. Herseni, emerging as a "major propagandist"
Daniel Chirot
Daniel Chirot (born 1942) is an American historian and writer on Russia. He is the Herbert J. Ellison Professor of Russian and Eurasian Studies at the University of Washington. Chirot is also the founder of the journal ''East European Politics an ...
, ''Modern Tyrants: The Power and Prevalence of Evil in Our Age''. Princeton University Press
Princeton University Press is an independent publisher with close connections to Princeton University. Its mission is to disseminate scholarship within academia and society at large.
The press was founded by Whitney Darrow, with the financial su ...
, Princeton, 1995, , p. 239 and "prominent legionary ideologue",
[Roland Clark, "New Models, New Questions: Historiographical Approaches to the Romanian Holocaust", in the '']European Review of History
The ''European Review of History'' (French: ''Revue européenne d'histoire'') is a peer-reviewed history journal. It covers all History#Areas of study, disciplines, geographic regions, and chronological periodsof history, with a focus on the histo ...
'', Vol. 19, Issue 2, 2012, p. 310 saluted the takeover in his articles for the Guardist paper ''
Cuvântul
''Cuvântul'' (, meaning "The Word") was a daily newspaper, published by philosopher Nae Ionescu in Bucharest, Romania
Romania ( ; ro, România ) is a country located at the crossroads of Central, Eastern, and Southeastern Europe. It ...
''. In December 1940, he paid homage to the Legionary Commandant,
Horia Sima
Horia Sima (3 July 1906 – 25 May 1993) was a Romanian fascist politician, best known as the second and last leader of the fascist paramilitary movement known as the Iron Guard (also known as the Legion of the Archangel Michael). Sima was ...
, without whom "the Movement would become an amorphous mass". In order to succeed, Sima was to be obeyed "with unbounded devotion." Herseni also contributed to the
personality cult
A cult of personality, or a cult of the leader, Mudde, Cas and Kaltwasser, Cristóbal Rovira (2017) ''Populism: A Very Short Introduction''. New York: Oxford University Press. p. 63. is the result of an effort which is made to create an id ...
surrounding Sima's assassinated predecessor, Captain
Corneliu Zelea Codreanu
Corneliu Zelea Codreanu (; born Corneliu Codreanu, according to his birth certificate; 13 September 1899 – 30 November 1938) was a Romanian politician of the far right, the founder and charismatic leader of the Iron Guard or ''The Legion ...
, calling him a "national prophet" of the "imperial ways", for whose arrival "our people have been praying for two thousand years". Codreanu's "spirit", Herseni claimed, "leads the nation to victory." He argued that Codreanu's sacrifice guaranteed "the redemption of the Romanians", but warned that "hundreds and thousands of years have prepared his birth, other hundreds and thousands of years will be necessary for the accomplishment of his commandments". Despite his radical metaphors, Herseni's ideological texts toned down Codreanu's stance on the peasant issue, reinterpreting it as a
self-help
Self-help or self-improvement is a self-guided improvement''APA Dictionary of Physicology'', 1st ed., Gary R. VandenBos, ed., Washington: American Psychological Association, 2007.—economically, intellectually, or emotionally—often with a subst ...
guideline rather than as a revolutionary agenda for
land reform
Land reform is a form of agrarian reform involving the changing of laws, regulations, or customs regarding land ownership. Land reform may consist of a government-initiated or government-backed property redistribution, generally of agricultural ...
.
''Cuvântul'' also hosted Herseni's articles on the merger of eugenics and racism, for "the betterment of the human race". He declared that Romanians were, at core, part of the "
Nordic race
The Nordic race was a racial concept which originated in 19th century anthropology. It was considered a race or one of the putative sub-races into which some late-19th to mid-20th century anthropologists divided the Caucasian race, claiming th ...
", which accounted for "the most noble Romanian cultural productions", but that "the race lost its purity". Herseni suggested a "racial purification", and a formal policy of
racial segregation
Racial segregation is the systematic separation of people into race (human classification), racial or other Ethnicity, ethnic groups in daily life. Racial segregation can amount to the international crime of apartheid and a crimes against hum ...
as "a question of life and death". Crediting "the genius of
Adolf Hitler
Adolf Hitler (; 20 April 188930 April 1945) was an Austrian-born German politician who was dictator of Nazi Germany, Germany from 1933 until Death of Adolf Hitler, his death in 1945. Adolf Hitler's rise to power, He rose to power as the le ...
" as in inspiration, he proposed the
compulsory sterilization
Compulsory sterilization, also known as forced or coerced sterilization, is a government-mandated program to involuntarily sterilize a specific group of people. Sterilization removes a person's capacity to reproduce, and is usually done throug ...
of "inferior races", specifically the Jews,
Romanies
The Romani (also spelled Romany or Rromani , ), colloquially known as the Roma, are an Indo-Aryan ethnic group, traditionally nomadic itinerants. They live in Europe and Anatolia, and have diaspora populations located worldwide, with si ...
and
Greeks
The Greeks or Hellenes (; el, Έλληνες, ''Éllines'' ) are an ethnic group and nation indigenous to the Eastern Mediterranean and the Black Sea regions, namely Greece, Cyprus, Albania, Italy, Turkey, Egypt, and, to a lesser extent, oth ...
, "as a tribute to beauty, to morality, and in general to perfection." "The decline of the Romanian people", Herseni claimed, "owes itself to the infiltration in our ethnic group of inferior racial elements interbreeding with the blood of
urancestors".
Historian
Radu Ioanid
Radu may refer to:
People
* Radu (given name), Romanian masculine given name
* Radu (surname), Romanian surname
* Rulers of Wallachia, see
* Prince Radu of Romania (born 1960), disputed pretender to the former Romanian throne
Other uses
* Ra ...
sees these musings as samples of "a typically fascist mentality", in which "the incitement to crime clothes itself in fanciful language." According to scholar
Maria Bucur
Maria Bucur (born 2 September 1968 in Bucharest, Romania) is an American-Romanian historian of modern Eastern Europe and gender in the twentieth century. She has written on the history of eugenics in Eastern Europe, memory and war in twentieth-cent ...
