New Europe College Yearbook 1996-1997

New Europe College Yearbook 1996-1997

TEFAN BORBLY MIRCEA CRTRESCU CRISTINA CODARCEA FELICIA DUMAS IOAN IC, JR. ION MANOLESCU CTLIN PARTENIE CRISTIAN PREDA MIHAI SORIN RDULESCU VALENTINA SANDU-DEDIU

Tiprirea acestui volum a fost finanat de Published with the financial support of

Copyright 2000 - New Europe College ISBN 973 98624 4 6 NEW EUROPE COLLEGE Str. Plantelor 21 70309 Bucharest Romania Tel. (+40-1) 327.00.35, Fax (+40-1) 327.07.74 E-mail: nec@nec.ro

CONTENTS

ANDREI PLEU ELITEN - OST UND WEST 7 TEFAN BORBLY A PSYCHOHISTORICAL INSIGHT INTO PAST AND PRESENT ROMANIA 23 MIRCEA CRTRESCU POSTMODERNITY AS A WEAK ONTOLOGICAL, EPISTEMOLOGICAL AND HISTORICAL EXPERIENCE 93 CRISTINA CODARCEA RAPPORTS DE POUVOIR ET STRATGIE DE GOUVERNEMENT DANS LA VALACHIE DU XVIIe SICLE 129 FELICIA DUMAS LE GESTUEL LITURGIQUE ORTHODOXE - DIMENSIONS SMANTIQUES ET PRAGMATIQUES 151 IOAN IC, JR. POLITICAL EUROPE, SPIRITUAL EUROPE 191 ION MANOLESCU VISUAL TECHNIQUES IN POSTMODERN LITERATURE. TOWARDS AN INTERDISCIPLINARY APPROACH OF FICTIONAL PERSPECTIVE 239 CTLIN PARTENIE PLATONIC IMMORTALITY REVISITED 277

CRISTIAN PREDA NOUS, LES MODERNES 301 MIHAI SORIN RDULESCU SUR LARISTOCRATIE ROUMAINE DE LENTRE-DEUX-GUERRES 337 VALENTINA SANDU-DEDIU COMMON SUBJECTS IN MUSICAL RHETORIC AND STYLISTICS. ASPECTS AND PROPOSALS 367 COLEGIUL NOUA EUROP 411 NEW EUROPE COLLEGE 415 NEW EUROPE COLLEGE 419

ELITEN - OST UND WEST

ANDREI PLEU

Hoffentlich verstoe ich nicht allzu sehr gegen den Geist der Reuter-Konferenzen, wenn ich Ihnen an Stelle eines Vortrags etwas bieten werde, das eher einer Erzhlung nahe kommt. Mit anderen Worten, ich ziehe es vor episch zu sein, und nicht analytisch, und das aus zwei Grnden. Zum einen komme ich aus einem ehemals kommunistischen Land, in dem das Thema Eliten lngst als Lebenserfahrung existierte, bevor es zum Thema von Reflexionen, Forschung und akademischer Debatte wurde. Die Eliten waren bei uns der Grundstoff fr einen Krieg. Die Frage, die unser Leben nach 1945 prgte, war nicht Was sind Eliten und welches ist ihre Rolle im sozialen Leben?, sondern Wie knnen die Eliten liquidiert werden, wie kann man die Welt von ihrer verhngnis- und unheilvollen Prsenz befreien? Es wurde nicht nach einem Konzept gesucht, sondern nach einer Strategie. Niemand verlor Zeit mit Definitionen, und seltsamerweise - obwohl eine grndliche Definition fehlte wute jedermann sehr wohl, um was es ging Der zweite Grund, weshalb ich mich fr die epische Variante entschied, hat mit der Art und Weise zu tun, wie ich in diesem Moment die optimale Entwicklung eines Ost-West-Dialogs verstehe. Meiner Ansicht nach ist Osteuropa nach 1989 viel zu schnell zu einem Studienobjekt fr Westeuropa geworden. Die theoretische Konstruktion kam zustande, bevor die Tatsachen grndlich verdaut waren. Wir wurden systematisiert, bevor wir gehrt wurden, bevor uns bis zu Ende zugehrt wurde. Damit mchte ich keineswegs sagen, es gbe kein umfassendes Inventar der osteuropischen Wirklichkeiten, und ich mchte auch nicht die Pose des unverstandenen Opfers einnehmen, beziehungsweise noch unterstreichen. Ich behaupte nur, dass noch viel zu akkumulieren ist auf der Ebene der offenbarenden kleinen Geschichte, der unermerklichen alltglichen Promiskuitt. Gebraucht wird ein naiver, klatschender und tratschender Diogenes Laertius des Osten, der das Fleisch der totalitaristischen Erfahrung wieder ins rechte Licht rckt, das von politischen Analytikern, von Soziologen, Historikern und Wirtschaftsexperten von berall zu frh seziert und obduziert worden ist.

N.E.C. Yearbook 1996-1997 Kurz gesagt, Osteuropa hat seine Geschichte noch nicht zu Ende erzhlt. Deswegen erscheint mir jede epische Episode willkommen. Ich beginne jedoch mit einer Geschichte aus Westeuropa. Es war in 1992, und ich befand mich in diesem Saal als Gast des Rektors. Ich hielt einen Vortrag ber Engel, mein damaliges Thema, exotisch genug, um gleichzeitig Neugier und Mitrauen zu erwecken. Zwangslufig kam ich auf die himmlischen Hierarchien zu sprechen, mit den neun Stufen, die Pseudo-Dionysios Aeropagita aufzhlt: von der niedrigsten Stufe der einfachen Engel, die gleich ber dem Menschen angesiedelt sind, bis zur hchsten Stufe der Serafim, in unmittelbarer Nhe Gottes. Bei den Diskussionen, die auf meinen Vortrag folgten, bemerkte ein bewanderter Kollege aus Chicago spter wurden wir dann gute Freunde halb im Spa, halb ernst, dass die Hierarchien von Dionysios eine elitr-diskriminatorische Auffassung verraten. Schon der Terminus Hierarchie signalisiert durch seinen Rigorismus eine Sklerose der Werte, ihr Verharren in einer ungerechten Schichtung. Ich brauche wohl nicht zu erwhnen, dass ich berrumpelt war. Bis dahin hatte ich niemals daran gedacht, die hierarchische Aufstellung der Engelscharen als Ausdruck der Ungleichheit, als mangelhaften demokratischen Geist zu analysieren und zu deuten. Mir schien, dass unter dem gttlichen Auge alle, die ihren Zweck erfllen, gleich sind. Es gibt zugegebenermaen in der erschaffenen Welt eine Art Arbeitsteilung, die jedem eine besondere Rolle zuteilt, auf der einen oder anderen kosmischen Stufe. Diese Rollenverteilung fhrt jedoch nicht zwangslufig zu ungerechten Verhltnissen der Unterordnung. Der Mensch, beispielsweise, befindet sich unter den Engeln angesiedelt, ist ihnen aber nicht unbedingt unterlegen im Gegenteil, er kann eine berengelheit sein, wie Angelus Silesius sagt, und folglich in der Rolle des Zentrums des Universums verteilt werden. Keine despotisch aufgezwungene Ungleichheit sah ich im Konzept der Hierarchie, sondern eine freiwillig eingegangene, lebendige und funktionelle Ordnung. Die Bemerkung des amerikanischen Kollegen lie mich eine fr mich neue Empfindlichkeit gegenber dem Eliten-Problem entdecken. Ich war in einem Umfeld aufgewachsen, in dem der Terminus Elite keinerlei negativen Beigeschmack zulie. Ich glaubte mit einer nahezu schlerhaften Unschuld, dass dieser Terminus ausschlielich etwas Gutes bezeichnet, etwas Schnes, Edles, Wnschenswertes. Nur die Aktivisten der Kommunistischen Partei reagierten allergisch, wenn er beschworen wurde; fr sie gab es nur eine einzige akzeptable Elite: die Gegen-Elite. Und

ANDREI PLEU siehe, hier im Westen angelangt, wurde mir ganz unerwartet und aus einem vllig anderen Blickwinkel eingeredet, dass mit den Eliten etwas nicht stimme. Dass die Legitimitt der Eliten keine Selbstverstndlichkeit sei. Ich begann meine Unschuld zu verlieren... Doch das war weder das erste, noch das letzte Mal, dass sich meine unter dem Kommunismus angesammelte Lebenserfahrung als unverwendbar in der freien Welt erwies. Selbst wenn wir scheinbar dasselbe sagen, denken wir hufig an unterschiedliche Wirklichkeiten. Oftmals knnen wir gar nicht dasselbe sagen. Zwischen den beiden Welten hat sich eine komplizierte Sammlung von Dyssymmetrien angehuft, die eine Wiedervereinigung mindestens in demselben Mae verhindert wie die konomischen Dysfunktionen. Erlauben Sie mir einige Beispiele anzufhren. Nach 1989 galten fr die ehemals kommunistischen Lnder zwei Ziele als dringend und prioritr: die Grndung eines politischen Mehrparteiensystems und der bergang zur Marktwirtschaft - Demokratie und Kapitalismus. Zumindest theoretisch waren unsere Bestrebungen frei von jedwelcher Zweideutigkeit. Wir muten nur die rmel hochkrempeln unter dem Expertenblick des Westens und mit dessen grozgiger Hilfe. Nur war der Westen nicht mehr an jenem Punkt, an dem wir gewohnt waren, ihn zu suchen. Solch eine Entdeckung konnte fr uns nicht ohne bedeutende taktische und strategische Folgen bleiben. Richard von Weizscker, der damalige Bundesprsident, hatte gerade an die Politiker seines Landes eine mutige Botschaft ber den bertriebenen Anteil des Parteikampfes im ffentlichen Leben gerichtet. Das ffentliche Interesse laufe Gefahr vom Wahlkampf verraten zu werden. Der Mechanismus der politischen Dispute zwischen den verschiedenen Parteiformationen entwickele sich zum einzigen realen Inhalt der Demokratie, was letztendlich einer Preisgabe der grundlegenden Prinzipien der Demokratie gleichkomme. Mglicherweise sollten wir unsere Vorstellungskraft einsetzten, um neue Funktionsformen des politischen Lebens anzupeilen und auszuloten, in denen die Parteien nicht mehr die berlegene Prgnanz von heute haben. In den rumnischen Medien sorgte dieserart Argumentation fr Verblffung. Die demokratischen Geister waren verschnupft, die Krypto-Kommunisten jubilierten. Denn das hiee, wir htten auf ein Auslaufmodel gesetzt. Wir wollten ein System bernehmen, das sich seine Erfinder vorbereiteten aufzugeben. Herr von Weizscker bezog sich aber eindeutig nicht auf die Transitions-Lnder, und es wre zumindest unangebracht eine Idee in Rumnien anwenden zu wollen, die nur in

N.E.C. Yearbook 1996-1997 einem stabilen demokratischen Kontext Sinn machte. Psychologisch gesehen ist es jedoch zumindest unangenehm sich fr ein Ziel stark zu machen, dessen Risse und Sprnge so leicht vorhersehbar sind. Man steht kurz vor der Hochzeit, und da wird einem die Scheidung angekndigt. Nchternheit ist kaum eine gute Prmisse fr den reformierenden Enthusiasmus. Das ist auch der Grund, weshalb ich lange Zeit sauer auf Andr Glcksmann war, der im Dezember 1989 nach Bukarest kam und unsere revolutionre Euphorie zerstrte, indem er sagte: Maintenant, cest le bordel qui commence! Er hatte Recht. Doch mit seinem Recht konnten wir nichts anfangen. hnliche Probleme tauchten auch im Zusammenhang mit der Marktwirtschaft und im allgemeinen mit dem kapitalistischen Modell auf. Wir waren daran gewhnt, in der Schule, in den Stunden Politische Erziehung, auf den offiziellen Konferenzen oder von den Massenmedien ber die Unzulnglichkeiten des Kapitalismus aus marxistischleninistischer Sicht informiert zu werden. Nach 1989 haben wir es nicht mehr mit einer sozialistischen Kritik, sondern mit einer kapitalistischen Kritik des Kapitalismus zu tun. Selbst George Soros hat zahlreiche Bedenken im Zusammenhang mit dem zeitgenssischen Funktionieren der Finanzmrkte und der internationalen Finanzorganisationen (siehe u.a. seinen Artikel The Capitalist Threat, erschienen im The Atlantic Monthly im Februar 1997). Manche hyperentwickelte Lnder, wie beispielsweise Japan, zgern nicht, eine zentralistische Kontrolle ber Produktion und Handel auszuben, es kommen geschickte Theoretiker auf, von Galbraith bis hin zu Adolph Lowe, und beweisen, dass der Mierfolg der Planwirtschaft nicht durch eine abgttische Verherrlichung des Marktes korrigiert werden kann. Man spricht von einem schuldhaften Fundamentalismus des Liberalismus (John Gray), whrend die These des dritten Wegs auf das Binom Kommunismus (beziehungsweise Sozialdemokratie) - Kapitalismus (beziehungsweise Liberalismus) verzichtet und, seit Anthony Giddens, immer mehr Gehr findet. Keinen Augenblick stelle ich Berechtigung, Subtilitt und Aktualitt dieser umfangreichen Debatte in Frage. Alles was ich sagen mchte ist, dass wir, im Osten, nicht darauf vorbereitet sind, an ihr teilzunehmen und sie uns anzueignen. Mehr noch, es wre zu diesem Zeitpunkt riskant, auf diese Debatte einzugehen und den Entschlu prompt zu handeln mit Betrachtungen ber eine Problematik zu ersetzen, die keinerlei Deckung in unserer alltglichen Erfahrung hat. Beispiele gibt es noch und noch: So haben wir zum Beispiel jetzt das Gefhl, dass wir uns endlich wieder in

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ANDREI PLEU den natrlichen Metabolismus der Geschichte einfgen knnen fr unseren jetzigen Zustand ist Fukuyama unpassend und irritierend. Wir haben das Gefhl, da wir nach Jahrzehnten des mehr oder minder stark proletarisch geprgten Internationalismus nun unsere Identitt wiederfinden mssen der Wirbelwind der Globalisierung setzt fr uns zu frh ein. Mglicherweise kommt alles zu frh, was in Form von Ansprchen vom Westen auf uns zukommt, nachdem wir jahrzehntelang mit dem Gedanken lebten, der Bruch mit dem Kommunismus komme mglicherweise zu spt... Wir sind auf gefhrlicher Weise in dieser drastischen Dialektik eines Zu-frh Zu-spt gefangen, was unter Umstnden lhmende Auswirkungen haben kann. Und jetzt kommen wir auf die Eliten zu sprechen. Wahrscheinlich ist meine These durchaus vorhersehbar nach alledem, was ich bereits gesagt habe. Ich behaupte, dass das charakteristischste Programm des Kommunismus und dessen dauerhafteste Auswirkung die Beseitigung der Eliten war. Ich behaupte ferner, dass die Schwierigkeiten, mit denen Osteuropa in der postkommunistischen Periode zu kmpfen hat, in groem Mae von den zahlenmig und qualitativ nicht ausreichenden Eliten bedingt sind, und dass folglich die Neuerfindung der Eliten lebenswichtig ist. Der globale Kontext aber, und die zu diesem Zeitpunkt dominante Ideologie, neigen eher zur Relativierung der Eliten. Wir befinden uns demnach in der Situation, ein Projekt zur Rekonstruktion der Eliten auf dem Hintergrund einer anti-elitaristischen Rhetorik vorzuschlagen. Eine weitere Asymmetrie also, zustzlich zu denjenigen, die ich erst vorhin erwhnt habe. Allerdings mit dem Unterschied, dass ich diesmal eine Nuancierung hinzufgen mu, die mir wesentlich erscheint: Ich glaube, dass unsere Versptung in diesem Falle nicht verhngnisvoll ist. Ich glaube, es ist vorteilhafter, vor sich die Aussicht auf eine Rekonstruktion der Eliten zu haben, als jene ihrer Nivellierung. Ich glaube, was zu frh fr uns ist, ist diesmal auch fr den Rest der Welt zu frh. Und mehr noch, ich glaube, dass die derzeitige Modetendenz, Ansehen und Autoritt der Eliten zu beschneiden, unproduktiv ist und auch niemals willkommen sein wird. I. Einer der am hufigsten im modernen politischen Kommentar anzutreffenden Gemeinplatz ist derjenige, der den Nazismus als Doktrin des Rassenhasses im Unterschied zum Kommunismus definiert, der eine Doktrin des Klassen hasses sei. Im Grunde genommen bt der Kommunismus seine Ressentiments nicht nach Klassenkriterien aus. Alle sozialen Klassen sind potentielle Feinde, einschlielich der Klasse der

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N.E.C. Yearbook 1996-1997 Proletarier. Worauf der Kommunismus wirklich abzielt sind die Eliten die brgerlichen Eliten, aber auch die Eliten der Arbeiterschaft, der Grogrundbesitzer, ebenso die Eliten des Bauerntums. Selbst die von der Partei nach vorne, in Spitzenfunktionen, geschobene knstliche Elite, wird ohne Vorurteile oder Bedenken liquidiert, sobald sie sich als eine Elite mit Unabhngigkeitstendenzen erweist. Der Kommunismus ist eine Theorie des Klassenkampfes, aber eine Praxis der Zerstrung der Eliten. Dass die Dinge so stehen, beweist die Bevlkerung der kommunistischen Gefngnisse, in denen Politiker, Universittsprofessoren und Grogrundbesitzer mit des Lesen und Schreibens unkundigen Bauern, oder mit Arbeitern, Priestern, Gendarmen und Studenten zusammen leben und leiden. Die Welt der kommunistischen Konzentrationslager ist nicht der Ausdruck eines Klassenmartyriums; es ist ein perfektes Resmee der Welt. Die 100.000.000 Toten dies scheint die provisorische Bilanz des Weltkommunismus zu sein sind nicht 100.000.000 Brgerliche. Der Titel, den Nicolas Werth fr das erste Kapitel des Schwarzen Buches des Kommunismus, das Kapitel ber die Sowjetunion, gewhlt hat, ist uerst treffend: Ein Staat gegen sein Volk. Nicht gegen eine Klasse oder eine Idee gegen ein ganzes Volk. Die Rhetorik der Repression sprach selbstverstndlich von den Arbeitern und Bauern als die Initiatoren und Nutznieer der Revolution, in Wirklichkeit aber zhlten sie auch oft zu den Opfern. Die Bolschewiken-Kommissare starteten umfassende und blutige Kampagnen zur Befriedung der Drfer, die sich der Kollektivisierung widersetzen. Eine Statistik des Volkskommissariats fr Arbeit stellte fest um nur ein Beispiel anzufhren , dass im Jahre 1920 rund 77 Prozent der groen und mittelstndischen Unternehmen Rulands von Protestbewegungen und Streiks erfat waren. Ein engagierter Journalist der Prawda kommentierte kategorisch: Der beste Platz fr einen Streikenden, diese gelbe und schdliche Mcke, ist das Konzentrationslager. Der reiche und habschtige Bauer, der Wucherer, der blutsaugende Kulak sind in der Parteisprache die Ziele der revolutionren Justiz, ebenso wie die intellektuellen Schmarotzer und die Banditen von Grogrundbesitzer. Ein subalterner Beamter schlug Lenin einen anderen Namen fr das Volkskommissariat fr Justiz vor: Volkskommissariat fr Soziale Extermination. Exzellente Idee, antwortete Lenin. Auch ich sehe die Dinge genau so. Unglcklicherweise knnen wir es aber so nicht nennen. Letztendlich aber war der Name nicht wichtig. Wichtig war das Prinzip selbst, die Extermination des Feindes,

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ANDREI PLEU und der Feind konnte auch wenn er als Klassenfeind bezeichnet wurde berall angesiedelt werden. In Rumnien wurden allein in den Jahren 1951 und 1952 etwa 35.000 Bauern verhaftet, von denen rund 29.000 wohlhabende Bauern waren. Nach welchen Kriterien aber wurde der Feind identifiziert und weshalb behaupten wir, dass seine Zugehrigkeit zu einer bestimmten Elite sein distinktives Merkmal war? Ich mchte da Metaphysik oder Psychologie nicht berstrapazieren und der unmenschlichen nazistischen Arroganz die trivialen kommunistischen Ressentiments gegenberstellen. Eindeutig aber erscheint mir, dass der kommunistische Ideologe mit einer beeindruckenden und bengstigenden Unterscheidungsfhigkeit die hohen Register einer jeden sozialen Klasse lokalisierte und sich dann mobilisierte, um sie zu zerstren, denn er wute, dass eben diese Register das Hindernis fr sein groes Projekt darstellten. Man wollte den neuen Menschen schaffen, einen Menschen mit anderen Kriterien und Optionen als der traditionelle Mensch. Das Schlsselwort bei der Umsetzung dieses Projektes war Umerziehung: andere Modelle, andere Erinnerungen, andere Sitten. Und wer ist, auf einen ersten Blick, immun gegenber der Umerziehung? (Ich sage >auf einen ersten Blick<, denn Immunitt gegenber auferzwungener Umerziehung gibt es nicht.) Die Antwort finden wir bei Gorki, in einem Brief an Romain Rolland: als erstes die Intelligenzija mit ihren stabilen Wertvorstellungen und Optionen, die zu bewahren sie neigt, und dann der reiche Bauer mit seinem Sinn fr Eigentum und Besitz. Gegen diese, sagt Gorki, msse ein unbarmherziger Brgerkrieg gefhrt werden. Und im Krieg wird gettet. Alles, was fr das menschliche Individuum einen identittsverleihenden Wert darstellt, alles, was ihm Ansehen und Autoritt innerhalb seiner Klasse verleiht, mute abgeschafft werden. Denn schlielich sind Identitt und Autoritt Eigenschaften des alten Menschen... Ein Tscheka-Offizier sagte 1918 zu seinen Untergeordneten: Sucht whrend der Ermittlungen nicht nach Unterlagen und Beweisen fr die Taten des Angeklagten (...). Die erste Frage, die ihr ihm stellen mt, ist (...), welches sind seine Herkunft, Erziehung, Ausbildung, Beruf. Das Ergebnis mu Entwurzelung sein, etwas was in der Alchemie nigredo heit, die Rckfhrung der Welt in den Zustand der materia prima. Die Bauern-Elite mu zerstrt werden, weil sie zu stark an Grund und Boden, an Bruche, an die Vergangenheit gebunden ist. Die Arbeiter-Elite mu liquidiert werden, weil sie zu stark dem nicht ideologisierbaren Kult des Handwerks verbunden ist und nicht nur das Bewutsein ihrer Rechte, sondern auch die Kraft hat, diese

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N.E.C. Yearbook 1996-1997 durchzusetzen. Die Intellektuellen mssen liquidiert werden, weil sie einen bermig kritischen Geist haben und mit riskanten Konzepten wie Wahrheit, Kultur, Ideen, usw. operierten. Die Religion mu kompromittiert, die Familie politisiert, die Schule umstrukturiert werden. Eine neue Geschichtstheorie wird ausgearbeitet, dergem Persnlichkeiten einfach nur Auswchse der Massen sind, aus den Lehrbchern fr Geschichte werden die nonkonformistischen Helden verbannt und aus jenen fr Literatur die Autoren, die nach marxistisch-leninistischem Kanon nicht systematisiert werden knnen. Fein geregelt wird auch die Wellenlnge der Bewunderung, letztendlich eine gefhrliche Gemtsbewegung, wird sie nicht mit ideologischer Wachsamkeit richtig ausgerichtet. Die Geschichte wird passend umgeschrieben, bis sie Fiktion ist, whrend der Fiktion so lange angedroht wird realistisch zu werden, bis sie letztendlich Propaganda ist. Reichen werden zu Bettlern, der soziale und menschliche Abschaum macht Karriere. Der Sinn fr Hierarchien wird vergewaltigt, bagatellisiert, mit Schuldgefhlen behaftet. Das Innenleben wird wie eine Subversion behandelt. Hochgespielt und hochbewertet werden hingegen geschwtzige uerlichkeit und oberflchlicher Dynamismus. Auf dem Weg zum neuen Menschen entstehen die Zwischenspezies des Aktivisten und dessen romantische Variante der Agitator . Der Kommunismus setzt sich auf fast allen Gebieten als Weltmeister der Planimetrie durch. Sein Universum ist ein Art Eislaufplatz ohne Anhaltspunkte, ein Wahnsinn der Gleichmacherei. Untergrndigkeiten werden in der Regel als suspekt entlarvt, die Hhe als einfache Suprastrukturen entmythisiert. Die Tiefgrndigkeit der Geschichte wird auf das Schaubild des Klassenkampfes reduziert. Die Seelentiefe ist irgendein unwichtiger Reflex der sozialen Epidermis. Was aber ist denn schlielich, unter all diesen Umstnden, mit den Eliten geschehen? Einige sind ganz einfach verschwunden. In den Gefngnissen oder in der anonymen Misere einer peripheren Existenz. Andere haben diskret berlebt, am Rande, wie der verarmte Adel, zwar noch fhig den Schein zu wahren, in Wirklichkeit aber entmannt: eine Elite an ihrem Lebensabend, eine Untergrund-Elite, es ist gerade noch soviel brig, um die Erinnerung an die Normalitt zu wahren. Man konnte einen alten Schriftsteller in einer altmodischen Wohnung besuchen, oder einen von den Behrden geduldeten Philosophen in einem Bergdorf. Man entdeckte auf diese Weise eine zarte und schmchtige Kontinuitt zu einem

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ANDREI PLEU anderen Zeitalter, das nach Hrensagen angedeutet wurde, Gegenstand einer diffusen, schuldhaften und ngstlichen Nostalgie. Und schlielich gab es eine dritte Kategorie, die ich als die Glashaus-Elite bezeichnen will. Es handelt sich um die enge Gemeinschaft der Schriftsteller und Knstler, die in Schaffensverbnden organisiert waren eine Art gut berwachter Reservationen, in denen ein akzeptables berleben im Gegenzug zu der Heraushaltung aus dem Jetzt, oder aber zu einem triumphalistischen Mitmachen, angeboten wurde. Den Ideologen der engagierten Kunst gelang auf diese Weise eine perfekte Isolierung der Knstler-Elite von dem realen Metabolismus der Gesellschaft. Die kulturelle Elite war zum Exotismus verdammt. Und was die anderen Eliten betrifft - diese werden entwurzelt, durch die perfide Frderung eines krankhaften Wettbewerbsgeistes, der zu schweren Mibildungen fhrte. Die Bauernschaft wird ermutigt den Arbeiter-Status, folglich stdtischen Status, anzustreben, man spricht ber die Abschaffung der Unterschiede zwischen Land und Stadt. Die Arbeiterschaft wird ihrerseits aufgefordert, in Richtung Intelektuellen-Status zu migrieren. Es werden Parteischulen gegrndet, die ber Nacht Hochschultitel an Vertreter des Proletariats verleihen, ausgewhlt nach Kriterien der drftigen sozialen Herkunft und der politischen Treue. Leute ohne Gymnasialabschluss erhalten Doktor- und akademische Titel. Auf diese Weise wird schnellstens eine widerrechtliche Aneignung jeder Kompetenz und die Diskreditierung jedwelcher echten Leistung erzielt. Groangelegte Veranstaltungen fr Laienknstler werden veranstaltet, um damit unter Beweis zu stellen, dass Kreativitt nicht alleiniges Recht der Berufsknstler und Talent eine demokratische Tugend ist, la mieux partage du monde. Nivellierung, Umsturz, Entwurzelung, Destabilisierung das sind die alltglichen Winkelzge des Regimes. Das Verhltnis zwischen Zentrum und Peripherie, zwischen berlegenheit und Unterlegenheit wird umgestlpt. Wer ber echte Autoritt verfgt hat keine Macht, und wer die Macht besitzt hat keine Autoritt. II. Das ist im groen Ganzen der Hintergrund, auf dem sich die revolutionren nderungen vom Dezember 1989 abzeichneten. Und es entbehrt nicht einer gewissen symbolischen Relevanz, dass diese nderungen von einer Straenbewegung hervorgerufen wurden, deren Helden, statistisch gesehen, keine Vertreter irgendeiner Elite waren. Eliten produzieren eher samtene Revolutionen; blutige Revolutionen brauchen die anonyme Vehemenz der Masse. Nach einem radikalen Umsturz der

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N.E.C. Yearbook 1996-1997 alten Institutionen ergibt sich als Hauptproblem die Frage, wer bernimmt die Zgel, wer definiert und wer verwaltet das pltzlich mglich gewordene Neue ? Aller Augen richten sich folglich auf den leer gebliebenen Platz, auf den luftleeren Raum im Zentrum des Wirbelsturms und suchen die eventuellen neuen Verwalter der Macht. Allein, nach 45 Jahren totalitren Abdriftens, ist das Angebot konfus, wenn es nicht gar null ist. Zuerst suchen die Blicke in der unmittelbaren Nachbarschaft der ehemaligen Fhrer. Die Euphorie nach der Beseitigung des Diktators schwcht die Fehler seiner ehemaligen Mitarbeiter ab. Die Namen mancher seiner einstigen Ministerprsidenten ertnen, und diese erklren sich durchaus bereit, sofort mit der Reform zu beginnen. Dann wird unter den vom launenhaften Fhrer politisch verfolgten Aktivisten gesucht, unter den Helden der Strae und unter den wenigen im ffentlichen Bewutsein bewahrten Dissidenten. Es ist offensichtlich es gibt keine Reserve an Ersatz-Eliten. Das postkommunistische Rumnien mu folglich eine Elite erfinden - aus dem Nichts oder aus den hinflligen und gebrechlichen berresten der alten. Die ehemalige Nomenklatura erweist sich zwangslufig als eine Kader-Nachwuchsschule, auf die zurckgegriffen werden kann. Daneben tauchen von unbegrndetem Ehrgeiz getriebene Personen auf, Schlitzohren und nebulse Romantiker, die aus Interesse oder einfach blauugig-treuherzig bereit sind, Verantwortung in diesem Durcheinander des Augenblicks zu bernehmen. Das Spielfeld betritt auch jene von mir vorher erwhnte Glashaus-Elite, die ihren Status neudefinieren und durch einen endlich mutigen und zudem lukrativen Aktivismus die schuldige Passivitt von vor 1989 kompensieren mu. Ein Teil der Intellektuellen sprt, dass die neuen Zeiten eine andere Art von Stars durchsetzen werden, und, aufgrund der Kriterien der Aktualitt, nehmen sie eine Umorientierung an ihrer Karriere vor: Sie werden Journalisten, Politiker und seltener Geschftsleute. Insgesamt kann von einer spektakulren Umverteilung der Berufe gesprochen werden. Recht hufig anzutreffen ist die Umwandlung von rzten, Ingenieuren, Schriftstellern und Juristen in politische Analytiker (ein inflationrer Beruf), in Diplomaten, Parteistreiter oder Herausgeber. Manche jen sais quelque chose - werden Minister, Parlamentarier, Unternehmer. Nahezu alle drngen sich unter den hochfeinen Reihen der Zivilgesellschaft, die dazu neigt, in Zeiten des Umbruchs zum Homonym der Elite zu werden. Die berufliche Restrukturierung kommt leider zumindest vorlufig einer allgemeinen Ent-Professionalisierung gleich. Alle Welt vom Staatsprsidenten und Minister bis hin zum einfachen Straenbudenbesitzer befindet

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ANDREI PLEU sich im Zustand des Debtanten, der das Fehlen einer entsprechenden Ausbildung und Erfahrung durch Talent, konjunkturelle Geschicklichkeit, Glck oder Unverfrorenheit zu kompensieren versucht. Der allgemeine Eindruck ist, dass wir keine Leute haben, dass wir fr keinen einzigen Bereich einen berzeugenden Katalog von Experten aufstellen knnen. Die jetzige Koalition kndigte im Wahlkampf 1996 an, sie werde 15.000 Spezialisten ans Ruder bringen. Sehr bald erwies sich, dass diese Versprechung sich vllig an die Regeln eines jeden Wahlkampfes hielt: Sie hatte keinerlei Deckung. Die 15.000 Spezialisten, genauer gesagt, ihr Nichtvorhandensein, ist heute Anla fr ffentlichen Spott und Hohn... Charakteristisch ist die Tatsache, dass Bauernschaft und Arbeiterschaft, also die eigentliche Masse der Bevlkerung, sich nur minimal an den Belangen des Landes beteiligt. Ihrer elitren Dimension beraubt, haben sie keinerlei klare Interessen mehr jenseits der alltglichen berlebensAnsprche, sie haben keine Kriterien mehr, keine berzeugungen, keine Initiative. Sie sind leicht zu manipulieren und explodieren dann und wann, getrieben von einem unbestimmten Herdentrieb, oder angestiftet von geschickten und unlauteren Anfhrern. Auf die 1992 einigen Frauen vom Lande gestellte Frage: Welchen der beiden Kandidaten fr das Prsidialamt werden Sie whlen? kamen Antworten der Art: Solange dieser da Staatsprsident ist, werde ich ihn whlen, wenn der andere ans Ruder kommt, whle ich den!, oder aber: Ich whle beide, Gott soll entscheiden, welcher der bessere ist. Das Aufgeben der Entscheidungstreffung, die Delegierung des Optionsrechts beweisen eine akute Identittskrise. Und mit einer Whlerschaft, die sich in tiefer Identittskrise befindet, knnen demokratische Wahlen eine angemessene politische Elite kaum korrekt destillieren. Denn eine Fhrungs-Elite durch Wahlen zu erzielen setzt die politische Kompetenz der Masse, mehr noch, eine gewisse Sensibilitt der Masse gegenber der Tugenden der Elite, voraus. Echte Eliten sind keine sich selbst gengende Minderheiten, kein einsamer Klub, der ein abstrakter Superlativ verkrpert. Sie sind Ausdruck des Bedrfnisses des sozialen Krpers nach Eliten, sie sind die Projektion eines gemeinschaftlichen Affekts. Um zu entstehen, bentigen die Eliten selbstverstndlich menschliche Qualitt, erlesene und grndlich gepflegte Eigenschaften, aber sie brauchen auch eine gewisse Investition an Respekt seitens der anderen, ein Mandat des kollektiven Vertrauens. Die Eliten sind das Korrelat einer Gemeinschaft, die eine Intuition der Eliten-Leistung hat und sie bewundert. Mit anderen Worten, eine Aristokratie der Kompetenz

17

N.E.C. Yearbook 1996-1997 kann es ohne die Aristophilie des sozialen Krpers nicht geben. Der dramatischste Prozess aber, der in den ehemaligen kommunistischen Lndern auer der Zerstrung der Eliten ablief, war die strategische Untergrabung des Respekts gegenber Eliten. Die Folgen werden erst jetzt sichtbar, wenn wir merken, dass ein Grund fr das Fehlen der Eliten auch die Tatsache ist, dass wir kein Organ mehr fr Eliten haben. Die Umerziehung, der wir unterzogen wurden, ist gelungen: Uns gefallen die Superlative nicht mehr - und Gre vertragen wir auch nicht mehr. Nach Jahrzehnten des verstmmelnden und verunstaltenden Gehorsams sind wir Zeugen der kompensierenden Explosion eines zerstrerischen kritischen Geistes niemand ist mehr sicher vor der verallgemeinerten Wollust der Diskreditierung. Statt beansprucht, genutzt und stimuliert zu werden, sind die Eliten eher Gegenstand entfesselter Beschuldigungen. Die Qualifizierung zur Elite ist verwssert und durch Atomisierung auf alle bertragen. Jeder Brger fhlt sich berechtigt, jedwelche Form von Herausragendem und Auergewhnlichem anzufechten und in Frage zu stellen. Eine definitorische Funktion der Eliten und zwar jene, als koagulierender Anhaltspunkt im magnetischen Zentrum der Gesellschaft zu stehen, wird somit auer Kraft gesetzt. Es scheint, wir haben es mit einem fr post-revolutionre Geschichtsablufe typischem Drehbuch zu tun, mit dem chaotischen Drehbuch der Transition. Nach seiner Rckkehr aus Amerika beschreibt Toqueville eine hnliche Stimmung in Frankreich 1835: Wo befinden wir uns wohl? Glubige Menschen bekmpfen die Freiheit, und Freunde der Freiheit greifen die Religionen an; edle und grozgige Geister loben das Sklaventum, und die niedrigen und senilen Gemter empfehlen die Unabhngigkeit; ehrliche und erleuchtete Brger wehren sich gegen jedwelchen Fortschritt, whrend Menschen, denen Patriotismus und Moral abgehen, zu Aposteln der Zivilisation und des Lichtes werden! (...) Eine Welt, in der nichts mehr zueinander passt, in der die Tugend kein Genie mehr hat, und das Genie keine Ehre mehr, in der Ordnungsliebe mit Vorliebe fr Tyrannen und der heilige Kult der Freiheit mit der Verachtung gegenber dem Gesetz verwechselt werden; eine Welt, in der das Gewissen ein nur sehr undeutliches Licht auf die menschlichen Aktionen wirft, in der nichts mehr verboten scheint, nichts mehr erlaubt, nichts mehr ehrlich, noch schandhaft, noch wahr, noch falsch ist. Toqueville allerdings konnte auf ein Ende der Krise hoffen, denn er hatte das Modell einer Lsung: die amerikanische Demokratie. Wir, in Osteuropa, haben die Krise auch identifiziert. Wir wissen wie die ersten

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ANDREI PLEU therapeutischen Manver auszusehen haben. Wir sind desgleichen bereit, ein ntzliches Modell zu bernehmen, sei es westeuropisch oder amerikanisch. Doch das Modell kmpft gegen andere Krankheiten als wir. Genauer gesagt, was wir als Krankheit empfinden die Zergliederung der Eliten , scheint auf der Ebene des Modells als ein Symptom der Normalitt empfunden zu werden. Wir wollen das wieder aufbauen, was sich das Modell vornimmt, abzubauen. Wiederaufbau mit Dconstruction III. Selbst die Definition des Terminus Elite hat sich eindeutig in Richtung Relativierung entwickelt. Zur Zeit von Vilfredo Pareto und Gaetano Mosca hatte die Elite noch eine Spur von Pracht, im Sinne der alten Tradition der griechischen aber vor allem rmischen Rhetorik. Ich spreche von Pracht, im Sinne dass sich die Idee der menschlichen Qualitt (Tugend, Erkenntnis, Edelmut) mit der Idee der Gre, mit dem monumentalen Ansehen verband. Im V. Buch der Gesetze (730c 731a) verleiht Plato beispielsweise dem hheren Menschen die Attribute mgas ka tleios gro und vollendet. Groe Menschen sind auch die Helden der Vitae parallelae von Plutarch, sowie einige Gestalten der griechischen Tragdie und die Aristokraten von Pindar. Doch die rhetorische Emphase des groen Menschen scheint in der westlichen Zivilisation eher ein Erbe Ciceros zu sein (vergl. fr diese Problematik Hans Joachim Mette, Der groe Mensch, in Hermes. Zeitschrift fr klassische Philologie, 89. Band, 1961, S. 332-334). Doch gerade die Konnotation von Pracht, auf die ich mich beziehe, hatte zur Folge, dass das Gerechtigkeitsempfinden einer gewissen political correctness irritierte. Aus Angst vor ungerechten, beleidigenden Ausrutschern, vor unverdienten Hierarchisierungen, die zu Arroganz fhren, wurde der Kult der Gre aufgegeben, und mit ihm gleichzeitig auch der Kult der auergewhnlichen menschlichen Qualitt. Aus Angst vor Elitarismus ging man zur Minimalisierung der Elite ber. Zuerst wurde ihre Einzigartigkeit (die Minderheit der Besten aristoi Vertreter einer Gemeinschaft) durch eine Mehrzahl ersetzt, die auf Berufe, Institutionen und Funktionen gegliedert ist. Bereits 1936 sah Harold Lasswell in den Eliten die Summe derjenigen, die effizienten Einflu in unterschiedlichsten sozialen Ttigkeitsbereichen besaen: Politik, Geschftswelt, Religion, Armee, usw. Folglich Eliten nicht Elite. Dann folgte eine funktionelle Einschrnkung des Terminus: Heute arbeiten die Sozialwissenschaften mit einem Elitekonzept, das praktisch nur noch die elementare Mechanik der Macht umfat. Eliten sind in jedem ffentlichen Bereich diejenige,

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N.E.C. Yearbook 1996-1997 die leiten, die fhren - Entscheidungstrger also. Das Substantiv ist sozusagen zu einem einfachen Attribut geworden. Eliten bezeichnen nicht lnger eine bestndige Eigenschaft, sondern eine vorbergehende Position. Persnlichkeiten, Berhmtheiten, mit einem Wort, die Stars (oder die Prominenten oder die VIPs) kommen und gehen, und Qualifikation ist letztendlich eine Frage des image, ein Ergebnis der publicity. uerst bedeutungsvoll ist die Mutation, die auf genau jenem Gebiet stattfand, das normalerweise fr die Formung der Eliten zustndig ist: Erziehung und Bildung. John R. Searle macht in einer im Herbst 1993 in Daedalus verffentlichten Studie auf die Spannung aufmerksam, die bereits zu jenem Zeitpunkt herrschte vor allem in der amerikanischen akademischen Welt zwischen der mehr oder minder traditionellen Pdagogik, die den Prinzipien des abendlndischen Rationalismus treu blieb, und der Neuen Welle der postmodernen Pdagogik, die sich unter dem Einflu von Autoren wie Thomas Kuhn, Jacques Derrida, Richard Rorty und in geringerem Mae Michel Foucault herausgebildet hatte. Eine links-gefrbte Neulesung von Nietzsche stellt Konzepte mit einer glorreichen und stabilen Herkunft in Frage: Es existiert keine Objektivitt, die Wahrheit wird eher fabriziert denn entdeckt, selbst der Begriff Wissenschaft wird als repressiv eingestuft. Der kulturelle Kanon, den die Universitten pflegen und frdern, ist ein politisches Konstrukt, ein willkrlicher Werteblock, der erfunden wurde, um Auenstehende manipulieren zu knnen. Auf den riesigen politischen Mibrauch der traditionellen Universitts-Eliten mu ebenfalls politisch reagiert werden. Bse Manipulation wird durch gute Manipulation ersetzt. Und deshalb werden auch die Rekrutierungsregeln fr neue Professoren gendert. Neudefiniert wird selbst das Konzept intellektuelle Qualitt. Die Pflichttugenden sind eher in der Richtung korrekte politische Einstellung, Intensitt des Engagements, oder Hingebung zur Sache zu suchen, als bei der tatschlichen wissenschaftlichen Leistung. Wir erleben eine radikale Restrukturierung der bestehenden Hierarchien und damit eigentlich die prinzipielle Aufhebung jedwelcher Hierarchie. Es ist zum Beispiel ungerecht, unbegrndet und elitr zu behaupten, dass manche Bcher besser als andere, manche Theorien wahr und andere falsch sind, oder aber dass ein beweiskrftiger Unterschied gemacht werden kann zwischen der Bildungskultur und der Volkskultur. Es ist nicht mein Ziel, auf dieser Konferenz die von Searle umrissene Revolution auf irgendeiner Art und Weise zu kommentieren oder zu beurteilen. Ich frage mich aber, wie eine Vershnung mglich wre

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ANDREI PLEU zwischen den Krisen, die der europische Osten nach langen Jahrzehnten kommunistischer Herrschaft nun erlebt, und dem reformatorischen Furor der postmodernen Ideologien. Wie kann ein vernftiger Sprung aus der Vor-Moderne in die Post-Moderne gemacht werden, angenommen dieser Sprung ist Pflicht? Fr mich ist dieses Problem nicht theoretischer Natur. Es handelt sich nicht um eine abstrakte Debatte ber die Philosophie der Bildung. Es handelt sich um dringliche praktische Folgen. Als ich mir das Verstndnis und die Untersttzung des Kollegs, in dem wir uns heute befinden, zu Nutze machte und 1994 in Bukarest ein kleines Institut fr Fortgeschrittene Studien grndete, war mein Projekt sehr klar: die Organisierung eines Ambiente, eines Umfelds, in dem elitre Begabung identifiziert, wiederhergestellt, angeregt, stimuliert und ihr geholfen wird sich zu verwirklichen. Die Stipendiaten sollten das bekommen, was ihnen weder zur Zeit der Diktatur, noch jetzt in der Transition geboten wurde einen dezenten Lebensunterhalt, vllige Denk- und Ausdrucksfreiheit, modernes Arbeitsinstrumentarium, Kontakte zur internationalen wissenschaftlichen Elite. Von ihnen wurde erwartet, dass sie wchentlich an einem freundschaftlichen Kolloquium teilnahmen, auf dem der Reihe nach die Projekte eines jeden besprochen werden. Das Ziel dabei ist unter anderem die Wiedererlangung von intellektuellen Fertigkeiten, die dabei waren zu verkmmern und zu verschwinden, infolge der durch den alten Lebensstil aufgentigten Marginalisierung (manchmals Verheimlichung), Isolation und Mitrauen. Ich hatte das Glck, Menschen und Institutionen zu finden, deren subtiles und promptes Verstndnis von Grozgigkeit begleitet wurde. Doch sie, wie auch ich, muten die Zeitzeichen bewltigen... Dann und wann wird um unsere Institution herum das Rumoren von modehaften Befrchtungen laut: Ist dies nicht womglich eine elitre Institution? Finanzieren wir nicht mglicherweise ein Glasperlenspiel? Wie profitiert die Gesellschaft von solch einer Aktivitt? Der Subtext dieser Befrchtungen besteht aus der Summe von Annahmen und Vorurteilen, die - in guter Absicht - dazu neigen, mit Prinzipien in den Rekonstruktionsprozess im Osten einzugreifen, die im historischen, sozialen und intellektuellen Umfeld des Westens geboren wurden. Man versucht die Heilung einer Krankheit mit Hilfe einer Medikation, die fr die Heilung einer anderen gedacht ist. Man versucht Mangel und Elend mit einer Philosophie der berproduktion zu behandeln. Die Lnder des europischen Ostens stehen zurzeit vor einer Inventurliste mit Dringlichkeiten, auf der keine prioritre Ordnung

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N.E.C. Yearbook 1996-1997 festgelegt werden kann. Alles ist prioritr, und das ist das grte Hindernis in der Wiedererlangung der Normalitt. Die Rehabilitierung der Lebensqualitt ist nicht dringender als die Remodellierung der Mentalitten, und das aus dem einzigen Grund, dass ohne eine neue Mentalitt in Sachen Arbeit, Profit, Freiheit und Justiz keine Verbesserung des Lebensstands stattfinden kann. Die Reform der Industrie ist nicht dringender als die Reform der Schule; die Rckgabe der Liegenschaften nicht dringender als die Institutionalisierung der zivilen Kontrolle ber das Militr, der Inflationsabbau nicht dringender als die Konsolidierung der Zivilgesellschaft. Desgleichen ist die Verbesserung des ffentlichen Unterrichtswesens nicht dringender als die Wiederherstellung der Eliten. Ein gewisser brokratischer Geiz versucht uns davon zu berzeugen, dass die Bedrfnisse des Menschen sich nicht in einer organischen Gleichzeitigkeit, sondern in buchhlterischer Folge abspielen. Primum vivere, deinde philosophari, ein berhmter wie trivialer Sinnspruch, eine Methode, das Minimale in einen primordialen Wert zu konvertieren. In Wirklichkeit braucht ein ganzer Mensch - und eine gesunde Gesellschaft - den Segen des gesicherten Lebensunterhalts und jenen der Reflexion gleichzeitig, er braucht Socken und Trume, er braucht das alltgliche Brot und Utopien. Im Osten fehlen uns vorlufig sowohl das eine wie auch das andere. Aber wir knnen nicht akzeptieren, dass auf die jetzige Generation nur das vivere entfllt, whrend die Philosophie spter finanziert werden soll... Was mich betrifft, so habe ich ein ideales Bild des Kultur-Sponsors vor Augen, dem ich, so meine ich, einige Male bereits begegnet bin: Es ist jemand, der nachdem er nutzbringend in groangelegte Projekte fr Hochschulausbildung, in Forschungen ber die Kunst des Regierens, in Gesetzgebung, Liberalismus, Umweltschutz und Minderheiten investiert hat, und ebenso in Programme zum wirtschaftlichen und institutionellen Aufschwung - jetzt das Bedrfnis versprt, aus dem Umstandsbedingten, aus dem unmittelbar Vernnftigen auszusteigen, um in ein Glasperlenspiel zu investieren. Die Finanzierung von Newtons Standort unter dem Apfel oder der utopischen Schifffahrt von Kolumbus hat sich durchaus gelohnt und als rentabel erwiesen. Die Menschen werden sicher nicht rmer, wenn sie dann und wann bereit sind, die Serafim zu ernhren...

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TEFAN BORBLY
Born in 1953, in Fagara Ph.D., Babe-Bolyai University of Cluj-Napoca, 1999 Dissertation: Heroes and Anti-Heroes as a Cultural Paradigm Associate Professor in Comparative Literature and Mythology at the Faculty of Letters, Babe-Bolyai University of Cluj-Napoca Associate Professor in Mythology at the Avram Iancu University of Cluj-Napoca Director of the Echinox cultural journal Editor of the Discobolul series of the Dacia Publishing House, Cluj-Napoca Founding member of ASPRO (Professional Writers Association of Romania), member of the Writers Union of Romania, member of the International Psychohistorical Association (IPA) and Head of its Romanian chapter, co-founder of the Echinox and Apostrof Cultural Foundations, member of the American Historical Association and of the Modern Language Association (MLA). Visiting Scholar, FEIE Scholarship, English Centre of PEN, London, 1990 Fulbright Scholar, Indiana University, Bloomington, 1992 Visiting Scholar, Columbia University, New York, 1997 Visiting Scholar, Institute for Psychohistory, New York, 1999 Visiting East European Scholar, St. Johns College, Oxford, 1999

Several national and international prizes and awards, among which the Debut Prize of the Cluj Book Fair, 1995, the Debut Prize of the Writers Union of Romania, 1995, the Certificate of Scholarly Achievement in Psychohistory, New York, 1997 Books: The Garden of Magister Thomas. Bucharest: Ed. Didactic i Pedagogic, 1995 Xenograms. Oradea: Ed. Cogito, 1997 The Dream of Steppenwolf. Cluj-Napoca: Dacia, 1999 Contributions to collective volumes of literary theory and history, over 300 essays and articles. Editor and translator.

A PSYCHOHISTORICAL INSIGHT INTO PAST AND PRESENT ROMANIA

Theoretical Background
Since this text represents the very first extensive psychohistorical approach to Romanian realities1 , linking together the past with the present in order to suggest a psychogenic continuity of motifs and collective obsessions, a theoretical outline of the method proves to be necessary. As Lloyd deMause puts it2 , psychohistory has become a new science of patterns of historical motivations, less a division of history or psychology than a replacement for sociology.... According to Paul Monaco3 , a sharp contributor to the same debate, psychohistory is an approach, not a discipline. That it is the most compelling of approaches to history is a

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N.E.C. Yearbook 1996-1997 conviction, not a dogma. To claim to be formalizing psychohistorys task of creating a >>complete history of the human psyche<< is gratuitous. The above quotations delineate the two main trends psychohistorians have acknowledged so far: Lloyd deMause, by far the most creative psychohistorian ever, will always insist that psychohistory is a >>science<< bearing clear marks of scholarly independence, while more cautious historians will say it is a mere alternative >>approach<< to historical realities. Psychohistory as a science - replies Lloyd deMause to Paul Monacos position4 - will always be problem-centred, while history will always remain period-centred. They are simply two different tasks. As such, psychohistory will not deal with the narrative history, that is a history captured by facts and determined by singular events, such as wars, battles or deeds of kings and politicians, but with the deep psychic motivations of historical individuals and groups. Understanding history through motives and motives through history: this is psychohistory. Psyche causing history, making it intelligible.5 In order to achieve this, one has to discover the general laws in history6 , how they function as a subliminal psychic motivation of individuals or groups, and the way they create psychogenic corridors throughout centuries and decades, transforming history into a system7 . The linkage between psychohistory and the French nouvelle histoire, a concept launched by Fernand Braudel and the school of Annales ESC, is still a task to be completed, and this paper has no intention of going further into details; however, it seems necessary to mention the fact that both are built on the understanding of the long run, and on the methodological rejection of the pre-eminence of the event in judging historical development. Back in 1906, discussing Edouard Meyers ideas concerning historical understanding, Max Weber8 sharply formulated that one must consider as meaningless for history, and as such alien to the rigors of a scientific exposition: a. what is accidental; b. the >>free<< decision of particular personalities and c. the influence of the ideas upon the activity of people. It is fairly interesting to note what Max Weber considered to be essential for the real historical understanding: a. the manifestations of the masses as opposed to individual activity; b. what is typical as opposed to what is unique; c. the evolution of communities and of social classes and nations in particular, as opposed to the political activity of the individuals.

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TEFAN BORBLY It goes without saying that Max Weber did not advocate the use of psychoanalysis in order to reveal the collective depths of history. His ideas probably bear the influence of naturalism and Zola, and for him history is still a rational being, functioning however differently. The key word here seems to be evolution, understood as progress. History progresses with each experience left behind: it is an organism looking straight forward, well-trained in the cult of the future so as not to repeat the gloomy mistakes of the past. In this light, the past is considered to be an imperfect present, and the present an imperfect future. What results is that progress proves to be the endless history of self-deprecation and of resentment. It is easy to understand now why it became the main religion of the proletarians. Quite on the contrary, for psychohistorians the key word in understanding history is regression. The term comes from Freud (Die Traumdeutung,19009 ), and denotes the capacity of the psyche to shift back in time in order to find a response to an external, traumatical stimulus. Regression is always present in Lloyd deMauses works, he was interested in showing that the reaction of an individual or a group to a specific historical event is ambivalent, the internal development10 based on the regression to the informal material of the deep psyche being more relevant than the particular, rational response of consciousness. The psyche and consciousness act simply differently: as such, historical motivations appear to be the truth of the psyche, and only on a secondary level the approval of the rational mind. This pattern of historical understanding is strictly evolutionary, and it is based, methodologically speaking, on the capacity of regression of the historian himself. The morphology of psychohistory supposes - and it is interesting to note this detail - the openness to regression of historiography itself. Like all sciences - Lloyd deMause says -, psychohistory stands or falls on the clarity and testability of its concepts, the breadth and parsimony of its theories, the extent of its empirical evidence, and so on. What Psychohistory does have and is distinguishes it, is a certain methodology of discovery, a methodology which attempts to solve problems of historical motivation with a unique blend of historical documentation, clinical experience and the use of the researchers own emotions as the crucial research tool for discovery.11 As a consequence, historical motivations will be detected by psychohistorians on a pre-verbal level, which implies, in a strict Freudian lineage, focusing onto the material aspect of history. Materiality is the womb of Psychohistory, and in this respect every interpretation will be

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N.E.C. Yearbook 1996-1997 seen as a re-birth of the interpreter himself. The regression to the pre-formal stage of the psyche drops psychohistory into myth and ritual: history will be perceived as a re-enactment of previous complexes by individuals and groups, and most of all as the subconscious repressions and actualizations of an eternally present, always evolving psychic energy in turmoil. The term re-enactment defines the spontaneous, deep reaction of the psyche to an external stimulus. To perform a re-enactment, the psyche of an individual or of a group relies primarily on its own inner history, which is by all means different from the real, external history, event-centred and based on documents. Alice Miller for instance12 dissociates regular and re-enactment type responses in the life of children. Regular answers to an external stimulus are the conventional ones, approved by the adults and by society, and corresponding to the Freudian paradigm of the reality principle. Re-enactments involve the free associations of the deep psyche, structuring a second, personal history for each individual and group. When meeting an external stimulus, the individual or the group usually reaches back to this personal, backstage history, through the spontaneous mechanism of abreaction13 . Establishing its personal code, this response usually violates the existing social norms, thus undermining official history, which is by definition a normative one. To a greater or lesser degree - Daniel Dervin states -, history exists as a record of the violation of or adherence to lawfulness in its totality. And since law signifies prior repression, the power of enacting presumes a potential for anti-social acting out...14 To give some examples: wars are interpreted by Lloyd deMause as re-birth and re-sacralization complexes15 ; for Robert S. McCully16 , symbols are structured by a continuous re-shaping of a universal archetypal energy (...personality dynamics alone do not fully account for symbol formation; archetypal energy must be activated to re-structure images); for Henry Ebel17 , Star Trek and Star Wars theology are based on the central image of an irrational hostile force spread all over the universe, a force which is indifferent to the needs of the humans, that is, it cannot be personalized. The motif of the pre-formal energy explains the exquisite interest of the psychohistorians in group-fantasies, collective obsessions, in filth and dirt, interpreted as primary, ever existing, birth-giving materials, opposed to the clean aspects of individuation. In Lloyd deMauses Fetal Origins of History18 , the pre-birth, foetal drama, dominated by two placentas, the Nurturant one and the Poisonous one,

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TEFAN BORBLY provides the basis for historical group-fantasies19 , and it is interpreted as being imprinted as a matrix in the psychogenic soil of history. Although the form that this endlessly repeated death-and-rebirth foetal drama takes in later life is determined by the kind of childrearing which is experienced - Lloyd deMause writes20 -, the basic >>imprinted<< foetal drama can nevertheless always be discovered behind all the other overlays, pre-oedipal or oedipal. The middle part of the quotation stresses the other great obsession of psychohistory: childrearing, Lloyd deMause being the editor and first contributor of a famous History of Childhood21 . I do believe childrearing topics are overemphasized in contemporary Psychohistory, excessively formalizing the discipline, and lessening its impact on the academics or professionals belonging to other intellectual fields22 . That is why I consider it necessary to restore the original meaning of childrearing, as it appears in Lloyd deMauses writings23 , where it denotes above all the practical, empirical forms that foetal energy has taken throughout the centuries. Since history is interpreted as a succession of re-birth re-enactments, the evolution of childhood shows an endlessly re-staged primal experience of birth or death, of liberty or suffocation. Each generation regresses several times in its existence to the pre-formal level of experiencing that something around it is nurturant or poisonous. Historical crises activate the poisonous level of the collective subconscious, while the sacrifice offered in response opens the gates of the nurturant blood, relieving the patients from social anorexia. Setting this perspective in contrast with the methodology of psychoanalysis and applied psychology makes obvious the anti-individuation complex of psychohistory. Regression to the informal expresses in the very first instance a subconscious reluctance to accept the burdens of individuation; the psyche feels protected by the informal, just like a foetus feels protected in the mothers womb. Facing an external stimulus, every individual or group experiences the threat of individuation, as an obligation to pour the reaction to the stimulus into a specific form, to limit it. Traditional history is the diachrony of successive limitations, while psychohistory offers the joys of the unlimited regression to the informal. Quite opposite to the progress-centred history outlined above, history, as psychohistorians understand it, is a living organism composed of different psychic strata, each of them potentially active in the fascinating Oriental carpet embroidery of the present. This means that history is not lived as a continuous separation of the present from the past, but as a dynamics of

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N.E.C. Yearbook 1996-1997 present and past interchanges: the present can activate, as a response to an external stimulus, whichever elements it wants from the past, and the past can be interpreted in the focus of a psychodrama that the present is always likely to perform. The model is subtly illustrated by Georges Devereux24 , who insists in the first theoretical half of his paper on the importance of selective regression for the understanding of history, seen as a living body of energy and virtualities used by individuals and groups in order to assimilate the experience of the present. My paper will therefore deal with regressive shifts detectable in Romanian history. Politicians as children, exonerated from their possible sins by virtue of lack of responsibility, politicians as players or garbage cleaners, not to mention the extensive myth of the politicians seen as a distant family, parasiting on the pure soul and body of the sacred motherland are all examples of regression. Significantly, this regression appears whenever Romanians face a new historical experience. For instance, in the very period I concluded my research for accomplishing this paper (that is mid July 1997), the imagery of child sacrifice suddenly burst out again in the Romanian media, after a long amnesia imposed by the electoral victory in November 1996 of the Democratic Convention25 . I must confess that as a trained psychohistorian I was pretty sure that this outburst would appear, expressing the ambivalent public fantasy of shame for Romania being rejected from admission into NATO and the European Union (we are a bad nation, killing our children; it is not at all surprising that they disposed us) and of the fear of being abandoned again, as a helpless child of the unfair political sandbox. In the same period, Bill Clintons strange visit to Bucharest, following USAs option to recommend the omission of Romania from the list of the former communist countries invited to join NATO, got in the Romanian media the connotation of a joyful carnival, performed by cheerful children who gathered in the University Square as in the womb of the December 1989 revolution to admire a strange being - an American president using athletic metaphors to boost Romanias morale - and enjoy some benefits of the great American civilization (Coca Cola, Pepsi Max) free of charge. As if to test psychohistorical perceptions, a Romanian teenager was presented as taking Bill Clintons seat while the American president was speaking, childishly suggesting a familiarity coming from a nation magnanimously ready to forgive its oppressors (as - textbooks teach us it has always done during its history ).

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TEFAN BORBLY The following research will insist (not only as a tribute to Lloyd deMauses extraordinary work) on some aspects of childrearing in Romanian history. I do believe that childrearing procedures havent changed too much from the 19th century to the second half of the 20th century, that is during the decades of modern Romanian history. Swaddling is still dominant in the rural areas26 , but civilization has erased the habit of using children as poison containers, enabling them with the projection of demonic spirits. On the contrary, childrearing in Romania is rather loose, taking up the forms of the Abandonment Mode described by Lloyd deMause in The Evolution of Childhood27 . The literature and mass media imagery of modern Romania are full of lost children, children who cannot find their way back home, and children wandering on the roads alone. Their parents are so unattentive that they do not even realize that the children are missing, and when they do, they do not rush to find them. A child, the subliminal message says, can always find its way back home, because the centre of the house, dominated by the fireplace, is magical and is provided with a magnetic power. The mythology of the fireplace (vatra) is extremely persistent in the Romanian public fantasy, defining a person from the point of view of the distance which separates him/her from the centre. The centre, the womb is maternal, feminine, and it is defined as being safe. On the other hand, leaving the womb is always dangerous and treacherous. Being on the road is perceived as malevolent in the Romanian subconscious. As a result, a complementary structure emerges: the fireplace (the vatra) is assimilated with timelessness, defined as a magical circle which one can leave only at the price of being exposed to various dangers. As a consequence, history as an expression of Time is full of bad projections in the Romanian public fantasy. As they represent continuity - signifying the trespassing of the magic circle of the familys self-sufficiency and strife to build up an immemorial fireplace protected from the intrusion of the invaders -, children are perceived as threats in the Romanian public fantasy. Per definitionem, they have always belonged to history. Traditional Romanian housebuilding confirms the spiritual structure. In the village areas, each house has mainly two parts: the front room, which is perfectly clean, not inhabited by anyone and open to guests only, and the rest of the building, crowded by a family of usually numerous, successive generations. Guests or people coming from the outside do not penetrate this area. In case of extensions, more rooms are added to the back, intimate structure, leaving the front part of the building magically untouched.

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N.E.C. Yearbook 1996-1997

Ready to sacrifice
Romania is an ideal place to test psychohistorical patterns. After the December 1989 revolution - or popular coup detat, as recent analysts have suggested - the country experienced a rebirth complex through a very strong lost child syndrome28 . Mass media and international TV channels intensely reflected the misery of the Romanian orphanages, the roaming gangs of homeless children sniffing bags of aurolac (a fermented glue) on the streets of Bucharest, and the deadly unhygienic conditions in the Romanian schools of all grades - deprived of running water or soap and using filthy backyard lavatories. The tragedy of the gypsies - who are as a rule structured in socially marginalized families with numerous children, living in tents, cottages or even the local garbage fields -, the frightening March 1990 street fights between Romanians and Hungarians in Trgu Mure - a town lying in the mid part of Transylvania -, and the June 15-16 1990 punitive expedition of the miners to Bucharest sharpened the media image. Romania was seen as a third-world country which had gradually lost its immense popularity - acquired with the December 1989 mass uprising - and had implacably sunk to a sort of formless, pre-civilised creature (sucking a poisonous placenta29 ), pregnant with hatred, social turmoils and nationalistic prejudices. The two terms of Ion Iliescus presidency (1990-1992; 1992-1996) generated a suffocation syndrome due to a weak, practically impotent government run over by deep and almost generalized corruption, by a complete lack of public authority or control and by the desperate effort of the President to maintain power through political cleansing and pressure (e.g., his attempt to coerce the bank leaders and major managers of the country to become members of the main ruling party, The Socialist Democratic Party of Romania /PDSR/). The functional weakness of the leading party was compensated for by dragging into a so-called governing arch two extremely active nationalist parties - the Romanians National Unity Party (PUNR), and The Great Romania Party (PRM) - which brought along an overt anti-European discourse, nationalistic megalomania and the Messianic ideology of the pure, ancient, organic inner values. President Iliescus quest for a third, anti-constitutional term was overturned by the November 1996 vote, the very first in the whole history of the country when a president was unseated through legal elections. Having no specific ideology or political program, former President Iliescus re-election campaign insisted in vain on nationalistic issues, built

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TEFAN BORBLY on the stereotypes of the menaced tribe surrounded by bloodthirsty neighbours and undermined from the interior by a villainous, double-faced enemy (the Opposition, including Hungarians) ready to deliver the country to a voracious monster: Europe. On the other hand, the Opposition, led by Emil Constantinescu, former Rector of the Bucharest University and from November 1996, President, developed the anti-syndrome of the voracious monster, that is the monster you have to avoid by accepting the gentle embrace of Europe. The name of this monster is Russia, a country which has always been perceived as malignant through Romanias history. Communism was imposed in Romania by the Red Army and by the discretionary will of the Kremlin, and left deep scars in the peoples memory; the anti-Communist rage became the principal informal ideology of post-revolutionary Romania. A former student obediently completing his studies in Moscow and later a member of the red nomenclature, President Iliescu formally contributed as a hate target to the extension of the anti-Soviet feelings in a period when every mistake made in the process of European integration was publicly interpreted as a drawback dictated by Moscow. Summing up, former President Iliescus elections staff insisted on ethnic values, while the Constantinescu group - including many leading intellectuals, such as Gabriel Liiceanu, Andrei Pleu, Octavian Paler or the poet Ana Blandiana, nor to forget the intellectual front of Romanian exiles, very active especially in Paris (Monica Lovinescu, Virgil Ierunca, Sanda Stolojan, Paul Goma, etc.) or in the USA (Matei Clinescu, Virgil Nemoianu, Vladimir Tismneanu, I.P.Culianu) - stressed ethical values, which revealed the common European heritage Romanian culture and civilization have shared for more than a century. Nevertheless, it is an illusion to believe that chauvinistic, nationalistic beliefs suddenly dried out in Romania with the November 1996 elections. Resorting by analogy to a pattern outlined by Peter Brown in The Cult of the Saints: Its Rise and Function in Latin Christianity30 , Romania could be seen as a two-level society: intellectuals, newly born managers and newly emerged yuppies have a cosmopolitan, pro-European and pro-American orientation, while the older generations (which still provide informal leaders of opinion particularly in public places and factories), the peasantry and its offspring (as a mentality representing more than 65% of the whole society, some of them having lived for decades in towns, unassimilated and looking for rural motivations or social links) cherish organicist, traditional, self-sufficient and nationalistic values. Psychoclass conflicts play a huge

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N.E.C. Yearbook 1996-1997 role in nowadays Romania, the ideological split between traditionalists and modernists on the political panel expressing actually a deep schizoid social identity. As a consequence, after the 96 elections the main group fantasy in Romania was the brotherhood complex of joining the fellow states of Europe, which could be understood as a fatal loss of national identity (that is, death). I shall analyze later on Prime Minister Victor Ciorbeas formal acceptance speech (December 1996), which can be shortened through a psychohistorical subliminal Fantasy Analysis to a message that sounds as follows: We ... as Romanians ... are ... nothing. The verdict was involuntarily confirmed in March 1997 by the Minister of Finance, Mircea Ciumara, who shocked the whole country by publicly stating that the strict and almost unbearable steps taken by the new government to enforce the revival of the Romanian economy would probably cause the death of a thousand people31 , but it was better to do it this way than to cause the collapse of some millions later. This paper intends to analyze the three psycho-social syndromes outlined so far: the rebirth complex experienced after the revolution of December 1989; the suffocation syndrome of President Iliescus two terms; the death and loss of national identity complex, which emerged with the victory of the democratic and pro-European forces in November 1996. Since they re-enact recurrent group fantasies also detectable in the history of Romania, some back glimpses prove to be necessary in order to understand the shift from a traditional, self-sufficient and Messianist patriarchal society to a modern brotherhood type society seeking integration with NATO (a major desire and immediate new goal of the new government) and with Europe. In this rebirth process, Romanians are now ready - as newspapers and statistics put it - for sacrifices. The long list of potential victims includes old traditions, customs and the almost sacred habit of boycotting (as philosopher Lucian Blaga remarked32 ) history. In other words: they are ready to sacrifice their parents.

A history of child neglect

The modern history of Romania starts in 1859 when the two principalities, Moldavia and Muntenia elected - ignoring the recommendation of the Turks, who exercised suzerainty over them - one

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TEFAN BORBLY and the same Prince: Alexandru Ioan Cuza. Belonging to the Free-Masonry, Cuza established a brotherhood-like society which lasted only seven years. When in 1866 Cuza was unseated, the country looked for a father-figure, it eventually found in the person of Carol I, who belonged to the royal house of the Hohenzollerns. The quest for a father outside the country is highly significant, showing the complex of a lack of paternity, which may seem rather surprising if one takes into the consideration the fact that the great families of the boyars were still active, pulling strings, influencing politics and marriages. The hypothesis of an option for a European father instead of a domestic one should also be taken into consideration33 , given its significance of a radical separation from the historical tradition, fostered by a modernist generation interested in speeding up the process of reaching European standards. A careful perusal of the texts of the classical period in Romanian literature, contemporary to the start of the dynasty, will lead to the immediate realization of two major complexes. Firstly: the fathers are absent from these texts. Secondly: the children are mostly nasty, bad, annoyingly loud and clothed like adults. The literature of the period clearly expresses the main public fantasy of a loose parentage and of an unrestrained, inexact, capricious and improper behaviour. The pattern of confusion doubles each impact of the Romanian immemorial soul with history: less than three decades later, the traditionalist ideology of two rural inspired social movements ( smntorism, poporanism ) will emphatically sanction this errant behaviour. For instance, in I.L.Caragiales (1852 - 1912) Visit the protagonist, dressed up like a cavalier, wearing shiny brass buttons and carrying a sword terrorizes his mother as well as her kind and shy visitor, and in the end bestows him with a jar of jam poured into his uppershoes. The father is absent. In Mr.Goe (both are compulsory pieces for school textbooks), the spoiled offspring of a bourgeois family is taken to Bucharest by train as a reward for his - so far - school failures: the child wears a sailors costume, shocks the passengers and the train crew with his behaviour, locks himself up in the lavatory, brings his mother to hysteria and takes an excited step down to Bucharest, hoping to see the king on the avanyou (that is >>avenue<<, the form >>avanyou<< being an equivalent of the original French distortion in the text). No male accompanies the child, the quest for a surrogate father being obvious. Ioan Slavicis (1848 - 1925) classical novel Mara depicts a possessive, Mutter Courage-like mother, living alone as a bridgekeeper with her two

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N.E.C. Yearbook 1996-1997 children - a son and a daughter. Titu Maiorescu (1840 - 1917), the leading figure of those years literature emerges directly as an adult, like Athens from Zeus chest. At the age of 24 he is already Rector of Iai University: his Daily Notes, published later, show a child without childhood, attentive to mature chat, eager to climb the steep steps of the social hierarchy and ready to pull up the unbreakable walls of the Conservative Party. Ion Creangs (1839 - 1889) Remembrances From My Childhood apparently built up the myth of a happy childhood in Romanian literature. In fact - as Corina Ciocrlie has already noticed34 - the text depicts a child you wouldnt keep happily in your house: he is selfish; avoids tasks; destroys the harvest; terrorizes the villagers and his relatives; abuses animals. His supervisors are females; the males - when they show up - are always distant and necessarily punitive. The list can be continued with Mihai Eminescu (1850 - 1889), the national poet of Romanian literature. His brilliant career starts with the rejection of his fathers name, and the adoption of a surrogate father: the literary critic Iosif Vulcan publishes his first verses by changing the poets name from Eminovici to Eminescu, without previously asking the consent of the new star. Eminescu doesnt care about such an intrusion: his work as a whole suggests a strong mother-complex, the only father which appears in his poems (in Luceafrul, as Father of the Universe) being cold, distant and repulsive. Eminescu is also the inventor of the concept of serene childhood in Romanian literature, due to a decisively Romantic influence. There is no true childhood in his poems, but an artificial one, built up on cultural stereotypes and linked with dreams and memories, which reveals the fact that it is a mere aspiration, not a reality. The subliminal rejection of the father in a period when Romania consolidates its political structures and its monarchy seems quite odd and, at a first glance, incomprehensible. It is, therefore, legitimate to ask: where are the fathers in this world? Why are they so carefully rejected? The answer is rather surprising: the fathers are in politics. They sit in distant lodges, play the endless and childish game of politics (see Illustrations 1-4), tie and untie the country, and leave everyday life and struggle to females. In Illustration 1 (from 1869), liberal leader Ion Brtianu juggles with three difficult stones of the epoch: the Bulgarian threat; the Jewish question; the Austro-Hungarian conspiracy. The other leader, C.A.Rosetti, is dancing on the rope while balancing the Jews and their influence on the major challenge of the period: the extension of the railroad network. In Illustration 2 (1869), the French emperor Napoleon III (in front of the

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Illustration 1

Illustration 2

Illustration 3

Illustration 4

TEFAN BORBLY horse) theatrically expresses his disappointment because of liberal leader Ion Brtianus inability to move forward, his wooden horse being held back by the Russians and the Prussians. In Illustration 3 (1859), Ion Brtianu and C.A. Rosetti help young prince Dimitrie Ghica to keep the right pace, while in Illustration 4 (1869), the already mentioned couple, Brtianu and Rosetti, enjoy - represented as Janus bifrons - the excitement of a train voyage, the wheels impassively treading on the body of the country lying down across the rails. Since the males are exiled in politics - the group fantasy says - they are necessarily in filth because politics is dirty. Females keep things going, males spoil them, according to this thinking. Males - the period says - are like nasty, uncontrollable children: they have their own game; are reluctant to see the sufferings of the people; live far above the earth; must be incessantly supervised not to do too much harm to real life. This Manichean perception explains a lot of things that are essential to Romanian history. To start with, kings (meaning the period starting with Carol I) were bad fathers in Romanian history and perceived as such because they didnt belong to the sacred and ancient roots of the tribe: they were foreigners. On the other hand, no politician has become a good father figure in Romanian history, in spite of the multiple attempts made to promote such a lineage. The last such attempt - and probably the most intrusive one was made by Nicolae Ceauescu (leader from 1965 to December 1989, shot at Trgovite) using the whole strategy of the communist propaganda: endless marches of children dressed alternatively in red, yellow and blue (the colours of the national flag); cheerful pioneers bringing thousands of bunches of flowers; collective political baptizing rituals. Neither his successor (Ion Iliescu) nor Emil Constantinescu tried to copy these efforts, through the group fantasy of a good, protective father image being still active in the backstage of todays Romanian public life, as a shadow anti-crisis figure, constructed by nostalgic communists, some people from the army and the Security forces and by the resentful nationalists. The exile of the fathers to the filthy dens of politics has had another impact on the historical group fantasy of the Romanian people. Due to this conviction, what is authentic, innately and purely Romanian belongs to the mothers, a perspective which satanizes politics as such. Nobody loves politics in Romania at present and nobody loved it before you can respect politics, enjoy the fruits of a tree anchored with its roots in filth and mud, but not love it. That is why politics is ugly, dirty and by

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N.E.C. Yearbook 1996-1997 all means alien, foreign or, to put it differently, it is not part of the clean soul of the Romanian people35 . As a consequence, sodomizing foreigners has always been a public show in Romanian history, and a projective stereotype, always at hand when the pure soul of the people was to be exonerated from sins or failures. The other - come it from abroad or be it an ethnic minority (Hungarians, Germans, Gypsies) becomes a projective hate target in Romanias public fantasy, playing the classical role of the cleansing poison container. Anti-Hungarianism and anti-Semitism are part of this attentively directed public hysteria. The most important social and political movement of the thirties (Archangel Michaels Legion = the Iron Guard), including prestigious intellectuals like Nae Ionescu, Mircea Eliade, Constantin Noica, Emil Cioran and thousands of others, was Messianic and had a decidedly anti-Semite accent. Stepping forward in time, it is significant to mention that a still active group fantasy, risen in Romania after the 1989 coup, explicitly suggests that in 1947 communism was imposed on Romanians by Jews and Hungarians (zealous executives of the Kremlin), the message being that this historical shame was alien to the pure soul of the inmates. The fantasy of cleansing was extremely strong in 1990, when tabloids shouted that the executed dictator, Nicolae Ceauescu, was actually not a Romanian but a ... gypsy! Romania invented its idealistic childhood ideology as an appendix to the nationalistic pride promoted with the annexation of Transylvania (1918). This led to the formation of the round country as we have it today, by reuniting three main historical regions: a conservative Moldavia, built on old family values; a rather nervous Muntenia, where the centrifugal forces of individuals have always been more powerful than centripetal ones; a cosmopolitan Transylvania, having strong Hungarian and German urban communities. It is therefore worthwhile to note that the ideology of the serene childhood emerged in the Romanian public unconscious from two main drains: the traditionalism of Moldavia on the one hand, and the pride of the new historical birth stressed by Transylvanian intellectuals and political leaders on the other. Both spread down to Bucharest, and united in a sort of official public fantasy, fashioned by the idea that Romania is an underprivileged child of Europe, neglected by nasty parents, one who has to thrive on its own to be accepted in the great family of nations. Thus, the Romanian underprivileged child fantasy is based on frustration and compensates through self-sufficiency. According to this complex, the father of the child might be lost, but his mother never. The mother is the nation itself.

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TEFAN BORBLY Indeed, in the first three decades of the 20th century the children portrayed in the books of literature are always threatened, almost lost in the dark corners of the universe, and found again by adults seemingly not too surprised by not having them around for such a long period. The anxiety of being alone, not protected by the family characterizes the child projections of Mihail Sadoveanu (1880 - 1961), whose very first writings include The Graveyard of a Child (1906). Another heroine of his, Lizuca, ventures in the black and frightening forest, and finds her way back without the interference of her parents. Her return is not accompanied with an outburst of relief and joy: it seems that the adults havent even noticed her absence. The absent male motif is the main frame of Sadoveanus novel Baltagul (The Hatchet,1930), built on the mythical pattern of the Isis-Osiris quest: worried by the absence of her husband, a woman leaves her home to find him and discovers that he has been murdered by greedy shepherds. The structure of the novel interferes with the main frame of the popular ballad Miorita (The Little Sheep), considered to be the archaic root of the Romanian way of life and psychology. Home is equivalent here with protective motherhood: distress and death (of the males, generally speaking) come when you leave home and are confronted with aliens or with foreign places. Intra muros means the protective womb of the nation and ethnicity; extra muros comprises the villains, the others, anybody who is not a member of the ethnic club. Lucian Blagas (1895 - 1961) Hronicul i cntecul vrstelor (The Chronicle and the Song of the Ages, 1965, written a long time before its first publication, as Blaga died in 1961) starts with a speculation of the motive of the rejected world: the child doesnt speak for four years, delaying the contact with a hostile world, in which he has to struggle alone, as his parents are not of great help. To come back to Bucharest, Ioan Alexandru Brtescu-Voinestis (1868 - 1946) short stories are full of abandoned, lonely children. The happy family seems to be absent from Romanian public fantasy, being replaced by the complex of the protective surrogate family, that is the nation. This leads to the utter rejection of the foreigners (Germans, Hungarians, Jews), even if they live next door. If asked, Romanians say today that Hungarians or Jews are hostile per se because they are well organized and structured in impenetrable family units, a stereotype which explains a recurrent dimension of the historical public fantasy in Romania: that of the attraction represented by fraternity. Fraternity is here a substitute for maternity, namely the integration in a bigger family, the great family of individuals sharing the same blood.

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N.E.C. Yearbook 1996-1997 To attain this level, you have to surpass heredity and interpret fraternity as a spiritual linkage, more efficient than the strict flesh and blood dependence. Blood becomes here spiritualized, and the wound of somebody is the wound of everybody, the whole nation functioning as a big organism having the same blood vessels and sharing the same heart. In Psihologia poporului romn (The Romanian Peoples Psychology)36 Constantin Rdulescu-Motru interprets national psychology as an ability to create a national culture. The development of a population is determined - Motru says - by three main factors, the biological or hereditarian fund, the geographical conditions and the institutions, some people experiment history forever from a pre-historic stage, being unable to rise to the higher level of spirituality. In the case of populations with unconsolidated spiritual institutions the influences of heredity and of the geographic climate are overwhelming.37 On the contrary, spirituality is not - Rdulescu-Motru maintains - a produce of time38 , which means that by spirituality a population surpasses its condition of being a historical victim, reaching a dignity which is beyond time and its vicissitudes. The Romanian people, though not entirely articulated Rdulescu-Motru concludes - is determined by spirituality rather than by biology or landscape, which means that the pre-condition of a person who creates values is to surpass its biological linkages. Family means time, brotherhood means eternity. One would expect Rdulescu-Motru to assimilate fraternity with challenge and openness, with the adventure of taking chances by meeting somebody distant. The surprise of the text is, on the contrary, the equivalence between spirituality and self-sufficiency. Spirituality Rdulescu-Motru says - is like an isolating armour, the myth of self-sufficiency and historical isolation sneaking back in the room at the very moment you thought it had been forever thrown over the threshold.39 But the ideal of the artificial (Rdulescu-Motru calls it bourgeois) fraternity is formulated again by the distinction between the subjective and the institutional individualism, the aim being to transform the biological, subjective person into a strong, self-dependent, institutional character. This ideal of spiritual fraternity was promoted in Romanian culture and public life by a major generation of philosophers and writers who emerged in the thirties and concentrated around the fascinating figure of Nae Ionescu, a philosopher, journalist, politician and professor at Bucharest University. His disciples included a select list of names like Mircea Eliade, Emil Cioran and Constantin Noica, living in the deep shadows of a rightist

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TEFAN BORBLY and extremist ideology, characterized by national Messianism, the irrational cult of a Saviour (the leader was Constantin Zelea-Codreanu, The Captain), by the excited pathos of the fantasy of spiritual collective cleansing through action, violence or culture and by sharp accents of xenophobia and anti-Semitism. This paper does not intend to get into the details of this ideology40 , but it would be impossible to step further without mentioning the sharp fraternity characteristics of the Iron Guard, built on male initiation rites and separation from the biologic family. The spiritual movement led by Zelea-Codreanu represented the climactic rejection of the mothers in the modern history of Romania, this tendency being doubled by the emergence of a new motif in Romanian art and literature: that of the sensuous, strange, magnetic female41 , a fascinating target to be conquered by energetic males who earned their energy by leaving boring homes, wives and mothers behind in order to experience the self-destructive combustions and strains of the real life. The key words of the new epoch are solidarity (of independent spiritual brothers42 ) and experimentalism of life through interpersonal links.43 The rejection of the parents is obvious. The discussions hosted by the leading newspapers and literary magazines of the period (for instance: Vremea, Christmas 1932) insist on the necessity of such a sacrifice, by saying that the new generation is the first one in Romanian history to conquer a place without spilling blood. Blood is, by the way, everywhere in the public subconscious: at first, as shame (the previous generations died for the independence of the country in 1877, then in World War I, which led to the integration of Transylvania), then as urge and necessity. As outer targets arent available any more, history being rather calm at that time, public fantasy turns towards the inner sins of the poisoned national body, due to some traditional enemies: first of all the foreigners, then the politicians and in the end the forefathers who kept the country in the sinful contemplation of a village-centred community. * To take a glimpse into the mid/late 20th century: Romania experienced two further public fantasies. The first of them was the fantasy of the powerful father, that is the father-centred society introduced by the Russians arrival in August 1944, consolidated by the communist regime until December 1989 and discretely promoted by Ion Iliescus regime until November 1996. The second one is the strategy of the fraternal society, promoted by

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N.E.C. Yearbook 1996-1997 President Emil Constantinescus election campaign team during the fierce media fights which announced the November 1996 change of power. It is interesting to note that President Constantinescu was raised to power by a brotherhood type political coalition, and not by a single party or democratic force, the fraternal quarrel for positions and privileges being the main show of Romanias post-election period. The government formed at that time is still a conglomerate of self-interested individuals, belonging to a loose family of slightly different ideologies. Nicolae Ceauescus regime (1965-1989) brought about at least two public fantasies which prove to be essential to understanding the evolution of Romanian society after the coup detat of December 1989. First of all, it promoted a strong father figure, especially after 1971, when Ceauescu returned from China and North Korea and tried to implement in Romania - successfully, one must say - the cult of personality admired there, with huge mass rituals of children wearing uniforms from the age of 3, and frantic gatherings of people meant to pay tribute to the nurturing powers of the leader. This mass hysteria was associated with a carefully projected father-image, centred around the family of the dictator. The second public fantasy was the result of a rather tricky strategy, and I must confess that I cannot determine how much of an official, though never recognized, persuasive image-building strategy was in it, and to what extent it was the result of a spontaneous public reaction. I am referring to the public image of Elena Ceauescu, the dictators wife. On the one hand, she was officially worshipped as a nurturant mother and world-wide recognized scientist, although she had some difficulties in building up a simple and coherent sentence. On the other hand, public opinion satanized her and this poison container syndrome was used by informal propaganda to cleanse the dictator, attributing everything that went wrong in the country to the mad influence of his wife. As a consequence, female satanization became a common practice in Romania during the eighties and has never stopped since. The party found atrocious 180-pound de-feminized monsters (Suzana Gdea, Alexandrina Ginue, Lina Ciobanu), and promoted them to leading positions. You can hardly find a delicate lady in the literature of the period. After 1989 the satanization went on: there have been no females in public positions or in the leadership of the parties, as if they didnt exist at all, although statistics say that Romania has always had more females than males in its demographic composition.

