|
RRI newsletter subcription
(e-mail address):
|
 |
Archives:
|
|
| ROMANIANS AND KARL MARX 16/05/2009 |
| (2009-05-18) |
| Last updated: 2009-05-18 15:39 EET |
Never in the history of the world has there ever been a more popular intellectual than Karl Marx, or a more widely read philosophy than his. Marxism has been the most popular social theory ever devised, and it can hardly ever be dethroned as such. Revolution was his great invention for radical changes in the social and economic order. Irrespective of social or national origin, all those who were against capitalism were sympathetic towards this philosophy. The Italians, the Polish, or the Hungarians were considered nations with great revolutionary potential, and were defended in writing by Marx against the empires they were ruled by.
However, in his writings he left room for Romanians as well, who were part of a people at the opposite end of Europe compared to England, where he was living at the time, a group that was making its way with great difficulty towards modernization and nation status. What could the great prophet of eternal and universal prosperity write about one of the most modest peoples of Europe? At the beginning of the 1960, Polish professor Stanislas Schwann, studying the Marx and Engels archive at the Social History Institute of Amsterdam, discovered four unknown manuscripts by Karl Marx about Romanians. He kindly forwarded the news to the Academy of the People’s Republic of Romania.
Historians Andrei Oţetea and Gheorghe Zane left for Amsterdam, where, together with a team of Romanian researchers, read, edited and translated the manuscripts. It was tedious work, since everyone who had seen the manuscripts previously had given up on editing them because of the incredibly hard to read handwriting in the four manuscripts, which were put to paper between 1853 and 1860. These were hurried, unordered notes made by Marx, which he never again reviewed. He wrote, in the same sentence, German, French and English words, with both Gothic and Latin characters, not to mention some shorthand versions of words, turning the manuscripts into little Towers of Babel.
Published in 1964, the four manuscripts were given the title Notes on Romanians, and were seen as a brief history of Romanians inspired heavily by a book by French historian Elias Regnault, called Histoire politique et sociale des Principautes Danubiennes. Regnault had used information and interpretations written by Romanian writers such as Nicolae Balcescu, Ion Ghica, Ion Heliade Radulescu, Alexandru Papiu-Ilarian, but also by French writers such as Colson, Desprez, and Vaillant, or Italian Ubicini. Marx was attracted by Romania’s situation of being caught between three empires, Austrian, Ottoman, and Russian.
Marx is generally sympathetic towards the Romanian cause, and towards the efforts made by Romanian nobles in the first half of the 19th century towards forming a nation state. Marx expresses unbridled animosity towards the three empires, with the latter, the Russian empire, being the greatest target of contempt. The Russian invasions of the 18th century and the merciless exploitation by the Ottomans are seen by Marx as the causes for which Romanians were in such a backwards state. The 18th century was the beginning of disaster for the two Romanian principalities.
It was not just Romanians that were the object of Marx’s sympathy, it was also other Balkan nations, such as Serbians, Bulgarians, or Albanians. Hungarians were also included, in so far as their revolutionary fighting spirit did not impinge on other nations’ interests. The Romanian cause was embraced by Marx, but he only went as far as its notable revolutionary figures, such as Tudor Vladimirescu, Avram Iancu, or Nicolae Balcescu. The conservatives and rulers that opposed them, as far as Marx was concerned, were worthy only of contempt. He concludes that Romanians have a right to their own state, and to economic and social emancipation.
The publication of Notes on Romanians had a deeper political connotation, aside from its scientific value, although this was not its main reason for being valuable. Marx mentions in them the issue of Bessarabia, condemning the abuse committed by Russia when it annexed this ancient Romanian territory. The argument went as follows: “Turkey could never give away what didn’t belong to it, because the Ottoman Porte was never sovereign over the Romanian principalities, since capitulation did not endow it with sovereign status”. Also, Marx extolled popular Romanian revolutionary figures such as Tudor Vladimirescu, the leader of the 1821 revolution, which was useful to the regime in the 1960s, because it seemed to grant it legitimacy. Beyond any interpretations, these manuscripts remain as valuable historical sources about the efforts made by a small nation in fulfilling its aspirations.
|
|
| |
WMA |
|
64kbps : |
1
2
3
|
|
|
128kbps : |
1
2
3
|
| |
MP3 |
|
|
64kbps : |
1
2
3
|
|
|
128kbps : |
1
2
3
|
| |
AAC+ |
|
|
48kbps : |
1
2
3
|
|
|
64kbps : |
1
2
3
|
 Historical mascot of
RRI |
2024-05-13
Print
Listen again