, the
racial legislation introduced at the time suggests "some links" to Herseni and Făcăoaru's "aggressively restrictive positions"; Făcăoaru is known to have had a more direct involvement in this program. Scholar M. Benjamin Thorne also notes that, among Iron Guard figures, Herseni and Liviu Stan stood out for their
Romaphobia
Anti-Romani sentiment (also antigypsyism, anti-Romanyism, Romaphobia, or Antiziganism) is hostility, prejudice, discrimination or racism which is specifically directed at Romani people (Roma, Sinti, Iberian Kale, Welsh Kale, Finnish Kale, Hora ...
; their identification of the Romanies as racial enemies had no precedent in Guardist discourse.
Herseni was chosen for high office in the new bureaucracy, serving as Secretary General of a combined
Ministry of Education
An education ministry is a national or subnational government agency politically responsible for education. Various other names are commonly used to identify such agencies, such as Ministry of Education, Department of Education, and Ministry of Pub ...
and
Culture
Culture () is an umbrella term which encompasses the social behavior, institutions, and norms found in human societies, as well as the knowledge, beliefs, arts, laws, customs, capabilities, and habits of the individuals in these groups.Tyl ...
, seconding Minister Brăileanu. He countersigned an order by Antonescu and Brăileanu for the demotion and arrest of
Petre Andrei
Petre Andrei (June 29, 1891 – October 4, 1940) was a Romanian sociologist, philosopher and politician.
Biography Origins and work
Born in Brăila into a family of low-ranking civil servants, Andrei attended Nicolae Bălcescu High School from ...
, the previous Minister of Education, who was thus shamed into committing suicide. Herseni soon found himself drawn into the conflict between Sima and Antonescu, over the appointment of Guard loyalists at the ''
Accademia di Romania
The Romanian Academy in Rome ( ro, Școala română din Roma, it, Accademia di Romania in Roma) is a research institution under the aegis of the Romanian Academy, founded in 1920 by an initiative of archaeologist Vasile Pârvan and historian Nico ...
'' (Antonescu wanted the old regime figures to be kept in place).
By the close of 1940, Herseni and Făcăoaru were co-opted by Rector Panaitescu on the university review commission, whose mission was to purge academia of undesirables in general, and in particular of former National Renaissance Front dignitaries. Herseni was thus a participant in the decisions to expel or demote a number of scholars: Ralea, historian
Constantin C. Giurescu
Constantin C. Giurescu (; 26 October 1901 – 13 November 1977) was a Romanian historian, member of the Romanian Academy, and professor at the University of Bucharest.
Born in Focșani, son of historian Constantin Giurescu (historian), Constant ...
, philologist
George Călinescu
George Călinescu (; 19 June 1899, Bucharest – 12 March 1965, Otopeni) was a Romanian literary critic, historian, novelist, academician and journalist, and a writer of classicist and humanist tendencies. He is currently considered one of the mos ...
, and classicist
Alexandru Rosetti Alexandru Rosetti (October 20, 1895 – February 27, 1990) was a Romanian linguist, editor, and memoirist.
Born in Bucharest, his parents were Petre Rosetti Bălănescu, a lawyer and landowner, and his wife Zoe (''née'' Cornescu), whose father wro ...
. The same commission also looked into cases of low-ranking staff members, suspect for being Jewish or associating with Jews: it expelled
George Emil Palade
George Emil Palade (; November 19, 1912 – October 7, 2008) was a Romanian cell biologist. Described as "the most influential cell biologist ever", for his "links with the Jews" and "immoral behavior", and nearly demoted
Tudor Vianu
Tudor Vianu (; January 8, 1898 – May 21, 1964) was a Romanian literary criticism, literary critic, art critic, poet, philosopher, academic, and translator. He had a major role on the reception and development of Modernism in Literature of Roma ...
, on grounds that "kikes cannot educate the Romanian youth". Credited with having intervened in Vianu's favor, Herseni recused himself from the case against Gusti, noting that he owed him his career in academia.
[Boia, p. 182]
The Antonescu years
According to his friend Pandrea, Herseni was eventually sidelined by the National Legionary regime, after being denounced by lecturer Sorin Pavel—who had married Herseni's sister.
Petre Pandrea Petre is a surname and given name derived from Peter. Notable persons with that name include:
People with the given name Petre
* Charles Petre Eyre (1817–1902), English Roman Catholic prelate
* Ion Petre Stoican (circa 1930–1990), Romanian v ...
, ''Memoriile mandarinului valah. Jurnal I: 1954–1956'', Editura Vremea, Bucharest, 2011, , p. 428 In January 1941, the Guard and Antonescu went to war with each other, in what was termed the "
Legionary Rebellion"; Antonescu emerged victorious. Herseni, now perceived as a "moderate"
or "decent"
Guardist, was able to escape the subsequent purge, and made his peace with the new military regime. Reportedly, he resumed his contacts with Ralea, assuring him that Sima, by then disgraced and in exile, had tried to curb his own party's violence.
In May of that year, ''Revista de Studii Sociologice și Muncitorești'' hosted Herseni's homage piece to the economist
Virgil Madgearu
Virgil Traian N. Madgearu (; December 14, 1887 – November 27, 1940) was a Romanian economist, sociologist, and left-wing politician, prominent member and main theorist of the Peasants' Party and of its successor, the National Peasants' Part ...
, who had been murdered by the Guard a year before. A year later, ''Sociologie Românească'' published Herseni's posthumous tribute to Andrei, referring to his "great stature" and "untimely death".
He resumed his scientific contribution with a treatise on the sociology of
pastoralism
Pastoralism is a form of animal husbandry where domesticated animals (known as "livestock") are released onto large vegetated outdoor lands (pastures) for grazing, historically by nomadic people who moved around with their herds. The animal ...
(''Tratat de sociologie pastorală''), sponsored by the
Romanian Academy
The Romanian Academy ( ro, Academia Română ) is a cultural forum founded in Bucharest, Romania, in 1866. It covers the scientific, artistic and literary domains. The academy has 181 active members who are elected for life.
According to its byl ...
, which was in some part a polemical study of
folkloristics
Folklore studies, less often known as folkloristics, and occasionally tradition studies or folk life studies in the United Kingdom, is the branch of anthropology devoted to the study of folklore. This term, along with its synonyms, gained currenc ...
. Herseni condemned folklorists for working "at random", and asserted that ethnography in general needed to submit itself to the sociological method. He also contributed a chapter on Romanian sociology, including a sketch on himself, to a history of
Romanian philosophy
Romanian philosophy is a name covering either:
a) the philosophy done in Romania or by Romanians, or
b) an ethnic philosophy, which expresses at a high level the fundamental features of the Romanian spirituality, or which elevates to a philosop ...