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TEFAN BORBLY Former President Ion Iliescu quickly understood the situation and never promoted his wife Nina, while former Chamber of Deputies President Adrian Nstase unsuccessfully tried to ignore the pressure of the public, his elegant wife being violently rejected by the crowd when she led gymnasts Nadia Comneci and Bart Conner to the altar. In the twilight of Iliescus regime (Spring 1996), a female minister emerged (Daniela Barto) - significantly - in the Health Department, replacing the former holder of the position (Iulian Mincu), who had the notorious reputation of a butcher. Subsequently, in the very first months of 1990, famous female dissidents like Doina Cornea or Ana Blandiana were sent to the backstage of political life and possible leaders (like Smaranda Enache) were set aside without reasonable explanations. At the moment, male domination is fully accomplished in Romanian society, although female figures (Alina Mungiu-Pippidi, Gilda Lazr, Iolanda Stniloiu) appear on TV screens every now and then, having the precise role of serving their male counterparts. Recently (end of June-early July 1997), the Government sacrificed Gilda Lazr, spokesperson of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, as a response to a scandal revolving around her alleged abuse of power to get a distorted negative image of Prime Minister Victor Ciorbeas visit to Washington from the media.

Pollution through sacrificial killing: a paradox?

Romania killed her father on Christmas Eve 1989, at Trgovite, after a short and hasty trial. The execution was carried out by misinformed children against a father they unjustly hated - said Elena Ceausescu, while taking her last steps to the wall where she was a moment later literally riddled with shots. The patricide was - public opinion considered afterwards - a sinful decision, which polluted the initial purity of the mass uprising. Accordingly, the Romanian revolution entered from the very beginning in an ambivalent mode, the main tendency of the public fantasy striving to pollute and not to cleanse the initial steps of the revolt. The reasons for such a behaviour are easy to understand. The revolution had been started five days earlier in Timioara by a Hungarian Protestant priest, Lszl Tks, an intrusive act from a member of a minority which somehow overshadowed the theatrical self-esteem of the natives. The Orthodox Church experienced the deepest sorrow: already a target of suspicion because of its collaboration with the ancien rgime and its

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N.E.C. Yearbook 1996-1997 secret police, it felt the privilege of the sacred and collective recognition slipping away from its hands. Consequently, there appeared the necessity of a new start and the elaboration of a new myth with an appropriate dosage of sparkling lights and dark shadows, good guys and bad guys, terrorists and occasional heroes. The strategy had something essential: it simply didnt have to be logical. In the first weeks of 1990, the country experienced a popular rebirth fantasy. People spontaneously cut out the arms of the Socialist Republic of Romania from the national flag, the hole becoming the symbol of an escape from the uterus and of the delivery44 . A ghost-faced spiritual father, the politologist Silviu Brucan evasively explained to the children of the new era the further steps of the democratic alphabetization, learned by him in Moscow during the fifties and accomplished later through random research in Washington D.C. Lorries loaded with goods frantically crossed the borders, regressing each Romanian to the stage of a child happy to go home with both hands full of gifts: bananas; second-hand clothing; outworn typewriters; pens of all sorts; shiny computers, which they had just started to learn to handle - in order to play exciting electronic games. Democracy seemed to be a ludicrous socializing form, played by politicians who were not entirely responsible for their decisions. As already stated in this paper, politics has always been assimilated in Romania with play. In the first years of the post-Ceauescu era, the public fantasy of assimilating the politicians with children had three main reasons. Firstly, it exempted politicians from the sins of errors, alluding to the real sense of the new leadership: the aspiration to take power in a single, firm hand. A childish politician is allowed to make errors, but he is never guilty. It is interesting to note that in the media imagery of the period (see Illustrations 5 and 6) President Iliescu is always represented as a protective parent, the nasty child being in both cases Prime Minister Nicolae Vcroiu45 . Another similarity: in each of the cases, the child is disciplined by being dragged in front of an institution (the school). The stereotype is transferred in the July 6, 1995 issue of the same newspaper onto Minister Mircea Coea, responsible for the major play of the period: the privatization of the former socialist industry. Secondly, this strategy pervades the fantasy of a strong, almost sacred leader, the holy father of the nation. Illustrations 7-8-9-10 suggest President Iliescus omnipotent power: with an aura around his head (Illustration 746 ); as an icon, worshipped by an orthodox priest (Illustration 847 ); as a saint (Illustration 948 ); or as a hospodar, sitting on a throne (Illustration 1049 ).

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Illustration 5

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Picture 14 It is worthwhile noting that all these illustrations have been deliberately selected from the leading newspaper of the Opposition, which is by definition not favourable to the President. The tricky thing is that the persuasive fantasy of the illustrations published by this paper unwillingly undermines the explicit message of the texts which surround them50 . The third aspect concerns the relation between the individual, or the common man, and the power. In the Romanian exercise of power, the common man has always been a victim of the institutions of power and not a beneficiary of their services (although he has always been a good and humble taxpayer). The media imagery of the period (Illustrations 11-12-13) insists on showing the common person as a little man (or child), delivered to the omnipotent discretion of the Police, embodied by giants51 . Picture 1452 completes the message featuring a man who kisses the hand of a policeman. Pollution was the main public fantasy during former president Ion Iliescus two mandates (1990-1996). Romania experienced the three forms of the upheaval stage, delineated by Lloyd deMause in The Foetal Origins of History53 , though simultaneously and not alternately. The Christmas 1989 regicidal killing promoted the former leader, Nicolae Ceauescu,

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TEFAN BORBLY as an enemy; however, his assassination, formally approved by the majority of the population, didnt serve to purify the atmosphere by a sacrificial death, but - rather paradoxically - to pollute it. There were several reasons for such an outcome. First of all, the impurity of Christmas and the pollution of the new political structures with former communist leaders - Ion Iliescu was just one of them - created a fantasy of impotence and fatalism, which can be very easily transformed into a political manipulation in Romania, a country where fatalism has always been a public ingredient to all sorts of historical failures. The enigma of the terrorists, who acted in the streets of Bucharest after Ceauescu had been executed, the moral crisis of the army - which at first shot into the crowd and then fraternized with them - and the reluctance of the new leaders to promote transparency and public control over the decisions which continued to be taken behind tightly closed doors led to a fantasy of impurity. This was reinforced by the shame induced by the Western mass media, which started to talk about the filthy conditions of the Romanian orphanages, about abandoned children sniffing fermented glue (aurolac), and about the exaggerated figures concerning the victims of December 1989. In Paris in March 1990, huge placards hanging outside the headquarters of several leading media agencies asked one and the same question: Who lied in Romania?54 The child was born, but it was dirty. In these circumstances, the new Romanian power resorted to the Martial solution by inventing an internal enemy, the Hungarians of Transylvania, over whom the rage of the polluted people could exercise power. The street fights between Hungarians and Romanians in Trgu-Mures in March 1990 inaugurated several political and strategic plans, which had been in the cards a long time before December 1989. The first step was the reactivation of the Secret Police, of the Securitate. Then, the clashes legitimatized a nationalistic outburst, having as flagpoles two hysterically extremist parties, the PUNR and the PRM55 . But the most important outcome was the public fantasy of the threatened nation (a stereotype of Romanian history), funnelled into the conviction that history is again hostile to the country but general and unfair animosity can be overcome if everybody reacts as a pure and sincere Romanian. Thus, ethnicity became a cleansing device again, used to sanction centrifugal forces and keep the people together. Law and reason ended at the gates of the pride of being a Romanian This energetic Messianism covered the deepest corruption one can imagine. Hundreds of thousands of people came to Cluj to participate - and lose their savings - in an

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N.E.C. Yearbook 1996-1997 enormous pyramidal game (an economic swindle, like the one whose collapse caused the 1997 riots in Albania), but when it was stopped, nobody uttered more than a few sighs of confusion. Romania is not Albania... The childish desire to get rich without working transformed Cluj into a mass hysteria and the pyramidal game owner Ioan Stoica into the Epiphany of Jesus. Suicidal individuals - Lloyd deMause says treating the third upheaval form, the <<Suicidal Solution>>56 - often resolve internal ambivalence through a fantasy of a <<Hidden Executioner>> who helps them in their suicidal effort in killing the bad, polluted part of themselves so that the good purified part can be loved again. Romanias leaders experienced this solution in June 1990 by asking the miners from Petroani to come to Bucharest in order to drain the pollution represented by the street protests in the University Square. The Hidden Executioner fantasy has been used several times since, the miners coming to Bucharest each time the young and the restless part of the society (i. e. the students) advocated real democracy and openness. In September 1993, the new father (President Iliescu) sacrificed his own son (Prime Minister Petre Roman); however, public opinion didnt receive the message as a purifying solution but as a new confirmation of the general pollution of the society.

Death, leisure and happy family values

Starting with Spring 1996, the imagery of the Romanian press suggested the decline of Iliescus power through reiterated symbols of death and decomposition (Illustrations 15-16-17-18-19). Two of them (no 16 and 1857 ) suggest mass sacrifice as a price paid for the privatization of the industry requested by the cunning Western capitalist world, represented in the June 24 1995 issue of the same publication by a US dollar mousetrap (Illustration 20). Other images of general collapse introduced Prime Minister Nicolae Vcroiu (Illustrations 21 and 2258 ), known for his passion for drinking. The difference from the previous period lies in the new habit of representing the President as a childish, irresponsible fellow (Illustrations 23-24-25-26). The subliminal message suggests the regression to a family womb, where politicians wash their laundry and boil the ingredients of politics without knowing properly what is going on outside the walls of their reclusion. Illustrations 23 and 25 show the happy family formed by governing leaders Ion Iliescu, Adrian Nstase and Oliviu Gherman (the President of the Senate at the time59 ), while the children in Illustrations

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TEFAN BORBLY 24 and 2660 are the interpreters of the national ideological score promoted by the power, party leaders Corneliu Vadim Tudor and Gheorghe Funar. In Corneliu Vadim Tudors case, the message of opportunistic sacrifice is obvious, because the text says: Do we clean him, or do we conceive another one? The popular image of politics as a self-sufficient game, played by deaf-to-reality individuals has always been a stereotype of the Romanian perception of the state affairs, having its roots in the ontological understanding of ethnicity as a thing to itself, an a priori type essence (Romanianism) incorporated in a worldly structure, namely the state as a historical phenomenon. This rather simple theory, shared by the majority of Romanians, has as a turning point the belief that historical vicissitudes may alter the worldly identity of the state, but cannot harm its deep, good-for-ever substance. Since 1990, the interpretation of communism in Romania as an imported plague, which corrupted some millions between 1947 and 1989 but didnt harm the ethnic substance of the natives, has been a recurrent stereotype of public debates in Romania. To challenge it is sacrilegious. A similar mental stereotype is associated with King Michael I, living now in Switzerland, whose role in arresting former head of state Marshall Ion Antonescu on August 23, 1944 and in turning Romania against Germany at the end of World War II is still a topic of debate amongst historians. The conclusion would be that politicians belong to the historical forms of the state, and not to its timeless substance. As such they are the nasty children of a restless family, scratching only the crust of the universe, but never reaching down to its core. This perception explains the great frequency of the imagery of play and leisure involving politicians in the Romanian mass media (Illustrations 27-28-29-3061 ) during a period dominated by the fantasy of rebirth into a world which must be destroyed entirely in order to gain purity (Illustration 3162 ). It should be noted that pollution, dirt or filth are ambivalent as symbols. They do not have only a negative connotation, but, isomorphically, a positive one too. In this respect, dirt is associated with debris, that is with the warm and secure ecstasy of the lair, of the den. Lair means here regression to the formless, the certainty of the womb. Starting from the treatment of the debris, there are, one may believe, two kinds of societies: disposal societies and thrifty ones. Disposal societies are, so to say, detergent trained societies. I mean by that the continuous exercise of leaving behind unnecessary things, or - to put it differently - the exercise of making ones way in life by always leaving the past behind. On the other hand, thrifty societies cope with the

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N.E.C. Yearbook 1996-1997 present and with the new stimuli by crouching in the lair, that is by protecting themselves with the debris of their past. Romania is a thrifty society. If you pass through villages, or enter houses, the first thing that strikes you is the absence of evacuation symptoms: memories of past years, old tools, broken cutlery, outworn cloths and bags pile up topsy-turvy into room corners, backyard lumber boxes or barns. If asked about the reason for keeping all these things, the owners generally have one and the same answer: one never knows when you need one thing or another. The real, psychic reason is the desire to lessen the impact of the present by having at hand, as a protection, a certainty of the past. Id call it, stretching a Jungian term a little, social abreaction. That is why historical analogies have always been present in Romanias way of life, where the only true step is the step legitimatized by tradition. The population of the Romanian villages - Constantin Rdulescu-Motru concludes - stays under the tradition of collective work. Every peasant will act as he believes everybody will act. He doesnt feel the incentive to start work but at the time everybody starts it. To step aside the line is, for the Romanian peasant, not merely a risk, but sheer madness.63 As things have gone on this way for centuries, Romanias shame culture64 wasnt distressed too much by the media images of the dirty children roaming in flocks in the streets of Bucharest or by the similar illustrations of the roms. Filth is the metaphysical substance of the past: why bother if you find it on your threshold?

Politicians as garbage cleaners

A suffocation syndrome characterized Ion Iliescus final months of presidency (Spring - Summer 1996). Clear symptoms of the collapse phase turned into a media imagery which embodied the shared fantasies of abandonment and suffocation. Though Romania is not part of an evacuation trained civilization and it is by no means sure that the press illustrations contributed to the drop Iliescus popularity in the polls, media representations insisted on the fantasy of a country led by politicians surrounded by dirt and garbage, as symbolic equivalents for social disintegration, corruption and crisis. For instance, in Illustration 3265 , President Iliescu is featured sinking into water, while in the October 14th issue of Romnia Liber (Illustration 33) the disastrous state of the health care is represented by a sleeping child, seemingly abandoned in a sort of

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TEFAN BORBLY floating basket, like Moses or - nearer to us - the mythical ancestors Romulus and Remus. In Illustrations 3466 and 3567 President Iliescu appears as a garbage man, in the second picture sharing the joy of the disposal with Adrian Nstase, his major henchman and former president of the Chamber of Deputies. In Illustration 3668 (an extremely acid and unusual one for the Romanian media) President Iliescu enjoys the pains of defecation, using the Constitution as toilet paper. The titles of articles published at that time clearly expressed a suffocation crisis. Here is a sample of them: Trash. The Ecologist Organizations Require that Salubrity Should Be Paid by PDSR69 (Romnia Liber, Nov.1996); Timioara: The Opera Square Again in Turmoil (Ibid.); A Plague Called Rducnoiu; Mudava: Our Peoples Head Is Rotten (Academia Caavencu, no 41/1996); From Toplia to Borsec: Poisoned Water for Everybody (Romnia Liber, Oct.26,1996); When Food Becomes Poison (Romnia Liber, Dec.16,1996); The American Ambassador Is Blind (Romnia Liber, Sept.14,1996); Sclerosis of Our Roads (Romnia Liber, Oct.9, 1996); Ion Cristoiu: Iliescu drags the sacred values of Romanianism into the mire. Not at all surprisingly, the September 16, 1996 issue of Romnia Liber puts an article on its front page saying that in the previous six months of the year Romania registered the sharpest deficit of population in her whole history. Romania sacrifices children. It is then obvious that when times change, media imagery insists on representing the newly elected leaders as poison drainers or detoxifiers, like Illustration 3770 , which shows Prime Minister Victor Ciorbea killing corruption virus holders with a bug tox pump.

We ... as Romanians ... are nothing

Nationalism kept being a major issue in Romanias Autumn 1996 elections, which brought to power a political fraternity (the Democratic Convention, built up as a coalition of numerous parties) and a new President, Professor Emil Constantinescu, former Rector of Bucharest University. Ion Iliescus PDSR was, paradoxically, a party without a personal ideology. To compensate for such a deficiency, the leaders of the party stressed an opportunistic and very poignant nationalism, a popular persuasion which was exacerbated during the first and the second ballots, when President Iliescu realized that things were going really wrong. The

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N.E.C. Yearbook 1996-1997 victory of the Democratic Convention was therefore presented as a farewell to the sacred and ancient values, and as a fatal loss of national identity. Romania is sharing now the public fantasy of frustration because of the cautious hugs of a rejective surrogate mother (Europe) and a similarly repulsive surrogate father (NATO). The lack of parentage is very obvious in recent public fantasies: the government is accused of being non-protective, insensitive to the needs of its offspring. Actually, Romania experiences a completely new leadership system at the moment, based on the premeditated diffusion of the Centre, the responsibility being taken up by a loose fraternity of equals. The crisis is illustrated by the public fantasy of travelling, of being on the road (that is nowhere), the most controversial minister of the new Government being Traian Bsescu, the head of the Department of Transportation. Articles about deadly unsafe belts of communication and about absurd road taxes to be paid by car-owners blasted Romanian media until mid July 1997, associating the officially induced enthusiasm to join Europe and NATO with the subliminal public fantasy of threat and expulsion because of a cut umbilical cord. A Fantasy Analysis of Prime Minister Victor Ciorbeas discourse at the presentation of the Governing Program and of the members of the Government to the Parliament71 shows, contrary to its explicit, primeval message, a subliminal fear of losing identity when joining Europe and NATO. Words suggesting a catastrophe start from the very beginning of the text, circling around the fantasy that we ... Romanians ... are nothing ... Here is a sample of the analysis of the discourse: We, Romanians ... are not ... not capable ... we, Romanians ... do not ... we mustnt have complexes ... Romanians do not make quality products ... must change destiny ... we are not condemned ... not a miracle ... mustnt fear ... bad ... for everybody ... winter ... sacrifices ... total war ... fight against ... crisis program ... ministers who do not ... the picture of the Romanian reality is distressing ... dangerous loss ... our life expectancy is the lowest in Europe, infant mortality the highest ... the biological being of the Romanian people ... affected ... Romania ... still a risky country ... painful evaluation of the situation ... the top of pain ... children infected with AIDS ... malnutrition ... fear ... not transform ... will not hide ... not notice ... Romanians were not told ... unsafe Christmas ... waste the resources of a rich country, Romania ... sap the Romaniansintelligence, initiatives and everyday strife.

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N.E.C. Yearbook 1996-1997 In its last passages the discourse reiterates the ambivalence of the terrible moments of history (understood as the empirical cover of ethnicity) and the deepest imperative of surviving as a nation, thus shifting politicians from the generally accepted level of the surface to the deepest level of the essence for the first time in a Romanian political discourse. It is also interesting to note that the cooperation with ethnic groups as well as the understanding of the minorities are exiled to the abstract reef of the common platform of the religious morals72 . The whole speech claims the exigence of making history together, in order to leave anonymity and modesty as national marks of self-appreciation and identity behind. The fantasy analysis of the discourse suggests a dangerous state of peril, poisoning, helplessness and hopelessness. As quoted above (see note 25), in less than eight months from the date of the discourse, tabloids announced that only Albania kills more children than Romania in Europe.

NOTES
1. Previous approaches include: Stefan Borbly: Romania and the Myth of the Lost Child, Romania literara, no. 48, November 1992 and the whole issue of Echinox, Cluj, XXVII, no. 3-4-5, which includes the Romanian versions of texts by David R. Beisel, William L. Langer, Henry Lawton, Bruce Mazlish, Alenka Puhar, Juhani Ihanus, Paul H. Elovitz, Howard F. Stein, Stefan Borbly. 2. Psychohistorians Discuss Psychohistory, in: History of Childhood Quarterly: The Journal of Psychohistory, vol. 3, no. 1, Summer 1975, p. 124 3. Psychohistory: Independence or Integration, ibid. 4. The Independence of Psychohistory. In: History of Childhood Quarterly: The Journal of Psychohistory, vol. 3, no. 2, Fall 1975 5. Rudolf Binion, in the debate The Joys and Terrors of Psychohistory, in: History of Childhood Quarterly: The Journal of Psychohistory, vol. 5, no. 3, Winter 1978 6. Carl Hempel: The Function of General Laws in History, in: Readings in Philosophical Analysis , ed. by Herbert Feigel and Wilfred Sellars, Appleton-Century-Crofts, New York, 1949 7. Ortega y Gasset: History as a System and Other Essays toward a Philosophy of History. With an Afterword by John William Miller. The Norton Library, W. W. Norton & Company Inc. New York, 1962 8. Apud: Herv Coutau-Begarie: Le phenomne >>Nouvelle histoire<<. Stratgie et idologie des nouveaux historiens, Economica, Paris, 1983, pp. 18-19 9. See Jean Laplanche & J.-B.Pontalis: Vocabulaire de la psychanalyse, PUF, Paris, 1967

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10. Lloyd deMause: The Independence of Psychohistory, in: Foundations of Psychohistory, Creative Roots, Inc., New York, 1982, p. 89 11. Op. cit., p. 90. The italics belong to the author, but the marks underlining the final part of the quotation belong to me, in order to stress the acceptance of personal involvement, of transference by Psychohistory. 12. Thou Shalt Not Be Aware. Societys Betrayal of the Child. Translated by Hildegarde and Hunter Hannum. A Meridian Book, 1990, pp. 19-20 13. The abreaction is defined by classical psychoanalysis as the dramatic reenactment of a previous traumatic experience by the deep psyche (See: Andrew Samuels, Bani Shorter, Fred Plaut: A Critical Dictionary of Jungian Analysis, Routledge & Kegan Paul, London-New York, 1986. Abreaction) 14.Daniel Dervin: Enactments. American Modes and Psychohistorical Models. Madison-Teaneck. Fairleigh Dickinson University Press. London: Associated University Press, 1996, pp. 35-36 15. Historical Group-Fantasies, in: Foundations ... , ed. cit., pp. 172-243 16. Archetypal Psychology as a Key for Understanding Prehistoric Art Forms, in: History of Childhood Quarterly: The Journal of Psychohistory, vol. 3, no. 4, Spring 1976 17. The New Theology: Star Trek, Star Wars, Close Encounters and the Crisis of Pseudo-rationality, in: History of Childhood Quarterly: The Journal of Psychohistory, vol. 5, no. 4, Spring 1978 18. The Journal of Psychohistory, vol. 9, no. 1, Summer 1981, reprinted in the Foundations of Psychohistory, op. cit., pp. 244-332 19. Op. cit., p. 261 20. Op. cit., p. 260 21. The History of Childhood. Lloyd deMause, editor. The Psychohistory Press, New York, 1974; The English edition: A Condor Book. Souvenir Press (E&A) Ltd., 1976 22. See in this respect Dan Dervins Critical Reflections on Key Aspects of Lloyd deMauses Seminal Psychohistory, and Lloyd deMauses Reply to Dan Dervin, both in The Journal of Psychohistory, vol. 24, no. 2, Fall 1996 23. Especially in The Evolution of Childhood, printed both in The History of Childhood (op. cit.) and in the Foundations ... (op. cit.) 24. La psychanalyse et lhistoire: une application lhistoire de Sparte, Annales ESC (20) 1965, reprinted in Alain Besancons LHistoire psychanalytique. Mouton-Paris-La Haye, 1974 25. Aproape 100.000 de copii abandonai n instituii de ocrotire/Almost 100,000 children abandoned in foster homes/, Romnia liber, July 19, 1997; Societatea romneasc nu-i mai poate permite s piard copii n instituii de tip lagr/ Romanian society can no longer afford to lose children in concentration camp type institutions/, ibid.; Cei mai muli copii se mbolnvesc din cauza srciei/ Most of the children get sick because of poverty/, Romnia liber, July 21, 1997; Doar n Albania mor mai muli copii dect n Romania/Only in Albania do more children die than in Romania/, Romnia liber, July 22, 1997

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26. An excellent model of childrearing for the Balkans can be found in Alenka Puhars Childhood Origins of the War in Yugoslavia, I-II, The Journal of Psychohistory, vol. 20, no. 4 Spring 1993 and vol. 21, no. 2 Fall 1993 27. The History of Childhood (op. cit.), p. 51 28. See my text in Romnia literar, November 1992 29. Lloyd deMauses terminology from The Fetal Origins of History, see supra 30. The University of Chicago Press, 1981 31. TV and media reports, May 1997 32. Spaiul mioritic, Bucharest, 1936 33. I am grateful to Prof. Jerry Atlas from Long Island University, Brooklyn, New York for this suggestion (St.B.) 34. Pragmatica personajului /The Pragmatics of the Hero/, Minerva Publishing House, Bucharest, 1992; Fals tratat de disperare /False Treatise of Despair/, Hestia Publishing House, Timioara, 1995 35. The expression is a commonly widespread public stereotype in formal debates and informal arguments in Romania (St.B.) 36. Short version in: Enciclopedia Romniei, Bucureti, 1938, pp. 161-168 37. Op. cit., p. 161 38. Ibid., p. 161 39. Its necessary to say that Constantin Rdulescu-Motrus theory opposes Lucian Blagas famous thesis concerning the boycotting of history expressed in Spaiul mioritic (The Mioritical Space, 1936). As Blaga puts it, the psychology of the Romanian people is based on the reluctance to face history (that is, by the desire to boycott it), its actions being performed in a pre-historical time (eternity). On the contrary, according to Rdulescu-Motru, spirituality rises a nation beyond time and contingencies, in the pure space of creative values. 40. See Norman Manea, Felix Culpa, in: On Clowns. The Dictator and the Artist. Grove Weidenfeld Press, New York, 1992; D. A. Doeing, A Biography of Mircea Eliades Spiritual and Intellectual Development. Thesis presented to the Faculty of Arts of the University of Ottawa as a partial fulfillment of the requirement for the degree of PhD, Ottawa, 1975; I. P. Culianu, Mircea Eliade, Cittadella Editrice, Assisi, 1978 (Romanian version in 1995, by Nemira Publishing House); Man Linscott Ricketts, Mircea Eliade. The Romanian Roots 1907-1945, Boulder Co., East European Monographs, 1988; Z.Ornea: Anii treizeci. Extrema dreapt romneasc /The Thirties. The Romanian Extremist Right/, Editura Fundaiei Culturale Romne, Bucureti, 1995 41. Camil Petrescu, Ultima noapte de dragoste, ntia noapte de rzboi, I (1930); G. Ibrileanu, Adela (1933); M. Sebastian, Femei(1933); Gib I. Mihescu, Rusoaica (1933); M.Eliade, Maitreyi(1933), Domnioara Christina(1936); G.Clinescu, Enigma Otiliei (1938) 42. M. Eliade, Cuvntul, VIII, no. 2502/ July 11, 1932 43. P. Comarnescu, Azi, no. 1/ 1932. The term experientalism is a forced creation of the author

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TEFAN BORBLY
44. The significance of rebirth from a malignant womb theatrically reemerged on July 11, 1997, when President Bill Clinton visited Bucharest after blocking Romanias access to NATO. When finishing his speech, Petre Roman, Iliescus former Prime Minister and the actual President of the Senate unexpectedly offered the American President a flag having a hole in its middle. By doing this, Roman tried to persuade the guest to legitimatize Romanias new political leadership by raising the unfolded flag of the December 1989 revolution in front of the enthusiastic crowd. Clinton either misunderstood the claim, or was reluctant to honour it. (St.B.) 45. Romnia Liber, 1995, May 9 and June 9 respectively 46. Romnia Liber, July 1, 1995 (It is worth mentioning that the beneficiary of a similar consecration was President Carter, represented with an aura around his head in Lloyd deMauses Reagans America, Creative Roots, 1984, p. 18) 47. Ibid., July 1 1995 48. Ibid., May 6 1995 49. Ibid., April 18 1995 50. For further details see my text Psihoistoria n imagini /Psychohistory in Illustrations/, Echinox, XXVII, no. 3-4-5/ 1995, pp. 3 & 20 51. Romnia Liber, 1995: February 6, June 15 and March 20 respectively 52. Ibid., June 3 1995 53. Creative Roots, Inc., New York, 1982, pp. 246-247 54. Personal observation (St.B.) 55. PUNR: Partidul Unitii Naionale Romne /The Romanian National Unity Party; leader: Gheorghe Funar, until end of March 1996; after losing the elections, Funar was unseated, and the party elected a new president, Valeriu Tabr/; PRM: Partidul Romnia Mare /The Greater Romania Party; leader: the anti-Semite poet Corneliu Vadim Tudor/ 56. Lloyd deMause, op. cit., p. 246 57. Romnia liber, February 1 and March 30 respectively 58. Romnia liber, March 1 1996 and February 7 1996 respectively 59. Romnia liber, February 16 and 9 1996 respectively 60. Ibid., April 22 and July 15 1996 respectively 61. Ibid., February 15, April 3, January 24, January 10 1996 respectively 62. Ibid., June 9 1995 63. C. Rdulescu-Motru, Psihologia poporului romn (op. cit), p. 161 64. The term belongs to E. R. Dodds: The Greek and the Irrational, The Regents of the University of California Press, 1951 /Romanian version translated by Catrinel Pleu: Dialectica spiritului grec, Meridiane, 1983/ 65. Academia Caavencu, October 16-22 1996 66. Romnia Liber, October 14 1996 67. Romnia Liber, September 26 1996 68. Romnia Liber, September 28 1996 69. PDSR = Partidul Democraiei Sociale din Romnia, the leading party until the 1996 general elections

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70. Romnia Liber, December 16 1996 71. Discursul Primului Ministru desemnat, Victor Ciorbea, cu ocazia prezentrii programului de guvernare i a Guvernului n faa Parlamentului, in: Dreptatea, nr. 121, December 18-24 1996, pp. 15-16 72. It is worthwhile noting that in the Romanian Constitution (1991), the President is the only point where the mundane meets the sacred...

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MIRCEA CRTRESCU
Born in 1956, in Bucharest Ph.D., University of Bucharest, 1999 Dissertation: Romanian Postmodernism Associate Professor at the Faculty of Letters, University of Bucharest Visiting Professor at the University of Amsterdam, 1994-1995 Member of ASPRO (Professional Writers Association of Romania), member of the Writers Union of Romania Fellow of The International Writers Program, Iowa City, 1990 Numerous prizes and awards, among which the Prize of the Writers Union of Romania in 1980, 1990 and 1994, the Prize of the Romanian Academy, 1989, the ASPRO Prize in 1994 and 1996; short-listed in 1992 for Le Prix Mdicis, Le Prix de lUnion Latine and Le Prix pour le meilleur livre tranger. Participation in international seminars, conferences; readings from his works in Germany, Hungary, Holland, France, etc. His works were translated into French, Spanish, Dutch, English, Hungarian, German, Norwegian, Italian, and Swedish. Books: Headlights, Shop Windows, Photographs. Bucharest: Cartea Romneasc, 1980 Love Poems. Bucharest: Cartea Romneasc, 1983

Everything. Bucharest: Cartea Romneasc, 1985 The Dream. Bucharest: Cartea Romneasc, 1989 Levant. Bucharest: Cartea Romneasc, 1990 The Chimeric Dream. Bucharest: Litera, 1991 Nostalgia. Bucharest: Humanitas, 1993 Love. Poems 1984-1987. Bucharest: Humanitas, 1994 Travesty. Bucharest: Humanitas, 1995 Blinding. The Left Wing. Bucharest: Humanitas, 1996 Double CD. Bucharest: Humanitas, 1998 Romanian Postmodernism. Bucharest: Humanitas, 1999

POSTMODERNITY AS A WEAK ONTOLOGICAL, EPISTEMOLOGICAL AND HISTORICAL EXPERIENCE

1. Postmodernism and postmodernity

The concept of modernism, defining an attitude and an artistic practice which emerged towards the end of the last century, cannot be probed into without discussing the philosophical, historical and socio-cultural background of modernity, a much wider notion, yet one which is closely interrelated to the artistic and literary phenomena in question . Likewise postmodernism, one of the most widespread concepts in contemporary theories of art (and elsewhere) simply cannot be understood or is even prone to gross misinterpretation without an understanding of the world that has engendered it : il convient de faire une distinction entre postmodernite comme type de condition humaine (existentielle, mais aussi sociale) et postmodernisme en tant que courant litteraire (ou culturel, si vous voulez)1 . Moreover emphasising the bond between postmodernism and postmodernity is of greater significance than relating modernism to modernity. If modernists, despite their claim to be artists of their time, keeping abreast with the progress of the modern world, promoted an extreme form of aesthetic autonomy and, like classicists, regarded the creative act as pure and impersonal, postmodern artists have shifted their focus towards the insertion of their works in everyday life and have become engaged in contemporary ethical, political and religious dilemmas. Consequently the aesthetic criterion, which was looked upon as all-powerful by modernity, proves insufficient to pass a right judgement and to estimate the genuine value of any work of art. From this point of view, postmodernism draws a full circle in European culture, since it represents a return to the environmental, utilitarian, ornamental and essentially democratic perception of art which preceded the Romantic revolution.

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N.E.C. Yearbook 1996-1997 I am going to seek the conceptual roots of postmodernity in three fundamental fields of knowledge, while emphasising the common purpose of their three respective endeavours: defining the contemporary human being. For each of these cognitive areas I have chosen the theory of one illustrious analyst of post-modernity as a guiding light. While faithfully following the paths opened by their theories, I will nevertheless consider contradictory viewpoints so that, by the end of this paper, I hope to have achieved a clearer insight into what postmodernity is, not only in its day-to-day tangible occurrences, but in the intricate paradoxical network of its underlying theory. A discussion of postmodern ontology will comprise Gianni Vattimos reflections on his forerunners Nietzsche and Heidegger, as well as Gadamers, Jausss and Rortys contemporary hermeneutics. I have regarded Jean-Francois Lyotards work as representative for the formulation of essential issues pertaining to epistemology and for the legitimisation of new patterns of cognition. The concept of the end of history, dealt with by all postmodern theorists as one of the basic aspects of the postmodern age, has been audaciously, if not always persuasively enough, discussed by Francis Fukuyama, the author of the noteworthy book The End of History and the Last Man. I will enlarge upon his point of view in the third section, although the American historian does not declare himself a disciple of postmodernism. Although divergent as to methodology and detail of investigation, the three theories have in common the sense that modernity, as an age in the history of humankind, has reached its end .The world is taking a new turn, and fundamental concepts like reality, history, value, thought and art are undergoing radical changes, as, alongside them, is the human being.

2. Postmodern ontology
In his book, The End of Modernity, Gianni Vattimos main endeavour is to find points of correspondence between the various contemporary discussions of the concepts of modernity and postmodernity and the theories of Nietzsche and Heidegger, both late modern philosophers, fully aware of the dissolution of modernity and of the obsolescence of its initial design. As an inheritor of the 18th century rationalist Enlightenment, modernity carried forward the mainstream of European thought, at the core of which was an idealism centred around humanism and progress, the acme of which was reached by 19th century Romanticism : Modernity

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MIRCEA CRTRESCU can indeed be characterised as being dominated by a view of the history of thought as progressive enlightenment, which develops by means of an ever deeper appropriation and reappropriation of fundamentals, often considered as origins, so that the theoretical and practical revolutions in Western history are often viewed and justifiably labelled as recoveries, revivals, returns.2 This utopian teleological view has been castigated by various thinkers who have revealed the role played by chaos, hazard, and the subconscious in the making of history, the so-called negative categories, which, did not only enable prosperity and progress to govern certain ages, but also generated blind alleys, decadence and dissolution, and brought about the death of entire cultures and civilisations. Following in the footsteps of Copernicuss revolution, which demoted the human being from the centre of the universe, the ruthless Kulturkritik went so far as to shatter traditional humanism into pieces. Fr. Nietzsche is, indisputably, the great shatterer, whose philosophy has made its imprint upon the century following him, and whose impact is now more powerful than ever. His act of discrediting and, ultimately, of annihilating those values European culture regarded as the most stable and secure, started with the very concept of founding, of base, of establishing that ontological or cognitive foundation without which there could be no metaphysics. Both Nietzsche, and, less radically, Heidegger, bring into discussion the notion of metaphysical foundation, but, unlike other critics of European culture, they do not propose any other kind of grounding. With these two philosophers, being is no longer a fixed, immutable plane to which real world phenomena relate; it is a fluctuating, contextual, aleatory entity. Neither concepts nor values pertain to the eternal and the unchangeable, they become relative and dependent on local conditions. Consequently, in their view, modernity (which relies wholly upon the illusions bred by metaphysics) can neither be prolonged nor surpassed: the only acceptable solution is a separation from modernity. The following chapter will demonstrate how the meaning of the prefix post-, a morpheme in words such as postmodernism and postmodernity has aroused many controversies because the this separation has been misunderstood. The shattering of ontology, the weakening of being and nihilism were among the scathing expressions by which humanist philosophers attempted to isolate and discredit Nietzsches influence. All these categories have nevertheless been espoused by those to whom the modern age appears mistrustful of absolute values, seeing them as the storehouse of human prejudices and the source of discriminatory and totalitarian

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N.E.C. Yearbook 1996-1997 practices. We acknowledge, these rejecters of absolute values say, that we live in a nihilist age, but, taking nihilism to its conclusion is our only chance, since nihilism has come to mean our ability to endlessly create truth and value albeit short-lived like everything else instead of false, once-and-for-all norms and dogmas. The weak value, created among people for people who live a precise moment in their history is the only kind of value postmodernity enables us to create, since all the other values have proved to be false idols. The dissolution of metaphysics by the revelation of the weak nature of being and thinking, the end of history as the never-ending headway of the human being in search of selfhood (for the subject itself, as a substratum subjectum , has not been able to resist criticism) and the reformulation of truth, a notion which grows similar to an aesthetic concept, are all nihilistic ideas. They are equally the premises required by the only optimistic, positive, approach to the contemporary world: the postmodern critique. It is worthwhile expanding upon this last idea. In Vattimos opinion, postmodernity no longer regards truth as a gnoseological concept, since it is no longer grounded in a stable metaphysical reality. Like the subject, truth goes on a slimming diet, it becomes an instrumental concept of communication and interrelation, very much like aesthetic concepts. Consequently, postmodernism sustains a non-metaphysical conception of truth, which should be interpreted starting not so much from the positivist model of scientific knowledge as from (...) the experience of art and the model of rhetoric.3 From now on, the aesthetic experience, which is essentially weak will be the model for any type of knowledge. This step is needed for the aestheticization of life in the post-modern world, the unexpected consequence of which is a dramatic change in the way culture and art are assessed in the new society. I shall try to show how difficult it is for high, elitist culture to adjust to this astheticisation of the entire life of society. With Nietzsche, the concept of human being is obviously marginalized, since nihilism is the condition in which man rolls from the centre x-wards.4 . The devaluation of the supreme value is expressed by the concomitant Death of God and that of man (as an ideal, sublime, atemporal being, as pure judgement). Genuine freedom only emerges once our illusions about man have come to an end. Surprisingly enough, on the wasteland which Nietzsche created by demolishing rationalist humanism, radically opposite ideologies could be formulated. The idea that, after Gods death everything is permitted and that morality itself disintegrates, while the only law left is the right of the stronger, has enabled

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MIRCEA CRTRESCU the establishing of a morality of the masters or of the superior race; in other words it has led to fascism. Paradoxically and ironically, history has testified to the validity not of the masters morality, that of the Ubermensch, but of that of the slaves whom nihilism liberated from the idols of the tribe, a morality which took the form of the new democratic ethics based on human rights. The Ideal Man had to die in order for human beings to arise, in all their complexity and diversity, as they are in real life. Absolute value had to dissolve in order for individual values and group values to have their say, values created between people, not once-and-for-all, but for a limited period, and only contextually valid. As already mentioned, the unavoidable consequence of Nietzsches perspective is a certain de-realisation of the world. Unbound from the metaphysical chains which had kept it in bondage during the classical age, the post-Nietzschean world is depleted of reality, a phenomenon which finds its most faithful expression in The Twilight of the Gods : the real world has become a fairy-tale.5 In the same way, for Heidegger being is annihilated to the extent that it is completely converted into value, which is in its turn fluctuating and convertible. This effect of unreality, so salient in todays world, has led to various trends of thought joining against the nihilism of our age. Starting with the first decades of our century, a strong philosophical front has stood up in defence of humanist values. Reunited under the shared motto of the pathos of authenticity, early existentialists, phenomenologists, Marxists, and more recently, representatives of contemporary hermeneutics such as Habermas have made great endeavours to defend the great values theoretically. Vattimo points out that all these endeavours have failed. Despite the charges brought against it dehumanisation, confusion, alienation, generalised prostitution total nihilism has proved much less harmful and more fruitful than all the ideologies which have led to wars and dictatorships. The failure of humanism is perceptible everywhere in our century, in which not only has communism caused unparalleled disasters, but respectable philosophical and artistic trends (existentialism, surrealism, futurism and avant-garde movements) have become compromised by supporting all kinds of dictatorships, from Stalinism to fascism, from Maoism to international terrorism. Vattimo points out that, in striking contrast with these trends, unerring nihilism calls for an experience of reality, which has become fabulous, and which is our only way to achieve freedom.6 Wherever a society has undergone de-ideologisation and the abolition of absolute creeds (as is the case of contemporary Western, and especially

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N.E.C. Yearbook 1996-1997 American society), that society has enhanced its complexity, prosperity and freedom, despite the psychological already referred to. Together with Niezsches assertion that God is dead, in the practical sphere modern technology, which was originally regarded as a source of opening the gate towards totalitarian practices, has contributed to the dissolution of all absolute values and has brought about an unprecedented crisis of humanism, a concept that Heidegger considered equivalent to the possibility for metaphysics itself to exist. Between around 1900 and the period after the Second World War, human values underwent a painful crisis, which was mirrored in all philosophical trends. One attempt to provide a cordon sanitaire for these values was the use of dichotomies of the type humanities versus natural sciences or culture (humanist) versus civilisation (dehumanising). These dichotomies in which the first terms defined the fortress of everlasting humanism, a sort of Goethean Castalia wholly isolated from the present day world of decay proved groundless, partly because humanist values did not appear essentially different from other values, and partly because modern technology, far from emerging as a deadly menace, turned on the contrary into a positive reality. If Spengler or Husserl deplore the loss of the human core, of the subject in the new technological civilisation, Heidegger regards the surpassing (Verwindung) of humanism as the only path leading to the Ge-Stell, to the world of technology as the best instantiation of metaphysics, and, consequently, as the first mark of Ereignis, of re-discovery of the self. The subject, as it is conceived by humanists, is not worth defending, as it is identified with reason and conscience, which are defined as correlatives of the object, sharing in the immutable stable character of the object. The subject is a substratum ( sub-jectum ) and, as such, paradoxically relinquishes its very subjectivity, its historicity (Dasein). As a conclusion, Heidegger reinforces the necessity to abandon metaphysics, not by transgression as such, but by Verwindung, which rather means recovery or convalescence. There is a need for the subject to take up a slimming diet, since it can no longer claim to be the absolute spirit. As a result of this slimming, the subject acquires historicity and location, becoming contextual and ephemeral, an entity which dissolves its presence-absence into the networks of a society which increasingly turns into a sensitive body of communication.7 The cycle referred to above is thus completed, since postmodern philosophy and practice prove to be solidary and complementary.

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MIRCEA CRTRESCU Art is the first area to benefit from the consequences of this. The decay of metaphysics provides fertile ground for a general aestheticisation of life. The problem of the death of art, which might be seen as the central topic of modernity, acquires a quite different meaning in postmodernity. From the avant-garde breakthrough of the 20s, which denied any confinement of art, to the new avant-garde, with its ubiquitous art, which steps beyond the traditional, isolated and protected spaces (theatres, museums, exhibition and concert halls), the classical view on art has been violently challenged throughout our century. Never has the concept of art reached such relativisation as in the age of media supremacy, since the communication media have become nowadays a kind of perverse (still not totally distorted) embodiment of the Hegelian concept of the absolute spirit. Art does not fade away with postmodernity, but it loses its isolation from the social body (that famous autonomy of the aesthetic proclaimed against all kinds of populisms and dictatorships) into which it finally dissolves. The survival of art implies the renunciation of the absolute, so that what was not habitually regarded as art becomes art. The work of arts questioning of its own status becomes a criterion of value. It can be seen that postmodernity witnesses a triumph of avant-garde concepts, on condition that they be tamed. When the avant-garde becomes routine and fits into the norm, when what used to be shocking no longer shocks anyone, while that which formerly did not shock has vanished from the picture, we may say that we have entered the postmodern world. Undeniably, any postmodern work includes its own denial, in the form of critical distance, irony, parody, (self) pastiche, which means that the death of art is literally implied in any artistic product, which indeed somehow feeds on this implication. Turning the disappearance of art into the very source of arts vitality and survival is the optimistic solution the postmodern thinker provides to a problem which the modernist failed to resolve, since the death of art could only be followed by nothingness. It is not by chance that this has only been achieved in the present age. The impact of technology opens a gap between the historical and postmodern avant-gardes, since technology favours the endless reproduction and the ubiquitous nature of all works of art and thus destroys one of the essential criteria employed by the elitist estimation of the work of art: its uniqueness. The mass reproduction effect mentioned by Benjamin in his famous work The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction8 leads to a curious living death of art. Although art pervades all possible spaces and permeates all possible forms, it loses the

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N.E.C. Yearbook 1996-1997 immense prestige it used to have when it was considered (admittedly by the restricted elite to whom it was accessible) the repository of all human values and wisdom. Nowadays, the mass media place little stress on high, authentic art; on the other hand, they widely disseminate information, culture and entertainment according to a unique , essentially aesthetic criterion: pleasure. Mass communication alone can achieve social consensus nowadays, a consensus which is neither political, nor ideological, but a resignedly aesthetic function.9 That is why the death of art should be understood in two ways : its strong meaning points to the end of high art as the moulder of humankind, as an occult, initiatory world, the preserver of transcendental revelation (we may clearly recognise the elation-inducing perspective of modernism); its weak meaning concernes the mutation, which traditional thinking would have regarded as unacceptable, even apocalyptic, leading to the dissolution of art into social life through the mass media. The myth of art crumbles and art undergoes a boundless democratisation. The weak viewpoint does not come after the strong one; they are simultaneously displayed and strongly interrelated. Modernism is not dead when postmodernism appears; rather modernism survives by means of postmodernism, due to the specifically postmodern simultaneity of all aesthetic attitudes, ideologies and styles in an ahistorical world, where, according to Al. Philippide, old and new ages in motley merge; all as one swiftly surge. High art still survives, despite the dwindling of its audience and prestige. It dwells in its tiny secluded room, where, within a complex system of connections, the three aspects of the death of art: utopia, kitsch and silence, play and interact together.10 The next chapter will enlarge upon the concept of silence and demonstrate, following Ihab Hassans line of thought, that both trends typical of modernity, intellectualism and violent avant-garde, end up in silence the one in intense meditation over the blank page, and the other in the white noise of pandemonium. On the contrary, postmodernity starts from silence in order to build up parallel worlds that will someday compete with the World itself. With postmodernity, while art loses its life in the traditional sense of the word (namely its value, significance and mystery), it equally loses its death, entrapped in the limbo of paradox, like the hunter Gracchus in Kafkas tale. Its condition might be called the twilight or the agony of art. The art of the present day can only be defined by oxymoron: dead life, sweet agony, merry apocalypse, which only draws it closer to the aesthetic trend it so strikingly resembles: mannerism.

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MIRCEA CRTRESCU Together with art, traditional aesthetics is also prone to decay. The exemplary character of the work of art lacks support. If it technologically reproducible (consider, for instance, the playing of Vivaldis music in a washing-powder advert or the glimpsing of the Giocondas smile on a match-box), the work of art can only induce a sideways, marginal, casual perception, as an object glanced at out of the corner of ones eye. Devoid of any stable substantiation of values, the aesthetic approach becomes weak. Temporary and perishable, the work of art becomes a mere password for Heidegger, a token of its belonging to the world, depleted of its own meaning. This draws it closer to ornamental practices, since they are both embellishing and peripheral. In The Origin of the Work of Art, Heidegger describes art as a background happening, describable only by means of a weak ontology. Casting art back into the role it used to play before Romanticism ennobled it and widening the concept until it covers the entire social body are processes which perform the conditions necessary in order for the whole world to become a work of art, as was foreseen by Nietzsche as far back as the previous century, when he wrote: The world is a work of art in the process of self-making.11 To conclude the discussion on the death of art in the contemporary world, one might say that, like the seed in Christs parable, art remains alone unless it dies, but if it dies it may bear much fruit. In proposing an essentially humanistic philosophy of history12 , the most important representatives of contemporary hermeneutics, Gadamer, Apel and Jauss stray away from the Heideggerian spirit they would wish to share and turn into opponents of the postmodernity foreshadowed by Heidegger. The great philosopher supplies a nihilist definition for the relationship between being and language: Dasein means being-into-death. Being lacks foundation, it is mere utterance, adjusted to the rhythm of discourse. While progressively turning into language, being weakens, and the history of metaphysics becomes the history of the progressive oblivion of being. Among contemporary theorists of hermeneutics, Richard Rorty is closest to a postmodern standpoint (without being a postmodern theorist himself). In his main book, Philosophy in the Mirror of Nature, Rorty lays emphasis on empathy, on the intuitive nature of hermeneutic knowledge. In Rortys view, once the attempt to build up an epistemology has been relinquished, hermeneutics dissolves into anthropology and becomes a form of the dissolution of being.13 Split between homologising and difference , between a Western ecumenical ideal and a secular marginality, the contemporary world

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N.E.C. Yearbook 1996-1997 looks like a huge building site of survivals.14 The same definition could apply to contemporary art, which displays a wide variety of trends from the historicising to the marginalising , simultaneously unified and pluralised by the great media discourse.

3. Knowledge in postmodernity
As far as postmodern epistemology is concerned, the most clear-sighted analysis is Jean-Francois Lyotards15 . Having studied various types of legitimising discourses, Lyotard has evinced the increasing substitution of new legitimising procedures for the modern legitimisation of power, science, knowledge, etc. Dealing with the beginning of postmodern thinking, Lyotard, like Vattimo, mentions the works of Nietzsche and Heidegger. He regards other influences, such as Freuds psychoanalysis, Max Webers demonstration of the connection between the Protestant spirit and capitalism, and the philosophy promoted by the Frankfurt School, as equally decisive. Neither are Marxist and Neo-Kantian thought neglected, since they inspire postmodernism with major topics. The two postmodern theorists equally agree as to certain common points shared by these theories, and as to overlapping areas in the views of Foucault, Derrida, Deleuze, etc. One major area would be the scathing criticism of the European Enlightenment, of its faith in reason and its grandiose coherent teleological scripts, which always set man in the centre of being and of history and on the ascendant line of unbounded progress. The Enlightenment provided scripts or grand narratives which were to play a legitimising and comforting role in European thought for almost three centuries. These scripts generated the illusions bred by humanist thinking about human predestination and encouraged far-fetched attempts to fully and coherently justify mans worldly destiny. The rationalist and idealist-Romantic heritage urged modernity to believe in the objective truth of various explanatory scripts. Modern man, although deeply fissured, continues to embody an abstract ideal. On the other hand, postmodernity utterly mistrusts meta-narratives and, once it has acquired the skill of deconstructing them, it unveils all the ideological and self-mystifying presumptions underlying any seemingly objective discourse. In Lyotards view, this mistrust, this scepticism towards objectivity, coherence and completeness is the main symptom of postmodern thinking. When this meta-discourse [i.e. philosophy] explicitly

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MIRCEA CRTRESCU resorts to one grand narrative or another, such as the dialectics of spirit, the hermeneutics of meaning, the emancipation of the national or working subject, the development of wealth, I have decided to designate as modern the science to which they relate in order to get legitimised.16 Surprisingly enough, doctrines and ideologies so profoundly divergent such as Hegelianism, nationalism, Marxism, hermeneutics and market liberalism appear as various facets of a totalitarian modernity, in the sense that each of them proclaims itself the only legitimate and thorough interpretation of Man and the only way to influence and shape Man according to certain abstract principles. Lyotard supports the idea of a trenchant opposition between modernity and postmodernity; however, as already suggested, postmodernism does not simply replace modernism at a precise historical moment, since there are complex relationships of coexistence and interdependence between the two. Lyotards relative manichaeism has been exposed by other theorists, such as Matei Calinescu, who, in the introductory chapter of the postmodern anthology he edited together with Douwe Fokkema17 , explicitly asserts the following: Actually, Lyotards opposition between modernity and postmodernity, seen within the corpus of his philosophical work, is just another way of personifying the eternal conflict between Ahriman (domination, capital, the acquisitive drive, the will to infinity, mastery, control, richness) and Ormazd (the desire for opacity, paralogy, non-communication, autonomy, the figural and deconstructive search for incommensurability. Modernity would then be a synonym for Lyotards strangely timeless notion of capitalism, while postmodernism would be a personification of an equally timeless desire for freedom and justice.18 If the notion of a strange ageless capitalism (or rather, an industrial age, perceived either as a background or as a metaphor) may fit into the notion of modernity as defined by Lyotard, Matei Calinescus statement that postmodernism is an opaque non-communicative world sounds questionable. To counter Calinescus opinion, both Lyotard and Vattimo (the author of a book specifically dealing with this topic19 ) perceive transparency and communication which are, after all, one and the same thing as the core of the new postmodern liberalism. Lyotard emphasises the fact that within this transparent (or at least translucent) world, only those more conservative institutions that obviously preserve residues from the past will withstand this tendency for a while: The state will start to look like a factor of opacity and noise undermining an ideology of communicational transparency, which is accompanied by a commercialisation of knowledge.20

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N.E.C. Yearbook 1996-1997 With Lyotard, knowledge no longer plays a formative role. In his view, postmodernity wholly rejects the idea of mans ceaseless completion, of knowledge enriching the human mind, an idea still supported by modern humanism. In the new post-industrial world, knowledge is valued differently: any value becomes an exchange value, which, like any commodity, fluctuates according to the exchange rate: Knowledge has been and will be produced to be sold, has been and will be consumed to be put to use in a new production.21 Redefined as such, value differs both from the production force in positivist terms , and from the moulding force in hermeneutic terms , which is meaningful only in a world of absolute values and purposes. Knowledge has become an issue that goes far beyond the production of commodities. The real place where knowledge proves decisive is the realm of decision: In the age of informatics knowledge as an issue has become more than ever an issue of governing.22 , Lyotard writes, then adds that the question Who should make the decisions? lies at the heart of this matter. Instead of the grand narratives, it is the logical and linguistic criteria, devoid of ideology but still supporting an endlessly expandable network, that could be able to describe the informational clouds of the present society. Among these criteria, Lyotard shows a particular interest in language games, as understood by Ludwig Wittgenstein. The following demonstration relies on this specific criterion. Under the conditions provided by the new society, ruling is no longer identified with political decision: The former poles of attraction consisting in nation-states, parties, professions, institutions and historical traditions have ceased to arouse interest and have been replaced by a composite blanket made up of managers, officials, leaders of large professional , trade union, political, and religious bodies, etc.23 . This group takes decisions which impact upon the entire social fabric within a complex game, which is in its turn constituted by numberless other language games. In order to be noticed, the social bond need to encompass a language change in the context of such a game. Consequently a general agonistics takes shape, as a new power mechanism in the postmodern world, in which to speak means to fight in the sense of to play.24 On the one hand, Lyotards analysis includes those contrastive aspects which are specific to linguistic structuralism; on the other hand, it lays considerable emphasis on the ludic aspect of decision, which is the truly novel element in the new social relations of postmodernity. However the issue of decision is merely described and far from being solved by depicting the new society as an informational cloud governed by a general agonistics. For a decision

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MIRCEA CRTRESCU to be made possible and to be able subsequently to structure the social fabric, it has to be perceived as legitimate. Legitimisation is a key concept with Lyotard. Having experienced world-wide conflicts, holocaust and communist totalitarian regimes, the post-war world can no longer be governed according to the grand legitimising narratives, be they nationalist or Marxist. The erosion of man has entailed demolishing all the ideals and utopias in the name of which countless crimes have been committed. To Lyotard, the main issue which postmodernity faces is the following: how can legitimisation occur otherwise, so that it may preserve its credibility and prove its validity? Combining epistemology with game theory, Lyotard tries to answer this question by disclosing the way in which the atomisation of the social in flexible language game networks 25 takes place. Legitimisation will be determined by the very nature of these language games. From the beginning of his study, Lyotard distinguishes two major ways of acquiring knowledge. One is narrative knowledge, of folk origin, in which narrative form prevails over content or discursive aims (recollecting the past). The need for fiction, in the form of classical or modern myths, thus becomes synonymous to the need for oblivion, or for the fabrication of a fake memory, more suitable for collective desires and cravings. With this type of knowledge, there is no need for legitimisation, since the narrative provides self-legitimisation. Scientific knowledge is in striking contrast to narrative knowledge. The pragmatics of the two forms of knowledge are two equally valid, yet mutually exclusive, language games. Narrative knowledge is the form specific to traditional societies, resuscitated by Romanticism and extended into modernity. What Lyotard deals with further on is scientific knowledge, which is highly specific of postmodernity. In its turn, scientific knowledge can be split into two basic branches (or games): research and education. Research features the following presuppositions (or game rules): 1. The addressee and the addresser are equally competent; 2. The referent should be appropriate to reality; 3. The addresser is assumed to be telling the truth; 4. There is a double suitability rule: dialectical and metaphysical; 5. Research achieves its purpose once consensus as to its validity has been reached. In its turn, education is underlain by several presuppositions: 1. The addressee does not share the same amount of knowledge as the addresser; 2. The addressee may become an expert; 3. There are unquestionable utterances which are conveyed as truths. Lyotard combines the features of the two games

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N.E.C. Yearbook 1996-1997 pertaining to scientific knowledge and reveals the following characteristics of this type of knowledge : 1. Scientific knowledge only allows for a denotative language game; an utterance is accepted according to its truth value; 2. Scientific knowledge is indirectly acquired knowledge, isolated from the other aspects of social bonds; 3. Competence is compulsory only for the addresser; 4. The scientific utterance does not get validated by its own formulation. 5 Science is a cumulative process which, because of its diachronic character, involves memory and design. Between narrative knowledge and scientific knowledge there is an asymmetrical compatibility. If narrative knowledge tolerates a scientific mentality to a certain extent, scientific knowledge proves altogether intolerant of a narrative mentality. This is exactly what opponents of postmodernism as being a loss of meaning, a loss of the human value of knowledge. There can be detected in their attitude a nostalgia for the humanist modernity of the past, when knowledge was indeed predominantly narrative. Once the religious-metaphysical legitimisation have collapsed, knowledge of the European type reaches an impasse. Various types of legitimisation have been devised, in a general endeavour to avoid nihilism, or in other words legitimisation by consensus. Thus Romanticism brought legitimisation from the people by means of debate and consensus. This view invests the people with the status of universal expert, whose representatives demolish traditional narrative structures only to replace them by modern, equally narrative, structures. The notion of progress flourished during this period, seen as the acquisition of competence over generations. The golden age, which ancient philosophers identified with a mythical past, was re-located by modern thinkers in the future: it was to be possible owing to the general progress of humanitys. This type of legitimisation still dominates the political life of nations. It turns the issue of state into an issue of scientific knowledge. As a universal expert, the people becomes concerned with the legitimisation of political, economic and scientific power by means of meta-narratives. This interest generates the great scripts or legitimising narratives in their two versions: political and philosophical. In the great political script of European modernity, humanity as a whole is represented as a hero of liberty. This view assigns the state with the mission of moulding the people as a nation and of guiding it on the pathway to progress. A classical example is the Prussian state in Hegels time, regarded by the philosopher as the ideal,

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MIRCEA CRTRESCU unsurpassable form of state, the emergence of which marked the end of history as the unimpeded development of the absolute spirit. The philosophical version of the legitimising narratives centres around metaphysics as the exquisite all-comprehensive synthesis of all sciences. In their turn, these sciences are but moments in the development of the spirit, meant to achieve a meta-history of the spirit. It is easy to recognise the Hegelian design in the philosophical version, since they both rely on knowledge of the narrative type. This knowledge engenders that of hermeneutics, which is so suitable for modernity, but altogether incompatible with postmodernity. All great ideologies rooted in the Enlightenment and Romantic idealism have been legitimised either by the political version of the grand narratives, or by the philosophical version, and in most cases by both. If legitimisation has been an obsession of European modernity for at least two centuries, postmodernity witnesses a process of ideological de-legitimisation as the great scripts have lost their credibility. This process shifts the focus from aims (teleology, progress, utopia) to means. Agreeing with Gianni Vattimo and other postmodern theorists, J.-F. Lyotard points out that the decay of the great legitimising scripts is not the result solely of humanitys having entered its post-industrial age, but primarily of certain processes regarding the theoretical aspects of knowledge. The seeds of de-legitimisation and of nihilism should be first sought in the erosion of the speculative (philosophical) discourse generated, as Nietzsche remarked, by the sciences being subordinated to and validated by philosophy. If philosophy was predominantly narrative, sciences would become ideological tools in the service of power, losing their truth value and, implicitly, their credibility. Likewise, the emancipatory (political) discourse becomes eroded since there are two types of discourse generated by the people: one descriptive and the other prescriptive. The two types of discourse do not overlap and are generated according to different rules. A fatal gap opens between the scientific and the forensic. The above considerations might account for the wave of pessimism at the end of the past century and during the first decades of the present century. Irrespective of their proclivities, thinkers were forced to face a huge proliferation of languages which had emerged without any traditional legitimisation. Lyotard points out that the age of pessimism came to an end once new forms of legitimisation had emerged, forms specific to this very proliferation of languages, arising from linguistic practices and

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N.E.C. Yearbook 1996-1997 interactive communication. Lyotard goes on to analyse these practices in more detail. In the postmodern view, the first branch of scientific knowledge, research, is legitimised by performativity (from the very start a pragmatic, not a metaphysical criterion). Unlike a few decades ago, the pragmatics of research is influenced nowadays by two changes: the enriching of argumentation and the complication of the administration of evidence. While discussing the richer argumentative strategies, Lyotard shows that argumentative languages are regulated by logical meta-language, which implies consistency, completeness, decidability and interdependence of axioms. Formal logic has lately become considerably enriched: Godels famous demonstration proves that all systems have limitations, which appear whenever the systems are translated into a natural, inconsistent and paradox-generating language. This leads to the impossibility of exhausting a system by demonstration, somenthing which traditional thought used to consider unacceptable, but which postmodern thinkers consider inevitable, even stimulating. By accepting the haphazard, the incomplete and the contradictory, the very notion of reason undergoes fundamental change: The principle of a universal meta-language is replaced by that of a plurality of formal and axiomatic systems capable of argument in favour of denotative utterances; these systems belong to a universal, however inconsistent meta-language.26 There is a salient discrepancy between postmodernity and all previous ages as to scientific knowledge: while classical and modern science rejected paradox, postmodernity draws its argumentative force from it. The other recent change undergone by pragmatics is the complication of the administration of tests The central paradox of this issue is that the test itself needs testing. To apply a test means to find out a fact by means of certain recording procedures, obeying the principle of performativity. The procedure implies the use of complex and costly hardware, which is not available to any scientist. The triad that regulates the administration of tests is wealth - efficiency - truth, where causality sets the order of the terms. In the new empire of performance, the scientific idealism, which used to enliven classical science and urge the dedicated scholars into getting committed to the sheer quest of truth for their own benefit and pleasure, has become not only a naive goal, but also an unattainable target. Science has stopped being a guarantee of humanitys unlimited progress, and has simply become an instance of the circulation of capital:

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MIRCEA CRTRESCU It is the desire to get rich, rather than the desire to acquire knowledge, which imposes the imperative of better performance and higher quality products upon technology.27 Research starts being scheduled according to enterprise management and capitalism grants credits either by financing various departments with practical applications or by creating specialised foundations. Consequently, the administration of tests is controlled by a different language game, where not truth, but performativity is at stake (...) The state and/or the enterprise abandon the idealistic or humanistic legitimising narrative in order to justify power as the new asset at stake28 . Out of the main language games: denotative (scientific), prescriptive (legal) and technical (performative), power belongs only to the last mentioned. Since reality provides proofs and since technology masters reality, legitimisation is conferred by power, as power alone makes available that technology which is meant to investigate reality. This is the only real legitimising method acknowledged by the modern world. Consequently, if in modernity technology was regarded as an appendix of science, in the postmodern world it acquires priority over science. Taking this reversal into account, sciences exist only in order for ever more performative technologies to emerge. A cycle is thus established, in which any increase in power can only be achieved by increasing the amount of information. The postmodern world system is essentially informational. The second component of knowledge, education, differs from research by its functioning as a sub-system of the social system and not irrespective of the social bond. Its purpose is to contribute to general optimisation. To achieve this purpose, the new forms of education have discarded the humanist ideal of character delineation and simply content themselves with competence delineation. Competence is needed, on the one hand, to take part in the world-wide competition between post-industrial states (which requires the training of experts in languages and information), and, on the other hand, to satisfy internal social needs (doctors, teachers, engineers, or in other words actors able to conveniently play their parts in the pragmatic positions institutions need them for.29 Within this framework, Lyotard highlights the meaninglessness of academic autonomy, an issue so much debated in the 70s, since educational institutions are necessarily subordinated to that power which allows them to function. Their role basically consists of the uninterrupted training of individuals. In the new type of society, education has come to replace the question is it true? by is it saleable?, which finally entails a profound change in the notion of reality itself, and thus represents the most puzzling and shattering

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N.E.C. Yearbook 1996-1997 challenge of postmodernity. Contrary to all expectations, it is not the idealist and humanist education, the preserver of values and of the sense of reality, which has proved to foster the development of knowledge, but the pragmatic education, based on sheer performativity. The perspective of a huge market for operational competence opens up. The holders of this type of knowledge have been and will be the object of demand and even the target of seductive practices. From this point of view, what is heralded is not the end of knowledge, but quite the contrary. Tomorrows encyclopaedias will be databases. They exceed any users capacity. To the postmodern citizen they are nature.30 The idea that the scientist no longer explores nature directly, but searches the databases on nature, in other words explores a secondary reality, created by humans, into which the human being gets integrated from now on, comfortably dwelling in un-reality, may be the absolute hallmark of postmodernity. When Lyotards book was published, in 1979, PCs had not yet invaded the market; only later on their did their rapid spread confirm the cynical, yet insightful predictions of the French thinker. PCs have introduced virtual reality, the illusory core of posmodernity, into the life of ordinary people by means of incorporated databases, person-to-person facilities, multimedia and internet connections. At the same time, Lyotard favours the idea that there is a certain traditionally humanist traditional quality which preserves its role in the new society as well. This quality is imagination. When knowledge is fully transparent and informationally substantiated, something else is needed in order to get the advantage in a competitive situation. This advantage is provided by an excess of imagination, by the ability to conceive new moves in a language game, assembling scattered pieces of information at a speed exceeding that of others. As in Asimovs famous story, education relies on two levels of performance, a mass one, based on the memorising and recounting of knowledge, and an elitist one, which aims at enhancing creativity. The Age of the Teacher comes to an end, as teachers are rivalled by databases and research teams and de-legitimisation and performativity gain priority. Legitimisation is not a closed issue. Performativity indeed presupposes the existence of a stable deterministic system. In postmodernity, however, stability and determinism lose their absoluteness and, as with all other characteristics, become variable and contextual. Therefore, neither can legitimisation be absolute. Within the framework of post-modern knowledge, it is subject to perpetual fluctuation, while sciences find a

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MIRCEA CRTRESCU new basic function for themselves: the permanent questioning of their own legitimisation. Consequently, the legitimising discourse becomes immanent, and dependent on local and consensual circumstances. According to Godels theory, the internalisation of this discourse necessarily brings about paradoxes and limitations, which, are no longer regarded as flaws of legitimisation, as they were in the past, but rather as its objective, unavoidable aspects. As early as the first decades of our century, atomic physics introduced the notion of boundaries to knowledge by quantum theory and Heisenbergs principle of indeterminacy. Heisenberg, for instance, reveals that, on the one hand, observing all conditions within a system requires more energy than that consumed in that system, and on the other hand, that perfect control diminishes efficiency. The higher the precision, the higher the uncertainty, the only predictable quantities being the statistical percentages. Next to immanence, indeterminacy is the second basic characteristic of postmodernity. Mathematical theories of non-linear equations (Rene Thoms catastrophe theory, the theory of chaos, Mandelbrots theory of fractals) have followed the same trend towards the theoretical congruence of the post-modern world. Absolute determinism lacks both meaning and reality. In an ocean of chaotic movement there are mere unstable islands of determinism, engendered by the local state of the system. Paralogies are to be encountered throughout the post-industrial universe. Culture and art will also face disorder, paradox and indeterminacy. In Lyotards view, the human being is re-positioned as a conscience striving (as always) to invest chaos with meaning, but this meaning is now not global but punctual at each and every moment: In its concern with the undecidable, with the boundaries of controlled accuracy, with quanta, with clashes of incomplete information, with fractals, with catastrophes, and with pragmatic paradoxes, postmodern science theorises its own discontinuous, catastrophical, unrectifiable and paradoxical evolution.31 . Mutatis mutandis, this might equally well describe the condition of postmodern literature: focused on its transcendence during modernity, the text becomes immanent, ceaselessly questioning its own artistic legitimacy. The end of legitimising narratives becomes thus the end of closed systems. The new science provides the open system anti-model, which undergoes a process of morphogenesis, as Rene Thom calls it. This process implies introducing new rules into the game, related to the unpredictable local conditions which may emerge within the huge clouds of linguistic matter that make up societies32 .

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N.E.C. Yearbook 1996-1997 In its new interpretation, scientific pragmatics can even redefine its links to society. It acts ambivalently, both against power (be it prescriptive or meta-prescriptive) and in favour of power. During a first stage of the informational impact, the manipulation of information by the media was feared as a potential dream instrument for the control and regulation of the market system 33 , as well as the political system. Numberless mid-century anti-utopias describe such totalitarian worlds governed by rigorous information control. On the contrary, having followed the history of the world during the last decades, the latest postmodern thinkers consider that a boundless proliferation of information renders its large scale manipulation impossible. In their view, a scientific pragmatics based on informatisation may serve discussion groups in addition to meta-prescriptions, while providing them with the missing information they most often need in order to make knowledgeable decisions34 . Knowledge itself becomes part of the power of decision. Although postmodern theory starts from a radical nihilism, it ends up by offering an optimistic perspective on knowledge, which modernity would have found it hard to imagine. This new optimism, which cannot pass unnoticed in postmodern artistic theory, is still one of the most characteristic aspects of postmodernity. Every persons free access to all knowledge (memory and databases) foreshadows that kind of politics where the desire for justice and the desire for the unknown will be equally obeyed35 . This is the conclusion reached by Lyotard at the end of a survey which brilliantly combines post-structuralist analysis and down-to-earth pragmatism.

4. The end of history or awakening from the nightmare

When James Joyce wrote his famous statement History is the nightmare I cannot awake from, above and beyond the terrifying sentential generality of his utterance, he undoubtedly voiced a modernist viewpoint. Since history as a science separated itself from historiography, acquired self-awareness and subsequently laid the foundation for a philosophy of history which claimed to account for events by all-embracing metaphysical schemata, that is, roughly speaking, since the Enlightenment, numerous historical outlooks, despite their divergences, have shared the idea of a continuous evolution of society, from barbarism to civilisation, in the sense of its material and moral improvement. The final purpose of human evolution was to achieve a human ideal pertaining either to the

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MIRCEA CRTRESCU past, or to the future. Each historical event had to be acknowledged as part of this triumphant march towards perfection, in which more recent meant, by definition, better. Even pessimistic views on history, which depict humankind as sliding downwards into evil and degradation such as Romanticism or modernism share an ideal and teleological point of view: humankind has gone astray, has deviated from its lofty purpose, which is simply a different way of asserting the existence of a pathway towards the ideal, the teleology of history and the privileged condition of the human being in the world. The Enlightenment view has been questioned in history as well as in the fields already discussed, by those thinkers who have discarded the idea that history acquires meaning by predestination. With Kierkegaard, Nietzsche, and later Heidegger, the human being is never immobile and absolute; with time, humans are subject to becoming by random fluctuations. As a conclusion, there can be no immutable ideal that humankind should strive to reach and there can be no-one to show humankind the way to the peak along the pathway of progress. Abandoning the notion of progress, which underlay the entire philosophy of history during the previous century, opens the way to a different approach to history, which is consonant with postmodern theory in other fields. Postmodernity marks the end of the Joycean nightmare and the human being awakens from history. Recurrent with all postmodern thinkers, the end of history signifies, beyond its various nuances, an abandoning of the notions of linear evolution and teleology. Arnold Gehlen was dealing with post-history as early as 1957, meaning that the present world of technology, in which progress has ceased to be spectacular and has turned into routine practice, conceals a certain immobility at its core which separates it from previous history and somehow places it outside history36 . With Gianni Vattimo, contemporary history is fundamentally different from modern history due to the dissolution of the science of history with all its branches, including both the philosophy of history and the practical historiography, be it rhetorical or ideological. A history of the contemporary world can no longer be written because everything nowadays shows a flattening tendency on the plane of contemporaneity and simultaneity owing to the new communication media, especially television.37 This simultaneity or synchrony of all history via the media is one of the essential traits of the postmodern world. It has considerable consequences for art and literature: the artists is suddenly granted access to all forms of art, no matter how historicised (therefore dead) they may seem from the viewpoint of modernist critique.

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N.E.C. Yearbook 1996-1997 The notion of the end of history, which is fundamental to postmodernism, is not actually a postmodern contrivance. It has been set forth, in either an explicit or a veiled manner at certain other moments in European historical-philosophical thinking. Hegel is probably the first to reiterate, after millenia, the terrifying sentence from the Apocalypse: And time shall be no more. In Hegels view, world history was a continuous advance of humankind towards self-knowledge, that is towards the complete fulfilment of the absolute spirit. In the tangible historical plane, this fulfilment was tantamount to everybodys acquiring awareness of their liberty: Oriental peoples knew that you were free; the Greek and the Roman worlds knew that certain people were free; while we all know that absolutely all people (humans as humans) are free.38 This statement, in which the aim of history is commensurate with liberty, recalls a Kantian assertion: The history of the world is nothing else but the improvement of the awareness of Liberty.39 Hegel was nevertheless going a step further, since he was trying to prove that fully acquiring a free conscience was no longer a desideratum, but a wish come true. Admittedly, people could accede to freedom only under the conditions supplied by certain institutions, the most important of which was a modern constitutional state. These conditions were met with, in Hegels view, by the Prussia of his time, after the battle of Jena in 1806. As a result, Hegel regarded this date as the landmark of the end of history. Historical events would keep on taking place, but the principles of freedom and justice which all liberal modern states rely on had been discovered and implemented, although only partially and in a few states (apart from Prussia, mention could be made of France and the United States after their respective revolutions). From the viewpoint of the ideas underlying the progress of humankind, no further evolution was possible. Another thinker who, starting from Hegelian dialectics, foresaw an end for history was Marx. After the final victory of communism throughout the world, humankind was not to witness further historical stages. Once the final aim was reached, history would come to an end and no track would be kept of any real progress. The state itself was sentenced to dissolution and class struggle, the power engine of history, would end in the victory of the proletariat. The controversial book of the young American historian Francis Fukuyama The End of History and the Last Man (preceded, three years before, by his apprehensively interrogative article The End of History?) has had a great impact on contemporary thought owing to the postmodern

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MIRCEA CRTRESCU circumstances in which it was written. The book was published in a context which supported the idea of the end of an evolutionm, and of the dissolution of linearity, causality and teleology, especially in culture, art and literature. Fukuyama does not declare himself to be postmodern and does not use the term systematically. Nevertheless, his book may be considered postmodern in its description of the historical, social, economic and (last but not least) psychological conditions which enable the moving onward of all societies, at various speeds, towards a unique form of socio-political life, identified by Fukuyama as bourgeois democratic liberalism. In my opinion, Fukuyamas book rounds off a birds-eye view on postmodernity from a historical and political viewpoint, focusing on a type of society which could not be achieved outside contemporary democracy and liberalism. His analysis is all the more plausible as it comprises recent events of an overwhelming importance for world history . He deals with those events of the late 80s which led to the irreversible breakdown of the worlds second totalitarian regime, communism, fifty years after the fascist regime had been destroyed by the same Western democracies. Under the circumstances, the conclusion is self-evident: on a world-wide scale, democratic liberalism is no longer rivalled by any ideology that might constitute a serious threat or a plausible alternative. The purpose of Francis Fukuyamas book is, however, not to reveal a state-of-affairs (which might only be sheer historical hazard), but to prove its necessity: the necessary , increasingly manifest ongoing movement of all societies towards Western capitalist ideals, in other words towards what we call the postmodern world. Fukuyama finds the philosophical foundations substantiating a possible end to historical evolution in the work of Alexandre Kojeve, a fascinating personality among the French intellectuals of the 30s. Kojeve had delivered a series of lectures providing an unconventional interpretation of Hegel. He agreed with the author of The Phenomenology of Mind that history had ended in 1806, with the battle of Jena. All events after this date, some of them world-shattering, such as the revolutions in Russia and China, failed to signify for him higher stages of the universal and homogeneous modern state; he regarded these events as pertaining to the same stage and representing the alignment of the provinces to the mainstream trend, namely the dissemination of the same principles of liberty and equality among the less advanced nations, under specific forms: Observing what is going on around me and what has happened in the world since the battle of Jena, I understood that Hegel had been right to see the end of

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N.E.C. Yearbook 1996-1997 history as such in this battle. In and by this battle, the avant-garde of humanity actually reached its limit and its purpose, namely the end of Mans historical evolution. What has been happening ever since has been but a spatial extension of the universal revolutionary force which Robespierre and Napoleon implemented in France.40 And if for Hegel, Marx or Kojeve the end of history was the harmless process of fulfilment of human liberty, the deeply-rooted pessimism of our century, which has witnessed two devastating world wars, the holocaust, the Hiroshima A-bomb, and two totalitarian regimes of unprecedented monstrosity, has utterly discredited history as a unidirectional, progressive and intelligible action force. For the ordinary human being, the very notion of history has acquired negative connotations, as in the Joycean nightmare. Under the given circumstances, Fukuyamas optimism distinguishes his theory from those promoted by modern historians (such as Toynbee) and draws it closer to postmodern theories. The American historian deals with two aspects of human life which should necessarily overlap in order for liberal societies to achieve their present day form. One aspect is material, the one is idealist-psychological. Economical analysis reveals that there is only one human process that is undoubtedly cumulative and progressive: science. The accumulation of knowledge provides tangible advantages for a society committed to scientific progress. Even those societies that are utterly opposed to the scientific spirit cannot do without scientific findings nowadays, even if only in the military field. The technical and scientific revolution has a considerable impact not only on those states which initiated it, but on all states, whether they are communist, Islamic or feudal. The social advantages generated by science and technology in all fields of life (medicine, entertainment, education, etc.) are so obvious that renouncing them seems inconceivable. Should a world-wide disaster occur, the surviving groups would necessarily resume the process. Thus, at least from this point of view, history follows an irreversible path: And if the mastery of modern science is irreversible, once it has been achieved, then a directional history and its various economic, social and political consequences are fundamentally irreversible as well.41 This does not in any way mean that the accumulation of knowledge should necessarily lead to a society of the liberal type, but only that it constitutes a necessary premise for such a society. States such as the Soviet Union or South Korea are examples of highly industrialised countries which have never been democratic; on the contrary they have lived under one

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MIRCEA CRTRESCU authoritarian regime or another. Until the 60s and 70s, when the informational post-industrial society emerged, the impact of science and technology was considered rather negative, a source of dehumanisation, uniformity and dictatorship. The imperative of performativity has however led to the progressive rationalisation of production, which has reached its acme in the development of free markets, top technologies and management. Unexpectedly, it was technologies that abolished hyper-authoritarian regimes and that became the grave-diggers of communism to use Raymond Arons phrase42 . Communist states suffered from economical stagnation because of their centralised economy, based on planning from above and unable to adjust to market fluctuations. There is no alternative today to free market mechanisms for achieving that full modernity which is postmodernity. Under these circumstances, the old socialist idea according to which capitalism survives by exploiting Third World resources and causing their underdevelopment appears as erroneous. Those countries which benefited from industrialisation later on have not been disadvantaged in comparison with the old industrial states. The contrary can be proved by the economic boom of certain countries in south-eastern Asia, which decided in favour of industrialisation by adopting top technologies and which stepped out of their feudal underdevelopment into the post-industrial age. Irrespective of the amount of resources and the backwardness of the population, capitalism has been successful wherever it has been imposed by firm political decision. The underdeveloped countries of the present day do not lack propitious conditions; what they lack Fukuyama emphasizes is the political will to pass on to a prosperous society. The idea is also illustrated by Germanys and Japans miraculous recoveries, these countries being able to rebuild everything out of wreck and ruin. Without the decision to create a hi-tech economy, the ideal of democracy stays utopian. All over the world there is a salient link between a societys level of prosperity and the degree of democracy in its institutions. Mass education, communication and public services, and a political system able to express the wide range of group and individual interests created by the post-industrial age, have improved the political culture of the population. Consequently, industrialisation generates bourgeois societies, which need legal and political protection in order to secure freedom and equality for their citizens. Despite the above considerations, authoritarian states of the right wing or Islamic dictatorship type may prove as capable as democracies of

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N.E.C. Yearbook 1996-1997 securing economic prosperity both in principle and in practice. They may follow a sterner economic path and spend less on social assistance. The economic growth rate in the Republic of Chile during Pinochets dictatorship was the highest in the countrys history. Therefore, mere economical growth does not seem sufficient to create a modern democratic society, as it may easily lead to bureaucratic authoritarianism. What is evident is that, irrespective of the different ways the constitutive states are governed, todays world community is unified by a single culture, owing to the one-way path the process of scientific knowledge has embarked upon. Both traditionalist societies and totalitarian experiments have proved invalid. Among the traditionalist societies, the most primitive, such as those in Africa, Papua or South America are almost extinct, while the totalitarian ones are hybrids bordering on the dominant civilisation. Richard Rorty shares this opinion and in Philosophy in the Mirror of Nature points out that the encounter with absolute otherness is ideal and utopian43 under present day circumstances, when a generalised European-American culture allows the existence of antiquated societies only as sites of survivals44 . For this civilisation, founded on knowledge and technology, to convert into a democratic world, another component is, however, needed. Fukuyama seeks it in a realm, which ,unexpected as it might appear, proves fruitful in the search of the philosophical and psychological roots of democracy. This component is human nature, the ideal factor which needs to be added to the economic factor. The citizen of the liberal-democratic world is no longer the grotesquely satirised selfish philistine bourgeois, solely concerned with their own prosperity. The essence of their existence is political, and economy plays but a minor part in political life. After all, the political struggle is a struggle for idealistic and psychological recognition, specific to the genuine human being. While searching for the first Man and his political motivations, the American historian resorts to Hegel once again. In The Phenomenology of Mind the original Man appears as a being who experiences wholly non-material needs alongside his natural needs. Among these non-material needs, the desire for the desire of others ranks primary and implies the need for recognition, love and appreciation on the part of other members of the community. In their struggle towards recognition, human beings surpass their biological condition, as they come to act against their own instinct of self-preservation and to show heroism and a spirit of sacrifice. This need for recognition could be called vanity, self-love, craving for glory, pride or dignity.

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MIRCEA CRTRESCU Fukuyama uses a term he borrows from Platos Republic, thymos, which could be translated as boldness or wit. The Greek word has neither negative nor positive connotations (or rather accepts both) and enables the historian to employ it as the basic element of his demonstration. The present day democratic world is generated by the joint action of technology and thymos. All along history, thymos has embodied the human spirit of justice and the rebellious rage against injustice. The thymotic component of the human mind is responsible for most historical events such as wars or revolutions to a higher extent than economic causes. In 1989, for instance, East-Europeans did not demonstrate in the streets in order to ask for higher material prosperity, but because their dignity had been painfully injured for so long. Thymos is a duplicitous component of the spirit. Its exacerbation, in the form of megalothymia, becomes aggressive and anti-social. This is why philosophers such as Hobbes or Locke had attempted to confine it or even eradicate it as if it were a human vice. This exacerbation defines the aristocratic thymos, which is essentially opposite to the bourgeois spirit, as it is liable to perpetuate a morality of the master, as opposed to a morality of the slave. Although so bitterly despised by Nietzsche, the morality of the slave has paved its way triumphantly through history, from the Christian revolution to the bourgeois one. Spiritually, the slave has proved to be more complex than the ancient philosophers or Nietzsche himself had ever fancied, since the slave is equally endowed with a thymotic nature, which is wholly opposed to that of the master. Present day bourgeois society is the consequence and the end of the slaves struggle for recognition, which has constituted the historical movement itself, in the form of a universal recognition which combines the morality of the master and that of the slave. The liberal state transcends all the irrational modalities of thymos nationalism, racism, etc. granting the individual full recognition as a human being. It is the only possible way to rationally satisfy the thymos of all citizens. The form of state which confers this recognition is, to quote Kojeve, fully satisfactory and history as a movement of ideas comes to an end. In real life, it is the granting of rights that enables the recognition of citizens. Francis Fukuyama manages to combine the necessity of an advanced economy with that of the free, thymos-based, option for democracy. The economic liberalisation of society generates the conditions required by democracy through the need for universal education, egalitarian par excellence, which in its turn creates the need for universal recognition.

