Author
Mihail Kogălniceanu
2 reading cards from 2 books · 1840–1843.
2 cards
Dacia Literară · 1840
A culture is built from verifiable facts, not from slogans about origins.
Kogălniceanu opens his Iași journal with a statement of method: he drops the era's favorite quarrel about the Latin origin of the Romanians and announces a program of observation. He wants texts about customs, history, and social life, not philological treatises. His mechanism is simple: a culture is built from verifiable facts, not slogans. The journal itself is his example, publishing fiction, historical studies, and plays in a handful of issues before censorship shut it down. The preface outlived the articles precisely because it says what deserves telling and what does not.
“I will not speak of our language or of our origin, for today all the nations of Europe share one origin; our language is a language, like all languages. I will show what we were, what we are today, and what we can and must be.”
Cuvânt pentru deschiderea cursului de istorie națională · 1843
The homeland is not the political border, but every place where Romanian is spoken.
Kogălniceanu redefines the notion of homeland in linguistic and cultural terms, not political ones. In 1843, when Moldavia and Wallachia were separate states and Transylvania belonged to the Habsburg Empire, he asserts national unity. For instance, his course on national history included all Romanian provinces, which was an act of political courage.
“I regard as my homeland the whole stretch of land where Romanian is spoken, and as national history the history of the whole of Moldavia before it was torn apart, of Wallachia, and of our brothers in Transylvania.”