, put out in 1941 by
Nicolae Bagdasar. He justified his own inclusion by noting that "our
erseni'ssociological activity has been recorded, through not always praised, by the country's greatest sociologists and a few foreign ones". Herseni also sketched there the results of his epistemological inquiries: society was an objective inner reality, "the sense of an ''us''", leading to the emergence of a "social community" that was therefore not biological, but spiritual. On this basis, Herseni read society as both a "spiritually objective" reality and a
structural-functional one, and thus as an autonomous object of science.
Since June 1941, Romania had joined
Nazi Germany
Nazi Germany (lit. "National Socialist State"), ' (lit. "Nazi State") for short; also ' (lit. "National Socialist Germany") (officially known as the German Reich from 1933 until 1943, and the Greater German Reich from 1943 to 1945) was ...
in its
invasion of the Soviet Union
Operation Barbarossa (german: link=no, Unternehmen Barbarossa; ) was the invasion of the Soviet Union by Nazi Germany and many of its Axis allies, starting on Sunday, 22 June 1941, during the Second World War. The operation, code-named afte ...
. From January 1942, Herseni was behind the lines on the
Eastern Front, in the newly occupied
Transnistria Governorate
The Transnistria Governorate ( ro, Guvernământul Transnistriei) was a Romanian-administered territory between the Dniester and Southern Bug, conquered by the Axis Powers from the Soviet Union during Operation Barbarossa and occupied from 19 Aug ...
. Reportedly, his mission was to set up schools for the
Romanian communities.
He was also mandated by Governor
Gheorghe Alexianu
Gheorghe Alexianu (born January 1, 1897, Străoane, Putna County; died 1 June 1946, Jilava) was a lawyer, high school teacher and associate professor who served as governor of Transnistria between 1941 and 1944. In 1946, he was accused and co ...
to carry out a large ethnographic project, recording Romanian Transnistrian customs. The endeavor, which also involved Golopenția and
Nichita Smochină
Nichita Parfeni Smochină (; Moldovan Cyrillic: Никита Парфени Смокинэ, Russian: Никита Парфеньевич Смокина, ''Nikita Parfenievich Smokina''; also known as Mihai Florin; March 14, 1894 – December 14, 19 ...
, resulted in ethnographic collections by Gheorghe Pavelescu and C. A. Ionescu, with prefaces by Herseni himself. Resigning from the ISR that same year, Herseni moved to
Sibiu
Sibiu ( , , german: link=no, Hermannstadt , la, Cibinium, Transylvanian Saxon: ''Härmeschtat'', hu, Nagyszeben ) is a city in Romania, in the historical region of Transylvania. Located some north-west of Bucharest, the city straddles the Ci ...
to teach "national sociology" at the University of Cluj. The latter had been evacuated from
its namesake city, in Northern Transylvania. As a eugenicist, Herseni also presided over a department of "
sanitary sociology" at Sibiu's Hygiene and Public Health Institute.
He was also interested in what he termed "administrative sociology". The official journal of
Internal Affairs carried his topical essay, in which Herseni also called for a purely Romanian style of governance.
During July–August 1944, Herseni organized another survey of folk traditions in southern Transnistria, having set up a research institute within
Odessa University
Odesa I. I. Mechnykov National University ( uk, Одеський національний університет Iмені І. І. Мечникова, translit=Odeskyi natsionalnyi universytet imeni I. I. Mechnykova), located in Odesa, Ukraine, i ...
. In early 1944, during the
Soviet offensive in Transnistria, Herseni was spotted in
Berezovca County, on an official mission to destroy records of the
mass killings of Jews. After the start of
Soviet occupation
During World War II, the Soviet Union occupied and annexed several countries effectively handed over by Nazi Germany in the secret Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact of 1939. These included the eastern regions of Poland (incorporated into two different ...
, his ethnographic research immediately became taboo: the study he wrote with Ionescu was printed at Sibiu in December 1944, but simply as a collection of generic ''
colinde''. All detail permitting localization in Transnistria was stricken out by the censors.
[Băieșu, p. 110; Popa (2020), p. 111]
Imprisonment, marginalization, recovery
Herseni's name was published on a list of 65 former dignitaries indicted by the
Nicolae Rădescu
Nicolae Rădescu (; 30 March 1874 – 16 May 1953) was a Romanian army officer and political figure. He was the last pre-communist rule Prime Minister of Romania, serving from 7 December 1944 to 1 March 1945.
Biography Early life and education
T ...
government as responsible for "bringing disaster upon the country". He was subsequently arrested on January 29, 1945, but released a while after.
[Octavian Roske (ed.), ''Mecanisme represive în România 1945–1989. Dicționar biografic H–L'', Bucharest, National Institute for the Study of Totalitarianism, 2004, , p. 87] Expelled from his Cluj University chair in July 1945, he managed to publish one more brochure, with Editura Clujana of Bucharest: ''Originile sociologiei'' ("The Origins of Sociology").
Herseni's sister died of cancer that same year, leaving Herseni's nephews with almost no means to support themselves.
Herseni himself was reportedly still working at the Hygiene and Public Health Institute in early 1946. This caught the eye of a
National Liberal
National liberalism is a variant of liberalism, combining liberal policies and issues with elements of nationalism. Historically, national liberalism has also been used in the same meaning as conservative liberalism (right-liberalism).
A seri ...
minister,
Mihail Romaniceanu, who asked his colleagues to explain why a "prominent Guardist" was still eligible for such offices, whereas lesser ones were being purged.
Finally rearrested on May 4, 1951,
Herseni was tried for his role in the National Legionary administration, with Vianu showing up to defend him as a character witness. Sentenced to four years in prison, he did time in
Jilava
Jilava is a commune in Ilfov county, Muntenia, Romania, near Bucharest. It is composed of a single village, Jilava.
The name derives from a Romanian word of Slavic origin (Bulgarian жилав ''žilav'' (tough), which passed into Romanian as ''j ...
and
Aiud
Aiud (; la, Brucla, hu, Nagyenyed, Hungarian pronunciation: ; german: Straßburg am Mieresch) is a city located in Alba County, Transylvania, Romania. The city's population is 22,876. It has the status of municipality and is the 2nd-largest c ...
, before being released on September 29, 1955.
