LFU:online

Understanding of questions relating to the philosophy of science through reading and discussing suitable classical or innovative texts of historiography resp., knowledge of developments in research and criticism of paradigms. 

Romanians are considered to be the largest population group in south-eastern Europe. They belong to the Romance language group. Romanian history, culture, civilisation, art, language and spirituality are shaped by a symbiosis of the Roman capitals: the old and new Rome and Constantinople; as well as Latinity and Eastern Church or Byzantine Christianity. Modern Romania was only created in 1859 through the principalities union of Moldavia and Wallachia. After the First World War, Bessarabia, Bucovina, Transylvania and Banat became Romanian territory too, territories that had previously been part of the Russian and Austro-Hungarian empires.

Our discussions in the course will focus on Romanian history and historiography, culture and art, spirituality as well as identity of Romanians from the early modern period to the 21st century. We will try to find out how Romanians perceived themselves and how they were perceived by others, how they developed as a people and a nation and how they then constructed their modern and present statehood in different periods: monarchy (1859-1947), communism (1948-1989) and the European Union (since 2007). The texts proposed for discussions and analysis come from both Romanian and non-Romanian authors (German, French, American), historians, philosophers, theologians and writers of the 18th, 19th, 20th and 21st centuries. However, a central question – we will focus on – lies in the (not only semantic but nevertheless also political) difference between the history of Romania and Romanian history.

Oral and/or written 

Will be announced

Positive assessment of compulsory module 1

Online registration necessary!