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N.E.C. Yearbook 1996-1997 But for this need, people would go on living happily under dictatorships that witness prodigious economical growth, such as that of South-Korean. The extremely violent popular upsurges in that country prove the contrary. The final conclusion the book reaches is that history came to an end once the liberal democracies vanquished all the other types of state: monarchic, aristocratic, theocratic, fascist, communist, etc. With the exception of the Islamic world (a peculiar case which I do not propose to discuss here) democracy has become the explicit ideal, asserted as such, of all societies dwelling on this planet and the central component of a transnational world. It is not hard to identify this transnational world with Lyotards informatized world or with Vattimos recovery from the nightmare of a horrendous history, in other words with a post-historical, post-industrial, post-humanist, consequently post-modern world, in which time shall be no more as in the Apocalypse prediction. The merits of Fukuyamas demonstration are all the greater as it goes beyond its own conclusion. The final part of his book pits the idea of the inevitable ongoing movement of the world towards democracy against the extremely contradictory actual geopolitical situation. Why has democracy not been embraced by the whole world? Which are the most dreaded enemies of the democratic world nowadays? Why is democracy irreversible? These are questions the American historian strives to answer in an objective and honest way. As already emphasised, the postmodern space becomes fractal, paradoxical, virtual, giving rise to vertigo and illusion as in Eschers engravings, and finally creating a feeling of unreality. The notion of time is also subject to other bizarre, yet everyday phenomena. Postmodern, transhistorical time becomes a weak, aestheticised time, no longer perceived under the tragic, elegiac, nostalgic or pathetic aspect it was envisaged in the modern age, but as a storehouse of images ranged in conformity with weak and artistic criteria: the pleasant, the amazing, the delightful. A photo album, a slide set, a video tape displaying images we ourselves have shot, postmodern time undergoes the same process of irrealisation as does space and turns into a motley, simultaneous and shallow patchwork. The myth of Chronos devouring his children is replaced by the myth of the same Chronos, castrated by a diamond scythe. The same feeling of unreal time permeates an article written by Sergio Benvenuto, The Third Time 45 , which basically deals with he ambiguisation of temporal concepts in present day American society, in which a bizarre hybrid is growing within the past-present interstice. The past becomes a kind of present owing to the hundreds of museums,

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MIRCEA CRTRESCU entertainment parks and castles, which in California (undoubtedly the most postmodern region on the globe) and in other parts of the United States, reconstruct the historical realities of the ages past at a one-to-one scale, in a bedazzling surrealistic melting- pot in which history becomes a storehouse of shallow images, all of which are exhibited on the present plane. In such places, the most famous (or ,as Americans would say, infamous) of which are places like Disneyland, the Paul Getty Museum or Renaissance Fayr, a European feels completely disoriented. This reckless enterprise is inevitably accompanied by dizziness and an acute feeling of kitsch. To the American, these places are only part of their ahistorical, popular in the Bakhtinian sense perception of reality. The past made present and flattened is one side of the American perception of time. Its counterpart is the reverse tendency, equally powerful in the American world and equally strange to Europeans: that of historicising the present. Among the museums and entertainment institutions which present past monuments as being present, there are others, just as numerous, which display recent moments by setting them at an estranging historical distance. There are museums of the 60s and the 70s, of pop-art, of rock stars, of the hippie movement, all minutely reconstituted. There are exact reconstructions of renowned establishments. Prisons like Alcatraz are visited as if they were museums. Hence the feeling that Americans live their whole history at once, while, on the other hand, they keep visiting their own present as if it were their past: Mummifying the present means giving a popular dimension to the social sciences that haunt the United States... To us, the inhabitants of the Old World, there is a continuum between the past and the present: we celebrate the past, but fail to grasp the present. In the New World, the past, including that of paleontology46 , is magically projected into the living present. On the other hand, the present, because of the irony of the spectacle or of museum and philological display, grows increasingly remote. Thus the American loiters through a different time dimension, somewhere between our (historical) past and our (invisible and non-representable) present: a different kind of elation, vacillating between presence and absence. Benvenuto emphasises that this is the vision of a grown-up child, remarkably fresh and with a huge ludic and ironical potential.

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5. The postmodern option

Having analysed three theoretical approaches to postmodernity, I am persuaded that the topic exceeds the confinements of a literary survey. However, I find it impossible to understand postmodern art and literature without these preliminary discussions. Had I focused on literary phenomena alone, I might have run the risk of presenting a mere list of procedures and traits inexplicably featuring in post-war poetry and fiction, and of enhancing, instead of diminishing the confusion of contemporary literary criticism. That the evolution of the literary system can only be explained by means of its inner logic is sheer illusion. The global changes in present day architecture and mentality are decisive for any artistic approach, since, more than ever, art participates nowadays in the worlds social and communicational network. While moulding the network, art has become one of its epi-phenomena as well. Such changes are dramatic enough for us to discard the concept of trend in art or thought (such as classicism, Romanticism or modernism) and to talk instead about the emergence of a new civilisation, as different from the modern one (that of the period from the Renaissance to the Second World War) as the modern age was different from the Middle Ages. That would be one reason why postmodernism could be called post-humanism or even post-Europeanism. Facing not only a literary or artistic trend but a whole new world entails fundamental options on the part of any intellectual (or indeed anyone) educated in the spirit of European humanist culture. Integration into postmodernity requires a long and painful process during which the intellectual must witness the breakdown of many basic premises of their location in the world. The more the individual used to be attached to certain ideals or values regarded as perennial and immutable, the greater the anxiety and confusion experienced in front of an apparently (and programmatically) indetermined, chaotic and unstable world. This end of millenium witnesses a tragedy of alienation. The revival of nationalisms, tribalisms and fundamentalisms, as well as the excessive anti-Americanism present even in advanced European countries, are the anguished response of peoples and individuals whose fear for the future has reached its climax, so that the only solution they can devise is taking refuge in the past. The feeling of privacy, safety and comfort inspired by religious faith, or the creed in a homeland or in a nation (leading at the extreme to chauvinism, intolerance and nationalism) appears to many as more appealing than an impersonal society of an infinite abstract complexity, in which individuals compete

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MIRCEA CRTRESCU fiercely, according to the rules imposed by performativity. But this is only a pastiche of the liberal world. In real life, the postmodern world that is being created nowadays, although not fully satisfactory, is closer to the ideal of a world that can be lived in than any other world ever created on earth. Detachment from reality (and even irrealisation), perspectivism regarding values, the end of history as humankinds triumphant progress towards one human ideal or another, and pluralism, are all the new premises which provide the foundation upon which personhood may be structured. It is up to everyone to decide whether they want and whether they can exist in the postmodern world, whether they want and can pursue art, science or management under the new circumstances. Resignation is no solution. No state of things should be accepted only because it looks inevitable. Any intellectual that strives to be a postmodern thinker should be aware of the price postmodernity asks us to pay. Questions such as how one can keep a religious faith when any kind of faith becomes relative and contextual (how can one contextually believe in God?), or how one can practise art when values are dissolved, involve commitment of the individual conscience and life design. The hope that one may relieve oneself from irrational thymoses overnight and that democracy and tolerance may be learned as part of the curriculum is simply utopian. Regarding postmodernity as a new myth of the golden age, as a new Cernishevskian crystal palace where all problems get solved by themselves and where humans are necessarily happy sounds more than naive. Dostoyevskis man from the pit would answer these utopias in a boastful, wayward, yet fully humane voice: What Im asking you is this: what can you expect from man, a being endowed with such bizarre features? Bestow all the goodness of the earth on him, or immerse him in the pool of happiness till he is blowing bubbles to the surface. Bestow upon him economic satiation so that he need no longer lift a finger (), well, even then, man, ungrateful as he is, just out of contradictory spirit, will hit you with some piece of mischief at you (...) It is precisely his fancy dreams that he will want to hold on to, his villainous tomfoolery, only to prove to himself that people are still people and not piano keys (...) And unless more fitting means are within his reach, he will contrive destruction and chaos, he will concoct God knows how much suffering, but he will act to his hearts delight.47 Far from being extinct today, communist and fascist nostalgias, terrorism and nationalisms are seeing a recrudescence that only testifies to their responsive nature as an expression of dread for the future. It is the high price, unendurable for some, of integration into the new civilisation, since nobody parts with the past smiling, but bleeding.

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NOTES
1. Virgil Nemoianu, Notes sur letat de postmodernite in Euresis, 1-2/1995, p. 17. In the same essay Nemoianu also proposes one of the most interesting views on postmodernity, which is characterised, in his opinion, by nine essential elements: 1. La centralite de lelement communication/mobilite; 2. La societe postindustrielle; 3. La transition de la revolution de Gutenberg (...) au visuel televise et a la presence virtuelle; 4. Letablissement de nouveaux rapports entre les hommes et les femmes; 5. La tension entre le globalisme et le multiculturalisme; 6. La conscience de soi, lautoanalyse; 7. La relativisation et lincertitude des valeurs; 8. Le jeu parodique avec lhistoire; 9. La religiosite postmoderne spirituel/mystique (pp. 18-19). 2. Gianni Vattimo, Sfritul modernitii, Pontica Publishing House, p. 6. 3. Gianni Vattimo, op. cit., p. 15. 4. Quoted by Vattimo, op. cit., p. 21. 5. Idem, p. 26. 6. Idem, p. 31. 7. Idem, p. 48. 8. See the discussion in the preface of Vattimos book and then its 6th chapter: The Structure of Artistic Revolutions. 9. G. Vattimo, op. cit., p. 57. 10. Idem, p. 60. 11. Quoted by G. Vattimo, op. cit., p. 56. 12. Idem, p. 112. 13. Idem, p. 154. 14. R. Guideri, quoted by Vattimo, op. cit., p. 156. 15. Jean-Francois Lyotard, Condiia postmodern, Bucharest, Babel Publishing House, 1993. 16. J-F. Lyotard, op. cit., p. 15. 17. Matei Calinescu & Douwe Fokkema, Exploring Postmodernism, Amsterdam/ Philadelphia, John Benjamins Publishing Company, 1990. 18. Matei Calinescu, in Introductory Remarks, p. 5-6. 19. Societatea transparent, Pontica Publishing House, Constanta, 1995. 20. J.-F. Lyotard, op. cit., p. 22. 21. Idem, p. 20. 22. Idem, p. 26. 23. Idem, p. 36. 24. Idem, p. 29. 25. Idem, p. 39. 26. Idem, p. 77. 27. Idem, p. 79. 28. Idem, p. 81. 29. Idem, p. 85.

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30. Idem, p. 89. 31. Idem, p. 101. 32. Idem, p. 108. 33. Idem, p. 111. 34. Idem, p. 111. 35. Idem, p. 112. 36. A. Gehlen, quoted by Vattimo, op. cit., p. 10. 37. G. Vattimo, op. cit., p. 14. 38. Hegel, quoted by Fukuyama in Sfritul istoriei i ultimul om, Paideia Publishing House, 1994, p. 59. 39. Immanuel Kant, quoted by Fukuyama, op. cit., p. 59. 40. Alexandre Kojeve, quoted by Fukuyama, op. cit., p. 64. 41. F. Fukuyama, op. cit., p. 64. 42. Raymond Aron, quoted by Fukuyama, op. cit., p. 90. 43. R. Rorty, quoted by Vattimo, op. cit., p. 151. 44. R. Guideri, quoted by Vattimo, op. cit., p. 156. 45. In Lettre Internationale, Romanian version, Spring 1994. 46. The movie Jurassic Park is the basic subject of Benvenutos article. 47. Feodor Dostoievski, Omul din subteran, Bucharest, Orfeu Publishing House, 1993.

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CRISTINA CODARCEA
Ne en 1966, Bucarest Doctorat accord par lEcole des Hautes Etudes en Science Sociales, Paris, 1997 Thse : Pouvoir et Socit au 17me sicle en Valachie. Entre Tradition et Loi. Attache de recherche lInstitut d Etudes Sud-Est Europennes de lAcadmie Roumaine, Bucarest Membre du Groupe Image, E.H.E.S.S., Paris, 1992-1997 Bourse du gouvernement franais, 1992, 1994-1997 Bourse Tempus, Universit Statale, Milan, 1995 Participations aux colloques et rencontres scientifiques internationales en Roumanie, France, Italie. Livres: Socit et pouvoir en Valachie (1602-1654), Entre la coutume et la Loi. Cluj-Napoca, Presses Universitaires de Cluj-Napoca (en prparation) Les maldictions travers lEurope mdivale. Recherches danthropologie historique. Bucarest, Ed. Fundaiei Culturale Romne (en prparation) Articles et tudes sur lhistoire mdivale occidentale, lanthropologie historique et lethnologie europenne parus en Roumanie et en France

RAPPORTS DE POUVOIR ET STRATGIE DE GOUVERNEMENT DANS LA VALACHIE DU XVIIe SICLE

Dans la socit valaque du XVIIe sicle la proprit sur la terre et sur les hommes signifie gale mesure pouvoir, prestige social et position privilgie. De plus en plus, cette poque, la terre devient le deuxime ple qui, ct du pouvoir, participe la composition du systme politique valaque. A partir de la possession foncire et de la capacit de lexploiter se distinguent la fois les fortunes, les hirarchies, les aptitudes politiques, les alliances dans le cadre dune mme catgorie sociale, se dfinissent les rles, les lgitimits et les rituels qui composent cette catgorie sociale privilgie. En effet, cest la terre (et il faut insister sur le fait quil sagit surtout pour cette poque de la terre exploite, la seule qui soit source de bnfices) qui favorise la conservation de la fortune seigneuriale et qui permet aux vellits politiques de se manifester par lexercice des fonctions publiques. Pour dterminer la part de linstitution princire1 dans la configuration des rapports reliant la terre (proprit) - le pouvoir local (statut social) - et le pouvoir public (Etat) il est ncessaire de savoir comment et par quels moyens lintrieur du systme politique sont labores les stratgies et les manires dont se ralise la translation dun lment un autre. La dfinition du statut social de laristocratie (boierime) en Valachie se heurte toujours aux ambiguts qui sont videntes ds lorigine. En effet, il est bien difficile de dlimiter avec prcision les contours sociaux de cette catgorie car les principes mmes qui permettent doprer la slection font dfaut. On rappelle ici lexaspration de ladministration autrichienne lors de la conqute de lOltnie au dbut du XVIIIe sicle qui envisageait de dpartager selon des critres rationnels et clairs la catgorie des privilgis. La plupart de ceux voulant obtenir une exonration dimpts (et ils sont nombreux) se dclarent boieri sans que ce statut puisse tre dfini rigoureusement en dehors dune vague coutume locale2 .

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N.E.C. Yearbook 1996-1997 Les lments qui nous permettent de classer une personne dans la catgorie des seigneurs, tiennent compte en premier lieu des relations seigneur-serf3 , auxquelles on doit ajouter la fortune et la fonction publique. Un seigneur peut avoir ces trois lments caractristiques ou une partie seulement, ainsi, un personnage grec venu de Constantinople dans la suite dun prince et qui occupe la cour une fonction importante (le plus souvent celle de trsorier, ce qui en dit long sur les intentions du prince et de ses accompagnateurs) peut ne pas avoir au dbut, ni fortune, ni domaine; un autre, peut tre dune condition sociale modeste, mais il sert le prince ce qui lui ouvre la possibilit dacqurir des domaines et donc davoir des relations seigneur-serf; et ainsi de suite. Les analyses des historiens roumains ont cru identifier comme critre essentiel la fortune ou la fonction publique4 . Ces trois critres, qui connaissent un rapport dynamique selon le sort du pouvoir central du prince, mnent invitablement une sparation entre les seigneurs, car ils tablissent une hirarchie. Lie troitement au sort du prince, la situation de laristocratie apparat comme paradoxale, car forte et faible la fois. Comme la puissance conomique conditionne lavancement des options politiques et loccupation dune fonction dans ladministration ou dans la hirarchie politique suprieure du pays, elle est son tour cautionne et renforce par la charge publique qui la rclame. Cette situation est cense rsister aussi longtemps que dure le privilge 5 octroy par le pouvoir central, car il semble tre linstrument par lequel lautorit politique du prince intervient pour rgler les mcanismes du pouvoir. Au dbut du XVIIe sicle la cour du souverain avec ses ramifications commence dessiner une administration locale sous obdience personnelle du prince, qui simpose au fur et mesure que se construit un appareil fidle6 . Lvolution de ces formes de fidlits envers le prince montre combien les rapports de pouvoir stablissent partir des interactions subtiles entre coercition7 , monopole8 , largesse9 et grce. Ainsi, non seulement la force coercitive est cense imposer le pouvoir central par rapport ses adversaires et ses allis mais aussi dinstrumentaliser en sa faveur le rapport dynamique fortune-pouvoir. La cour du prince, ladministration dont elle est la source, autant que sa personne favorisent la promotion sociale par le biais des charges quelle offre, promotion qui est la base du prestige social, des richesses, des privilges (lexonration dimpts par exemple a des consquences conomiques importantes). La haute fonction publique comme toute autre

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CRISTINA CODARCEA fonction permet aux familles aristocratiques daugmenter leur patrimoine et surtout denvisager des stratgies matrimoniales qui assurent la conservation et la transmission dune position privilgie, dinitier des alliances capables daccrotre le pouvoir des boyards afin de garantir la survivance des privilges et dinfluencer et dominer la dcision politique dans le pays. La relation entre le pouvoir central et les boyards se particularisent par les paradoxes. Dans ce dbut de sicle, la socit roumaine connat une priode confuse o le pass est encore visible, soutenu par la tradition, ml des lments nouveaux lis encore la suspicion gnrale qui pse sur linnovation, trop faibles pour imposer les stratgies de gouvernement. Comme les lments nouveaux ne peuvent pas pour linstant fonder entirement les prtentions de suprmatie du pouvoir central, ni la possibilit dorganiser la socit politique, ni, par la mdiation de celle-ci, de toute la socit en tant quunit. Le prince emploie des formules diverses qui touchent galement le registre traditionnel et celui moderne pour orchestrer sa domination et son propre contrle sur la socit. A cette poque la dimension et la fonction militaire du pouvoir diminuent, ceci a pour consquence leffacement des stratgies de recrutement et de promotion bases sur des exigences et des vertus guerrires, devant un systme politique gr par des moyens civils moins violents et plus efficaces. La dfinition du statut social de boyard partir dun privilge princier ou dun office, les modes de slection des hauts fonctionnaires, la diversification des moyens qui lient personnellement les membres dune famille influente au prince, constituent quelques-uns des procds mis en place par lautorit du prince pour sassurer le premier rle dans son pays. Ces lments composent limage dun pouvoir proccup la fois de renforcer lefficacit des moyens qui assurent un contrle accru sur ses sujets, et de dvelopper des pratiques censes le prsenter comme lunique source de lgitimation10 (en se proclamant sommet et source). Lautorit princire apparat ainsi comme tant reconnue et investie par la socit elle-mme de fonctions particulires. Le prince dans sa personne, comme incarnation du droit, de la Loi divine (legea dumnezeiasc), est accepte et sollicite comme prsence ncessaire et toute puissante. Quoique parfois ses attributs politiques (les plus touchs par larbitraire) soulvent des oppositions de la part de laristocratie, son arbitrage en matire judiciaire, son autorit sur les titres de proprit, les droits, les privilges, sont autant dlments fortement recherchs. Les dcisions du prince dans le domaine

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N.E.C. Yearbook 1996-1997 de la justice lui permettent de contrler la fortune de ses sujets, dintervenir dans le processus de constitution de leurs domaines, de fixer leur configuration par limposition de rgles dont lapplication est galement surveille par les institutions locales et le prince. Dans ces conditions, on attribue linstitution princire la capacit unique de consacrer un fait social en lui rendant stabilit et lgitimit.

Lintervention du prince au niveau de la proprit prive

La coutume interdit limmixtion du pouvoir public dans la proprit prive des sujets mais il arrive souvent que le prince soit sollicit pour intervenir et consacrer une acquisition ou appliquer les rgles assurant la survie de la proprit et mme son agrandissement. Par son prestige, il prserve le cadre juridique qui permet le maintien des formes de transmission de la proprit, cautionnes par la tradition. La plupart des cas qui ncessitent lassistance du prince concernent les litiges de proprit qui opposent les ayants droit dune mme ou de plusieurs gnrations, lis par la parent ou par une relation de voisinage. Lautorit du prince est souvent sollicite pour valuer la hirarchie des droits selon des rgles coutumires et pour actualiser cette hirarchie. Un acte mis par Alexandre Ilia prouve combien il est difficile de trouver une vrit et de limposer dans une ralit sociale marque par la confusion (voir fig. n 1). Le litige sur une partie du village de Vrti et une partie du village de Grdite, commence en 1554 pendant le rgne de Ptraco le Bon; cette date, la dame Paraschiva conteste le droit de Barbu du village de Borti, de doter sa fille Maria des deux villages car une partie lui appartient. Le prince permet Paraschiva de se prsenter accompagne par 12 tmoins pour prter serment et certifier quelle dit la vrit. Sur la base de ce serment, Ptraco vovode admet que Paraschiva est en droit de dtenir une partie des deux villages. Quelques annes plus tard, sous Alexandre II Mircea (1568-1577), la fille de Maria, Stana, qui reoit de sa mre les deux villages, rouvre avec son mari le procs contre les fils de Paraschiva pour les liminer de la proprit. Ils amnent devant le prince 24 tmoins qui rendent caduc le tmoignage antrieur et celui-ci remet dans leurs droits les descendants de Barbu. Un troisime procs se droule dans les annes du rgne du prince Mihnea lIslamis (1577-1583,1585-1591) qui donne gain de cause toujours la famille de

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CRISTINA CODARCEA Barbu, reprsente par les mmes, cette fois-ci contre le neveu de Paraschiva. En 1621, la mort du mari de Stanca, le relais est pris par ses fils qui sopposent devant le prince Radu Mihnea aux fils de la nice de Paraschiva. Enfin, en 1628, Alexandru Ilia confirme encore une fois les droits de proprit dun seul lignage sur les villages de Vrti et de Grditea, liminant les prtentions des descendants de Paraschiva11 . Cest toujours le prince en position darbitre qui confirme une rconciliation de deux parties en litige et cautionne le respect dun pacte engag. Matei Basarab, devant le mcontentement exprim par les seigneurs du village de Cepturile, oblige un nouveau venu sur le domaine, le grand boyard Preda Buzinca de respecter les droits des frres Ptru, Dumitrasco et Pdure, fils de Staico sptar car, comme prcise le document, il a obtenu cette proprit par achat et non par hritage. Plus encore, il est averti de ne plus se comporter comme un boyard important (boier greu) car le prince pourrait prendre en considration le droit de premption des autres boyards et chasser Preda12 . Le jugement du prince fixe les termes du fonctionnement du droit de premption ou de retrait, appliqus toutefois cette poque dune manire assez subjective. Dans le cas de Dumitru Dudescu, vistier de deuxime rang, Alexandru Ilia satisfait sa demande de chasser de sa proprit le seigneur Musat qui avait achet des terres dans le village de Drcesti sans prvenir Dudescu13 , tandis que dans un cas similaire Matei Basarab dcide que lachat effectu par le grand boyard Marco Danovici dans le village de Smbureti reste valable, en dpit des plaintes formules par les hritiers de Vlad Rudeanu, le propritaire du village14 . La mme attitude contradictoire est visible dans les jugements des princes lorsquil sagit dune vente dguise sous lapparence dune fraternisation. Le prince Alexandru Ilia dclare dlies les parties qui ont suivi le crmonial religieux de la fraternisation (Stroe, fils du chancelier Oprea et Andr postelnic), car il considre que les frres de Stroe ont plus de droits acheter le village de leur pre, Sirineasa15 . Quant au prince Radu Mihnea, ayant juger un autre cas de premption quon essaye de contourner par une crmonie de fraternisation stant droule dans la sainte glise (unissant les seigneurs Prvul paharnic et Preda postelnic sur une partie du village de Voinigeti ), confirme la validit de lacte contest par des ayants droit. Le prince donne comme argument de sa dcision dannulation du droit de premption, le crmoniel religieux suivi par les parties qui fraternisent car :

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N.E.C. Yearbook 1996-1997 Ma seigneurie a vu la charte de Prvul paharnic entre les mains de Preda postelnic comprenant de grandes maldictions... Ainsi, Ma Seigneurie na pas pu procder autrement, mais Ma Seigneurie a laiss exactement comme ils lont dcid et selon leur fraternisation16 . Il nest pas sans importance de prciser que dans ces deux cas le jugement du prince a t influenc par lappartenance sociale des personnes impliques. Si dans le premier litige, le procs opposait strictement les reprsentants de la catgorie privilgie des seigneurs, le deuxime a comme protagonistes des paysans asservis qui sollicitent le droit de se racheter en vertu du droit de premption17 . On rclame lintervention du prince dans les cas de succession qui soulvent des litiges entre les hritiers, quil sagisse dune transmission normale ou dune dvolution, que cela se fasse par voie testamentaire ou ab intestat . Le nombre des disputes sur la proprit juges par juridiction princire lors des hritages se rapproche visiblement de celui des disputes de voisinage qui opposent des personnes non-apparentes. Laction du prince, lorsquun hritage provoque une crise, se rsume un arbitrage, car il est le garant de la Loi et non pas un lgislateur qui on reconnat la capacit dinnover en matire de droit successoral; ses moyens dintervention sont limits strictement par la coutume. Les dcisions qui accompagnent le jugement ne peuvent quobir aux rgles puises dans la tradition du pays (legea pmntului) et rarement dans les codes de lois utiliss lpoque (pravila). Ce domaine semble avoir alors une importance stratgique moindre pour le pouvoir central, et dans la plupart de ces cas le prince dlgue ses attributs de juge au mtropolite du pays. Seulement certains cas sont soumis au jugement du prince qui ne les ignore pas, car de toute faon le service public est pay sur mesure. Par exemple, ce sont les hommes envoys par Matei Basarab qui interviennent pour appliquer les commandements du legs du grand boyard Dumitru Filisanul lorsque les hritiers trouvent que la fortune est trop injustement rpartie. Le prince dcide alors de ne pas changer la destination des principaux domaines de la famille en installant le cadet comme hritier principal, mais il intervient dans la rpartition du reste de la fortune au nom de la justice rendue18 . Le prince est appel comme garant du droit lorsque des parents en dispute avec les hritiers de droit risquent de porter atteinte aux rgles de succession. Il se trouve que le code de loi valaque19 dfend les hritiers contre les dcisions des parents voulant par un accs de colre, changer

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CRISTINA CODARCEA le cours et la destination de leur patrimoine. A cet gard, on comprend mieux que le contenu de la proprit dautrefois se traduit plus par un droit de possession et dadministration (qui incluent la quasi-obligation de la transmettre aux successeurs lgaux) que par un droit absolu, individualis, permettant de dcider librement de sa destination. Dans ce contexte traditionnaliste assez rigide, lautorit du prince se prsente comme le garant de lapplication juste des habitudes et des rgles coutumires. Seulement dans ce cadre on peut interprter le geste de Matei Basarab qui empche la moniale Marta du village de Ptrlagele de toucher ses proprits durant sa vie, en la dclarant possesseur aux droits limits, il lui interdit daliner ses biens ou dinterrompre la succession en ligne masculine; elle ne peut non plus laisser la fortune ses filles, ni la donner un monastre, tant que ses trois fils sont en vie20 . Dans le mme sens il intervient contre lun de ses boyards , Stoica sptar, fils de grand dignitaire, lorsquil abandonne sa famille et donc ses devoirs envers elle; Matei Basarab loblige doter ses trois filles, comme le veut la Loi et mme racheter les proprits quil a vendu sans se soucier des droits de ses successeurs21 . De mme que le prince reprsente la caution de stabilit et de continuit dune rgle, son autorit est sollicite pour sceller les modifications dans la structure dun patrimoine lors dune vente, dune vente dguise sous forme de fraternisation ou dune donation envers lEglise ou envers un particulier. Un document du prince confirmant une transaction ou un don, garantit la validit du transfert ou au moins diminue la possibilit de contester lacte par les gnrations suivantes. Une fois quun geste est devenu public, prsent devant le prince et devant sa cour, il ne peut plus tre annul par une dcision ultrieure. Ana, la femme dun certain tefan, fait don (pour son me) au monastre de Snagov dun vignoble situ sur la colline des Negovani ; ensuite elle regrette sa dcision et veut revenir sur ce don, mais le prince soppose et lui interdit de casser laumne quelle seule a faite pour son me22 . Pour les mmes raisons, tout acte impliquant publiquement la participation du pouvoir, a la capacit dannuler les engagements privs qui lont prcd.

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N.E.C. Yearbook 1996-1997

Lintervention du prince au niveau de la parent

Pour la socit du pass la parent23 joue un rle essentiel dans lorganisation et la transmission de la proprit. On comprend travers elle son volution de mme que le prestige qui entoure un lignage. Plus encore, cest travers la parent que se tissent les solidarits qui assurent la prpondrance et la domination dune lite dfinie la fois du point de vue social et politique24 . Le pouvoir politique arrive valoriser les structures relationnelles bases sur la parent comme un rseau efficace, dont il se sert dans ses efforts pour gouverner la socit en gnral et dominer (par le contrle des alliances et des successions) la socit politique en particulier. La position darbitre du pouvoir politique ne peut que privilgier le processus dutilisation du rseau constitu partir de solidarits lignagres, en effet, la parent est intimement lie la promotion sociale ou au contraire, la dchance des membres dune famille. Ainsi, le pouvoir central utilise sa position dautorit reconnue et exige par la socit pour exercer un contrle attentif sur les implications des relations de parent. Il est le seul dcider si le membre dune famille, peut tre loign lgitimement dun hritage par punition ou si au contraire, comme expression de libralit, il doit tre rinstall dans ses droits. Maria, la fille du grand boyard Ivasco Bleanu, marie Vasile sptar, lui aussi fils de grand boyard, est chasse de son foyer la suite dune plainte dinfidlit formule par son mari devant les chefs spirituels de lEglise, le mtropolite du pays Luca et Macarius, exarque de Trnova, lhomme du patriarche Cyrille de Constantinople. Ceux-ci jugent le cas et admettent que Maria est coupable et mrite dtre dchue de ses droits, sa fortune passant dans la proprit absolue de son mari. Le procs rouvre sur les insistances de la dame Maria devant le tribunal de Matei Basarab, qui linnocente sur les tmoignages quelle amne car elle a demand justice le jour de lEpiphanie devant les archevques, les vques, les higoumnes et devant tout le synode, les boyards et tout le pays25 . Par consquent, le prince lui rend ses droits sur ses proprits et son mari risque la condamnation suprme pour parjure tout autant que la dchance. Devant le prince se prsentent les cas les plus divers qui rclament la remise en droit lorsquil sagit dun hritage, dune dot, dun droit dappartenance un lignage, cest toujours devant lui quon exige la permission de renoncer un hritage donc une filiation compromettante

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CRISTINA CODARCEA ou tout simplement trop coteuse. Radu, le fils du grand boyard Dumitru Dudescu, reprsentant du prince Matei Basarab Constantinople, est contraint en 1636 de renier son pre (se leapd) et de renoncer au patrimoine paternel empchant ainsi dtre touch par les dettes de son pre, car il a des petits enfants et un mnage difficile entretenir26 . Son pre, ancien fidle du prince Alexandru Ilia et de son fils Radu Ilia, avait soutenu les prtentions du dernier au trne de Valachie contre Matei Basarab. Aprs une confrontation militaire qui sest droule Plumbuita, prs de Bucarest (1632) il regagne le pays la suite des appels lancs par le prince victorieux Matei Basarab qui lui octroie des missions auprs du Sultan Constantinople. En outre, la haute dignit de grand trsorier quil lui offre durant la priode 1634-1636, le prince permet Dumitru Dudescu de rcuprer ses biens confisqus la suite de son soutien Radu Ilia27 . Pourtant, trs vite (fvrier 1636) Dumitru Dudescu se retrouve parmi les accuss du prince qui lui fait payer avec ses proprits les sommes dargent disparues Constantinople lorsquil tait en mission diplomatique (capuchehaie)28 . Cet argent, que Dumitru aurait gaspill (selon les tmoignages des envoys du prince qui transportaient le tribut) sans mesure, le fait quil na pas pu rendre compte de cet argent dune manire sage et juste lont amen devant le grand conseil de Matei Basarab qui se runit exceptionnellement pour juger lancien trsorier du pays. Laction semble tre dirige spcialement contre le grand trsorier, car finalement les autres personnages prsents Constantinople, le grand sluger Calot et le chancelier Marco Danovici29 sont innocents aprs avoir prt serment dans une glise devant le synode et devant le mtropolite. Quil sagit dun plan destin compromettre des anciens ennemis du prince (pratique courante dans les stratgies politiques du temps qui fait dbuter un rgne par une rconciliation avec lancienne quipe gouvernementale) le prouve aussi le devenir de ces trois fonctionnaires et de leurs descendance. Ce procs met en lumire le rle du prince dans le contrle quil exerce sur la distribution des fonctions et des fortunes. Malgr des alliances matrimoniales avantageuses30 que Radu Dudescu (fils de Dumitru dclar flon par le conseil du prince31 ) a contract dans la haute aristocratie valaque, il narrive pas valoriser politiquement sa position sociale. Ni son fils Radu, galement mari dans une grande famille, ne russit tre rcompens par une haute fonction. Ce nest que tard, au XVIIIe sicle, quun neveu de Radu Dudescu (I), fils du second Radu, russit relever le prestige de son lignage en lui ajoutant un nouveau grand dignitaire.

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N.E.C. Yearbook 1996-1997 La situation des deux autres boyards accuss et ensuite disculps par lassemble du pays nest pas meilleure du point de vue social. Par contre, du point de vue politique, elle semble tre plus avantageuse. Ainsi, bien que la carrire de Calot grand sluger soit stope, son fils, Minea Popescu a un cursus honorum ascendant qui aboutit en 1655 la fonction de grand sluger, sous le rgne du neveu de Matei Basarab, Constantin erban. Quant Marco Danovici, il connat lui-mme une ascension politique reconnue par le prince Matei Basarab qui lavait autrefois accus. Il est nomm pour deux annes (de 1641 1643) grand paharnic et occupe ensuite durablement la dignit de grand aga entre 1644-1652.

Juste et fidle service32

Afin de sassurer de la solidarit des personnes qui lentourent et lappuient, le prince utilise galement le domaine princier reu en mme temps que sa fonction, de mme que sa possibilit dintervenir dans le patrimoine seigneurial si il sagit dune situation exceptionnelle de trahison. La pratique des donations princires (mila domneasca) complte par celle des confiscations fournit au prince un instrument efficace dans laction de contrle quil exerce avec son groupe de pression sur les fortunes des sujets. Elle est sans doute soutenue par lexistence du domaine princier33 qui volue au rythme des confiscations qui laugmentent et des donations qui le diminuent. En dehors des priodes brves et ponctuelles dans lhistoire de la Valachie (les dbuts de la centralisation de lEtat et lpoque de Michel le Brave) le domaine princier ne joue pas vraiment un rle conomique important car ses ressources sont trs fluctuantes, ponctionnes systmatiquement par les donations, et ceci malgr les confiscations. Ainsi, son importance est de permettre au prince davoir des libralits lgard de ses sujets, et dadopter une stratgie de gouvernement visant rassembler autour du trne des personnes solidaires. Si le don pour juste et fidle service rcompense concrtement les gestes rpts de fidlit et les actes de bravoure, il nen est pas moins vrai que celui-ci a des rfrences symboliques qui renvoient aux rapports de pouvoir qui stablissent entre le prince et ses serviteurs. On voit se cristalliser une structure de pouvoir profondment personnalise qui fonctionne partir dune relation de don (le service) et contre-don 34 (la donation princire), pratique mise en vidence par le sociologue Marcel Mauss pour les socits

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CRISTINA CODARCEA archaques mais qui caractrise galement cette socit traditionnelle dtermine historiquement. Quant au prince, il devient le principal dispensateur de grces et de bnfices qui associent intimement la fortune la promotion sociale. Une autre fonction du prince qui se dgage la suite de cette position centrale est celle de nourricier. Bon nombre de donations ont justement comme but dclar celui de nourrir (a hrni) les bnficiaires de la gnrosit du prince35 , quil sagisse des grands ou des petits boyards, des serviteurs ou des paysans. Une question qui a soulev des controverses est celle du rgime de la donation princire; sagirait-il dune proprit titre absolu ou dune possession viagre conditionne par la fonction? Les documents nous renseignent peu ce sujet et seule lanalyse de lvolution de ces donations dans le cadre du patrimoine seigneurial pourrait fournir quelques rponses, malgr le peu dinformations des actes de cette priode.. Les conclusions des chercheurs ont dans un premier temps, t altres par la manire daborder le sujet. Les deux ralits sociales, celle de la Valachie et celle de la Moldavie, nont pas t traites diffremment ce qui a conduit lextrapolation du systme moldave la Valachie36 . En outre, la proccupation de trouver des similitudes entre les lments de la ralit roumaine et des modles occidentaux ou byzantins a galement nui lidentification des particularits de lhistoire de la Valachie et de son organisation sociale et politique37 . Pour essayer notre tour dbaucher une rponse concernant cette question on doit tout dabord dtacher les deux niveaux de rfrences: premirement, il est ncessaire de localiser la source des biens cds par le prince - quil sagisse de confiscations pour trahison, pour dette fiscale, pour deshrence,ou dachats fait spcialement pour cette destination; deuximement, il faudrait tablir quels services sont rcompenss par ces dons et de quel statut juridique ils jouissent par rapport lensemble du patrimoine dtenu antrieurement - sagirait-il dune restitution ou dune concession ? Ce sont des problmes dont les rponses peuvent mieux clairer le statut de la donation princire. Les renvois ces deux registres, conjugus et combins diversement selon le hasard du jeu social et politique du temps, offrent au statut de la donation princire une apparence dinstabilit et de fragilit. De cette manire, une donation qui rcompense le service fidle dun proche du prince et qui a comme source une confiscation (pour punir une trahison par exemple) peut avoir un statut

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N.E.C. Yearbook 1996-1997 beaucoup plus incertain quune donation qui a comme but le rtablissement du droit dun membre dchu de laristocratie. Cette instabilit est dautant plus saisissable lorsque les frquents changements des rgnes modifient les caractres de ces donations. Ainsi, ce qui dans un rgne apparat comme un acte de flonie, situant le coupable par rapport au pouvoir dans la sphre du droit de confiscation de ses biens, sous un autre rgne apparat comme lacte dun fidle serviteur, cens recevoir la grce du prince. En examinant les documents conservs pour cette priode, on observe que les donations qui entrent dans le patrimoine des seigneurs ont le mme statut que les autres proprits, hrites ou achetes. Elles peuvent tre alines ou transmises aux successeurs selon les rgles habituelles de transmission des patrimoines. Les ambiguts lies cette forme de proprit ne semblent pas seulement connues aux bnficiaires, mais aussi assumes, car ils prouvent le besoin rcurrent de chercher une confirmation crite lors dun nouveau rgne. Pourtant, cette confirmation princire ne veut pas dire (comme on le croyait jusquici38 ) quil sagit dun renouvellement de la grce ou dune deuxime donation, mais simplement dune confirmation des droits sur une proprit. La charte princire rpond une recherche de garanties qui prmunit tout propritaire nouveau contre les prtentions formules par lancien propritaire ou par ses hritiers. Ceci est dautant plus ncessaire quil nexiste pas un cadre clair pour rgler les trahisons et les punitions, laissant une grande libert au prince et son arbitraire39. Il arrive parfois que la famille dun flon puisse rcuprer un domaine (surtout sil sagit du domaine hrit qui donne le nom de la famille) tout de suite aprs le changement dun rgne ou parfois durant le mme rgne. Comme ni la coutume ni la loi ne prcisent si la peine de flonie frappe toute la famille ou simplement le membre dclar coupable, les interprtations sont la merci du prince et du groupe au pouvoir40 . Si le coupable est puissant et menace la position mme du prince, ou sil se solidarise avec un groupe trop dangereux qui met en pril le rgne, il risque de recevoir une peine exemplaire (la dcapitation), sa famille sefforcera par la suite, durant plusieurs rgnes, de reconstituer difficilement le patrimoine initial ou attendra que son propre groupe ait pris le pouvoir. Etant donn que les donations pour juste et fidle service ont comme source le domaine princier, elles sont sensibles aux changements et aux hsitations propres un rgne. Quelles proviennent de confiscations (nombreuses surtout sous un rgne autoritaire) ou dachats, les donations

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CRISTINA CODARCEA ont un rgime prcaire si on les compare avec les autres formes de proprit car leur destin ne cesse dtre mouvement. Par exemple, le village de Ctun du dpartement de Muscel se vend au seigneur Leca une date inconnue durant le rgne de Radu erban (1602-1610). En 1616, le prince Radu Mihnea souponne de trahison Leca, qui occupait dans son propre Conseil la fonction de grand sptar; il confisque ses proprits et le condamne la mort. La mme anne il rcompense la fidlit dun autre grand boyard du Conseil, Bratu le grand comis41 , parent du prince, en lui donnant le village de Ctun. Mais en 1631 le village se trouve dans la possession de la femme de Leca, Grjdana, qui lgue ses biens, faute dhritiers directs, Preda le deuxime sptar, son neveu42 . Sensuit un procs de partage intent par les neveux de Leca, Mihai le postelnic et Tudosie le sptar43 qui reoivent leur tour, devant la justice du prince, le village et un vignoble, vendus tout de suite aprs44 Manea le grand postelnic du Conseil de Leon Toma. Peu de temps aprs larrive du prince Matei Basarab en Valachie et la confirmation de son rgne, il confisque le village de Manea (homme mchant et menteur) rest fidle au prince Alexandru Ilia qui rgnait en Moldavie. En 1639, lorsque Matei Basarab devient le parrain de Petru le paharnic (il le marie suite au fidle service rendu au prince et au pays45 ) il lui fait don pendant les noces du village de Ctun tant donn qu il est un descendant de la dame Grjdana. Lobservation des donations conserves par les archives et dont on a pu suivre le devenir, permet de se rendre compte de la mobilit particulire qui les caractrise. Sur un total de 16 donations faites pendant les deux rgnes de Radu Mihnea, 10 ont chang par la suite de propritaire46 . Ainsi, le village de Buca (Ialomia) est donn par Radu Mihnea Dumitru Dudescu, deuxime vornic47 qui est oblig de le vendre en 1646 au prince Matei Basarab pour lui payer ses dettes48 . Lancien emplacement du village de Selistioara (Romanati) est donn en 1613 Gheorghe deuxime clucer49 qui probablement le vend puisquon le retrouve en 1639 dans la proprit de Dragomir grand armas50 , parent du prince rgnant cette date, Matei Basarab. La donation du village de Frsinetul (Ilfov) rcompense lamiti de Radu Mihnea pour Constantin Baptista Vevelli (qui accompagne le prince depuis sa Pra natale)51 , mais pour peu de temps, car deux ans plus tard, en 1623, le mme village est donn un autre grec qui stait tabli antrieurement en Valachie, Dumitrache Cantacuzino52 .

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N.E.C. Yearbook 1996-1997 Pendant le rgne de Matei Basarab dautres exemples encore illustrent la fragilit de la possession dune donation princire. Ce nest pas sans importance si le bnficiaire est un grand boyard, ou un boyard de deuxime rang, ou un serviteur de la cour. Sans doute que le premier a plus de moyens de renforcer et de conserver ses nouvelles acquisitions car sa position auprs du prince est forte. Le grand armas Dragomir, parent de Matei Basarab, avoue que sa fortune est due en grande partie la gnrosit du prince (mila domnului)53 ; on est alors tent de supposer quil a reu des donations; et que sa fortune ne provient exclusivement des fonctions qui permettent lacquisition massive de villages et de richesses. Plus que les donations de terres ou de villages, ce sont les privilges octroys sous forme de rcompense pour juste et fidle service qui permettent aux grands boyards de conserver et surtout daugmenter leurs domaines. Lexonration dimpts ou de certaines taxes nous explique pourquoi les revenus des grands boyards saccroissent considrablement et pourquoi de pareilles donations ont un poids particulier dans lensemble dune fortune. Cependant, outre la signification dune rcompense que ces donations supposent, elles sont censes apaiser les ambitions des membres de laristocratie en les faisant participer la distribution des richesses du pays. Les donations envers les sujets moins importants54 , de deuxime rang, sont moins importantes (villages, parties de villages, emplacements danciens villages); en plus, elles sont touches par une plus grande prcarit. En effet, ce type de proprit obit un rgime spcial qui se situe quelque part entre la proprit absolue et la proprit conditionne, en se rapprochant toutefois plus de la premire. Ce type de propritaire prlve la dme sur la production des serfs, est responsable devant le fisc pour son village, libre les serfs ou vend le village sans que quelquun puisse len empcher. Ses droits sont pourtant amoindris par la possibilit du prince de rvoquer sa donation. Le caractre ambigu de cette forme de proprit est donn par le fait que plusieurs lments contradictoires co-existent lintrieur de celle-ci. La capacit du prince de rvoquer le droit de possession fait penser une proprit conditionne par le service mais cependant, chaque fois quune donation est reprise, le prince ddommage le bnficiaire. En 1633, Matei Basarab donne une partie du village de Micuneti (Ilfov) au capitaine Iancu pour fidle service55 . Trs vite le prince rvoque sa donation faite son sujet car il vient de construire un monastre (Cldruani) dans

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CRISTINA CODARCEA le dpartement de Ilfov et dsire le doter dun patrimoine convenable pour un monastre princier. En le faisant, il paye au capitaine une somme de 200 ughi, somme importante qui compense la perte de cette proprit. Dans un autre cas, ce sera le prince qui touchera la plus grande partie de la somme obtenue par le iuzbasa Radu pour le rachat des serfs du village de Polovinele (Romanai), donation quil avait reue auparavant. A cette occasion Matei Basarab reoit 100 ughi du total des 150 ughi pays par les villageois56 mais il ne conteste pas la libert de son sujet de disposer du sort des serfs du village. Lintervention du prince peut aboutir la perte de la donation (lorsquil dcide de lui donner une autre destination ou de permettre aux anciens propritaires la rcupration de leurs biens), mais nefface pas compltement la grce accorde car il la remplace par une somme dargent. Ce sera le cas lorsque Matei Basarab accepte finalement la demande du fils du grand boyard Trufanda, dclar flon, de reconstituer le patrimoine de son pre condition de racheter les villages offerts comme donation par le prince57 ce qui quivaut en effet une grce accorde. Il semblerait que mme ceux qui reoivent des dons en villages ou en parties de villages prfrent les vendre cause de leur instabilit mais aussi cause des obligations fiscales qui grvent une proprit foncire58 . Malgr la fragilit qui caractrise la donation princire pour service rendu il nest pas moins vrai que cette forme de rcompense a une fonction stratgique dans lensemble de relations de pouvoir. La rpartition des rcompenses lintrieur de la catgorie privilgie des boyards et des serviteurs du prince nous fournit une ide sur la structuration des solidarits autour du trne. Si on prend en compte les rgnes les plus longs de cette premire priode du XVIIe sicle et qui ont laiss des traces documentaires, on arrive aux donnes suivantes les concernant: Grands Boyards Radu erban Radu Mihnea Matei Basarab 7 5 7 Boyards IIe rang 3 7 8 Serviteurs et Militaires 0 3 17

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N.E.C. Yearbook 1996-1997 Ces donns corrobores par dautres concernant lorigine des donations, peuvent complter limage dun rgne et de sa stratgie.

Radu erban Villages appartenant dj au domaine princier Villages achets par le prince loccasion de la donation Villages confisqus pour flonie Villages confisqus pour cause de non-paiement des impts Terres dsertes 10 0 0 0 0

Radu Matei Mihnea Basarab 13 2 1 0 0 5 1 10 8 3

Le prince Radu erban sinstalle avec lappui de la grande aristocratie et jouit de son appui dans son dessein de rapprochement des puissances chrtiennes, en poursuivant manifestement le programme de Michel le Brave. Au contraire, dans des circonstances beaucoup plus rudes, daggravation du rgime de domination ottomane et de renforcement conomique et politique de laristocratie, Matei Basarab ne cesse dobtenir le soutien des couches moyennes de la socit, en mme temps quil exerce un rgne autoritaire. Paralllement au processus de croissance du pouvoir central et du rle de la cour du prince se tisse tout un rseau administratif en partant de la cour o les relations de fidlit unissent directement les sujets leur prince.

NOTES
1. Paul R. Hyams - King, Lords and Peasants in Medieval England, Oxford, 1980; Wendy Davies et Paul Fouracre (dir.) - Property and Power in the Early Middle Ages, Cambridge, 1995, v. surtout pp. 245-271. 2. erban Papacostea - Oltenia sub stpnire austriac, Bucarest, 1971, p. 227. 3. Marc Bloch La socit fodale, Paris, 8e d. vol. 1 . On penche plutt vers une dfinition qui valorise l,lment relationnel que celui de dfinition purement juridique qui risque dtre rendu fictif par une ralit trop diversifie et trop peu soucieuse de se penser dans des catgories raisonnables.

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4. C. Giurescu - Despre boieri , pp. 381-440. Lobservation faite par lhistorien N. Stoicescu, il nous semble trs significative; elle montre comment au niveau du vocabulaire transparat la conscience dune hirarchisation des positions et des rles des privilgis. Ainsi, les membres de laristocratie ayant des statuts gaux se nomment entre eux frres tandis que ceux qui leur sont infrieurs comme rang social sont dnoms amis v. Sfatul domnesc i dregtorii din ara Romneasc i Moldova, secolele XIV-XVII, Bucarest, 1968, p. 74. 5. Par privilge nous comprenons les avantages qui dcoulent de loffice, de la fonction et non limmunit comme lont interprt plusieurs historiens roumains. 6. Un modle du corps de contrle qui se rapproche sans doute plutt de celui existant en Russie (v. Richard Pipes - La Russia, Potere e Societa dal Medioevo alla dissoluzione dellAncien regime, Milano, 1989, pp. 124-157.) plus que de celui de loccident dont lutilit administrative sarticule partir de la fonction publique et non de la fidlit envers le souverain. 7. Alain Guery - Loeuvre royale. Du roi magicien au roi technicien in Le dbat , n 74, 1993, pp. 123-142. 8. Norbert Elias - La dynamique de lOccident, Paris, 2e dition, 1969. 9. Roland Delmaire - Largesse sacres et Res privata...LAerarium imprial et son administration, Ecole francaise de Rome, Rome, 1989. 10. Pour cette raison, croyons-nous, laristocratie nessaie jamais de substituer au modle monarchique celui de la rpublique nobiliaire bien quau long de toute lhistoire du XVIIe sicle elle se soit efforce daugmenter son emprise sur le pouvoir princier. Pour elle, le prince malgr son arbitraire (quelle parvient contrler certains moments) reste le moteur du mcanisme social. 11. 13 juin, 1628, Documenta Romaniae Historica, (DRH) B, vol; XXII, doc. 108, pp. 230-235 12. 24 avril 1645, Catalogul Documentelor rii Romneti din Arhivele Statului, (Catalogue) vol. VI, doc. 124, p. 68. 13. 13 septembre 1628, D.R.H., B, vol. XXII, doc. 155, p. 322. 14. 1 aot 1638, Catalogue..., vol. IV, doc. 1272, p. 561. Il faut prciser que les seigneurs eux-mmes prennent des prcautions dans le cas dune vente susceptible dtre conteste plus tard. Ils rassemblent des voisins du lieu lors de la vente et ils demandent que les ayants-droits dclarent publiquement leur droit caduc. Ainsi, on dispose des preuves et on limite le plus possible larbitraire du prince. 15. 8 mai 1628, D.R.H., B, vol. XXII, doc. 68, p. 140. 16. 24 septembre 1614, Documentele. Istoriei. Romniei, (DIR), vol. II, XVII, doc. 290, p. 327. 17. Normalement les serfs peuvent aussi bnficier dun droit de premption lorsque la vente qui les concerne ne se fait pas dans la parent des propritaires o lorsquun autre seigneur ne dtient pas une partie de la proprit mise en

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vente. v. par exemple le cas du village achet par Chirca comis qui, avant la transaction avec le propritaire interroge les paysans sils veulent se racheter; 2 novembre 1612, ibidem, doc. 118, p. 116. 18. 4 mai 1649, Catalogue..., vol. VI, doc. 1377, p. 514. 19. Carte romneasc de nvtur, 1636, (ed. Andrei Rdulescu), Bucarest, 1961, p. 162, Chapitre 52: ...la maldiction lance en tat de colre est grave et sera considre comme toute autre forme de maldiction; seulement dans les cas de sparation, dexhrdation ou de vente les dcisions ne seront pas prises en considration si elles sont entches par la colre. 20. 1645, Catalogue..., vol. VI, doc. 250, p. 114. 21. 11 janvier 1640, Catalogue..., vol. V, doc. 4, p. 26. Il procde de la mme manire avec les frres Hamza, Stanciul, Udrea et Balaci, les fils de Socol du village de Pade, qui refusent leur soeur la dot attribue par leur pre. Cest le prince qui rend Vldaia, la fille de Socol la moiti du village de Clbuceari avec des serfs et des Tsiganes. (12 juillet 1643, Catalogue..., vol. V, doc. 1079, p. 457). 22. 12 mai, Catalogue..., vol. V, doc. 1017, p. 432. 23. (dir. ) Jacques Le Goff et Georges Duby - Famille et parent dans lOccident mdival , Rome, 1977; David Herlihy - La famiglia nel Medioevo, Rome, 1995 (Medieval Households, 1d. 1985), voir ch. 6 - Il sistema familiare nel tardo Medioevo, pp. 169-200. 24. Nancy Shields Kollmann - Kinship and politics. The making of the Moscovite Political System, 1345-1547, Stanford, California, 1987. 25. 10 janvier 1635, Catalogue..., vol. IV, doc. 449, p. 217. 26. 21 dcembre 1636, Catalogue..., vol. IV, doc. 891, p. 408-409. 27. La chronique du pays dcrit lpisode de la lutte entre les deux ennemis, prtendants au trne de la Valachie, Matei et Radu Ilia: ...et les boyards du pays, Necula vistier, Hrizea vornic, Papa logofat, Necula Catargi et Dumitru Dudescul, et Neagul aga et dautres nont pas voulu accepter le prince Matei et sont partis en Moldavie chez le prince Alexandre Ilia pour quil vienne avec son fils, Radu voyvode dans le pays. (Istoria rii Romneti, 1299-1690. Letopiseul cantacuzinesc, (ed. C. Grecescu et D. Simonescu), Bucarest, 1960,p. 101.) 28. 2 novembre 1636 - Catalogue..., vol. IV, p. 399-400, doc. 874. 29. Ce nest pas sans importance le fait que les deux sont au dbut, (directement ou leurs parents proches), contre le rgne de Matei Basarab. Calot se trouve parmi les boyards rfugis dans le camp de Radu Ilia en Moldavie tandis que loncle par alliance de Marco, Mitrea du village de Stneti, se rend Constantinople pour formuler auprs de la Porte des plaintes contre le prince. 30. N. Stoicescu - Dicionar al marilor dregtori din ara Romneasc si Moldova, Bucarest, 1971, p. 173, Radu sest mari une premire fois avec la fille du grand chancelier Fiera Leurdeanu et une deuxime fois avec la fille de Vlad Rudeanu, son tour grand chancelier.

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31. Lhistorien Constantin Rezachievici affirme que Dumitru Dudesco aurait t condamn et mme dcapit par ordre du prince (v. Fenomene de criz social-politic n ara Romneasc n veacul al XVII-lea in Studii si Materiale de Istorie Medie, vol. IX, 1978, p. 77) fait qui nest pas confirm par Nicolae Stoicescu dans son Dictionnaire. 32. Une question qui a t traite par les historiens roumains toujours en grande hte - G. Potre - Matei Basarab n lumina unor documente referitoare la rspltiri de servicii, iertri de rumnie i ordine date in Matei Basarab i Bucurestii , Bucarest, 1983, pp. 35-48. 33. Ion Donat - Domeniul domnesc n ara Romneasc, secolelel XIV-XVI, Bucarest,1996. 34. Marcel Mauss- Despre dar, Bucarest, 1992. 35. Catalogue..., vol. IV, doc. 824, p. 381 - En 1636 Matei Basarab reprend deux de ses serviteurs la donation quil leur avait faite auparavant, car ils se sont suffisament nourris dans un village. Le statut du prince dans cette socit patriarcale rappelle plutt le statut de pre de famille que celui dun souverain occidental. Le langage des remontrances que le prince adresse ses grands boyards a des fois un ton familier; celui des ordres respecte peu une tiquette curiale et exprime simplement le courroux princier. 36. O. Sachelarie (Instituii feudale din rile romne, Bucarest, 1988, p. 137) est plutt vasif sur cette question car il affirme que la donation peut avoir un caractre conditionn; (il cite un document de la Moldavie de la mme poque). Valentin Georgescu crot que dans les pays roumains une proprit viagre est conditionne par le service, (Bizanul i instituiile romneti pn la mijlocul secolului al XVIIIlea, Bucarest, 1981, p. 66: en ce qui concerne le statut foncier de la classe dominante il se rapproche plus de la proprit conditionnelle de lOccident mdival). 37. Valeria Costchel - Les immunits dans les Principauts Roumaines aux XIVe et aux XVe sicle, Bucarest, 1947. 38. I. Donat - Le domaine princier rural en Valachie (XIV-XVI) , in Revue Roumaine dHistoire, T. VI, n 2, 1967, p. 216 39. Ibidem - le prince avait toute latitude de choisir entre les dcisions suivantes: a)restituer au boyard gratuitement ou par achat les villages qui lui avaient t confisqus b)reconfirmer la donation caus quelquun en maintenant le prjudice fait un autre et c)retirer un bien confisqu un bnficiaire pour le donner un autre; V. Georgescu fait une comparaison avec les lois byzantines punissant le crime de lse majest et signale lui aussi la flexibilit du cadre juridique roumain, Bizanul......., p. 130-141. 40. P. Delmaire, Les largesses..., p. 602. 41. D.I.R., XVII, vol. III, doc. 5. v. aussi N. Stoicescu - Dicionarul dregtorilor..., p. 120. 42. D.R.H., B, vol. XXIII, doc. 230, antrieur lan 1631, 21 avril, p. 368. 43. Ibidem, doc. 355, 1632, 17 avril, p. 542.

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44. Ibidem, doc. 385, 28 mai 1632, p. 575. 45. 21 aot 1639, Catalogue..., vol. IV, p. 667-668. 46. Nous avons pu suivre lappartenence des villages suivants: Ctun (Muscel et Pduret), Strehaia (Mehedini), Soprliga (Saac), Buca (Ialomia), Selitioara (Romanai), Groani (Buzu), Frsinetul (Ilfov), Izvorul Alb (Mehedini), Cioara (Ilfov), Buca (Ialomia). 47. D.I.R., XVII, vol. II, doc. 158. 48. Catalogue..., vol. VI, doc. 497. 49. D.I.R., XVII, vol. II, doc. 167. 50. Catalogue..., vol. IV, doc. 1546. 51. Celui-ci est aussi proche conseiller du prince Alexandru Ilia qui gouverne le pays en suivant ses recommandations, D.I.R., XVII, vol. II, doc. 138. 52. Ibidem, doc. 288 - en outre il reoit lexemption dimpt pour son village qui garde encore en 1649 le statut de slobozie. 53. N. Iorga - Studii i Documente, vol. V, pp. 548-549. 54. On nest pas toutefois daccord avec laffirmation de Nicolae Stoicescu que les donations ne concernent que les hauts fonctionnaires. Ce qui fait la diffrence entre les sujets cest la durabilit du don, la possibilit effective de le conserver. 55. D.R.H., B, vol. XXIV, doc. 4. 56. Ibidem, doc. 117. 57. En 1633 le prince Matei Basarab donne le village de Stejarul (Mehedini) pour juste et fidle service au prince et au pays prouv par des blessures ses serviteurs Drghici logoft et Ianiu postelnic (D.R.H., B, vol. XXIV, doc. 56). En mars1645, Iordache, le fils de Trufanda, ancien grand vistier, accompagn par sa grande mre Catrina, se prsente devant le prince pour rcuprer leurs biens, demande qui leur est refuse car ils nont pas voulu rentrer au pays lorsquils ont t rappels par le prince et parce quun de leurs parents avait agi Constantinople contre les intrts du prince (Catalogue..., vol. VI, doc. 67). Toutefois, en septembre 1649, Iordache parvient dterminer Drghici de lui vendre le village de Stejarul, vente renforce par une charte princire (Ibidem, doc. 1499). 58. En 1643 Matei Basarab rcompense le service de trois de ses serviteurs (Doxoteaiu iuzbasa, Cciulat iuzbasa, Vldil iuzbasa, les trois habitant Bucarest), avec le village de igneti situ sur la rivire de Mostitea. Ceux-ci le vendent Istrate logoft pour 15000 aspri (Catalogue...., V, doc. 1062). Calot clucer vend les village de Clinceni et de Micneti (Catalogue..., IV, doc. 135), les fils de Ianiu postelnic vendent la partie du village de Stejarul qui revenait son pre en 1647 (Catalogue..., VI, doc. 963).

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Ne en 1970, Piteti Doctorat accord par lUniversit Al. I. Cuza, Iai, 1998 Thse : Techniques non-verbales de communication dans la liturgie byzantine Doctorande en anthropologie religieuse, Ecole Pratique des Hautes Etudes, Paris Thse : Du geste liturgique byzantin dans les glises roumaines contemporaines Matre assistante la Facult des Lettres, Universit Al. I. Cuza, Iai Membre de lAssociation des Philologues Roumains Bourse Tempus, Poitiers, 1992 Bourse postdoctorale du gouvernement roumain, Paris, 1999 Participations aux colloques et rencontres scientifiques internationales en Roumanie, Pologne, France Nombreux articles, tudes et traductions

LE GESTUEL LITURGIQUE ORTHODOXE DIMENSIONS SMANTIQUES ET PRAGMATIQUES

1. Le geste comme signe. La smiologie gestuelle dans le cadre de la smiologie non verbale
Aprs la deuxime guerre mondiale, les recherches faites dans le domaine de la thorie de la communication ont connu un grand essor. Pendant ces dernires dcennies, un grand nombre dtudes ont t consacres aux communications non verbales. Couvrant plusieurs domaines (lanthropologie, lthologie, la psychologie des affects), les communications non verbales, dfinies comme types de communication manifeste par des canaux diffrents de celui du langage verbal, ont joui dun succs assez important mme parmi les linguistes (et les smioticiens): Greimas 1970, Benveniste 1966, Guiraud 1980, Barthes 1967. Dailleurs le champ smiotique du non verbal (Eco 1972) a t dlimit par rapport au langage verbal, tout comme celui du para-verbale (ou para-linguistique: Trager 1958), dfini en tant que sous-systme vocal de ce dernier (Cosnier 1984), comprenant les phnomnes vocaux supra-segmentaux: les accents, lintonation, etc. Les recherches modernes consacres aux communications non verbales refusent cependant cette acception synonymique (devenue dailleurs classique) de la communication non verbale avec la communication non linguistique: une partie du langage verbal est non verbale, tout comme une partie du non verbal ne constitue pas du langage (Cosnier 1984). On devrait donc parler dun non verbal co-textuel (dans le premier cas) et, respectivement, dun non verbal contextuel (Idem, p. 7). Dailleurs, toutes ces recherches proposent, entre autres, les concepts de communication totale ou dinteraction communicationnelle (Winkin 1981, Goffman 1974, Watzlawick 1972).

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N.E.C. Yearbook 1996-1997 Les communications non verbales utilisent trois types de supports (Corraze 1980): 1.le corps et ses qualits physiques ou physiologiques et avec ses mouvements, considr comme un support privilgi de la circulation du sens (Le Breton 1988, p .22), 2.des artefacts lis au corps (chez lhomme), comme les vtements, les tatouages, les mutilations rituelles ou non (voir, entre autres, Maertens 1983) ; 3.la disposition dans lespace des individus, quil sagisse dun espace fixe ou territorial, ou de celui trs personnel qui entoure le corps de chaque individu (voir, par exemple, les tudes de E. T. Hall : 1971 et 1984, ou bien de Schilder 1968). La communication gestuelle occupe une place trs importante dans le cadre du large domaine des communications non verbales, si lon pense au nombre impressionnant dtudes consacres aux manifestations communicationnelles de cette nature. Comme la plupart des autres tudes sur la communication non verbale, les recherches du champ smiotique du gestuel ont galement connu, une grande influence de la part de ce que les reprsentants du groupe appelaient limprialisme linguistique (Le Groupe 1992, p. 10). Une grande partie des concepts oprationnels de la linguistique gnrale (surtout du structuralisme linguistique) ont t extrapols et utiliss pour la description de la plupart des systmes de signes non verbaux (voir les tudes : Barthes 1967, Porcher 1976, Schefer 1969, Lagrange 1973, Birdwhistell 1981). Un type danalyse gestuelle est reprsent par lanalyse kinsique de Birdwhistell, qui propose ltude des mouvements corporels manifests pendant une conversation (verbale !). Son systme, la kinsique, est form de la prkinsique (qui soccupe de ltude des dterminants physiologiques des gestes), la microkinsique (qui analyse les gestes dans les plus petites units significatives) et la sociokinsique (qui soccupe de ltude des variations culturelles des gestes) (Birdwhistell 1981). Malgr le systme assez lourd de notation (56 units lmentaires proposes seulement pour le visage), lanalyse kinsique de Birdwhistell reste lun des plus intressants modles danalyse gestuelle (mais aussi lun des modles qui offrent le plus dexemples concernant lextrapolation de nombreux concepts de la linguistique, surtout de la phonologie). En utilisant comme instrument dtude le strotype, Marc-Alain Descamps propose son tour, une tude descriptive des principales taxinomies gestuelles, dans le cadre dune prsentation plus large, des diffrentes formes de manifestation communicationnelle du corps humain (Descamps 1989). Les gestes des moines trappistes, des bndictins de

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FELICIA DUMAS Cluny ou de Cteau, sont inventoris par Clelia Hutt, en tant que substituts du langage verbal (Hutt 1968). Marcel Mauss tudie toute une srie de gestes traditionnels concrtiss dans des techniques du corps (Mauss 1973), et Pierre Guiraud nous propose une taxinomie trs intressante des codes corporels (qui peuvent tre des substituts du langage verbal ou des auxiliaires de celui-ci), tout comme une r-interprtation des principales analyses gestuelles que nous avons dj mentionnes (Guiraud 1980). Un autre systme de description micro analytique a t ralis par les auteurs de lune des plus intressantes classifications gestuelles : des illustrateurs, rgulateurs, signaux et emblmes (Ekman et Friesen 1969). Cependant, la plus importante pour nous reste lanalyse squentielle de lactivit corporelle ralise par S. Frey, dont nous allons emprunter la mthode pour ltude des gestes rituels orthodoxes (Frey 1984). Les gestes de rite chrtien nont que trs peu t tudis par un nombre assez rduit dhistoriens. Dans le monde occidental, luvre monumentale de Jean-Claude Schmitt (1990) nous propose des informations indites sur certains gestes de pnitence excuts par diffrents ordres monastiques, sans faire aucune rfrence la spiritualit orientale. En ce qui concerne les gestes rituels orthodoxes, ils nont fait, notre connaissance, lobjet daucune tude danalyse communicationnelle, ou plus largement, smiotique. A part un merveilleux livre dHlne Lubienska de Lenval (1957), nous navons pas trouv douvrages scientifiques sur ce type de gestes. Nous proposons donc une tude smiotique de ces gestes manifests pendant la clbration de la liturgie eucharistique byzantine, et dfinis au niveau dune triade interactionnelle qui comprend le gestuel, la disposition dans lespace et lhabillement des actants liturgiques.

2. Le gestuel liturgique orthodoxe - lobjet de notre recherche

2.1. La liturgie et la liturgie eucharistique Par gestuel liturgique byzantin nous comprenons lensemble des manifestations gestuelles actualises pendant la clbration de la liturgie eucharistique byzantine attribue saint Jean Chrysostome. Il est donc ncessaire de faire la distinction entre ce quon appelle la liturgie en gnral et la ralit rituelle de la liturgie eucharistique, en particulier. Les

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N.E.C. Yearbook 1996-1997 spcialistes liturgiques dfinissent la liturgie comme la mise en scne de quatre composantes principales : les acteurs, les lieux, les paroles et les objets. Cette dfinition peut trs bien sappliquer la liturgie eucharistique galement, car celle-ci ne constitue que lun des aspects de la liturgie en gnral. Tandis que la liturgie comprend la littrature liturgique (les livres, les prires), les uvres des crivains qui ont dissert sur le culte, les diffrents offices de lEglise, tout comme les gestes et les mouvements des actants liturgiques, la liturgie eucharistique (la messe de lEglise Orientale) reprsente la clbration de leucharistie. Cest pour cela quelle est appele dailleurs, la divine Liturgie, orthographie dans la plupart des cas, avec une majuscule. La Liturgie eucharistique byzantine comprend trois grandes parties : la prothse (ou la partie introductive, pendant laquelle un prtre ou un diacre prpare les dons pour la conscration), la liturgie des catchumnes (ou la liturgie de la parole, centre sur la louange de Dieu, lcoute de sa parole, et lintercession, tout le monde tant autoris y participer, notamment les catchumnes) et la liturgie des fidles (centre sur la clbration du mystre eucharistique). Dans les plus anciens eucologes byzantins (tel leucologe Barberini, par exemple), la liturgie de saint Basile prcde toujours la liturgie de saint Jean Chrysostome. La liturgie de Chrysostome a vinc la liturgie de saint Basile vers le Xe ou le XIe sicle (Paprocki 1993, p. 72). Nous allons travailler sur la liturgie de saint Jean Chrysostome (qui appartient la famille liturgique syro-antiochienne), parce que cest la liturgie clbre pendant la plus grande partie de lanne liturgique et parce quelle nous est la plus familire des liturgies eucharistiques byzantines.

2.2. Quelques aspects mthodologiques Notre modalit dapproche de ce rituel liturgique a t celle de lobservation participante : le chercheur sinsre dans le groupe quil tudie et interagit avec les acteurs sociaux, en simpliquant avec eux dans des situations communes (Maisonneuve 1988, p. 16). Nous avons donc particip un grand nombre de clbrations liturgiques (eucharistiques) dans diffrentes glises de Roumanie, des paroisses ou des monastres, surtout en Valachie et en Moldavie (mais aussi en Transylvanie), en observant et en enregistrant (sur pellicules photo et bandes vido) la pratique gestuelle des prtres et des fidles participants ce rituel liturgique. Les gestes rituels manifests pendant la clbration de la liturgie de saint Jean Chrysostome constituent un inventaire bien dfini et limit. Nous

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FELICIA DUMAS allons donc nous constituer un corpus avec les variantes excutionnelles de tous les gestes rituels actualiss par les deux grandes catgories dactants liturgiques : le prtre qui officie et les fidles participants la liturgie. Une fois le corpus constitu, nous allons entreprendre la structuration, lanalyse et linterprtation du matriel gestuel accumul de la sorte. Nous allons tudier ainsi, les modes de production smiotiques de ces gestes, les techniques de rinvestissement smantique qui ont particip la rcupration de plusieurs gestes profanes et leur transformation en gestes liturgiques, rinvestis avec des significations symboliques sacres (lagenouillement, le fait de faire brler un cierge, etc.). Quant ltude des dimensions pragmatiques du gestuel liturgique orthodoxe, nous allons procder une segmentation du continuum gestuel enregistr sur bande vido en squences signifiantes, dfinies dans la temporalit. Nous tudierons de cette faon les diffrentes variantes pragmatiques manifestes par les fidles participants au rituel liturgique byzantin, tout comme la frquence et le rythme dexcution de ces gestes. Comme le rituel liturgique byzantin reprsente un processus interactionnel complexe, dans ltude des dimensions pragmatiques du gestuel actualis pendant sa clbration, nous allons nous occuper galement des relations qui fonctionnent entre lappropriation de lespace ecclsiastique par les actants liturgiques et lactualisation de leurs gestes. Quant ltude des dimensions smantiques de ces gestes, nous allons analyser les significations et limportance smiotiques des objets rituels impliqus dans le processus de rinvestissement smantique, tout comme la signification des habits sacerdotaux et la mise en scne du corps par les vtements des fidles participants la liturgie de leucharistique.

2.3. Geste et communication dans la liturgie byzantine La liturgie eucharistique, ou la divine liturgie, est le plus important des offices orthodoxes. Interprte, travers le temps (et des poques plus ou moins diffrentes), soit comme un vritable scnario symbolique, une remmoration de la vie de Jsus (voir, par exemple, Evdokimov 1966), soit comme une monte spirituelle vers le grand Repas eucharistique clbr par le Christ dans son Royaume (Schmmann 1985), la liturgie eucharistique byzantine est une grande prire, une prire commune (de lassemble et du prtre officiant), la plus impressionnante forme de louange adresse par les hommes Dieu. Et qui dit prire, dit communication, cest--dire, communion entre deux (ou plusieurs)

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N.E.C. Yearbook 1996-1997 prsences. Cest pour cela que la liturgie de saint Jean Chrysostome peut tre galement interprte comme le contexte extrmement gnreux dactualisation (dans certaines conditions de temps et despace) dune communication de type symbolique (la communication par le biais du dclenchement dans le destinataire dun processus dvocation : Sperber 1979, p. 27). En prenant comme point de dpart la thse de Maxime Kovalevsky (1984), on peut parler dun modle canonique de communication quatre ples, situs dans deux plans de conditions diffrentes (le modle des hirarchies clestes de Denys le pseudo aropagite comporte plusieurs aspects concernant ce type de rpartition : cf. Dionisie le pseudo Aropagite 1994) : dun ct Dieu, et de lautre les hommes (mis dj sous le signe dune pluralit), lassemble eucharistique, dont on distingue le prtre (le diacre fait partie de la mme catgorie liturgique), le chur et les fidles participants la liturgie. Le prtre sadresse au nom de tous directement Dieu, crit Maxime Kovalevsky ; le diacre (nous allons tudier uniquement le rituel liturgique offici par le prtre tout seul, sans vque, ni diacre) parle lassistance en lincitant prier (lorsquil ny a pas de diacre, prcise le mme thologien, cest le prtre qui assume ses fonctions) ; les chantres exposent des textes objectifs ou de mditation ; les fidles, eux, rpondent au prtre et au diacre (par exemple en disant : <<Amen>>, ou <<Avec ton esprit>>), dialoguent avec lui, ou ils sadressent directement Dieu (par exemple en disant : <<Kirie Eleison>>...) (Kovalevsky 1984, p. 92). Dans les glises roumaines, la pratique liturgique des fidles -participants relve plutt dun modle tabulaire de communication (Dumas 1994), dans lacception de Serres : une communication plusieurs ples (Serres 1968). Il sagit dun modle extrmement mobile, qui ne contredit pas vraiment la motivation qui se trouve la base de cette conception de la communication quatre ples (qui peuvent, en fait, tre rduits trois) dont nous avons dj parl : la liturgie signifie louange commune, action de grce commune, le sacrifice eucharistique devant tre clbr par toute lassemble des chrtiens. De nos jours, le chercheur avis, sociologue, anthropologue et hermneute de la communication, remarque plusieurs efforts de communication personnelle avec la Divinit, intriorise, mais surtout extriorise au niveau gestuel et postural, en dehors, ct et mme lintrieur de la communication commune du modle impos comme norme par la tradition dogmatique : les fidles participants (+ le chur),

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FELICIA DUMAS le prtre et Dieu. Il y a dabord (en dehors du rituel liturgique) une forme de communication gestuelle utilise en tant que substitut du langage verbal (interdit pendant la clbration de la liturgie), entre les fidles participants. Cest une communication qui a comme but linitiation des nophytes dans la pratique liturgique : les fidles initis, possesseurs de certaines connaissances liturgiques, indiquent par le geste, aux autres, la manire correcte dont ils doivent participer au rituel liturgique : les moments o ils doivent sagenouiller, lendroit o ils doivent se tenir, pour respecter un certain ordre traditionnel, ou tout simplement, pour ne pas gner le prtre, lors de ses sorties du sanctuaire, etc. Un autre type de communication, dfinie cette fois-ci lintrieur du rituel liturgique, est celle tablie entre les fidles participants et le prtre. Cette communication peut tre verbale (musicale), impose et contrle par le chur, ou non verbale -gestuelle-, oriente par le discours du prtre, envisag comme officiant du culte divin. Lassemble des fidles rpond en mme temps que le chur, aux invitations la prire adresses par le prtre : Prions le Seigneur - Kirie eleison, ou bien Demandons au Seigneur pardon et rmission de nos pchs - Accorde, Seigneur. Les rponses des fidles peuvent galement tre gestuelles, engendres par certaines exhortations du prtre officiant, telles : Inclinez la tte devant le Seigneur, ou bien Sagesse, debout, coutons le saint Evangile ! Paix tous ! Un troisime type de communication est reprsent par la communication directe, de chaque participant au rituel liturgique (prtre et fidles) avec la Divinit. Elle peut tre verbale (il sagit des prires dites par les fidles devant les icnes de liconostase nimporte quel moment de la liturgie, ou par le prtre, voix basse, dans le sanctuaire, pendant la prothse, par exemple, pour la rmission des pchs des fidles prsents, ou pendant lpiclse pour invoquer la descente du Saint Esprit sur les saints dons), ou non verbale. La communication gestuelle (y compris celle posturale) du prtre avec Dieu, mais surtout celle des fidles participants, reprsente, avant tout, la preuve incontestable de leur reconnaissance du statut et de la position communicationnelle privilgie de la Divinit. Le message de cette communication peut tre une demande dexaucer un vu (lagenouillement, les mains jointes, devant les icnes de liconostase), ou bien une action de grce (aprs la communion, par exemple, ou aprs laccomplissement dun voeux). On peut donc constater que le gestuel liturgique orthodoxe est engendr (dans les conditions dune participation active et consciente des actants liturgiques la pratique commune de la liturgie) par le discours verbal.

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N.E.C. Yearbook 1996-1997 Les gestes liturgiques constituent de vritables rpliques dactualisation gestuelle de certains actes de langage (verbal !) noncs par le prtre officiant, par les membres du chur dans les textes chants, ou par les fidles participants ce rituel. Excut comme rplique lnonc du chur de la premire grande partie de la liturgie (la liturgie des catchumnes), Venez, adorons et prosternons- nous devant le Christ, le geste de se signer, fait par les fidles, combin avec celui de la prosternation, reprsente laccomplissement gestuel effectif de deux actes de langage comportatif (Austin 1970, p. 161). Cette dimension dactualisation gestuelle est soutenue dabord par la disposition des actants liturgiques dans lespace intrieur de lglise (type interactionnel vis--vis: les fidles-participants se trouvent devant les icnes du Christ de liconostase, dont lemplacement oriente tout le processus interactionnel liturgique) et par la nature symbolique du mimodrame (Jousse 1974) droul devant eux pendant la squence rituelle immdiatement antrieure (la petite entre, procession qui symbolise le dpart du Christ dans le monde pour prcher lenseignement de sa nouvelle loi : Cabasila 1989). Au moment o le prtre sort du sanctuaire et passe devant les fidles avec lEvangile, le peuple se signe et se prosterne, comme si le Sauveur y tait prsent (Ionescu-Amza 1982, p. 24). On remarque ici la prsence de limpratif, en tant quexpression dune force illocutoire prescriptive, dfini par Anna Jaubert comme un performatif primaire, qui fait reconnatre un acte de discours directement, sans passer par la rflexivit (Jaubert 1990, p. 136). En mme temps, comme expression de la nature du pronom personnel impliqu dans la production de lnonc verbal (le pronom <<nous>>, dfini par <<vous>> et par <<je>>, linitiative nonciative et symbolique du <<je>> du prtre; il sagit dun <<nous>> inclusif, dune personne amplifie : Benveniste 1966, p. 233, 235), on observe galement la manifestation gestuelle (du mme type) du prtre. Le geste de se signer, excut comme rplique lnonc du chur, ou du prtre officiant : Gloire au Pre et au Fils et au Saint Esprit !, reprsente toujours lactualisation dun acte de langage, expositif, cette fois-ci (Austin 1972, p. 162), si lon pense la signification canonique attribue ce geste liturgique (on reviendra l-dessus : Mitrofanovici 1929, p. 434). Un autre exemple de pareilles rpliques dactualisation gestuelle de certains actes de langage est constitu par lexcution du geste simple de se signer et des squences gestuelles de la prosternation et de la grande mtanie, lors de lnonciation de lune des prires les plus importantes du

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FELICIA DUMAS rituel liturgique, qui accompagne le moment symbolique de la conscration des dons dans le sanctuaire : Nous te chantons, nous te bnissons, nous te rendons grces, Seigneur, et nous timplorons, notre Dieu. Le processus dactualisation gestuelle est dtermin dans ce cas, par la prsence de plusieurs verbes performatifs, dfinis par Vanderveken de la manire suivante : chantons (avec le sens de louer) : verbe de type expressif (Vanderveken 1988, p. 202) ; rendre grce : verbe de type expressif (Idem, p. 199), et implorer : verbe de type directif (Idem, p. 184). Un autre type de rpliques gestuelles, dfinies toujours par rapport aux noncs verbaux produits dans le cadre de linteraction rituelle liturgique, est reprsent par les gestes excuts la suite de quelques noncs qui visent des effets perlocutionnaires (Searle 1972) de nature symbolique (dans le sens de lobtention de certains effets positifs, en tant que preuves de lefficacit rituelle), prononcs par le prtre officiant : le fait dincliner la tte, lorsque les fidles entendent lexhortation du prtre : Inclinez la tte devant le Seigneur ; la station debout ou, dans la plupart des cas (bien que dune faon paradoxale), la position agenouille, comme rplique de lnonc verbal (appartenant toujours au prtre) : Sagesse. Debout. Ecoutons le saint Evangile... Les formes diffrentes du pronom personnel (dans le premier cas, <<vous>>, et dans le second, <<nous>>) mettent en vidence la dfinition des rles et de la position interactionnelle des deux grandes catgories dactants liturgiques -le prtre et les fidles participants-, par rapport la troisime prsence communicationnelle : la divinit. Dautres rpliques gestuelles des noncs qui visent de tels effets perlocutionnaires (dans le sens mentionn plus haut), prononcs par le prtre officiant surtout au moment liturgique du sermon (et qui reprennent, dailleurs, des fragments des discours normatifs des Saints Pres), sont la squence gestuelle de porter des offrandes au sanctuaire et la communion. Certains gestes liturgiques peuvent galement fonctionner du point de vue smiotique, comme un type particulier de rpliques interactionnelles de quelques noncs du prtre officiant (interprts en tant que seuils dinstitution symbolique et efficace de certaines squences liturgiques), en dfinissant de cette faon, une manire de ponctuer temporellement le droulement squentiel et symbolique du scnario liturgique : les fidles-participants se signent et sagenouillent lorsque le prtre dit de lintrieur du sanctuaire Aimons-nous les uns les autres, afin que dans un mme esprit nous confessions, parce quils savent que cet nonc

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N.E.C. Yearbook 1996-1997 perlocutionnaire reprsente llment verbal introductif de la squence liturgique de la rcitation du Credo. Ce ne sont que quelques repres voqus pour mettre en vidence la manire dont le discours liturgique verbal engendre et oriente du point de vue smiotique, les manifestations gestuelles dfinies lors de la clbration du rituel liturgique, en utilisant, entre autres, quelques verbes performatifs, plusieurs noncs illocutionnaires et perlocutionnaires, ou des variations de la personne (du pronom personnel).