He still remained under an
interdiction to publish and was entirely marginalized in society, turning to
ghostwriting
A ghostwriter is hired to write literary or journalistic works, speeches, or other texts that are officially credited to another person as the author. Celebrities, executives, participants in timely news stories, and political leaders often h ...
for more politically suitable scholars.
[ Eugen Negrici, ''Iluziile literaturii române''. ]Cartea Românească
Cartea Românească ("The Romanian Book") is a publishing house in Bucharest, Romania, founded in 1919. Disestablished by the Communist Romania, communist regime in 1948, it was restored under later communism, in 1970, when it functioned as the off ...
, Bucharest, 2008, , p. 267 His old political enemy, Ralea, decided to include Herseni on his research team at the Romanian Academy's new Psychology Institute from 1956.
He was also made its regional director, and had a similar office at the Anthropological Center (both 1958).
[Stahl (1980), pp. 698, 702] Herseni was undergoing a slow
rehabilitation
Rehabilitation or Rehab may refer to:
Health
* Rehabilitation (neuropsychology), therapy to regain or improve neurocognitive function that has been lost or diminished
* Rehabilitation (wildlife), treatment of injured wildlife so they can be retur ...
, possibly facilitated by Communist Party activist
Miron Constantinescu
Miron Constantinescu (13 December 1917 – 18 July 1974) was a Romanian communist politician, a leading member of the Romanian Communist Party (PCR, known as PMR for a period of his lifetime), as well as a Marxist sociologist, historian, academic, ...
. A former Gustian, turned
Marxist-Leninist doctrinaire, Constantinescu had assigned himself the task of selectively reconsidering "reactionary" sociology. Constantinescu maintained contacts with Herseni, Stahl, Vlădescu-Răcoasa and
Teodor Bugnariu, and prepared himself for the revival of the sociological school, with inputs from
Marxist sociology
Marxist sociology refers to the application of Marxist perspective within the study of sociology.Johnson, Allan G. 2000. "Marxist sociology." Pp. 183–84 in '. Wiley-Blackwell. . Marxism itself can be recognized as both a political philosophy ...
.
Organizing research trips in
Hunedoara Region
Hunedoara (; german: Eisenmarkt; hu, Vajdahunyad ) is a city in Hunedoara County, Transylvania, Romania. It is located in southwestern Transylvania near the Poiana Ruscă Mountains, and administers five villages: Boș (''Bós''), Groș (''Grós' ...
, at
Clopotiva, Herseni published essays on family sociology and
genealogy
Genealogy () is the study of families, family history, and the tracing of their lineages. Genealogists use oral interviews, historical records, genetic analysis, and other records to obtain information about a family and to demonstrate kins ...
in a 1958 collection edited by
Ștefan Milcu. He produced a thesis according to which Romanians of that area were "always the overwhelming majority", having effortlessly
Romanianized their Hungarian neighbors since the 1600s. As noted in 2014 by ethnologist Marin Constantin, Herseni's approach to the topic evidenced a throwback to the Gusti sociological narrative, being
Romanian-centered and "self-referential". Historian of medicine
Marius Turda writes that Romanian communist social science was folding back on racial science, a "national biology involving notions of racial differentiation, cycles of growth and decay, genetic genealogies, the interconnectedness of nurture and nature". The changing political climate allowed anthropologists "to reposition autochthonous ideas within their discipline"; Herseni, "an important Legionary sociologist", "provides an exemplary case of post-war re-adaptation, professionally and theoretically." Bucur also argues that Herseni stands as a prime example of an "openly racist" eugenicist whom the communist regime was able to recover for its own propaganda purposes.
[Bucur, p. 44]
Turda traces the links between the fascist ideologist and the communist anthropologist: "Although the general topic Herseni reflected on was genetic genealogies, his main argument focused on the importance of ethnic anthropology in connecting forms of the nation's micro and macro physical development over time." The same continuity is noted by historians Alexandru Sonoc and Alexandru Grișcan, who view Herseni's description of the Romanian ethnos as a "somatic type" as "doubtlessly racist".
[Alexandru Gh. Sonoc, Alexandru Grișcan, "Clișee mitologizante din istoria geto-dacilor în context aniversar (1986)", in ''Brvkenthal. Acta Mvsei'', Vol. III, Issue 1, 2008, pp. 128–129, 147] Herseni thus intended to return to his 1940 research and find a way to republish its early results (the papers were by then stored at the
Brukenthal National Museum
The Brukenthal National Museum ( ro, Muzeul Național Brukenthal; german: Brukenthalmuseum) is a museum in Sibiu, Transylvania, Romania, established in the late 18th century by Samuel von Brukenthal (1721-1803) in his city palace. Baron Brukent ...
in Sibiu).
In 1961, he contributed to Milcu's monograph on the rural society of
Bătrâna
Bătrâna (; hu, Batrina, german: Altendorf) is a commune in Hunedoara County, Transylvania, Romania
Romania ( ; ro, România ) is a country located at the crossroads of Central, Eastern, and Southeastern Europe. It borders Bulgaria to t ...
, focusing on its peculiar inheritance and
elderly care
Elderly care, or simply eldercare (also known in parts of the English-speaking world as aged care), serves the needs and requirements of senior citizens. It encompasses assisted living, adult daycare, long-term care, nursing homes (often called re ...
practices. His work in the field also resulted in a historical anthropology essay, which rediscovered the pioneering work of
Pavel Vasici-Ungureanu.
Ralea, who had been fully integrated among the post-war Marxists, also co-opted Herseni for projects in
social psychology
Social psychology is the scientific study of how thoughts, feelings, and behaviors are influenced by the real or imagined presence of other people or by social norms. Social psychologists typically explain human behavior as a result of the r ...
. Reportedly, Ralea excused Herseni by arguing that he had only joined the Guard in hopes of being rewarded with
tenure
Tenure is a category of academic appointment existing in some countries. A tenured post is an indefinite academic appointment that can be terminated only for cause or under extraordinary circumstances, such as financial exigency or program disco ...
. At the time, the mainline communists put on hold their project to uproot sociology as a bourgeois science: "a significant thaw occurred". Together, Ralea and Herseni published a 1962 tract, ''Sociologia succesului'' ("The Sociology of Success"), for which Herseni used the pseudonym ''Traian Hariton''.