2.4.Le geste liturgique en tant que geste rituel. Dfinition Si le corps est lorigine de la chute, il est aussi porteur dune promesse de salut, il peut devenir un moyen de rdemption. [...] Ainsi, est-ce dans le corps, travers le corps, donc aussi dans les gestes, que doit se prparer et se mriter la destine de lme (Schmitt 1990, p. 67). Dans la culture chrtienne, le corps na pas dautonomie reconnue ; il est toujours prsent en relation avec lme. Les Pres de lEglise parlent des mouvements de lme et des mouvements du corps, ces derniers ntant que les formes de manifestation extrieure des premiers (Idem, p. 66). Dans les rituels chrtiens (et religieux, en gnral), le corps devient de la sorte un participant actif la production et la circulation des sens investis dans le but de lobtention dune efficacit rituelle maximale (Maisonneuve 1988). Durkheim considrait les principales attitudes rituelles, comme faisant partie des formes lmentaires de la vie religieuse (Durkheim 1912). Il distingue dailleurs, deux grandes catgories de telles attitudes : le culte ngatif, constitu dun ensemble de tabous, dinterdictions, et le culte positif, qui tablit des relations avec la sacralit. Le rituel liturgique reprsente la mise en pratique dune attitude (rituelle) de culte positif. Jean Maisonneuve dfinit la liturgie comme une crmonie sacrificielle qui comporte une phase communielle, qui permet lhomme dassurer son lien avec la divinit en sincorporant les offrandes quil vient de lui consacrer (Maisonneuve 1988, p. 35). Cest toujours en termes de communion, de participation lessence dune divinit transcendantale que J. Cazeneuve interprtait, lui-aussi, lensemble des rituels religieux (Cazeneuve 1971). Ce qui nous semble le plus intressant, cest le fait que la plupart des tudes consacres aux rituels proposent des approches et des

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FELICIA DUMAS interprtations de type communicationnel : Le mot rituel dsigne tout systme de communication avec le monde imaginaire, systme smiologique autonome, utilisant essentiellement des gestes (Heusch 1974, p. 213) ; Lactivit rituelle constitue un systme de communication hirarchis (Idem, p. 232) ; Les pratiques rituelles sont minemment symboliques car elles mdiatisent par des postures, gestes ou paroles, une relation une <<entit>> non seulement absente [...], mais impossible percevoir, inaccessible sauf par le moyen du symbole lui-mme (Maisonneuve 1988, p. 10) ; ou bien : Du <<point de vue des hommes... >>, le rite religieux est une exprience russie de la communication de lhomme et de Dieu, transmise dans lespace et dans le temps par la fixation de son sens et de son but (Oliviro 1991, p. 36). Cela nous intresse particulirement, parce que notre approche du rituel liturgique byzantin est toujours une approche communicationnelle. Une notion importante de la ritologie est celle defficacit rituelle. Le cur de la liturgie est reprsent par lefficacit symbolique. Dans le cas du rituel liturgique, cest le clerg ordonn qui rend valide son efficacit symbolique et sacramentale, cette efficacit tant reconnue dune manire collective. Le souci defficacit rituelle est trs important pour lhomme qui participe la liturgie. Nous verrons que la plupart des gestes liturgiques ont, outre leur signification dorigine (symbolique), une signification pragmatique aussi, ou defficacit rituelle (en gnral, celle de demande dexaucer un vu). En prenant comme points de dpart ltymologie du mot geste (dfini par le dictionnaire Larousse de la Langue franaise comme mouvement du corps, surtout des bras, des mains, ou de la tte, porteur ou non dune intention de signification : Larousse 1977, p. 795, ce mot provient du latin gest-us. En latin, le sens de ce dernier tait manire de se tenir, port, attitude, geste : Ernoult et Meillet 1939, p. 420, ce nom tant un driv du verbe gero, gerere, qui signifiait porter et aprs, par extension, excuter, accomplir, faire : Idem, p. 421) et la dfinition du rituel propose par Jean Maisonneuve dans le livre cit (1988, p. 12), nous appellerons geste rituel tout mouvement du corps (donc, non seulement des bras et de la tte), une manire de se tenir et de se porter, investi dun sens conformment un systme codifi de pratiques, sous certaines conditions de temps et despace, pratiques ayant un sens vcu et une valeur symbolique et un certain rapport avec le sacr. Le geste liturgique peut donc tre dfini comme un geste rituel manifest dans les conditions particulires de temps et despace et de scnario symbolique de la liturgie

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N.E.C. Yearbook 1996-1997 (eucharistique) byzantine. Le mode de production smiotique de ces gestes est celui que Umberto Eco appelle la reconnaissance : Un processus de reconnaissance a lieu quand un objet ou un vnement donn, produit de la nature ou de laction humaine (intentionnellement ou inintentionnellement), fait parmi les faits, est interprte par un destinataire comme lexpression dun contenu donn, soit en fonction dune corrlation dj prvue par un code, soit en fonction dune corrlation tablie directement par le destinataire (Eco 1992, p. 72).

2.5. Les gestes liturgiques byzantins : significations et variantes pragmatiques Pour une prsentation plus cohrente de linventaire clos de ces gestes liturgiques, nous avons procd une structuration de celui-ci en fonction des actants liturgiques qui les excutent. En rflchissant aux concepts dacteur social utilis par Goffman (Goffman 1973) pour dsigner le participant une interaction sociale, dinteractant, utilis par Scheflen (Scheflen 1981) pour nommer le participant une interaction (verbale ou complexe), ou celui dacteur, utilis par Greimas (Greimas 1970) pour dsigner les parties du corps qui participent la ralisation dun geste, nous avons prfr employer le syntagme dactant liturgique, pour dsigner le participant une interaction rituelle liturgique. Les deux grandes catgories dactants liturgiques sont le prtre officiant et les fidlesparticipants la liturgie. La troisime prsence communicationnelle (et, donc, implicitement interactionnelle) est la Divinit. Nous avons class les gestes liturgiques byzantins en trois grands groupes : les gestes simples, les positions du corps et les squences gestuelles (des signes gestuels combins dune manire synchronique : cf. Frey 1984). Nous commencerons par la catgorie la plus nombreuse dactants liturgiques, les fidles participants la liturgie eucharistique : a) gestes simples : se signer, lever les mains pour la prire, joindre les mains pour la prire (junctibus manibus), communier, faire brler un cierge, embrasser les icnes, embrasser lvangliaire, embrasser la main du prtre la fin de loffice liturgique ; b) positions du corps : la station debout, lagenouillement, la position incline de la tte (la tte baisse) ; c) squences gestuelles : porter son don (des offrandes) au sanctuaire (en gnral, de lhuile, du vin, de lencens et du pain de froment ferment servant leucharistie, appel prosphore), la prosternation, la grande

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FELICIA DUMAS prosternation, ou la grande mtanie, dorigine monastique. Les membres du chur excutent en gnral les mmes gestes, la frquence et leur rythme dexcution tant modifis par leur emplacement dans lespace intrieur de lglise : du ct droit de la nef, debout devant liconostase, ou bien (surtout dans les cathdrales mtropolitaines et piscopales) ltage, au-dessus du narthex, assis sur des bancs. Pour ce qui est du prtre officiant, nous mentionnerons ses gestes en prenant en considration ses trois hypostases liturgiques : en tant que fidle participant au rituel liturgique, il actualise une srie de gestes simples : se signer, embrasser les icnes, embrasser lvangliaire, embrasser la sainte table du sanctuaire, la croix avec laquelle il bnit le peuple, la communion, llvation des mains pour la prire, tout comme la plupart des postures mentionnes dans le cas des fidles participants la liturgie : la position debout, lagenouillement et la position incline de la tte. En tant que prtre-clbrant de la liturgie eucharistique, il excute un grand nombre de squences gestuelles : la sparation des parcelles de prosphore qui vont tre consacres pendant leucharistie, le fait de remuer lentement, de haut en bas, le grand voile liturgique au-dessus des saints dons (signifiant la descente du Saint Esprit), ou la distribution de la communion. En tant que symbole du Christ (le thologien roumain Dumitru Stniloae lappelle le transparent du Christ : Stniloae 1986), le prtre fait un geste simple (la bndiction), et actualise au moins une squence gestuelle : le fait dentrer dans le sanctuaire ( certains moments du scnario liturgique) par les portes centrales de liconostase -les portes royales. Tant la norme dexcution de ces gestes, que leurs significations symboliques (connues dailleurs, de moins en moins, de nos jours, par les fidles-participants la liturgie) ont t transmises par imitation (ou grce lducation religieuse, ralise en famille, ou organise par lEglise : le catchisme), et, respectivement par la voie orale (pour ce qui est des fidles-participants), ou crite (dans le cas des futurs prtres). La plupart des manifestations gestuelles actualises par le prtre pendant la clbration de la liturgie eucharistique ont une tradition lointaine, tant mentionnes par exemple, par les Constitutions Apostoliques, ou les Catchses mystagogiques de saint Cyrille de Jrusalem (la position debout, lagenouillement, la bndiction, la communion, le baiser de la paix). Dautres gestes sont de tradition plus rcente, tant apparus certains moments dvolution du rituel liturgique : le fait de remuer le grand voile au-dessus des saints dons pendant la rcitation du Credo, la bndiction du peuple avec le calice et la patne aprs la communion.

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N.E.C. Yearbook 1996-1997 Les significations des gestes liturgiques byzantins, mentionnes dans les crits des Pres de lEglise et reprises par les thologiens auteurs des manuels liturgiques, sont des significations symboliques. Vu laccs assez limit des fidles ce type de sources liturgiques, cette catgorie dactants liturgiques connat, gnralement, trs peu ces significations symboliques. Cependant, ils connaissent trs bien les significations pragmatiques, defficacit rituelle de ces gestes, mentionnes dans des livres de popularisation des symboles liturgiques ou dans les sermons des grands prdicateurs des monastres les plus clbres du pays. Cest toujours dans les crits valeur normative des Saints Pres que lon trouve aussi la description de ce que lon pourrait appeler un modle canonique dexcution de ces gestes (lun des exemples les plus connus est celui du signe de la croix, dcrit par saint Jean Chrysostome). En ce qui concerne le rythme et la frquence dexcution des gestes liturgiques, nous avons trs peu de prescriptions de cette nature : dans quelques documents synodaux, ou dans les mmes livres de popularisation des saints Sacrements de lEglise et de la symbolique de la Divine Liturgie (voir, par exemple, Mndit 1994). Le geste simple de se signer signifie la foi en la Sainte Trinit et dans le salut de lme, ralis par le Christ sur le bois de la croix (saint Jean Chrysostome, apud Mitrofanovici 1929, p. 434). Ce geste a galement une signification defficacit rituelle (postrieure la premire), appele par le mme Mitrofanovici, la signification effective, celle dattirer celui qui lexcute plusieurs dons positifs, tout en loignant de lui les mauvais esprits (ibidem). On se signe avec la main droite, les trois premiers doigts runis et tenus droits et les deux derniers plis lintrieur de la paume, du front vers le bas de la poitrine, et du ct droit vers le ct gauche, la verbalisation de ce geste tant reprsente par la formule bien connue, Au nom du Pre, du Fils et du Saint Esprit. Amen. Nous avons dj tudi, ailleurs, les variantes pragmatiques de ce geste (Dumas 1997), que nous nous contenterons seulement de mentionner ici (pour la description du gestuel liturgique byzantin, nous utiliserons la transcription linguistique dAnne-Marie Houdebine : barres obliques et parenthses pour les candidats signifiants, barres obliques pour les caractres pertinents du signifiant Gestuel, et crochets pour les signifis ou effets de sens : apud Brunetire 1991, p. 283) : 1) /la main droite essaie de toucher le front, sarrtant au-dessus de celui-ci, les doigts en position canonique/ + /la main droite essaie de toucher le bas de la poitrine, sans la toucher pour autant, les doigts gardent les mmes positions/ + /la main

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FELICIA DUMAS droite au-dessus de lpaule droite, mais sans la toucher, les doigts en positions canoniques/ + /la main droite au-dessus de lpaule gauche, sans la toucher, les doigts en positions canoniques/ ; 2) /la main droite touche la poitrine, entre le menton et le ventre, mais plus prs du menton, les trois premiers doigts runis et tenus droits, les deux derniers lgrement courbs vers lintrieur de la paume/ + /la main droite touche la poitrine, entre le menton et le ventre, plus prs du ventre, mais trs prs aussi de lendroit touch antrieurement, les doigts gardent les mmes positions/ + /la main droite touche le ct droit de la poitrine, au-dessous du sein, les doigts dans les mmes positions/ + /la main droite touche le ct gauche de la poitrine, au-dessous du sein gauche, les doigts gardent les mmes positions/ ; 3) /la main droite touche le front, les doigts en positions canoniques/ + /la main droite touche le bas de la poitrine, les doigts en positions canoniques/ + /la main droite touche lpaule droite, les doigts en positions canoniques/ + /la main droite touche le ct gauche de la poitrine, au-dessous du sein, les doigts en positions canoniques/. Si les deux premires variantes se caractrisent par leur actualisation dans le cadre dun enchanement gestuel de plusieurs signes de croix, la troisime trahit une sorte de fatigue dexcution. Le geste dlever les mains (+les bras) pour la prire est excut surtout par le prtre, en gnral lintrieur du sanctuaire, debout, et tourn vers la table de lautel. Il est excut au dbut de la liturgie de la parole, avant la lecture de lvangile ou le moment de la grande entre, et au moment de la conscration des saints dons, pour linvocation du Saint Esprit. Combin avec la position agenouille du corps, ce geste peut tre galement excut par les fidles-participants la liturgie, lors dune prire individuelle, faite dhabitude devant une icne (de liconostase). La signification de ce geste simple, dont le signifiant peut tre dcrit de la faon suivante : /(tte droite)/ + /paumes orientes vers lintrieur de lespace dfini par leur position vis--vis)/ + /(doigts runis)/, est celle de llvation du cur de celui qui prie vers Dieu, sa dvotion intrieure, tout comme sa demande dexaucer un vu urgent (Mitrofanovici 1929, p 447) . Ce geste reprsenterait donc, lactualisation non verbale dune mtaphore indicielle. La mme signification est attribue galement au geste de joindre les mains pour la prire. Ce geste connat deux variantes dactualisation : 1) /(les mains jointes au niveau de la poitrine)/ + /(position agenouille du corps)/, utilise seulement par les fidles-participants au rituel liturgique, devant les icnes de liconostase, lors des prires individuelles, ou, partout

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N.E.C. Yearbook 1996-1997 ailleurs, dans lespace intrieur de lglise, pendant la rcitation du Credo, ou de la prire dominicale, et 2) /(les mains jointes au niveau du ventre)/ + /(les bras plis au niveau du ventre)/ + /(la station debout)/, manifeste par certains prtres dans le sanctuaire (surtout, lorsquil y en a plusieurs qui clbrent la liturgie) et par certains fidles aussi, pendant tout le long de la liturgie (sauf, pendant les moments o ils doivent sagenouiller). Ce geste liturgique a t rcupr du paradigme gestuel profane, du rituel laque de lhommage (Schmitt 1990, p. 296), tant investi aprs, par lintermdiaire dun processus de mtaphorisation, avec la signification symbolique dlvation du cur vers Dieu. Mentionn par saint Basile en tant que geste de vnration des saintes personnes reprsentes dans les icnes (cf. Basilius, Epist. 340 ad Iulianum Apostatum, in Migne, Patr. Gr. T.XXXII, p. 1100), le geste dembrasser les icnes est excut par les deux grandes catgories dactants liturgiques, gnralement au dbut de la liturgie, mais aussi tout autre moment du scnario liturgique. Le geste simple dembrasser lvangliaire est excut par le prtre officiant, tout comme par les fidles, aprs le moment de la lecture de lvangile, entre les portes royales (donc, au seuil de liconostase, considr comme la partie la plus sacre de lglise, bien quelle nait pas t soumise une conscration spciale, lors du rituel de la conscration de lglise en entier), et exprime la vnration de la parole divine qui y est contenue. Cette parole transmet sa sacralit lobjet de culte embrass, et par contagion, la personne qui excute ce geste. La signification du geste simple dembrasser la main du prtre la fin de la clbration liturgique, est celle de respect manifest par rapport ce serviteur privilgi du Christ, et surtout par rapport sa main droite, celle qui uvre le mystre eucharistique et qui se trouve en contact avec les objets liturgiques et, surtout, avec les saints dons. Les fidles orthodoxes roumains reoivent le Saint Sacrement, le corps et le sang du Christ (comme tous les autres orthodoxes, dailleurs), dans une petite cuillre, qui leur est propose par le prtre, devant le sanctuaire, entre les portes royales. Le geste de la communion a connu travers le temps, une modification dactualisation. Aux dbuts, les fidles communiaient comme les prtres communient de nos jours, cest-- dire, mme le calice, tel que nous le prsente saint Cyrille de Jrusalem dans la Vme Catchse mystagogique : Quand tu tapproches, ne tavance pas les paumes des mains tendues, ni les doigts disjoints ; mais fais de la main gauche un trne pour la droite, puisque celle-ci doit recevoir le Roi

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FELICIA DUMAS et, dans le creux de ta main, reois le corps du Christ [...]. Ensuite [...], approche-toi aussi du calice de son sang. Ntends pas les mains, mais inclin, et dans un geste de respect et dadoration, en disant Amen, sanctifie-toi en prenant aussi le sang du Christ. (p. 21 et 22). Il semblerait que lusage de la cuillre ft introduit lpoque de (et mme par) saint Jean Chrysostome, pour empcher que le Saint Sacrement soit consomm par des paens. (cf. Nicephorus Callistus, Hist. eccl. L 13, c 7, apud Mitrofanovici 1929, p. 249). Le geste de faire brler un cierge a t rcupr du paradigme gestuel profane et rinvesti aprs, par lintermdiaire dun processus de mtaphorisation ralis au niveau de lobjet rituel qui dfinit ce geste, le cierge, avec une signification symbolique. (Dumas 1995-1996, p. 11). Utilis aux dbuts du christianisme dans un but pratique trs prcis, pour clairer lespace sombre des catacombes, ce geste signifie la foi et la dvotion de lactant liturgique qui laccomplit, envers Dieu, parce que la lumire matrielle du cierge symbolise la lumire ternelle, [...] Jsus Christ, la lumire de la vraie foi [...], la vie, la joie et notre adoration, en nous montrant que nous-mmes, nous sommes et nous devons tre les fils de la lumire (Mitrofanovici 1929,p.239). Ultrieurement, ce geste a t investi par les fidles-participants la liturgie, avec une signification defficacit rituelle : la demande dexaucer un vu, une action de grce, ou une demande de rmission des pchs. Pour ce qui est des positions du corps, la station debout est considre comme lattitude habituelle de lhomme en prire (Lubienska de Lenval 1957, p. 10). Elle se dfinit donc, normalement (le premier concile cumnique a interdit de sagenouiller le dimanche, car le dimanche est Pques : Clment 1982, p. 178), lintrieur dune opposition ralise par rapport la position assise. De nos jours, dans la pratique liturgique roumaine, elle soppose la position agenouille, qui a finit par semparer, en partie, de sa signification. Origne crivait parmi ses rflexions sur la prire : Pour louer, clbrer, rendre grce, on prie debout, les mains tendues. La prire genoux est de pnitence et de supplication (apud Clment 1982, p. 178). La position agenouille du corps est en gnral, lexpression de la pnitence, de la dvotion et de notre humiliation devant Dieu (Mitrofanovici 1929, p. 441). On sagenouille pendant les moments les plus importants (du point de vue symbolique) du rituel liturgique : la lecture de lvangile, la petite entre, la grande entre, la rcitation du Credo et du Notre Pre, la conscration et la prire finale, de lambon. Durant le

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N.E.C. Yearbook 1996-1997 Moyen Age, la position agenouille du corps devient lattitude normale de la prire (Schmitt 1990, p. 299). Nous navons pas trouv de descriptions crites de la faon dont on devait sagenouiller ; cependant, les expressions utilises pour dsigner cette attitude de la prire -par exemple, flchir les genoux (Basile de Csare, Trait du Saint Esprit, 27, apud Clment 1982, p. 179) -, tout comme les reprsentations iconographiques qui lui ont t consacres nous aident reconstituer un modle canonique dexcution de ce geste : /(genoux flchis)/ + /(jambes droites)/ + /(buste droit)/. Cest par rapport ce modle que nous pouvons dfinir (tout comme dans le cas du signe de la croix) plusieurs variantes pragmatiques de la position agenouille du corps, que nous avons enregistres en Roumanie, pendant la clbration de la liturgie eucharistique. Par variante pragmatique, nous comprenons toute variante qui scarte, du point de vue de lexcution, du modle canonique de ce geste, sans prsenter pour autant de changements de la signification de cette norme. Deux de ces variantes ont t inventories, en tant quinclinaisons, par Humbert de Romans, dans son commentaire des constitutions de lordre dominicain (genuflexiones recta et prostrationes, le corps reposant sur les genoux) (apud Schmitt 1990, p. 302). Voyons maintenant quelles sont ces variantes : 1) /(genoux flchis)/ + /(fesses appuyes sur les jambes et les pieds)/ + /(buste droit)/, excute notamment par des femmes, jeunes ou ges et des enfants ; 2) /(genoux flchis)/ + / (buste parallle au sol)/ + /(bras runis) + (appuys contre le sol)/ + /(mollets tendus derrire)/, excute surtout par de vieilles femmes (trs rarement par de vieux hommes) et des enfants ; 3) /(genoux flchis)/ + /(fesses appuyes sur les pieds)/ + /(bras croiss sur les jambes)/ + /(buste appuy sur les bras et sur les jambes)/, excute seulement par des femmes, jeunes ou ges, qui restent agenouilles pendant longtemps (parfois, pendant toute la dure de la clbration liturgique), et en gnral, dans des lieux un peu cachs de lglise : derrire une table, une petite colonne ; 4) /(genoux flchis)/ + /(jambes droites)/ + /(bras tendus) + (appuys contre le sol)/ + /(mains jointes)/ + /(buste allong sur les bras)/ + /(tte pose sur les mains)/. Cette variante pragmatique est actualise par la mme catgorie de femmes, situes dans le mme type dendroits (cachs) de lglise. Ce sont les significations defficacit rituelle attribues ce geste (demandes dexaucer des vux urgents, rmission des pchs) qui dterminent et qui engendrent, mme, ces variations de la forme du signifiant. La signification de la position incline de la tte est la vnration intrieure de Dieu, la dvotion profonde manifeste par rapport lui

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FELICIA DUMAS (Mitrofanovici 1929, p. 445). Les fidles baissent leur tte, pendant le droulement du rituel liturgique, lorsquils se signent, lorsquils reoivent la bndiction du prtre, ou bien, lorsque le prtre les invite le faire (Inclinez la tte devant le Seigneur). La squence gestuelle de porter son don au sanctuaire tait excute lorigine en dehors du rituel, avant le commencement de celui-ci (le vin et les prosphores taient tout simplement apports lglise pour la ralisation effective de leucharistie), puis avant la liturgie des fidles (jusquau IXe sicle, lorsque le rituel de la prothse a t dplac avant la liturgie des catchumnes), et enfin, pendant la partie prparatoire de la clbration liturgique, la prothse (ou la proscomidie), comme aujourdhui. La signification de ce geste est celle dune participation de type contributionnel au rituel, de communion symbolique, par lintermdiaire de ces offrandes, avec le Christ, prsent sous la forme des espces eucharistique, lors de la clbration de leucharistie. Ce geste aussi a t investi son tour, avec une signification pragmatique, defficacit rituelle : russite et succs dans diffrents domaines, rmission des pchs, etc. De nos jours, les fidles-participants la liturgie eucharistique portent leurs dons au sanctuaire tout moment du droulement liturgique, parfois, mme la fin de la clbration. Dans la plupart des cas, il sagit des dons de dimensions plus rduites : un cierge, de lencens et des diptyques avec les noms et les vux de lactant liturgique qui excute le geste et des membres de sa famille. Une autre squence liturgique, excute tant par les prtres (dans le sanctuaire, avant le commencement de la liturgie, avant la procession de la petite entre, pendant le chant de lhymne du Trisagion, et avant lpiclse), que par les fidles (dans la nef ou le narthex, pendant le chant du Trisagion, ou lors de la vnration des icnes de liconostase) est celle de la prosternation (ou la petite mtanie). La signification de ce geste, qui est toujours accompagn de celui de se signer et qui peut tre dfini de la manire suivante : /le corps inclin/ + /la tte incline/ + /les bras tendus vers le sol/, est la vnration, et lhumilit, manifestes lgard de Dieu, ou des saintes personnes reprsentes sur les icnes. Cest un geste engendr par une interaction posturale de type vis--vis avec une prsence symbolique, de nature sacre : le Christ, la Sainte Trinit (dans le cas du Trisagion), ou les saints figurs dans les icnes. La grande mtanie, ou la mtanie monastique, cest--dire le fait de flchir les genoux, et de toucher le sol avec les bras et le front, est une squence gestuelle excute par certains prtres dans le sanctuaire, lors

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N.E.C. Yearbook 1996-1997 de lpiclse (linvocation du Saint Esprit) et par les fidles les plus pieux (hommes et femmes) en tant que modalit trs humble de vnrer les icnes de liconostase ( nimporte quel moment de la liturgie) et, comme nous lavons dj vu, en tant que rplique daccomplissement gestuel dun acte de langage comportatif (lorsque le chur chante, au moment de la petite entre : Venez, adorons et prosternons-nous devant le Christ. Sauve-nous, Fils de Dieu...). La bndiction est un geste simple excut par le prtre-officiant, notamment en sa qualit de symbole du Christ. La bndiction est donne avec la main droite, en ralisant le signe de la croix sur lassemble des fidles, de haut en bas et de gauche droite, de faon ce que ce signe se pose normalement, de droite gauche, sur les destinataires de ce geste. La position des doigts de la main droite est bien codifie : lindex est tendu pour former la lettre <<I>>, tandis que le mdius est pli en forme de <<C>>. Le pouce et le quatrime doigt sont croiss en forme de <<X>>, et le petit doigt est nouveau pli en <<C>>, de sorte que nous avons <<I, C, X, C>>, les lettres initiales et finales du nom grec de Jsus-Christ. (Lewis, 1988, p. 49). La signification de ce geste est lenvoi de la paix, de la srnit et de la grce divine sur le destinataire de la bndiction. La raction gestuelle des fidles -participants loffice liturgique, engendre par ce geste, est celle de se signer tout en baissant leur tte. La bndiction est un geste simple qui accompagne une bndiction verbale (un nonc verbal, donc), qui existait dj aux dbuts du christianisme : les Constitutions Apostoliques mentionnent, entre autres, de pareilles bndictions pour les catchumnes, pour les nergumnes, etc. A cette poque-l, la bndiction tait donne par lvque, parce que ctait lui qui clbrait leucharistie. Ensuite, la bndiction a commenc tre donne galement par les prtres. De nos jours encore, lorsquun vque participe la liturgie, cest lui qui bnit le peuple, avec deux groupes de deux et respectivement, de trois cierges allums dans ses mains. Pendant le rituel liturgique, le prtre bnit lassistance plusieurs fois : avant la lecture de lEvangile, en disant les mots Paix tous (Sagesse ! Debout ! Ecoutons le saint Evangile, paix tous !) ; avant le moment liturgique de la grande entre, pendant que le chur chante lhymne du Chrubikon, avant de commencer la procession avec le calice et la patne (cest le seul moment de la liturgie, o la bndiction du prtre nest pas accompagne dun nonc verbal) ; aprs la conscration des saints dons,

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FELICIA DUMAS tout en disant une bndiction verbale : Que les misricordes de notre grand Dieu et Sauveur Jsus-Christ soient avec vous tous !; et aprs la rcitation de loraison dominicale, accompagnant les mots Paix tous !. Lorsquil accompagne un nonc verbal (cest--dire, dans la plupart des cas de son excution), ce geste reprsente lactualisation effective de la signification de cet nonc. Il sagit dun cumul de signifiants diffrents qui vise laugmentation de lefficacit rituelle de la signification. Pourquoi le prtre est-il le seul actant liturgique qui ait le droit dexcuter ce geste, pendant le rituel liturgique ? Parce que sa main droite (et pratiquement, tout son bras) est un support privilgi de la transmission de la grce divine. Parce quil a donc, le pouvoir de le faire ; sa main droite le reprsente dailleurs, dune manire mtonymique, lui, le prtre officiant, en tant que servant de lautel et clbrant du mystre eucharistique. Aux moments o la bndiction accompagne les mots Paix tous, le prtre est effectivement le symbole du Christ, en remmorisant la bndiction donne par celui-ci aux aptres, aprs la Rsurrection, ou pendant son Ascension. Outre ces gestes liturgiques, qui relvent de la Tradition avec une majuscule, mentionns par les crits des Saints Pres, et dcrits par les thologiens liturgistes, nous en avons observ dautres, sans tradition crite, mais excuts dj, dans certaines rgions du pays, et dans certaines paroisses et monastres, depuis assez longtemps, et plac sous le signe dune tradition videmment plus rcente. Il sagit du geste du prtre-officiant de toucher les ttes des fidles, lors de la procession de la grande entre, avec le calice port dans la main droite, et de plusieurs gestes et squences gestuelles excuts par les fidles participants au rituel liturgique : le geste de toucher les vtements sacerdotaux, lorsque le prtre se trouve leur proximit (cest, donc, un geste dont lactualisation est dtermine par la disposition des actants liturgiques dans lespace intrieur de lglise) ; le geste de sallonger par terre, entre la porte de gauche de liconostase et les portes royales, pendant le moment liturgique de la grande entre, pour que le prtre qui sort en procession avec les Saints Dons, les enjambe ; lagenouillement tout prs du prtre, lors du moment liturgique de la lecture de lEvangile ; la squence gestuelle de sapprocher du sanctuaire, en se signant, linvitation du prtre pour la communion : Approchez avec crainte de Dieu, foi et amour ! Le mode de production smiotique de ces gestes est linvention : un mode de production qui exige que le producteur de la fonction smiotique choisisse un continuum matriel, non encore segment en fonction des intentions quil se propose,

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N.E.C. Yearbook 1996-1997 et suggre une nouvelle manire de le structurer, pour y oprer les transformations des lments pertinents dun type de contenu. (Eco 1992, p. 95). Ces gestes aussi ont t rcuprs du paradigme profane et investis aprs avec des significations nouvelles ; sauf que, dans leur cas, la premire tape de ce processus de re-smantisation gestuelle a t celle dinvestissement avec des significations defficacit rituelle, rcupres ultrieurement en tant que symboliques, dans la continuit des significations symboliques attribues aux autres gestes rituels actualiss dans le contexte communicationnel de la liturgie eucharistique byzantine. La signification defficacit rituelle du geste de toucher les vtements du prtre est lattraction de certains dons positifs, ou bien, une gurison morale ou physique. Les fidles touchent et embrassent la chasuble ou lpitrachilion du prtre, avec leur main droite ou avec leur front, lors des processions de la petite et surtout de la grande entre, ou lorsque le prtre passe parmi eux pour encenser lglise (avant la lecture de lvangile, et pendant le chant du Chrubikon). Cette squence gestuelle connat un dveloppement maximal pendant le moment liturgique de la grande entre, lorsque le prtre reste plus longtemps au milieu des fidles. Dans ce cas, elle se compose des figures gestuelles suivantes : /(position agenouille du corps)/ + /(on embrasse le bas de lpitrachilion)/ + /(on touche le front avec le bas de lpitrachilion)/ + /(on touche les yeux avec le bas de lpitrachilion)/ + /(on embrasse un pan de la chasuble)/ + /(on touche le front avec le pan de la chasuble)/ + /(on touche les yeux avec le pan de la chasuble)/ + [ dans certains cas] /(on embrasse le sticharion)/ + /(on touche le front avec le sticharion)/ + /(on embrasse le bas de la soutane)/. La signification symbolique, investie par lintermdiaire dune analogie (de type symbolique) entre le prtre et le Christ, est lhumilit extrme manifeste par rapport la personne qui porte le vtement en question (vtement qui fait partie de limage de son corps), le geste tant mentionn par lvangile selon saint Matthieu (9, 20) : Et voici quune femme atteinte dune perte de sang depuis douze ans sapprocha par derrire, et toucha le bord de son vtement. Car elle disait en elle-mme : si je puis seulement toucher son vtement, je serai gurie. Pratiquement, la mme signification defficacit rituelle : gurison, rmission des pchs, est investie dans le cas de la squence gestuelle excute par les fidles lors de la grande entre, en sallongeant par terre (entre la porte de gauche de liconostase et les portes royales), pour que le prtre officiant les enjambe avec les saints dons. Pareils aux malades des

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FELICIA DUMAS vangiles qui sapprochaient en toute humilit du Christ, en esprant tre guris, les fidles-participants au rituel liturgique sabandonnent, dans une position trs humble, la volont divine et au pouvoir thaumaturge du Christ, qui, conformment linterprtation allgorique de la grande entre, se dirige ce moment liturgique, vers Jrusalem. En ce qui concerne le geste du prtre, actualis au mme moment du scnario liturgique (la procession de la grande entre), de toucher les ttes des fidles (agenouills ou non), avec le calice quil porte dans sa main droite, la signification defficacit rituelle est celle de sanctification des bnficiaires de cette manifestation gestuelle. Nous pensons que la motivation de ce geste est la volont du prtre de faire partager ses fidles la nature sanctificatrice du saint calice (soutenue par sa fonction rituelle, de contenir et de conserver les saints dons), tout en les impliquant, de cette faon participante, la clbration du rituel eucharistique. Dans la plupart des cas, dans les glises o la liturgie eucharistique est officie par deux ou plusieurs prtres, ce geste est accompagn par la squence gestuelle de prsenter aux fidles-participants, pour lembrasser, la croix qui reste dhabitude, sur lautel, et dont le prtre se sert pour bnir lassemble certains moments du scnario liturgique. Cette croyance selon laquelle on peut se sanctifier par le contact avec les objets porteurs de saintet nest pas tellement rcente. Dans la Vme Catchse mystagogique (22, 1-6), saint Cyrille de Jrusalem enseignait aux chrtiens qui recevaient la communion, tandis que leurs lvres taient encore humides, de les effleurer de leurs mains, et de sanctifier aprs, leurs yeux, leur front et leurs autres sens. Dans ses rflexions sur le Sacerdoce, saint Jean Chrysostome leur donnait le mme conseil (III, 4,30). Le prtre touche le front des fidles qui se tiennent debout pour lactualisation de ce geste, ou la tte de ceux qui sagenouillent pendant ce moment liturgique. Les fidles ne sont que les bnficiaires de ce geste ; il leur est interdit dembrasser le calice ou de le toucher avec la main. Le geste des fidles-participants au rituel liturgique, de sagenouiller trs prs du support-chevalet qui soutient lvangliaire pendant la lecture de lvangile (support utilis seulement dans les glises o la liturgie nest pas clbre avec des diacres, qui lisent lvangile sur lambon, dans la nef) est engendr par la signification attribue lvangliaire, lobjet liturgique qui dfinit cette manifestation gestuelle. Le sens dun objet rituel, crit Pierre Cordoba, est distinguer de sa fonction ; celle-ci appartient au domaine de la conscience claire, celui-l relve de limpens culturel qui est lobjet propre de la recherche anthropologique (1990,

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N.E.C. Yearbook 1996-1997 p. 139-140). La fonction rituelle de lvangliaire est celle de contenir le verbe divin, cest--dire, un aspect rvl de la divinit. En tant que contenant, il est donc, imprgn de la saintet de son contenu, et cest pour cette raison que cet objet rituel est considr comme sanctificateur et comme porteur de vertus de gurison. Les fidles sagenouillent le plus prs possible du chevalet qui soutient lvangliaire, pour bnficier, par contagion, de la saintet de lobjet liturgique pos par le prtre sur ce support. La qualit sanctificatrice de lvangliaire se transmet, par contagion, son support, et, aprs, toujours par contagion, aux fidles qui touchent le chevalet avec leur tte ou avec leur front. Linvestissement de la signification defficacit rituelle de cette position gestuelle (gurison et sanctification) est ralis par lintermdiaire dune analogie avec les gurisons faites par le Christ, avec la parole, pendant son existence historique. Et linterprtation allgorique de la squence liturgique de la lecture de lvangile (le moment dactualisation de ce geste) est, justement, lannonce, la propagation, de lenseignement du Christ, de son vivant, qui a toujours t accompagne par la gurison des malades quIl rencontrait cette occasion. Quant la squence gestuelle de sapprocher du sanctuaire (en faisant un ou deux pas vers liconostase), lorsque le prtre invite, en fait, les fidles-participants lactualisation du geste de communier (en prononant les mots : Approchez, avec crainte de Dieu, foi et amour), nous pouvons affirmer quelle reprsente une sorte de geste compensatoire, apparu lorsque la communion a commenc devenir de plus en plus rare (tant conditionne par des prescriptions restrictives : confession obligatoire et jene). De nos jours, ce geste est repris, par imitation mcanique, par plusieurs fidles-participants la liturgie, dont la plupart ignorent, le plus souvent, la motivation initiale de son invention. Comme nous lavons dj vu, lactualisation de certains gestes liturgiques suppose lintervention de quelques objets rituels. Essayons donc, dtudier, par la suite, leurs significations symboliques, leur rle smiotique, les moments de leur intervention, les gestes liturgiques engendrs et les croyances roumaines rattaches ces objets.

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3. Les objets rituels impliqus dans le droulement de la liturgie byzantine et leur importance smiotique
Les objets rituels utiliss par le prtre officiant pendant la clbration de la liturgie eucharistique, et montrs lassemble des fidles, sont la croix, lvangliaire, le calice + la cuillre, et la patne ou le diskos. Ils constituent des phanies, des reprsentations du sacr, qui engendrent une grande partie des manifestations gestuelles des fidles- participants au rituel liturgique, tout en dfinissant certains gestes du prtre. Dailleurs, dans ce dernier cas, ils reprsentent des prolongements du bras droit (ou des bras) de celui-ci.

3.1. La croix La croix reprsente le signe du Fils de lHomme, le signe de la victoire des chrtiens contre la mort, et contre les pchs. En tant quobjet rituel, elle est utilise par le prtre officiant surtout pour lactualisation de lune des formes du geste liturgique de la bndiction. Dans ce cas, elle reprsente un prolongement du bras droit du prtre, qui bnit les fidles, en faisant sur eux le signe de la croix, lobjet reprsentant une sorte dauthentification de la bndiction. Nous avons dj vu quel tait le moment liturgique dactualisation de la bndiction avec la croix (aprs la rcitation du Credo). Les ractions gestuelles engendres par ce geste sont la position incline de la tte et le signe de la croix (en ce qui concerne les fidles- participants au rituel liturgique) et, pour ce qui est du prtre qui lexcute, le fait dembrasser la croix, la fin de cette bndiction. La croix est galement montre lassemble pendant la procession de la grande entre, et propose pour tre embrasse aux fidles-participants, spcialement disposs dans lespace intrieur de lglise (de la porte de gauche de liconostase, devant les portes royales et aprs, en laissant un petit couloir au milieu de la nef, jusqu la porte dentre). Dans ce cas, elle participe la dfinition smiotique du geste simple dembrasser la croix, actualis par les fidles en mme temps que la squence gestuelle (excute par le prtre) de toucher leurs ttes, pendant le mme moment du scnario liturgique.

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N.E.C. Yearbook 1996-1997 3.2. Lvangliaire Lvangliaire reprsente le livre de la nouvelle Alliance, de la nouvelle loi du Christ, le livre qui renferme le Verbe divin. Cest pour cela quil est reli en or ou en argent dor, avec des pierres prcieuses. En tant quobjet rituel, lvangliaire est montr au peuple, pendant la clbration de la liturgie eucharistique byzantine, lors de la procession de la petite entre : le prtre sort par la porte de gauche du sanctuaire, en tenant lvangliaire dans ses mains, prcd par le sacristain, un cierge allum dans sa main, et entre (aprs avoir bni le sanctuaire) par les portes royales de liconostase. A lorigine, cette squence liturgique avait une fonction purement pratique, celle dentre proprement-dite dans le temple (sens premier de la petite entre), puis celle de procession du clerg sa place pour clbrer la liturgie de la Parole (Schmmann 1985, p. 68). Le rle smiotique de lvangliaire est celui de dfinir le geste simple dembrasser cet objet liturgique. Actualis par les fidles la fin du moment de la lecture de lvangile, ce geste simple dtermine tout un changement de la disposition des actants liturgiques dans lespace intrieur de lglise. Debout, au seuil du sanctuaire (entre les portes royales), tenant lvangliaire dans ses mains, le prtre le prsente aux fidles-participants la liturgie, qui quittent leurs places, se dplacent vers liconostase et passent devant celle-ci pour embrasser lvangliaire. Ensuite, ils continuent leur dplacement, en passant devant licne de la Vierge (de liconostase), et regagnent leurs places. Nous avons dj vu que lvangliaire engendrait galement le geste des fidles de sagenouiller trs prs du chevalet-support sur lequel il est mis lors de la lecture de lvangile. Un autre geste liturgique lactualisation duquel il participe est la bndiction avec lvangliaire, ralise par le prtre la fin de la lecture de lvangile, en tenant lvangliaire dans ses mains et en faisant avec lui, le signe de la croix (selon le trajet smiotique de toute bndiction : de haut en bas et de gauche droite) sur lassemble. Les ractions gestuelles des fidles-participants au rituel liturgique, la vue de lvangliaire, pendant la procession de la petite entre, tout comme lors de la lecture de lvangile ou de la bndiction avec cet objet de culte, sont la position agenouille du corps, la position incline de la tte, le geste de se signer et la prosternation.

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FELICIA DUMAS 3.3. Le calice (+ la cuillre) Le calice est lun des objets liturgiques les plus anciens, dont lutilisation remonte aux origines de la clbration eucharistique. Sa fonction est celle de garder le vin eucharistique et le Saint Sacrement pendant la liturgie. Fait aux dbuts du christianisme de matriaux trs simples (bois ou verre), il a commenc tre ralis aprs ( partir du IVe sicle), de plus en plus souvent et presque exclusivement, de matriaux prcieux, or, ou argent dor. Il est gard galement dans le sanctuaire, et montr lassemble des fidles pendant la procession de la grande entre, pendant la communion, et aprs la communion, lors de quelques bndictions ralises avec cet objet de culte, dont nous avons dj parl. La vue du Saint Sacrement a engendr depuis toujours, chez les fidles, des ractions gestuelles de vnration, tout comme le dsir du contact direct, par lintermdiaire du toucher, avec lobjet de culte qui le renfermait. Si le monde orthodoxe ne connat pas le dsir de voir lhostie (Dumoutet 1926), par contre, la vue du calice (en dehors du sanctuaire, bien videmment, et surtout pendant la grande entre) engendre toujours des manifestations gestuelles de vnration et dhumilit : lagenouillement, la position incline de la tte et la prosternation, (dans certains cas, la grande mtanie), tout comme le dsir de lembrasser (geste actualis dans certaines glises orthodoxes roumaines de paroisse, pendant les bndictions donnes avec le calice aprs le moment liturgique de la communion). Le calice est galement montr au peuple lors de linvitation prononce par le prtre lactualisation du geste de la communion. Le tenant dans ses mains, le prtre savance un peu en dehors du sanctuaire, devant les portes royales, en exhortant les fidles sapprocher pour communier : Approchez avec crainte de Dieu, amour et foi. Les ractions gestuelles de ces derniers sont le geste simple de communier, la squence gestuelle de sapprocher effectivement, en faisant quelques pas dans la direction du sanctuaire, ou le signe de la croix combin avec la prosternation. Accompagn de la cuillre, le calice ralise la dfinition smiotique de la squence gestuelle, actualise par le prtre-officiant, de donner la communion aux fidles. En citant un fragment de lexplication donne par saint Ephrme le Syrien au sixime chapitre du livre dEsae, Mitrofanovici affirme que la petite cuillre utilise pour la communion reprsente la pincette avec laquelle lun des sraphins avait touch les lvres du prophte, aprs avoir pris une pierre ardente sur lautel, en le

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N.E.C. Yearbook 1996-1997 purifiant, de cette faon, de ses pchs : Il en toucha ma bouche et dit : Ceci a touch tes lvres ; ton iniquit est enleve, et ton pch est expi (Esae 6,7) (Mitrofanovici 1929, p. 250). Par consquent, la signification du geste de communier serait engendre non seulement par la signification du Saint Sacrement, conserv dans le calice, mais aussi par la signification symbolique de la cuillre.

3.4. La patne La patne, ou le diskos, est toujours montre au peuple avec le calice, deux moments liturgiques trs prcis : pendant la procession de la grande entre, et en accompagnant une bndiction verbale, prononce par le prtre officiant, aprs la communion: En tout temps, maintenant et toujours et dans les sicles des sicles. La signification symbolique de type allgorique de la patne (vase liturgique de forme ronde et plate) est celle de crche, de lieu de la Nativit du Christ (Mitrofanovici 1929, p. 246). Sa fonction liturgique est de garder les parcelles de prosphores, dcoupes pendant la proscomidie, qui serviront loffrande eucharistique. Pendant la procession de la grande entre, la patne est porte par le prtre (qui garde le calice dans sa main droite) dans la main gauche, lexception des cathdrales piscopales et mtropolitaines, o elle est porte par un autre prtre co-clbrant. Elle ne participe pas lactualisation du geste du prtre de toucher les ttes des fidles avec le calice, ni la dfinition smiotique dun geste dembrasser la patne. Le seul geste quelle dfinit smiotiquement, mais avec le calice, est la bndiction ralise par le prtre avec ces deux objets de culte, au moment liturgique dj mentionn. Ces objets rituels sont prsents galement dans certaines croyances roumaines, qui valorisent, en gnral, des significations defficacit rituelle: Si quelquun a mal la tte, on croit que cest bien de sagenouiller sous lvangliaire, et il sera guri (Gorovei 1925, p. 52); On croit que pour chapper une douleur de la tte, cest bien de regarder dans le saint calice (ibidem).

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4. Lappropriation de lespace ecclsiastique et lactualisation des gestes liturgiques

4.1. Un espace sacr: lglise Lespace intrieur de lglise byzantine est un espace bien dfini et individualis. Cest un espace sacr, dcoup dans lensemble amorphe de lespace profane, un vase qui reoit, aprs un rituel de conscration, le transcendant qui descend, pour sy rvler (Blaga 1994). Dfinie par saint Simon, larchevque de Thessalonique, en tant que maison de Dieu (1865, p. 120), lglise byzantine se compose de trois grandes parties, parce que Dieu est Trinit: le vestibule, la nef et le sanctuaire. Chacune de ces parties est occupe par les actants liturgiques selon une logique traditionnelle: le sanctuaire est rserv aux prtres et au clerg en gnral (le canon 69 du concile in Trullo interdit aux lacs lentre du sanctuaire: Paprocki 1993, p. 195), la nef est occupe par les fidles, et le vestibule est rserv aux pnitents et aux femmes impures. En ce qui concerne la distribution des fidles dans la nef, les femmes doivent se tenir part, lcart des hommes (Les Constitutions Apostoliques le mentionnent dj), dhabitude dans la partie gauche, la partie droite tant occupe par les hommes; les moniales, les moines et les enfants se tiennent toujours dans la nef, devant tout le monde. Les fidles participent donc linteraction liturgique orients vers le sanctuaire, lintrieur duquel le prtre clbre leucharistie, et qui est spar de la nef, dans lglise byzantine, par la paroi de liconostase recouverte dicnes. Ils se trouveront donc toujours devant les icnes de liconostase et devant le prtre qui leur permet, certains moments liturgiques, laccs visuel dans le sanctuaire (par exemple, conformment la dcision du synode des Cent Chapitres, le prtre doit fermer les portes royales aprs la grande entre: Paprocki 1993, p. 290). Cette disposition spatiale oriente la plupart des manifestations proxmiques des actants liturgiques: le prtre savance vers le peuple, en sortant du sanctuaire, et les fidles sapprochent de liconostase (le seuil du sanctuaire), pour actualiser toute une srie de gestes ou de squences gestuelles: le fait de porter son offrande au sanctuaire, lagenouillement sous lvangliaire lors de la lecture de lEvangile, le geste dembrasser les icnes de liconostase, lagenouillement et les mains jointes pour la prire devant ses icnes, le dplacement vers liconostase pour communier, la squence

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N.E.C. Yearbook 1996-1997 gestuelle de faire quelques pas dans la direction du sanctuaire lors de linvitation du prtre dapprocher pour la communion. En mme temps, le geste excut dfinit son propre espace, dcoup par les mouvements du corps lintrieur de lespace personnel de chaque actant liturgique. Cette dlimitation est faite en fonction de quelques aspects anthropologiques, tels le bilatralisme du corps humain dont parle Jousse (Jousse 1974), qui dfinit la gauche et la droite, et la verticalit de celui- ci. Cet espace peut tre modifi selon les distances tablies entre les actants liturgiques pendant le rituel; on remarque, par exemple, limpossibilit de se signer, ou de sagenouiller, cause de lentassement des fidles, dans des glises trop pleines.

4.2. La relation espace - geste liturgique La disposition des actants liturgiques dans lespace intrieur de lglise engendre, dans le cas des fidles-participants la liturgie eucharistique, une srie de gestes et de postures congruentes par rapport ceux du prtre (lagenouillement ou le signe de la croix), tout en leur imposant un certain rythme et une certaine frquence dexcution. Le premier augmente mesure que lon sloigne du sanctuaire, tandis que la deuxime diminue mesure que lon sloigne de liconostase et que lon approche de la sortie. Les manifestations gestuelles et proxmiques actualises par les fidles pendant la clbration du rituel liturgique sont orientes galement par la modification des distances que le prtre tablit par rapport eux, en gnral, lorsquil sort du sanctuaire. Ainsi, la procession de la petite entre dtermine-t- elle lactualisation de lagenouillement et du geste de se signer; celle de la grande entre, le dplacement vers le prtre pour quil leur touche la tte avec le calice et lagenouillement; lencensement de lglise a comme ractions gestuelles chez les fidles le geste de se signer, la position incline de la tte, et de se rapprocher du prtre pour toucher sa chasuble ou lpitrachilion; lapparition du clbrant entre les portes royales (en gnral, pour bnir lassemble) dtermine lagenouillement des fidles, leur geste de se signer ou leur prosternation. Lactualisation de certains gestes liturgiques est condition- ne par une disposition bien prcise des actants qui les excutent, dans lespace intrieur de lglise. Ainsi, le prtre excute la plupart des gestes qui relvent de sa qualit de clbrant de la liturgie, seulement dans le

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FELICIA DUMAS sanctuaire; il sagit, par exemple, de la squence gestuelle de dcouper les parcelles de prosphore, de celle de remuer le grand vlon au-dessus des saints dons pendant la rcitation du Credo, tout comme des gestes simples dlever les mains pour la prire et du baiser de la paix. La bndiction et la squence gestuelle de donner la communion aux fidles ne sont actualises quau seuil du sanctuaire, entre les portes royales. Enfin, dans la nef, le prtre actualise le geste de lencensement de lglise et les squences gestuelles de toucher les ttes des fidles avec le calice, pendant la grande entre, et celle de distribuer aux fidles, la fin de la liturgie eucharistique, les fragments des prosphores do il a extrait les parcelles consacres: lantidoron. Il en est de mme des manifestations gestuelles des fidles-participants au rituel liturgique. Le signe de la croix, lagenouillement, la prosternation et le geste de joindre les mains pour la prire sont excuts nimporte quel endroit de la nef et du narthex. Lactualisation des gestes simples de la communion et de celui dembrasser lvangliaire, tout comme de lagenouillement sous lvangliaire pendant la lecture de lEvangile, se fait uniquement devant les portes royales de liconostase. Quant la squence gestuelle de porter son don au sanctuaire, elle nest excute que devant la porte de gauche du sanctuaire.

5. La contribution du vtement lactualisation des significations du gestuel liturgique orthodoxe

5.1. Les vtements sacerdotaux Les vtements sacerdotaux ont un rle fondamental dans la dfinition de la fonction liturgique du prtre, en ralisant son investissement en tant que clbrant du mystre eucharistique. Ils font donc partie de limage du corps du prtre officiant, serviteur de lautel. Dailleurs, le Rituel contient plusieurs prires que les clbrants prononcent pendant quils shabillent avec ces vtements. Quant leurs significations (toujours symboliques), elles prsentent un rapport danalogie, soit avec la forme, soit avec la fonction du rfrent. Le sticharion, la longue robe blanche que le prtre met par-dessus la soutane, reprsente le linceul du Christ, et la puret de celui qui le porte (Simon de Thessalonique, 1865). Lpitrachilion, ltole qui entoure le

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N.E.C. Yearbook 1996-1997 cou du prtre, dont les deux parties sont cousues sur le devant, symbolise la grce du Saint Esprit qui descend sur celui qui accomplit le sacrifice eucharistique, reprsentant le joug doux de Jsus et la ficelle avec laquelle il a t attach la croix. La chasuble ou le phlonion est le vtement liturgique de dessus, qui drive de la plerine romaine (Paprocki 1993, p. 176). Selon le mme Simon de Thessalonique, elle symbolise le manteau carlate dont les soldats du gouverneur avaient couvert Jsus avant la crucifixion, ou, selon A. Schmmann, la gloire de lEglise comme crature nouvelle (Schmmann 1985). La ceinture est un signe dobissance, de disponibilit, de sobrit et de service (Schmmann 1985, p. 17). Enfin, les surmanches, devenues vtements liturgiques des prtres au XIIe ou au XIIIe sicle, symbolisent que les mains de ceux-ci [...] ne sont plus eux, mais bien au Christ (Paprocki 1993, p. 170). Par rapport dautres offices, pour la clbration desquels, le prtre peut porter seulement lpitrachilion et la chasuble, son habillement complet, avec tous ces vtements, est obligatoire pour laccomplissement du mystre eucharistique. Pratiquement, un geste liturgique que le prtre doit excuter en sa qualit de serviteur de lautel ne peut tre actualis quaprs quil se soit vtu compltement comme clbrant liturgique. Il en est de mme des squences gestuelles quil doit excuter dans son hypostase de symbole du Christ.

5.2. Les habits des fidles Lhabillement liturgique du prtre est orient, tout comme lhabillement des fidles participants la liturgie, vers deux catgories de rcepteurs: la Divinit et les hommes. Si aux yeux de la Divinit, les vtements sacerdotaux confrent au prtre une identit nouvelle, choisie pour la clbration du mystre eucharistique, aux yeux des hommes, ils reprsentent des objets sacrs, sanctifis et gards dans le sanctuaire, quils touchent et quils embrassent avec vnration, lorsquils ont loccasion de le faire (quand le prtre se trouve leur proximit). Quant leur propre habillement, pour leur rencontre avec Dieu, les fidles participants la liturgie portent des vtements corrects, convenables. Propos aux autres hommes qui participent au rituel liturgique, leur habillement est un habillement de fte, qui comporte, en gnral, leurs dernires acquisitions vestimentaires. Un habillement correct signifie une manire de shabiller dcente, qui ne dtourne pas lattention ou les regards des autres, des choses essentielles

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FELICIA DUMAS de la liturgie, vers une lgance extravagante (condamne entre autres, par Tertullien dans La toilette des femmes), ou la dnudation de certaines parties du corps, qui, conformment un code traditionnel (plus ou moins crit), doivent tre couvertes: la tte, les paules et les jambes. Les plus fondamentalistes interdisent mme lusage du pantalon (du moins lglise) chez les femmes. En fait, on rejette une image trop moderne de la femme, habille de pantalon, considre comme signe dun mlange des sexes, en voulant garder tout prix une image traditionnelle de celle-ci, qui nest pas du tout trangre celle des femmes du temps de Jsus: elle doit avoir la tte couverte (Les Constitutions apostoliques mentionnent dj cette prescription), porter une longue jupe, et une blouse dcente (qui lui couvre les paules, et qui ne soit pas trop dcollete). Tout cart dfini par rapport cette norme vestimentaire dtermine une certaine disposition des fidles dans lespace intrieur de lglise (ceux qui ne sont pas habills dune manire correcte se tiennent plus prs de la sortie, dans le vestibule), tout comme linterdiction dactualisation des gestes qui supposent le rapprochement du sanctuaire, de llment sacr et du regard divin: la squence gestuelle de porter son don au sanctuaire, ou la communion. Les habits du fidle-participant la liturgie font partie de limage de son corps. Ils contribuent donc, en mme temps que celui-ci lactualisation de ses gestes liturgiques. Si les vtements sacerdotaux confrent au prtre officiant une nouvelle identit, et leurs significations dterminent lactualisation des significations de ses gestes liturgiques, les habits des fidles doivent confrer ceux-ci une identit la plus proche possible du religieux. Les significations des gestes liturgiques quils excutent sont actualises au moment de lexcution de ces gestes, leurs habits devenant (dans le cas idal) des sortes dhabits incarns, qui font partie de leur corps, devenu, pendant la liturgie le Corps de lHomme, qui se rachte par la prire et se transfigure par la communion avec le Christ.

6. En guise de conclusion
Dans une perspective thologique, les manifestations gestuelles des fidles-participants la liturgie eucharistique pourraient tre classes et dfinies en fonction de deux manires diffrentes de concevoir et de vivre le christianisme: lorthodoxie et lorthopraxie. Si lorthodoxie reprsente la vrit doctrinale, exprime au niveau de la pratique gestuelle liturgique par un tat de connaissance, qui engendre une participation consciente,

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N.E.C. Yearbook 1996-1997 en toute foi, la prire liturgique, lorthopraxie est constitue par tous les carts dfinis et enregistrs par rapport un modle juridique, par une pratique gestuelle dsordonne et multiplie du point de vue de la frquence, engendre souvent par une connaissance insuffisante des significations des gestes excuts. Pour le chercheur smiologue, le gestuel liturgique byzantin constitue un objet de recherche extrmement riche et vari, dont la complexit relve de la manire dont les deux grandes catgories dactants liturgiques envisagent leur participation communicationnelle linteraction liturgique.

Rfrences bibliographiques
1. Austin, J. L., 1970, Quand dire, cest faire, Paris, Seuil; 2. Barthes, R., 1967, Systme de la mode, Paris, Seuil; 3. Basilius, Epist. 340 ad Iulianum Apostatum, in Migne, Patr. gr., T. XXXII; 4. Benveniste, E., 1966, Problmes de linguistique gnrale, I, Gallimard, Paris; 5. Birdwhistell, Ray L., 1981, Un exercice de kinsique et de linguistique: la Scne de la cigarette, in Winkin, Y., La nouvelle communication, Paris, Seuil; 6. Blaga, L., 1994, Transcendentul care coboar, n Spaiul mioritic, Bucureti, Humanitas; 7. Brunetire, V., 1991, Les outils danalyse du gestuel, in La tlvision, les dbats culturels, <<Apostrophes>>, Paris, Didier Editions; 8. Cabasila, N., 1989, Tlcuirea dumnezeietii liturghii i despre viaa n Hristos (trad. roumaine), Editura Arhiepiscopiei Bucuretilor; 9. Cazeneuve, J., 1971, Sociologie du rite, Paris, P.U.F.; 10. Clment, O., 1982, Les mystiques chrtiens des origines, Editions Stock; 11. Constitutions Apostoliques, Tome I, Livres I et II, Tome III, livres VII et VIII, introduction, texte critique, traductions et notes par Marcel Metzer, Cerf, 1985 et 1987; 12. Cordoba, P., 1990, La pomme et les ciseaux. Pour une smiotique de lobjet rituel, in La fiesta, la ceremonia, el rito, Coloquio internacional, Actas reunidas y presentadas por Pierre Cordoba y Jean-Pierre Etienvre, Casa de Velasquez, Universidad de Granada; 13. Corraze, J., 1980, Les communications non verbales, Paris, P.U.F.; 14. Cosnier, J., 1984, La communication non verbale, Delachaux & Niestl, Neuchtel, Paris; 15. Cyrille de Jrusalem, Catchses mystagogiques, deuxime d. revue et augmente, trad. de Pierre Paris, introduction, texte critique et notes de Auguste Pidagnel de lOratoire, Cerf, Paris, 1988;

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16. Descamps, Marc-Alain, 1989, Le langage du corps et la communication corporelle, Paris, P.U.F.; 17. Dionisie pseudo Areopagitul, 1994, Ierarhia cereasc i ierarhia bisericeasc, traducere i studiu introductiv de Cicerone Iordchescu, Postfa de tefan Aforoaiei, Institutul European, Iai; 18. Dumas, F., 1994, Sur la communication dans la liturgie orthodoxe (en roumain), n Analele Universitii Al. I. Cuza din Iai, Filosofie, Tome XL-XLII; 19. Dumas, F., 1995-1996, Techniques de re-smantisation dans le gestuel liturgique orthodoxe (en roumain), n Analele Universitii Al. I. Cuza din Iai, Section de Linguistique, Tome XLI-XLII; 20. Dumas, F., 1997, Le signe de la croix -tude smiologique, n Actele colocviului internaional de tiine ale Limbajului, Suceava; 21. Dumoutet, E., 1926, Le dsir de voir lhostie et les origines de la dvotion au Saint Sacrement, Paris, G. Duchesne; 22. Durkheim, E., 1912, Les formes lmentaires de la vie religieuse, Paris; 23. Eco, U., 1972, La structure absente, Paris, Mercure de France; 24. Eco, U., 1992, La production des signes, Librairie Gnrale Franaise; 25. Ekman, P. et Friesen, W.V., 1969, The repertoire of nonverbal behavior: Categories, origins, usage, and coding, in Semiotica, 1; 26. Ernoult et Meillet, 1939, Dictionnaire tymologique de la langue latine, Histoire des mots, Paris, Kliencksieck; 27. Frey, S., & alii, 1984, Analyse intgre du Comportement non Verbal et Verbal dans le domaine de la communication, in Cosnier, J., La communication non verbale, Delachaux & Niestl, Neuchtel, Paris; 28. Goffman, E., 1974, Les rites dinteraction, Paris, Minuit; 29. Goffman, E., 1981, Engagement, in Winkin, Y., La nouvelle communication, Paris, Seuil; 30. Greimas, A.J., 1970, Du sens. Essais smiotiques, Paris, Seuil; 31. Groupe , 1992, Trait du signe visuel. Pour une rhtorique de limage, Paris, Seuil; 32. Guiraud, Pierre, 1980, Le langage du corps, Paris, P.U.F.; 33. Hall, E.T., 1971, La dimension cache, Paris, Seuil; 34. Hall, E.T., 1984, Le langage silencieux, Paris, Seuil; 35. Heusch, Luc de, 1974, Introduction une ritologie gnrale, in Pour une anthropologie fondamentale, Essais et discussions prsents et comments par E. Morin, Tome 3, Paris, Seuil; 36. Hutt, C., 1968, Dictionnaire du langage gestuel chez les trappistes, in Langages, 10; 37. Ionescu-Amza, I., 1982, Sfnta liturghie pe nelesul tuturor, Bucureti; 38. Jaubert, A., 1990, La lecture pragmatique, Hachette; 39. Jean Chrysostome, Sur le sacerdoce, introduction, texte critique, traduction et notes par Anne-Marie Malingrey, Cerf, 1980; 40. Jousse, M., 1974, LAnthropologie du geste, Gallimard;

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41. Kovalevsky, M., 1984, Retrouver la source oublie, Paroles sur la liturgie dun homme qui chante Dieu, Editions Prsence Orthodoxe, Paris; 42. Lagrange, M. S., 1973, Analyse smiologique et histoire de lart, Paris, Klincksieck; 43. Larousse, 1977, Librairie Larousse; 44. Le Breton, D., 1988, Corps et socits, Essais de sociologie et danthropologie du corps, Meridiens Klincksieck; 45. Lewis, R. M., 1988, Voyez le signe, Un livre sur le symbolisme ancien, Editions Rosicruciennes; 46. Lubienska de Lenval, E., 1957, La liturgie du geste, deuxime dition, Casterman Tournai Paris, Editions de Maredsous, Belgique; 47. Maertens, J., 1983, Ritanalyses, Paris, Klincksieck; 48. Maisonneuve, J., 1988, Les rituels, Paris, P.U.F.; 49. Mauss, M., 1973, Les techniques du corps, in Sociologie et anthropologie, Paris, P.U.F.; 50. Mndi, N., 1994, Dumnezeeasca liturghie cu nsemntatea ei, Editura Bunavestire, Bacu; 51. Mitrofanovici, V., 1929, Liturgica Bisericei Ortodoxe, Cursuri universitare, Cernui; 52. Oliviro, P., 1991, Lexprience rituelle, in Enjeux du rite dans la modernit, Paris, Recherches de science religieuse; 53. Paprocki, H., 1993, Le mystre de lEucharistie, Gense et interprtation de la liturgie eucharistique byzantine, traduit du polonais par F. Lhoest, prface par I.-H. Dalmais, Cerf, Paris; 54. Porcher, L., 1976, Introduction une smiotique des images, Credif, Librairie M. Didier, Paris; 55. Schefer, J.L., 1969, Scnographie dun tableau, Paris, Seuil; 56. Scheflen, A.E., 1981, Systmes de la communication humaine, in Winkin, Y., La nouvelle Communication; 57. Schilder, P., 1968, Limage du corps, Paris, Gallimard; 58. Schmmann, A., 1985, LEucharistie, Sacrement du Royaume, traduit par C. Andronikof, O.E.I.L./YMCA Press; 59. Schmitt, J.C., 1990, La raison des gestes dans lOccident mdival, Gallimard, Paris; 60. Searle, J.R., 1972, Les actes de langage, Essai de philosophie du langage, Hermann, Paris; 61. Serres, M., 1968, Hermes I, La communication, Paris, Minuit; 62. Sperber, D., 1979, La pense symbolique est-elle pr- rationnelle ?, in La fonction symbolique, Essais danthropologie runis par M. Izard et P. Smith, Gallimard, Paris; 63. Stniloae, D., 1986, Spiritualitate i comuniune n liturghia ortodox, Craiova, Editura Mitropoliei Olteniei;

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64. Trager, G.L., 1958, Paralanguage: A first approximation, in Studies in Linguistics, 13; 65. Vanderveken, D., 1988, Les Actes de discours, Pierre Mardaga Editeur, Lige-Bruxelles; 66. Watzlawick, P., 1972, Une logique de la communication (trad. fr.), Paris, Seuil; 67. Winkin, Y., 1981, La nouvelle communication, textes recueillis et prsents par Y. Winkin, trad. de D. Bansard, A. Cardoen, M.-C. Chiarieri, J.-P. Simon et Y. Winkin.

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IOAN IC, JR.

Born in 1960, in Sibiu Ph.D., Orthodox Theological Faculty of Cluj-Napoca, 1998 Dissertation: Mystagogia Trinitatis. The Trinitarian Theology of St. Maximus the Confessor Associate Professor in Philosophy of Religion at the Orthodox Theological Faculty of Sibiu Associate Professor in Philosophy of Religion at the Orthodox Theological Faculty of Cluj-Napoca Visiting Professor at the Lateranense Pontifical University, Rome, 2000-2001 Editor and General Director of the Deisis Publishing House, 1994-present Deacon of the Romanian Orthodox Church, ordained 1988 Member of the International Association for Patristic Studies, 1995-present Representative of the Romanian Orthodox Church in the International Commission for Theological Dialogue between the Orthodox Churches and the Roman Catholic Church, 1997-present Research scholarship of the Evangelische Kirche Deutschlands (EKD) at the Friedrich-Alexander University, Erlangen-Nrenberg, 19901991 Research fellowship at the Pontifical Oriental Institute, Centro Aletti, Rome, 1998 Books: Mystagogia Trinitatis. Sibiu: Deisis Publishing House, 1998 Numerous articles, studies, and papers published in Romania and abroad. Editor and translator.

POLITICAL EUROPE, SPIRITUAL EUROPE

The following pages are meant to be a meditation on the relationship between the political and the spiritual (culture, religion) dimensions in Western and Eastern Europe, starting from the new historical circumstances created in this century by the prospects of European unification (in the West) and European integration (in the East). European unification is undoubtedly the most important phenomenon witnessed in the second half of our century and it will most likely dominate the beginning of the following century as well. Its a design which has been dreamt of for centuries by a Europeans divided on national and denominational grounds, inheritance of 28 centuries1 of European thought and conscience (a European idea). European unification has asserted itself as the political, economic and military co-ordinate of our continent for the 21st century. European thought and the creation of this design were strongly stimulated by the major historical crises which have constantly endangered the existence of Europe, be it in the form of external aggressions - the almost constant attacks of Islam lasting from the 7th to the 17th century, or the communist aggression - the Islam of the 20th century (J. Monnerot) - or of an endless civil strife between the European nations themselves. The culminating point of this conflictual paradigm was reached in this century - a century of extremes2, indeed - in the form of the great European Civil War3 of 1914-1915. The hot version of the two World Wars was doubled by a Cold War between opposed principles and alliances. It ended only in 1989-1991 with the East European revolutions and the collapse of the USSR. During all this period, the destructive spectrums of totalitarian utopias and ideologies based on race hatred (Nazism) or on class hatred (communism) hung over Europe, as both were seeking to impose their continental and world hegemony. Radically denying the traditional sources of European identity (Greek rationalism, Roman law and Biblical morals) in their Christian synthesis as seen by a modern liberal civilisation based on capitalism, democracy, separation between the fields of social existence and the sets of values (religious, political, economic, aesthetic etc.), communism and Nazism

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N.E.C. Yearbook 1996-1997 came to be authentic totalitarian political religions4. Unjustly combining politics and theology in a sui generis mixture of secularised religion and consecrated politics, they basically resulted in some pervert imitations of Judaism (Nazism) and, respectively, Christianity (communism)5. Bringing together, through the myth of the revolution, the cult of the particular and the mysticism of the universal, nationalism and imperialism, the totalitarian ideologies competed one another into creating a new Europe, post-liberal, post-democratic and post-Christian. They aimed at creating a new man and a new society by means of a violent attempt to level all categories of natural existence. According to a secularised Gnostic scenario6 inherited from romanticism, all natural realities were to be melt into the phoney supra-reality of a perverted eschatology, guided by the totalitarian ideology which provided for the confiscation of the entire society by an all-powerful state, worshipped and with an imperialist call. The disappearance of the old Europe which begun in the year 1871 with a mounting of antagonism, nationalism and imperialism - on the background of the domination of a late capitalism and of the devastating recrudescence of totalitarian ideologies in our century - was doubled by a deep crisis of the classical European values (Ortega, Spengler, Toynbee, Husserl). Reason, science, liberalism, democracy, Christian morals, all seemed to shift towards a legitimisation of force and of social levelling. Technology, economy, politics, all came to question the spiritual values of Europe. Original thought and spiritual freedom seemed to irreversibly succumb to their utilitarian manipulation, the accumulation of wealth and knowledge; the stir in the mass-media, the economic, technical and political mobilisations of the masses were announcing a deep crisis of the spirit (Valery)7 and an irreversible forgetfulness of the ultimate being. The calculating thought of technology and the mass mobilisations of the totalitarian systems were thus irreversibly blocking the access of man to the real meditative thought of poets, the gentle and careful voicing of which is the only refuge of the real being in front of technological aggression, political conspiracy and expansion of globalising economies (Heidegger)8. Western Europe seemed to find its last shelter in the spirit of its poets and of some philosophers, yielding in front of ideological violence, techno-scientific invasion and military and political mobilisations which were announcing an imminent finis Europae. In the meantime, the other Europe, Central and Eastern Europe, was concentrating its efforts towards a forced modernisation (capitalism, democracy, liberalism) and a political consolidation of the young national

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IOAN IC, JR. states which had emerged after 1918 from the ruins of the previous empires. This effort was considerably undermined by the tensions existing between this policy of modernisation and national consolidation and the archaic background of the traditional folk civilisations defining most of the East-European populations, on the one hand, and the existence of strong minorities within the new national or federal states, on the other. The obsession of national homogenisation and of revisionism, the economic and political crises that occurred, made these states easily turn towards authoritarianism, while their unfavourable geopolitical location between great empires with expansionist tendencies made them extremely vulnerable to aggression and annexation. Trapped between the imperial ambitions of Germany and Soviet Russia, in 1945 Central and Eastern Europe fell under a Soviet domination which was to last for almost half a century. Communist ideology, economy and politics were to isolate it from Western Europe for five decades. Utopian social engineering and the collectivist, totalitarian system were to result here in tremendous economic failure and moral disaster. During all this time of internal occupation, the resistance to the anti-European aggression of the communist humane barbarism was concentrated into spirituality and culture. Faced with poverty, moral humiliation and ideological oppression, Central and Eastern Europe would, in its turn, seek shelter in the spirit of some poets, writers and philosophers who refused to accept the captive thought. Thus, the year 1945 meant a turning point in the history of Europe, marking not only a painful split of the continent into two blocs with opposed political, social and ideological systems, but also, as a reaction to Soviet expansionism, the revival in Western Europe of the idea of European unification. The history of the two Europes and of the European idea were divided for half a century berfore meeting again in 1989. These two distinct histories (stories) are the object of our essay. Central will be issue of the relation between the political and the spiritual in the understanding and the accomplishment of the European idea. At the end of the two stories we shall attempt to draw a conclusion applying to the present moment.

West Side Story

In the West the idea of European unification took shape and gained momentum following the demands created by the European resistance to

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N.E.C. Yearbook 1996-1997 the attempts of Nazi enslavement. Under the pressure of history, the Europeans were forced to remember their living sources, the European values and virtues. The end of the Hitlerite nightmare and the real prospective of Sovietization under the strong pressure of communist parties, increasingly strong in the West, made the clear-headed politicians of the time understand the imperative of passing from cultural unity to political unity, from cultural organism to political organisation. And, as European culture had the form of unity in diversity, the political unity it inspired could only be a federal union9. We must not forget that Western Europes cure from the schizophrenia of totalitarian ideologies and its double reconstruction within the states and as interstate union were largely inspired from the thought and actions of the great Christian-democrat politicians and theorists (R. Schuman, A. de Gasperi, K. Adenauer a.o.)10. It is to them that we owe not only the revival of Christian democracy as a political alternative (the third way) to liberalism and communism and the economic reconstruction along the lines of social market economy, but also the concrete initiation in the free West of the European unification along federal lines. These outstanding Christian-democrat politicians - true Founding Fathers of a united Europe - saw the federalisation of the continent, the integration of European nations along the spiritual-cultural model of unity in diversity as merely the application, at a regional as well as at a national and international level, of the principles of communal personalism11 of Christian extraction (taken from the social doctrine of the Catholic Church). Its on this basis they operated the denazification, defascization and the internal anti-totalitarian and democratic political reconstruction of post-war Germany and Italy. At the core of this unique attempt at political reconstruction one could identify the theoretical and practical redefinition of the relations between individual, society, state, as well as of those between states. The ambition of the programme was to avoid, within a new version of democratic capitalism and social market economy (a Christian-democrat concept, not a socialist one!), the dangerous extremes of the anarchical ultraliberal individualism as well as those of the centralising socialist collectivism, nevertheless preserving the legitimate concern of liberalism for individual freedom, initiative and creativity and the just as legitimate socialist commitment to social justice. To the idea of freedom exulted by liberals and to that of equality worshipped by socialists, the social doctrine of the Catholic Church and the Christian-democrat one as vision of an integral humanism (Maritain) oppose as an integrating principle of absolute value,

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IOAN IC, JR. the ontological dignity of any human being as image of God (imago Dei). But human dignity is what authenticates real freedom and equality. Therefore, the normative purpose of society is ensuring the dignity of the human being against the corruption of both liberty and equality: anarchical libertinage and levelling egalitarianism. But the basic goal of the entire programme was the reconstruction of the civil society through a limitation and reform of the modern Jacobite-Napoleonic state. Bureaucratic, centralist and national state, it was operating as an authentic Providence-State. Claiming absolute sovereignty outside as well as inside, it was practising absolutism inside and autarchic or imperialist selfishness outside. To the modern national Providence-State, the Founding Fathers opposed the model of the subsidiary and federal State. Taken from the social doctrine of the Catholic Church whose theoretical axis it is, the principle of subsidiarity12 was included in the constitutions of the post-war Western federal states, as well as in article 3b of the Maastricht Treaty. Subsidiarity expresses a certain outlook on authority, reflecting the pre-eminence of society over state: between individual and state we have the multitude of autonomous intermediate groups, with the various elements which make up the social entity. The political authority, serving the needs of this social entity, offers the support (subsidium) necessary to these groups and acts in those matters mutually considered as pertaining to the accomplishment of common welfare and social justice. Thus, the intermediate communities have all the prerogatives normally belonging to states with the exception of the competencies freely granted to the central authority. The principle of subsidiarity demands that authority should not interfere with the autonomy of the social groups and at the same time that it should positively act in matters pertaining to the mutual agreement of groups and to social justice. Consequently, it allows a conciliation between a decentralised state and a social policy, paying this paradoxical combination with a double abandon: that of socialist equalitarianism in favour of the value of dignity and, respectively, that of philosophical individualism in the formation of a structured and federate society13. This realistic anti-ideological and antiutopian outlook proceeds upwards, from the roots of the grass (M. ora), from individual to community, from community to state, from states to federation. Consequently, it involves a radical acceptance of pluralism and of the finitude of human existence, giving thus back to individuals their dignity, their ontological pre-eminence (as the only existing real substances) as well as their theological pre-eminence (as different beings, equally created

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N.E.C. Yearbook 1996-1997 in the image of God, nonetheless). We are not talking about an anarchical denial of the state existence or of a central authority; these are not secondary, but second, namely subsidiary, they must be actions of the state in relation to the individuals, because the accomplishment of common welfare must pass through individuals and groups. The main problem of subsidiarity and of federalism is the sharing of competencies: the freedom of action and the proximity of authority and individuals claiming the consolidation of autonomy (and stressing the non-interference of the state), while the need for justice, security and solidarity leads to a shift of competencies towards the central authority (stressing the interference of the state). The subsidiary state is a limited and decentralised one which requires considerable effort and discretion from the part of the authority as well as maximum initiative from individuals or groups; therefore, it is an anti-natural state, to the extent in which the natural tendency of authority is its monopolisation, multiplication and enhancement, while that of individuals is the search for protection and security, resulting in the destruction of the unstructured civil society. The subsidiary state protects the state from abusive groups or individuals and at the same time it protects the society and its groups from the abuse of the state. It offers a solution to the dilemma of the Jacobite-Napoleonic democratic regimes, in which equality is obtained through a forcible atomisation and levelling of society, resulting in a suffocation of individual initiative, disappearance of intermediate groups and excessive development of a bureaucratic absolutist state, the modern Providence-State. The superiority of Anglo-Saxon evolutionist democracy lies, as Tocqueville himself had noticed (1840), precisely in the existence of autonomous associations which leads to an alternate, federal and non-invading state. Still, subsidiarity and federalism are not tied to a specific form of government, but to the manner of exercising authority (answering not to the question which?, but how?). Consequently, examples of subsidiary and federal theories and practices are also to be found in the Western Middle Ages, with the juristconsults of the Roman-German Empire (Baldus, Dante, Ockham, Marsilio of Padua) or with the canonists supporting the conciliary theory of the Church (Gerson, Cusanus a.o.)14. The imperial constitution was based on an articulated and pluralist outlook on law, society and politics. Christianity (christianitas) was a federation of local corporations and associations (cities, republics, lands etc.) based on the rule of associative consent; each level had its own dignity, independent and not coming from the upper one. (See the remarkable book of the

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IOAN IC, JR. Emden jurist Johannes Althusius, Politica methodice gestita (1603), authentic manifesto of the subsidiary and federal state, of surprising actuality15). The sovereignty of the prince or of the emperor was in its turn subordinated to associative consent and did not absorb that of groups, it was a global sovereignty based on the Aristotelian theory of spontaneous political association of people, and not on the stoic, Augustinian and modern one of trading protection for submission. The unity of this christianitas was based on the reference to a common law, the Roman one, and to just one emperor, whose sovereignty was global and not absolute, with clearly defined competencies. But the model of this European Christianity was undermined by the papal absolutism which repressed conciliatoriness, and also by the confiscation/secularisation of this spiritual absolutism by the kings of the modern nations (especially France) (cf. J. Bodins Republica, 1576). Based on this monist and absolute (not global) idea of sovereignty, they were to claim complete monopoly over law and political power, as well as the full centralisation of their exercise. This idea and practice came to define the absolutist national monarchies and remained unchanged in the democratic republics that followed, which only transferred the sovereignty of the monarch to the people. Nevertheless, the model of the national absolutist state was a derived one, historically conditioned; it appeared in the 16th century, in a Europe torn by endless religious wars and internal instability for which the imperatives of ensuring unity and maintaining internal security, as well as that of a massive military presence abroad were essential. This model became dated in the 19th - 20th century when, against the background of an uncontrolled upsurge of nationalism, revolutions and nationalism, the Providence-State confiscated not only the political structures, society, but also the religion which it secularised, and the imperial ideology it nationalised. The effects of these confiscations were to be seen in the expropriation, or more precisely, in the nationalisation of the universalist discourse on man as member of a universal community of judicial nature (romanitas), or of a religious one (christianitas). Each nation will see itself as the only one expressing the essence of mankind, the Europe of democratic or authoritarian absolutisms becoming a collection of tiny empires (B. Farago) stirred by bellicose ideologies, as European unity could now be imagined only through the brutal hegemony of the strongest nation. It was thus that we came to have the extremes and the historical catastrophes which have characterised our century. Their common denominator: the absolutism of the Providence-State and

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N.E.C. Yearbook 1996-1997 the triumphant march of the late capitalism were to result in the considerable de-personalisation of social existence within the liberal democratic societies centred on the individual, as well as within the totalitarian ones promoting socialist collectivism. The thought of the Founding Fathers of united Europe had the merit of having pointed out the essential connection between personalism subsidiarity - federalism. The policy of the united Europe can only be the policy of the Person, the policy of responsible freedom and of community solidarity. Authentic articulus stantis et cadentis Europae, the person is nevertheless a reality, or rather a theological-political design inextricably tied to the Christian faith. According to this outlook, Europe was born in Nicaea in the year 32516 with the first Ecumenical Synod of the Christian Church, convened as a reaction to the Arian heresy. The latter were preaching a Unitarian and subordinationist view of the divinity (only the Father is the real God, the Son and the Holy Spirit are inferior entities, later created by Him to serve as tools in the creation of the world). This outlook was to be actively supported for an entire century by the emperors from Constantinople, as they saw in Arianism an ideological legitimisation of the absolutist theocratic monarchy they were exercising (there is a God in heavens who sends a Redeemer to earth, Jesus, who later ascends back to heaven and leaves the emperor as His vicar). Opposing this political theology, the Nicaean Synod drew up the orthodox creed, namely the fundamental dogma on God, revealed in Jesus Christ as Trinity: comm-union of Love in the relationships of which the ontological con-substantiality of Three divine Persons is expressed: the Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost. So, Jesus Christ is not a creature, a mere prophet. He is at the same time God and man, one Person in two natures (divinity and mankind), and His Person as Son reveals God in Him at the same time as One and as Three. The understanding of the mystery of this revelation as unity in difference required and still requires a new relational and paradoxical manner of thinking (and living); it keeps a tension between two opposed and irreducible, but equally valid terms (their reduction was the distinctive mark of the heresy as compared to orthodoxy). This manner of thinking opposed not only to the dialectic reduction to a monist identity, but also to the alternative dualism - has become through Christianism the true forma mentis of Europe, spreading in the most various fields, leading to a relational-personal outlook not only on God, but also on man, world and history. Based on this, Europe could assimilate the most various traditions and cultural inheritances, becoming an open culture.

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IOAN IC, JR. Now the key-notion of European culture and unknown as such in Asia, the person - distinct from the individual - has (as shown by Denis de Rougemont) a double genesis: theological and political17. Politically, it managed to integrate the two opposed acceptations previously given to man: as individual existing in himself and by himself (discovery of ancient Greece, in fact of the revolution of the axial era mentioned by K. Jaspers18) and as citizen existing exclusively through and for the state (ancient Rome). If the individual is exposed to the temptation of selfishness, scepticism, profanation and anarchy, the citizen is exposed to the collectivist-totalitarian one. Bringing - through the virtues of faith, hope and love - a new vertical reference axis, that of the personal transcendence of the three-and-one God, the person breaks the vicious horizontal circle of the vacillation between individualism and collectivism. This vertical relation sets the believer free from the terror of the social and of the arbitrariness of the individual, compelling him to an infinite responsibility towards his neighbour and to the creation of a new type of community: the supra-natural, and therefore universal, comm-union of the Ecclesia (Church) whose model is the Trinitarian Communion. Through faith and grace, the person goes beyond the arbitrary and selfish individual and also beyond the citizen unconditionally subservient to the community. Relational entity, the person means therefore not only the leap to a paradoxical logic, but mainly the adoption of a new, paradoxical manner of existence, at the same time solitary and solidary, personal and communal, that of the comm-union. The asymptotic aspiration towards this convergence between the personal and the communal marks the entire history of Europe, the dialectics of which Denis de Rougemont views in the form of the following structure: Sacred TRIBE Magic in the Orient and in the Middle Ages Profane INDIVIDUAL Reason in the Greek Polis and in the Renaissance Official cult STATE Civicism in Rome and in the French Revolution+Napoleon Scepticism SOCIAL VACUUM Absurd in the Hellenistic Society and in the 18th century Which basically leaves two possibilities: EITHER Nationalism - STATE-NATION - Fanaticism - Totalitarian regressive collectivism OR Democracy - FEDERATION - Faith - Progressive Community19.

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N.E.C. Yearbook 1996-1997 This personalist-communal wisdom of Europe representing the orthodoxy of the authentic Europe is undermined by the subversion of three heresies or idolatries perverting its inner structure, either the person or the communion, turning them into nothingness; these are the worshipped erotic passion, the revolution or the socialised passion, and the nationalism or the divine call of the socialised man20. Rejecting both the heretic perversities of communal personalism as well as its gnostic ideological subversion, Europe has therefore to reassume not only the theological-philosophical orthodoxy, but also the social-political orthopraxy, accomplishing the personal-communal comm-union in the form of the pluralist institutions of the subsidiary and federal state. This will be regulated by the old scholastic adage distinguere per unire or ex pluribus unum. The problem with the subsidiary and federal state is that it presupposes (and does not create) the existence of a society articulated into dynamic groups. Subsidiarity and federalisation proceed upwards and do not identify with the decentralisation ordered and imposed from the top to the bottom21. They can be achieved in those societies in which communities prosper and allow the development of individual freedom and creativity and the capacity of creative and spontaneous association, as individuals need such communities for the development of their capabilities. Beyond the mere natural communities (family, nation, people), the cultural, political and economic consensus of the free persons leads to the creation of new free communities: communities of faith (the Church), political (parties, society) and economic ones (free markets). The creationist perspective of human diversity and the existence of finitude, of evil and sin, require not only the separation of powers, but also the division of the systems and institutions of society, three-one system of plural systems: the political system; the economic system; and the moral-cultural-religious system as in- and interdependent systems. The institutionalised operation of these three systems in the spirit of communal personalism results in freedom within the community, and this is the key for Europe: through freedom in community, Europe imitates the life of God22. But the real freedom in the community cannot be taken apart from the economic dimension and is best ensured and turned to account by the system of democratic capitalism. The right to property and to economic initiative are an inalienable expression of human dignity and creativity. In spite of the long anti-capitalist tradition of the Western spiritual and cultural elite, democratic capitalism is based upon undeniable moral and religious

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IOAN IC, JR. resources. The most defining invention of the democratic capitalist system (says M. Novak) is not the possessive individual or the citizen subservient to the state, but the free association or the corporation23. Markets have a centripetal force, they take individuals out of isolation, put them into stimulating contact with their fellow men, even with those at a great distance24. Markets are highly social institutions, they presuppose a series of special virtues, like for instance creativity, trust, openness. The markets and the trade in goods have always accompanied and enhanced the exchange of ideas, the market of cultural values. The analogy between the economy of material needs and that of spiritual values, between the economic categories and the spiritual ones was identified long ago25. A free economy is centripetal, and not centrifugal. Economic freedom pushes individuals to co-operation and association, and not to anarchy26. Nevertheless, according to the classical theorists of liberal economy, economic freedom has as a moral pre-requisite, Christian freedom of the individuals who feel responsible for their deeds in front of God and of their fellow men. This is a third concept of freedom (theorised by Jefferson, Lord Acton), different not only from the negative, liberal one, but also from the positive, socialist, totalitarian one (theorised by Isaiah Berlin)27. We are talking about the freedom gained through a determination to do what has to be done, and not what you would like to do. But this can only be promoted in an indirect manner: positively through education and rational persuasion, and negatively through a clear cut sharing and limitation of social authority. All this in order to avoid the risks of dogmatism and constraint in the education of a guided positive freedom, risks which affected the Christianism and the socialism of the great inquisitors, as well as the indefinite vacuum of negative freedom. The cultivation of responsible freedom in each human soul is the supreme art of human reason - the work of practical wisdom28. The presence or the lack of equilibrium in the moral-spiritual field are reflected in the sphere of economy as well as in that of politics. It is precisely the political nature of the European Union which was and still is at the core of all ambiguities manifested in the process of European construction. The paradox of political Europe29 has remained the supreme challenge for the architects and the supporters of European unification. The entire process of European construction has been taking place under the sign of provisionality30, taking advantage of the two great fractures in the world order that made it possible, in 1947 and in 1989. The first stage of Western European construction began together

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N.E.C. Yearbook 1996-1997 with the Cold War. The European political federalist impetus was dampened by the failure of the European Constituency and of the European Defence Community in 1954. The 1957 Treaty of Rome put an end to these attempts, resetting European construction in the framework of the Economic Community initiated in 1950 with the Coal and Steel Community. Thus, the economically integrated Europe stood at the centre of European construction until the late 80s. In thirty years, economic integration resulted in a bizarre accumulation of European technical and political institutions with supranational characters, approximating what is supposed to be an executive, two legislative bodies, a court of law, covering the member nation-states and deprived of authentic democratic legitimacy and of efficient mechanisms for applying the communal decisions. The fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989, that of communism, German unification and the prospects of Union enlargement towards the east radically changed the terms of the matter. The Maastricht Treaty, solid from a monetary point of view, leaves a lot to be desired from the political one and keeps postponing the key issue of institutional reform before the planned eastern expansion. There is a crisis of European institutions accused of lacking in of transparency, efficiency and democratisation. There are economic problems related to the decline of industrial competitiveness (Asian competition) and to the prospects of globalisation. The Yugoslavian crisis and the soaring unemployment rates have eaten into the prestige of the Union and consolidated the Euro-scepticism. There are different outlooks regarding the Union: a Europe-space for Britain, a Europe-power for France; a considerable gap can be seen between the German model focused on economy and security, aimed at surpassing the sovereignty of the nation-state and the creation of a federal European Wirtschaftsnation under the NATO umbrella, and the French one stressing the political dimension and the subordination of economic matters to a grandiose European political adventure (dream of General de Gaulle): a Europe from the Atlantic to the Ural Mountains, independent from America31. Therefore, there is talk about taking Europe out of the mud32, about surpassing the political infirmity of Europe which is a fact, about avoiding the Polish syndrome represented by the scenario of decision paralysis33. It was requested to drop the Monnet method of creating institutions from above (to which the adhesion was to be imposed from the outside). As opposed to this method it was finally requested to begin a popular debate on the objectives of the European process, the design resulted from this debate being the one to dictate the European institutions and

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IOAN IC, JR. procedures34. The great market is the engine, but essential is the model of the society35. No less important is the issue of the political model: federation of peoples (Monnet), confederation of states (de Gaulle), federation of nations (Delors). Anyway, the passing from economic integration to political unification is the strategic issue of European construction. Paradoxically, a major difficulty is represented by the absence of a foreign threat (Soviet) and that of an internal centripetal force. Neither state, nor mere league of states, Europe continues to be an unidentified political object (Delors), a political pseudo-entity, practically reduced to mere institutionalised inter-government conferences. Vacillating between a helpless confederation and an illegitimate federation, Europe could be seen as a real empire of helplessness (similar to the Austrian-Hungarian Kakania described by Musil), a pseudo-empire with a phoney citizenship and a phoney parliament. The solution would be a break with the existing non-political and antidemocratic federalism based on a technical-judicial pseudo-legitimacy and the adoption of an authentic democratic and political federalism, with a real citizenship and efficient European sovereignty. A democratic and federal political Europe, finally master not of others, but of herself, could be the republican empire of the future that we need36. The Europe of today appears as an artificial object, a technocratic and pseudo-federal construction, a political forgery suffering from a incurable political deficit. European norms express a purely economic logic whose ultimate foundations are the dogmas of the ultra-liberal ideologies of the four liberalisations and of the free circulation of people, services, goods and capitals imposed by the multinational corporations quite often in conflict with the regional and national civil societies. These reflect the tendency of depolitisation in European matters, transforming the latter into infra- and para-political ones, taking them out of public debate and democratic control. The conclusion: if the two tasks currently assumed by Europe - expansion and consolidation will be pursued within the existing European mechanisms, there is considerable risk that, just like the Austrian-Hungarian Empire, the European Union might become the threatening image of our irreparable decadence37. A solution would be the creation of a united and democratic federal Europe as one Nation-State of the American type. But for this we need to invent or rather recover (Europe is facing the task of re-striking roots - renracinement) a European political nation which would not replace but complete the cultural nations of Europe by creating its mystical body and serving as foundation for an authentic sovereignty.

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N.E.C. Yearbook 1996-1997 Such sovereignty could only be rooted in the only European reality whose traces are still present in the cultural identity of Europe. Before becoming a Europe of nations, Europe was essentially a romanitas and christianitas, realities marking the absolute priority of the city and of man, anterior and superior to the division into nations. In fact, it was only by assuming these two attributes that the all Christian nations of the continent centred around the empire of their kings could find the way towards their diversifying developments. Isnt it time for them to give back to Europe a part of this inheritance precisely in order to be able to preserve what they have essential?38 Patterns of a universal people, chriatianitas and romanitas can be a paradigm creating a new possible citizenship and a new European cultural universalism. Anyway, Europe must turn back to this tradition, buried for a moment by the historical developments and betrayed by ideologies to the national royalty39. But the vision of a federal Europe does not have to be connected to the dated prospects of the Nation-State. It should rather use the Roman-German Empire as term of reference. Even a very brief examination of the European judicial history will reveal the surprising actuality of the subsidiary and federal model of the old medieval imperial jurists (like, for instance, the polymorphic and decentralised empire of Baldus Ubaldi); this must be brought out of oblivion, a return to the debate abandoned by political philosophy in the 16th and 17th centuries40 being the theoretical pre-requisite essential for the rediscovery of political analysis and practice required by the European construction. Contrary to what one may think, the process of European unification does not mean going beyond nations. Europe can only be a common action of the European nations. The moral and political axis of European construction (the French - German reconciliation) was created through a political decision taken by nations, and not by supranational institutions. If immediately after World War II federalists saw in nations the source of all evil and were pleading for abandoning them, the European federalists of today clearly plead for there political resuscitation. Europe is now seen as a federation of nations meant to consolidate and not annihilate them41. Only the nation can offer substance to democracy, serving as warrant of individual rights and as source maintaining and rebuilding social cohesion. But one point has to be made: we must make a difference between nation in a cultural sense as a distinctive feature, passive, past identity, which must be preserved and defended, and nation in a political sense, source of active identification, operating, which must be built within

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IOAN IC, JR. a particular activity frame open to the universal. The nation must be recovered, not as particular feature, but as a political body, not caring for particularity but for universalism42. The nation can be also rendered obsolete, but only by developing its features as political entity, and not forgetting them, aware of the fact that the road towards Europe is by developing and opening the national political cultures43. But the political and democratic deficit of the Union expresses through the faults of its political culture a deep spiritual crisis of Western liberal societies. There is no passion for the public matters. The phenomenon is a serious one and it endangers the vitality, the prosperity and the acting capacity of our democracies. I am not talking about the behaviour of those elected, but about the efforts made by a citizen to go beyond his own problems and take an interest in the public matters. There is no democracy without minimum virtue44. The decline of democracy was essentially caused by the so-called media fast food policy, a simulacrum of political culture made by the mass-media through opinion polls and talk shows. It is clear than in such an environment one cannot exercise ambitious policies, meant to set the society moving and make it capable of both memory and future45. Moral and philosophical relativism, the intellectual decline caused by the global levelling and mediatisation of societies are leading to a crisis of reason and of communication, weakening the wills and causing a decline of interrogation and argumentation, of dialogue. The phenomenon of political decline is connected to the religious changes occurred in the liberal societies of the late modern period, a time of denominational involution and triumph of Godless religions46. Secularism appears today just as fragile as Christianism, declining along with the latter. The comeback of religion is a fact, but it marks the triumph of some new religious forms (from sects to esoterism and neo-Buddhism up to the cult of paranormal phenomena) which cancel the classical borders between the realm of God and that of Man. The great religions vacillate between extreme politicisation (the Islam) and complete lack of involvement (Buddhism). The triumph of the new religious forms reflects the recoil of the classical Jewish-Christian culture, a suspension of the symbolic and spiritual elements which structured in depth the European identity as well as the classical modernity, the European spirit and democracy. Their intellectual and spiritual framework (the spirit of the distinction between values: political, religious, aesthetic etc. and the institutions they represent) is questioned or rejected. Centred on the personal search for a meaning and a supreme care for oneself (an

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N.E.C. Yearbook 1996-1997 Epicureanism of a stoic type - very much in vogue), they take the form of equivocal wisdom, of the autist-comforting and pietistic utopias of interiority, practising the fideism, sapientialism and the sentimental outbursts. The dominant feature is the refusal or the clear attack on the political and its autonomy. At the same time, we are witnessing a decline of hope and faith (generated by the collapse of the great messianic philosophies of history), an end of linear time through a devaluation of both past and future and a unilateral fixation on the present moment and on the self. The refusal of the future is also accompanied by the decline of transcendence and of the vertical axis, the new spiritual techniques being structured on horizontal polarities (meaning/non-meaning; life/death; self/non-self; unity/duality; reality/unreality etc.). The split of the classical religious-political articulation under the form of the State-Church duality affects not only the political but also the religious. The withdrawal of the political causes the privatisation of both philosophy and religion, reduced to the status of practical wisdom or mysticism without God or transcendence. The situation seems to repeat that of the Hellenistic and Roman-Greek periods, when the advent of stoicism, Epicureanism and neo-Platonism as techniques of individual salvation marked the end of the ancient city, the passing from the polis to an apolitical cosmopolis. Interesting is the fact that the connection between democracy, pantheism and cosmopolitanism had been noticed by Tocqueville (1840): the idea of equality finds separation and transcendence hard to bear, as democratic nations are naturally tending towards pantheism, this system, albeit destroying human individuality or precisely because of this, will have a mysterious influence upon those living in a democracy... nurtures the pride of their spirit and encourages laziness. Therefore, all those believing in the true greatness of man must rally and fight against it47. So far, there are two global scenarios imagined for the new geopolitical situation created in Europe and in the world after 1989. To various extents, they set into question within different, even opposed approaches, the relationship between the political and the spiritual. We are talking about the scenario of the end of history and, respectively, that of civilisation clash. Both mean to give a global interpretation of the post-1989 era. The End of History? scenario was born in 1989 together with the famous essay with the same interrogative title of the American political scientist of Japanese origin Francis Fukuyama48. The entire demonstration was taken and enhanced three years later by the same author in the book The End of History no question marke and the Last Man49. Starting from

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IOAN IC, JR. the suggestion of A. Kojves Hegelian interpretation50, Fukuyama considers that the fall of communism in Eastern Europe in 1989 mustnt only be seen as an end to the Cold War and a death of ideologies. The victory of liberalism, the triumph of market economy and democracy, marking the exhaustion of alternate resources, signifies, through a universalisation of liberal democracy, of market economy and of consumer capitalism, in its media version, the end of the ideological and philosophical evolution of mankind. The end of history announced by Hegel for the year 1806 took in fact place in 1989 after a century and a half of Marxist and totalitarian parenthesis. Western - American and European - societies of liberal and democratic capitalism are the ones which in fact secure prosperity and egalitarianism, equal and universal acknowledgement of human beings, of a classless society as seen by Marx, moving towards the universal and homogeneous State in which Hegel saw the end of history. Satisfying material needs and reaching equal and universal acknowledgement, the liberal state solves in principle all intellectual and social contradictions (between master and servant) which have marked our history, and all mankind has to do now is to solve the technical and ecological problems connected to a more refined consumption and environment protection. With this, liberal societies reach the post-history. The place of wars and conflicts is increasingly taken by economy, trade and consumption. World politics and international relations enter a process of Common Marketisation. A symbol of this evolution would be precisely the countries of Western Europe in the post-war period, flaccid and prosperous countries, dominated by self-satisfaction deprived of will, whose major project did not challenge heroism beyond the creation of a Common Market51. The world will be divided into two large camps: the developed societies of liberal democracies and capitalism who enter the post-history, and the historical ones, underdeveloped, torn by religious, nationalist or ideological conflicts, by sacrifice and endless struggle for prestige or superiority. The weak point of this description lies, on the one hand, in the mirage of any neo-Hegelian philosophy of history: favouring one sense of society development and correlatively disqualifying others, implicit in the understanding of the wars and totalitarianisms of the 20th century as huge and pointless parentheses and aberrations of history on its road towards a liberal-democratic post-history. Fykuyama seems to vacillate between Hegel/Kojve and Spengler/Sorokin. Is the present situation of liberal societies an essential mutation within world history, an end of history as

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N.E.C. Yearbook 1996-1997 such, or a just symptom of decline for a mere historical cycle, the exhaustion of which opens the way for the following cycle52? On the other hand, this hesitation is rooted in the anthropological risk of describing the situation of the post-historical man (detailed by Fukuyama in the 1992 book). Kojves interpretation of the end of history comes here close to the description made by Nietzsche to the last man. If the end of history is the road towards a generalised common life, then this means for Kojve that the world has been demystified: all myths, arts, philosophies, sciences have in the long run contributed only to the satisfaction of our original animal needs. We are witnessing the ultimate trivialisation of man, as reason, history and philosophy bring him back among the beasts. We have now the last man, the bourgeois, the democratic man of Tocqueville, the slave man of Nietzsche, deprived of ambitions and aspirations, made only of reason and desire, but with no soul, heart, impetus. For the sake of self-preservation, consumption, of petty interests and designs, of peace and prosperity he gives up the fight and the risking of life for an immaterial ideal and prestige; the only purpose of this struggle being to create in battle free men, masters. In his analyses, Fukuyama outlines the surprising actuality of Platos psychology from the book IV of his Republic. The soul is made up of three faculties: a transcendent one - the intellect - oriented towards the immaterial, of divine origin and located in the brain, an immanent one concupiscence, desire - oriented towards matter, of animal extraction and located in the abdomen, and an intermediate one, constituting as such the essence of human soul, represented by impetus - or spirit, with the stoics -, located in the heart. The thymos is source not only of violence, tyranny, will of domination, but also of virtues like courage, justice, civic spirit. If the activity of the intellect leads to knowledge, science, and the activity of desire creates economy, politics and religion come from the passion of the heart or of the spirit. They are the main forms of education for impetus or for spirit, of gaining acknowledgement and cultivating the aristocratic or chivalrous feeling of moral superiority, but at the same time they are the main sources of conflicts for supremacy and domination. This is why the thymos was the constant concern of practical philosophy from Plato to Nietzsche53. They all meant to educate or resuscitate it. An essential mutation in this respect was brought by the modern era. Obsessed with the eradication of aristocracy and the accomplishment of democratic equality, this era tried through Hobbes and Locke to completely eliminate the thymos from public life, replacing

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IOAN IC, JR. it with a combination of desire and reason, respectively economy and science, combination typical for the bourgeois man. According to the new social contract, the philosopher becomes a scientist (intellect is reduced to reason), the warrior is supposed to become a merchant, giving up risk and glory for the sake of material gain and the prospect of a happiness understood as quiet life secured by the endless accumulation of wealth and possible for everybody. The modern liberal and democratic state was meant to ensure a universal rational acknowledgement of all individuals bent on the pursuit of some rational personal interests. Economy and science were encouraged at a social level, while nationalism, religion and politics had to become private or subordinated to the first two. The democrat and liberal capitalist man (bourgeois) was a deliberate creation of early modern thought, an effort of social engineering trying to create social peace by changing human nature itself54. The apparition of the heartless man, of the last man brings an internal crisis within modern liberal democracy itself, also undermined by the constant pressure for egalitarianism and relativism. These came to erode the very values of liberalism and democracy, whose political culture, as Tocqueville had demonstrated, cannot afford the luxury of abandoning the pre-liberal traditions (religious, philosophical, national, ethnic etc.) of cultivating the thymos or the spirit, without seriously endangering its existence. And this because the best political system is the one satisfying all three Platonic parts of the soul. The generalisation of the last man deprived of thymos would clearly mean the end of history, the death of politics, of philosophy, of art, the end of human creativity and the prospect of a very sad era, of centuries of boredom which might make the human beings reduced to a state of post-historical animals (Kojve) feel the need to reaffirm their human nature, to regain through revolt their impetus in the form of an unleashed megalothymia; they will thus return to the conflicts forming the first man, opening the era of tremendous wars of the spirit (Nietzsche), much more dangerous as they will put together fanaticism and advanced technology. Because, on the one hand, the elements of human nature can be repressed or sublimated, but never completely eliminated, and on the other, the stability of all regimes is eroded by the corrosive power of time. Aristotle and Plato seem to be much closer to the truth than Hegel or Kojve, at least from a conservative standpoint. The fall of communism does not necessarily mean the unconditional triumph of liberalism. Fascism was defeated on the battlefield, his possibilities were not completely exhausted; in various forms, under the guise of

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N.E.C. Yearbook 1996-1997 racism, nationalism, fundamentalism it has a future, if not the future. Paradoxically, it was precisely the opposition to fascism and communism, the evils that Western democracies had to face, that has revealed what is best in them, the external threat disciplined us within, gave us clear moral and political, albeit negative goals55. In spite of our triumphant air, American democracy is in danger... We have won the Cold War, but this means that now we are the enemy, and no longer them56. In fact, Kojves theories had received a theoretical reply of great depth in the fifties, from the part of Lo Strauss. The Strauss/Kojve debate upon the interpretation given by Strauss to Xenophons dialogue On Tyranny57 was rightfully considered as probably the deepest debate between two philosophers of our century58. Lo Strauss thoroughly demonstrates the inconsistency of historicism, the superficial and precarious character of Kojves simplifying anthropology, brilliantly outlining the unmatched depth and the actuality of classical philosophy as compared to its modern reductions. Neither war, nor work or consumption, but thought is seen by the ancients as the expression of human nature; it is not through universal acknowledgement, but by ensuring the conditions of a search for wisdom and of a new contemplation for each man that the universal and homogeneous democratic state can gain legitimacy. Given the weakness of human nature, the ancients believed that universal happiness is impossible, as the best regime could only give it the conditions to happen, its accomplishment being conditioned not by history, but precisely by the individual separation from history. On the other hand, the moderns believe that they can secure universal happiness within history, but for this they lower the ideal of man replacing moral virtue with universal acknowledgement and understanding happiness as coming from this acknowledgement and from material wealth59. Believing that it broadened the horizon of ancient and medieval idealism, modern philosophical and political realism only brings an unfortunate narrowing of the anthropological and philosophical horizon. Rejecting the transcendence of spirit and the horizon of eternity (the access to the heliological truth from the parable of Platos cave), it condemns man to the captivity of natural, social and historical determinisms (holding him prisoner of the speological truth of the cave). The other post-1989 scenario is that of the civilisation clash theorised in 1993 in a famous essay by the Harvard professor and director of the Olim Institute for Strategic Studies, Samuel Huntington60. According to him, far from heading towards a liberal democratic and increasingly

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IOAN IC, JR. economic post-history, post-communist mankind will find itself increasingly wrapped up in history and politics. The thymos will experience a dramatic world-scale escalation. Conflicts will become a common sight, but they will no longer be ideological or economic in nature, but rather civilisation conflicts. The future will not see the advent of a world civilisation. 7-8 civilisations will compete on the political arena of the world (Western, Slavic-Orthodox, Islamic, Confucianist, Japanese, Hinduist, Latin-American, African). Nations will be grouped according to cultural, spiritual and not ideological and economic criteria, following the sister country syndrome and that of the spiritual sister nation. The axis of international relation will be the West vs. the rest of the world. During the separation into civilisation blocs there will be a number of torn countries (Turkey, Mexico, Russia, Romania) which are at risk of repeating the example of Yugoslavia (rehearsal of a universal scenario). Based on fragile arguments (confusion between politics and culture, D. Bell) and on easy and simplifying generalisations which set Huntington among the descendants of Spengler and Toynbee, the essay takes the risk of compensating for the absence of one explanatory paradigm, unavoidably distorted (P. Hassner), for the geopolitical situation of the world after 1989. But he is of top interest, as he seems to actually inspire American foreign policy, and even that of the institutions of the European Union. He is trying to impose the idea that the real Europe is only that of the Western civilisation, implying that Eastern Europe (Orthodox), belonging in fact to another civilisation, should not be included in the European Union. The boundaries of the latter would be, according to Wallaces map (1990), those of Western Christianity around the year 1500, stretching as far as the former boundaries separating the Habsburg Empire, Poland and the Baltic states from the Ottoman and Tsarist Empires. The velvet curtain of culture has replaced the iron culture of ideology as main separation line for Europe61. It might also indicate the possible limits of European Union expansion. The presentation of these two scenarios brings about a legitimate question: what is left of the classical Europe in the gentle apocalypse of post-history and in the historical Armageddon of civilisations? How much spirit and politics will survive in a Europe implacably dissolved by the effects of economic globalisation or reduced to the role of defence bulwark for a besieged civilisation with its centre outside? Everything seems to confirm the extremely lucid diagnosis of the European condition developed by Paul Valery as early as 1919 in his reflections on the crisis of the

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N.E.C. Yearbook 1996-1997 spirit or on the greatness and the decadence of Europe. The utilitarian reduction of European spirit to science and of science to ware, the transformation of culture in economy, all made possible the global spreading of technology. Together with the democratic levelling, in his opinion this would lead to an unavoidable deminutio capitis of Europe. In a civilisation determined by figures and quantities, by some statistics in which forces become proportional to masses, there is still some confusion, but we shall witness, in the long run, the advent of a miraculous animal society, perfect and ultimate anthill. Europe unavoidably succumbs. Or, the superiority of Europe had to be determined by the quality of man, by the European spirit or soul (psyche), characterised by active eagerness, burning and unselfish curiosity, a fortunate mixture of imagination and logical rigour, a certain unpessimistic scepticism, an unresigned mysticism62. Europe conspicuously aspires to be lead by an American commission. This is the direction of its entire policy. But Europe will be punished for its policy, or rather for the discrepancy between its subtle spirit and crude policy, marked now by an amazing lack of poise. Any policy implies (usually it has no idea that it implies) a certain outlook on man and even an opinion regarding the destiny of the species, an entire metaphysics, from the most crude sensualism to the most daring mysticism63. Be them parties, regimes or statesmen, it could be most instructive to draw from their tactics and actions the ideas they have or they are making on man64. Or, Europe meant above all the creation through Romanisation, Christianisation and Hellenisation of a homo europaeus, stake of its entire historical design65. The crisis of European politics is the crisis of the European man, or rather of the European soul and of the European culture - this is the message sent to Western Europe by the philosophers from the centre and the east of the continent, from Prague, Pltini or Bucharest.

Central-European interlude
One of the most disturbing reflections regarding the essence and the historical and contemporary destiny of Europe, and at the same time a spiritual and political design, belongs to Czech philosopher Jan Patocka. Strong disciple of Husserl and Heidegger, private philosopher kept in the shadow for decades by all totalitarian regimes oppressing the Czech Republic, Nazi as well as communist, reduced to a secret existence in the

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IOAN IC, JR. basements of Prague where he kept underground seminars, he became particularly known as the philosopher-martyr. His short activity as spokesman (together with Vaclav Havel) of the Charta 77 movement, Socratic gesture of sublime philosophical testimony, was to cost him his life in consequence of the brutal questionings to which he was subjected at an age of 70 by the political police. But his sacrifice was to bring to the European public opinion a vast philosophical work, centred around an original re-argumentation of the natural world phenomenology and completed with a fascinating philosophy of history66, at the centre of which we find the problem of Europes destiny. The Czech philosopher begins his meditation by noticing the general fatigue and decline felt by contemporary Europe. Uncertain as to its essential values and institutions, Europe seems crushed by its gigantic successors: America and Russia, and increasingly dispossessed of its technical-scientific inheritance by the non-European nations now free from its colonial rule. The central idea of the Prague philosopher is concentrated in a statement which at a first glance seems exclusive: History is in fact the history of Europe - all that the rest of the world knows is historiography and it appears together with the creation of philosophy and politics in the ancient Greek city, to disappear with the loss of this spiritual inheritance. According to him, there are three types of societies based, in their turn, on the existence of three fundamental movements of human life in relation to the natural world67: - the movement of unconditional acceptance of natural life, specific to the an-historical societies whose life takes place in the timeless anonymity of the cyclic rhythms of nature; - the movement of self-defence typical for the developed archaic and traditional societies which have a collective memory in the form of mythical traditions and whose life, oriented towards an archetypal past, takes place still in the pre-history; - the movement towards truth, specific to European societies and cultures. These have cut all ties with nature and mythical past and assumed the problematic character of existence, the risk of uncertainty and of the search for a rational meaning of existence. This meaning was found not in the past but in the stable and eternal presence of real and ultimate principles behind the phenomenal and changing manifestation of the natural flow of things. Real history is the expression of this movement towards truth; it only exists where existence itself receives a problematic character, because, according to Patocka, neither labour nor myth can effectively break the circle of natural life.

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N.E.C. Yearbook 1996-1997 History - and consequently Europe - appear thus only with the emergence, as individual and social ideal, of the virile movement of the soul which lives the risks and the tension of an existence in truth and freedom, resisting the double temptation of the comfort of a usual natural existence and, respectively, of the orgiastic outburst (sexual, violent, passional) compensating for its annoying routine - outlets offered by the natural sacredness of archaic religions. For him who accepts the movement towards truth, world and man are taken apart doubling themselves into a natural phenomenal side, obvious and varied, but subjected to accident, illusions and falsehood, perishable and ending in finitude and death, and another, less obvious, spiritual, essential, eternal (and consequently divine), real and authentic. Facing this dilemma, the problematic man must freely and rationally assume responsibility for accomplishing his essential spiritual and authentic dimension (see the Platonic myth of the choice between the two ways of life made by Hercules at a cross-roads). Based of a philosophical belief68, a reasonable decision not deprived of risks though, it is this individual design of real and authentic existence - of the care for ones soul, for oneself through oneself (cf. Alcibiades 132c) - expanded to social dimensions that constitutes, according to Patocka, the essence of historical development. Thus, the principle of historical existence is the struggle69, the acceptance of the problematic nature of existence and the exposure to the risks of an unnatural existence in order to attain a true, free and consequently fearless life. History is thus lived not only from the diurnal angle of acceptance, but also from the nocturnal one, that of the night and of the open battle, dangerous and terrifying; it lies in fact under the sign of Polemos. History, philosophy and politics are born of Polemos and Eris - as said by Heraclitus himself: We must know that war is common and justice is struggle and that all are born of struggle and need (fragment 80) or: war is father to all and emperor of all; some he showed to be gods, other humans, some he made slaves, others he made free men (fragment 53). Beyond the destructive aspects, the violence of war has a positive nature - metaphysical as well as sacred. He creates among those fighting a unity of thought (phrnesis), a special solidarity of the shaken but fearless. The means of this struggle are, alongside war, philosophy and politics; only when the last two appear can we speak of History, says the Czech philosopher. In fact, philosophy and politics were born during Athens struggle for freedom and democracy against the Orient represented

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IOAN IC, JR. by the Persian Empire, as well as against the internal tyranny and the Spartan militarist tribalism70. But the internal crisis of the Greek city is marked by the killing of the philosophical man par excellence, Socrates, by the representatives of the most free and democratic society of the time, the one which had defeated the Persians. The testament left by Socrates to his disciples was that, while meditating upon this catastrophe, they should create a city in which philosophers could no longer be killed and justice would not be based on fluctuating traditions or on the irrational tyranny of the power-hungry or of the crowds manipulated by them, but on the reason and the science of philosophers. Yet, the creation of this rational state requires first a recovery of the unity of the soul. Consequently, the Greek philosophical-political design centred on the care for the soul in all its relations: with the cosmos, the city and the self, would take the form of a total science (A. Cornea) made of the triptych generated by the sum of three sub-designs: 1) onto-cosmological, 2) psycho-political and 3) metaphysical-religious71: the first would be centred around the definition of the medial position of the soul in the general architecture of existence; the second would explain the analogical relations existing between the functions of the psyche and those of the polis; the third would establish, in contrast with the finitude and morality of physical existence, the eternity of the Psych, as a corollary to its nature as principle of movement (that aut heaut kinon, moving itself from Phaidros 246a). From this unitary fundamental design - developed in other but not centrifugal directions by Plato, Democritus and Aristotle and later taken by the stoics and the neo-Platonists - Europe was born. In spite of the catastrophes leading to the successive falls of the Polis, the Roman Empire and the medieval Christian one, and of its successive historical metamorphoses, the philosophical design of creating a community based on the aspiration towards the complete and ultimate truth of existence was preserved - according to the Czech philosopher - until the 16th century72. Gradually replacing the care for the soul, that is for truth and being, with the passion for possession and dominance of the outside world, the Renaissance, the Reform, the Enlightenment, modern scientism and technocracy would unavoidably lead to the nihilism, scepticism and social and moral crisis of contemporary Europe. In front of mans will of knowledge and power, the being finds shelter behind the beings turned into simple things. In his desire to dominate the external objects, man comes in fact to be dominated by the realities of the world turned into a

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N.E.C. Yearbook 1996-1997 mere network of forces73. The absence of a global metaphysical design, the collapse of the impetus towards an absolute meaning and truth of existence under the circumstances of an utilitarian operation of reason, have come to generate a gigantic boredom (taedium vitae), sign of a false existence, dominated more and more by a dull, absurd and impersonal present. According to Patocka, the main problem of Europe is therefore not the solution to the West-East, liberalism-socialism, democracy-totalitarianism alternative, but the paradox of an increasingly involution of history towards pre-history, towards the situation of a society satisfied with natural life, with reproduction and material sustention74. The boredom and the anxieties of this society are solved by the eternal orgiastic rites: sex, drugs, violence, revolutions and especially war, the perfect revolution for the world of everyday boredom. This has made the 20th century practically an endless war75. The only chance of avoiding this strong decline of Europe (and America) from history to pre-history (the utopia of liberal post-history belonging to Kojve-Fukuyama) - the only possibility of maintaining mankind on the track of history is conditioned, says Patocka, by a huge, unseen before philosophical metanoia of the European elite76. In other words, he is talking about the rehabilitation of the ancient ideal of the spiritual man, the ideal of a problematic and truthful existence which nevertheless requires a break with the naive natural meaning of existence and taking the risks of fighting falsehood. Exemplary figure, the archetype of this European spiritual man would be Socrates in whose myth drawn up by Plato (and continued by the neo-Platonists) the Czech philosophers thinks he can find all the essential features of Christ - the same distinction between the dishonest but reputedly honest man and the perfectly honest sentenced to death by the pseudo-honest77. Therefore, in his opinion (very close here to that of Simone Wiel), Europe is not based upon two pillars - the ancient tradition and the Jewish-Christian one - as it is generally accepted, but just on one, the ancient Greek one which Hellenised both the Jewish and the Christian elements entered in its spiritual corpus. Europe as Europe was born of the care for the soul. It has perished because it was once again left in oblivion78.

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IOAN IC, JR.

East Side Story

Extremely interesting and suggestive reflections on the cultural soul of Europe have also been given by the East-European space. Just like in the Central-European space, they were generated in reply to the historical terror represented by the Soviet occupation and communism, felt as ideological and historical forces aiming to take Romania out of Europe. But the European reflections of the Romanian philosophers and intellectuals were not something new, their apparition did not only have the value of a reaction to unfavourable historical circumstances. They belong to a vast national cultural debate79 which still goes on today and the origins of which are to be found in the 19th century, at the beginning of Romanias modernisation, as it accompanied the main stages in the creation of the modern national and unitary Romanian state. This vast debate has come to involve the supporters of two great cultural and social-political trends: the modernists, pro-European, pro-Western synchronists, on the one hand, and on the other the traditionalists, Orthodoxist, autochtonist, protocronist. The former are the representatives of the bourgeoisie, promoters of liberalism, capitalism and Western democracy, the others are the champions of the peasants, advocating a rural economy and an authoritarian, patriarchal political regime. Common to all East-European nations, the debate in Romania gains unique complexity, as it comes to tackle the thorny issue of the Romanian specific and identity. In the structure of this Romanian national specific we can find, due to the geo-spiritual setting and to historical circumstances, contrasting and often contradictory notes which render extremely difficult a clear and final identification. Formed as a nation and located right between the great European empires (Roman, Byzantine, Ottoman, Austrian-Hungarian, Russian), the Romanians have managed to survive and politically exist due to the weakness of the empires in whose area of influence they were and with regard to which they had to secure a difficult autonomy. Latin nation of Eastern Christian faith, from a linguistic and ethnic point of view they belong to Western Europe, but from a religious and spiritual one to South-Eastern and Eastern Europe. Consequently, they never fully identified with nor were fully acknowledged as such by any of the political and spiritual entities fighting for domination in Europe. Quite significantly, romanitas and christianitas have become for the Romanians formulas of national self-identification (designating the Romanian people and law) and not of integration in supranational political or spiritual

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N.E.C. Yearbook 1996-1997 structures, like the Empire and the Church in the West. The general tendency was instinctively that of locally absorbing the universal resources of acknowledgement and identification, using them to the advantage of a national policy of solitary, isolationist independence, defined by a stubborn refusal of integration in, or co-operation with, the supranational political or religious structures perceived as potential factors of spiritual annexation and alienation. Consequently, typical for the entire Romanian culture and politics was a fixation of the spirit on the idiomatic, the tendency to render universal the already existing particular, proclaiming universalist orientations, and not that of rendering particular the universals independently or previously existing by including them in the autochtonous. The specific movement was therefore one from local to general, and not the other way around. Thus, the action of forced universalisation through the Catholic faith (13th-14th century) or, later, through a modernisation along Western lines was seen as an aggression against the Romanian nature itself. The reaction to the strong demands of modernisation was a double one. The first was the utopian attempt to adopt a right-wing nationalist political-cultural attitude, traditionalistOrthodoxist, authoritarian, violently irrational, anti-Western, anti-Semite and xenophobe80, doomed to fail by history itself. The second was the attempt to affirm in front of the harsh dilemmas, typical for a developing society, the national specific sublimating it into cultural creativity. Avoiding the extremes of regressive autochthonism and progressive imitation, the representatives of this trend tried to find surprising combinations and identify new thought formulas which would fruitfully combine tradition and modernity. Their purpose was to offer coherent visions to a deeply schizoid society, trapped between an archaic and pre-feudal way of life and a stratum of modern urbanisation, a society which had begun only late, in a twisted and incomplete manner, the modernisation of a social psyche haunted by the complex of marginality81. One of the dominant features of Romanian philosophy is the absence of a political philosophy of the classical type, the social-political field being, with some notable exceptions, confiscated by a reductionist sociological outlook of Marxist extraction and with materialist overtones. On the other hand, a privileged place and a dominant role went to the aesthetic values82. Their importance is explained by the essentially contemplative character of Orthodox theology and religious practice, through which the patristic neo-Platonism (to which the romantic one was later added) became one of the fundamental constituent elements of

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IOAN IC, JR. Romanian culture83. We might say that, in fact, the modernisation of Romanian public life and its full access to a European status and sovereignty were accompanied by an option for aesthetic and mystical-rational connotations, ultimately of neo-Platonic extraction; this special type of philosophical tradition can be identified in the very fabric of most intellectual discourses on Romania. It explains why within Romanian culture the aesthetic values kept a long and rare prestige, being superior to the political and ethical ones. The aesthetic was offering an ideal space for mediation and harmonisation between the archaic tradition of instinctive faithfulness belonging to the Romanian society and the rationalist, contractual and modernising impulses84 defining the public and intellectual sphere. Romanian philosophers were to seek thus formulas for the relativisation of the classical oppositions within Western thought (man-nature, subject-object, identity-difference, empiricism-rationalism etc.) which would go beyond the dialectics of final contradictions and offer epistemological alternatives and ontological options meant to rehabilitate the secondary, the nuance, the imperfection, the individual85. Avoiding the antithetical negation and choosing to adopt the inclusion, they will attempt intellectual constructs meant to rehabilitate and reconcile under the sign of a generous humanism science and tradition, West and East (Aron Dumitriu), dogma and science, conscious and unconscious, philosophy and poetry (Lucian Blaga), archaic and modern, sacred and profane (Mircea Eliade, Sergiu Al-George), theology and philosophy, faith and reason (Mircea Vulcnescu, Mihai ora), being and becoming, idiomatic and universal (Constantin Noica). All these outstanding representatives of Romanian thought have manifested at the same time a real cultural fury inspired by the desire to compensate through creativity the historical delay and for fragility of political constructions. This feeling consolidated after 1945. As Romania was Sovietised, culture came to replace politics; creation became an almost mystical technique to fight and defeat time86, being invested with a quasi-soteriological function. The terms of the great debate reversed their sign: the progressive attitude and the modernisation became anti-European through Sovietisation and traditionalism became pro-Western87. Europe was shown that because of an excessive feeling of guilt towards the abandoned East, its elite fell victim to Marxist propaganda88 and accepted with an irresponsible frivolity the division of Europe by the Iron Curtain89. Accepting the suicidal amputation of the East-European patrimony, Europe basically agreed with a large scale attack

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N.E.C. Yearbook 1996-1997 on the diversity which gives it its richness. We cannot imagine a European culture reduced only to its Western forms. From a cultural and spiritual point of view, Europe is completed by everything that the area of the Carpathians and the Balkans has created and preserved. Therefore, today Europe can no longer afford to once again abandon Dacia, this sacrifice might endanger the very existence and spiritual integrity of Europe90. In Romania, the model of resistance through culture to the communist era was best represented with all his accomplishments and ambiguities, by philosopher Constantin Noica. Culturalism as access to a more authentic history and as measure of the real history, plus the paideic dimension turned cultural creativity into a secular esoterism and into a modern version of sacredness which both had, due to his disciples from the Pltini School, an enormous echo in the Romanian culture of the 80s91. The central theme of Noicas philosophy is metaphysical in nature. It aims to recover from a reversed perspective Hegels plan of speculative reconciliation between ancient philosophy and the modern philosophy of becoming in the form of the so-called becoming into being92. Between being (absolute) and becoming (nature) there is a unilateral contradiction: becoming contradicts being, it is not being but tends towards being (without having to reach it when it remains a mere becoming into becoming), while being does not contradict becoming, it is becoming accomplished in the form of becoming into being. The latter takes the form of subjective, objective and absolute reason embodied in man and appearing as person, community and mankind in morals, politics and religion, and also has a life of its own, as absolute reason, ideal model which makes possible all its embodiments. This model has three terms: individual, determinations, general. The terms of this model enter various binary combinations, representing just as many ontological uncertainties (diseases of the spirit at a conscious level) before reaching the ternary order of being. Different from Hegels version: general - determinations - individual (G-D-I), and from the Marxist one: determinations - general - individual (D-G-I), with Noica it finds the Platonic form individual - determinations - general (I-D-G): something individual gives its determinations which, by means of their constituent fields or elements, turn it into something universal. In a highly general analogy, Noicas ontological model has the following synthetic formula: the individual body of becoming passes through the soul made up of elements (as possibility of becoming) into the general spirit of its becoming which is being. But the modulations of being and the entwinement of being and becoming are, according to Noica, a priori

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IOAN IC, JR. embedded in the Romanian language93 and especially in the preposition ntru (towards, into) which gave the philosopher the ontological operator for the integration of being and becoming, man and nature, one and multiple, impossible to reconcile for the religions and the philosophies of the world. The Romanian solution to the becoming into (towards) being under the form of the multiple One offers the philosopher, in one last book with the value of a legacy, the principle for the recreation of the scheme, structure and model of the European culture94, considered to be the culture par excellence, the culture of cultures. The general classification of cultures is operated by Noica according to the criterion of the five possible solutions to the fundamental metaphysical problem of the relation between One and multiple95: 1) One and its repetition - totemic cultures; 2) One and its variation - monotheistic cultures (Islam, America); 3) One in multiple - pantheistic cultures (India); in all these three forms the multiple is shadowed by the One which, in its turn, is degraded and reduced to the rank of mere unit; 4) One and multiple - polytheistic cultures (Ancient Greece); and, finally, 5) multiple One, the only to legitimate the multiple distributing itself without splitting - the Trinitarian culture of Europe96. The trinitarian culture, the culture of Europe as such, was born not how Spengler believed, in the Germany of the years 900-1000 as a Faustian culture, but in the Byzantine East, namely in the year 325 of our Lord, at Nicaea 97 together with the Trinitarian idea and the myth of the embodiment. This theological beginning left a decisive mark on the entire European culture which, in all its authentic forms of manifestation, even in the most secularised ones, has a Trinitarian constant: all that is authentic has the form of law - embodiment - manifestations (general - individual determinations), and an incarnational orientation98. To the unifying, reductive unity of synthesis of the ancients, the European trinitarian model opposes a new kind of unity, the synthetic unity characterised by diversification and expansion. This type of synthetic unity seeks itself in all creations of the European spirit: religious, artistic, scientific, technical99. C. Noica thinks that the periods of European culture can be understood as chapters in an original morphology of culture, which includes the grammar of the logos and of being with the uncertainties of the ontological model imperfectly or partially accomplished100: 1) Middle Ages - age of the noun; 2) Renaissance - age of the adjective; 3) Reform, Counter-Reform, Classicism - age of the adverb; 4) Renaissance, Enlightenment, Revolution - age of the pronoun (from the individualist I

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N.E.C. Yearbook 1996-1997 to the collectivist we); 5) modern and contemporary era - era of the numeral and of the conjunction (stagnation, alienation, absurd, nihilism) and, finally, 6) future - age of the preposition (of the ntru - into, towards), of synthetic units, with no correctives, of the multiple One type. This will mark the end of the tyranny of generalisations and the complete rehabilitation of the individual (obviously proportional with the accomplishment of the ontological model, namely universalised). On the basis of this argumentation, Noica feels entitled to a final suggestion101: as the mathematical logos has today drifted into formalism and the historical one into nihilism, the only chance of Europe is to recover the ontological model on the open line of the cultural logos. We are talking about a real cultural eschatology: this culture is the chance for surpassing not only the cyclic character of the ancient natural time, but also the linearity of the entropic Christian historical time. It introduces a new, ecstatic temporality of the non-gentropic kairotic kind, similar to that of the mystics, not static and contemplative, but active and dynamic. As it offers access to being in its ideal model, culture even comes to tame time itself, which it encapsulates in creations and turns from devouring it. By accelerating time, it allows access to the good infinity (and not to a bad one, as inert as the eternity of mysticism) of a sui generis cultural super-nature and super-history: authentic transcendence without transcendence, the endless culture will finally render superfluous even the platitude the of millennia-old fundamental obsession of mankind: death102. There are two main objections to Noicas cultural Platonism, the exclusivism and attachments of which have never ceased to cause protests and condemnation. A first objection has in view the confusion, or rather the reduction of spirit to reason. But reason is different from intellect (the former operating with ideas or meanings, the latter with mere concepts or knowledge) and also from the soul (made of intellect - feeling - will). Noicas spiritual/cultural man could very well be a man with no heart or soul; he is comfortable offending the world, taking interest only in the logical (or ontological) individual and not in the statistical one, concern of the politicians, common logicians and theologians with no preference. The politicians, logicians and prophets do not have the courage to say: Im not interested!103 Or, from the perspective of the spiritual/cultural man, there are three things which we can ignore: politics, history and time. All that is good, all that is culture goes out of time104. Such proud indifference and philosophical superiority towards the real human community expressed so directly were quick to cause

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IOAN IC, JR. critical reactions, this attitude being openly accused in the press of that time as the expression of elitism or cultural gnosticism105. Dissident intellectuals were to radicalise their objections denouncing in Noicas cultural utopia not only the compromise with Ceauescus aggressive national communist regime, but also some other negative features enhanced by the economic and moral disaster lived by Romania in the 80s: lack of responsibility, social indifference, ethical inconsistency, speculative retreat in front of the seriousness of reality, cultural provincialism, the inadequacy and the aggressive complex of Romanian pride by means of which Noica found excuses for Ceauescus regime106. Noica was indeed paying no attention to the issues of political regime or economic system. Without being a supporter either of socialism, or of capitalism, totalitarianism, democracy, his outlook on politics found an ideal in the utopia of a state of culture, at equal distance between the excessive prosperity of the West and the poverty of the East, as both were hindering cultural creativity. According to his disciples, Noica did not imagine post-communist Romania at all, and even if he would have lived to see it, his lesson in terms of philosophy of history would have been that we must leave the communist inferno without heading for the false paradise of the West107. In his opinion - similar up to a certain point to that of Heidegger on contemporary Western civilisation -, by choosing the consumption and libertarian kind of society, the technical civilisation of the Faustian type, the West has betrayed the Europe of spirit and culture for the sake of the Europe of butter, has lost the being and the philosophical meanings of existence for the sake of an endless accumulation of wealth and knowledge. In front of a diseased Europe, lost in statistics and nihilism, the real resurrection of European spirit can only come from the East, where its ontological model was miraculously preserved in the Romanian language108. With this we come to the second major objection that can be raised to Noicas thought. Identified even by his own disciples, it is connected to the unsolved tension between the idiomatic and the universal109. As I was trying to show above, this is not specific to the Pltini philosopher, but to the entire Romanian traditional culture which has always had the tendency to consider that the universal, the spirit, the being (Christianism, culture) are to be found in the particular, in the body of Romanian autochtonous realities, appearing as a mere exhalation or aura of these, after the model of the manifestation or exteriorisation of something hidden, and not after that of the embodiment or the interiorisation of an external universal spirit into a particular body.

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N.E.C. Yearbook 1996-1997 The model of the manifestation of the universal, with its determined presence, accounts for the resistance to the idea of European integration which is perceived and operates along the model of its embodiment. It also accounts very well for the tensions and the debates appeared in Romania after 1989. The Romanian intellectual elite, dominantly pro-European, is now once again divided, the great debate of Romanian culture continues in a new form between the supporters of the return to Europe through a fast integration and adoption by Romania of European Union legislative and economic standards and demands110, on the one hand, and the supporters of the theory according to which, by its culture and spirit, Romania has remained in Europe, never abandoning it, in fact111. According to the former, Romanias European identity must be imposed from the outside and built against the Romanian tradition, while the latter say that it only has to be manifested from within in the direction of the same tradition112. The former lay stress on uniformity and institutional identity, the latter on diversity, difference, culture, tradition. But the main challenge brought by the historical events of 1989 to Romanian society obviously regards the extraordinary opportunity it has to reinvent and redefine itself in a new, more flexible and beneficial manner. This would first of all mean to discipline and adapt our economy and society so as to meet the criteria of performance and legislative compatibility allowing us to hope for an adhesion to the European Union. Second, we have to face the hardships of post-communism and gather the courage to rethink from the very foundations the state and the type of society we want. Finally, this requires a cultural redefinition of national identity as Romanian and at the same time as European identity, which would freely combine, in a creative and beneficial manner, the multiple and stratified resources present in the seemingly ill-assorted and heterogeneous elements of the Romanian traditional identity as well as of the European identity. Refusing here, on a cultural and spiritual level, any form of exclusivism or uniformity (like, for instance, the adoption of a levelling European rhetoric of the ideological kind, a new continental wooden language, with new propaganda agents and party workers)113, beneficial would be precisely the adoption of an ever open dialectics between imitation and identity which would imitate not the static, but the dynamic side of the Western world. The example to follow would be that of an abundant and ingenious culture, of a respect for human dignity, of a fascinating and tenaciously supported diversity, of liberty as supreme guide in human relations, of the creative openness towards the

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IOAN IC, JR. potential of transcendence (rather than blind obedience to a set image), of the endless search for new relations between the material and the ideal114. This does not exclude, but implies a critical attitude towards the social-political developments in the Western society, but only on the basis of a consciously assumed solidarity of destiny. Lucid foreign observers, solidary with the Romanian phenomenon, are today drawing the attention on the obsessively repeated slogan of the entrance in Europe. We are suggested that, before proclaiming the adhesion, the interrogation regarding the space called Europe should be much more radical, reaching even the extreme: Is there still a Europe? Or, in Heideggers terms: Which is the essence of the European being (Seiende)? And then we may have the surprise to see that this space of our hopes has become completely separated from the transcendent, a space now of pure economic immanence whose Holy Trinity is: Production, Consumption, Profit and in which being (tre) has become one with welfare (bien-tre) (R. Guideri), being ultimately reduced to the exchange value (according to G. Vattimo, equation representing the essence of nihilism). Reduced to a social model of the alliance between techno-science and productivity in the service of consumption and profit, Europe is seen as already dissolved in the global nature of world economy, in the Westernisation of the world and the third-worldisation of the West115. Under such circumstances, it may be possible that the Eastern cultures will have to become the defenders of the classical European spirit, or rather of the spiritual man, as archetype of homo europaeus. Surpassing the fixation on the idiomatic and rediscovering the pluralist, democratic, universalist potentialities implicit in christianitas and romanitas, using the open modernising and diversifying resources of tradition in front of the unsettling prospects of uniformisation by turning to account the differences opened by a late, post-modern modernity, a Christian democracy116 aware of the meaning of its choices could play a decisive part in the European reconstruction of Romanian society in a tolerant and natural spirit. Romanians are today faced with the transition from a free Europe to the more prosaic demands of a united Europe, seriously risking to become the victims of a bad investment of freedom in front of a united Europe which seems less and less like a crowning of the free Europe117 and of the spirit, in which administrative unification tends to increasingly erase all differences. The integration is also rendered difficult by the perception dominant in the West that this is a process of reintegration of a diseased world (the East) into a healthy world (the West). Or, more realisticaly

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N.E.C. Yearbook 1996-1997 that this triumphalist outlook is that of the two infirmities caused by the pampering or by the barbarity of history, which have to complete one another to attain common health118. In front of the Western new Europe, Eastern Europe is aware of being the past of Europe, the old Europe, the Europe of the rejuvenating elixir of the spirit, but also of the dangerous toxins of nationalism. Its problem is that of using the elixir and transubstantiating the toxin, while the problem of the new Europe is that of being a Europe in which the prestige of the eternal and ancient Europe would be visible through transparence119. The object of this essay was to present the actual situation of the discussions regarding European unification in the West and European integration in the East. We have briefly presented the debates in France and in Romania in the form of two stories, West-European and East-European, with a Central-European interlude. At the core of these debates the political nature of the European design has appeared as inextricably tied to the destiny of the European spirit. Taking into account the difference of temporal sequences between West and East, the political and spiritual nature of European unification is challenged from an economic point of view (West) and, respectively, from a cultural one (East) within the two scenarios drawn up for the post-communist era: the end of history and the civilisation clash. Institutional Europe needs spiritual Europe and the other way around, provided that the spirit be not confiscated by the economic dimension (West), or by national civilisations and cultures (East). Consequently, the accomplishment of a unitary political Europe demands an extremely serious redefinition of spirit in order to defend both its transcendence and universality. From what has been presented so far, we believe that two correlative theories can be considered as demonstrated: 1) Spiritual Europe cannot be taken apart from political Europe. The spiritual soul of Europe, created along a Trinitarian model, as Christian synthesis between Greek rationalism, Roman law and Biblical ethics, needs in order to survive the body of adequate institutions. The political expression of the philosophy of European spirit is given by the distinctions and the articulations brought by communal personalism and the principle of subsidiarity on which in the 50s the Founding Fathers of United Europe centred their design of European federalisation. 2) Political Europe cannot be taken apart form spiritual Europe. Because, in a classical meaning, politics is the art of governing free people (Aristotle). The communal body of political institutions can be animated

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IOAN IC, JR. by the spiritual soul of Europe only by means of the individuals who embody this spirit. The analysis of the work of several important Westand East- European philosophers has pointed out the great actuality of homo europaeus, shaped along the lines of the archetype of the ancient or Christian spiritual man (the person), in ensuring and maintaining the political pulse of a unitary European organism. Given that to any body animated by a spirit (individuals, communities, nations) corresponds an angel, the new Europe - a Europe at the same time political and spiritual - cannot be deprived of an angel. But this indispensable protective spirit, this mysterious angelus Europae has a strange behaviour, similar to the paradoxical structure of the entity it protects. He is behaving like the mysterious angelus novus of W. Benjamin in front of history: he is flying rapidly towards the future, but backwards, so that his eyes recover every second the entire past of mankind, a past that is always and completely actual, a seminal past, the only vital substance of any renewal120.

NOTES
1. Cf. Denis de Rougemont, Vingt-huit sicles dEurope. La conscience europene a travers les textes dHesiode nos jours, Paris, 1961, and Jean-Baptiste Duroselle, Lide dEurope dans lhistoire, Paris, 1965. 2. Cf. Hobsbawm, The Age of Extremes, and the debate around this book in Le Dbat no. 3. Cf. Ernst Nolte, Der europische Brgerkrieg 1917-1945. Nazionalsozialismus und Bolschevismus, Berlin, 1987. 4. Cf. the monumental monograph of Jean-Pierre Sironneau, Secularisation et religions politiques (Religions & Society 17), Mouton, The Hague - Paris New York, 1982. 5. Alain Besanon, La confusion des langages. La crise ideologique de lglise, Paris, 1978. Romanian translation by Mona and Sorin Antohi, Humanitas, Bucureti, 1992, p. 54, 52. 6. Ibid., p. 75 sq. 7. Paul Valery, the essay Criza spiritului (1919) in Criza spiritului i alte eseuri; Romanian translation by M. Ivnescu, Polirom, Iai, 1996, p. 260 sq. 8. Martin Heidegger, Die Frage nach der Technik (1954) and Brief ber den Humanismus (1946); Romanian translation by Th. Kleininer and G. Liiceanu, introductory study by C. Noica in Originea operei de art, Univers, 1982, p. 106 sq, 321 sq, and in Repere pe drumul gndirii, Ed. Politic, Bucureti, 1988, p. 297 sq.

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9. Denis de Rougemont, Vingt-huit sicles dEurope, 1961, p. 333 sq, 390 sq. 10. Cf. Jean-Dominique Durand, LEurope de la dmocratie chretinne (Questions au XXe sicle), ditions Complexe, Bruxelles, 1995, p. 143 sq and passim. 11. Jean Lacroix, Le personnalisme, sources, fondement, actualit, Lyon, 1981 and Roberto Papini (dir.), Lapporto del personalismo alla costruzione dellEuropa, Milano, 1981. 12. Chantal Millon-Delsol, LEtat subsidiaire. Ingrence et non-ingrence de Etat: le principe de subsidiarit aux fondements de lhistoire europene, PUF, Paris, 1992. 13. Ibid., p. 14. 14. Cf. Antoine Winckler, Description dune crise ou crise dune description?, Le Dbat, no. 87, nov.-dec. 1995, p. 59-73. With references to the works of some historians specialised in medieval law and politics: O. Gierke, Q. Skinner, W. Ulmann etc. 15. On Althusius and his Politica, cf. Ch. Millon-Delsol, LEtat subsidiaire, 1992, p. 45 sq. The crucial importance of Althusiuss thought for federalism had been noticed by Denis de Rougemont, Lavenir cest notre affaire, Paris, 1977. 16. Denis de Rougemont, Laventure occidentale de lhomme, Paris, 1957, p. 55 sq, 85 sq, 161 sq. Also cf. C. Noica, infra, note 97. 17. Ibid., p. 57 sq, 62 sq. 18. K. Jaspers, Vom Ursprung und Ziel der Geschichte (1949) and the documents of the 1983 seminar edited by S. N. Eisenstadt, The Origins and Diversity of Axial Age Civilisations, New York University Press, 1986. 19. Denis de Rougemont, Laventure occidentale de lhomme, Paris, 1957, p. 78. 20. Ibid., p. 94 sq. 21. Millon-Delsol, op. cit., p. 193, 217. 22. Michael Novak, Ex pluribus unum: Perspectives of European Common Cultural Action for Unity and Pluralism, in : The Common Christian Roots of the European Nations. An International Colloquium in the Vatican, 3-7 November. 1981, Le Monnier-Florence, 1982, p. 245-252, here p. 251. There are seven stamps of European spirit: 1) pluralism; 2) person; 3) consentual community; 4) emergent possibility (history is open, but not determined, progress in contingent); 5) sin, conteracted through 6) separation of powers and triple-one division of political, economic and moral-cultural systems, leading to pluralist institutions; and 7) commercial and industrial skills extremely necessary given the demographical explosion and multimedia culture. 23. Michael Novak, Morality, Christianity and Democracy, IEA Healthal Welfare Unit, London, 1990, p. 13. 24. Ibid., p. 13-14. 25. Cf. Paul Valery, the essay Libertatea spiritului (1939) in Criza spiritului i alte eseuri, 1996, p. 100 sq. 26. M. Novak, Morality, Christianity and Democracy, 1990, p. 14-22.

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27. Isaiah Berlin, Two Concepts of Liberty (1958), in: Four Essays on Liberty, Oxford, 1969; Romanian translation by L. tefan-Scalat, Humanitas, 1996, p. 200sq; cf. the C. Predas review in Polis nr.1/1996, p. 183 sq. 28. M. Novak, op. cit., p. 23. 29. Cf. Dominique Bocquet, Le paradoxe de lEurope politique, Le Dbat no.87, nov.-dec. 1995, p. 50-58. 30. Cf. Perry Anderson, Sous le signe du provisoire, Le Dbat no. 91, sept.-oct. 1996, p. 115-133, analysing the books of Alain Milward (The Reconstruction of Europe, London, 1984, and The European Rescue of the Nation-State, London, 1994). The latter is a supporter of the neo-realist outlook in explaining the process of European construction. According to this perspective, European integration was based on a plan of the founding nation-states founded on the similarity and compatibility of social-economic interests and democratic consensus, and was consequently meant to strengthen and not to weaken the nation-state. The European Union would be in this case a mere institutionalisation of an inter-government conference. The neo-realist outlook is opposed to the neo-functionalist one promoted by one of its main architects in the 50s, Jean Monnet, according to whom European unification will be the result of a process of creation and development of communal institutions, the gradual accumulation of which will turn the community into a union, respectively, into a supranational democratic federation. Cf. Paul Thibaud, Jean Monnet, entrepreneur en politique, Le Dbat no. 97, sept.-oct. 1996, p. 142-162. For the conflict between federalists and inter-governmentalists from a federalist perspective, cf. Martin Holland, European Integration. From Community to Union,London, 1993 [fragments translated into Romanian in Polis nr. 3/1995 (special issue dedicated to Instituiile Uniunii Europene), p. 5-46]. 31. Cf. the debate on LEurope sera-t-elle allemande? Allemagne - un phare pour lEurope? in Esprit, no. 221, mai 1996; Marc Olivier Padis, Au coeur du dbat europen (p. 5-9), L. Debattre, La logique allemande (p. 10-23), and especially Paul Thibaud, LEurope allemande... dfinitivement? (p. 53-62). 32. Jean Franois-Poncet, Dsembourber lEurope, Commentaire no. 68, hiver 1994-1995, p. 797-801. 33. D. Boquet, op. cit., p. 54, 53. 34. Henri Prvot, La fin de la mthode Monnet, Esprit no. 221, mai 1996, p. 168-172. 35. Le moment et la mthode: entretien avec Jacques Delors, Le Dbat no. 83, jan.-fevr., 1995 (issue dedicated to the topic LEurope de Delors, lEurope aprs Delors), p. 22. 36. Bela Farago, LEurope, empire introuvable?, Le Dbat, no. 83, jan.-fevr., 1995, p. 42-58.

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37. Bela Farago, Le deficit politique de lEurope, Le Dbat, no. 87, nov.-dec., 1995 [dedicated to the topic Nation, federation - quelle Europe?], p. 26-43. Bela Faragos essay is critically analysed in the same issue by Olivier Beaud (p. 44-49) and Antoine Winckler (p. 59-73), the debate being concluded with the succint considerations of the same Bela Farago, Exorciser les voeux pieux (p. 74-81). 38. Ibid., p. 43 (Bela Farago). 39. Ibid., p. 78 (Bela Farago). 40. Ibid., p. 72, 68 sq (A. Winckler). 41. J. Delors, Le Dbat no. 83, 1995, p. 17-19 and P. Thibaud, Esprit no. 221, 1996, p. 63-64. 42. P. Manent, La dmocratie sans la nation?, Commentaire no. 76, t 1996, p. 569-575. 43. P. Thibaud, op. cit., p. 64. 44. J. Delors, op. cit., p. 20. 45. Ibidem. 46. Cf. the essays from the massive group (327 p.) recently dedicated by the Esprit review, no. 233, juin 1997, to the topic Le temps des religions sans Dieu. For the following pages we shall use the description of the overall situation from the introductory synthesis essays (p. 4-6) and the conclusive ones (p. 321-327), as well as the useful survey of Jean-Claude Eslin, p. 7-19. 47. Alexis de Tocqueville, Despre democraie n America II (1840) partea I, cap. VII; Romanian translation, Humanitas, Bucureti, vol. II, p. 37-38. 48. Francis Fukuyama, The End of History?, in the American foreign policy review The National Interest, summer 1989, with comments by Alan Bloom, Irving Kristol, Pierre Hassner a.o. French translation in Commentaire no. 47, automme 1989; Romanian translation by D. Bercea, Sfritul istoriei?, Ed. Vremea, Bucureti, 1994. 49. Francis Fukuyama, The End of History and the Last Man, New York, 1992; Romanian translation: Sfritul istoriei i ultimul om, Paideia, Bucureti, 1994. 50. Alexander Kojve, Introduction la lecture de Hegel, Paris, 1947; Romanian summary by E. Pastenague: Introducere n lectura lui Hegel, Editura Apostrof, Cluj, 1996. Cf. Dominique Duffret, A. Kojve: La philosophie, ltat, la fin de la philosophie, Paris, 1990. 51. Fukuyama, Sfritul istoriei? I, p. 15. 52. P. Hassner, in Fukuyama, Sfritul istoriei?, p. 64. 53. Cf. Fukuyama, Sfritul istoriei i ultimul om, cap. 13-19, p. 129 sq. Cf. Catharina Zuckert, Understanding the Political Spirit: Philosophical Investigations from Socrates to Nietzsche, Yale University Press, 1988. 54. Fukuyama, ibid., cap. 17, p. 164. 55. Alan Bloom, ibid., p. 58, 53. 56. Irving Kristol, in Fukuyama, Sfritul istoriei?, p. 75. 57. Cf. Lo Strauss, De la tyrannie, Gallimard, 1954; A. Kojve, Tyrannie et sagesse (p. 215-280) - L. Strauss, Mise au point (p. 283-344).

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58. Alan Bloom, in Fukuyama, Sfritul istoriei?, p. 57. 59. Lo Strauss, De la tyrannie, Paris, 1954, p. 339-340 (Mise au point). 60. Samuel Huntington, Will Civilisations Clash?, Foreign Affairs, 1993, French e translation in Commentaire, no. 66, t 1994 (Le monde au XXI sicle?), p. 238-257: Le choc des civilisations?. With critical comments by Daniel Bell, Alain Besanon, Pierre Hassner, Giuseppe Sacco, Francis Fukuyama a.o. 61. Ibid., p. 242. 62. Paul Valery, the essay Criza spiritului (1919) in Criza spiritului i alte eseuri, Polirom, Iai, 1996, p. 266-272. 63. The essay Reflecii despre mreia i decadena Europei, ibid., p. 6-7. 64. Divagaia despre libertate (1938), ibid., p. 31. 65. Nota (sau Europeanul, ibid., p. 227-240. 66. This is included in a wide study on Europa i post-Europa. Epoca postmodern i problemele ei spirituale (late 60s, early 70s), ideas developed within the private seminars of 1973-1975, the lectures and debates of which circulated underground (samizdat) in Prague under the titles: Plato and Europe (summer seminar 1973) (translation by Erika Abrams, Platon et lEurope, Verdier, 1983) and Heretic Essays in the Philosophy of History (1975) edited by the Institut fr die Wissenscheften vom Menschen (Wien) in the series Jan Patocka Ausgewlte Werke: Ketzerische Essais zur Geschichte der Philosophie und ergnzende Schriften (hg. v. K. Nellen u. J. Nemec), Klett-Cotta, Stuttgart, 1988. Cf. Olivier Mongin, Jan Patocka, notre contemporain, Esprit, no. 220, avril, 1996, p. 175-176. 67. Ketzerische Essais, p. 52 sq. 68. Platon et lEurope, p. 149. 69. Without explicitly quoting him, Patocka describes under other forms the struggle for rebirth (creator of the master-slave relation) as a mechanism of history theorised by Hegel in his Phnomenologie des Geistes (1806). 70. Ketzerische Essais, p. 64-68. 71. Ibid., p. 265-285; Platon et lEurope, passim. 72. Ibid., p. 183 sq. 73. Ibid., p. 109 sq. 74. Ibid., p. 140 sq. In 1964, Emil Cioran was giving, in his La chute dans le temps, the amazingly similar diagnosis of a second, unavoidable and final fall of mankind: after the paradisiac fall in time, it is now experiencing the fall from time into the inert, in the inferno of the sub-temporal historical time, which is the * that does not move, this tension in monotony, this reversed eternity which opens towards nothing, not even towards death. 75. Ibid., p. 146 sq. 76. Ibid., p. 101-102, 162. 77. Platon et lEurope, p. 138-159. 78. Ibid., p. 79. 79. Cf. for details Keith Hitchins, Romania: 1866-1947, Oxford University Press, 1994; Romanian translation: Romnii: 1866-1947, Humanitas, Bucureti,

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1996, cap. VII, p. 311-358. The most comprehensive anthology with the texts of the great debate is the one edited by Iordan Chimet: Dreptul la memorie, Ed. Dacia, Cluj, 1992-1993, vol. I-IV. 80. Details in Zigu Ornea, Tradiionalism i modernitate n deceniul al treilea, Bucureti, 1980, and Anii 30. Extrema dreapt romneasc, Bucureti, 1995. 81. Virgil Nemoianu, Diagnostic romnesc: trecut, prezent, viitor, the anthology of Iordan Chimet (ed.), Momentul adevrului, Editura Dacia, Cluj, 1996, p. 134-142, here p. 139. This dense text dated Washington D.C., December 1989 offers the most interesting and challenging re-evaluation of the Romanian culture of the years 1860-1950 made in the recent years. Its essential merit is that of going beyond the extreme polarisation in the evaluation of the creativity of Romanian philosophers and traditionalist intellectuals within the clichs of the Manicheist ideology of the reactionary-progressive kind cultivated by their democrat or communist opponents. The right-wing or nationalist stance of some remarkable reactionary thinkers on the line of M. Eminescu or N. Ionescu, like for instance L. Blaga, M. Eliade, C. Noica a.o., be it firm or opportunist, must be (just like in the case of Heidegger, for instance) carefully dissociated from their non-conventional and daring ideas which, when read in an epistemological key, prove to be of surprising actuality, anticipating similar intentions manifested in the Western thought of the last decades (cf. Virgil Nemoianu, A Theory of the Secondary. Literature, Progress and Reaction, John Hopkins University Press, 1989; Romanian translation by L.S. Cmpeanu: O teorie a secundarului, Ed. Univers, Bucureti, 1997, p. 168 sq = cap. 9: Dialectics of Imperfection: Girard, Blaga, Serres). Considered from a processual and dynamic point of view, rather than from a particular and static one, as interaction in the context as continuous debate started around 1840 in the general context of the developing societies everywhere, the Romanian intellectual debate of the pre-communist century becomes much more clear, but also escapes the full and radical condemnations (p. 140, 139). Consequently, the debational perspective of Professor Nemoianu allows one to avoid in interpretation the idolatric exaltations as well as the iconoclast exaggerations, giving a calm, lucid perspective, free of any resentment. Impressive, above all, is the diversity of the debate: from the left-wing considerations of Stere, Dobrogeanu-Gherea, erban Voinea and Ibrileanu, to the liberal centrism of Zeletin and Lovinescu, to the conservatorism of Maiorescu and Blaga, through the nationalist populism of Iorga or the integrating or progressive peasant-ism of Spiru Haret, Gusti or Madgearu, to the ontological localism of Noica or the rationalist idealism of Vianu, and to the existentialist vitalism of Eliade or Cioran - a gallery of creative and original voices (p. 140). 82. Ibidem, p. 136. 83. Virgil Nemoianu, Neoplatonism i cultur romn (conference at the New Europe College, May 1995), Revista de istorie i teorie literar, 43 (1995), no. 3-4, p. 261-271.

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84. Virgil Nemoianu, Mihai ora and the Traditions of Romanian Philosophy, Review of Metaphysics, 43 (March 1990), p. 591-605, here p. 594; Romanian translation by Mona and Sorin Antohi: Mihai ora i tradiiile filozofiei romneti, in S. Antohi and A. Criuu (coord.), Dialog i libertate. Eseuri n onoarea lui Mihai ora, Nemira, Bucureti, 1997, p. 186-201, here p. 189. 85. Ibid., p. 596-600; Romanian translation p. 190-194. 86. Mircea Eliade, Destinul culturii romneti (article from the exile, 1949), in Impotriva dezndejdii. Publicistica exilului, Humanitas, Bucureti, 1992, p. 28-37, here p. 35, 49-50. 87. Idem, Probleme de cultur romneasc (1951), ibid., p. 73-79, here p. 76. 88. Id., Infelix culpa (1952), ibid., p. 147-150. 89. Id., Europa i cortina de fier (1952), ibid., p. 151-160. The entire article is a remarcable avant la lettre reply to the Huntington doctrine. The Iron Curtain corresponds only to a balance of forces and to nothing more, it does not separate two worlds, two opposed lifestyles of two opposed philosophies. The East is not necessarily a bloc because the dominant religion is the Orthodox one, as the Orthodox churches maintain their distinctive features. There is no exclusive solidarity anywhere in Eastern Europe, but only multiple cultural solidarities. 90. Id., Destinul culturii romneti (1953), ibid., p. 164-176, here p. 176. 91. The popularity of the Noica model was imposed by the enormous success of the two books edited by Gabriel Liiceanu, Jurnalul de la Pltini 1977-1981, un model paideic n cultura umanist, Bucureti, 1983, and Epistolar, Bucureti, 1987, with the main reactions to the Jurnal. 92. Presented in a speculative form in two versions: ncercare asupra filosofiei tradiionale (1950) and Tratat de ontologie (1980), both published in the volume Devenirea ntru fiin, Editura tiinific, 1981. 93. Cf. Constantin Noica, Sentimentul romnesc al fiinei, Editura Eminescu, Bucureti, 1978. For a basic criticism from a Heideggerian angle of Noicas entire approach attempting to perform a metaphysical synthesis between being and becoming, itself expression of the transcendent harmony between tradition and modernity, as solution to the identity crisis of Romanian culture, see Claude Karnoouh, Linvention du peuple. Chroniques de Roumanie, Arcantre, 1990; Romanian translation: Romnii. Tipologie i mentaliti, Humanitas, Bucureti, 1994, p. 171 sq (chapter: C. Noica, metafizician al ethniei-naiune). For the French anthropologist tradition and modernity, state and city are basically incompatible, each belonging to a different age of being. 94. Modelul cultural european, Humanitas, Bucureti, 1993. This is the last book of the philosopher and had been published in the form of articles in the cultural press of the years 1986-1987. To be found in the German version of G. Scherg: De dignitate Europae, Editura Kriterion, Bucureti, 1988.

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95. Solutions already presented in the article Unu i multiplu published in: Izvoare de filosofie. Culegere de studii i texte, ed. C. Floru, C. Noica and M. Vulcnescu, Bucureti, 1942, p. 233-241. 96. Modelul cultural european, 1993, p. 42 sq. 97. Ibid., p. 64 sq. Also cf. Jurnal de idei, Humanitas, Bucureti, 1990, p. 337: Europe begins in 325 with the Council of Nicaea. This gives the model. Faustian Europe will perish, as it has been foreseen, but that of pluralism in being will not. The Norse replaced Europe in the year 1000 and made it more dynamic. But it continues to be the trinitarian one. This remained in the deep structure. Christianism is the religion of religions and Europe the culture of cultures. 98. The embodiment (G-I) is the core of our world. Philosophy follows the model of Christ. I know no other divinity than Jesus Christ. He gives truth to history and to speculative thought (Jurnal de idei, p. 366). The absolute synalethism, that of divinity (G and D and I) (ibid., p. 377). People are divided into believers and arians. The former believe in the multiple One (Trinity), the latter in One and multiple, or only in the multiple, the only one that can be seen. These are the enlightened ones, but know nothing of the Taborite light of good philosophy (ibid., p. 361). 99. Modelul cultural european, p. 54 sq. 100. Ibid., p. 82 sq, ch. IX-XVII. 101. Ibid., p. 177 sq, ch. XVIII-XIX. 102. Ibid., p. 185. 103. Jurnal de idei, p. 290. 104. Ibid., p. 373. 105. Cf. Nicolae Steinhardts article, The Cathars form Pltini (Familia, decembrie 1983), also included in: G. Liiceanu, Epistolar, 1987, p. 324-327. 106. Cf. the essay of Gabriel Andeescu, Resurecia spiritual la Pltini (nov.-dec. 1986), published in: Spre o filosofie a dizidenei, Editura Litera, 1992, p. 78-93. 107. Andrei Pleu in Gabriel Liiceanu, Despre Constantin Noica (interview with R. urcanu), Euphorion (Sibiu), nr. 6-8/1991, p. 16, 26. 108. Cf. the pathetic Scrisoare ctre un intelectual occidental set as preface to Modelul cultural european (1993, p. 7-10), the harsh reproofs of which caused the indignation of pro-European intellectuals (Ion Negoiescu, Virgil Ierunca, Adrian Marino). 109. Gabriel Liiceanu, Jurnalul de la Pltini, 1983, p. 230 sq. Also cf. Claude Karnoouhs criticism, supra, note 93. 110. Adrian Marino, Pentru Europa. Integrarea Romniei. Aspecte ideologice i culturale, Polirom, Iai, 1996; Gabriel Andreescu, cf. infra, note 112; Alina Mungiu, Identitate politic romneasc i identitate european, Cuvntul nr. 12/1995 also published in Revenirea n Europa (infra, note 112), p. 281-291 and Momentul adevrului (supra, note 81), p. 253-260. The support of this unconditional Europeanisation is accompanied by a harsh criticism of Nae

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IOAN IC, JR.

Ionescus traditionalist thought and of his school represented by P. uea and N. Ionescu, accused of reactionary (anti-progressive) thinking, of nationalism, anti-European attitude, anacronism and bad influence upon the present intellectual circles, cf. the polemic essays of Al. George and M. Petreu (vs. N. Ionescu) or A. Marino (vs. N. Ionescu, uea, Noica). Teorii antieuropene, Cazul Noica, in the chapter Modele fictive, modele nocive of the anthology Momentul adevrului, p. 294-382. Perfectly legitimate and natural, the critical debate of the reactionary Romanian thinkers of the inter-war generation is a useful and necessary approach. Unfortunately, it often unjustly combines thought with the political involvement and the private opinions of the thinkers and often degenerates in an ideological trial with inquisitorial overtones resulting in anathemae and exclusions passed in the name of a canon of in triumphant liberal-democratic vulgata. The result of these disclosures is a profound understanding, an unacceptable impoverishment of the Romanian cultural landscape in which only the politically correct authors could find a place. 111. For instance, Octavian Paler, Alexandru Paleologu, cf. infra, note 112. 112. See the articles in A. Marinos anthology, Revenirea n Europa. Idei i controverse romneti 1990-1995, Editura Aius, Craiova, 1995, 448 p. and the recent debate of 1995-1996 between G. Andreescu, on the one hand, and O. Paler and Al. Paleologu, on the other, partially included in Gabriel Andreescus book, Naionaliti, antinaionaliti. O polemic n publicistica romneasc, Polirom, Iai, 1996. 113. Cf. Andrei Pleu, interview by M. Sin in the 22 magazine, Nov. 1992, also published in Revenirea n Europa, 1996, p. 311-315. 114. Virgil Nemoianu, Imitaie i identitate, 22 magazine, nr. 355 (49), 1996, p. 17-18. 115. Claude Karnoouh, Mai exist oare Europa? (May 1993), as introduction to the volume of essays Adio diferenei. Eseu asupra modernitii trzii [= Adieu la difference, Arcantre, 1993], Editura Dacia, Cluj, 1994, p. 7-19. 116. Cf. Virgil Nemoianu, Ce rost are micarea cretin-democrat?, 22 magazine, nr. 361, ian. 1997. 117. Andrei Pleu, De la Europa liber la Europa unit, Dilema nr. 124, mai 1995, also published in Chipuri i mti ale tranziiei, Humanitas, Bucureti, 1996, p. 282-284. 118. Europa ntre dou infirmiti, Dilema nr. 45, nov. 1993, and in Chipuri i mti..., p. 237-239. 119. Noua i vechea Europ, Dilema nr. 44, nov. 1993, and in Chipuri i mti..., p. 233-236. 120. Ibid., p. 236.

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ION MANOLESCU
Born in 1968, in Bucharest Ph.D., University of Bucharest, 2000 Dissertation: The Dictatorship of the Image in Postmodernism Assistant Professor, Faculty of Letters, University of Bucharest Editor of Vineri, the monthly cultural supplement of the Dilema magazine, Bucharest, 1997-present Member of the Romanian Association of Comparative Literature Founding member of ASPRO (Professional Writers Association of Romania) Advanced Study Fellow at the Netherlands Institute for Advanced Study in the Humanities and Social Sciences (NIAS), Wassenaar, 1998 First Prize of the Amfiteatru magazine, for short story, 1988 First prize of Morning Fictional Encounters, Iai, for short story, 1988 Debut Prize for the novel Alexandru awarded by the Univers Publishing House, 1996, and at the National Book Fair, Cluj-Napoca, 1998 Books: Alexandru. Bucharest: Univers, 1998 Happenings in Our Little Town. Bucharest: Cartea Romneasc, 1993 Fictions. Bucharest: Litera, 1992 Numerous articles, essays, and works of fiction published in Romania and abroad (Netherlands, USA). Editor and translator.

VISUAL TECHNIQUES IN POSTMODERN LITERATURE. TOWARDS AN INTERDISCIPLINARY APPROACH OF FICTIONAL PERSPECTIVE

Introduction
The present study focuses on two main theories of narrative and iconic perspective, as identified in the post-modern fiction of American and European writers. The first one is the deconstructive theory, showing reality as a self-referential, undecidable process, while image becomes its own mirror or a series of self-reflecting mirrors, deprived of any original source. The second one is the fractal theory, emphasizing the chaotic, yet ordered patterns of reality; here, image is perceived in its shattered, irregular textual and iconic design. Both parts of the study (A Voyage on the Deconstructive Continent and A Voyage on the Fractal Continent) are conceived as multi-cultural, inter-disciplinary scientific debates, which cross the borders of literature and lead to the formation of new aesthetic, philosophic and psychological geographies. They are meant to deal at the same time with fictional examples of visual structures specifically considered post-modern, and with the scientific grounds these structures rely on. As a conclusion of the study, post-modern fiction is to be seen as part of a wider aesthetic and existential attitude, characterized by the acceleration of perception and the hybridization of perspectives. Thus, post-modern literature may be regarded as a spectacular visual melting-pot, connected to the sensibility of both today and tomorrow.

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1. A Voyage on the Deconstructive Continent

The deconstructive continent does not really exist, since visiting it for a thorough exploration implies undermining the very geography it is based on: its theoretical boundaries get diluted, its philosophical shapes become geometrically variable, while its literary topography is lost in a virtual, post-modern map. Any investigation, of whatever kind, becomes a part of the paradox which it systematically enhances by attempting to solve it. In a similar way, by means of deconstructive contamination, any critical attempt turns into a meta-critical one, itself related to its meta-meta-critical referent. This paradoxical situation may be perceived as a natural consequence of the phenomenon of intertextuality, such as it was defined by the members of the Tel Quel group (Kristeva, 1968; Sollers, 1968). Therefore, in the post-modern age (considered as a cultural period in the second half of the 20 th century), one may discover that the very enunciation of the most elementary theoretical or critical matter is bound to cross an almost endless network of notes and references. Consequently, any account is to be conceived as an infinite set of quotations and as a bricolage of quotations. Even this plain, unimportant remark you are reading this very moment could be related to a substantially large number of post-modern critical references, meant to sustain it! Although developed in the mid-sixties, the theoretical innovations brought in by deconstruction to the post-modern way of thinking and understanding art are still quite uncomfortable to us, no matter the nature of their implications: methodological as well as hermeneutical, axiological as well as ontological, logical as well as literary. Connected to fields as various as philosophy, linguistics, politics, gender and literature, deconstruction is highly illustrative for its own mixed, ambiguous status: it has been -and still is- interpreted either as current or attitude, method or position, technique or strategy (Derrida, 1972 a; Hartman, 1981; Culler, 1982 etc.). Yet more troubling for our common sense would be the suggestion underlying the theoretical contributions of the so-called cognitive philosophers. They assert the fact that our rational structures are based on mise-en-abme-like mechanisms which we may be able to identify in a process similar to that of deconstruction; hence, there would supposedly exist some kind of a deconstructive DNA of the human mind, which we could recognize, without ever fully decoding its pattern (Dennett, 1978; Hofstadter, 1979).

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ION MANOLESCU In order to see whether deconstruction represents, in itself, a theory of perspective, or if it merely provides a technical support for such a theory, we should first define the sets of problems on which it exerts its influence, as well as its immediate consequences. The first main problem issued by deconstruction is the questioning of concepts such as truth and certitude. Embodying one of the most frequently used post-modern principles, fragmentarism (Hassan, 1982, and especially 1990, pp. 18-23), deconstruction enforces an entropic perception of the notion of truth, itself used in order to criticize and undermine what is consensually regarded as truth (1). Since deconstruction does not call for a superior logical principle, but uses the very principle it deconstructs, truth is being considered both indispensable and optional; in other words, it becomes a fluctuating unit. Such theoretical grounds may sound alarming with respect to philosophy and religion; as far as literature is concerned, they are appealingly welcome. Both the pulverization of great truths, and the relativization of literary certitudes have generated decisive cultural reaction against many long-lasting historical prejudices (the elitist prejudice, or the prejudice of the closed, inertial canon). At the same time, during the past four or five decades, understanding literature as a display of conflicting options and chaotic tensions has allowed us to reinterpret in a post-modern fashion the entire process of cultural production. To put it bluntly, by fragmenting acquired certitudes and preconceived ideas, deconstruction enabled literary historians and theorists to redefine their object of study and reconstruct it beyond any imaginable, deterministic limits. The second main problem which deconstruction deals with in an unconventional way is that of meaning. No matter if they refer to linguistic or literary meaning, the deconstructive philosophers proclaim a violent dismissal of any kind of consensus (Derrida, 1972 a; Lyotard, 1979, 1986). They shatter hierarchies traditionally accepted as stable, by asserting that meaning, as well as text and reading, is being produced within a flexible process of contextualization, decontextualization and recontextualization. As a matter of fact, the discovery of the principles of semantic instability and unavailability does not belong to deconstructive philosophy, but to linguistics and literary criticism. It may start with the elementary Saussurian theory of the linguistic signs arbitrary character, go further to the Tel-Quel notion of intertextuality and reach the more recent definitions of the transactional text (Holland, 1968) and of the text as reader (Prince, 1980) elaborated by reader-response criticism (2).