This praise of collectivism and economic incentives under the
socialist mode of production
The socialist mode of production, sometimes referred to as the communist mode of production, or simply (Marxian) socialism or communism as Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels used the terms ''communism'' and ''socialism'' interchangeably, is a specif ...
was reviewed with skepticism by the Romanian exile psychologist Edgar Krau, who notes that Ralea and "Hariton" had failed to even mention "the all-pervading
ommunistparty tuition" as a possible disturbance of data. Locally, the book was famous for including a reference to sociology in its very title, the first such work to be allowed under communism; this was one of several "surprising signs of political openness and of sociology's acceptance."
[Zamfir ''et al.'', p. 7] Ralea and Herseni also heralded a departure from the more intransigent anti-American propaganda of the 1950s, reintegrating some positive references to American sociology.
Return to prominence
![1952 Sonda Schela Boldesti](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/8e/1952_Sonda_Schela_Boldesti.JPG)
Shortly after making his return to publishing, Herseni was set to be reactivated as a political writer, at the regime's behest. In early 1963, the propaganda magazine ''
Glasul Patriei
''Glasul Patriei'' (Romanian for 'The Voice of the Fatherland') was a Communist Romania's propaganda publication aimed at Romanian emigres, that served the aim of promoting the Socialist Republic of Romania as a harbour not only of socialist idea ...
'' was scheduled to reemerge as a venue for reformed and reeducated Iron Guardists; Herseni was reportedly assigned to work on an essay called ''O eroare fundamentală: concepția legionară despre muncitorime și țărănime'' ("A Fundamental Error: The Legionary Take on Workers and Peasants"). The same magazine ultimately featured his regular contributions by 1966. Like Ralea and Stahl, Herseni was becoming a noted supporter of the
national communist
National communism represents various forms in which Marxism–Leninism and socialism has been adopted and/or implemented by leaders in different countries using aspects of nationalism or national identity to form a policy independent from comm ...
, anti-Soviet, party line, promoted officially by the old party leadership from 1964, and subsequently taken up by the new General Secretary,
Nicolae Ceaușescu
Nicolae Ceaușescu ( , ; – 25 December 1989) was a Romanian communist politician and dictator. He was the general secretary of the Romanian Communist Party from 1965 to 1989, and the second and last Communist leader of Romania. He was ...
.
As Bucur notes, Herseni was now in a position where he himself generated "the new Marxist-Leninist normative discourse".
While gaining leverage with Ralea, Herseni had lost backing from Constantinescu, who perceived him as a personal rival and, possibly, as a superior thinker, and worked to keep him away from sociological research. Herseni worked instead with Bugnariu, with whom he co-authored an essay on the history of Gustian sociology, which appeared in ''
Contemporanul
''Contemporanul'' (The Contemporary) is a Romanian literary magazine published in Iaşi, Romania from 1881 to 1891. It was sponsored by the socialist circle of the city.
A new magazine ''Contimporanul
''Contimporanul'' (antiquated spelling of ...
'' in October 1964.
After 1965, when he entered a new period of prolific writing, Herseni sought to accumulate direct knowledge in the field of
industrial sociology
Industrial sociology, until recently a crucial research area within the field of sociology of work, examines
"the direction and implications of trends in technological change, globalization, labour markets, work organization, managerial practic ...
, reviving and adapting Gusti's (and his own) interwar methodology: a monographic "problem-centered" technique, and a focus on interdisciplinarity.
[Stahl (1980), p. 702] As noted by historian Valentin Săndulescu, he thus wanted to show himself useful to a "potentially valuable" project, that of organizing socialist enterprises. Herseni also involved himself in debates about the future of sociology, defending the science against criticism, and arguing that sociologists could answer specific problems that could not be addressed by statisticians or economists. In 1968, he was allowed to travel abroad, to Paris. There, he reunited with
Emil Cioran
Emil Mihai Cioran (, ; 8 April 1911 – 20 June 1995) was a Romanian philosopher, aphorist and essayist, who published works in both Romanian and French. His work has been noted for its pervasive philosophical pessimism, style, and aphorisms. H ...
, but failed to meet with
Eugène Ionesco
Eugène Ionesco (; born Eugen Ionescu, ; 26 November 1909 – 28 March 1994) was a Romanian-French playwright who wrote mostly in French, and was one of the foremost figures of the French avant-garde theatre in the 20th century. Ionesco inst ...
, as transport had been disrupted by
strikes and student riots.
At the institute, Herseni compiled the
life histories of 550 industry workers, documenting their departure from an "axial" family and their contact with modernity. Herseni's work in social psychology resulted in a definitive treatise, ''Psihologie socială'', co-authored with Ralea and published in 1966, shortly after Ralea's death. In 1967, ''Contemporanul'' hosted Herseni's essay about the old regime politician
Spiru Haret
Spiru C. Haret (; 15 February 1851 – 17 December 1912) was a Romanian mathematician, astronomer, and politician. He made a fundamental contribution to the ''n''-body problem in celestial mechanics by proving that using a third degree approx ...
, highlighting his contribution to
progressive education
Progressive education, or protractivism, is a pedagogical movement that began in the late 19th century and has persisted in various forms to the present. In Europe, progressive education took the form of the New Education Movement. The term ''pro ...
and his conflict with "the ruling classes". He returned to ''
Familia'' as a columnist and sociological analyst, chronicling books by
Pierre Francastel
Pierre Francastel (8 June 1900 – 2 January 1970) was a French art historian, best known for his use of sociological method.
Francastel's initial period of study was in literature, at the Sorbonne. He worked in building conservation at Versaill ...
,
Herbert Read
Sir Herbert Edward Read, (; 4 December 1893 – 12 June 1968) was an English art historian, poet, literary critic and philosopher, best known for numerous books on art, which included influential volumes on the role of art in education. Read ...
,
Jean Piaget
Jean William Fritz Piaget (, , ; 9 August 1896 – 16 September 1980) was a Swiss psychologist known for his work on child development. Piaget's theory of cognitive development and epistemological view are together called " genetic epistemolog ...
,
Talcott Parsons
Talcott Parsons (December 13, 1902 – May 8, 1979) was an American sociologist of the classical tradition, best known for his social action theory and structural functionalism. Parsons is considered one of the most influential figures in sociol ...
, and
T. R. Fyvel
Raphael Joseph Feiwel (1907 – 22 June 1985), better known as Tosco R. Fyvel or T. R. Fyvel (), was an writer, journalist and literary editor. In 1936–1937, he was active in the Zionist movement in Palestine, then under the control of the Briti ...