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N.E.C. Yearbook 1996-1997 Rather unsurprisingly, most of the theoretical concepts used by reader-response critics, as well as by aestheticians of reception of the so-called Konstanz School, can be transferred from the field of literary studies to that of semantics. Such is the case with the transactionality of the literary text (Holland, 1968, p.123), the virtuality of the literary work (Iser, 1980, p.106) or the indeterminance and unconclusiveness of reading (Freund, 1987, pp.152-53). Consequently, from the viewpoint of contemporary linguistics and philosophy, meaning becomes a negotiable unit, largely depending on the way in which it deconstructs the very principles it is constructed on. If deconstructing a discourse implies showing how it undermines the philosophy it presupposes or the hierarchical oppositions it is based on, while identifying within the text the rhetorical operations which provide the basis of argumentation (Culler, 1982, p.86), then the deconstruction of linguistic or literary meaning may be referred to as a potentially irrational, schizoid operation. Ultimately, both meaning and truth would turn into concepts of perspective, as easy to manipulate as a Rubik cube. However, what is at stake here, the equally profound and alarming challenge of deconstructive philosophy, is not the urge to bring back into attention the ever-lasting problem of perceptive subjectivity. The essential issue of deconstruction lies at the same time in the radical questioning of the most stable premises of our conscious mental activities, and in the enunciation of a valid alternative for these activities. The extended version of the antique Epimenides paradox (also known as the liars paradox) may be regarded as a convincing example of relativization of certitudes, which clearly disturbs our faith in the unshrugging stability of human logics:
The following sentence is false. The preceding sentence is true. (Hofstadter, 1989, p.21)

Our ability to identify the paradox, without being able to provide a satisfactory explanation of the neuro-psychological, semantic or logical mechanisms which led to its existence, suggests that human thinking may be structured on random permutations on different levels. When deconstructing a paradox, one can notice that its proper functioning depends on the contradictory, inter-changeable relation between an informational/semantic excess and a similar kind of omission. For instance, the graphic paradox of M.C. Eschers hands drawing each other (Tekenen, 1948) is built up at the same time on the excess of realism of the two hands and on the pictural absence of the real hand creating them.

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ION MANOLESCU Conceived three-dimensionally in comparison to the bi-dimensional sheet of paper (pinned to a table) on which they draw each other, these two self-recycling hands miss the graphic Big-Bang which would either cancel, or justify their frozen perpetuum mobile state (3). A third, real hand (Eschers one, for example), drawing the other two artificial/ artifactial hands and suddenly appearing as an extension of a camera which took simultaneous shots of the lithography, its contents and the creator-operators arm would have probably offered a partial solution to the paradox. The same difficulties in defining a stable semantic dimension can be encountered in several short stories of Romanian author I.L.Caragiale, notably Inspeciune, published in 1900. Here, the suicide of a bank employee one day before a routine financial inspection generates several contradictory suppositions among his closest friends. The mystery of the suicide is the more inexplicable as the employee, Mr.Anghelache, had an irreproachable reputation. Even more troubling is the result of the financial investigation: not only did Mr.Anghelache carefully keep all the money he was supposed to handle, but he also put an extra golden nickel in the safe deposit, wrapped up in a cigarette paper (Caragiale, 1960, p.190). Curiously enough, the storys excess of information -the existence of this golden coin, as some kind of a narrative indication of the employees honesty (F. Manolescu, 1983, p.282) - is connected to an essential narrative omission: what logic leads Mr.Anghelaches actions? Since the dead are not to be psychoanalysed, despite all the naive efforts of the employees friends; since the logical/narrative networks of the story have been deliberately short-circuited; since information has been suspended, without being cancelled, Inspeciune remains a brilliant example of unsolvable fictional paradox (4). In a manner similar to that of Epimenides paradox, as well as to Eschers lithography, the narrative possibly of displaying various permutations in Caragiales short story, between the textual/semantic minimal and maximal structures, creates an overwhelming feeling of logical dizziness. Having reached this point, we can now assert that deconstruction is, in itself, a theory of perspective. If deconstructing a sister of discourse means to simultaneously analyse it from inside and outside and if deconstructing a hierarchic sister means reversing its levels, then deconstruction is a matter of repositioning perspectives and negotiating a new contract with reality. These two characteristics are also specific to postmodernism. Moreover, they have been discussed by several literary

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N.E.C. Yearbook 1996-1997 theorists who, though they make use of different deconstructive techniques, do not consider themselves as deconstructionists (see especially Kearney, 1988; McHale, 1992). The repositioning of perspectives which happens in deconstruction has at the same time ontological, epistemological and aesthetic implications. Both Jacques Derrida and Paul de Man reverse the traditional hierarchic relation between philosophy and other disciplines and seriously question the predominant role of philosophy; in their opinion, the first place within any systemic hierarchies is to be taken by literature (Derrida, 1967, 1972 a; de Man, 1983). They contend the hypothesis that, should truth be regarded as fiction and serious language as a particular case of unreliable language, then the historical, philosophical, psychoanalytical discourses -and not literature- ought to be treated as deviant, parasitic instances of language (Culler, 1982, p.181). Applying the category of the literary to any kind of language, one may conclude that philosophy, for example, represents a particular literary genre, quite close to poetry. This assumption seems less outrageous if we accept that both these fields operate with numerous meta-codifying, meta-significant elements. Ultimately, both the strict precision of the philosophical language and the liberty of the poetic language stand for the same mentally schizoid mechanism, working as a creative act. In both these situations, the deviation from the proper level of language (itself defined by means of fragile consensus) or, in the terms of Romanian aesthetician Tudor Vianu, the drifting from transitivity to reflexivity (Vianu, 1941, pp.15-21) refers to the effects of a puzzling split taking place within our minds personal library. The very use of the metaphor minds library in a context quite polemical to the efficiency of poetic language represents a deconstructive self-recycling cause and effect: the more we try to plead for a neutral, non-connotative language, the less we should reject the impure elements of poetic language. Or, to put it in psycho-cognitive terms, should we systematically look for structures of human rationality and confirmation of their validity, we would have to decompose these same structures by means of non-rational criteria, in fragments hierarchically opposed to the truths and rational certitudes they are based on. Irrespective of the levels on which it operates, deconstruction creates an implicit and at the same time explicit theory of hybridized perspective, redefining the relation between reality and its representation. Its main articulations are to be found in meta-perspectivism (Chinese boxes and Matrioshka dolls perspectives), self-recycling perspectivism (Ouroboros

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ION MANOLESCU and Moebius perspectives) and hyper-perspectivism (virtual perspectives); some theorists associated them to the concept of postmodernism (Hassan, 1990, pp.18-23). On the ontological level, deconstruction shatters and reconstructs the concept of mimesis, arguing that representation, and not its object, comes first. Therefore, it states the superiority of the copy with respect to the original. On such theoretical grounds, deconstructive philosophers proclaim the existence of infinite series of imitations of the imitations (Derrida, 1972 a, p.217). The original has vanished, coming to being already as an imitation, and everything begins with a reproduction. In Jonathan Cullers words:
The mimetic relations may be regarded as intertextual: relations between one representation and another, rather than between a textual imitation and its non-textual original. (1982, p.187)

The Derridean idea of the mimesis with no origins clearly illustrates the deconstructive theory and method of the affirmation which becomes its own negation. There is no longer a pre-existing truth to be reproduced, since it has been replaced by the imitation of an imitation and the copy of a copy whose original can never be traced (5). Hence, one may shape a convincing post-modern paradigm of the labyrinth of mirrors (Kearney, 1988, p.17), relying on endless inter-plays and reflections. The deconstructive hierarchical permutations also extend their influence on the linguistic and literary levels. For instance, deconstruction reverses the relation between use and mentioning and asserts that use is a special case of mentioning. No matter how eager we were to use certain expressions, we would simply mention them, that is, have them as quotations (Culler, 1982, p.120). The validity of this phenomenon is testified by the effects of using expressions such as I love you or I adore you in everyday life. Lacking originality, losing their significance because of excessive use, they belong to an infinite series of mirrored expressions, like Juliets in Romeo and Juliet or Ali MacGraws in Love Story. In psychology (to take another example), the deconstructive perspective seems to embody the very basis of theory. Freuds psychoanalysis, for instance, relies on the deconstruction of several hierarchic oppositions: real/imaginary; conscious/unconscious; manifest/latent; normal/ pathological. Although the first range of terms seems fundamental, it is the definition of the second one which makes the understanding of the fundamental terms possible (see Freud, 1904).

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N.E.C. Yearbook 1996-1997 In literature, deconstruction deals with the mechanisms through which texts generate effects in the area of meaning and truth, undermining both these notions. Especially in his second edition of Blindness & Insight, Paul de Man discusses the undecidable character of textual meaning and the instability of the structures which validate texts. To him, there are no such things as a priori privileged principles and there are no longer any structures which may be considered exemplary for other structures; all the assumptions regarding ontological hierarchization have been shrugged:
If we no longer take for granted the idea that a literary text can be reduced to a finite meaning or set of meanings, viewing literature as an endless process in which truth and falsehood are inextricably intertwined, then the predominant criteria used in the history of literature (and generally derived from genetic models) are no longer applicable. (1983, p.ix)

Although de Mans perception of the literary text and literary history must be considered an extensive one (because of the supposed existence of an archi-literature which determines its own particular historical, anthropological, psycho-analytical instances and so on), his suggestion to resort to forms of analysis oriented towards the dismemberment of the stable concepts of meaning and textual identity may also be directed to the field of literature, as an autonomous discipline. Hence, his theory of the critical blindness would become not only a means to assert the interdependence text/interpretation, but also a way to state the ontological status of error within the production of literature and its investigation as a particular genre:
The critic not only says something the work doesnt say, but he even says things he himself doesnt want to say. The semantics of interpretation has no epistemological consistency and therefore cannot be considered scientific [...] The critics moments of greatest blindness with regard to their own assertions are at the same time the moments of their greatest insight. (p.109)

The process of mapping perspective in postmodernism can not leave apart the literary consequences of deconstruction. The use of paradoxes, the recurrence of schizoid patterns, the paradigmatic value conferred to error and hybridization are at the same time causes and effects of post-modern literature. However, according to all deconstructionists, if the effect -and not the cause- is to be considered as the origin (since it is

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ION MANOLESCU what makes the cause be perceived as cause), then any post-modern hermeneutics of perspective is bound to turn into aporia and unsolvable alternance (6). The lack of any original presence (truth, reality, idea, meaning etc.) which analysis or interpretation could be derived from stands for the dictatorship of the mimesis without origins (Derrida, 1972 a) and determines what we may call the universalization of undecidability. The concept of undecidability was discovered by mathematician Kurt Gdel, in his study Uber Formal Unentscheidbare Satze der Principia Mathematica und Verwandter Systeme I. It is a part of the so-called incompleteness theorem. According to it, a proposition is undecidable when, having a system of axioms which govern a multiplicity, that proposition neither is a consequence, nor does it contradict these axioms; in other words, it is neither true, nor false with respect to them (Gdel, 1931, pp.173-98). Essentially, Gdels theorem asserts that any system which is sufficiently powerful is by virtue of its power incomplete, meaning that there are well-formed strings which express true statements of number theory, but which are not theorems (Hofstadter, 1989, p.101). In Douglas Hofstadters paraphrase of the theory, all consistent axiomatic formulations of number theory include undecidable propositions (p.17). In other terms, there are truths which belong to number theory that can not be proved within the system. Transferring Gdels theorem from mathematics and logic to literature, we may bring up several puzzling hypothesises. One of them would be related to the assumption that consistency is not an intrinsic characteristic of any formal system, since it depends on the interpretation it is being subjected to. However, if consistency becomes a matter of perspective, then literature should be understood exclusively on the basis of reception. Among the adepts of this theory, Stanley Fish is one of the most outrageous. His famous book of essays, Is There a Text in This Class? (1980), convincingly stands for the idea that the formal structures of the literary text should first be replaced by the structures of reading experience, then by the very process of interpretation:
I now believe that interpretation is the source of texts, facts and intentions. Or to put it in another way, the entities that were once seen as competing for the right to constrain inter pretation (text, reader, author) are now all seen to be the products of interpretation. (1980, pp.16-17)

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N.E.C. Yearbook 1996-1997 Another conclusion derived from the literary application of Gdels theorem would be linked to the undecidability of imagination. Should imagination be considered undecidable, since it is neither true, nor false, then literature would be deprived of all identity, while authors, readers and interpretations could mirror themselves in an endless intertextual, inter-iconic process. In fact, this is the case of postmodernism, which asserts that the modern belief in the authenticity of image and the validity of text should be undermined. To paraphrase Richard Kearney, who shows how reproduction has managed to replace the original in postmodernism The image which is, already existed (1988, p.4), we may perceive the text as the space of its own recycling and literature as its own deconstruction. Nothing arises, without having previously existed; nothing is said, without having already been said. In a similar manner, hermeneutics is based on the paradoxical use of its own pre-existence. Ultimately, the application of Gdels theorem to deconstruction (or vice-versa) illustrates the implosive effects of self-reflexivity and meta-self-reflexivity, which lead to the dissolution of all demonstrative validities. Deconstruction, much the same as literature, proves undecidable. Thus, we reach an unsatisfactory theoretic model of literary postmodernism, created by its own stroboscopic recycling. It is at the same time a strong model, because of its universal invulnerability, and a weak one, due to the ontological, epistemological, axiological vacuum in which it is situated by its very invulnerability. Q.e.d., by means of a demonstration which precedes itself in an infinite series of accolades...(7) One last conclusion resulting from the literary use of Gdels theorem concerns literatures capability of confering aesthetic value to its own insufficiency. More specific, within post-modern fiction, a partial, insufficient method is able to become its very narrative or character. Consequently, the deconstructive method frequently gains aesthetic personality in the work of post-modern prose writers. Much the same as it happened with the so-called literary textualism (which led to a significant Romanian fictional trend, illustrated by writers such as Mircea Nedelciu and Gheorghe Crciun), deconstruction has shifted from theory to literary practice. As a result, nowadays it has become a literary structure, theme, motive and character. If we take into account the fact that deconstruction has turned into some kind of fictional trend, we may just as well dismiss the distinction between theory and literature. And is this not just the supreme evidence that Gdels undecidability principle is as valid in art, as in science?

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ION MANOLESCU The literary applications of deconstruction are usually illustrations of a logical, semantic, iconic or narrative reversal: between cause and effect, interior and exterior, beginning and end. The deconstruction of these two kinds of elements/structures results in a new narrative pattern: self-referential, self-reflexive, meta-textual, self-recycling, anti-mimetic, playful, hybrid, which has been defined as post-modern (see, among many others, Hassan, 1982; Brooks, 1984; McHale, 1987). It can be related to a new aesthetic sensibility, based on simultaneity, bricolage and perceptive simulacrum (see mainly Baudrillard, 1981; 1983). For the American writer Donald Barthelme, for example, the natural connections between the beginning and the end of a narrative can be shattered any time, according to a logic of infinite reversibility which allows the text to take off the mask of its own fictionality (Federman, 1975, p.8), without revealing an original referent. As Barbara L. Roe points out in a recent study of Barthelmes short stories, we deal with a double-minded author, who enjoys using narrative multiplications and permutations; they often stand for several mixed shifts of perspective:
In these aural and visual complexes, a spatially designed text displaces linear plot, an ahistorical presence supersedes character, and a collage format fragments narrative viewpoint. (1992, p.xiv)

In one of Barthelmes short stories, called The Dolt and included in his Sixty Stories volume, a character named Edgar concocts a story for his written examination. During this process, he complains that his text has no substance (no middle), but only an oblique end. The storys narrator (a paranoid alter-ego of Edgars) has his own opinion about writing texts. He complains about the same identity problems as his character and ends up his story by deconstructing its beginning:
I myself have these problems. The endings are elusive, the middle parts nowhere to be found, but the hardest thing is to begin, to begin, to begin. (1981, p.96)

In The Wound, one of Barthelmes short stories in Forty Stories (1987), the author does not merely deconstruct the relation between the beginning and the end of the narrative, but also dismantles to such extent the relation between originary reality and meta-reality, that distinctions are no longer possible. In short, the story is being directed by a static narrative camera, while all the characters move around it. The characters (the toreador, the

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N.E.C. Yearbook 1996-1997 mother, the lover), viewed on a meta-fictional stage inspired by Hemingways stories, become themselves directors: they consider the verbal images of the story which they are part of as an attractive movie, which they can play back home. Hence, the narrative perspective of Barthelmes story turns into a flexible unit, directly depending on the fluctuations of its own deconstruction: of the relation fictional story-movie, author (creator)-characters, primal reference-subordinate references etc. Several relevant fictional applications of deconstruction are also to be noticed in the stories and novels of French author Michel Tournier. His collection of stories Le medianoche amoureux (1989), translated in Romanian three years later, provides many examples of deconstructive textual or iconic perspectives. In the opening story of the volume, omonimously called Le medianoche amoureux, Tournier proceeds to the deconstruction of the relation between real life and fictional life [the term real is being put here within quotation marks because, in postmodernism, reality is perceived as desubstantialized, deprived of its own valid, objective nucleus (see Baudrillard, 1970; 1976; 1981; 1983)]. Two youngsters, Nadege and Oudalle, listen carefully to nineteen stories (the very number of stories in Tourniers book!) which influence their lives while being written:
They watched with great interest the slow transformation which those successive fictions made them subject to. It seemed that the pessimistic, destructive, mercilessly realistic novelettes were meant to separate them and tear their relationship apart, while the optimistic, warm, welcoming stories, on the contrary, did their best to reinforce their relationship. (Tournier, 1992, pp.38-39)

In Ecrire debout, what is being deconstructed is the relation between present and past and between the present narrator and his predecessors. As a result, the former elements become the implicit cause of the laters existence: the prisoners from Clericourt send the narrator a desk on which Balzac, Victor Hugo and Alexandre Dumas used to write in the past (1992, p.162). By writing himself on that desk, while standing up, the narrator implicitly becomes the ancestor of his own literary predecessors. Nevertheless, the most interesting cases of logical deconstruction arising from the disturbances of the past-present and cause-effect relations can be related to science-fiction literature. They either belong to the post-modern current, or precede it by far (but does it really matter, when the present is bound to begin in the past and vice-versa?). We may recall

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ION MANOLESCU here the time paradoxes on which are based stories and novels such as those written by H.G.Wells (1895), Isaac Asimov (1955), Poul Anderson (1965), Gerard Klein (1971). Needless to say, the mechanisms of the time paradoxes and their specific functions in science-fiction literature have been analysed by various critics and theorists, with or without being associated to deconstruction. Romanian critic Florin Manolescu, for instance, asserts that:
Imagination can resort to different strategies which allow the past or the future to become accessible realities and remove the barrier of time [...] When writers dismiss the law of time irreversibility, invent a way of escaping historical determinism and try to solve the resulting logical difficulties, time travel turns into a major theme of S.F. literature. (1980, pp.113-14)

Coming back to Michel Tourniers stories, we should discuss one of the most sophisticated examples of deconstructive narrative and iconic perspective in Lucie. Here, the narrator makes a seemingly uninteresting digression about the intelligence and the sexuality of women:
The vagina rising to her head, it starts to feed on the brain. (1992, pp.128-29)

What might seem at first sight a plain politically incorrect statement is, in fact, a subtle deconstruction of female and textual body. Both rely on atypical inversions, both are shaped through a redistribution of causes and effects. Consequently, the female and textual bodies in Tourniers story perform a role depending on the fluctuating perspectives in which they are viewed. Thus, they become inter-changeable elements of a common body, subject to anamorphotic deconstructions. This is precisely what happens in one of Gheorghe Crciuns stories, Alte copii legalizate, where a sex scene takes place at the very point where the female bodys anatomy intersects with a typographic text ripped off the bedrooms walls:
Let the light flow into the room, but let the walls remain dirty, stained, pencil written, scribbled, pealed [...] Let her struggle, apparently helpless: shame on you! Let your white teeth clinch her golden neck and hear her yell: you crazy fool! Bite her and see her shudder in defeat, moaning with delight, falling aside and pressing your lips with her merciless mouth with sharp canines. An then tell her, later on: guess what I had in mind; what about a story in which a man lies in a room like this one and stares at the walls... (1988, p.8,13)

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N.E.C. Yearbook 1996-1997 The deconstruction of human or textual anatomies usually reflects the post-modern writers intention to negotiate the relation between interior and exterior, as well as their will to redesign logical, textual and iconic perspectives according to new premises. For example, what we think of as the most internal spaces of the body (vagina, stomach, intestines) would in fact be some kind of external pockets, folded within. Transferring this theory to literature, Jonathan Culler argues that the structure (and implicitly the perspective) of a work can be related to the process of textual/iconic folding and unfolding:
An exterior frame may function as the most intrinsic part of a work, folding within it; and vice-versa, what seems the most interior, the central aspect of a work will assume this role through the features which unfold it outside and against the work. (1982, pp.198-99)

A convincing illustration of this theory may be found in Michel Tourniers novel Vendredi ou les limbes du Pacifique (1967). Here, the island Robinson is shipwrecked on is not inasmuch a territory of land and vegetation, as a fictional world, a meta-island built up by the unfolding of the intertextual, multi-cultural geographies of all the fictional/mythological islands over the real island. Exploring the real island actually means searching for the mechanisms of the entire universe in a deconstructive manner:
However, that milky night, to Robinson the lightnings effects seemed reversed [...] One would say an ink wave flowed in the cave, then instantly receded, without any visible trace. (1977, p.128)

The protagonists sensations and perceptions are desubstantialized; they turn into ghosts of mind, created by reversing experience and memory: in Tourniers novel, memories are included in direct experience, and not the other way round. For instance, baking bread on the island allows the hero to rediscover (in other words, to substantialize) his own smell and touch, within a process which dismantles traditional deterministic relations: bread precedes sediment, while sediment precedes smell! Relying on several such fragments, Robinsons story systematically folds and unfolds itself, in a textual attempt to question the very limits of language and meaning. However, language and meaning themselves are being deconstructed, by a continuous dissolution of the signifier/signified relation.

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ION MANOLESCU This makes the characters efforts to provide an acceptable, coherent perspective on himself or the events he is part of undecidable:
For a long time, my mind was filled with enough memories to provide imagination with desirable, yet inexistent creatures. Now its all over. My memories are bodiless. They are merely empty, faded pods. I say: woman, breasts, hips, hips moving by my own free will. Nothing happens. The magic of these words is no longer working. (1977, p.137)

One last example of a post-modern anatomical deconstruction is related to Ursula K. Le Guins science-fiction novel, The Left Hand of Darkness (1969). Here, an ethnologist comes to the planet Gethen, which has an androgynous population (meaning that, at the climax of their sexual cycle, its members can become either men, or women). The story of the ethnologists painful accommodation to the mentality and the rich feelings of the Gethenians reflects not only the theme of the lack of human communication in the future to come, but also that of actual sexual prejudices and sexist attitudes. In a wider sense, it illustrates the idea of cultural alienation. The novel can be understood by deconstructing the oppositions male/ female, left/right, light/darkness; consequently, an adequate perception of the former terms becomes impossible in the absence of the latter. According to Ursula K. Le Guins deconstructive pattern, the androgynous anatomy can be decoded by reinterpreting the title as Male Is the Left Hand of Female (Scholes, 1985, p.127). At the end of the voyage on the deconstructive continent, one may rise several objections against the deconstructive principles. First of all, the very limits of perspective are too loose: from whose point of view and with respect to what can we create a theory of perspective? In other terms, which is the subject, and which is the object of perspectivism? Is deconstruction an instrument of research in post-modern perspectivism, or is it simply a medium? As long as the principle of shifts among levels of investigation (logical, narrative, iconic) represents at the same time a deconstructive cause and effect; as long as postmodernism (no matter how we perceive it: as a chronological moment, a current, a movement or a wider sensibility) recycles the past and searches for the future, without explicitly drawing a line between them (see Lyotard, 1979; 1986); finally, as long as these very lines are the ambiguous result of an universal intertextual process in which in order to establish the identity of text,

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N.E.C. Yearbook 1996-1997 interpretation and reader one has to permanently shift from one category to another, any attempt to define the notion of perspective in a coherent, acceptable way turns out to be useless. What one can still do is make successive estimations of post-modern perspectives, by means of deliberate incomplete criteria and instruments. Secondly, to dismiss perception and reference on grounds of their own imperfection is to proclaim the uselessness of hermeneutics: since the premises of deconstructive reading assert that any investigated system is insufficient (as well as any method of investigation we intend to use in order to prove its insufficiency!), why should one bother reading/ interpreting literature, for instance? If deconstructive indeterminence of meaning has such high theoretical credit, can the deconstructive approach be said to have any particular valid goal, except being enuntiative? These are questions which both critics of deconstruction (Scholes, 1985) and its supporters (Culler, 1982) find difficult to answer. However, the plain affirmation of incomplete, fallacious character of the critical act may stand for a more profound phenomenon: that of bestowing an ontological status to relativity. The manifold, acute implications of this phenomenon will be dealt with in the following part of this study.

2. A Voyage on the Fractal Continent

The geography of literary postmodernism includes a second important continent, as diffuse and extended as the deconstructive one. Chaotic, but still governed by order, dismantled, but still coherent, unmeasurable, but still mathematically calculable, relative, but still omnipotent, the fractal continent is probably the most elaborate form of present literature, together with the virtual (or cyberspace) one, which it matches entirely or partially. Because of its simultaneously entropic and negentropic structure, it brings up theories of a logical, iconic and narrative perspective which look shattered, dismembered in an infinite number of differently shaped shards. These splinters are connected by a seemingly random common denominator. Consequently, both the mapping of post-modern fiction and the global understanding of literature, on all its levels (fictional, critical, historical, theoretical etc.), undergo a substantial process of reconsidering and restructuring.

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ION MANOLESCU The key-term useful to understand a great part of contemporary fiction by means of perspectivism belongs to the field of mathematics and was discovered by French mathematician of Polish origins, Benoit Mandelbrot. It was theorized in his 1975 volume, nowadays regarded as a classic of science: Les objets fractals:forme, hasard et dimension. Etymologically speaking, fractal comes from the Latin fractus, having the same lexical root as fraction and fragment; it is also related to the verb frangere, whose signification is close to irregular and fragmented. In one of the simplified definitions provided in Fractals.Forms, Chance and Dimension, a fuller, modified version of his 1975 book, Mandelbrot considers the fractal:
[...] a mathematical set or a concrete object, whose form is extremely irregular and/or fragmented in all dimensions. (1977, p.294)

Further on, we may speak of fractal objects, fractal dimensions and a fractal geometry, all meant to orchestrate several universal non-Euclidean patterns, based on irregularity, hazard, amorphism and complexity. According to Alain Boutot,
Fractal means fragmented, fractioned, irregular, interrupted. In general, the fractal theory is a theory of the fractured and broken, of granulation, dissemination, porosity and so on. The shapes it deals with are characterized by an intrinsic complexity of fundamental irregularity, which is present at all the levels of observation. (1996, p.26)

The fractal theory appeared as a theory regarding the geometry of nature. In time, its applications were transferred to several other extremely different fields, such as astronomy, economy, social theory or human anatomy. Hence, fractal mathematics allows at the same time the measuring of the clouds dimensions in the sky, of air turbulence phenomena, of the waves in the ocean and of the pellet we can obtain by rumpling this very piece of paper. As measurable in their apparent irregularity and lack of precision are also the moons craters, the erratic topography of a large citys streets, the shape of a river such as the Missouri, our sanguine system of veins and arteries or the oil trails leaking in the ocean from some desperate tanker (8). Irrespective of its applications or explanations, fractals are still characterized by a feature which was called self-similarity (Mandelbrot,

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N.E.C. Yearbook 1996-1997 1977, p.31) or dilatative symmetry (Hurd, 1989, p.1). This feature makes it possible for any section of a fractal which is magnified by an arbitrary factor to look exactly the same as the original fractal. As Leonard M.Sander points out, discussing fractal geometry implies an analysis of a fractal growth:
A fractal is an object with a sprawling, tenuous pattern. As the pattern is magnified, it reveals repetitive levels of detail, so that similar structure exists on all scales. A fractal might, for example, look the same whether viewed on the scale of a meter, a millimetre or a micrometer. (1989, p.15)

Since fractal dimensions are being expressed in fractions and not in numbers, the self-similarity of fractals should be related to their fractional character. This is one of Mandelbrots main ideas, enabling his mathematics to reshape our entire view of the surrounding universe. By finding self-similarity in a series of irregular phenomena, apparently taking place at random, by comparing the shapes of mountains, clouds, plants, soap bubbles, ice crystals and lunar cavities, by putting together the structure of the Eiffel tower, of an old branching tree and of the linguistic trees from the transformational grammar, the French mathematician provided both our scientific and our artistic world with an new ontological dimension (Mandelbrot, 1975; 1977; 1983). As Benjamin Wooley keenly remarks, Mandelbrot seems to have found some kind of a universal meaning (always existent, nevertheless hard to decode) plotting the boundary conditions that govern the behaviour of many potentially chaotic or turbulent phenomena: vortexes, twisters, lightnings, galactic clusterings etc. (Wooley, 1992, p.90). Moreover, the two of them discussed in the United States (where Mandelbrot settled since 1958 as one of the main scientists at IBM Research Center in Yorktown Heights, New York) the very importance of measuring the unmeasurable and shaping the unshapable. As Wooley remembers in his book Virtual Worlds. A Journey in Hype and Hyperreality, the father of all fractals told his listener, while eating a highly fractal endive:
I did not discover the fact that clouds are like billows upon billows upon billows. Every child knows that. What I did was identify tools that turn this intuitive perception of shape into something that science can grab. (1992, p.89)

Of similar importance to the understanding of the worlds around us(including the world of literature, as shall be seen further on) is the

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ION MANOLESCU fractal mathematicians success to create a geometry of the traditionally non-geometrical, that is to map in an Euclidean way the diffuse, dissoluted non-Euclidean shapes and forms. Territories such as the natural, living beings one which seemed, until the seventies, irreparably disorganized, forever irreductible to mathematic formulas and equations, are being gradually mastered by mathematicians, chemists, physicists and biologists (see, among others, Stevens, 1974; Poston and Stewart, 1978; Prigogine and Stengers, 1979; Hao, 1984; Cvitanovic, 1984). A fractal dimension is situated somewhere between two ordinary dimensions. For instance, Great Britains shore or the shape of a cauliflower cut from the middle in two pieces exist between the one-dimensional line and the two-dimensional surface. That is, we are surrounded by many sinuous curves, which give the impression they fill a surface. Their mathematical measuring, as well as its graphic materialization, is mainly based on the understanding of the relation between dimension and the degree of filling of the space. In other terms, this means we deal with a scientific highlighting of a perspective problem. Such is the case, for example, when reinterpreting on fractal grounds the relation between veins, arteries and tissues in the human body: each point in a non-vascular tissue relies on the boundary between two sanguine networks; the tissue filled with veins and arteries intersecting in all points (none of which remains free) is called a fractal surface (see Mandelbrot, 1977, pp.77, 79; 1983, pp.150, 159). Ultimately, through the deconstruction of its own principles, fractal geometry can be considered a fractal itself, built up on the fragile boundary between two mathematic dimensions:
Fractal geometry is a workable geometric middle ground between the excessive geometric order of Euclid and the geometric chaos of general mathematics. It is based on a form of symmetry that has previously been underutilized, namely invariance under contraction or dilation. (Mandelbrot, 1989, p.8)

The most interesting thing regarding the relationship fractals have with literature is of a general concern. Since fractal theory does not provide exact mathematical predictions, but quantitative, subtle models to describe the evolution of a system, in other words, since it has no mathematic practical applications (Mandelbrot, idem); since, on the other hand, fractal theory suggests a better understanding of the real world rather by checking its display of forms, than by comprising it through figures and statistics, it can be regarded as an almost poetic theory. Its aesthetic

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N.E.C. Yearbook 1996-1997 relevance, resulting both from the observation of natural fractals and the computer graphics materialization of fractal equations, have been noticed by most of the researchers in the field. For example, Mandelbrot refers to the plastic beauty of the fractal world and a new form of geometric minimal art (1983, pp.2, 23). He also identifies its poetic interactions with realist and abstract art (1989, pp.8-11). H. O. Peitgen and P. H. Richter, two of the most famous researchers in fractal mathematics and physics, discuss The Beauty of Fractals (the title of their classic book from 1986). Mathematician Martin Golubitsky collaborates with Michael Field for a photographic album in which fractals are discovered in or associated with the Islamic art of symmetry -tapestries, stained glass, ceramics- (1992), while the aesthetician and psychologist John Briggs argues that fractals belong to a new aesthetics of art, science and nature (1992, p.4). In a similar manner, James Gleick, author of several popular books on chaos theory, asserts that the fractal universe is one of natural, intrinsic beauty (Gleick, 1987; Gleick and Porter, 1990) (9). Among the most pertinent demonstrations of the logic and aesthetic impact of fractal theory, at least two are worth mentioning: Clifford A. Pickover and Ian Stewarts. The former, a researcher at IBM Research Center in New York, writes kinds of pop-up books (partly scientific, partly literary -in the absurdist manner of Lewis Carroll). They are illustrated with drawings and computer-generated pictures, which turn the mathematical inquiry of the surrounding world in true Visual Adventures in a Fractal World - that is the subtitle of his 1994 book, Chaos in Wonderland (see also 1990; 1991; 1992). The latter, Ian Stewart, a mathematician specialized in the research of universal symmetry, has written several...scientific comics in which he attempts to make catastrophy or fractal theories accessible to non-academic readers. Although they may be taken as frivolous (especially from the viewpoint of the scientific community) - fractals, for example, are defined as A class of very interesting objects, whose dimension is not entire (1982, p.24)-, they remain an extremely useful instrument to illustrate the principles of recent mathematics. In fact, Ian Stewarts scientific comics enable the literaturization of scientific fields already considered significant from an aesthetic point of view (see above). In comic strips, the fractal world gets a personal ID, mathematical calculation becomes a game at hand, whereas the new logical mechanisms on which it relies seem more accessible (as anecdotic micro-narratives).

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ION MANOLESCU For instance, in one of the episodes of Les fractals. Les chroniques de Rose Polymath (1982), Rose Polymath and her friend Gaston (two alien-looking characters, similar to the Martians in the pulp magazines of the thirties) get a strange job from an inter-galactic boss: they have to measure the exact dimension of a winding shore on the planet Ombilicus. Since it proves impossible to map its dimension by means of traditional, Euclidean geometry, the two protagonists resort to another kind of investigation, which will allow the exact calculation of the examined land; it is, of course, the fractal investigation. At the end of this new calculation, Rose and Gaston conclude that the dimension of the surface to be mapped is infinite (endlessly self-similar in smaller or larger folds of the original lace); as a result, they are being fired, because their boss intended to build a dam on the entire surface of the shore! Apart from the deliberate theorizing of the expressive character of fractals (sometimes achieved by less orthodox scientific methods, as one may see in the previous example), there are also intuitive, rather empirical testimonies of the beauty of self-similar disorder. Many of them precede Mandelbrots discovery or are contemporary to it. For instance, back in 1965, Theodore Schwenk, a researcher in the field of water and air chaotic turbulence, suggested the existence of a natural, human and cosmic geometry based on the regularity of irregular shapes. The 1976 English edition of his work collects both photographic illustrations which we may identify as fractal today (waves, curls of the sand, vortexes, clouds, rinds), and empirical reference to the functioning of what we now call fractal dimensions:
Plants are vascular systems through which water, the blood of the earth, flows in a live interdependence with the atmosphere. Together, earth, the world of plants and the atmosphere make one big organism, through which water flows like the blood of a living organism. (1976, p.14)

Less antroposophical and more clearly scientific are the remarks made in the seventies by Peter S. Stevens, a researcher at Harvard Medical Arena. In his opinion there is a close resemblance between the inner structure of the human ear and the spirals of snails and galaxies or between the branching of trees and the winding of rivers; this resemblance is based on the infinite recycling of a finite number of patterns:
When we see how the branching of trees resembles the branching of arteries and the branching of rivers, how crystal grains look like soap

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bubbles and the plates of a tortoise shell, how the fiddle heads of ferns, stellar galaxies and water emptying from the bath tube spiral in a similar manner, we cannot help but wonder why nature uses only a few kindred forms in so many contexts... It turns out that those patterns and forms are peculiarly restricted, that the immense variety that nature creates emerges from the working and reworking of only a few formal themes. (1977, p.1)

Cyril Stanley Smith, one of the most famous researchers in the field of metals, is also interested in the beauty of ordered chaos. At least two of his books, From Art to Science. Seventy-Two Objects Illustrating the Nature of Discovery (1980) and A Search for Structure.Selected Essays on Science, Art and History (1981) provide an illustrated aesthetics of the fractal world, relying on the understanding of the interdependence between fragmentation and continuity and on the decoding of branching structures included in the design of chaos (1981, p.54). The research of both Mandelbrot and the theorists of chaos and catastrophies proves to be extremely valuable. Its applications help scientists refine synthetic images and study telephonic perturbations. They also enable an accurate mapping of natures interactive dimensions and the reinterpretation of baroque architecture by reconsidering the relation between the global shape of a building and the distribution of its ornaments (10). No matter which of these segments we may refer to, the impersonal figures and equations that explain the fractal perspective are simply irrelevant when compared to its easily accessible, universal beauty:
The beauty of fractals is accessible not just to scientists and engineers, but to everyone who has an eye for art. (Hurd, 1989, p.1)

The application of fractal and chaos theories in the field of literature may be traced in several directions. One of them is resumed in the following question: is literature, in general, and post-modern literature, in particular, a fractal unit? This supposition implies, on the one hand, the redefinition of literature as a field of open tensions in which the authors and their works are rather erratically placed, and, on the other, the discovery of the ordered equation (or equations) to be considered their common denominator. However, if the unifying factor is in itself the reiteration on several scales of the initial fractal pattern (namely literature), then its mathematic redesigning turns out to be as difficult as Gaston and Rose Polymaths

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ION MANOLESCU attempt to measure the shore of Ombilicus! With no doubt, understanding literature in a traditional manner (that is, as a deterministic chain of events, periods, currents, authors and works) precludes such potential difficulties: it is quite easy to find historical, linear causes, from which to establish what is literary deviant and abnormal. Such a perspective hardly takes into account the erratic, non-linear characteristics of those splinters in the field of tensions which we conventionally name literature. To regard literature as a fractal unit therefore implies a strong argument with the comfortable way in which traditional literary critics and historians, including many Romanian ones, categorise authors and texts on stable, authoritative historicist grounds (see, among others, Clinescu, 1941; Simion, 1978-1989; N. Manolescu, 1990; Ulici, 1995). Actually, literature should not be considered a wax museum where the public are bound to wear gloves and protection glasses in order to visit it. Maybe it should be viewed as a space with chaotic geometry (some kind of an infinitely branching fractal, on an infinity of scales), whose dimensions, styles, configurations and centres are being simultaneously and alternatively multiplied. The result would by no means lie in the construction of a literary monument, but in the shaping of a discontinuous, conflictual architecture (similar to the deconstructive one), capable of transforming the museum in a series of changing holograms (I. Manolescu, 1996, pp.196-200). Such a specific post-modern synopsis would help the designing of what theorist Jim Collins calls intertextual arenas, namely:
[...] tension-filled environments that have enormous impact on the construction of both representations and the subjects which interact within them. (1989, p.27)

The fractal perception of literature may be regarded as one of the major goals of post-modern theorists, even if they do not explicitly resort to Mandelbrots mathematical vocabulary and instruments. We should quote several such examples in an endless series of definitions or estimations of postmodernisms features. For instance, the chains of postmodernism established by Ihab Hassan include the terms anarchy, hazard, dispersion (1982, pp.184-85) and fragmentation (1990, p.18); the strategies of postmodernism identified by David Lodge are related to discontinuity and hazard (1977, pp.220-45); Douwe W. Fokkemas analysis of post-modern conventions follows the relation continuity vs. discontinuity and situates inclusiveness and assimilation at the core of the post-modern semantic

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N.E.C. Yearbook 1996-1997 universe; last but not least, the simultaneously closed and open, entropic and negentropic character of post-modern literature is asserted and illustrated by Gerhard Hoffmans examples (1996, pp.132-69). Hence, even the terms postmodernism and fractal have something in common, due to their mutual semantic ambiguity and the lack of critical consensus around their definitions. With respect to postmodernism, this ambiguity is still obvious more than half a century from the first use of the term:
Nothing concerning the term is free from debate, nothing regarding it is satisfactory. (McHale, 1989, p.3)

On the other hand, the lack of consistency in the definition of the fractal is being stated by its inventor:
Although the term fractal is defined in Chapter 3, I continue to believe that one would do better without a definition. (Mandelbrot, 1983, p.361)

A second way in which fractals could be related to post-modern literature is that of reconsidering the latter as a fractal dimension. From this perspective, post-modern literature can be perceived as a fractal geometry working between two dimensions: one of the cultural past (which it systematically recycles) and the other of the future to come (which it anticipates by means of its most experimental forms). Between the two dimensions, postmodernism permanently negotiates its origins, while its genealogical determinations remain suspended in a paradoxical, blurred temporality (Lyotard, 1979). Therefore, we deal with an infinitely diverse dimension, whose fragmentations and foldings reflect on different scales the same repetitive, self-similar features. Ultimately, post-modern literature could be seen as an intermediate fractal dimension, among an infinite number of other possible fractal dimensions (history, mentalities, culture, the history of literature etc.). To understand post-modern literature as a fractal dimension also raises a problem of reading. Should post-modern novels be regarded as a literary dimension of ordered chaos? Then any reading would be necessarily related to each of the dimensions in the proximity of the post-modern one. In other words, reading becomes a compelling intertextual, inter-cultural, inter-iconic act. Or, to put it in scientific terms, it becomes an inter-fractalic process.

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ION MANOLESCU On the other hand, if post-modern literature does not alter its self-similar features irrespective of the scales we decide to view it on, then two different ways of reading become possible: we may read a novel starting from whatever other post-modern one; or we may read the same novel starting from whatever point of its narrative. That is, in postmodernism, we may read one single infinite novel, made of a series of other novels belonging to the post-modern age or to any other cultural period, or we may read a large number of separate novels, starting from wherever we wished and ending wherever we wanted (11). Both options are equally valid. Actually, the virtues of such a fractal reading (quite similar to the accelerated post-modern ways of reading, like browsing or scanning) are mentioned by many of the theorists in the field. John Briggs, for example, opens his book on Fractals.The Patterns of Chaos contending that:
Chaos and fractals are non-linear phenomena, so you are hereby invited to avoid reading this book linearly. Try weaving your own fractal path through the text. Perhaps you started to do that when you first picked the book up. Jumping around might seem a little chaotic, but thats the pattern under discussion here. (1992, p.11)

Finally, a third way in which a close connection between fractals and post-modern literature can be accomplished is by identifying and defining a fractal perspective in post-modern fiction. In general, no matter the place or level we intended to view it from, the relation between literature and fractal theory is based on a problem of perspectives. The reinterpretation of links between authors, texts and periods leads to a new kind of perspective in literary history, whereas the reconsideration of proportions in the relation reality-image emphasizes a new aesthetic sensibility, consistently illustrated in post-modern fiction. One deals here with a theory of logical, narrative and iconic perspective, relying less on the endless deconstructive mirrorings and more on the chaotization of concepts such as reality and image. One also has to find out the subliminal patterns which reassemble these concepts. In such particular cases, the decoding of the post-modern narrative can be achieved by searching the fractal details (that is the most fractured, accidental and the less significant iconic and narrative guidelines) which reconstruct on a certain perceptive scale the wrinkled pattern of the whole. Most of the time, the scale resulted from reading the text in a fractal manner is simply a small fragment of a logical, psychological, philosophical, historical, literary, mediatic reality and so on, itself shattered

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N.E.C. Yearbook 1996-1997 to infinite pieces. Moreover, one must not forget that between the dimension of the whole and its pieces there are always other various fractal dimensions. The most convincing examples of fractal perspective in post-modern narrative come from American fiction. With Thomas Pynchon, the narrative is conceived as a fractal dimension dependent of the interaction of two principles: the textual entropy and negentropy. Between brownian disorder and reordering, between chaotic dismemberment and reassembling, between increasing and decreasing, Pynchons narrative thermodynamics fluctuates in one of the most weird fractal patterns. For instance, in his short story Entropy, published in 1960 and included in the volume Slow Learner (1984), the narrative itself is a fractal dimension whose patterns are released by the interaction of two spatial, iconic and thermodynamic dimensions: it connects two flats (situated one above the other and sealed hermetically) to the chaos of the outside town. By breaking a window, which may be seen as an act of destroying the symbolic seal between order and chaos, the balance between the two dimensions is lost and the characters resignedly await a new and final form of equilibrium, that is the thermic death of the universe:
[...] she turned to face the man on the bed and wait with him until the moment of equilibrium was reached, when 37 degrees Fahrenheit should prevail both outside and inside, and forever, and the hovering, curious dominant of their separate lives should resolve into a tonic of darkness the final absence of all motion. (1985, p.94)

A similar phenomenon takes place in Pynchons novel The Crying of Lot 49 (1965), where by means of a device called The Nefastis Machine the universe of thermodynamics is connected in a chaotic and ordered way to the informational one, while the narrative appears as a fractal feed-back mechanism between these two universes. Without being described as such, the fractal condition of Thomas Pynchons narrative has been approximated by some critics and theorists who have associated it to interface fiction (Schaub, 1981, pp.103-20; partly, McHale, 1992, pp.236-37). Thomas S.Schaub, one of the most thorough investigators of Pynchons work, identifies several kinds of fictional interfaces in the American writers novels:
Pynchons characters exist in the conditional space between the facts of their situations and the meaning these facts could have. The readers of

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Pynchons texts fill the same ambiguous space, because his stories do not have an ending to tie form and meaning. (1981, p.103)

Besides, the oblique, fractal relation reader-printed word- text, where meaning is often a medium, is usually mastered by characters who are engineers: they work on the interface between events and their explanation (John Nefastis, in The Crying of Lot 49; Tyrone Slothrop, in Gravitys Rainbow and so on). The fractal perspective on which Pynchons texts are engineered a decade before Mandelbrots discovery results not only from the architecture of narrative interfaces, but also from the fictional distribution of fractal objects or images. They are themselves a part of a larger random pattern. Thus, in Gravitys Rainbow (1973), the trajectories of the falling German V2 rockets in Second World War London design a chaotic, yet ordered pattern: their points of impact tend to regroup in clusters similar to the galactic ones (1975, p.222), while in The Crying of Lot 49 one of the protagonists, Mucho Maas, finds the human face to have symmetries similar to those of the Rorschach spot (1979, p.11). Nevertheless, the main fractal feature of Thomas Pynchons fiction results from the interaction between dimensions and the degree in which the narrative space is filled. From this point of view, the deconstruction of the originary mimesis in an endlessly regressive series (from which the model has vanished) is followed by a pulverization of this series in chaotic shards: the relation reality-image is no longer dependent on the phenomenon of infinite mirrorings. Actually, it is caught in a dispersive process through which mirrors reflect the shattered splinters and make up an intermediate picture of the patterns among them. What in visual arts is the relation between the positive and negative space of a drawing, painting or video [see, among others, Hofstadters analysis of Eschers graphics (1989, pp.63, 67)], in Pynchons fiction becomes a way of narrative structuring, with disturbing logical and iconic implications. For example, in the novel Vineland (1990), the fractal shards of a window through which the protagonist, Zoyd Wheeler, jumps (in order to cash an annual cheque for mentally disabled people) are being recomposed in the imperfect splinters of the different narrative episodes. This leads to both a disordered and a precise narrative/iconic pattern. From a logical perspective, the novel looks like a schizoid mixture of episodes (see also the name of the protagonist!), whereas from an iconic perspective, it has

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N.E.C. Yearbook 1996-1997 the appearance of a random, multi-dimensional space. The element which unifies the fractures in the text is embodied by the presence of an omnipotent supra-narrator, some kind of a fractal God of the narrative; this textual God is shattered in an infinite number of pieces, but its mere presence allows him to control the conventions of dispersion, of dispersion within dispersion and of dispersion among other dispersions. Thus, by means of an authorial pantheism working on all possible scales, the post-modern narrative displays its multiple perspectives within a general pattern whose existence is emphasized by its very infinite imprecision. Persuasive illustrations of fractal objects and dimensions are also to be found in John Barths novels. In The Tidewater Tales (1987), the tides of the ocean in Chesapeake Bay and the narratives tides in which Katherine and Peter Sagamore are, in turn, characters and fictional authors, tell more than a story of symbolic coincidence. In a similar way, the increase and decrease of Katherines sexual lust during her pregnancy and the increase and the decrease of the told stories intensity stand for a chaotic, still ordered pattern of textual and iconic movement. Moreover, although the movement of the waves seems as hard to represent as the foetal slidings inside the amniotic liquid, John Barth suggests both these two submit to the same geometry of aleatory coincidences:
[...] a perfectly unlikely chain of perfectly fortunate coincidences. (1988, p.115)

The same fractal coincidences appear in the novel The Last Voyage of Somebody the Sailor (1991), where the repetitions of chaotic narrative and iconic details work on very different scales. For instance, a similar fractal unit is to be perceived in the pattern of the Atlantic Ocean, of the ocean of stories on which Sindbads metafictional alter-ego, Somebody the Sailor (himself a meta-meta-fictional projection of newspaperman Simon Baylor Behler) is sailing, and of the placentary ocean in which Simon was born. Another fractal unit is represented by the neighbouring presence of the chaotic Maryland shore and of the scorchings on the toast Simon eats during breakfast:
The scorchings on the egg-yellow field of my French toast made a false-colour map of our tidewater county. (1991, p.30)

Obviously, both Thomas Pynchon and John Barths fiction witness a chaotically ordered relation between their narrative foldings and the

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ION MANOLESCU foldings of different fictional objects (such as scorchings on a toast, scorches on trees, fragments of windows and so on). It is the same relation as the one between the branching of a tree in nature and the vascular geometry of the human body. However, we should not necessarily confer objective status to an always interpretable reality -since it depends on the perspective through which the observer reads it; we also need not mechanically apply a pre-established reading mode, turned into an universal remedy. According to scientists, in the absence of the creator of this world, no one can grasp the correct relation between observers and the object of their observation:
Are symmetries intrinsic patterns of nature or artefacts of human perception? To this question, there is no universal answer. (Stewart and Golubitsky, 1992, p.259)

Actually, the problem raised nowadays by the fractal geometry of post-modern literature is the problem of the ontological redefinition of the surrounding universe. Nevertheless, we should not associate such an endeavour with an attempt to submit the world to forceful aesthetic patterns, nor should we adopt it as a unique ontological code, since the world does also exist otherwise than sensed by our human perception (for instance, cats can smell colours, while bees have an ultra-violet spectrum sight). The fractal theory simply provides one of the many possible answers to the question: can chaos be ordered? -or, in other terms, are we able to measure the unmeasurable? Through it, universal asymmetries have been found a repetitive symmetry; at the same time, scientists and artists have drawn a transitory boundary between chaos and order, so as to illustrate the spectacular character of natural and artistic creation. At this point of the analysis, we may discuss at least two important issues: is the fractal material unlimited? and, if so, what would the role of literature in ontologically redefining the world look like? The examples concerning fractal applications selected from post-modern American fiction are enough for an affirmative answer to the first question. However, recent Romanian novels such as those written by Mircea Crtrescu and Sebastian A. Corn prove the same thing. In Mircea Crtrescus novel Orbitor (1996), almost every micro and macro-cosmic structure is bound to represent a fractal unit: from the atoms in the body of the narrator (himself named Mircea), to the particles of stellar dust; from the wings of the Lorenz butterfly which haunts the protagonists dreams and fantasies, to the random architecture of

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N.E.C. Yearbook 1996-1997 underground pipes in Doamna Ghica district; from the chaotic geometry of streets and avenues in Nicolae Ceauescus Bucharest, to the neuronal mind patterns of the protagonists teen-aged friends:
Our cerebro-spinal body is the very proof we are worms of a large astral being.With its marrow like a root and with its two brain hemispheres like two plumpy cotyledons, it looks exactly like a small plant in its first blooming stages. (1996, p.61)

In other episodes of Crtrescus novel, the suggestion of a universally extended fractal network is even more poignant, while the narratological effect proves rather realistic, than phantasmatic:
We live on a small piece of limestone from the cosmic sclerosis. A small, compact animal, a single particle, a billion times smaller than the nucleus of the sun, gathered in a unifying force the entire pattern our mind perceives at the time when it is allowed to perceive it. Inside, it had bubbles of space and strings, milky galactic streams and the planets political map and the unpleasant smell of the neighbours mouth in the tram and Jezechiels vision on the shore of the Chebar and each molecule of melanin in the freckles under the left eyebrow of the woman you undressed and made love to the night before and the wax from the year of one of Artaxerxes ten thousand immortal warriors and the bunch of catecolamynergic neurones in the rahidian bulb of a badger sleeping in the forests of the Caucasus. (1996, p.57)

In Sebastian A. Corns science-fiction novel Aquarius (1995), the action simultaneously and alternatively takes place in the real, historical America of John Kennedy and in the diffuse geography of the liquid tissues interacting in the presidents body and mind. These mysterious tissues are also populated with primitive humanoids, cyber-spatial sects and fractal assassins. However, the assassination of president Kennedy in his real dimension does not cancel the existence of the inner fractal dimensions, but reinforces it in other mental dimensions piled inside the presidents mind. Moreover, the narrators conclusions become an infinitely branching fractal unit:
Actually, a conclusion regarding common things is no longer possible; it has been replaced by a set of multiple conclusions. Piled over the logics of biology, should it really exist. Should it be rational. A restart of Mandelbrots way of establishing tendencies, although starting from simple cause-effect statements. (1995, p.209)

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ION MANOLESCU The same examples may also provide an answer to the second question concerning the ontological redefining of the surrounding world. The fractal view of literature upon the universe is essentially a fictional transcript of a new kind of existential sensibility, where the dispersion of experienced facts is equal to that of imagined ones, logical and iconic associations between symmetry and asymmetry have a common pattern and the processing of information is being achieved through zappings from one perspective to the other. Therefore, the discussion is focused on a new sensibility, allowing one to access perceptive simultaneity and successivity without disturbing the mind in a schizoid way. By means of systematic logical and iconic juxtaposition, interpolation and overprint, which recent psychologists and theorists of literature have identified with the mechanisms of thought (Kosslyn, 1980) or with contemporary methods of textual construction (McHale, 1987), this sensibility may be regarded as revolutionary. Its fractal elements, together with the deconstructive ones, provide multiple pathways to the realm of post-modern alternative aesthetics. From this final, pluralist perspective, there is no question that both deconstruction and fractal theory have proved their ability to challenge our firm belief in the stability of rational artistic structures. In the future to come, one may assume the switch to variable, hyper-rational patterns of mind and art will be completed.

Notes
1. Even the term deconstruction suggests an undermining and a surpassing of the oppositional logic on which it is founded (construction/deconstruction). 2. However, we should still mention the fact that Derridas deconstructive philosophy is conceived as an attack on the structuralist opposition between signifier and signified (1967, 1972 a). The Saussurian logical opposition is radically questioned on basis that there is no valid transcendent reason to connect a certain signifier to a certain signified, in order to assert a unique, immobile meaning of that signified. In other words, Derrida criticizes the reduction of the signifier to a stable signified, that is he disagrees with the tendency of attributing the signifier a privileged position in the process of making meaning. Instead, he asserts the existence of an infinitely regressive movement of the signifiers (Derrida, 1972 b, p.38). 3. Here, the use of the oxymoron (frozen perpetuum mobile) was thought best suited to the explanation of the paradoxical logics of deconstruction in Eschers

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graphics. As one may easily notice, the very deconstruction of a paradox implies the use of paradox. 4. Actually, because of its simultaneously perfect and imperfect structure, the geometry of I.L.Caragiales story resembles the geometry of impossible objects, such as those in the graphics of Bruno Ernst, Oscar Reutersvard, Jos de Mey (see, among others, Ernst, 1986, pp.62-67). 5. In semiotic research, the process is identified by Charles Sanders Peirce. To him, the process of signifying is equivalent to an infinite regression of the signifiers (interpretants, as he calls them) towards a logical illimitation, that is, towards an endless semiosis (Peirce, 1932, p.300; 1935, p.470). 6. In the field of logics, the profound motivations of unsolvable alternations are being analysed, among others, by Douglas Hofstadter, who tries to dismantle the epistemological prejudices they created in time (1979, 1985). 7. Apart from the deconstructive philosophical context, the problem of accolades also has an explanation in the field of cognitive psychology. It may be found in the attempts of several researchers to identify the mechanisms through which mental imagery is being produced; functionally, these mechanisms are associated with the operations of computers: both are able to copy and stroboscopically process all the intermediary steps (Kosslyn, 1980). 8. The relation between a series of deterministic causes and the random effects they generate is discussed especially by chaos and catastrophy theorists. In situations such as the evolution of stock exchange or the riots of prisoners, they are likely to detect unexpected turbulent effects, produced by linear causes (see, among other sources, Prigogine and Stengers, 1979, p.191; Cvitanovic, 1984, pp.3-4; Hao, 1989, p.3). 9. The fractal world can be viewed also from the perspective of aesthetics of ugliness. Several mathematicians who have created fractals without having any idea about what they meant (such as Waclaw Sierpinsi, David Hilbert or Georg Cantor) did regard them as...disgracious, monstrous or pathological (see, among other sources, Mandelbrot, 1977, p.77; Oliver, 1996, p.19). 10. Analysing the relation between form (shape) and distribution is essential to understand most of Eschers drawings. They may be defined as dimensionally ambiguous and perspectivally polysemantic; so may several post-modern novels (Pynchon, 1973; Crtrescu, 1996). 11. The same kind of inter-changeable layered reading may also be applied to post-modern short stories, such as those included in the Romanian anthology Desant83 (1983). Here, although quite different, the stories of eighteen young Romanian writers make up something like a Tel-Quelian novel of everyday life.

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Works cited
Anderson, Poul, The Corridors of Time, NY, Doubleday, 1965 Asimov, Isaac, The End of Eternity, ibidem, 1955 Barth, John, The Tidewater Tales, NY, Fawcett Columbine, 1988 [first edition:1987], The Last Voyage of Somebody the Sailor, Boston, Toronto, London, Little, Brown and Company, 1991 Barthelme, Donald, Sixty Stories, NY, G.P.Putnams Sons, 1981, Forty Stories, ibidem, 1987 Baudrillard, Jean, La societe de consommation, Paris, Denoel, 1970, Lechange symbolique et la mort, Paris, Gallimard, 1976, Simulacres et simulations, Paris, Galilee, 1981, Les strategies fatales, Paris, Bernard Grasset, 1983 Boutot, Alain, Linvention des formes, Paris, Odile Jacob, 1993 [translated Inventarea formelor, Bucureti, Nemira, 1996] Briggs, John, Fractals.The Patterns of Chaos, NY, London, Toronto, Simon & Schuster, 1992 Brooks, Peter, Reading for the Plot.Design and Intention in Narrative, Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1984 Caragiale, I.L., Opere 2, Bucureti, ESPLA, 1960 Clinescu, G., Istoria literaturii romne de la origini pn n prezent, Bucureti, Fundaia Regal Pentru Literatur i Art, 1941 Crtrescu, Mircea, Orbitor. Aripa stng, Bucureti, Humanitas, 1996 Collins, Jim, Uncommon Cultures. Popular Culture and Post-Modernism, NY, London, Routledge, 1989 Corn, Sebastian A., Aquarius, Bucureti, Olimp, 1995 Crciun, Gheorghe, Compunere cu paralele inegale, Bucureti, Cartea Romaneasc, 1988 Culler, Jonathan, On Deconstruction.Theory and Criticism after Structuralism, Ithaca, NY, Cornell University Press, 1982 Cvitanovic, Predrag, Universality in Chaos, in Cvitanovic (ed.): Universality in Chaos, Bristol, Adam Hilger, 1984 De Man, Paul, Blindness & Insight.Essays in the Rhetoric of Contemporary Criticism (second edition), London, Methuen & Co, 1983 Dennett, Daniel, Brainstorms.Philosophical Essays on Mind and Psychology, Brighton, Harvester Press, 1986 [first edition:1979] Derrida, Jacques, Lecriture et la difference, Paris, Seuil, 1967, La dissemination, Paris, Seuil, 1972 a, Positions, Paris, Minuit, 1972 b Desant83 (short story anthology), Bucureti, Cartea Romaneasc, 1983 Ernst, Bruno, The Eye Beguilded.Optical Illusions, Kln, Benedikt Taschen, 1992 [first edition:1986] Federman, Raymond, Surfiction.Fiction Now...and Tomorrow, Chicago, Swallow Press, 1975

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Field, Martin; Golubitsky, Martin, Symmetry in Chaos, Oxford, NY, Tokyo, Oxford University Press, 1992 Fish, Stanley, Is There a Text in This Class?The Authority of Interpretive Communities, Cambridge, Massachusetts, London, England, Harvard University Press, 1980 Fokkema, Douwe W., Literary History.Modernism and Postmodernism, Amsterdam/Philadelphia, John Benjamins Publishing Company, 1984 Freud, Sigmund, Zur Psychopathologie des Alltagslebens (1904), in Gesammelte Schriften, Internationaler Psychoanalytischer Verlag, Wien, 1924 [translated in Introducere n psihanaliz.Prelegeri de psihanaliz.Psihopatologia vieii cotidiene, Bucureti, Editura Didactic i Pedagogic, 1980 Freund, Elizabeth, The Return of the Reader.Reader-response criticism, London and NY, Methuen, 1987 Gleick, James, Chaos.Making a New Science, NY, Penguin, 1988 [first edition:1987] Gleick, James; Porter, Eliot, Natures Chaos, London, Abacus, 1996 [first edition:1990] Gdel, Kurt, Uber Formal Unentschridbare Satze der Principia Mathematica und Verwandter Systeme I (1931), translated in On Formally Undecidable Propositions, NY, Basic Books, 1962 Hao, Bai-Lin, Chaos, Singapore, New Jersey, London, Hong-Kong, World Scientific, 1989 [first edition:1984] Hartman, Geoffrey H., Saving the Text:Literature/Derrida/Philosophy, Baltimore and London, Johns Hopkins University Press, 1981 Hassan, Ihab, The Dismemberment of Orpheus.Toward a Postmodern Literature, NY, Oxford University Press, 1982, Pluralism in Postmodern Perspective, in Clinescu,Matei; Fokkema, Douwe W. (eds): Exploring Postmodernism, Amsterdam/Philadelphia, John Benjamins Publishing Company, 1990 Hoffman, Gerhard, Waste and Meaning, the Labyrinth and the Void in Modern and Postmodern Fiction, in Hoffman, Gerhard; Hornung, Alfred (eds.): Ethics and Aesthetics.The Moral Turn of Postmodernism, Universitatsverlag C.Winter, Heidelberg, 1996 Hofstadter, Douglas, Metamagical Themas.Questing for the Essence of Mind and Pattern, NY, Basic Books, 1985, Gdel, Escher, Bach.An Eternal Golden Braid, NY, Vintage Books, 1989 [first edition:1979] Holland, Norman, The Dynamics of Literary Response, NY, Oxford University Press, 1968 Hurd, Alan J., Resource Letter FR-1:Fractals, in Hurd (ed.): Fractals.Selected Reprints, College Park MD, American Association of Physics Teachers, 1989 Iser, Wolfgang, Interaction between Text and the Reader, in Suleiman/Crosman (eds.), 1980, see above Kearney, Richard, The Wake of Imagination, Minneapolis, University of Minnesota Press, 1988

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Klein, Gerard, Les seigneurs de la guerre, Paris, Robert Laffont, 1971 Kosslyn, Steven Michael, Image and Mind, Cambridge, Massachussetts and London, England, Harvard University Press, 1980 Kristeva, Julia, Semeiotike, Paris, Seuil, 1968 Le Guin, Ursula K., The Left Hand of Darkness (1969), translated La main gauche de la nuit, Paris, Robert Laffont, 1971 Lodge, David, The Modes of Modern Writing, Ithaca, NY, Cornell University Press, 1977 Lyotard, Jean-Francois, La condition post-moderne, Paris, Minuit, 1979, Le postmoderne, Paris, Galilee, 1986 Mandelbrot, Benoit, Les objets fractals:forme, hasard et dimension, Paris & Montreal, Flammarion, 1975, Fractals. Form, Chance and Dimension, San Francisco, W.H.Freeman and Company, 1977, Fractal Geometry:What Is it and What Does it Do? in Hurd (ed.), 1989 Manolescu, Florin, Literatura S.F., Bucureti, Univers, 1980, Caragiale i Caragiale.Jocuri cu mai multe strategii, Bucureti, Cartea Romaneasc, 1983 Manolescu, Ion, La prose postmoderne et le textualisme mediatique, in Euresis.Cahiers roumains detudes litteraires (1-2/1995), Bucarest, Univers, 1996 Manolescu, Nicolae, Istoria critic a literaturii romane, Bucureti, Minerva, 1990 McHale, Brian, Postmodernist Fiction, London & NY, Routledge, 1989, Constructing Postmodernism, ibidem, 1992 Oliver, Dick, Fractalvision:Put Fractals to Work, Sams Publishing, 1992 [translated Fractali, Bucureti, Teora, 1996] Peirce, Charles Sanders, Collected Papers, Cambridge, Harvard University Press, 1931-35 Peitgen, H.-O.; Richter, P.H., The Beauty of Fractals.Images of Complex Dynamical Systems, Berlin, Heidelberg, NY, Toronto, Springer-Verlag, 1986 Pickover, Clifford A., Computers, Pattern, Chaos and Beauty.Graphics from an Unseen World, NY, St Martins Press, 1990, Computers and the Imagination.Visual Adventures from beyond the Edge, ibidem, 1991, Mazes for the Mind:Computers and the Unexpected, ibid, 1992, Chaos in Wonderland.Visual Adventures in a Fractal World, NY, St Martins Griffin, 1994 Poston, Tim; Stewart, Ian, Catastrophe Theory and its Applications, Boston, London, Melbourne, Pitman, 1981 [first edition:1978] Prigogine, Ilya; Stengers, Isabelle, La Nouvelle Alliance.Metamorphose de la science, Paris, Galimard, 1979 Prince, Gerald, Notes on the Text as Reader, in Suleiman/Crosman (eds.), 1980, see above Pynchon, Thomas, Gravitys Rainbow, London, Picador, 1975 [first edition:1973], V, ibidem [first edition:1961], The Crying of Lot 49, ibidem, 1979 [first edition: 1965], Slow Learner, ibidem, 1985 [first edition:1984], Vineland, Boston, Little, Brown and Company,1990

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Roe, Barbara L., Donald Barthelme.A Study of the Short Fiction, NY, Twayne Publishers, 1992 Sander, Leonard M., Fractal Growth, in Hurd (ed.), 1989 Schaub, Thomas S., Pynchon:The Voice of Ambiguity, Urbana, Chicago, London, University of Illinois, 1981 Scholes, Robert, Textual Power.Literary Theory and the Teaching of English, New Haven & London, Yale University Press, 1985 Schwenk, Theodore, Sensitive Chaos.The Creation of Flowing Forms in Water and Air, NY, Shocken Books, 1976 [first edition, in German:1965] Simion, Eugen, Scriitori romni de azi, I-IV, Bucureti, Cartea Romneasc, 1976-1989 Smith, Cyril Stanley, From Art to Science.Seventy-Two Objects Illustrating the Nature of Discovery, Cambridge, Massachusetts and London, England, MIT Press, 1980, A Search for Structure.Selected Essays on Science, ibidem, 1981 Sollers, Philippe, Logiques, Paris, Seuil, 1968 Stevens, Peter, Patterns in Nature, London, Penguin, 1977 [first edition: 1974] Stewart, Ian, Les Fractals.Les chroniques de Rose Polymath, Paris, Belin, 1972 Stewart, Ian; Golubitsky, Martin, Fearful Symmetry.Is God a Geometer?, Oxford UK & Cambridge USA, Blackwell, 1992 Suleiman, Susan R.; Crosman, Inge (eds.), The Reader in the Text.Essays on Audience and Interpretation, Princeton, New Jersey, Princeton University Press, 1980 Tournier, Michel, Vendredi ou les limbes du Pacifique, Paris, Gallimard, 1967 [translated Vineri sau limburile Pacificului, Bucureti, Univers, 1977], Le medianoche amoureux, Paris, Gallimard, 1989 [translated Amanii taciturni, Bucureti, Univers, 1992] Ulici, Laureniu, Literatura roman contemporan, Bucureti, Eminescu, 1995 Vianu, Tudor, Dubla intenie a limbajului i problema stilului, in Arta prozatorilor romni, Editura Contemporan, 1941 Wells, H.G., The Time Machine and Other Stories, NY, Holt, 1895 Wooley, Benjamin, Virtual Worlds.A Journey in Hype and Hyperreality, Oxford UK & Cambridge USA, Blackwell, 1992

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CTLIN PARTENIE
Born in 1962, in Piteti, Romania B.A., University of Bucharest, 1986 Ph.D., University of Glasgow, 1998 Dissertation: Platos Hypothetical Method Visiting Assistant Professor of Philosophy, Bucharest Academy of Fine Arts, 1998-99 Research Fellow, Institute of Philosophy, Bucharest, 1995-1996 Horia Georgescu Scholarship, University of Oxford, 1990-1991 University of Glasgow Doctoral Fellowship, 1991-1994 Overseas Research Student Award, awarded by the Committee of Vice-Chancellors and Principals of the Universities of the United Kingdom, 1991-1994 Sir Daniel Stevenson Scholarship, Ruprecht-Karls-Universitt Heidelberg, 1994-1995 Bourse postdoctorale, Universit du Qubec Montral, 1999-2001 Author of various articles and studies on Greek philosophy; co-translator (into Romanian) of Platos Timaeus (1993); editor of the complete works of Plato in Romanian (forthcoming)

PLATONIC IMMORTALITY REVISITED

This text is based on a series of lectures I gave in 1996-97 at the New Europe College in Bucharest, as a NEC Fellow. The lectures were pitched to an audience of scholars from all fields except philosophy. I am grateful to Prof. Andrei Plesu, Father Andr Scrima, Mr. Alexandru Dragomir and all those who attended my lectures for their interest and critical remarks. There is a saying about the existence of God that goes like this: God does exist, and the proof is that he does not want to get involved in anything. I would like to express my profound gratitude to Wissenschaftskolleg zu Berlin, the main patron of the New Europe College, for encouraging God to get involved in this part of Eastern Europe. Finally, I wish to thank the New Europe College for awarding me a NEC Fellowship. I dedicate this essay to all my fellow Romanians who in December 1989 overcame their fears and stood up for freedom. On. Say on. Be said on. Somehow on. Till nohow on. Said nohow on. [...] All of old. Nothing else ever. Ever tried. Ever failed. No matter. Try again. Fail again. Fail better. Samuel Beckett, Worstward Ho

I
Nowadays we seem to wonder more whether there is life after five oclock than whether there is life after death. So, if we happen to see Woody Allens Hannah and Her Sisters, we are bound to be more or less surprised, for this film deals precisely with the issue of afterlife (and with that of Sein zum Tode, if I may use this Heideggerian expression).

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N.E.C. Yearbook 1996-1997 The character played by Woody Allen is a TV director who is a hypochondriac and who realizes, eventually, that his hypochondria is caused by his fear of death. If death means nothingness, he says, then isnt that enough to spoil everything? He then seeks comfort in religion. He attempts to convert to Catholicism, but his father mocks him (Why Jesus? Well, I know it sounds funny...). Then he muses about joining a Hare Krishna group, but he mocks himself (Youre gonna shave your head and put on robes and dance around airports? Youll look like Jerry Lewis. Oh God, Im so depressed). In the end, after he fails to shoot himself, he enters a cinema theatre where, looking at a most funny scene from a Marx Brothers film, he has a sort of illumination and says to himself:
[] how can you even think of killing yourself? I mean, look at all the people up there on the screen. You know, theyre really funny and, what if the worst is true? What if there is no God, and you only go around once and thats it? Well, you know, dont you want to be part of the experience? You know, what the hell, its not all a drag. Geez, I should stop ruining my life searching for answers Im never going to get, and just enjoy it while it lasts. And, you know, after, who knows? I mean, you know, maybe there is something. Nobody really knows.

Allens character is, as I said, a TV director and he has his illumination about afterlife in a cinema theatre, while he watches a Marx Brothers film. We, the spectators, may experience the same illumination while we watch, in a cinema theatre, this Woody Allen film. Here, however, we are in medialand and that should make us suspicious. Films are addressed to the masses, to hoi polloi, the vulgus, to das Man himself; so this illumination may contain just a lay view about afterlife. The most successful experts are nowadays the scientists. What do the scientists say about afterlife? Do they claim that the most reasonable thing to do is to enjoy the time we have within this world, the only world there is? We all know that each scientific discipline ends up by being accompanied by its own vulgata. But things have deteriorated lately, for we, the lay public, can hardly follow nowadays any scientific vulgata (in 1995 the University of Oxford announced a vacant readership in the public understanding of science; let us hope that they will come up with something). New Europe College, where we are now, is an institute for advanced studies in the humanities. We, the experts in humanities that form its community, must admit that we do not have a clue about what the scientists say about afterlife. We only know that some of them, after they have won the Nobel Prize, start to talk about God, but no one, apparently, takes

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CTLIN PARTENIE them seriously when they do this. So, all we can do, hic et nunc, is to see what the experts in humanities have to say about afterlife.
Maintenant, sur une immense terrasse dElsinore, qui va de Ble Cologne, qui touche aux sables de Nieuport, aux marais de la Somme, aux craies de Champagne, aux granits dAlsace lHamlet europen regarde des milliers de spectres. Mais il est un Hamlet intellectuel. Il mdite sur la vie et la mort des vrits. Il a pour fantmes tous les objets de nos controverses; il a pour remords tous les titres de notre gloire [...]. Sil saisit un crne, cest un crne illustre. Whose was it? Celui-ci fut Lionardo. [...] Et ce autre crne est celui de Leibniz qui rva de la paix universelle. Et celui-ci fut Kant qui genuit Hegel, qui genuit Marx, qui genuit ... Hamlet ne sait trop que faire de tous ces crnes. Mais sil les abandonne! ... Va-t-il cesser dtre lui-mme?

These are Paul Valrys words1. They manage, I think, to express very well what happens to the modern humanist, who, unlike the modern scientist, is haunted by the history of his own discipline and who cannot make sense of any problem if he does not unfold its history. So, if we raise the question about afterlife to a modern humanist, we are bound to end up with something about the history of the doctrines and views that regard the issue of afterlife. Like any other expert, the modern humanist is someone who manages to know something well because he, inter alia, has narrowed down to the extreme the area of his scholarly interest. And this fact has its importance; for it means that if we raise the question about afterlife to a modern humanist, we are bound to end up with something about a rather small segment of the history of this question. My field is philosophy, and within this field I have narrowed down my interest to one philosopher Plato. So, if one asks me what I have to say about afterlife, I shall offer him an account of what Plato says about it. But, how relevant can be for us such a small segment of the history of the doctrines and views that regard the issue of afterlife? Let us first see, however, what Plato has to say about this issue.

II
The most appealing account of the Big Bang Ive ever read, claims Salman Rushdie in his Imaginary Homelands, was written by Italo Calvino in his marvellous Cosmicomics. In the beginning, were told by Calvinos narrator, the proto-being Qfwfq, Every point of each of us coincided with

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N.E.C. Yearbook 1996-1997 every point of each of the others in a single point, which was where we all were ... it wasnt the sort of situation that encourage sociability. Then a certain Mrs Ph(i)Nko cried out, Oh, if only I had some room, how Id like to make some noodles for you boys! And at once bam! there it was: spacetime, the cosmos. Room.2 In Platos late writings there are several accounts of the souls immortality and afterlife. They are a mixture of traditional legends and Platonic myths, linked with a cosmology that is even stranger than Italo Calvinos account of the Big Bang a cosmology that involves a Demiurge, human reincarnation and many other curious things. We certainly do not want to rush into that. We had better start chronologically. (The modern humanists are so addicted to unfolding stories, that they would use any excuse for a chronological approach.) Platos earlier writings, the so-called Socratic dialogues, are dominated by their main character, namely Socrates, who was Platos guru. Socrates is the weirdest philosopher ever. When the Delphic god was asked who is the wisest man, he replied that there is no one wiser than Socrates (cf. Ap. 21 b and Phd. 85 b)3. Socrates attempted to test the Delphic god, but eventually he came to the conclusion that all his fellow citizens poets, politicians, sophists, skilled craftsmen were less wise than he (for they all claimed they knew something without actually knowing it). And so, he proved the gods oracle to be true. Obviously, he annoyed everybody. Soon after he was brought before an Athenian court on a most ridiculous charge (corrupting the minds of the young and believing in other deities instead of the gods recognized by the state); and, eventually, he was condemned to death. The fact that all this happened in a democratic Athens is usually taken as an accident; for philosophers, we believe, have always been safe in a democratic regime. To this, Heidegger replies: it is true that Socrates seems to be the only philosopher killed by a democracy; but this is more likely to mean that, since the time of Socrates, not a single philosopher of his stature has ever lived in a democracy4. Mais passons; regardless of whether this is or not true, Socrates remains the most singular and eccentric philosopher. Part of his eccentricity consists in his refusal to write anything. He would have perished of course, had Plato (and a few others) not written about him. As far as Platos account of Socrates views is concerned, there are no reliable means to determine its fidelity to them (the moment we approach Plato, we are faced with the issue of original and copy.) This is, however, what Socrates says about death at the end of Platos Apology

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CTLIN PARTENIE (one of Platos earlier writings, which contains, allegedly, the speech given by Socrates in his defence at the trial):
Death is one of two things. Either it is annihilation and the dead have no consciousness of anything, or, as we are told, it is really a change a migration of the soul from this place to another. Now if there is no consciousness but only a dreamless sleep, death must be a marvellous gain [for it is like a one single resting night cf. 40 c 9-d 1]. [...] If on the other hand death is a removal from here to some other place, and if what we are told is true, that all the dead are there, what greater blessing could there be than this, gentlemen? [For that would mean that one can entertain himself with all the famous man that have ever lived and with all the half-divinities Minos, Rhadamanthus, Orpheus, Musaeus, Hesiod, Homer, Palamedes, Ajax, etc. cf. 41 a-b.]5 (40 c-41 c)

Some of us, being workaholics, would not find the possibility of an eternal dreamless sleep as appealing as Socrates did, while others might be reluctant to mingle with half-divinities for ever. But apart from these peculiarities, Socrates appears, surprisingly, fairly sensible in his views about afterlife, for he simply says that death is either a conscious or a non-conscious state. Platos views on the matter, however, are less sensible; and yet, one of them, which first occurs in the Symposium, is not actually unreasonable. This view has in a way a Socratic origin. When the Delphic god uttered his oracle about me, says Socrates in the Apology, he is not referring literally to Socrates; he has merely taken my name as a paradeigma (23 a 8-b). A paradeigma is, in this context, an instance or embodiment of something. It seems then that Socrates, Platos spiritual father, invites us to look at him platonically; he invites us, that is, to focus not on him, but on what is embodied in him. So, what does Socrates embody? In the Crito, when Crito asks Socrates to run away from prison and save his life, Socrates says: [...] it has always been my nature never to accept advice from any of my friends unless reflection shows that it is the best course that reason offers (46 b). Socrates, we know only too well, has always lived according to reason (Grg. 527 e; cf. also Phd. 82 d, 84 a-b). He embodies then, we may say, the possibility of living according to reason.

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N.E.C. Yearbook 1996-1997 Now, most of us also claim to live according to reason. Does that mean that Socrates and we embody the same thing? Obviously, we are not as serene as he was when we contemplate the finitude of our life. We do not live without having any fears, as he did (cf. Phd. 84 b and 114 e); and, of course, we would not attack any flattering oracle. But whenever we live according to what our reason tells us, we embody the same thing as he did and so we resemble him. Only that our embodiment of a life led by reason is not as resistant and enduring as his; that is: we are not as committed to our reason as he was to his, and we cannot live all the time according to what reason tells us, as he did. Socrates, says Alcibiades in the Symposium, does not resemble any other man (221 c), and so he appears to be a divine (theios, daimonios) person (cf. 215 b, 216 e, 219 c, 222 a). Why? The answer that Alcibiades praise suggests, in the Symposium, is this: what is divine in Socrates, and so what differentiates him from other men, is his remaining the same for the sake of something thought of as good (cf. 213 e, 216 d-e, 217 d-e). For, as Alcibiades says, nobody and nothing can force him to do something which does not agree with what he believes reason recommends us as being good be it wine (214 a, 220 a), bodily temptations (219 b-d), hardships (220 a-b), dangers or wars (221 b-d). This belief that the divine must always remain the same is to be found in many ancient religious doctrines, such as the Mosaic one (see, inter alia, the Old Testament, Mal. 3,6). But we should confine our inquiry to Plato. So: why did he hold this belief? This is a very difficult question, which I cannot enter here; but this motif of remaining the same, which Socrates brought forward in his life, is interwoven with all major Platonic themes. In the Symposium Plato claims that human beings (like all mortal creatures) are always changing (207 d-e), and so they cannot, like the divine, be fully and always the same (208 a). Not even Socrates, we may say, going along with Platos thought; although he always listens to what reason has to say, Socrates grows older too and thus he is not fully and always the same. So, Plato concludes, the only way in which man partakes of what is always the same is by perpetuating himself, i.e. by leaving behind new life to fill the vacancy that is left in its species by obsolescence (208 a-b). And he seems to suggest that love, Eros (that drives each individual man during his life), is nothing but a longing for maintaining the sameness of the human race (cf. for instance 206 e, 207 a, 212 a). A very similar view occurs in the Laws (allegedly, Platos last work), at 721

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CTLIN PARTENIE b-c; here, claiming that a man should marry when he has reached the age of thirty and before he comes to that of thirty-five, Plato argues that
[] there is a sense in which mankind naturally partakes of immortality, a prize our nature makes desirable to all of us in its every form, for to win renown and not lie in our graves without a name is a desire of this. Thus the race of man is times equal twin and companion, bound up with him in a union never to be broken, and the manner of their immortality is in this wise. By succession of generations the race [of man] abides one and the same [tauton kai hen on aei], so partaking in immortality through procreation.

That is: it is the human race that has (actually: can have) an endless duration, not the individual soul. This implies that there is no actual afterlife and conveniently solves the whole matter. Thus, the Symposium and the Laws contain a view of the souls immortality that seems, to us, quite reasonable (though in the Book X of the Laws things are slightly more complicated). In the Phaedo, however, Plato argues that it is the individual soul that is immortal. And this casts a long shadow on this appealing (because down to earth) approach from the Symposium and the Laws.

III
The Phaedo is the dialogue in which Plato describes Socrates last conversation with some of his friends. Socrates knows that he will soon die and he tells his friends, as he told the jury at his trial, that he looks forward to it.
If I did not expect to enter the company, first, of other wise and good gods, and secondly of men now dead who are better than those who are in this world now, it is true that I should be wrong in not grieving at death. As it is, you can be assured that I expect to find myself among good men. I would not insist particularly on this point, but on the other I assure you that I shall insist most strongly that I shall find there divine masters who are supremely good. That is why I am not so much distressed as I might be, and why I have a firm hope that there is something in store for those who have died, and, as we have been told for many years, something much better for the good than for the wicked. (63 b-c)

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N.E.C. Yearbook 1996-1997 This echoes what he said in the Apology. Now, however, he is Platos voice and he is caught up in a scenario that has at stake an elaborated philosophical construction. Cebes, one of those listening to Socrates brave words, says that, after all, it requires no little faith and assurance to believe that the soul exists after death and retains some active force and intelligence (70 b). Socrates, in response, produces several arguments that, in his view, demonstrate that the soul is immortal: one about the existence of pure knowledge (63 e-67 a); one about opposites (70 d-71 e); one that introduces the so-called theory of recollection (cf. 72 e-73 b); and one about the nature of the soul (78 c-81 a). These arguments may be quite exasperating for a modern reader. The one about opposites, for instance, states that, since everything which has an opposite is generated from that opposite and from no other source (70 e), and since death is the opposite of living (71 c), the living must come from the dead, just as the dead come from the living (71 d-e), which amounts to say that the soul exists in the next world (71 e). One of these arguments, however, the one that introduces the so-called theory of recollection, is a most complex philosophical argument. It resumes, in a different form, the argument about pure knowledge and it goes like this: if what we call learning is really just recollection, [...] then surely what we recollect now we must have learned at some time before, which is impossible unless our souls existed somewhere before they entered this human shape. So in that way too it seems likely that the soul is immortal (72 e). Now, what does all this mean? Seeing is one of our most intimate experiences; and yet we seldom understand what does in fact happen when we see something. When we look around, we see things that have an identity trees, stars, mountains. That is: we always see the things that we look at as something: this one as a tree, that one as a mountain; which means that when we look at things we instantly identify them as being what they are. Now, in order to identify an object as something, say that thing over there as being a chair, I must realize that that object has the appearance, the look, the aspect of a chair. I must recognize, in other words, a specific aspect, viz. the aspect of chair, in that thing over there. This act of recognizing a particular aspect in a given object brings forth a can of philosophical worms, which was first opened by Plato. If in looking at things we identify them as being what they are, then our seeing is not actually a mere visual sensation: it is rather a sort of an interpretation, in which I see something as something. In which case we

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CTLIN PARTENIE should say that that which must be responsible for this interpretation, for this hermeneutic experience (to be pretentious), cannot be my eyes, but my mind. Plato stresses out this point explicitly in the Theaetetus, a dialogue written later than the Phaedo. There, at 184 c, he makes Socrates ask: Do we see with our eyes or through our eyes? That is, he continues, do we see with the eyes or do we see with something else a soul, or whatever is to be called (184 d) through the eyes, as they would be merely an instrument? And Platos answer is very clearly stated: we see through the eyes with the soul (184 d). Let us go back, however, to the Phaedo. Here the question of recognizing specific aspects in the things we look at is explicitly put; at 74 e-75 a and 75 b ff., for instance, Plato brings forward the case of seeing equal things:
We must have had some previous knowledge of equality before the time when we first saw equal things and realized that they were striving after equality, but fell short of it. [So] before we began to see and hear and use our other senses we must somewhere have acquired the knowledge that there is such a thing as absolute equality. Otherwise we could never have realized, by using it as a standard for comparison, that all equal objects of sense are desirous of being like it, but are only imperfect copies.