, as well as reintroducing his public to works by Gusti,
Virgil Bărbat,
Alexandru Claudian
Alexandru Claudian (also rendered as Al. Claudian; April 8, 1898 – October 16, 1962) was a Romanian sociologist, political figure, and poet. A student and practitioner of Marxism, he worked as a schoolteacher, entry-level academic, field researc ...
, and
Ștefan Zeletin.
He later set himself a study case of
industrialization
Industrialisation ( alternatively spelled industrialization) is the period of social and economic change that transforms a human group from an agrarian society into an industrial society. This involves an extensive re-organisation of an econo ...
in
Boldești-Scăeni, where, as Stahl recounts, "a
drilling rig
A drilling rig is an integrated system that drills wells, such as oil or water wells, or holes for piling and other construction purposes, into the earth's subsurface. Drilling rigs can be massive structures housing equipment used to drill wat ...
had been set up, radically transforming the local, rural, social landscape, spurring modernizing social processes".
The result was a study in "concrete social psychology", the 1969 ''Industrializare și urbanizare'',
which, according to sociologist Irina Tomescu-Dubrow, samples the "valuable work" produced in
urban sociology
Urban sociology is the sociological study of life and human interaction in metropolitan areas. It is a normative discipline of sociology seeking to study the structures, environmental processes, changes and problems of an urban area and by doing ...
under communism. Additionally, the team documented decades of migration patterns, using a census, a set of questionnaires, and tools borrowed from
historical demography
Historical demography is the quantitative study of human population in the past. It is concerned with population size, with the three basic components of population change (fertility, mortality, and migration), and with population characteristics ...
. Also in 1969, Herseni issued ''Psihosociologia organizării întreprinderilor industriale'' ("The Psycho-sociology of Organization in Industrial Units"), at
Editura Academiei
The Romanian Academy ( ro, Academia Română ) is a cultural forum founded in Bucharest, Romania, in 1866. It covers the scientific, artistic and literary domains. The academy has 181 active members who are elected for life.
According to its byl ...
, and ''Laboratorul uzinal de psihologie, sociologie și pedagogie'' ("The Industrial Laboratory of Psychology, Sociology and Pedagogy"), at
Editura Științifică.
Also in 1969, the same company issued Herseni's companion to
sociological theory
A sociological theory is a that intends to consider, analyze, and/or explain objects of social reality from a sociological perspective,Macionis, John and Linda M. Gerber. 2010. ''Sociology'' (7th Canadian ed.). Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson E ...
, ''Prolegomene la teoria sociologică''. Reviewing the work for ''
Social Research
Social research is a research conducted by social scientists following a systematic plan. Social research methodologies can be classified as quantitative and qualitative.
* Quantitative designs approach social phenomena through quantifiable ...
'', Jiří Kolaja sensed "a very skillful adaptation of certain Marxist lines of thought though
erseniappears not to be a Marxist." As noted by Kolaja, ''Prolegomene'' attempted to mediate between
individualist
Individualism is the moral stance, political philosophy, ideology and social outlook that emphasizes the intrinsic worth of the individual. Individualists promote the exercise of one's goals and desires and to value independence and self-relianc ...
,
structuralist, and
phenomenological sociology
Phenomenology within sociology (phenomenological sociology) is the study of the formal structures of concrete social existence as made available in and through the analytical description of acts of intentional consciousness. The object of such ...
. In 1970, Herseni spoke about his sociological and political convictions in an interview with ''
Tribuna
''Tribuna'' (russian: Трибуна) is a weekly Russian newspaper that focuses largely on industry and the energy sector.
History
Tribunas published its first publication in July 1969. Until 1990, the newspaper titled the ''Sotsialisticheska ...
''. He defined himself as a committed communist, and made predictions about the
communist future: "in communism, people will be less wicked than we are at present, because they shall have fewer rationales for being wicked." The interview was covered for
Radio Free Europe
Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/RL) is a United States government funded organization that broadcasts and reports news, information, and analysis to countries in Eastern Europe, Central Asia, Caucasus, and the Middle East where it says tha ...
by
Monica Lovinescu
Monica Lovinescu (; 19 November 1923 – 20 April 2008) was a Romanian essayist, short story writer, literary critic, translator, and journalist, noted for her activities as an opponent of the Romanian Communist regime. She published severa ...
, the anticommunist literary critic. She noted that Herseni, with his "degraded mystical" terminology, no longer distinguished between "sociology" and "ideology". However, according to scholar
Daniel Chirot
Daniel Chirot (born 1942) is an American historian and writer on Russia. He is the Herbert J. Ellison Professor of Russian and Eurasian Studies at the University of Washington. Chirot is also the founder of the journal ''East European Politics an ...
, who visited Romania during that interval, Herseni confessed to him in private:
I used to write things praising 'The Captain' and now I write pretty much the same thing, but praising Ceaușescu. I'm not a Marxist, you understand, but I have to admit that I like what he's doing.
Sociologist of literature
During the late 1960s and early 1970s, Herseni diversified his contribution, with a chapter in the pastoralist sociology treatise of Franz Ronneberger and Gerhardt Teich (1971) and an essay introducing the work of psychologist
Nicolae Vaschide (1975).
Other tracts were focused on defining and applying theories from the
sociology of literature
The sociology of literature is a subfield of the sociology of culture. It studies the social production of literature and its social implications. A notable example is Pierre Bourdieu's 1992 ''Les Règles de L'Art: Genèse et Structure du Champ ...
to a Romanian context. At
Editura Univers, he published ''Sociologia literaturii. Cîteva puncte de reper'' ("Literary Sociology. A Few Pointers", 1973), and ''Literatură și civilizație'' ("Literature and Civilization", 1976). Despite being infused with concepts borrowed from
Erich Auerbach
Erich Auerbach (November 9, 1892 – October 13, 1957) was a German philologist and comparative scholar and critic of literature. His best-known work is '' Mimesis: The Representation of Reality in Western Literature'', a history of represe ...
, his contribution focused mainly on the relationship between societies and the literature they produced, and as such viewed itself as fundamentally different from
comparative literature
Comparative literature is an academic field dealing with the study of literature and cultural expression across linguistic, national, geographic, and disciplinary boundaries. Comparative literature "performs a role similar to that of the study ...
. As such, Herseni made explicit references to "
national psychology National psychology refers to the (real or alleged) distinctive psychological make-up of particular nations, ethnic groups or peoples, and to the comparative study of those characteristics in social psychology, sociology, political science and anthr ...
",
linguistic determinism
Linguistic determinism is the concept that language and its structures limit and determine human knowledge or thought, as well as thought processes such as categorization, memory, and perception. The term implies that people's native languages wil ...
, and national "rhythms" of creativity, referencing the anthropological theories of
Wilhelm Wundt
Wilhelm Maximilian Wundt (; ; 16 August 1832 – 31 August 1920) was a German physiologist, philosopher, and professor, known today as one of the fathers of modern psychology. Wundt, who distinguished psychology as a science from philosophy and ...
,
Franz Boas
Franz Uri Boas (July 9, 1858 – December 21, 1942) was a German-American anthropologist and a pioneer of modern anthropology who has been called the "Father of American Anthropology". His work is associated with the movements known as historical ...
,
George Murdock
George Peter ("Pete") Murdock (May 11, 1897 – March 29, 1985), also known as G. P. Murdock, was an American anthropologist who was professor at Yale University and University of Pittsburgh. He is remembered for his empirical approach to ethn ...
, and
Edward Sapir
Edward Sapir (; January 26, 1884 – February 4, 1939) was an American Jewish anthropologist-linguist, who is widely considered to be one of the most important figures in the development of the discipline of linguistics in the United States.
Sa ...
. He argued that structuralism was a relevant paradigm for the study of culture, but only if subsumed to "national specificity". Overall, Herseni argued that art and literature were collective in nature, originating from "imitation" (or ''
mimesis
Mimesis (; grc, μίμησις, ''mīmēsis'') is a term used in literary criticism and philosophy that carries a wide range of meanings, including ''imitatio'', imitation, nonsensuous similarity, receptivity, representation, mimicry, the act ...
'') rather than
sublimation. Inspired by
Lucien Lévy-Bruhl
Lucien Lévy-Bruhl (10 April 1857 – 13 March 1939) was a French scholar trained in philosophy who furthered anthropology with his contributions to the budding fields of sociology and ethnology. His primary field interest was ways of thinking.
...
,
Constantin Noica
Constantin Noica (; – 4 December 1987) was a Romanian philosopher, essayist and poet. His preoccupations were throughout all philosophy, from epistemology, philosophy of culture, axiology and philosophic anthropology to ontology and logics, ...
,
Mircea Eliade
Mircea Eliade (; – April 22, 1986) was a Romanians, Romanian History of religion, historian of religion, fiction writer, philosopher, and professor at the University of Chicago. He was a leading interpreter of religious experience, who establ ...
,
Ruth Benedict
Ruth Fulton Benedict (June 5, 1887 – September 17, 1948) was an American anthropologist and folklorist.
She was born in New York City, attended Vassar College, and graduated in 1909. After studying anthropology at the New School of Social Re ...
, and
James George Frazer
Sir James George Frazer (; 1 January 1854 – 7 May 1941) was a Scottish social anthropologist and folklorist influential in the early stages of the modern studies of mythology and comparative religion.
Personal life
He was born on 1 Janua ...
, Herseni described language and early poetry as interconnected with
folk religion
In religious studies and folkloristics, folk religion, popular religion, traditional religion or vernacular religion comprises various forms and expressions of religion that are distinct from the official doctrines and practices of organized re ...
, and especially with magic. The works also contained methodological proposals for the research of reading habits, with a typology borrowed from
André Maurois
André Maurois (; born Émile Salomon Wilhelm Herzog; 26 July 1885 – 9 October 1967) was a French author.
Biography
Maurois was born on 26 July 1885 in Elbeuf and educated at the Lycée Pierre Corneille in Rouen, both in Normandy. A member of ...
.
As noted in 2008 by scholar
Eugen Negrici, such writings are also intertwined with the official dogmas of national communism: "still haunted by his old fears,
ersenitried to look his best in front of the communist authorities, providing his sociological perspective—one saturated with Marxist cliches—on Romanian literature".
By contrast, sociologist Florența Stăvărache argues that Herseni introduced "fissures" in official dogma with his "critical note on how literary doctrines and ideologies were all dealt with through the lens of 'Marxism-Leninism'."
[Stăvărache, p. 168] Also according to Stăvărache, Herseni's musings about the "social responsibility of writers" and the possibility of their "constrained political engagement" were "evidently alluding to his contemporaries". She criticizes Herseni's abundant use of "erudite" referencing, noting that it made the work outdated: working from inside a "captive society", Herseni had had access to Lévy-Bruhl, but not to his critics.
Herseni took his pension from the Psychology Institute in 1973,
but carried on with his work in sociology and anthropology. His studies of industrial sociology were bound together as ''Psihologia colectivelor de muncă'' ("The Psychology of Working Collectives", Editura Academiei, 1973) and an eponymous textbook: ''Sociologia industrială'' (
Editura Didactică și Pedagogică, 1974). According to Stahl, this was both a "world-level work" and a monograph of "our country's real issues", "the result of direct experiences".
Herseni's original drafts were "apolitical", treating
industrial relations
Industrial relations or employment relations is the multidisciplinary academic field that studies the employment relationship; that is, the complex interrelations between employers and employees, labor/trade
unions, employer organizations, ...
as indistinct from socialist to capitalist countries, and were revised by censors to comply with the party line. Also in 1974, Herseni contributed to an Editura Științifică collection on industrial-sociological laboratories, with a study of
social engineering Social engineering may refer to:
* Social engineering (political science), a means of influencing particular attitudes and social behaviors on a large scale
* Social engineering (security), obtaining confidential information by manipulating and/or ...
techniques.
[Stahl (1980), p. 704] The following year, returning to his native region, he contributed to a monograph on the Făgăraș Chemical Plant.
Final years
During the early 1970s, in essays he wrote for Constantinescu's ''Sociologia Militans'' archive, Herseni explained his intention of transcending rural sociology, applying its lessons to understanding (or generating)
social actions
In sociology, social action, also known as Weberian social action, is an act which takes into account the actions and reactions of individuals (or ' agents'). According to Max Weber, "Action is 'social' insofar as its subjective meaning takes ac ...
in the national sphere, and, beyond, in
geopolitics
Geopolitics (from Greek γῆ ''gê'' "earth, land" and πολιτική ''politikḗ'' "politics") is the study of the effects of Earth's geography (human and physical) on politics and international relations. While geopolitics usually refers to ...