Here in the Phaedo Plato calls the act of recognizing specific aspects in the things we look at anamnsis, recollection (73 c-d, 74 c-d; cf. also 73 d); and for aspect he uses the words eidos and idea (102 a, 103 e), which in Greek mean form or shape, and which are usually rendered in English by form. (Both eidos and idea contain an implicit reference to sight, which we do not perceive any more in the modern word idea; and they seem to come from a verb root that originally meant to see.) So, to put it Platos terms: when we look at an object and see it as being a particular object, say, an arrow (or as having a particular feature say, as being equal to another arrow), we actually recollect the form, the idea of arrow in that object (and the idea of equality in the two equal arrows)6. Now, Plato said many queer things about forms and he developed an actual doctrine about them, usually referred to as his theory of forms. He believed, however, that to know what a form actually is, say, the form of equality, it is not enough to recollect it in the various equal things we see around us; we have, he believed, to discuss about it in a particular way (which he called dialectical) (Phd. 67 a-b, 78 e-79 a; cf. also R. 534 b ff.) (at Phd. 99 d ff. he goes even further and says that the senses are more

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N.E.C. Yearbook 1996-1997 likely to prevent us from reaching true knowledge). But we have to leave all this aside and focus on our subject recollection and immortality. If seeing implies a recollection of forms, then we must somehow know that form beforehand; and this brings forth the question of when we first came to know all those forms. In the Phaedo he claims that the right answer is this: before our birth. Here is what he says at 72 e (cf. also 75 c):
[ if] what we call learning is really just recollection, [...] then surely what we recollect now we must have learned at some time before, which is impossible unless our souls existed somewhere before they entered this human shape.

So, Plato argues, if your soul existed before your birth, it will continue to exist after your death, which means that your soul is immortal (athanaton) and imperishable (adiaphthoron) (102 b-106 e). And if all this is so, he concludes, then after death soul reaches pure knowledge (66 e); and, eventually, it is reincarnated and lives another earthly life (81 d ff.), but without being able to preserve the pure knowledge it received in its afterlife (a point which is implicit in the Phaedo, but explicit in the Republic)7. Recollection and reincarnation are issues that are brought forth by the so-called theory of forms, which is introduced as a theory that explains the way our soul knows things (e.g. our recognizing forms in the things we look at). And immortality is an issue that is brought forth by the issues of recollection and reincarnation. That is: immortality, as it appears in the Phaedo, is a question that occurs within the broader context of Platos way of putting the problem of knowledge (cf. 92 d: the theory that our soul exists even before it enters the body surely stands or falls with the souls possession [of the forms]). This theoretical package about forms and recollection, however, comes with an ethical point, which, in its turn, brings forth a complex and fantastical eschatology.

IV
In the Phaedo, Plato attaches to the theory of recollection a most unexpected argument, which may be summarized as follows. (i) The knowledge that we recollect is a pure knowledge of forms (66 d), i.e. a knowledge that the soul acquires in the other world, where it is pure, viz. released from its body (66 e). (ii) In the other world, however, the access to this pure knowledge is not democratic; for one who is not pure himself

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CTLIN PARTENIE to attain the realm of purity would no doubt be a breach of universal justice (67 b) (cf. also 82 b-c: no soul which is not absolutely pure when it leaves the body, may attain the divine nature [of the pure knowledge]). (iii) During its earthly life, the soul is permeated by the corporeal (81 c); and purification aims precisely at separating the soul as much as possible from the body (67 c). (iv) So, one should attempt to accomplish this separation in his earthly life (67 b, 69 d, 84 a-b); yet, this desire to free the soul [from the body] is found chiefly, or rather only, in the true philosophers (67 d), who seem thus to make dying their profession (67 e) and whose life seem to be a practice of death (81 a). But this is not all. At the end of the dialogue, Plato includes in all this an ethical point. At 107 c he makes Socrates say this:
If death were a release from everything, it would be a boon for the wicked, because by dying they would be released not only from the body but also from their own wickedness together with the soul, but as it is, since the soul is clearly immortal, it can have no escape or security from evil except by becoming as good and wise as it possibly can.

I do not think that this inference since the soul is immortal, it can have no escape or security from evil except by becoming as good and wise as it possibly can is safe from objections. And the claim made further on, at 107 d, that the soul takes with it to the next world not only its education (paideia, i.e. its knowledge in a very broad sense) but also the way it has lived, is simply postulated. One may accept that if knowledge is recollection, then soul must be immortal in order to acquire that pure knowledge that makes possible the act of recollection; and that if pure knowledge is easier to acquire when the soul has purified itself in its earthly life through philosophy, then one should consider the practice of philosophy very seriously. But the view that one should be not only as wise, but also as good as one possibly can is, apparently, not grounded on anything. Plato, however, construes in the Phaedo a complex eschatology, at the core of which lies the idea that soul, in its afterlife, is judged and then punished, or rewarded (as the case may be), for its moral conduct in its earthly life (107 d-108 a, 113 d) (an idea that was also expounded, in a different form, in the Gorgias 523 ff.; cf. also R. 614 b-621 d); and he argues that when soul is reincarnated, its reincarnation and its new life is part of the punishment or the reward for what it did in its former earthly life (see for instance 81 e: those who have cultivated gluttony and selfishness or drunkenness, instead of taking pains to avoid them, are likely

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N.E.C. Yearbook 1996-1997 to assume the form of donkeys and other perverse animals [when they are reincarnated]). Here is a sample of this eschatology as it occurs in the Phaedo:
This is how the story goes. When any man dies, his own guardian spirit, which was given charge over him in his life, tries to bring him to a certain place where all must assemble, and from which, after submitting their several cases to judgement, they must set out for the next world, under the guidance of one who has the office of escorting souls from this world to the other. When they have there undergone the necessary experiences and remained as long as is required, another guide brings them back again after many vast periods of time. Of course this journey is not as Aeschylus makes Telephus describe it. He says that the path to Hades is straightforward, but it seems clear to me that it is neither straightforward nor single. If it were, there would be no need for a guide, because surely nobody could lose his way anywhere if there were only one road. In fact, it seems likely that it contains many forkings and crossroads, to judge from the ceremonies and observances of this world. Well, the wise and disciplined soul follows its guide and is not ignorant of it surroundings, but the soul which is deeply attached to the body, as I said before, hovers round it and the visible world for a long time, and it is only after much resistance and suffering that it is at last forcibly led away by its appointed guardian spirit. And when it reaches the same place as the rest, the soul which is impure through having done some impure deed, either by setting its hand to lawless bloodshed or by committing other kindred crimes which are the work of kindred souls, this soul is shunned and avoided by all. (107 d-108 b)

All this is bound to discourage anyone who wants to learn something about Platos views on afterlife. First, everything is too complicated; secondly, we do not know if we should take his fantastical stories literally or figuratively. Harold Cherniss, a fine Plato scholar, said that the Analysts of Oxford have succeeded to their own satisfaction in reading the dialogues that they call critical as primitive essays in their own philosophical method. The author of these works, they feel, they could adopt as their worthy precursor, if only he could be absolved of the embarrassing doctrine of ideas that he elaborated in all its metaphysical and epistemological absurdity in the Phaedo, the Symposium, the Republic, and the Phaedrus8. Well, if you think you have a difficulty in accepting Platos theories from the Phaedo, you had better have a look at one of his last writings, the Timaeus.

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V
If forms are recognized in the things we see, then it means that the latter somehow embody the former. So we have to admit that there are two main ontological realms that of the forms and that of their sensible embodiments. And this brings forth the question of the nature of the relation between forms and their embodiments. In the Phaedo Plato says that this relation is causal, in the sense that the forms are responsible for the way their sensible embodiments are (100 c-d). But he does not determine this causal relation (which he refers to by the obscure verb metechein, usually rendered in English by to partake of) (cf. 100 d: I do not go so far as to insist upon the precise details only upon the fact that it is by beauty that beautiful things are beautiful). Only in the later dialogues, such as the Republic (see for instance 596 a ff.), he describes this relation as a model-copy relation; that is: the forms we recognize in various visible objects are to be conceived as models, and the objects that embody them as their copies. Now, according to Plato these models of sensible objects, the forms, must always remain the same (cf. Phd. 78 c ff.). Why? Because, as he claims the Cratylus, you cannot know that which has no state (440 a); because, in other words, we cannot reasonably say that there is knowledge at all, if everything is in a state of transition and there is nothing abiding (440 a-b; see also R. 585 c ff.) (and here, that motif of remaining the same, of which I said earlier that Socrates brought forward in his life, surfaces again). You may have never thought about it, but here Plato is certainly right: only that which remains the same can be known. That table over there is obviously quite old; its colour has become uncertain and its drawers look stuck. But I still recognize it, I have sat at it many times. Yet, Plato would claim, each time you looked at that table, your mind saw, through your eyes, only unchanging forms the form of table, the form of drawer. And here comes the Timaeus, which makes everyone interested in Platos philosophy despair. Plato develops in this dialogue the model-copy idea by claiming that the whole universe is a product framed from a primordial given matter (52 d), by a Demiurge (28 a ff., 29 d-e, 31 b) and other gods, who had an ideal model in front of their eyes (30 c), i.e. an ideal universe (cf. 38 b-c, 39 e). And, as if all this was not strange enough, he introduces, at 37 c-38 c, a most bizarre distinction between time (chronos) and eternity (aion).

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N.E.C. Yearbook 1996-1997 Time, claims Plato, is a moving image of eternity (37 d). In other words: time does resemble eternity, but they are not actually the same, just as a copy of a model is similar to, but not the same as its model. One may be tempted to construe eternity as an endless duration, but then, since time is not the same as eternity, one would have to construe time as a limited duration. This interpretation, however, has to cope with a major difficulty, for Plato says that the existence of the universe (and so of time, with which the universe was bound from its very beginning cf. 38 b) is endless: the created universe, he says at 38 c, has been and is and will be in all time (cf. also 33 a, where it is claimed that the existence of the universe is not limited by old age and disease). Plato says very little about what eternity is, and this very little is a rather confusing phrase, namely that eternity remains in one (37 d). What could this one mean here? Plato does not explicitly say, in the Timaeus or elsewhere, what this one might be. According to several Ancient scholars the Platonic notion of eternity should be understood as a timeless present9. In which case we should read the phrase from 37 d like this: eternity [is: to] remain in the same one [now], and we should take eternity as a remaining in the same now, and time as a moving from one now to another. The Latin scholars, who were very good at finding clear-cut expressions for the obscure thoughts of the Greek philosophers, called the timeless present of eternity nunc stans, and the running present of time nunc fluens; and Boethius is credited with introducing another clever pair of Latin words into all this: sempiternitas, for the endlessness of time; and aeternitas, for the timeless eternity (de Trinitate 4, ll.64-77). To use this more convenient Latin terminology, we may say then that the realm of that which is always the same, i.e. the realm of forms, should be understood as existing in a nunc stans, i.e. as being eternal, while the sensible embodiments of the forms as existing in a nunc fluens, i.e. as being sempiternal. If so, what happens to the human soul? Is it eternal? If eternity is to remain in a single now, then a soul cannot be eternal during the time in which it is embodied in a man, for during this time it exists in the moving now of time. Yet a soul, one might argue, can be eternal after the death of the body that embodied it. But if so, then during such an eternal, i.e. timeless present, the soul will be deprived of any kind of motion; and if there is no motion in it, then it cannot perceive or know anything, for, according to Plato, any kind of awareness requires movement (cf. Sph. 249 a, where Plato claims that human soul, human thinking and life in

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CTLIN PARTENIE general cannot be separated from motion; cf. also Tht. 153 b-c: soul acquires knowledge and is kept going and improved by learning and practice, which are of the nature of movements). Yet in the Phaedo (and in some later dialogues, such as the Phaedrus 246-249), Plato claims that only after death does soul reach real knowledge (cf. Phd. 66 e: wisdom [...] will be attainable only when we are dead, and not in our lifetime). And in the Republic, in the so-called myth of Er, he claims that soul, after it witnessed the harmony of the world and fate (616 ff.), journeys to the Plain of Oblivion and drinks from the River of Forgetfulness (621 a-b), reaching thus, we may say, a state of complete oblivion, i.e. a state in which it is not perceiving anything any more (and this complete oblivion is what makes recollection necessary when soul is reincarnated). We are facing then, after too long a discussion, a difficulty, an aporia. Geez, I should stop ruining my life searching for answers Im never going to get, and just enjoy it while it lasts one can say, borrowing this line from Woody Allens character in Hannah and Her Sisters. Almost all of Platos Socratic dialogues, however, end up in an aporia; and for him an aporia is simply the beginning of understanding. Which means that, according to Plato, we may be on the right track after all.

VI
I have, at this point, to make a digression. There is a piece of practical advice about luggage which goes like this: when you pack, put in only the necessary things; then take them all out and put back only half of them. I did the same with this essay of mine (on the assumption that, outside my community of fellow-Platonists, it is better to travel light). I left out, that is, half of the things I first considered necessary for a brief account of Platos views on immortality and I confined myself to the task of stressing a few points he makes about it in the Symposium, the Phaedo and the Timaeus10. Now, does my account of Platos views on immortality describe accurately his thoughts? My account is just one interpretation amongst many; and there is no widely accepted interpretation of Platos philosophy (like there is one of, say, Newtons physics). Suppose, however, that Plato

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N.E.C. Yearbook 1996-1997 himself would endorse my account of his views and let us ask ourselves if these views are true. In Oedipus Wrecked, if I may refer to another Woody Allen film (which is his segment of New York Stories), Allens character listens to a woman who plays something very nice on the piano; she is a fortune-teller and a magician who is helping him to find his mother, but never mind. Wow, he says, you play very well; do you practice a lot? No, she replies, I was a musician in a former life. Most of us find this joke funny and Platos doctrine of reincarnation ridiculous. Some of us may accept several philosophical points made by Platos theory of forms. But most of us would find embarrassing the countless fantastical details that occur in his philosophical accounts of the origin of the universe and afterlife. And it is precisely these fantastical details that almost convince us that his views could not be true. The Renaissance scholars found Platos mythical explanations of the universe rather seductive, but in the long run these explanations provoked the hostility of the majority of modern scientists. There are nevertheless a few notable exceptions to this severe excommunication such as Heisenberg or Popper, to cite only the best known names who claim that Platos explanations of the universe have influenced many important scientists, from Galileo to Kepler, Newton, and even Einstein. But, most of the modern scientists tend to consider Plato an illustrious representative of Greek pseudo-science; and we are quite tempted, I would guess, to say they are right in doing so. Why, however, did he use so many fantastical stories and metaphors? Because, one may argue, he had no choice. That is: in dealing with philosophical matters, with what is most abstract, we cannot but produce, eventually, various metaphors. Can we rely on a metaphor? According to Plato, we certainly can, for according to him metaphorical language has heuristic powers, i.e. it has a certain ability to lead us to truth (cf. Ti. 48 d and 53 d-e). But why did he hold such a view? Roughly speaking, Platos fantastical stories aim at finding a non-abstract embodiment for an abstract matter, in such a way that that embodiment (partially) reveals that which is embodied in it (cf. what he says in the Politicus, at 277 d: It is difficult [] to demonstrate anything of real importance without the use of examples. Every one of us is like a man who sees things in a dream and thinks that he knows them perfectly and then wakes up, as it were, to find that he knows nothing.) For Plato, however, one might argue, this act of revealing is metaphysically justified

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CTLIN PARTENIE by the fact that the forms are embodied, and thus partially revealed, by the sensible things. That is: for Plato the fact that we can (partially) express abstract ideas through non-abstract terms is grounded on the fact that the sensible is a manifestation of the intelligible. So, we may conclude, for Plato a philosophical account of the origin of the universe and afterlife cannot be phantasm-free (for the unfolding of these subjects requires, besides an abstract, yet rough framework, an amount of fantastical details); and these details, insofar as they embody something that cannot be grasped otherwise (viz. in an abstract way), may be said to be leading us in the proximity of truth (for the meta-physics and meta-phorical discourse correspond to each other in their attempt to go beyond, meta, what is before our senses)11. This is a very refined explanation of Platos use of fantastical stories. But it somehow fails to persuade us to believe that his fantastical cosmology and eschatology may lead us to truth. Whitehead is credited with a saying that has made a beautiful career: the safest general characterisation of the European philosophical tradition is that it consists of a series of footnotes to Plato12. For many philosophers this is simply an exaggeration, though no one could deny Platos enormous influence on the history of philosophy. But, you may ask, if his philosophy seems so unlikely to be true, then, apart from satisfying a historical interest, quoi bon lire Platon?

VII
Plato claims in the Phaedo that his eschatology is accessible only to the true philosophers (67 d, 80 e, 83 b) and that it is quite different from the views entertained by the masses (64 b, 68 c, 77 b, 80 d, 83 e). And in the Timaeus, his cosmology is presented as being the view of one who has scaled the heights of all philosophy (20 a), namely Timaeus (the character who tells Socrates and a few others the story of the creation of the universe); and this view is opposed to the common understanding (cf. 28 c: the father and maker of all this universe is past finding out, and even if we found him, to tell of him to all men would be impossible). So, we may say, we are apprehensive about Platos fantastical cosmology and eschatology because we are not true philosophers. What is then for him a true philosopher?

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N.E.C. Yearbook 1996-1997 Platos most famous myth is the so-called myth of the cave, from the Republic. In this myth men are represented as prisoners in a cave (514 ff.); they have their necks chained and can look only in front of them, at some shadows projected on the wall of the cave which they believe are true beings (cf. 515 c). One of them, however, escapes from his fetters and realizes that the shadows seen before on the wall of the cave are only shadows (515 c ff.), and that the true light and the true beings are outside the cave (516 a ff.). The sun, which generates the true light, seems here to be used as an analogy for the ultimate principle of the entire existence, called also the good, to agathon (cf. the passages known as the Sun, the Divided Line and the Cave: 507 a-509 c, 509 d-511 e and 514 a-517 a). Socrates presents this myth about the cave and its dwellers as an analogy for our nature in respect of education and its lack to such an experience (514 a). What is then for Plato education, paideia (of which he says in the Phaedo 107 c-d that it is a thing the soul takes with itself to the next world)? After Socrates told his audience the myth, he says that education is not what some people proclaim it to be in their professions, when they say they can put true knowledge into a soul that does not posses it, as if they were inserting vision into blind eyes (518 b-d). In the Republic, vision is often taken as an analogy for knowledge. The seen things (507 b, 508 a) correspond to the known things (508 e, 509 b) and sight (507 d) corresponds to knowledge (508 e). So, says Socrates, according to this analogy (which is at the core of the myth of the cave), education appears as the process of turning ones eyes from darkness to light (518 a-c). That is: education is not like an art of producing vision in an eye, but, on the assumption that it [i.e. the eye] possesses vision but does not rightly direct it and does not look where it should, an art of bringing this about (518 d). Yet, says Socrates, the eye cannot be converted from the darkness (say, the darkness of a cave) to the light (say, the light of the sun outside) except by turning the whole body (without which the eye cannot be brought outside the cave); and, he continues, so it is with knowledge, which requires a turning around of the entire soul (periagg ts hols psuchs) from the world of becoming to the world of ideas, of which the brightest one is the idea of the good (518 c-d). And he concludes: a conversion and turning about of the soul from a day whose light is darkness to the veritable day [is] that ascension to reality of our parable which we will affirm to be true philosophy (521 c). Most of us will certainly look with suspicion at the claim that the ultimate goal of ones education is to grasp, sometimes through metaphors

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CTLIN PARTENIE or fantastical stories, the principle of everything, which one can compare with the sun and call the good. Yet, we must admit, the idea that education implies the effort to see things differently does appeal to us. We may even put everything in Kuhns terms and say that each one lives in a paradigm, which becomes, eventually, ones own cave. So, we may conclude, ones spiritual growth (i.e. his paideia) depends on his attempt to escape from such a paradigm and experience something else. If so, then even a particular philosophy, say the Platonic one, may turn into a cave, outside of which there is a world full of other disciplines and points of view. Applied to our case, namely that of dealing with the topic of immortality, this view will lead us to say that what is important is to escape the given phantasms about immortality that surround us and attempt to reach another points of view about it, even if some of them, like the Platonic ones, are nothing more than a collection of more sophisticated phantasms. One could also venture to claim that in fields such as the one of eschatology, where truth is beyond our reach, this is the only thing to do. Plato would certainly look at all this with suspicion. For him, what is important is the attempt to grasp the ultimate, singular truth. But he would certainly encourage us to do whatever we can to challenge all the views and opinions that we take for granted and turn our mind from what is familiar to us to what makes us wonder and lead us to an aporia. So, if thinking about afterlife and what Plato has to say about it will do, then why look further?

Notes
1. La Crise de lesprit, Oeuvres (Paris: Gallimard, Bibliothque de la Pliade, 1957) t.1, 993. 2. S. Rushdie, Imaginary Homelands: Essays and Criticism 1981-1991 (London: Granta, 1991), 262. 3. References to Platos text are given by means of the marginal sigla derived from the pagination and page subdivision of the Stephanus edition of Platos works (1578). The abbreviations I use are those of the Liddell-Scott-Joness Greek-English Dictionary (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1961). 4. M. Heidegger, Vom Wesen der Wahrheit. Zu Platons Hhlengleichnis und Thetet (Frankfurt am Main: Vittorio Klostermann, 1988), Gesamtausgabe, Band 34, 84-5.

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5. Translations of Platos texts are from The Collected Dialogues of Plato, E. Hamilton and H. Cairns (eds.) (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1989). 6. The Platonic notion of recollection has raised many controversies; the scope of this essay, however, does not permit a proper discussion of it. 7. Before souls are reincarnated, he says in the Republic, they journey to the Plain of Oblivion and there they drink from the River of Forgetfulness, thus losing that pure knowledge they reached after they separated from they former bodies (621 a-b). 8. H. Cherniss, The Relation of the Timaeus to Platos Later Dialogues, The American Journal of Philology (1957) LXXVIII, 3, 234. 9. See for instance Proclus in Tim., Diehl, 3, 51, 11.15-21 and Plotinus III, 3, 20 ff.. 10. In the Politicus, which comes, chronologically, between the Phaedo and the Timaeus, Plato introduces a rather strange cosmological account that can be summarised as follows: (i) The universe has two alternating cosmic eras: the reign of Kronus, in which time moves from past to future (making that with which it moves older), and the reign of Zeus, in which time moves from future to past (making that with which it moves younger) (269 a-270 e). (ii) In the reign of Kronus all men rose up anew into life out of the earth, having no memory of the former things (272 a); they had no political constitutions (271 e), for God was their shepherd, and fruits sprang up of themselves out of the ground without mans toil (272 a). (iii) In the reign of Zeus, God abandons men. [...] things go well enough in the years immediately after he abandons control, but as time goes on and forgetfulness of God arises in it [the world], the ancient condition of chaos also begins to assert its sway (273 c-d). (At last, as this cosmic era draws to its close, this disorder comes to a head. The few good things it produces it corrupts with so gross a taint of evil that it hovers on the very brink of destruction, both of itself and of the creatures in it. The God looks upon it again, he who first set it in order. Beholding it in its troubles, and anxious for it lest it sink racked by storms and confusion, and be dissolved again in the bottomless abyss of unlikeness, he takes control of the helm once more. Its former sickness he heals; what was disrupted in its former revolution under its own impulse he brings back into the way of regularity, and, so ordering and correcting it, he achieves for it its agelessness and deathlessness 273 d-e.) Could this account be integrated in the larger picture I have retrieved from the Symposium, the Phaedo and the Timaeus? In my view, it could; but most Plato scholars do not like combining Platos doctrines that belong to dialogues written in different periods and so every claim of this kind needs a careful argumentation. Given the limited space I have at my disposal here, I have to leave the cosmology from the Politicus aside.

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11. As Ricoeur put it, the idea that meta-physics and meta-phorical discourse correspond to each other in their attempt to emporte les mots et les choses au-del..., meta... revient dire que tout lusage de lanalogie, en apparence neutre au regard de la tradition mtaphysique, reposerait son insu sur un concept mtaphysique danalogie qui dsigne le mouvement de renvoi du visible linvisible; la primordiale iconicit serait ici contenue: ce qui, fondamentalement, fait image, ce serait le visible tout entier; cest sa ressemblance linvisible qui le constituerait comme image; consquemment, la toute premire transposition serait le transfert du sens de lempirie dans le lieu intelligible (La Mtaphore vive, Paris, 1975, 366). This view is to be found in several other philosophers, such as Heidegger, who claims, in Der Satz vom Grund, (Pfullingen, 1957, 89) that das Metaphorische gibt es nur innerhalb der Metaphysik. 12. A. N. Whitehead, Process and Reality: An Essay in Cosmology (New York, 1929), 62.

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N en 1966, Bucarest Docteur en sciences politiques lEcole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales, Paris, 1998 Thse : Le libralisme du dsespoir. Tradition librale et critique du totalitarisme (1938-1960) Matre de confrence la Facult des Sciences Politiques et Administratives, Universit de Bucarest Conseiller prsidentiel, Dpartement de politique publique, bureau des analyses politiques internes, partir de 1999 Rdacteur des revues Sfera Politicii (1992-1996) et Polis, partir de 1995 Coordonnateur de la collection Societatea politic des Editions Nemira, Bucarest, a partir de dcembre 1998 Membre de la Social Science Center de lUniversit de Bucarest, 1993-1994 Membre de lAssociation roumaine de sciences politiques, partir de 1995 Membre du Groupe de Dialogue Social, Bucarest, partir de 1995 Membre du Centre dEtudes Politiques de lUniversit de Bucarest, partir de 1995 Bourse du gouvernement franais, Paris I Panthon Sorbonne, 1990-1994 Bourse AUPELF-UREF, EHESS, Paris, 1995

Bourse Tempus, Universit Libre de Bruxelles, 1996 Bourse du gouvernement franais, EHESS Paris, 1998 Livres: Modernit politique et roumanit. Bucarest, Nemira, 1998 Notre Occident. Bucarest, Nemira, 1999 Le libralisme du dsespoir. Tradition librale et critique du totalitarisme dans les annes 1938-1960. Bucarest, Babel (en prparation) Nombreux articles, tudes et traductions dans la presse quotidienne, culturelle, dans des priodiques scientifiques et dans des volumes collectifs. Editeur et traducteur.

NOUS, LES MODERNES

1. La crise de la philosophie politique

En parlant de la crise de la philosophie politique, nous cherchons en fait dfinir la philosophie politique. En effet, par la mise en vidence de ses limites et de ses tensions internes, la crise dun certain type de pense offre le meilleur prtexte pour dfinir la pense mme ; or, de ce point de vue, il est difficile de considrer que la philosophie politique pourrait tre une exception. La dfinition que nous emploierons ne ressemblera pas un article de dictionnaire sec et exact, car, dans ce cas, elle interdirait toute conversation. Tout le monde sait que le dialogue ne rsulte pas de la manipulation des articles de dictionnaire ; au contraire, pour constituer autre chose quune juxtaposition de monologues, une vritable discussion a besoin dun point de dpart vague qui puisse tre amend. La dfinition vague que nous voulons proposer ici sera une tentative de provoquer un dialogue. Mais, avant tout, on doit prciser quelle-mme sera dduite de la confrontation, de la conversation trs particulire de quelques grands esprits. Nous cherchons suivre, de cette manire, une suggestion de Lo Strauss, le plus sagace des historiens de la philosophie politique de notre sicle. Strauss invitait ceux qui soccupent de lhistoire des ides faire dialoguer les esprits clairs, les grands philosophes politiques, car ceux-ci, alors mme quils ont crit des dialogues, ne faisaient autre chose que monologuer1 . La supposition implique par linvitation de Strauss tait que tous les monologues des philosophes politiques communiquent au niveau profond des questions fondamentales auxquelles ils cherchent une rponse. Malgr les apparences, Strauss ntait pas optimiste. Car le principe de cette communication des monologues est en fait trs difficile prciser, notamment dans le cas o le dialogue que lhistorien des ides doit crer confronte, dun ct, un philosophe antique, et de lautre, un philosophe

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N.E.C. Yearbook 1996-1997 moderne. Dans ces cas, les diffrences sont parfois fondamentales et lunit suppose par la dfinition dun principe devient une illusion. Malgr cela, il est certain, par exemple, quun dialogue entre Platon et Thomas More peut tre plus aisment mis en scne quun dialogue entre Hobbes et Aristote. Finalement, la raison en est banale : tandis que lauteur de lUtopie voulait reprendre la vrit platonicienne, la vrit des rpubliques imaginaires (pour parler comme Machiavel2 ), Hobbes voulait contredire radicalement Aristote3 . De sorte que la premire partie de lUtopie de More qui, du point de vue littraire, est un dialogue inspir par lhistoire la plus banale (celle de la diplomatie), est suivie par une seconde partie qui, en dpit de sa forme descriptive, peut tre lue comme un dialogue artificiel avec Platon ; au contraire, le Lviathan de Hobbes, dpourvu dun regard historique authentique, est une rplique implicite la thse aristotlicienne du caractre naturel de ltre politique, mais une rplique organise dans tout le texte comme un monologue austre. Il semble que la manire dont les questions strictement historiques sinsrent dans le discours des philosophes politiques est dcisive pour lorientation quils donnent leur propre monologue. Pour simplifier, on pourrait dire que la difficult qui apparat dans la comprhension de la communication des monologues nest pas tellement lie au sujet du dialogue artificiel des grands esprits (en dernire instance - Strauss avait raison -, les monologues ont les mmes thmes) quau style dune telle conversation. Un dialogue artificiel court en effet le risque de falsifier le ton particulier qui accompagne la pense de chaque auteur. En outre, selon la remarque de Lo Strauss, il y a une diffrence norme entre le style de la philosophie politique classique et le style de la philosophie politique moderne4 . La premire tait naturelle et vulgaire : en dautres mots, elle a invent les questions politiques fondamentales et a fait cela en utilisant la langue de lhomme commun de la cit grecque. En change, la philosophie politique moderne est drive (car elle ne fait autre chose que rinterprter les questions classiques) et technicise (son langage tant radicalement diffrent du langage naturel). Il existe quand mme une issue cette situation dsagrable : car si la philosophie classique parlait la langue de lhomme de la cit, prsent lhomme dmocratique parle un dialecte de la langue des philosophes modernes. Les mots-cl de ce dialecte - souverainet, reprsentation, rgime, volont, constitution, rvolution ou acteur politique - sont emprunts la philosophie o ils ont subi - avant de devenir une rfrence politique habituelle - un examen philosophique. En fait, cest justement

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CRISTIAN PREDA parce que nous vivons dans un tel monde, qui a rendu vulgaire la philosophie jusqu ce quelle ne puisse plus tre reconnue, que nous sommes obligs de faire appel aux esprits les plus clairs. Comme nous lavons suggr au dbut, ce nest pas la rigueur de la dfinition plate, mais la profondeur de la pense (ft-elle vaguement exprime) qui peut ouvrir les voies du dialogue vritable. Il va de soi que, dans ce contexte, la dtechnicisation du discours est une solution profitable tout le monde : lhomme dmocratique pourra feindre de comprendre ce quon lui dit, lhistorien des ides (confondu aujourdhui souvent avec le philosophe politique) pourra sauver son tour lapparence du caractre subversif de son propre discours. Quel sujet pourrait tre choisi pour dfinir la philosophie politique par le style de son dialogue actuel, dans une tentative explicite de co-intresser lhomme dmocratique ? Un sujet simpose notre attention, pour ainsi dire, de manire absolue : il sagit de la nature de la dmocratie, de son tat actuel. Quel meilleur prtexte pour parler de crise ? Lhistoire intervient de nouveau dans la discussion. Nous avons choisi comme guides de cet expos consacr la crise de la philosophie politique (et non de la dmocratie !) trois auteurs libraux, trois grands esprits de notre poque : il sagit de Pierre Manent (n en 1948), de Karl Raimund Popper (1902-1994) et de Ludwig von Mises (1881-1973). Bien quils fassent partie tous les trois de la trs honorable famille des esprits libraux, ils sont trs diffrents. En fait, notre choix vise leur diffrence. Nous nous sommes permis parfois - pour rendre plus souple cette dmarche - de considrer le premier comme un reprsentant du point de vue conservateur, le second comme un reprsentant de la social-dmocratie contemporaine, le troisime comme un bon exemple du libertarianisme. Ces trois orientations font partie dj de la tradition librale ; il est vrai que les trois perspectives sont souvent confondues, ce qui est au dtriment de chacune delles, dans la mesure o lesprit libral assume explicitement la fcondit du conflit5 , et non pas du consensus interprtatif. Les tiquettes sont dune certaine faon arbitraires, car le conservatisme, la social-dmocratie et le libertarianisme ne sont pas du tout puiss par le discours de ces trois auteurs. Les tiquettes sont lies pourtant quelques accidents historiques. Ainsi Pierre Manent, le disciple prfr de Raymond Aron, na-t-il pas cach son admiration pour deux conservateurs amricains, Lo Strauss et son disciple le plus brillant, Allan Bloom6 . Popper a t un certain moment, plus prcisment au dbut des annes 80, lune des rfrences obsdantes de la

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N.E.C. Yearbook 1996-1997 social-dmocratie allemande7 , tandis que Ludwig von Mises a inspir le courant anarcho-capitaliste amricain, domin par des thoriciens tels Murray Rothbard et Hans-Hermann Hoppe8 . Quest-ce que la dmocratie pour ces trois auteurs ? quelle histoire intellectuelle sattache chacune des trois dfinitions proposes par eux ? Quelles sont les consquences de ces trois rponses pour la comprhension de la philosophie politique ? Ce sont l les questions qui seront abordes dans les pages suivantes. Quest-ce que la dmocratie ? Les trois rponses sont trs loignes des prjugs communs, mais cet cart est justifi par des raisons diffrentes. Faisons lanalyse de chacune son tour. Dans un texte de 1993, Pierre Manent considrait la dmocratie, telle quelle nous apparat aujourdhui, comme un systme qui pour la premire fois de son histoire, na plus, au moins dans le monde chrtien, aucun concurrent idologique crdible9 . Pour lauteur franais, les concurrents de droite qui veulent remplacer la dmocratie par un rgime non dmocratique ou antidmocratique sont pour ainsi dire maudits depuis 1945 ; les concurrents de gauche qui veulent remplacer la dmocratie par un rgime supposment encore plus, cest--dire enfin vraiment dmocratique ont t discrdits par lvidence croissante, ces dernires annes, de la catastrophe communiste. Bref, la dmocratie est prsent le rgime unique. La suggestion ironique de Manent peut tre saisie par tous ceux qui connaissent le domaine des ides politiques: lunicit de la dmocratie est trs problmatique. En effet, la philosophie politique - dans ses dveloppements classiques et modernes, de Platon Raymond Aron10 - a toujours trait la question des rgimes politiques partir de la supposition de leur multiplicit, partir de lide quil y a des styles de vie diffrents, que les relations entre le commandement et la soumission sont (ou peuvent tre) extrmement diverses. En dautres mots, donner une rponse au problme central de la philosophie politique quel est le meilleur rgime ? - a toujours signifi choisir, dans une multiplicit de rgimes rels ou seulement possibles11 , celui qui savre tre suprieur tous les autres. Devenant unique, la dmocratie semble perdre justement la qualit de rgime, dans la mesure o - comme nous lavons montr ci-dessus - celui-ci suppose la multiplicit. Voici le motif pour lequel la fin de son article Pierre Manent se demandait - de

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CRISTIAN PREDA faon rhtorique, videmment - si la dmocratie nest pas en fait la forme enfin trouve de la religion de lHumanit12 . Pour Karl Raimund Popper, le deuxime personnage de notre dialogue artificiel, non seulement la dmocratie nest pas un rgime, mais elle ne la jamais t13 . Il serait erron de penser que Popper voulait seulement radicaliser une conclusion comme celle adopte par Manent. Comme nous allons voir, le fameux pistmologue voulait affirmer tout autre chose que lauteur franais. Dans sa dmonstration, Popper partait du sens le plus banal, celui tymologique, de la dmocratie. Parler du pouvoir du peuple est trs dangereux, car - disait Popper - chacun des membres du peuple sait trs bien quil ne commande pas, et il a donc limpression que la dmocratie est une escroquerie. Cest l que rside le danger. Lalternative terminologique propose par Popper est clairement exprime: Il est important que lon apprenne ds lcole que le terme dmocratie, depuis la dmocratie athnienne, est le nom traditionnel que lon donne une Constitution qui doit empcher une dictature, une tyrannis. Linvocation dAthnes nest pas rhtorique, comme le montre le passage suivant du texte popprien : On peut dmontrer historiquement que la dmocratie athnienne, dj, au moins jusqu Pricls et Thucydide, ntait pas tant une souverainet du peuple quun moyen pour essayer dviter tout prix une tyrannie. Popper avance deux preuves pour justifier cette identification de la dmocratie un moyen, et toutes les deux sont choquantes. La premire preuve est une tentative de rinterprter lostracisme : souvent mal compris, celui-ci serait, en fait, le prix, parfois trs coteux, pay pour viter la tyrannie ou, plus exactement, le moyen par lequel tout citoyen qui devenait trop populaire pouvait et devait tre loign, en raison justement de cette popularit. La seconde preuve est encore plus choquante, car lhistoire est lue par lintermdiaire du grand Thucydide, qui nous apprend, selon Popper, que Pricls lui-mme semble stre rendu compte que la dmocratie athnienne ntait pas une souverainet populaire et que celle-ci ne pouvait exister. En effet, dans son fameux discours, que lon peut lire dans Thucydide, il dit : bien que rares soient les gens capables de concevoir un projet politique, nous sommes nanmoins tous mme de le juger. Cela signifie que nous ne pouvons pas tous gouverner et diriger, mais que nous pouvons tous porter un jugement sur le gouvernement, que nous pouvons jouer le rle de jurs14 . Compare aux deux preuves rsumes ci-dessus, limprcision terminologique de Popper - qui parle par exemple de dictature, invention romaine, quand il explique lostracisme grec nest plus stridente. En

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N.E.C. Yearbook 1996-1997 somme, la thse de Popper affirme que la dmocratie nest pas (et elle na pas t) un rgime, mais un moyen ; il sagit de quelque chose de similaire lostracisme, cest--dire, en gnral, dun instrument quon peut utiliser (et qui a t dj utilis) pour viter la tyrannie, acte dont - en dpit de celui de gouverner - nous sommes tous capables. Ainsi quon peut aisment le remarquer, en tant que moyen, la dmocratie implique le choix, et un choix qui est la porte de chacun. Pour Popper, la souverainet du peuple nexiste pas, elle est justement une illusion dangereuse ; le seul choix rel est celui vulgaire. Le troisime personnage auquel nous ferons appel, Ludwig von Mises, organise son discours autour du statut du choix humain. Sa thse est la plus simple de celles qui ont t prsentes ici. En dernire analyse, Mises affirme que le type de choix que la dmocratie suppose est seulement une prfiguration, une esquisse imparfaite du choix quon rencontre lintrieur du systme du march : lorsquon dit de la socit capitaliste quelle est une dmocratie de consommateurs, on veut dire par-l que le droit, attribu aux chefs dentreprises et aux capitalistes, de disposer des moyens de production ne peut sobtenir autrement que par le vote, renouvel chaque jour sur le march, des consommateurs Dans cette dmocratie, il est vrai, nexiste pas lgalit du droit de vote, mais le droit de vote plural15 . En dautres mots : la dmocratie et le march ont en commun le choix, elles sont puises par cet acte. Llecteur et le consommateur choisissent. Mais, alors que le choix dmocratique est un choix rare, qui a lieu a des intervalles prcisment dtermins, le choix du consommateur est quotidien, orient en fonction des prfrences et des gots qui ne peuvent pas tre rglements. Le consommateur parfait le comportement lectoral, en rduisant la vie mme une succession de choix. Voici la raison pour laquelle cest lui, le consommateur, qui est le vrai matre du march, et non pas le capitaliste sans scrupules que nous propose la vulgate marxiste16 . Aujourdhui, la dmocratie, le choix incomplet, est seulement une annexe du march, du choix complet ; lannexion est justifie : seule la dmocratie peut assurer la paix, si ncessaire au dveloppement des changes commerciaux, ou selon lexpression de Mises, si ncessaire au progrs constant vers un tat de plus en plus satisfaisant des affaires humaines17 . Les affirmations de Mises sont, il faut lavouer, sduisantes. Machiavel aurait t probablement envieux : en effet, une telle rduction des relations humaines un seul principe nest pas la porte de chacun. En outre, si Machiavel pariait sur la fcondit du mal18 , Mises est beaucoup moins ambitieux : il fait

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CRISTIAN PREDA lapologie de la fcondit du choix. Le parallle avec Machiavel nest pas accidentel car, tout comme le secrtaire florentin, Mises considrait que la pense politique devait prendre en compte la verit effetuale della cosa, les gens tels quils sont et non pas tels que les mtaphysiciens se les imaginent. (Est-il vraiment important que dans le premier cas il sagit de la mtaphysique des platoniciens et dans le second de la mtaphysique des socialistes ?) De Machiavel Mises, le libralisme est le discours de ce systme du monde den bas, des gestes quotidiens19 . Or, dans cette perspective libertarienne, loin dtre un rgime, la dmocratie est lesquisse imparfaite du choix quotidien. La dmocratie nest pas/nest plus un rgime politique, mais une religion ; la dmocratie nest pas (et elle na pas t) un rgime politique, mais un moyen dviter la violence ; la dmocratie nest pas (bien quelle ait t) un rgime politique, mais une incarnation imparfaite du march. Nous avons affaire trois thses qui se rencontrent dans leur ngation de la manire traditionnelle de dfinir la dmocratie, mais qui semblent se sparer quand mme radicalement, si nous prenons en compte le contenu de chaque opposition mise part. Comment peuvent communiquer ces trois thses ? On ne peut rien dire jusqu prsent, puisque leurs suppositions fondamentales, que nous avons cherch mettre en vidence, nous avertissent que nous avons affaire plutt trois monologues imparfaits. Nous devrons nous orienter peut-tre vers les consquences des thses exposes pour identifier des ventuels points de contact. Mais, avant dexaminer ces consquences, nous allons chercher dceler les revendications fondamentales de ces trois thses de la philosophie politique moderne. Quest-ce que lhistoire ? tudier la manire dont un auteur se rclame de la philosophie politique moderne, cest dcouvrir ce que lhistoire reprsente pour lui. Car lhistoire moderne est uniquement texte20 . En effet, la mutation profonde quopre la modernit politique peut tre comprise comme une substitution de ltre politique traditionnel, o le logos et la praxis taient ensemble, par un tre politique rduit un simple texte. Le trait de principes, les idologies et le bulletin de vote sont des formes de manifestation de cet tre politique trs indit. Cest pour cela que tout rapport nouveau au politique est invitablement un commentaire consacr lune de ces formes. Suivant la manire dont sarticulent les commentaires des trois

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N.E.C. Yearbook 1996-1997 philosophes que nous avons mentionns ci-dessus, nous dcouvrirons que la rponse la question quest-ce que lhistoire ? est une rponse la question comment est lhistoire ?. Communiqueront-ils ce niveau o lenjeu devient accablant ? Remarquons tout dabord que Pierre Manent nest pas le premier auteur qui ait suggr la condition paradoxale que la dmocratie assume quand elle devient une sorte de religion. Il y a plus de 150 ans, Tocqueville dcrivait dans le mme registre, la terreur religieuse que lauteur de La dmocratie ressentait devant le phnomne dmocratique21 tant ds lors un emblme de la sensibilit librale franaise. Il est indubitable que Manent est un esprit tocquevillien, dans la mesure o il nhsite pas soutenir les affirmations suivantes : Il semble donc quil y ait une force irrsistible dans cette dmocratie dont la droite dnonait jadis la honteuse faiblesse ou corruption, dont la gauche dnonait nagure la honteuse imposture ou injustice22 . Mais si Tocqueville affirmait lirrsistibilit du mouvement dmocratique pour lopposer lancien rgime auquel personne ne croyait plus, Manent prfre multiplier le nombre des adversaires vaincus de la dmocratie. Pour expliquer ce quest lhistoire de cette perspective, Manent reprend Nietzsche, celui qui crivait que lhistoire des deux derniers sicles ressemble un fleuve qui veut arriver son terme. De faon ironique, lauteur franais se demande sommes-nous parvenus au point o le fleuve voulait aller ?. Au moment o la dmocratie devient religion, lhistoire commence ressembler un fleuve qui a trouv son terme. Notons que, pour Manent, il sagit dune situation inacceptable, car une telle histoire est seulement lexpression dune volont faible, celle de lhomme qui est rest seul, de lhomme qui ne se revendique plus ni de Dieu, ni de la nature23 . Telle est, dans des mots simples, mais quand mme effrayants, la Cit de lhomme. Popper ntait pas si pessimiste. Au contraire, il croyait que notre poque est la meilleure de celles vcues par lhomme jusqu prsent et recommandait sans rserves son propre optimisme24 la jeune gnration. Sa vision, beaucoup plus tranchante que celle de Manent, tait fonde sur lide que la dmocratie-moyen a depuis toujours affront la tyrannie. Plus prcisment, lAthnes des Trente Tyrans et la Chine de Deng Xiaoping ont en commun limmoralit de la dictature, celle dont on ne peut sen librer sans effusion de sang ou celle qui condamne les citoyens de lEtat, contre leur conscience et leurs convictions morales, collaborer avec le mal ; ne serait-ce que par leur silence. Elle prive lhomme de sa responsabilit morale, sans laquelle il nest plus quune moiti, voire un

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CRISTIAN PREDA centime dhomme. Le principe de la dmocratie est dessence morale, bien quil revtt toujours cette forme ngative qui dit que toute dictature est moralement mauvaise. Par contre, la dmocratie est bonne car elle nous permet de destituer les gouvernants sans que le sang soit vers25 . En fait, la perspective popprienne combine le manichisme le plus banal avec laustrit dune morale de la responsabilit et de la faillibilit : lhistoire est de cette faon traverse par la lutte entre la dmocratie et la tyrannie, entre la destitution pacifique des gouvernants et le fait de les tuer ; de cette perspective, arriver la meilleure poque parmi celles connues par lhomme, atteindre lge dmocratique, cest accepter le principe du changement pacifique, cest--dire reconnatre quon peut se tromper. On comprend probablement que, lencontre de Manent, Popper ne gotait pas lironie. Pour lui, lhistoire moderne est une histoire de la volont forte, mais qui acquiert sa force par la reconnaissance de sa propre faiblesse : en acceptant quil puisse se tromper, lindividu refusera la violence. Nous devons reconnatre quun optimisme construit sur une telle alchimie est tout aussi sduisant, cest--dire tout aussi naf que celui qui voulait faire du travail une joie infinie, pour le banaliser ensuite comme droit. Lauteur de la formule cite a vcu, tout comme Tocqueville, au sicle prcdent : il sappellait Karl Marx. Ludwig von Mises ntait ni ironique, ni optimiste quand il sagissait de lhistoire. Malgr tout cela, tout comme pour les deux autres interlocuteurs que nous avons introduits dans ce dialogue, lhistoire demeurait pour Mises la scne de quelques confrontations plus ou moins violentes. Selon Mises, le plus intressant conflit du monde moderne est celui qui a oppos les partisans du droit naturel aux utilitaristes. Quelle est la forme de manifestation de ce conflit ? Prenons lexemple de lgalit devant la loi. Le jus naturalisme la soutenue, disait Mises, en vertu de la croyance que les hommes sont gaux du point de vue biologique, ayant ainsi un droit inalinable une gale rpartition de tous les biens. Remarquons quune telle dfinition du droit naturel permet Mises de soutenir la thse paradoxale selon laquelle le socialisme est une variante de la fausse et absurde thorie jus naturaliste : ainsi, tout comme les minents citoyens de Virginie, dont les ides ont inspir la Rvolution amricaine, ont admis le maintien de lesclavage des Noirs, le plus despotique systme connu par lHistoire, le bolchevisme, prtend tre lincarnation authntique du principe de lgalit et de la libert de tous les hommes. Refusant la supposition de lgalit biologique et croyant que cest justement lingalit qui cre la coopration sociale, les

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N.E.C. Yearbook 1996-1997 utilitaristes ont considr, par contre, que lgalit devant la loi tait lappareil capable dassurer toute lhumanit le maximum davantage que les hommes puissent tirer de cette ingalit Pour les libraux, lgalit devant la loi est une bonne chose non pas du point de vue dun prtendu droit inalinable des individus, mais parce quelle sert au mieux les intrts de tous. Elle laisse aux lecteurs le soin de dcider qui va dtenir les fonctions publiques et aux consommateurs le soin de dcider qui doit produire26 . Les utilitaristes, les seuls libraux authentiques, selon Mises, sont ceux qui ont identifi la relation quentretiennent la dmocratie et le march. Malgr cela, quand il dfinit lindividu qui fournit le corps de cette relation, Mises sinspire de manire explicite dun adepte fervent du jus naturalisme : il sagit de John Locke. Dfinir lhomme comme tre qui choisit en tant que consommateur ou, encore inachev, en tant qulecteur, cest une tentative de rinterprter la clbre formule de Locke qui dit que lhomme agit justement pour liminer une insatisfaction27 . Lhistoire moderne est la cration dune volont forte, capable dliminer, dabord incompltement, ensuite entirement, toute insatisfaction. Linterprtation en termes de volont de la formule missienne nest pas du tout force : lauteur des traits sur le socialisme et sur laction humaine accentuait le fait que laction est raison et que la raison est volont28 . Tocqueville, Marx et Locke offrent pour Manent, Popper et Mises le principe de la comprhension de lhistoire. Le point o nous sommes arrivs est choquant, notamment si lon compare les rsultats obtenus dans les deux sections. Ainsi, la question quest-ce que la dmocratie alimentait un consensus ngatif (la dmocratie nest pas un rgime), mais en mme temps une sparation positive radicale des trois auteurs analyss, qui y voyaient une religion (Manent), un moyen banal (Popper) et une anticipation du march libre (Mises). En change, quest-ce que (comment est) lhistoire ? produit un consensus positif (lhistoire doit tre interprte en termes de volont), mais aussi un conflit inconfortable des comprhensions du principe de lhistoire : la volont est soit minemment faible (Manent), soit forte, ne dune faiblesse (Popper), soit minemment forte (Mises). Alors que nous avons affirm que lhistoire politique moderne est seulement un texte, nous considrions la manire dont la coexistence entre des combinaisons de ce genre est possible : une religion fonde sur une volont faible, un moyen dviter la violence laide dune volont dont la force provient de la faiblesse et, finalement, une anticipation du march qui extrait ses nergies vitales dune volont forte, toutes ces choses revendiquent le nom de dmocratie. Une telle

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CRISTIAN PREDA dispute est imaginable seulement si tout lunivers politique est un univers textuel29 . Mais de quel ct est la raison alors que tout est texte ? Est-ce quon peut distinguer entre ces trois solutions ? Quest-ce que la philosophie politique ? Une rponse pourra tre plus aisment anticipe si, selon ce quon a suggr plus haut, on prenait en compte quelques-unes des consquences auxquelles mnent les thses sur la dmocratie. Pour ordonner les consquences qui nous intressent, on va privilgier ici un seul critre : il sagit du rapport que la dmocratie entretient avec le temps. La diversit des perspectives proposes cet gard lintrieur de la famille librale nous aidera comprendre ensuite la relation de la philosophie politique avec sa propre histoire intellectuelle, condition dcisive de sa dfinition. La solution conservatrice est sans ambigut : si durant ce cycle de deux sicles que nous venons de parcourir, la dmocratie ne pouvait vivre au prsent, dans la mesure o, dchirs entre le pass et lavenir, les dmocratie se trouve aujourdhui dans une situation quon peut envier. En effet, nous connaissons la dmocratie grecque grce aux discours qui se sont constitus aprs la fin du grand cycle de la politique classique ; nous avons connu ensuite la dmocratie moderne comme projet philosophique, comme un avenir esquiss en concurrence avec les projets des rgimes quon a cru possibles jusqu un temps rcent ; aujourdhui, la dmocratie, en tant que fait et ide, est enlace au prsent. La philosophie politique a eu comme objet la description des rgimes et, sur cette base, la dsignation du meilleur rgime. Nayant faire qu un seul rgime, la philosophie politique se transforme en histoire de la philosophie politique, en analyse de cette volution la suite de laquelle, avec une formule qui est agrable aux mtaphysiciens, le Multiple est rduit lUn. La rponse social-dmocrate est tout aussi tranchante : la dmocratie, ce moyen qui soppose la violence, a non seulement un pass et un prsent, mais aussi un avenir qui est ouvert. Car le retour la tyrannie est possible. Notons que cest justement le point o Popper se spare de Marx : ce dernier ne croyait pas que lhistoire puisse rebrousser chemin. Dautre part, si la dmocratie na jamais t un rgime, la philosophie politique na exist que comme une illusion. En dautres mots, le discours sur la politique a mal choisi son objet : selon Popper, de Platon Hitler, les hommes se sont demands qui doit commander ? et non pas - et cest l la question juste - quelles sont ces institutions capables de diminuer

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N.E.C. Yearbook 1996-1997 les risques dun gouvernement tyrannique ?30 . Le dbat sur les rgimes a t une erreur, dans la mesure o ce quon croyait tre le but tait en fait un moyen. Aujourdhui, dgnr de but en moyen, lobjet de lexplication politique offre loccasion de substituer lingnierie utopique une piecemeal engineering, la seule formule raisonnable daction. La solution libertarienne est ambigu : anticipation du march, la dmocratie nest que du pass. Son remplacement par le systme gnralis des consommations individuelles est accompagn par le remplacement de la philosophie politique par la praxologie, cette science de laction humaine qui veut liminer linsatisfaction31 . Le reste est mtaphysique, affirme de manire trs convaincue Mises. La dmocratie est aujourdhui tout au plus une annexe du march, conserve videmment aussi pour des raisons dutilit. De manire symtrique, la philosophie politique est, la rigueur, une annexe de la praxologie, conserve pour des raisons polmiques. Une rcapitulation simpose. La solution conservatrice affirme que la dmocratie, devenue religion dune volont faible qui se veut soi-mme, aboutit un discours de type historique, qui doit voquer lvolution intellectuelle du rgime quon appelle dmocratie. La solution social-dmocrate soutient que la dmocratie, qui a t depuis toujours un moyen dviter la violence, engendre aujourdhui un discours o, tout comme la volont devient forte en reconnaissant sa faiblesse et parfois ses checs, lingnierie sociale graduelle est justifie, conditionne par la reconnaissance de lerreur du projet utopique. La solution libertarienne voit dans la dmocratie cet arrt intermdiaire dune volont forte, dont la force entire sest manifeste seulement dans le march libre, tout comme la philosophie politique est un arrt provisoire de lentendement qui rvle sa vrit seulement dans la praxologie, science de lhomme qui veut faire oublier le disconfort. Quont en commun ces trois solutions ? En effet, en affirmant quelles appartiennent, en dpit des diffrences, la mme famille spirituelle, lidologie librale, nous avons suppos quelles ont quelque chose en commun. Le rsum prsent ci-dessus nous permet de dcouvrir ce fonds commun : la philosophie politique est aujourdhui le discours qui considre que la dmocratie nest pas un rgime et que lhistoire est lincarnation de la volont humaine libre. La relation entre la dmocratie et lhistoire fait lobjet de la philosophie politique. Mais laccord sur cette dfinition est trs fragile : il est en permanence submin par les sens quon donne la dmocratie et lhistoire.

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2. La dmocratie, un monde bigarr

Dhabitude, la liaison entre la dmocratie et la philosophie est limite un cadre historique qui nous est absolument tranger : il sagit de lAntiquit. On croit gnralement que les philosophes antiques peuvent nous clairer sur ce quest la dmocratie, malgr le fait que - il ne faudrait pas oublier ce dtail - ils dtestaient le rgime dmocratique. La liaison entre les philosophes modernes et la dmocratie moderne est plus rarement tudie, bien que plusieurs parmi les philosophes politiques daprs Spinoza aient considr, avec enthousiasme, que la dmocratie soit la meilleure formule politique que lhomme ait imagin. On pourrait en conclure que lenthousiasme devient suspect quand il sagit de comprendre le politique ; par contre, cette comprhension pourrait tre favorise par le cynisme ridiculisant (et esthtisant) avec lequel Platon, par exemple, regardait la cit dmocratique. En effet, aprs avoir suggr que la dmocratie est le plus beau rgime, car on trouve des hommes de toute sorte dans ce gouvernement plus que dans aucune autre et chacun organise sa vie de la faon qui lui plat32 , Platon affirmait que la beaut de la dmocratie est seulement apparente. Pour comprendre ce problme du discours platonicien sur la dmocratie, on doit prciser quil y avait encore un rgime quil considrait comme le plus beau : il sagit de la tyrannie33 ; le fait que Socrate ne conteste pas du tout cette seconde observation sur la beaut des rgimes politiques nous montre trs clairement la perspective do est apprci le trait principal attribu la dmocratie. Voici le passage qui illustre de la meilleure faon ce que nous nous sommes permis dappeler le cynisme esthtisant de Platon : il y a chance que la dmocratie soit le plus beau rgime de tous. Comme un vtement bigarr qui offre toute la varit des couleurs, offrant toute la varit des caractres, il pourra paratre dune beaut acheve. Et peut-tre, ajoutai-je, beaucoup de gens, pareils aux enfants et aux femmes qui admirent les bigarrures, dcideront-ils quil est le plus beau34 . En somme, on pourrait dire que, pour Platon, la dmocratie, lordre o chacun vivra selon sa propre volont, est loin dtre le meilleur rgime ; bien plus, sa beaut est celle que les enfants ou les femmes prouvent devant les vtements vivement colors35 . Cest probablement une ironie de lhistoire le fait que les dernires lignes du Trait politique inachev de Spinoza, le premier philosophe avoir crit une dfense systmatique de la dmocratie36 portent toujours sur la faiblesse des enfants et des

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N.E.C. Yearbook 1996-1997 femmes, pour justifier une conclusion que Platon aurait probablement admis lui-mme : on ne pourrait instituer le rgne gal des hommes et des femmes sans grand dommage pour la paix37 . Spinoza diffre radicalement de Platon par loptimisme viril qui se dgage de son criture. On pourrait soutenir que cest ici la premire diffrence clairement affirme entre la sensibilit politique moderne et celle antique qui porte sur la dmocratie. videmment, chacun de nous peut choisir entre le cynisme ridiculisant et loptimisme viril. Ce quon doit retenir, cest que la seconde variante est celle qui a inspir la modernit politique. Deuximement, il faut observer quen dpit de notre choix nous sommes obligs de nous justifier de manire rigoureuse. Nous essayerons de montrer quelles sont les surprises de cette justification rigoureuse partir des conclusions auxquelles nous sommes arrivs dans le chapitre prcdent. Nous essayerons de dmontrer quil y a une liaison entre la dmocratie moderne et la philosophie, liaison qui nest pas puise par une certaine sensibilit, mais par une intelligence particulire. La dmocratie est un projet philosophique : le plus vulgaire des rgimes requiert la pense la plus raffine Quand nous avons parl de la crise de la philosophie politique contemporaine, nous avons dcrit trois approximations de la dmocratie qui, malgr le fait quelles utilisaient des termes quasi-identiques, ne communiquaient pas directement (immdiatement), cette diversit incommunicable tant lessence de la crise quon a voque. Afin de rendre intelligibles les trois dfinitions, nous tions obligs de faire appel quelques philosophes modernes, partir de lide que la crise actuelle devient explicable si on retourne aux sources plus anciennes de la pense librale. Nous nous proposons dappeler notre aide de manire plus ordonne les philosophes modernes, pour voir la faon dont ils peuvent claircir une nouvelle dmarche de la philosophie politique ; cette nouvelle dmarche devrait, notre avis, rorienter lattention et les nergies de ceux qui ressentent une crise dans la diversit incommunicable daujourdhui. Afin de comprendre les philosophes contemporains nous aurions pu, videmment, comparer les dfinitions quils donnent la dmocratie avec ce que chacun de nous considre comme tant la ralit politique actuelle, avec notre perception, celle qui nous rend, pour ainsi

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CRISTIAN PREDA dire, des tres politiques sensibles. Cet appel aux sensations politiques du moment prsent (et le terme de sensation doit tre pris ici dans tous ses sens, du contact faible avec le rel jusquau choc sduisant du sensationnel) est indiscutablement ncessaire. Mais il doit tre prcd par une comparaison entre les dfinitions donnes aujourdhui par les grands esprits et les dfinitions de la dmocratie proposes par la tradition intellectuelle du libralisme. Nous essayerons de comprendre la dmocratie en tant qutres exclusivement intellectuels. Il y a au moins deux raisons qui justifient cet appel la tradition de la pense librale avant de comparer les dfinitions actuelles de la dmocratie avec les opinions des tres politiques sensibles. Il sagit, tout dabord, du fait que les philosophes contemporains - Mises, Manent ou Popper - ont labor leurs discours comme une note aux laborations trs sophistiques des philosophes modernes. Bien que, tout comme nous le verrons plus tard, la tentation de la nouveaut ait travers toutes les dmarches modernes, tout discours post-machiavlien sur la politique est intertextuel. La seconde raison est plus profonde, car elle est plus radicale : lhistoire politique moderne est, dans son essence, un texte et elle nous oblige revenir aux Pres fondateurs en tant quauteurs de notre propre vie, dautant plus quil sagit de la dmocratie, forme politique qui est fondamentalement soumise au texte. En effet, avant dtre une ralit et en dpit de lintrt profond pour la ralit, la dmocratie est pour les modernes un projet, un discours philosophique. La dmocratie, la cit de lhomme, le rgime de la vie terrestre, la formule politique la plus vulgaire a comme point de dpart un texte, le discours philosophique, le plus raffin discours possible. La question qui apparat de faon naturelle est si le projet philosophique de la dmocratie est unique. Autrement dit : les philosophes modernes ont-ils labor une seule dmocratie ? La rponse est videmment ngative. Les philosophes modernes se contredisent dlibrment quand il sagit de la dmocratie. Le monde dmocratique moderne est avant tout un univers o les ides sont bigarres. Est-ce quon peut vivre dans un monde pareil ? Analysant la manire dont les philosophes modernes se contredisent sur la question de la dmocratie, nous allons voir la faon dont on peut vivre dans une cit de lhomme. Plus exactement, nous allons comparer les textes de Popper et de Mises aux thses de Locke et de Spinoza pour voir la manire dont se construit la diversit de la philosophie dmocratique.

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N.E.C. Yearbook 1996-1997 Mises et Locke : du march ou de la dmocratie qui est apparu le premier ? Rappelons la thse principale de Mises : la dmocratie est une prfiguration du march libre. Les consquences de cette thse se situent dans des horizons diffrents : la premire consquence affirme lopposition entre le droit naturel et lutilitarisme, le premier tant la source dinspiration du socialisme. La seconde consquence est que la dmocratie nest que du pass, pouvant tre, la rigueur, annexe par commodit par les rgimes libraux, plus prcisment par les systmes libres et multiples dchange. Finalement, la troisime conclusion affirme que la philosophie politique doit tre remplace par la praxologie pour pouvoir dcrire le comportement humain de manire vraiment efficace. La dfinition missienne de lhomme tait emprunte Locke : tout homme agit pour liminer une insatisfaction. Lauteur des Deux traits sur le gouvernement civil naurait pas accept quand mme la thse principale de Mises. Nous devons en voir la raison. Lide que la dmocratie est une anticipation du march libre est fonde sur la supposition que le choix humain peut stendre infiniment, que llection des gouvernants (rare, fixe, rglemente) peut tre remplace par le choix des produits, des biens de toutes sortes (lhomme politique tant lui-mme, en dernire instance, un bien quelconque, comparable au hamburger ou un livre de philosophie). Chez Locke, par contre, le choix est foncirement limit : ltat naturel, cest--dire ltat pr-politique (dont les lois sont ensuite copies ltat politique), la nature a nettement dfini les limites de la proprit en fixant ltendue du travail dont les hommes sont capables et en fixant ce qui est ncessaire pour la commodit de la vie38 . Personne ne pouvait commander sur tout, disait Locke, personne ne pouvait consommer pour son propre plaisir plus quune petite partie du tout : il tait ainsi impossible un homme dempiter sur le droit dun autre, ou dacqurir pour lui-mme une proprit au prjudice de son voisin39 . La possession de chacun avait des limites trs modestes. cette mme rgle de proprit, savoir que tout homme devrait possder autant de terre quil sera capable den faire usage, demeurerait valide dans le monde sans gner personne, puisquil y aurait encore assez de terres disponibles dans le monde pour pourvoir un nombre deux fois plus important dhabitants, si linvention de la monnaie, et laccord tacite des hommes pour lui accorder une valeur navaient introduit (par consentement) des possessions plus vastes et tabli un droit sur elles40 .

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CRISTIAN PREDA Ce passage est extrmement important pour plusieurs raisons : tout dabord, Locke suggre que ltat naturel, essentiellement pacifique, devient tat de guerre au moment o lon invente la monnaie ou, dans des termes actuels, au moment o le march est invent. Dautre part, le consentement que suppose la naissance du march tait pour Locke certainement antrieur au consentement requis par la naissance de la communaut politique. Le march est antrieur toute existence politique. Dans les termes de Locke, la monnaie est antrieure toute dmocratie parfaite. Cette expression, assez bizarre, avait un sens prcis : lorsque des hommes sunissent pour la premire fois en socit, la majorit possde naturellement lensemble du pouvoir de la communaut ; elle peut employer ce pouvoir pour faire de temps autre des lois pour la commuanut, et pour les faire excuter par des officiers quelle nomme elle-mme ; ds lors, la forme de gouvernment est une dmocratie parfaite41 . La monnaie engendre ltat de guerre, la dmocratie parfaite engendre ltat politique. En dautres mots, bien que lhomme de Locke soit le mme que lhomme de Mises, les conclusions des deux auteurs sont radicalement diffrentes : pour le premier, le march est antrieur et contraire la dmocratie, pour le second, il est postrieur et parfaitement compatible la dmocratie (tant une extension, un accomplissement de celle-ci). Remarquons que la suggestion de Locke (la monnaie produit ltat de guerre, lconomie est le domaine de la confrontation impitoyable) est plus proche du sens commun ; en ce sens, Marx est lui aussi un philosophe du sens commun. Les autres thses de Mises perdent leur tour la valabilit, si la dfinition donne lhomme reste rigoureusement encadre dans les limites de linterprtation lockenne : la dmocratie ne peut tre que du pass ; par contre, chez Locke, la dmocratie est le lieu dun nouveau dbut, dun nouveau commencement : si le souverain enfreint les rgles du contrat, nayant plus de juge neutre, on tombe ltat de nature en tant qutat de guerre, et les gens ont de nouveau besoin de la dmocratie parfaite42 . Dautre part, la philosophie politique ne peut pas tre rduite la praxologie, une thorie de laction qui naccorde rien la nature humaine et qui dissout la politique dans lconomie. Si nous suivons Locke, la philosophie politique nat de leffort de distinguer linsatisfaction (la raison dagir de lhomo oeconomicus) de la justice (le mobile de laction politique). En effet, cest lexistence dun juge commun investi de lautorit dappliquer la loi civile qui distingue ltat naturel de la socit civile. La

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N.E.C. Yearbook 1996-1997 protection de la proprit, qui est le but de linstitution de la communaut politique, est assure par celui qui partage la justice. La dmocratie est la forme politique moderne qui accueille ce dbat sur la justice aprs que lhomme ait quitt ltat de guerre (cest--dire lconomie, dans linterprtation lockenne). La troisime consquence de la dmarche de Mises, celle qui porte sur lopposition droit naturel / utilitarisme, devient insignifiante. La confrontation de la thse de Mises quelques-uns des contenus de la philosophie de celui dont il emprunte la dfinition de lhomme nous a conduits finalement une remarque sur la dmocratie : la dmocratie est le rgime o la justice se substitue la violence, o le juge remplace lennemi conomique. Popper et Spinoza sur lexcellence de la dmocratie : pourquoi tre optimistes ? La thse principale de Karl Popper tait que la dmocratie nest pas (et na pas t) un rgime, mais un moyen dviter la violence. Pour le philosophe autrichien, lopposition politique fondamentale est entre la tyrannie (le changement violent des gouvernants) et la dmocratie (le changement pacifique des gouvernants) ; dans ce sens, la dmocratie a un avenir, car on peut revenir la tyrannie ; finalement, si la dmocratie na pas t un rgime, alors la philosophie politique, la discipline qui a essay de chercher une rponse la question quel est le meilleur rgime ?, na pas exist. Si dans les pages antrieures nous avons essay de dmontrer qu partir de la mme dfinition de lhomme on peut arriver (on est arriv) aux conclusions politiques opposes et aux images diffrentes de la philosophie politique, nous chercherons maintenant montrer quon peut construire la mme approximation de la philosophie politique et la mme sensibilit lie au sort de la dmocratie partir des rfrences tout fait diffrentes. Nous comparerons donc la dmarche de Popper celle de Spinoza. Popper ninvoque pas Spinoza. Malgr cela, les thses de Popper auraient probablement t acceptes par Spinoza. Les deux sont lis, avant tout, par une certaine opinion sur le statut et le sort de la dmocratie : la dmocratie, qui est la meilleure formule politique, suppose leffort de lhomme43 . En dautres mots, la dmocratie est difficile, elle est la forme politique la plus sollicitante. Popper exprimait cette chose en crivant

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CRISTIAN PREDA que nos dmocraties occidentales et surtout les Etats-Unis, la plus ancienne des dmocraties occidentales sont une russite sans prcdent ; cette russite est le fruit de beaucoup de travail, de beaucoup defforts, de beaucoup de bonne volont et avant tout de beaucoup dides cratrices dans des domaines varis. Le rsultat, cest quun plus grand nombre dhommes heureux vivent une vie plus libre, plus belle, et plus longue que jamais auparavant44 . Spinoza disait son tour que la dmocratie est du tout absolu45 et que dans le gouvernement dmocratique, tous dcident, dun commun consentement, de vivre selon linjonction de la Raison 46 ; or, pour Spinoza, cest la raison qui dfinit leffort du philosophe ; rien de plus difficile, donc, que le gouvernement dmocratique. On ajoute cette tautologie (la Cit de lhomme suppose videmment son effort, la dmocratie est le gouvernement o lon coute la raison humaine), loptimisme commun Popper et Spinoza. Chez Popper, cet optimisme peut se dduire du passage quon a cit ; chez Spinoza, les choses sont plus difficiles saisir : bien quil ne recommande le Trait thologico-politique aux gens communs, tant su quil est galement impossible dextirper de lme du vulgaire la superstition et la crainte47 , Spinoza dfinissait quand-mme lindividu (et la Nature, pour lui, ne cre que des individus) par le fait quil est le dfenseur de sa propre libert ; mais la libert est la suite de laccomplissement du but de la philosophie, la connaissance de la vrit ; Spinoza pensait que son Trait thologico-politique a russi imposer la libert, en dautres mots, sparer lintrieur de la nature humaine la passion, la superstition et la crainte de ce qui est la raison ; loptimisme de Spinoza concernant le sort de la dmocratie est alors du type suivant : si on russit dcouvrir la libert, nous serons des philosophes, cest--dire nous vivrons suivant la raison ; moi, un homme, qui aurait pu se tromper, jai dcouvert la libert, donc chacun qui croit quil est un homme et quil peut se tromper peut devenir philosophe. La dmocratie est le rgime o labandon de ltat de nature est accessible, selon le modle du philosophe, chacun. Personne na argument de manire plus sduisante que Spinoza lide de la dmocratie comme le rgime des citoyens philosophes. Remarquons quon a reproch parfois Popper que le modle de laction humaine quil propose - lessai et lerreur - est trop lev, philosophique. Tout ce quon peut dire cest que loptimisme commun Spinoza et Popper trouve son nergie non pas dans la condition des gens vulgaires, mais dans la confiance en la raison. Notons ensuite que les rfrences qui marquent la dmarche de Spinoza et celle de Popper sont apparemment les mmes :

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N.E.C. Yearbook 1996-1997 la dmocratie popprienne est loppos de la tyrannie, cest--dire de lutilisation de la violence ; la dmocratie de Spinoza est loppos de ltat naturel, caractris par la guerre. Remarquant les dtails, on se rend compte que les rfrences sont diffrentes : Spinoza dfinit en fait la dmocratie dabord comme droit de la socit auquel on transfre le pouvoir de lindividu, ou plus exactement comme lunion des hommes en un tout qui a un droit souverain collectif sur tout ce qui est en son pouvoir48 . Avant dtre rgime, la Dmocratie est un droit. (Lauteur hollandais utilise la majuscule pour diffrencier ce droit du rgime nomm toujours dmocratique.) De la dfinition de la Dmocratie, Spinoza tirait la conclusion que le souverain nest tenu par aucune loi et que tous lui doivent obissance pour tout, car tous ont d, par un pacte tacite ou exprs, lui transfrer toute la puissance quils avaient de se maintenir, cest--dire tout leur droit naturel. Encore plus, nous sommes tous tenus dexcuter absolument tout ce quenjoint le souverain, alors mme que ses commandements seraient les plus absurdes du monde ; la Raison nous ordonne de le faire, parce que cest choisir de deux maux le moindre49 . Laffirmation de Spinoza est fonde sur la croyance quil est extrmement rare que les souverains commandent des choses trs absurdes ; il leur importe au plus haut point, en effet, par prvoyance et pour garder le pouvoir, de veiller au bien commun et de tout diriger selon linjonction de la Raison Et pour tre encore plus explicite, Spinoza ajoutait : dans un Etat dmocratique labsurde est moins craindre, car il est presque impossible que la majorit des hommes unis en un tout, si ce tout est considrable, saccordent en une absurdit 50 . Pour Spinoza, la dmocratie est prfrable ltat de guerre puisque la majorit ne peut tomber daccord sur une absurdit. Popper voyait les choses de manire tout fait diffrente : de lobservation que tout individu peut se tromper (accepte aussi par Spinoza), lauteur autrichien tirait - rigoureusement la conclusion que les majorits peuvent aussi se tromper ; la dmocratie est prfrable ltat de guerre non pas parce que la majorit ne pourrait soutenir une absurdit, mais purement et simplement puisque la violence est absolument inacceptable ; elle pourrait nous affecter en dpit du fait que nous ayons raison ou tort. La diffrence entre la dmarche de Popper et celle de Spinoza est mise en vidence plus clairement si nous prenons en compte un autre aspect. Refusant la dmocratie le statut de rgime, Popper niait implicitement le srieux de la dmarche de la philosophie politique : si la question sur le meilleur rgime est une erreur, alors la discipline

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CRISTIAN PREDA intellectuelle qui la formule est inutile. Spinoza affirmait lui aussi que la philosophie politique na pas exist rellement51 . Mais le penseur hollandais voulait dire quil est le premier qui ait russi la construire ; cette prtention lie Machiavel et Hobbes, Spinoza et Tocqueville. Chacun deux, dans des formes plus ou moins dcentes, a essay de suggrer quil est le vrai fondateur de la science du politique. Spinoza faisait cela prenant comme rfrence ce quil appelait la Thologie ou la Croyance : celle-ci a eu comme but la soumission et la pit, et comme fondement lcriture ; il ny a pas eu de philosophie, cest--dire une vritable justification de la libert humaine, puisque tous les philosophes antrieurs, oprant dans les limites indiques par la Thologie, ont conu les affections qui se livrent bataille en nous comme des vices ; il a donc considr comme juste de tourner en drision ces affections, de les dplorer, de les rprimander, quand ils voulaient paratre plus moraux, de les dtester ; croyant quils agissent de manire divine, ils ont apport de cette faon des louanges une nature humaine qui nexiste nulle part, concevant les gens non tels quils sont, mais tels queux-mmes voudraient quils fussent52 . Rien de plus tranger la dmarche popprienne que ces lignes de Spinoza. Pour Popper, le gouvernement des philosophes est une des rponses donnes une question errone : qui doit gouverner ?, question laquelle on peut rpondre galement (en fait, de faon tout aussi dsastreuse) les meilleurs (Platon), les proltaires (Marx) ou moi (Hitler)53 . la question qui doit commander ? il faut substituer la question y a-t-il des formes de gouvernement qui, pour des raisons morales, sont rprhensibles ? ou, sous une autre forme, y a-t-il des formes de gouvernement qui nous permettent de nous dfaire dun gouvernement mauvais, ou seulement incomptent, qui cause du tort au pays ?54 . Voici donc que bien quapparemment ils soutiennent les mmes thses - la dmocratie, effort de lhomme rationnel, est la meilleure formule politique, la philosophie politique na pas exist, le retour la tyrannie est possible55 -, Spinoza et Popper sont spars par des rfrences tout fait diffrentes. Leurs certitudes (lies la majorit, par exemple), mais surtout leurs questions (avant tout, la question quils considrent comme fondamentale) les sparent. Toutes ces choses tiennent lhistoire de la dmocratie. Nous sommes obligs, tout comme nous lavons dit ci-dessus, choisir rigoureusement une solution ou une autre. Le choix rigoureux dune solution, qui peut signifier parfois le simple choix de la question, est propre la philosophie.

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N.E.C. Yearbook 1996-1997 Dans le monde bigarr des ides que constitue la dmocratie moderne, la philosophie nous aide survivre.