. In 1976, he completed his "paleoethnographic" study about the "posses" of Țara Oltului, published by
Editura Dacia
Editura Dacia ("Dacia Publishing House") is a publishing house based in Romania, located on Pavel Chinezul Street 2, Cluj-Napoca. Named after the ancient region of Dacia, it was founded in 1969 by a group of Transylvanian intellectuals, and print ...
as ''Forme străvechi de cultură poporană românească'' ("Ancient Forms of Romanian Folk Culture"). As noted by Stahl, it evidenced "an essential change in his preoccupations", bringing with it Herseni's formal inclusion in the community of Romanian folklorists.
The book series also signified a break with the Gustian tradition of strict sociology, turning to
cultural anthropology
Cultural anthropology is a branch of anthropology focused on the study of cultural variation among humans. It is in contrast to social anthropology, which perceives cultural variation as a subset of a posited anthropological constant. The portma ...
, which the young Herseni had criticized repeatedly. Commenting on this conversion, Stahl concluded that Herseni remained "an enigma".
''Forme străvechi'' claimed to show that the posses were "a vestige of ancient
Geto-Dacian beliefs and practices, which still preserve some
pre-Indo-European elements." Taking
Romanian onomastics as his point of departure, Herseni argued that Romanians conserved a belief in the ''
Tellus Mater
In ancient Roman religion and mythology, Tellus Mater or Terra Mater ("Mother Earth") is the personification of the Earth. Although Tellus and Terra are hardly distinguishable during the Imperial era, ''Tellus'' was the name of the original ea ...
'' and reincarnation within the family. Part of the work recorded the
localization of Christmas, including the "dilution" of an older pagan holiday, ''
Korochun
''Koročun'' or ''Kračun'' (see Korochun#Names and etymology, other variants below) is one of the names of Slavic mythology, Slavic pagan holiday Koliada. In modern usage, it may refer to the winter solstice in certain Eastern European languages, ...
''. He also reviewed and categorized 400 ''
colinde'' of Țara Oltului, noting that 88 of them had Christian "non-canonical" content, and another 124 where entirely non- or pre-Christian. Some of Herseni's views on the matter remain particularly controversial. According to Negrici, the book shows Herseni as a convert to
protochronism
Dacianism is a Romanian term describing the tendency to ascribe, largely relying on questionable data and subjective interpretation, an idealized past to the country as a whole. While particularly prevalent during the regime of Nicolae Ceaușescu ...
, the communist doctrine (blended with "the undigested residues of the interwar right")
which supposed Romanian cultural superiority and ancient pedigree. Herseni "endorses the thesis that Romanian civilization, albeit rural and oral, is by no means inferior to the literate civilizations that were cultivated in citadels and towns."
Herseni died in Bucharest in 1980.
His last published works include a French-language essay on the
Dacian Draco, in which he argued that
dragons
A dragon is a reptilian legendary creature that appears in the folklore of many cultures worldwide. Beliefs about dragons vary considerably through regions, but dragons in western cultures since the High Middle Ages have often been depicted as ...
or ''
zmei'' were among the "primordial beings" of local mythology. According to Paula Gusty-Herseni, his lifetime output comprised 541 works of social science, of which 29 were volumes (although, Stahl cautions, their content often overlapped);
Achim Mihu, who republished some of Herseni's works, counts 543. One of his final contributions was the historical study ''Cultura psihologică românească'' ("Romanian Psychological Culture"), which sought to establish a link between an ancient national psychology and the development of psychology as a modern science. Additionally, Herseni contributed a chapter in
Romulus Vulcănescu's introduction to
ethnology
Ethnology (from the grc-gre, ἔθνος, meaning 'nation') is an academic field that compares and analyzes the characteristics of different peoples and the relationships between them (compare cultural anthropology, cultural, social anthropolo ...
, a specialized field which Herseni wanted to delimit from both anthropology and sociology as "the science of folk phenomena". He also left ''Teoria generală a vieții sociale omenești'' ("The General Theory of Human Social Life"), a manuscript comprising 1,276 pages, read by Stahl as a final synthesis "of his work in the realm of sociology". Its mission statement described a merger of Gustian and Marxist ideas, around the "objective laws of social development".
Also in 1980, Herseni's essay on the "Romanian race" saw print as ''Cultura psihologică românească'' ("Romanian Psychological Culture");
''Teoria generală'' was also eventually published in 1982.
Herseni was more fully recovered and discussed after the
Romanian Revolution of 1989
The Romanian Revolution ( ro, Revoluția Română), also known as the Christmas Revolution ( ro, Revoluția de Crăciun), was a period of violent civil unrest in Romania during December 1989 as a part of the Revolutions of 1989 that occurred i ...
, which lifted the ban placed by communism over most of his work. Anthropologist
Zoltán Rostás contacted various of Herseni's colleagues, including Paula Gusty-Herseni, publishing his interviews with them in various volumes, including the 2003 ''Sala luminoasă'' ("A Lit Room").
She died aged 98.
More controversially, Herseni's work was also reclaimed by
neo-fascist
Neo-fascism is a post-World War II far-right ideology that includes significant elements of fascism. Neo-fascism usually includes ultranationalism, racial supremacy, populism, authoritarianism, nativism, xenophobia, and anti-immigration sent ...
publications which appeared throughout the 1990s.
The Hersenis had one daughter, Ioana, a psychologist at the
Oil & Gas University.
In 2007, she and Marian Diaconu issued his sociological overview, ''Istoria sociologiei românești'' ("History of Romanian Sociology").
[Bulgaru, p. 79; Stan, pp. 27, 36, 37] Herseni's work in Transnistria was only revisited in 1994, when C. A. Ionescu's book was printed, in its complete form, in
Chișinău
Chișinău ( , , ), also known as Kishinev (russian: Кишинёв, r=Kishinjóv ), is the Capital city, capital and largest city of the Republic of Moldova. The city is Moldova's main industrial and commercial center, and is located in the ...
,
Moldova
Moldova ( , ; ), officially the Republic of Moldova ( ro, Republica Moldova), is a Landlocked country, landlocked country in Eastern Europe. It is bordered by Romania to the west and Ukraine to the north, east, and south. The List of states ...
.
On Herseni's centenary in 2007, the Chișinău
Academy of Economic Studies
The Bucharest University of Economic Studies ( ro, Academia de Studii Economice din București, abbreviated ''ASE'') is a public university in Bucharest, Romania. Founded in 1913 as the ''Academy of Higher-level Commercial and Industrial Studies'' ...
hosted a symposium in his honor.
Notes
References
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