3. Lhistoire moderne comme texte

Comment pourrait-on expliquer cette coexistence des questions et des solutions si contradictoires ? Tout ce quon sait est que la modernit a fait de la diversit contradictoire son propre manifeste. Elle a trouv aussi la justification ultime, tout comme les limites politico-juridiques de la diversit : il sagit ici de la Constitution. Ce mot serait, coup sr, celui quon choisirait, si on nous demandait dexprimer le sens de lhistoire politique moderne laide dune seule notion, laide dun terme unique. La constitution est un texte, le Texte du citoyen. Une suite de mots, ordonne dans un ensemble, qui est non seulement suffisant soi-mme, mais aussi - par principe - capable de rendre possible dautres noncs. Ferm (par rapport aux rgles de lexistence politique antrieure) et ouvert (car cest lui quon doit subordonner les lois proprement dites), le texte de la Constitution assure tant la stabilit que lvolution de la communaut politique. Il accompagne - en les rglementant, en les situant au mme niveau, cest--dire en annulant la diffrence entre elles - tant le temps commun (le quotidien banal de lexercice des droits ou de lactivit des Chambres lgislatives), que le temps extraordinaire (les lections, la rvocation des dignitaires, la rponse une agression externe etc.). vrai dire, ce rgne tout-puissant de la Constitution ne peut tre imagin que dans ce quon pourrait appeler de faon conventionnelle lge dmocratique du monde. En fait, la phrase de Tocqueville selon laquelle le peuple rgne sur le monde politique amricain comme Dieu sur lunivers. Il est la cause et la fin de toutes choses ; tout en sort et tout sy absorbe56 devrait tre amende. Aujourdhui, elle nest plus valable seulement pour le monde politique amricain, mais pour tout le monde chrtien57 ; ensuite, le rgne dmocratique nest pas direct, mais mdi, et donc dune toute autre faon quau temps de lauteur De la dmocratie en Amrique. Tocqueville avait raison : le peuple a dtrn Dieu et il nest pas surprenant que lirrsistible rvolution inspire aujourdhui, tout comme au moment o lauteur franais le pressentait, une sorte de terreur religieuse58 . Ce quil y a de nouveau notre poque, cest que les textes des diffrentes Constitutions du monde chrtien ont remplac les variantes locales de la

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CRISTIAN PREDA Bible. Un Texte, celui constitutionnel, domine - finalement - le monde. Plus exactement, chaque monde politique. Celle-ci nest que la squence finale - la plus spectaculaire, vrai dire - dune volution qui sest dploye dans les derniers cinq sicles. Il sagit de lvolution la suite de laquelle le texte comme tel est devenu lunique rfrence de lindividu, la substance politique de celui-ci. En effet, lhomme tait naturellement, selon la tradition, un tre politique, un tre qui combinait un logos et une praxis ; il nest plus aujourdhui dcrit que par le texte. Nous allons montrer en ce qui suit la manire dont la praxis sest dissoute dans le logos pour engendrer le texte. Il y a trois repres fondamentaux, dans notre perspective, sur le chemin de la transformation de lhomme en tant qutre politique en texte. La connaissance de ces trois repres est indispensable pour la comprhension de la suprmatie de la Constitution, car ils scandent la modernit politique. Machiavel Le premier repre est troitement li au moment machiavlien de la science politique, moment partir duquel ltre du Prince nest plus une union personnelle du logos et de la praxis. Cette union rsultait clairement dun genre littraire traditionnel au Moyen ge, ce quon appelait Le miroir des princes - un vritable secretum secretorum, selon Roger Bacon59 - qui dcrivait la manire dont lauto-gouvernement, et non pas le gouvernement, est possible, cest--dire la formation de son propre discours et de sa propre action. Son action est prpare et justifie dans et par le texte de quelquun dautre, de celui qui - secrtaire ou, plus tard, idologue - dira ce quil est faire. Ce qui signifie que le Prince post-machiavlien renonce chercher le bonheur en gouvernant sa propre communaut ; il ne fait quagir, en appliquant une science, qui est prpare par les idologues et qui nest pas destine lauto-gouvernement princier, mais au gouvernement du peuple. Dans ce sens, et cest aussi la remarque de Sir Isaiah Berlin, Machiavel est le premier anctre connu de Lnine60 , car il est le premier qui ait plac la science politique au dbut de laction, et non pas la fin de celle-ci, comme cest le cas aprs Thucydide61 . Jusqu Machiavel, le texte de la science politique est donc postrieur laction, qui est accompagne par le logos de lhomme politique. Cest seulement une obsession typiquement moderne - laltrit et lantriorit du discours par rapport laction - qui a fait que Platon, par exemple, soit lu comme idologue, y inclus par des critiques comme Popper62 . En sparant le

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N.E.C. Yearbook 1996-1997 logos et la praxis et en les rservant des personnages distincts, la modernit annonait en fait sa nouveaut radicale, dune simplicit difficilement galable : lidologue produit des ides, lhomme politique agit. Rousseau tait trs clair sur ce point : si jtais prince ou lgislateur, je ne perdrais pas mon temps dire ce quil faut faire ; je le ferais, ou je me tairais63 . Le premier principe de la modernit tablit que le monde politique nexiste que sil est dabord affirm en tant que programme. Voici pourquoi Marx nest pas le premier moderne qui ait affirm la ncessit que les philosophes renoncent linterprtation du monde, en faveur de sa modification, mais toujours Machiavel64 . Car lauteur du Prince est celui qui sarroge - pour la premire fois - la capacit de fournir le texte du bon gouvernement. Son discours - qui revendique juste raison la nouveaut65 - voulait tre la Constitution du Prince, un texte qui rglementait laction de ce haut personnage sur les humbles, satisfatti e stupidi. Il est vident, dautre part, que ce premier moment de la modernit peut tre considr comme celui de la cohrence absolue du texte. Le fait que Machiavel invoquait, laide de son propre discours, la longue exprience des antiques, doit tre jug de ce point de vue : le logos, spar de laction, prcdant celle-ci - sera compltement (puisant dune certaine faon lavance laction du Prince) et rapidement assimilable (la supposition tacite de Machiavel tant que le Prince na pas de temps perdre avec les lectures)66 . Seul un texte travers par une cohrence maximale est compltement et rapidement assimilable. Les lectures consacres Machiavel lui ont confirm dailleurs lintention systmatique67 . De Hobbes Tocqueville Le second repre nous est offert non pas par luvre dun certain auteur, mais par la transformation opre - de Hobbes Tocqueville - au niveau du nouveau texte politique subordonn laction. Dans cet intervalle, il y a deux mutations profondes. Il sagit, tout dabord, de la multiplication du nombre de ceux quon suppose tre capables de prparer et de justifier laction du Prince (du souverain, selon Bodin) : la place de lauteur savant sera prise par les citoyens, qui sont devenus pendant ce temps - dans limaginaire politique - capables de savoir vouloir. Les hommes que les actions de Borgia laissent satisfatti et stupidi voudront tre satisfaits, et sauront comment obtenir cette satisfaction. Pour tre satisfaits, ils deviendront intelligents68 . Deuximement, il sagit de la transformation

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CRISTIAN PREDA radicale du type de texte fondateur de laction, le trait de principes (de type machiavlien) tant simplifi dans le discours lectoral et, la rigueur, dans le bulletin de vote. Voyons la faon dont ces simplifications se sont passes, en conduisant de la cohrence machiavlienne absolue lincohrence dmocratique absolue. La premire mutation - la dmocratisation du texte - est, en fait, celle qui accompagne la dfinition de la dmocratie comme le meilleur rgime (pour la premire fois, dans luvre de Spinoza) et, ensuite, la transformation de la dmocratie dun rgime en une socit (Tocqueville tant responsable de cette transformation unique dun type de rgime politique, parmi les rgimes classiques, en une socit). Ce processus peut tre regard, selon la remarque de Lo Strauss, comme le rsultat dun adoucissement ncessaire de Machiavel69 . Au lieu de lauteur orgueilleux qui nonce les conditions de possibilit de laction du Prince on trouve prsent le citoyen commun, capable dnoncer les conditions ci-dessus par lacte simple du vote. Et si Machiavel avait besoin, pour laborer le rsum destin au Prince, de la longue exprience des choses modernes et dune lecture continuelle des anciennes, pour le citoyen qui se trouve devant le bulletin de vote il suffit la simple capacit de lire et dcrire. Cest l lintelligence requise du citoyen, cest par-l quil prouvera quil sait ce quil veut. En effet, selon la remarque juste de Lo Strauss, tout lecteur est conscient que la dmocratie moderne se maintient ou scroule par la capacit dcrire et de lire70 . La formule selon laquelle lacte dlire dmocratiquement est fond sur la capacit dcrire et de lire semblerait coup sr appartenir un libral comme Mises dun point de vue mtaphysique. Et quand mme, le conflit qui mine lidentit dmocratique moderne - conflit qui mne lincohrence absolue des textes - est justement relev par cette mtaphysique sommaire. En effet, pour celui qui dfinit laction humaine comme choix, il est extrmement tentant de soutenir que la dmocratie est le prlude, lanticipation imparfaite du march71 . Mais la substitution complte de llecteur par le consommateur est impossible, car limposition dfinitive du march est quivalente la disparition de tout discours. Or, rien nest plus tranger aux temps actuels que la disparition du texte. Par contre, ce que chacun peut constater est la multiplication illimite des textes et leur simplification extrme. Ce constat phnomnologique nous montre que le monde daujourdhui peut tre plutt subordonn au modle contractualiste (et non pas celui conomiste) de la politique moderne, modle lintrieur duquel on suppose la production dun texte qui puise,

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N.E.C. Yearbook 1996-1997 ds le moment initial, toutes les conditions de la survivance physique, cest--dire de lexistence politique (conformment la thse hobbesienne). La seule diffrence entre le monde de Hobbes et le monde de Tocqueville est que, dans le second cas (le cas des dmocraties constitutionnellespluralistes72 ), le texte puise - non seulement au moment de la fondation, mais chaque moment - les conditions de la survie73 . Voici pourquoi le monde dmocratique post-tocquevillien nest pas le monde sans mots, mais le monde o le texte justifie - par principe - tout arrangement des relations entre individus, y compris le march. Le caractre invitable de la naissance dun tel monde incohrent ne devient intelligible que si on prend en considration le mot-cl qui a accompagn cette volution. Il sagit de la volont. De Bodin Rousseau Luniversalisation de la volont est en fait le troisime repre intressant dans le schma dont nous nous occupons. Elle peut nous aider mieux comprendre lhorizon o lon a plac la dfinition moderne de la dmocratie. Nous allons voquer ici, en rsum, les deux variantes limite, conflictuelles, de cette dfinition et de cette rsolution surprenante donne ce conflit. Nous avons en vue, tout dabord, le moment limite du discrdit du modle de la dmocratie antique74 , moment o commence en fait lhistoire de la dmocratie moderne. Jean Bodin est celui qui - par la dfinition donne au souverain - a dmontr limpossibilit de ce quil appelait ltat populaire, limpossibilit de la dmocratie dAristote. La cl de linterprtation bodinienne se trouve dans la justification en termes de volont de la position privilgie du souverain : si souverain est argumentait Bodin - celui qui formule la loi, sans pouvoir sy soumettre, cest parce quil est impossible par nature de se donner loi, car il est impossible de commander soi-mme chose qui dpende de sa volont75 . Comme le peuple forme - dans une dmocratie lancienne - un seul corps, il ne peut obliger personne : ni soi-mme (car on ne peut commander sa propre volont), ni les autres (car dans un tat populaire il ny a personne sauf le souverain)76 . La volont rendait impossible la dmocratie antique. Le second moment limite est celui du discrdit thorique du modle de la dmocratie moderne. Rousseau est celui qui illustre - avec la grce des grands amoureux de la libert, selon lexpression de Benjamin Constant - ce moment. Le souverain - disait Rousseau - ne peut simposer une loi quil ne puisse enfreindre77 . En

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CRISTIAN PREDA dautres mots, le contrat social - la condition de possibilit de la dmocratie reprsentative - rencontrera toujours sur sa voie cet obstacle : la soumission est toujours plus faible que laction qui la prpare. En fait, la vrit rousseauiste est dautant plus tragiquement expriment que la reprsentation de la volont est plus raffine (plus complique) ou, autrement dit, que lexercice de la souverainet seulement pour labdiquer78 se fait dans des termes plus vagues, diffrents dun contrat un autre. la rigueur, dilue jusqu tre toujours, chaque nouveau choix, autre chose, la volont fait possible la dmocratie moderne qui vit alimente par sa propre contradiction. Le conflit entre le peuple ne peut se donner loi car il nexiste personne pour sassujettir et le peuple ne peut se donner aucune loi quil ne puisse enfreindre a t rsolu (ou plutt sa rsolution a t remise) d au fait dassumer la dmocratie en tant que formule politique, annonant peut-tre une religion de la volont qui se veut elle-mme. Ce sens de la dmocratie est celui qui peut nous faire appeler le monde politique moderne la Cit de lhomme79 . Il est indiscutable quune croyance si claire - partage le sicle pass (par Constant ou par Tocqueville), mais aujourdhui aussi, par tout le monde (qui a t) chrtien, aprs la chute du totalitarisme - une croyance telle lirrsistibilit de la dmocratie est traverse par lide que la dmocratie nest que linstitution de la volont : la dmocratie est finalement invitable car lhomme moderne a choisi de vouloir et ne peut ne pas vouloir ce quil veut lui-mme80 . Comment sexplique le fait que luniversalisation de la volont a fait du texte son unique instrument? Pourquoi, en dautres mots, la relation humaine, la relation des volonts humaines, est seulement texte? Do provient la censure exerce sur toute passion? Comment lhistoire politique est-elle devenue simplement texte? La seule rponse raisonnable est celle qui assume comme ntant pas problmatique la prmisse cartsienne de la volont en tant que partie de la rflexion81 . En effet, condition que seule la volont soit une zone de la rflexion, on peut comprendre la raison pour laquelle la vie humaine sest transforme en texte. La cit daujourdhui est intertextuelle car lordre fictif du texte est la seule incarnation de la volont qui comprend ou de la comprhension qui veut. Les citoyens des dmocraties daujourdhui sont, en ce sens, des copies du philosophe Descartes, et leurs textes, ceux qui rendent possibles le gouvernement, des discours lectoraux aux simples bulletins de vote, sont tout aussi profondment lis leur intimit dmocratique que le Discours de la mthode tait li lintimit philosophique de Descartes. Ce stade -

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N.E.C. Yearbook 1996-1997 qui nous est trs connu, car il est celui de nos jours - est celui o la cohrence et lincohrence sont dpasses, afin de se confondre dans la simple capacit de produire des textes. Il faut ajouter ici que la socit moderne sest offert le luxe du raffinement de lancien porteur de ces textes: le passage de limprimerie limprimante est le passage du monde o lindividu cherche multiplier les textes des autres (utiles au bon gouvernement) au monde o lhomme lui-mme nexiste que dans la mesure o il participe au jeu intertextuel. Tous ces phnomnes forment un ensemble sans fissure : la cohrence du texte fondateur, lincohrence des citoyens, donc la capacit de produire des textes sentrelacent dans un univers politique caractris par Karl Popper comme le meilleur qua connu lhomme82 . Cest l le fonds sur lequel la Constitution est devenue le Texte qui rend possibles les textes. Remarquons que, dans ce dispositif, les deux derniers repres - lincohrence des citoyens et la (con)textualisation de leur volont - sont ceux qui produisent, le plus souvent, le sentiment de la relativisation maximale des styles de vie. Seul le Texte fondateur est contrlable et valuable dans labsolu. Dailleurs, sans la cohrence de chaque texte fondateur de chaque communaut politique, les deux autres phnomnes (la dmocratisation et lintertextualisation des relations humaines) se transforment radicalement. En effet, choisir dmocratiquement en labsence dun texte qui limite ces choix signifie crer un univers politique qui arrive nimporte o: il nest plus un mystre pour personne que la domination la plus cruelle peut tre institue par un vote populaire valablement exprim. Un monde libral peut aussi arriver nimporte o, dans la mesure o choisir sur-dmocratiquement (en tant que simple consommateur) nest pas un acte accompagn par la dlibration sur ce quest commun, sur la justice, par exemple. En labsence dune telle dlibration, on peut vivre dans une Cit de lhomme, o tout appartient aux individus solitaires, qui ne sont pas ltat de nature, mais la fin de toute histoire. De la mme faon, sans la cohrence du texte fondateur, la capacit de produire des textes peut signifier la coexistence destructrice de tous les contraires, labsence de tout sens moral, et finalement, le manque de sens de tout texte. La simple succession dimages, la rcupration et le recyclement, dits postmodernes, de tous les fantasmes passs est le stade vers lequel tendent toutes les dmocraties qui ne contiennent pas en leur sein une aristocratie spirituelle83 . Un monde dmocratique (ou sur-dmocratique) sans aristocratie spirituelle est un monde tel celui produit par lcran de tlvision: un monde o coexistent

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CRISTIAN PREDA de manire destructrice la Rvolution transmise en direct et linvestiture des prsidents lus par vote universel, le monde qui place dans le mme horizon les commentateurs dAristote et les amateurs des bandes dessines, finalement, le monde qui permet de rapprocher la pornographie et la liturgie. Le nom de ce Texte fondateur, en labsence duquel la Cit de lhomme devient un monde o les individus nont rien en commun ou un monde o ils ont tout en commun, est la Constitution. La dfinition de ltre politique non pas en tant que praxis jointe un logos, mais en tant quacte prpar quelque part lextrieur, par un texte; le passage de ce texte intentionnellement savant au discours du citoyen pour lequel il suffit de savoir lire et crire; la multiplication de ces discours incohrents la suite de lacceptation de la prmisse organisatrice de la logique dmocratique qui universalise la volont; finalement, lexpression dcente de la volont universalise seulement en base du texte fondateur - telles sont les conditions de possibilit de la modernit politique.

NOTES
1. Leo Strauss, What is Liberal Education ?, in Liberalism. Ancient and Modern, New York/London, Basic Books, 1968, p. 12. 2. Machiavel, Le Prince, ch. XV. 3. Hobbes, De cive, I, 2. 4. Leo Strauss, What is Political Philosophy ? (1959), trad. fr. Quest-ce que la philosophie politique ? , P.U.F., 1992, pp. 32-33. 5. La formule est de Norberto Bobbio (v. Liberalism and Democracy, trans. by Martin Ryle & Kate Soper, ch. 5 : The Fruitfulness of Conflict, Verso, London/ New York, 1990, pp. 21-24), mais elle pourrait caractriser aussi la perspective de Sir Isaiah Berlin sur lhistoire des ides politiques de notre sicle. 6. Voir Raymond Aron, Mmoires, Julliard, 1983, p. 353. Pour la manire dont Manent se revendique de Strauss et de Bloom, v. son article Lhomme li et dli, in Commentaire, numro 76/Hiver 1996-97, pp. 807-809. 7. V. Alain Bergounioux, Bernard Manin, Le rgime social-dmocrate, P.U.F., 1989, p. 129. 8. La revendication des libertariens de Mises peut tre suivie, par exemple, chez Murray Rothbard, For a New Liberty. The Libertarian Manifesto, Fox & Wilkes, San Francisco, 1973, et chez Hans-Hermann Hoppe, The Economics and Ethics of Private Property, Boston, 1993. 9. Pierre Manent, La dmocratie comme rgime et comme religion, in La pense politique, Hautes tudes, Gallimard-Seuil, no. 1/mai 1993, p. 62.

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10. V. Platon, La Rpublique, VIII, 544b-569c ; Aristote, La politique, III, 7-18 ; Montesquieu, De lesprit des lois, III, 1-9 ; J.-J. Rousseau, Du contrat social, III, III-IV ; Leo Strauss, Quest-ce que la philosophie politique ? , P.U.F., 1992, pp. 15-58 ; Raymond Aron, Dmocratie et totalitarisme (1965), Gallimard, 1985, pp. 21-107. 11. Le fait que la bonne communaut rcuprait de manire nostalgique les donnes de lge dor, comme dans la philosophie politique classique, ou que, par contre, elle tait projete dans le futur en fonction de lexistence en acte, et cest le cas des discours des modernes, ne diminuait pas du tout la sensibilit du philosophe politique devant la prsence dautres rgimes. Le cas typique pour le discours nostalgique est la Rpublique platonicienne. Lintrt pour lexistence actuelle est trs clair partir de Machiavel et peut tre illustr de la meilleure faon par le discours de Montesquieu : voir ses lignes fameuses sur lAngleterre en tant quincarnation de la libert et ladage pour dcouvrir la libert politique dans la Constitution, il ne faut pas tant de peine. Si on peut la voir o elle est, si on la trouve, pourquoi la chercher ? (De lesprit des lois, X, 5). Un commentaire subtil de ces lignes chez Pierre Manent, La cit de lhomme, Fayard, 1994, pp. 17-31. 12. Manent, art. cit. , p. 75. 13. K.R. Popper, La Lezione di questo secolo (1992), trad. fr. La leon de ce sicle, Entretien avec Giancarlo Bosetti, suivi de deux essais de Karl Popper sur la libert et ltat dmocratique, trad. de J. Henry et C. Orsoni, Anatolia ditions, 1993, p. 102. Popper est trs clair : la dmocratie ne fut jamais le pouvoir du peuple, elle ne peut et ne doit pas ltre. Nous avons comment ce texte dans Polis, vol. 1, nr. 3/1994, pp. 202-207. 14. Popper, Libert et responsabilit intellectuelle, in op. cit., pp. 131-133. 15. Ludwig von Mises, Le socialisme. tude conomique et sociologique (1937), trad. fr. par Paul Bastier et Andr Terrasse, Mdicis, 1938, p. 18. 16. Mises, op. cit. , pp. 511-512. 17. Mises, Laction humaine. Trait dconomie (1963), trad. fr. par Raoul Audouin, P.U.F., 1985, p. 887. 18. Pour cette interprtation de Machiavel, v. Pierre Manent, Histoire intellectuelle du libralisme, Calmann-Lvy, 1987, chap. I. 19. Mises, Le socialisme, p. 51. 20. V. infra, le chapitre Lhistoire moderne comme texte. 21. Alexis de Tocqueville, De la dmocratie en Amrique, Robert Laffont, coll. Bouquins, Paris, 1986, p. 43. 22. Manent, art. cit. , p. 62. 23. Pour la manire dont les formes de cette volont sarticulent, voir Pierre Manent, La cit de lhomme, Fayard, Paris, 1994. 24. Popper, op. cit. , pp. 123-125. 25. Popper, op. cit. , p. 132. 26. Mises, Laction humaine, pp. 886-887.

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27. Mises, op. cit. , p. 16. Notons que, bien que dans le texte de 1937 il utilist une dfinition identique, Mises ny citait pas Locke, la source dinspiration de celle-ci (v. Le socialisme, p. 127). 28. Mises, Le Socialisme, p. 128. 29. Le texte est considr ici de la perspective qui faisait dj les auteurs du XVII-e sicle parler de der Papierstaat, cest--dire de cette forme politique o les rapports entre les personnes sont relis par des textes, par des documents crits, perdant de cette faon la substance purement biologique. 30. Popper a consacr ce thme toute la dmonstration de The Open Society and Its Enemies. 31. Mises, Laction humaine, pp. 1-11. 32. Platon ; La Rpublique, 557b. Nous suivrons la traduction de Robert Baccou, Garnier-Flammarion, 1966. Le passage cit se trouve la page 317. 33. Platon, La Rpublique, 562a, p. 321. 34. Platon, La Rpublique, 557 c, p. 317. 35. Notons que le sens donn ici la dmocratie est un des sens les plus invoqus aujourdhui. 36. Stanley Rosen, Spinoza, in Leo Strauss & Joseph Cropsey (eds.), Histoire de la philosophie politique, P.U.F., 1995, p. 501. 37. Spinoza, Le Trait politique, ch. XI, 4. Nous suivons la traduction de Charles Appuhn, Garnier Flammarion, 1966, p. 115. 38. Locke, Le deuxime trait, ch. V, Sur la proprit, le paragraphe 36. Nous suivons la traduction de Jean Fabien Spitz, P.U.F., 1994, p. 27. 39. Ibid. 40. Ibid. 41. Locke, Le deuxime trait, ch. X, Sur la forme de la Rpublique, le paragraphe 132, p. 94. 42. Locke exprime toutes ces choses parlant en deux occasions diffrentes sur le dtenteur du pouvoir suprme : le lgislatif et le peuple. 43. Un effort quotidien ajoutera, dans cette direction, aujourdhui oublie, Tocqueville, quand il dfinit le patriotisme, dans sa tentative de faire de la dmocratie quelque chose de vif, comme une logique de lgalit qui acquire de la consistance. 44. Popper, La leon de ce sicle, Paris, Anatolia ditions, 1992, p. 123. 45. Le trait politique, XI.1, p. 113. 46. Le trait thologico-politique, XIX. Nous suivons la traduction de Charles Appuhn, Garnier Flammarion, 1965, p. 315. 47. Le trait thologico-politique, Prface, p. 27. 48. Le trait thologico-politique, XVI, p. 266. 49. Le trait thologico-politique, XVI, p. 267. 50. Le trait thologico-politique, XVI, p. 267. 51. Cf. la prface et le chapitre XX du Trait thologico-politique, tout comme le dbut du Trait politique. 52. Le trait politique, ch. 1, p. 11.

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53. V. Popper, La leon de ce sicle, op. cit. , pp. 103-104. 54. Ibid., p. 105. 55. Spinoza considrait, dans sa clbre Lettre Jarig Jelles, que ltat de nature continue aussi ltat civil. 56. Tocqueville, De la dmocratie en Amrique, livre I, ch. IV, Paris, Robert Laffont, Bouquins, 1986, p. 83. 57. V. Pierre Manent, La dmocratie comme rgime et comme religion, in La pense politique, no. 1, Seuil-Gallimard, 1993, pp. 62-75. On doit prciser que Tocqueville utilisait dj lexpression lunivers chrtien pour fixer les limites gographico-spirituelles de la rvolution dmocratique (cf. Tocqueville, op. cit. , p. 43). 58. Tocqueville, op. cit. , p. 43 ; Manent, op. cit. , p. 43. 59. Une bonne lecture de Roger Bacon de la perspective de la rvolution machiavlienne se trouve dans larticle de Irving Kristol Machiavel et la profanation du politique, in Rflexions dun noconservateur, Paris, P.U.F., 1989, pp. 169-184. 60. Pour cette interprtation, v. Isaiah Berlin en toutes liberts, Dialogues avec Ramin Jahanbegloo, Paris, ditions du Flin, 1990, p. 83. 61. Thucydide avait dcrit la guerre de Ploponnse partir de son dbut, stimul par le fait quil tait conscient que ctait lbranlement le plus considrable qui ait remu le peuple grec, une partie des Barbares, et pour ainsi dire presque tout le genre humain , cf. Thucydide, Histoire I, l, traduction par Jean Voilquin, Garnier Flammarion, 1966, p.31. Voir, pour des dtails, David Bolotin, Thucydide, in Leo Strauss, Joseph Cropsey (eds.), Histoire de la philosophie politique, Paris, P.U.F., 1995, pp. 7-34. On doit remarquer que Platon et Aristote, ceux qui ont offert, jusqu Machiavel, le modle de la rflexion politique, avaient crit eux aussi aprs la fin du grand cycle de la politique grecque. 62. Voir K.R. Popper, La socit ouverte et ses ennemies, 2 tomes, Seuil, 1979. 63. Rousseau, Du contrat social, I, 1, dition Bertrand de Jouvenel, Le livre de poche, 1988, p. 157. 64. Pierre Manent est celui qui fait cette suggestion quand il soutient que le libralisme - qui a son origine dans luvre de Machiavel - suppose quelque chose dessentiellement dlibr et construit, un projet conscient et construit. Voir Pierre Manent, Histoire intellectuelle du libralisme, trad. roumaine par Mona et Sorin Antohi, Humanitas, Bucuresti, 1992, p. 12. Manent choisit ensuite comme preuve de cette mancipation de lide, de cette croissance du pouvoir politique de la thorie, le cas amricain du Fdraliste, qui nonce ds sa premire page que les Amricains se sont donns comme tache de dcider si cest possible de fonder un bon gouvernement sur la rflexion et le choix. Cet exemple a de relevance pour nous dans le contexte du second repre - celui vraiment dmocratique - de linstallation de la toute-puissance du texte.

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65. Celle-ci deviendra une autre obsession de la modernit, qui peut tre trouve chez Hobbes, Spinoza etc. et, dans sa forme la plus claire, chez Tocqueville, dans la simplicit pleine de vanit dont lauteur de la Dmocratie disait que pour un monde politique absolument nouveaux, il faut une science politique nouvelle. Il est important daccentuer que, parlant dun monde politique absolument nouveau, Tocqueville y pensait non pas aux tats-Unis, mais la France, espace politique qui ntait pas encore dmocratique. Lauteur franais assumait donc lui aussi la prmisse machiavlienne de lantriorit du discours (scientifique) par rapport au monde politique. Il insistait aussi beaucoup sur le fait que le monde politique amricain - le nouveau monde par excellence - tait n toujours dlibrment, partir des principes que les plerins anglais avaient apports, dont le puritanisme ntait pas seulement une doctrine religieuse ; il se confondait encore en plusieurs points avec les thories dmocratiques et rpublicaines les plus absolues - Tocqueville, op. cit. , p. 64. Voir aussi la note antrieure. 66. Machiavel, Le Prince, la ddicace adresse Laurent le Magnifique. Toutes ces choses pourraient aussi tre argumentes de la faon suivante : Machiavel assumait la nouveaut de la dmarche seulement parce quil se croyait le seul capable dincarner lexprience dcrite par les philosophes politiques grecs : en effet, du point de vue de Machiavel, il tait le seul avoir russi unir la praxis - lexprience des choses modernes - et le discours - la lecture des antiques, mais aussi le rsum destin au Prince ; celui-ci, il rservait laction, alors que les masses navaient accs ni la praxis (car ceux qui sont satisfatti nont plus de motif pour laction), ni au logos (car ceux qui nagissent pas ne peuvent tre que stupidi). 67. Lexemple le plus significatif est celui de la lecture cartsienne contenue dans la lettre courte, mais importante de septembre 1646, adresse la princesse Elisabeth. Descartes explique le Prince comme un trait systmatique, un texte qui peut tre rapidement rsum et auquel on peut substituer sa propre leon. Voir la lettre de Descartes dans ldition des Oeuvres compltes de Charles Adam et Paul Tannery, vol. IV, lettre 351, Paris, 1904, pp. 485-494. 68. Manent, op. cit. , p. 41. 69. Leo Strauss, What is Political Philosophy ? , trad. fr. Quest-ce que la philosophie politique ? , Paris, P.U.F., 1991, p. 51. 70. Leo Strauss, What is Liberal Education ?, in Liberalism Ancient and Modern, New York/London, Basic Books, 1968, p. 5. 71. Cest ce quon peut dduire du systme que Mises expose dans Human Action. Nous avons voqu les limites de cette dmarche missienne dans larticle Testul populist, de Sfera politicii, nr. 38, pp. 9-12. 72. Le terme est de Raymond Aron, Dmocratie et totalitarisme, Paris, Gallimard, 1985, pp. 131-151. 73. Cest l la diffrence entre un individualisme gouvern de manire absolutiste (de type hobbesien) et un individualisme dmocratique (de type haykien).

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74. Personne dautre na mieux suggr les difficults de limposition de ce discrdit que Benjamin Constant. Voir sa clbre confrence sur La libert des anciens compare la libert des modernes, texte o libert signifie en fait dmocratie. En dpit de ces difficults, saisissables aussi dans le conflit contemporain entre la dmocratie formelle et la dmocratie matrielle, le discrdit du modle antique est lune des constantes de la pense librale daprs Bodin. 75. Jean Bodin, Les six livres de la Rpublique, I, VIII, dition et prsentation de Gerard Mairet, Paris, Librairie Gnrale Franaise, Livre de Poche, 1993, p. 121. 76. Jean Bodin, op. cit. , p. 126. 77. Rousseau, Du contrat social, I, VII, pp. 182-185. 78. La formule appartient toujours Benjamin Constant. 79. Cest justement le titre dun livre de Pierre Manent, La cit de lhomme, Paris, Fayard, 1994. 80. Pour ce sens donn la dmocratie, v. Pierre Manent, La dmocratie sans corps, in Commentaire, no. 75, automne 1996, pp. 569-576. 81. Ren Descartes, Meditationes de prima philosophia, Seconde Mditation, traduction roumaine par C. Noica, Humanitas, 1992, p. 255. 82. Karl R. Popper, La leon de ce sicle, Anatolia ditions, 1993, p. 123. 83. V. Leo Strauss, What is Liberal Education ?, in op. cit. , p. 31.

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N en 1966, Bucarest Doctorat en histoire accord par lInstitut National des Langues et Civilisations Orientales (INALCO), Paris, 1995 Thse : LElite librale roumaine (1866-1900) Matre de confrence la Facult dHistoire de lUniversit de Bucarest Secrtaire de la Commission dHraldique, de Gnalogie et de Sphragistique de lAcadmie Roumaine, depuis 1990 Secrtaire de rdaction de la Revue Roumaine dHistoire, depuis 1996 Membre correspondant de lAcadmie Americano-Roumaine, depuis 1998 Boursier de lInsitut fr Europische Geschichte, Mainz, 1995 Participations aux colloques et rencontres scientifiques internationales en Espagne, Italie, Allemagne, Bulgarie, Roumanie. Livres: Llite librale roumaine 1866-1900. Bucarest, Ed. All, 1998 Gnalogies. Bucarest, Ed. Albatros, 1999 La gnalogie roumaine. Brila, Ed. Istros, 2000 Environ 150 tudes et articles. Editeur.

SUR LARISTOCRATIE ROUMAINE DE LENTRE-DEUX-GUERRES

Un tel sujet pourrait surprendre parce quil soulve, par son nonc mme, une srie de questions: y-a-t-il eu une vritable aristocratie roumaine ? Peut-on parler daristocratie au XXe sicle dans notre espace gographique et culturel ? Peut-on tudier ce problme complexe sans disposer de sources systmatiques et d une analyse statistique qui avec nos moyens actuels semble plutt irralisable ? Et comment tudier lvolution de cette lite sans instruments de travail ncessaires, mais aussi sans ouvrages gnraux dhistoire sociale, puisque manquent encore les synthses dans ce domaine ? Il nexiste encore ni histoire de la classe des boyards ni histoire de la bourgeoisie roumaine. Les ouvrages de tefan Zeletin, Eugen Lovinescu, Mihail Manoilescu, Ioan C. Filitti, Constantin C. Giurescu - et cette numration est fatalement incomplte -, quil faut apprcier comme des contributions de valeur dans ce domaine, ne comble pas le manque dhistoire des classes sociales roumaines. Il nous manque galement des dictionnaires des hommes politiques roumains ainsi que des tudes de prosopographie des partis politiques, de mme que des ouvrages gnalogiques de synthse. Ces difficults historiographiques ont des explications claires: elles sont dues aux circonstances historiques imposes par le rgime instaur en Roumanie aprs la Seconde Guerre mondiale. Ainsi, pendant cette trs longue priode doppression totalitaire les archives ntaient que partiellement accessibles; malheureusement aujourdhui encore certains fonds lis la vie politique de lentre-deux-guerres ne sont pas mis la disposition des chercheurs. A de nombreux sujets on donnait une interprtation officielle qui ne laissait gure de place des opinions alternatives. Dans ce climat ltude des lites roumaines a t en grande mesure ignore et la notion mme dlite avait un caractre subversif1. Cependant , quon veuille ou non le reconnatre, la socit roumaine a engendr durant la priode entre le rgne du prince Alexandru Ioan Cuza et linstauration du rgime communiste, des lites socio-politiques dsignes par un terme simplificateur et de propagande: burghezo-moierime - (bourgeoisie et propritaires terriens). Limportance de ces lites ne peut tre nie ou

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N.E.C. Yearbook 1996-1997 minimise sans mystifier lhistoire mme de cette poque. Cest en effet des couches suprieures de la socit roumaine que sont pour la plupart issus des grands acteurs de la scne politique roumaine depuis le mouvement des jeunes boyards rvolutionnaires de 18482 jusquaux leaders des partis dmocratiques ou antidmocratiques de lentre-deux-guerres. Laristocratie a peu intress les historiens et les sociologues roumains, qui en essayant de surprendre la spcificit nationale ont laiss sur un plan secondaire la composante nobiliaire de la socit roumaine. Cet tat de choses parat bizarre tant donn le rle important que les boyards ont jou pendant tout le Moyen Age dans la conservation de lEtat ainsi que dans la vie culturelle. Les familles de boyards ont continu exister aprs 1858, en maintenant leur prestige accumul. Laristocratie sest perptue donc longtemps aprs avoir cess de reprsenter une partie nettement dlimite de la socit. En ce sens la dfinition que Mihail Manoilescu donnait au concept de classe nous semble oprationnelle : celle-ci est caractrise par une permanence relative des gnrations successives de la mme famille. On reconnat la classe par le fait quau cours du temps les individus qui sont ses membres changent par disparition physique, mais les lignes familiales ne changent quen petite mesure3. Cette dfinition peut tre utilise pour les familles de boyards, dont les filiations se poursuivent assez souvent jusqu nos jours. Plus que dans nimporte quelle autre partie de la socit roumaine, lide de la continuit familiale se retrouve au sein de laristocratie. Manoilescu nona trois caractristiques principales de la notion de classe: 1. La classe est un groupe social compos de nombreuses familles. 2. Elle prsente une continuit travers les gnrations, rsultant du recrutement de ses membres par filiation. 3. La classe est un groupe social hirarchique et horizontal4. La recherche gnalogique mne la conclusion que pendant lentre-deux-guerres les familles de boyards ont constitu une vritable classe5, mme si leur pouvoir conomique et leur influence politique ont diminu de manire considrable par rapport la situation davant la Premire Guerre mondiale. Les opinions des historiens concernant la persistance de laristocratie sont diffrentes. Lhistorien Radu Rosetti, descendant des grands boyards moldaves et petit-fils du dernier hospodar de Moldavie Grigore Alexandru Ghica, crivait sur la ruine parfaite des boyards qui avaient cess dtre un facteur politique mme avant la Premire Guerre mondiale 6 . Pour cet auteur, mme en 1907, les

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MIHAI SORIN RDULESCU descendants des boyards, tant par leur nombre que par leur importance conomique sont devenus une quantit tout fait ngligeable, une fraction avec des prtentions, mais infime, de la nouvelle classe dirigeante. Lancienne oligarchie roumaine, si elle vit encore, doit ce reste de vie au souvenir de sa force passe, et non pas sa force actuelle qui nexiste pas7. Nous ne partageons pas lopinion de Radu Rosetti sur la sortie des boyards de la scne de lhistoire. Nous allons offrir plus loin des arguments concrets par lesquels on peut soutenir de manire pertinente le maintien des boyards dans les structures politiques et culturelles mme aprs la Premire Guerre mondiale. Une opinion intressante a t exprime par tefan Zeletin qui parlait de la suppression de la noblesse par la bourgeoisie, de lopposition culturelle que lancienne classe dirigeante a exerce8. Si dans dautres pays la noblesse a essay de garder le pouvoir dans ses mains par la voie des armes, nos boyards ont utilis des armes plus nobles que celles habituelles: en tant que classe dirigeante, elle avait lapanage de la culture, de lintelligence, cest pourquoi elle a dirig contre la bourgeoisie les armes subtiles de la science. Autrement dit, sa lutte a t une lutte culturelle 9 . Ainsi a pris naissance la socit Junimea, en tant quexpression culturelle de la lutte thorique contre la bourgeoisie roumaine10. En mme temps la bourgeoisie roumaine avait de plus en plus tendance imiter laristocratie, dont le modle social et culturel simposa 11.Laristocratisation est un processus qui a aussi eu lieu pendant lentre-deux-guerres et que George Clinescu a surpris en l94l: Il y a un sicle Gh. Eminovici pouvait devenir boyard, car il y avait un prince qui pouvait lui confrer le titre, tandis quaujourdhui le bourgeois est dpourvu pour toujours de cette vanit. Laristocratie roumaine se constitue mme de nos jours et les nombreuses gnalogies, tudes darchives familiales montre que les individus qui peuvent produire des documents ont tendance se constituer en caste et rsister de manire collective linitiative de lindividu et, cest chose retenir, en dpassant le cadre national12. Les observations de Clinescu ont t engendres par le roman Donna Alba de Gib Mihescu, auteur qui prouvait une certaine fascination pour lesprit aristocratique. Comme le remarquait George Clinescu dont lhistoire monumentale de la littrature roumaine contient de nombreuses gnalogies dcrivains, on peut tablir un lien entre la conscience de soi des descendants des boyards roumains et lessor pris pendant lentre-deux-guerres par les recherches gnalogiques. Cest de cette priode que datent les

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N.E.C. Yearbook 1996-1997 gnalogies des familles de boyards de Valachie, dresses par Ioan C.Filitti, Emanoil Hagi Mosco et George D.Florescu (restes indites jusqu aujourdhui). Pour la Moldavie on peut citer les ouvrages de Gheorghe Ghibnescu, Constantin Gane et Gheorghe Bezviconi, lditeur de la revue Din trecutul nostru. La plus rigoureuse monographie de famille est due au gnral Radu Rosetti et elle sintitule Familia Rosetti (2 volumes, Bucarest, l938 - l940). Le livre est remarquablement document, avec des notes pour chaque renseignement. Et ce nest pas le seul ouvrage de ce genre. Dans la mme catgorie on peut citer les monographies de Ioan Ndejde13, du gnral Mihai Racovi-Cehan14, Teodor Blan15, Gheorghe Ungureanu16, Teodor Boti17 etc. Lintrt pour lhistoire des familles de boyards est prouv par le nombre et la qualit de ces monographies, ainsi que par les tentatives de constitution dun institut de recherches gnalogiques. Au moment o les tudes dans ce domaine ont connu un haut degr de diversification, leur coordination est devenue ncessaire. Dans la Roumanie de lentre-deux-guerres il ny a pas eu un institut ou une socit gnalogique qui aurait pu remplir cette fonction. Une Commission Consultative Hraldique a t fonde en 1921 - prside par Dimitre Onciul - pour laborer les blasons des districts, des communes et des villes. Le 7 juillet 1938 Gheorghe Bezviconi a prsent Nicolae Iorga un mmoire montrant la ncessit dun institut gnalogique18. Il y a eu ensuite le mmoire de George D.Florescu, publi par N.Iorga, cette mme anne dans Revista istorica19. Cest sans doute un des textes les plus intressants de la littrature gnalogique roumaine, dans lequel on parle de lexistence dune mmoire gnalogique chez les boyards roumains du Moyen Age. Les tableaux votifs sont autant de tmoignages du culte des anctres dans le Moyen Age roumain. Cet institut devait exercer un contrle sur les travaux dintrt gnalogique pour combattre le dilettantisme et promouvoir les tudes scientifiques, documentaires. Linstitut devait tre divis en cinq sections: 1. La Valachie avec lOltnie (centres : Bucarest et Craiova) ; 2. La Moldavie, avec la Bessarabie et la Bucovine (centres : Iai, Chiinu, Cernui) ; 3. La Transylvanie, le Maramure, le Banat (centre : Cluj) ; 4. La Dobrudja, avec le Qudrilatre (centre: Constana). 5. Une section pour la Macdoine. George D.Florescu prcisait les objectifs de chaque section de linstitut envisageant aussi la constitution dune Association dentre-aide de la noblesse roumaine, sur le modle de l Association dentre-aide de la noblesse franaise.

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MIHAI SORIN RDULESCU Aurel George Stino, Theodor Rcanu, George Grecianu20, Scarlat Preajb (le gnral N.Negreanu)21, N.Mooc-Epureanu22 se sont prononcs dans des articles pour la fondation dun institut gnalogique roumain. Cet institut na pas t fond cause de la guerre. Pourtant, au printemps de lanne 1943 une association de spcialistes appele Cercul Genealogic Romn (Le Cercle Gnalogique Roumain) est fonde le soir du 7 mars l943 dans la maison du gnral Mihai Racovi-Cehan Bucarest, en prsence de Octav George Lecca, Ion Ionascu, George D.Florescu, Gheorghe Bezviconi, Traian Larionescu, Vasile Panopol, Ioan Crlova, Alexandru Saint-Georges, Mihai M.Racovi, Emanoil Bogdan, Dan et tefan Cernovodeanu23. Le but de ce groupe tait la recherche du pass des familles du pays et ltablissement dun rapprochement dme entre tous les chercheurs de notre pass. Il sagit en premier lieu de ltude des familles de boyards, mais le cercle se proposait une ouverture plus large, vers toutes les couches sociales. A la tte de lassociation il y avait des descendants de boyards. En tant que prsident fut lu le gnral Mihai Racovi-Cehan, en tant que vice-prsident - George D.Florescu. Du comit dirigeant faisaient partie le procureur Constantin I.Prodan, Ion Ionacu et Gheorghe Bezviconi et en tant que secrtaire fut lu Traian Larionescu, bibliothcaire la Fondation du Roi Carol I. Le 16 avril 1943 le Cercle Gnalogique Roumain fut inscrit au Tribunal dIlfov. Il a dit une publication intitule Arhiva Genealogic Romn dont le nom voulait rmmorer la revue dite par Sever Zotta en 1912 - 1913. Cette forme dassociation des gnalogistes na dur quune anne. Elle est ne dans une atmosphre dmulation des recherches nobiliaires et dhistoire des familles, quavait remarque George Clinescu. Les descendants des boyards de lentre-deux-guerres taient-ils conscients et intresss par leur origine ? Que pensaient-ils de leur propre ligne? Cest la littrature de la mmoire de lpoque qui rpond ces questions, littrature que lon peut illustrer par quelques exemples. Ainsi Constantin Argetoianu consacrait son origine une riche incursion gnalogique24. Alexandru Tzigara-Samurca dcouvrait les sources de sa noblesse dans une glise de Venise: Je suis flatt davoir pu trouver intacte, dans lglise San Giorgio dei Greci de Venise, dans laxe de lautel, sous le ciel libre, la pierre tombale du grand porte-glaive Zotu Tzigara, mort en 1599 et dont le nom est rest inchang de pre en fils, que jespre avoir port avec la dignit traditionnelle de la famille./ Cest au portrait fier du porte-glaive Zotu, tenant sa droite lpe de son rang, et sa gauche le poignard, que jai emprunt son blason, une main tenant une

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N.E.C. Yearbook 1996-1997 pe, - que jai ajoute au cur des armoiries des Samurca, avec le sourcil et le samur, do vient le nom. Ce blason combin constitue mon ex-libris et est grav sur la plaque de marbre plac sur le lieu de notre repos ternel25. Tzigara-Samurca, le fondateur du Muse dArt National, a t lev parmi de vieux documents de famille, dont il a appris la valeur ds son enfance26. Cest dans son milieu familial quil a appris la beaut de lart populaire27. Si Tzigara-Samurca liait son affinit pour la culture son origine, Nicolae Iorga considrait son implication dans la vie politique comme la consquence de sa descendance des anciens boyards moldaves (des Miclescu, des Catargi etc.). Cest deux et dautres hrits par la mre de ma mre que jai cette affection pour tout ce qui se lie cette terre, en faisant de mes crits, de chaque instant que je touche ce pass, un hommage eux et en mme temps une reconnaissance de tout ce qui me lie la chre histoire de notre Moldavie28. Pour Nicolae Iorga, lattraction de lhistoire est lhritage laiss par les anctres et la liaison troite avec ceux-ci. Le grand historien croyait en lascendance byzantine de la famille de sa mre (les Arghiropol). La conscience de son appartenance sociale est clairement exprime par lcrivain Alexandru Paleologu, dont le tmoignage peut tre considr comme rvlateur pour son enfance, pendant lentre-deux-guerres. Dailleurs jai eu une attitude personnelle dans ce domaine. Jai toujours dclar que javais une origine bourgeoise - moi je laurais appel noble, mais la formule tait celle-l, je nai donc pas cach mon origine (...). Il aurait t absurde de procder dune autre manire; en publiant mes mmoires on voit clairement que mes souvenirs denfance taient lis un milieu et une culture noble29. La socit roumaine sest dveloppe sans ruptures pendant des sicles, en crant, au Moyen Age, une couche suprieure que lon pourrait appeler aristocratie, en utilisant une notion gnrale. Sa sphre large permet dy inclure tant les familles de boyards de Moldavie et de Valachie que les descendants des boyards du pays de Fagaras, les nobles roumains de Maramures et dautres rgions de la Transylvanie. Cette notion comprend les diffrents groupes sociaux mentionns, ayant un attribut commun, la noblesse, dont la valeur symbolique et culturelle a gard sa force depuis le Moyen Age jusqu nos jours. Nous ne nous proposons pas de dfinir dans ce cadre le concept de noblesse, mais il faut mettre en vidence que la noblesse ressurgit de la continuit des traditions au sein de la mme famille ou le long de certaines lignes.

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MIHAI SORIN RDULESCU La noblesse est un attribut dexcellence confr dhabitude par une autorit monarchique, attribut transmis et conserv dans le cadre dune succession gnalogique. La noblesse cest luvre du temps, disait un adage qui se vrifie aussi dans le cas de lhistoire roumaine. Lattribut de la noblesse nest pas ncessairement li aux titres nobiliaires hrditaires qui nont pas exist (sauf quelques exceptions) chez les boyards de Moldavie et de Valachie. Les titres existants qui ntaient pas reconnus par la Constitution roumaine de 1923, provenaient dautorits trangres, dhabitude de lempereur autrichien. Cest le cas, trs connu, de la famille Brancovan qui figure aussi dans les almanachs de Gotha (sous la forme Bassaraba de Brancovan), en vertu du fait que le hospodar Constantin Brncoveanu a t lev en 1695 au rang de prince du Saint Empire romain-germanique30. Le titre de prince fut galement reu en 1900 par Radu (Rodolphe) Kretzulescu, de la part du roi dItalie Umberto I31, avec la fille duquel il allait se fiancer. Et les exemples pourraient se poursuivre, en incluant l aga Constantin Blceanu, qui a reu le titre de comte32, les barons Bellu, Meitani, Kapri etc. Le systme nobiliaire occidental a fonctionn tant en Transylvanie quen Bucovine33, pendant la domination autrichienne. En Transylvanie beaucoup de Roumains sont rests au niveau de la petite noblesse (gentry), sans titres34. Les Roumains qui se sont magyariss et qui ont chang de confession ont pu entrer dans la catgorie des magnats. Ainsi, on connat lorigine roumaine des familles Bnffy, Kendffy, Kemny etc. En Bucovine, les autorits ont reconnu et ont confirm la noblesse de beaucoup de familles de boyards35. Tout au long de la domination autrichienne ont t confrs des titres de noble, chevalier, baron et singulirement celui de comte pour la famille Wassilko, avec le prdicat de Serecki. Aux porteurs des titres nobiliaires reus sajoutaient ceux des titres auto-assums. Il sagit des descendants des hospodars des principauts qui utilisaient frquemment le titre princier : dabord les descendants de Gheorghe Bibescu et de Barbu tirbei, ultrieurement aussi ceux des princes phanariotes36; ainsi que certains Cantacuzne, surtout de la branche du hospodar erban Cantacuzne, et des Ghica, comme le prtre catholique Vladimir Ghika, petit-fils du hospodar Grigore Alexandru Ghica37. En pleine priode de lentre-deux-guerres dans la haute socit roumaine il y avait le prince Barbu tirbei, Premier-ministre en 1927, et le prince George Valentin Bibescu, prsident de la Fdration Aronautique Internationale. Les titres nobiliaires avaient donc dans la

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N.E.C. Yearbook 1996-1997 Roumanie de lentre-deux-guerres une valeur mondaine et non pas juridique. Aprs 1918, laristocratie roumaine comprenait les descendants des boyards de Valachie et de Moldavie, les descendants de la noblesse roumaine de Transylvanie, ainsi que ceux de la noblesse de Bucovine et de Bessarabie qui avaient leurs racines dans la classe des boyards moldaves. Sy ajoutaient des lments de la grande bourgeoisie qui ont t assimils par laristocratie travers les mariages. Il y a eu une tendance dhomognisation de laristocratie roumaine, manifeste par les mariages mixtes, entre transylvains et moldo-valaques - quelques exemples dans ce sens provenant de gnrations diffrentes: Constantin Sreanu (premier prsident de la Haute Cour de Cassation, membre de la Rgence) et Olga Popovici, la soeur de lhomme politique Mihai Popovici; Octavian C.Tsluanu, crivain et homme politique, et Fatma Sturdza, petite-fille de Vasile Sturdza, membre de la lieutenance princire de Moldavie en 1858 - 1859; Eugen Goga, le frre du pote Octavian Goga et Eliza Odobescu, nice de lcrivain Alexandru Odobescu et descendante du ct maternel des familles Florescu et Manu; le folkloriste Mihai Pop, neveu de lhomme politique Ilie Lazr (de Purcareti) et Irina Sturdza, descendante du mme Vasile Sturdza, ainsi que de Ion Cmpineanu - du ct maternel. Si sur le plan matrimonial on peut trouver de telles alliances, dans la politique il y a eu des frictions entre la classe politique de lancien royaume et les hommes politiques de Transylvanie38. Celles-ci se sont exprimes dans la concurrence pour le pouvoir entre le Parti National-Libral et le Parti National-Paysan. Dans ce qui suit je me propose de restreindre lobjet de la recherche, en essayant dexaminer la place de laristocratie dans la socit roumaine entre 1918 et 1947. Cest le moment peut-tre de prciser que je vois ici une quivalence entre la notion dlite historique traditionnelle et celle daristocratie qui dcrit bien sr une ralit sociale en grande mesure diffrente de celle qui existe en Europe Occidentale. Les considrations qui suivront sont fondes sur lanalyse gnalogique de plusieurs personnalits politiques roumaines, dont jai reconstitu les lignes danctres et les liens de parent. Si avec labolition des privilges des boyards en 1858, lexistence juridique de la classe des boyards prend fin, son existence physique et spirituelle se poursuivra dans le domaine priv. Si je pouvais oser une telle comparaison, un peu force, la qualit de boyard pendant le Moyen Age roumain (XVe - XVIe sicle) tait rarement due la dignit remplie

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MIHAI SORIN RDULESCU par tel ou tel personnage. Il la devait sa naissance au sein dune famille de boyards qui dtenait un certain patrimoine foncier et qui jouissait dun prestige social particulier, tant ventuellement apparente au prince rgnant (hospodar) (dans le cas des grands boyards appels vlastelini) et certainement dautres familles de boyards39. De mme, si je peux me permettre un tel saut dans le temps et dans lespace, une autre question peut se poser : aprs ladoption de la constitution rpublicaine et labolition des privilges de laristocratie, la noblesse a-t-elle cess dexister de facto en France, alors que la disparition de la noblesse de jure tait prononce et que tous les citoyens taient devenus gaux? La rponse est ngative et mme actuellement la noblesse continue exister en France en tant que groupe social relativement clos, avec des traits spcifiques40. Des problmes identiques pourraient se poser dans la socit roumaine daprs 1858, mais ils mritent certainement une analyse plus profonde et plus tendue que celle prsente dans cet expos. Jusqu linstauration du rgime communiste, la socit roumaine a connu une volution organique, sans transformations violentes et sans convulsions sociales dimportance structurale. Un changement significatif dans lvolution de la classe politique sous le rgime dmocrate-libral fut lassimilation des lments transylvains qui se sont avrs trs actifs sur la scne politique roumaine aprs 1918. Cette lite qui est entre dans le jeu comprenait de nombreux descendants des familles nobles roumaines, tels Iuliu Maniu41 et Alexandru Vaida Voevod. Aprs la disparition des boyards comme classe privilgie de la socit, leurs descendants ont continu se manifester dans la vie publique roumaine, forts du capital symbolique et culturel associ lanciennet de leurs familles42. Si biologiquement, elles ne se sont pas teintes, les vieilles familles de boyards, allies parfois des familles de la haute et moyenne bourgeoisie et qui continuaient dans de nombreux cas de longues files de dignitaires mdivaux, ont gard leur position sociale jusqu la sovitisation du pays, malgr les changements survenus aprs la Premire Guerre mondiale. Souvent marques par limpact gnalogique des Phanariotes, elles ont connu quand mme des fluctuations dans la hirachie sociale du XIXe sicle et du dbut du XXe. Sur la pntration des familles phanariotes dans la socit roumaine, il faudrait entreprendre des recherches systmatiques. On peut dj se demander dans ce contexte sil y a eu, par exemple, une politique matrimoniale des Phanariotes. Dautres questions suivent : peut-on parler de lassimilation dune famille phanariote, et aprs combien de gnrations

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N.E.C. Yearbook 1996-1997 sur le territoire roumain ? Dans quelle mesure les Phanariotes ont-ils influenc la naissance et le dveloppement des lites roumaines au XIXe sicle ? De nombreux Grecs parmi ceux qui ont pntr dans la classe des boyards roumains, comme les membres des familles Mano, Ventura et beaucoup dautres se sont roumaniss trs rapidement, alors que les Soutzo, par exemple, la suite de leur forte endogamie, sont rests trs lis ses idaux de renaissance nationale politique et culturelle43. Les Phanariotes intgrs dans la socit roumaine ont apport une contribution importante la cristallisation de la classe politique roumaine ; ainsi cest de deux puissantes familles phanariotes que descendait le politicien libral Mihail G.Orleanu (1859-1942), ancien ministre et prsident de la chambre des dputs : les Plagino et les Aristarchi44. Cependant les descendants des Phanariotes ne faisaient pas partie seulement de llite librale, ils se perpturent aussi dans le milieu social du Parti Conservateur. Cest le cas par exemple du gnral Gheorghe Mano (1833-1911), lun des personnages les plus influents de ce parti, fils du lieutenant-princier (caimacam) Ioan Mano et de son pouse Ana, ne Ghika45. Plusieurs grands dignitaires de la Patriarchie de Constantinople - lhritire culturelle et historique de la lgitimit byzantine - avaient appartenu la famille Mano46 et une branche de cette famille est reste en Grce o elle existe encore de nos jours. Malgr louverture que lintroduction du suffrage universel a apporte la vie publique roumaine aprs la Premire Guerre mondiale, les descendants des boyards ont continu de fournir des leaders politiques au pays, ainsi que des intellectuels clbres. Les membres de ce groupe social apportaient avec eux la tradition des occupations publiques, ainsi quune ducation soigne, le plus souvent paracheve en Occident, surtout en France. Ils entraient dans la vie politique avec un large prestige social offert par leur pass, par leurs fortunes, par leurs liens de parent, par des amitis qui se sont perptues au fil des gnrations. Tous ces atouts que dfinissaient leur statut social - lnumration que je viens de faire est loin dtre exhaustive - devaient tre conservs par des alliances matrimoniales souhaitables qui, elles, avaient aussi pour objet de sauver les fortunes foncires affectes par la rforme agraire de 1921. Le fait que beaucoup dhommes politiques roumains qui se manifestrent dans la vie publique tant avant quaprs la Premire Guerre mondiale taient les continuateurs des anciennes familles de boyards a t relev par lhistorien Neagu Djuvara dans une tude publie en 198747. Dans ce qui suit on dtaillera cet aspect par le biais des gnalogies.

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MIHAI SORIN RDULESCU Ainsi I.G.Duca, lun des hommes politiques libraux les plus illustres de lpoque, descendait, par sa mre Lucie ne Ghica-Budeti, de la nombreuse famille princire des Ghica et sa grand-mre tait issue de la famille des grands boyards de Valachie Filipescu48. Les anctres de lhomme politique Constantin Argetoianu, grande figure de la franc-maonnerie roumaine de lentre-deux-guerres, taient des membres des familles Oteteleanu, Rahtivanu et Sltineanu49, pour ne donner que quelques noms de son ascendance. Cette constatation pourrait tre illustre galement par la gnalogie du grand diplomate Nicolae Titulescu dont la mre descendait de la vieille famille de boyards Urdreanu. La grand-mre du ct maternel de Titulescu tait la sur du peintre Theodor Aman et de Costache Aman, dont la fille Hlne stait marie en 1853 avec Barbu Blcescu, frre cadet de lhistorien et homme politique Nicolae Blcescu (1819-1852)50. Lune de leurs filles sera la mre de lingnieur Ion Gigurtu51 qui tait, donc, le neveu de Nicolae Titulescu. Les reprsentants de llite historique roumaine napparaissent pas seulement dans les formations politiques dinspiration librale et dmocratique, mais aussi dans les mouvements dextrme droite ou dextrme gauche. Ainsi, le gnral Gheorghe Cantacuzne - Grnicerul (le Garde-frontire), prsident du parti ultra-nationaliste Totul pentru ar (Tout pour la patrie), descendait directement du prince rgnant de Valachie erban Cantacuzne52, tandis quAlecu Cantacuzne, jeune espoir intellectuel de la Garde de fer tait le petit-fils de lhomme politique conservateur Georges Grgoire Cantacuzne dit le Nabab53. Alexandru Ghyka - chef de la police lgionnaire - tait larrire-petit-fils de Grgoire V.Ghyka, dernier prince rgnant de Moldavie (1849-1856) et aussi descendant direct de lhomme politique Ion Cmpineanu 54 . Lun des intellectuels communistes les plus connus fut le pote et historien Scarlat Callimachi, surnomm le prince rouge, descendant en droite ligne dun frre du prince rgnant de Moldavie Ioan Theodor Callimachi, sa mre tant la fille de lhomme politique Gheorghe Vernescu55. Parmi les 20 Premiers ministres roumains entre 1918-1940, plusieurs descendaient (par ligne paternelle ou maternelle) de llite historique des principauts extracarpathiques (le gnral Constantin Coand, Ion I.C.Brtianu, Barbu tirbei, Vintil Brtianu, Nicolae Iorga, I.G.Duca, dr.Constantin Angelescu, Gheorghe Ttrascu, le gnral Gheorghe Argeanu, Constantin Argetoianu, Ion Gigurtu) ; deux taient issus de la noblesse roumaine de Transylvanie (Iuliu Maniu, Alexandru Vaida Voevod) ; deux provenaient du milieu bourgeois (Take Ionescu, Armand Clinescu),

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N.E.C. Yearbook 1996-1997 deux taient dorigine paysanne (le gnral Alexandru Averescu, le patriarche Miron Cristea), un descendait de familles de prtres orthodoxes du sud de la Transylvanie (Octavian Goga), un descendait de paysans libres moldaves (le professeur George G.Mironescu) ; un dernier tait le fils dun fonctionnaire dorigine trangre (le gnral Arthur Vitoianu). Les Brtianu qui se trouvaient la tte dun parti qui avait pour but la formation dune bourgeoisie nationale taient eux aussi de vieille souche noble, dans le sens local de ce mot56. Leur filiation remonte jusquau XVe sicle et mme jusqu la fin du XIVe, si on suit la ligne des boyards Vldescu, qui taient leurs anctres par les femmes57. La disparition de la scne politique du Parti Conservateur a t une consquence de llargissement considrable du droit de vote aprs la premire conflagration mondiale, de laccs la vie politique dun grand nombre de citoyens - surtout dorigine rurale - qui jusqualors navaient pas eu le droit de se manifester sur ce terrain. Les grandes rformes qui sont survenues aprs 1918 ont restreint la base conomique de llite historique roumaine. Cependant les descendants des familles de boyards ont continu de saffirmer dans la vie publique roumaine, tant dans les sciences que dans les arts. On peut en citer de nombreux exemples. Au cours de lentre-deux-guerres, la revue Convorbiri literare tait dirige par lhistorien dart Alexandru Tzigara-Samurca, arrire-neveu du vornic (chambellan) Constantin Samurca, membre de lHtairie et haut dignitaire la cour princire de Bucarest au dbut du XIXe sicle58. Lune des figures remarquables de lcole roumaine darchitecture, la fois crateur et historien du phnomne artistique, Nicolae Ghika-Budeti (1869-1943), auteur de louvrage monumental Evolutia arhitecturii n Muntenia si Oltenia, descendait dune branche moldave de la nombreuse famille des Ghika59. Par sa mre il tait cousin germain de larchitecte G.M.Cantacuzne (1899-1960) et du peintre Theodor Pallady (1871-1956), deux autres aristocrates, brillants intellectuels qui descendaient tous les deux - lun par ligne paternelle, lautre par ligne maternelle - de la branche Deleanu-Mgureanu de la famille Cantacuzne60. La classe des boyards avait encore du souffle pour donner de nombreux talents la culture roumaine. Linventeur Henri Coand, fils du gnral Constantin Coand, tait larrire-petit-fils dun Ghi Coand, lev en 1845 au rang de pitar61. Lun des juristes les plus fameux du pays, Istrate Micescu tait le petit-fils dun personnage du mme nom, nomm toujours pitar le 30 aot 1839 et qui tait le fils du ceaus

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MIHAI SORIN RDULESCU Rducanu Micescu, fils son tour de Prvu Micescu de Miceti (dans lancien dpartement de Muscel, aujourdhui Arge)62. A la tte de lcole historique roumaine de lpoque se trouvaient toujours des descendants de lancienne classe des boyards. Nicolae Iorga avait dans la famille de son pre cinq porteurs de rangs de boyard ; son pre mme avait t promu medelnicer en 1858. Mais la vieille noblesse venait chez Nicolae Iorga par sa filiation maternelle, plus prcisment par son arrire-grand-mre Catinca Miclescu qui avait pous le parucic (sous-lieutenant) Ioan Arghiropol, ayant un fils Gheorghe Arghiropol qui stait mari avec Hlne, fille du vornic Iordache Drghici, lun des boyards clairs du rgne du prince Ioni Sandu Sturdza (1822-1828). De ce dernier mariage est issue Zulnie Arghiropol, la mre de Nicolae Iorga63. De mme, Georges Brtianu, historien denvergure europenne, descendait directement, par sa mre Marie ne Mourousi64 des princes phanariotes Constantin et Alexandre Mourousi, tandis que son pouse Hlne ne Sturdza tait larrire-petite-fille du prince rgnant de Moldavie Mihail Sturdza (1834-1849)65. Lhistorien P.P.Panaitescu descendait par sa mre Leonia ne Greceanu de la famille des boyards moldaves Greceanu66, des familles Mano (branche de Moldavie), Miclescu67 etc. Par une arrire-grand-mre, Profira Mano ne Miclescu, P.P.Panaitescu tait le cousin au quatrime degr (malgr la diffrence dge) de Nicolae Iorga68. On pourrait galement mentionner lhistorien et gnalogiste Ioan C.Filitti, descendant du ct maternel des boyards Sltineanu. Lun des archologues de valeur de lpoque, Scarlat Lambrino, qui aprs lavnement des communistes au pouvoir en Roumanie, sest rfugi en France, descendait lui aussi dune famille de boyards moldaves dorigine grecque, qui stait tablie en Moldavie au XVIIe sicle69. Dans la science biologique roumaine se sont distingus la mme poque au moins trois reprsentants de laristocratie : lentomologiste Aristide Caradja, le docteur Jean Cantacuzne et le splologue Emile Racovi. Aristide Caradja tait larrire-petit-fils de Ioan Caradja, prince rgnant de Valachie entre 1812 et 181870 et sa mre Euphrosyne ne Soutzo descendait en ligne directe dun autre prince phanariote, celui qui succda Caradja sur le trne de Bucarest, Alexandre Soutzo. Le docteur Jean Cantacuzne tait le petit-fils du grand boyard Constantin Cantacuzne, lieutenant princier de Valachie en 1848/49 alors que sa mre tait la fille du gnral Nicolae Mavros71. Emile Racovi descendait de la vieille famille de boyards moldaves Racovi-Cehan, atteste ds le XVe sicle72.

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N.E.C. Yearbook 1996-1997 Dans la musique et la musicologie se sont affirms, entre autres, lethnomusicologue Constantin Briloiu, issu dune vieille famille dOltnie, et Mihail Jora, compositeur et chef dorchestre renomm, descendant dune trs vieille famille moldave laquelle avait appartenu la mre du chroniqueur Grigore Ureche. Sa grand-mre paternelle Smaranda Jora ne Rosetti tait la nice de Costache Negri (1812-1876), homme politique et crivain bien connu73. Mihail Jora tait galement le cousin germain de Maruca Cantacuzne ne Rosetti-Tecanu, lpouse du compositeur Georges Enesco. La liste des hommes de lettres, des scientifiques et des artistes de cette poque issus des familles de laristocratie roumaine est trs longue et risque de devenir fastidieuse. Cest pourquoi nous ne citerons plus que quelques noms : les potes Hlne Vacaresco, Ion Pillat, Adrian Maniu, la princesse Marthe Bibesco, le linguiste Alexandre Rosetti, lactrice Lucie Sturdza-Bulandra, le mathmaticien Alexandre Ghika, le gologue Stefan Ghika-Budeti, etc. La diplomatie est lun des corps roumains dlite auquel la classe des boyards a fourni de nombreux lments. Ainsi, en raison de leur connaissance des langues trangres, de lducation privilgie dont ils avaient bnfici et du statut social quassurait une carrire diplomatique, les descendants des familles aristocratiques entraient notamment dans la diplomatie, comme lillustrent de nombreux exemples. On vient de mentionner Nicolae Titulescu; de mme Grigore Gafencu descendait par son pre dune famille de boyards de Bucovine et par sa mre de la nombreuse famille des Costaki 74 , laquelle avaient appartenu le mtropolite de Moldavie Veniamin Costaki et lhomme politique Manolache Costaki Epurean. La mre du diplomate Nicolae Petrescu-Comnen, ancien ministre des Affaires trangres de Roumanie, tait issue de la famille Cernovodeanu75. Mme dans le gouvernement lgionnaire, le portefeuille des Affaires trangres tait dtenu par un Sturdza, Mihail (Luc) Sturdza, qui tait le petit-fils de Vasile Sturdza (1810-1870), lun des trois lieutenants princiers de Moldavie en 1858-1859 et le premier-prsident de la Haute Cour de Cassation dont lpouse tait lune des soeurs de Costache Negri 76 . Mihail Manoilescu, savant conomiste et ministre des Affaires trangres dans le cabinet Gigurtu, descendait par filiation maternelle des familles de boyards moldaves Bdrau et Tutu77. Tous ces exemples - et on aurait pu en choisir bien dautres - prouvent quavant le processus de sovitisation, la socit roumaine tait reprsente et, dans une grande mesure, dirige par des lites lgitimes, formes non

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MIHAI SORIN RDULESCU seulement par des descendants des familles aristocratiques, mais aussi par des membres de la bourgeoisie et par des intellectuels de souche nouvelle. Avant lavnement des communistes au pouvoir Bucarest, la socit roumaine avait connu une volution sans ruptures, fortement influence par le modle franais, llite historique conservant son prestige social et culturel et russissant le transmettre dune gnration lautre. Les rgimes dictatoriaux qui se sont succds en 1938 et en 1940 nont pas eu pour consquence des changements dans la structure de la socit. Le premier chef du gouvernement aprs le rtablissement du rgime dmocratique, le gnral Constantin Sntescu descendait dune famille de boyards du dpartement de Gorj, anoblie par lempereur autrichien Charles VI en 171778. Jusqu linstauration du rgime totalitaire, les descendants des boyards ont continu mener une vie spcifique, profondment marque par la civilisation franaise de lpoque, ils ont gard leurs manoirs et leurs rsidences Bucarest. La vie la campagne a continu avoir son importance pendant lentre-deux-guerres. Les expropriations effctues par la rforme agraire de 1921 ont affect fortement le support conomique de laristocratie, en rduisant de 6 millions dhectares la surface des terrains dtenue par la grande proprit, selon lestimation dun historien contemporain79. Les descendants des boyards ont continu possder des domaines tendus sur lesquels ils ont construit des manoirs. Le fief des Brtianu tait Florica, celui de Gheorghe Ttrescu, Poiana (dans le district de Gorj), celui de Iuliu Maniu, son village natal de Bdcin (dans le district de Slaj). Ctait des lieux entoures dune certaine atmosphre mythique. La vie la campagne de laristocratie a fait lobjet de souvenirs et mmoires aprs 1989: ainsi Matei Clinescu voquait le manoir de Drvari (dans le district de Mehedini), qui avait appartenu la famille de sa mre ne Vulcnescu80. Elisabeta Varlam, fille du gnral Radu Rosetti, se souvenait propos de son pre: Je crois que le lieu o mon pre se sentait le mieux tait Brusturoasa - sur le Trotu, dans le district de Bacu. Ctait la proprit de ma mre Ioana Rosetti ne Stirbei, o ils passaient leurs ts dans les annes daprs leur mariage. Ma mre tait trs lie ces lieux, comme mon pre aussi. En souvenir de ma mre, mon pre y a lev une cole et un dispensaire, il a rpar des glises et il a aid comme il a su les gens de cet endroit, en nous montrant par toutes ses manifestations son profond amour pour les paysans et pour le pays81.

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N.E.C. Yearbook 1996-1997 Pendant lentre-deux-guerres Martha Bibescu rsidait Mogooaia, palais quelle a fait restaurer daprs les plans des architectes Domenico Rupolo et G.M.Cantacuzne. A Strejeti (dans le district dOlt) le vieux manoir des boyards Buzescu a t hrit par la famille Darvari; Storobneasa (dans le district de Teleorman) il y avait la proprit de la famille Racott; Buftea, Voila (dans le district de Prahova) et Drmnesti slevaient les manoirs de la famille tirbei; Sihlea (dans le district de Buzu) le manoir des Grditeanu avait t hrit par la famille Ghica (par la branche de lingnieur Serban Ghica). Les Ghica de Valachie (la branche de Nicolae I.Ghica, fils de lcrivain Ion Ghica) possdaient le manoir de Ghergani (dans le district de Dambovia), tandis que les Ghica moldaves taient les propritaires de vrais chteaux en Moldavie: Comneti, Dofteana etc. Les Brncoveanu avaient un manoir Breaza (dans le district de Prahova). Le diplomate Antoine Bibescu avait comme rsidence dt le manoir de Corcova (dans le district de Mehedini). A Ciocneti (dans le district dIlfov) se trouvait le manoir apport en dot par Alexandrine Cantacuzne ne Paladi, prsidente de la Socit des Femmes Orthodoxes Roumaines. Les Cantacuzne continuaient possder pendant lentre-deux-guerres des proprits foncires et des manoirs dans le district de Prahova: Rfov (la branche de Serban Vod), Floreti et Poiana apului (la branche du Nabab) etc. A Cciulai (dans le district dIlfov) le manoir bti par le hospodar Alexandru Ghica a appartenu ensuite aux descendants de la famille Blaremberg (les Mavrocordat et les Filipescu). Lancien manoir de Udrite Nsturel de Herti (dans le district dIlfov) tait la proprit des descendants de lhomme politique libral Anastase Stolojan. Le fief de la famille Callimachi tait le manoir de Stnceti (dans le district de Botoani)82, celui dune branche des Miclescu - le manoir de Clineti (dans le district de Botoani). Les Vcrescu possdaient les manoirs de Vcreti (dans le district de Dambovia) et de Mneti (dans le district de Prahova). Les gardenparties organiss par Lydia Filipescu ne Handjerli, descendante directe du prince phanariote Alexandre Handjerli, dans le jardin de son htel rue Dionisie Lupu, les runions de musique dans la demeure de Constance Cantacuzne - soeur du professeur Jean Cantacuzne - boulevard Lascr Catargi ou dans le palais Cantacuzne Calea Victoriei, la rsidence des poux Georges Enesco, taient rputes83. La plupart des reprsentants de laristocratie roumaine de lentre-deux-guerres taient les porteurs dune orientation favorable la dmocratie et pro-occidentale. Le modle franais exerait son influence

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MIHAI SORIN RDULESCU dabord par lintermdiaire de lutilisation de la langue franaise comme signe de la distinction sociale84. La France et Paris exeraient une fascination magique sur les lites roumaines85, dont quelques membres ont lutt mme dans larme franaise, comme ctait le cas de Ioan Olnescu, neveu de Martha Bibescu, mort en juin 1940 dans les combats de France86. La chute de la France a t un vnement qui nous a coup tous le souffle, racontait Alexandru Paleologu87. Cela parce que la France constituait la base de la hirarchie des valeurs de la socit roumaine 88 . Le caractre europen de laristocratie roumaine de lentre-deux-guerres tait d son ducation89, ainsi quaux frquents voyages en Occident90. Les descendants de la noblesse roumaine de Transylvanie et de Bucovine taient par contre levs dans la langue et la culture allemande. Le culte de lhonneur se concrtisait dans le rituel nobiliaire des duels qui existait encore dans la socit aristocratique roumaine de lentre-deux-guerres91. Selon Paul Morand, Bucarest est encore une des villes o les duels sont le plus frquents, et les vieux garons officient comme pontifes de ce rite en voie de disparition92. La vie mondaine de laristocratie bucarestoise est minutieusement dcrite dans la revue Je sais tout de Bucarest, dite en 1939 - 1944 par tefan Miculescu. On est impressionn par le grand nombre de bals qui runissaient les membres du corps diplomatique et ceux des lites roumaines93. Les bals organiss par les diplomates trangers accrdits Bucarest taient aussi trs apprcis94. Les aristocrates roumains se rencontraient aussi diffrentes soires musicales, dans diffrents salons95 et aux vernissages dexpositions96. Si on se demande quel tait le mode de vie de laristocratie roumaine pendant lentre-deux-guerres, la rponse est trs complexe. Quelques-uns partageaient leur temps entre busy leisure et des voyages97. Mais beaucoup de descendants des boyards moldo-valaques et de la noblesse roumaine de Transylvanie se sont intgrs dans la vie active, en illustrant de nombreux domaines. Laviation, domaine de manifestation de lesprit aristocratique, tait reprsente par quelques noms sonores: George Valentin Bibescu, Constantin (Bzu) Cantacuzne, Ionel Ghica, Marina Stirbei-Brncoveanu. Le palais royal tait un milieu aristocratique par excellence, les dames dhonneur (parmi lesquelles Simona Lahovary, Elena Mavrodi ne Greceanu, Irina Procopiu ne Berindei, Nelly Catargi ne Miclescu) et les marchaux du Palais (par exemple Henri Catargi,

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N.E.C. Yearbook 1996-1997 Constantin Hiott, I.Mocsonyi-Strcea, Octav Ullea, Dimitrie Negel) taient issus des familles de boyards. Les membres de laristocratie roumaine se rencontraient lors des runions des clubs dlite, tels le Jockey Club, le club Tinerimea Romn, lAutomobil-Club, le Yacht-Club. Laccs ces clubs se faisait sur recommandation de certains membres. Surtout le Jockey Club, fond en 1875, avait un caractre assez ferm, tant une association composante essentiellement aristocratique. Toutes ces institutions ont t supprimes lavnement au pouvoir des nouveaux dirigeants ; tout le train de vie de laristocratie roumaine a t radicalement bouleverse. Le Jockey Club est issu du dsir de rassembler llite aristocratique roumaine, de la tendance de se crer une institution spcifique, dpourvue de caractre politique. Pour la vie politique il y avait les partis qui se succdaient au gouvernement, en respectant la rgle du jeu dmocratique. Les membres du Jockey Club taient unis par leur passion pour les chevaux et pour les courses, mais aussi par la conscience de leur appartenance llite de la socit. Pendant lentre-deux-guerres le Jockey Club a t dirig effectivement par les vice-prsidents suivants, tous issus des familles de boyards: Alexandru Marghiloman et Constantin I.Blceanu (1919 - 1920), Alexandru Marghiloman et Dimitrie Greceanu (1920 - 1921), Alexandru Marghiloman et Mihail Deliu (1921 - 1923), Alexandru Marghiloman (1924 - 1925), Constantin I.Blceanu (1925 - 1926), Constantin Argetoianu et Barbu Catargi (1926 - 1947). Le Jockey Club avait comme activit principale lorganisation des courses de galop Bneasa, qui reprsentaient autant doccasions de rencontre de llite aristocratique bucarestoise. Ces courses constituaient pendant lentre-deux-guerres lun des spectacles sportifs les plus aims de la capitale, o on accordait le prix du Jockey Club, le prix Royal et le prix de Diane. Le plus fameux propritaire de chevaux de lhistoire du Jockey Club roumain a t Alexandru Marghiloman, dont le haras Albatros de Buzu contenait plusieurs chevaux pur sang anglais. Il y avait galement dautres haras connus : celui de Trgor (Prahova) du gnral Gheorghe Moruzi, celui de Afumai (Ilfov) de Gheorghe Negroponte, celui de Mgureni (Prahova) de Barbu Catargi, celui de Scrovitea (Ilfov) de la Maison Royale, celui du Ministre des Domaines de Cislu (Buzu), Ruetu (Brila) et Jeglia (Ialomia), celui du colonel Polizu-Micuneti, celui de Logreti

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MIHAI SORIN RDULESCU (Gorj) du colonel E.Svoiu, celui de Carapciu (Storojine) de la famille Grigorcea, celui de Balc (Bihor) de Joseph Pinkas. Pendant lentre-deux-guerres le sige du Jockey Club se trouvait dans un htel particulier qui auparavant avait appartenu la famille Gianni, au croisement des rues Episcopiei et Nicolae Golescu, prs de lAthne Roumain. Lintrieur du club tait amnag avec bon got, sans ostentation et il assurait une atmosphre agrable, intime ses membres. M.Manole Filitti, membre du vieux Jockey Club le dcrivait ainsi : Dune grande attraction tait la salle de lecture, avec de grands fauteuils de cuir, idalement claire. Des revues et des journaux de tous les domaines, dans les langues de grande circulation taient sur les tables et sur les tagres. On pouvait lire sans se soucier du temps. Il y avait un silence, le plus parfait silence qui entourait celui qui tait plong dans la lecture./ Il y avait ensuite une chambre lgante de protocole, pour des entrevues, disons, secrtes. Ensuite, deux salles o lon jouait au bridge et au black gamon et o assis sur des canaps et des fauteuils on menait diffrentes conversations. Personne naurait eu lide de lever le ton. Je le rpte, la politesse, la biensance, les bonnes manires taient de rigueur./ Si on se trouvait en ville, si on avait une fentre entre deux affaires, on pouvait passer au Club. On tait toujours bien reu, servi, en trouvant ainsi un instant de dtente soit en lisant, soit en changeant quelques paroles avec un ami98. La salle descrime du Jockey Club a t inaugure par Gheorghe Bibescu, le fils de lancien hospodar avec le mme nom, qui a amen de Paris le professeur descrime Michel. Les femmes navaient pas accs dans les salles du Jockey Club, sauf dans une salle spciale ou elles taient acceptes. Les pices du Club taient ornes avec les portraits de ses membres de marque, avec des gravures de chevaux clbres des haras anglais. Les tableaux, les meubles craient une ambiance hospitalire qui par exemple, faisaient que le peintre Theodor Pallady y passe beaucoup dheures o il avait aussi lhabitude de dessiner. Certains membres du Club jouaient aux cartes, un grand joueur tait laviateur Constantin (dit Bzu) Cantacuzne, le fils de Maruca George Enescu, de son premier lit, avec Mihail G.Cantacuzne. Le Jockey Club roumain coomprenait en 1937, 263 membres permanents, 16 membres titulaires (les chefs des reprsentations diplomatiques trangres), 7 membres temporaires (dautres diplomates trangers); en 1939 il comptait 275 membres permanents, l6 membres titulaires et 6 membres temporaires; en 1941 il contenait 283 membres

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N.E.C. Yearbook 1996-1997 permanents, 16 membres titulaires et 13 membres temporaires; en 1947 il comptait 307 membres permanents. Le Jockey Club tait dirig par le Comit du cercle et par le Comit des courses. En 1937 le Comit du cercle tait compos des deux vice-prsidents du Club, Constantin Argetoianu et Barbu Catargi, et de dix membres : Dinu C. Arion, Radu Crutzescu, Nicolae C. Filitti, Radu I.Florescu, Alexandru Em.Lahovary, Filip Lahovary, Radu Laptev, A.de Mocsonyi, Ioan C. Miclescu-Prjescu, le gnral Grigore Odobescu99. La mme anne, le Comit des courses tait compos des mmes vice-prsidents et de dix membres: Ioan N. Cmrescu, le colonel Gheorghe Capa, Henri Catargi, Grigore G.Duca, Dimitrie Al. Ghika, George Grigorcea, le gnral Gheorghe Gh. Manu, le gnral Gheorghe Moruzi, Grigore Rioanu, Alexandru Znescu100. En 1938 on trouve dans la composition du Comit du cercle, Ioan P.Rosetti-Blnescu, la place du diplomate Radu Crutzescu101. Dans le Comit des courses de lanne 1940 il y a galement une modification : la place du gnral Moruzi, dcd en 1939, fut lu le gnral Victor Dombrovski102. Les temps tourments ont galement influenc le Jockey Club. Ainsi, le 11 juin 1938 fut impos leffacement de lannuaire de ses membres Alexandru Cantacuzne, Alexandru Tell et Radu Meitani, cause de leur appartenance au mouvement lgionnaire103. Pendant plusieurs annes de lentre-deux-guerres apparaissent comme censeurs du Club Manole Halfon et Mihail I.Koglniceanu; en 1946 il y avait dans cette fonction Mihail I.Koglniceanu et A. A. Romalo104. Pendant lentre-deux-guerres, dans le Jockey fut reue une srie de personnalits de la vie publique roumaine provenant de laristocratie: le diplomate Radu Crutzescu (1920), Ioan N.Cmrescu (1920), lingnieur Ioan C.Miclescu-Prjescu (1920), le diplomate et historien Raoul Bossy (1921), le diplomate Ioan Carp (1921; fils de P. P. Carp), le diplomate Constantin Laptev (1921), le peintre Henri H.Catargi (1922), les frres Alexandru et George Cretzianu (le premier diplomate, le second - directeur de la Banque roumaine), le contre-amiral Gheorghe Koslinski (1922), lofficier Alexandru Rioanu (1922), le colonel et compositeur Emil Skeletti (1923), Constantin Flondor, marchal du Palais (1924), lingnieur Serban Ghica, petit-fils de Ion Ghica (1924), le diplomate Dinu C. Hiott (1924), Mihail Oromolu, gouverneur de la Banque Nationale (1924), le gnral Aristide Razu (1924), larchitecte George Matei Cantacuzne (1926), le diplomate Dimitrie I. Ghika (1926), le diplomate Radu Djuvara (1927), le diplomate Dimitrie Iuracu (1927), le peintre Theodor Pallady (1927),

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MIHAI SORIN RDULESCU larchologue Gheorghe Gr.Cantacuzne (1928), le colonel Gheorghe Capa (1928), le diplomate Vasile Grigorcea (1928), Mihail I.Koglniceanu, le petit-fils du grand homme politique du mme nom (1928), le diplomate Frederic Nanu (1928), le diplomate Radu Arion (1929), le juriste Mircea Djuvara (1929), larchitecte Ion Ghika-Budeti (1930), lhistorien dart Radu Cretzianu (1930), le publiciste et diplomate Gheorghe Crutzescu (1930), le juriste Alfred Juvara (1930), lhistorien et diplomate Constantin I.Karadja (1930), laviateur George Miclescu (1930), le juriste George Meitani (1930), le mdecin Alexandru G.Moruzi (1930), le critique de thatre Paul Prodan (1930), le compositeur Mihail Jora (1931), le diplomate Gheorghe Lecca (1931), le prince Jean Korybut Woroniecki (1931), le juriste Radu Meitani (1932), le gnral Paul Teodorescu (1932), descendant du ct maternel de la famille Sturdza, le mdecin professeur Daniel Danielopolu (1933), le gnral Victor Dombrovski (1934), le physicien Gheorghe I.Manu (1935), le diplomate Grigore Gafencu (1936), le baron Ioan de Mocsonyi-Strcea (1936), futur marchal du Palais, le colonel Octav Ullea (1936), le diplomate Nicolae M.Vldescu (1936)105. Le dernier annuaire paru du vieux Jockey Club (1947) montre une croissance importante du nombre de ses membres, parmi lesquels il y avait aussi des membres jeunes. De cette liste on pourrait citer : le futur mdecin professeur Constantin Blceanu-Stolnici (1946)106, le comte N. Banffy (1939), larchitecte Ioan I.Berindei (1938), lingnieur Constantin D. Buil (1940)107, le diplomate Edmond Ciuntu (1938), le gnral Grigore Constandache (1934), Nicolae Chrissoveloni (1942)108, Manole Filitti (1945), le diplomate Eugen Filotti (1939), lingnieur Ion Gigurtu (1937)109, Dimitrie Negel (1942), lavocat Mihail Paleologu (1938) et son fils le futur crivain Alexandru Paleologu (1946)110, lcrivain Grigore Sturdza (1941)111, le juriste Alexandru Vlimrescu (1945)112. Une csure profonde sest produite dans lvolution des structures sociales roumaines, avec llimination violente de lancienne classe politique qui tait la tte de la socit. Linstauration du rgime communiste a carte brutalement laristocratie du sommet de la vie sociale. Les leaders communistes, reprsentants les intrts de Moscou, ont poursuivi par tous les moyens leur but de transformer la structure de la socit, dliminer les anciens hommes politiques, de dtruire toute tentative de rsistance de ceux-ci. On peut se poser la question de ce qui sest pass avec laristocratie roumaine aprs linstauration du rgime totalitaire. En lcartant de la scne politique on a voulu dcapiter la socit roumaine et rompre ses

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N.E.C. Yearbook 1996-1997 liens avec son propre pass. La rpression du rgime na pas frapp seulement laristocratie, elle a affect galement la bourgeoisie et la paysannerie roumaines, classes sociales stratifies qui ont subi des transformations radicales. Laristocratie a eu le plus souffrir cause du rgime, parce quelle a t la partie de la socit la plus attache au pass. Les membres de ce groupe ont transmis de gnration en gnration des valeurs et des souvenirs lis lancienne Roumanie, que le pouvoir communiste a essay de transformer compltement. La fin de la guerre a apport une apparence de normalisation dans la vie de laristocratie roumaine. Dans les premires trois - quatre annes aprs la guerre - crivait Ion Ioanid -, annes encore pleines despoir en lavenir politique et de libert du pays, dans les maisons de la haute bourgeoisie bucarestoise les soires taient frquentes, la socit de la capitale tant en comptition pour avoir parmi ses invits le plus de membres des missions allies occidentales en Roumanie113. Latmosphre de normalit disparat graduellement, comme consquence des vnements patrons par le cabinet Groza : la loi agraire de 1945, les lections fausses de novembre 1946, ltatisation des proprits imobiliaires, les procs politiques culminant avec labdication force du Roi Michel. Un rgime de terreur a t instaur contre la classe des exploiteurs, dont les reprsentants vont tre obligs de supporter les consquences de leur simple appartenance aux couches suprieures de la socit. Ce nest pas le cas de tous les descendants de laristocratie, quelques-uns se sont exils en Occident, en essayant de mener lextrieur du pays un combat, souvent sans succs, contre le rgime instaur Bucarest par les troupes sovitiques. Linexistence des titres de noblesse dans la socit roumaine davant le communisme (avec quelques exceptions mentionnes), mais surtout la duret de la rpression ont eu des consquences importantes sur le sentiment dappartenance laristocratie. Cependant ce sentiment existe encore de nos jours. Dans les socits librales il est transmis de gnration en gnration et ce nest quun rgime politique libral qui peut garantir et favoriser la continuit de lexistence de llite historique.

NOTES
1. Mihai Sorin Rdulescu, Noiunea de elit n istoriografia occidental, n 0 Contemporanul, n 7, 19 fvrier 1993, pp.8-9.

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2. Dan Berindei, Legturile genealogice dintre fruntaii revoluiei de la 1848 din ara Romneasc , n Caietele Blcescu IX-X, Blceti pe Topolog, 1984, pp.113-120. 3. Mihail Manoilescu, Rostul i destinul burgheziei romneti, Bucureti, sans anne, p.23. 4. Ibidem, p.25. 5. Ibidem, pp.303-305. 6. Radu Rosetti, Pentru ce s-au rsculat ranii, dition parue par les soins de Z. Ornea, Bucureti, 1987, pp.368-369. 7. Ibidem, p.369; voir ausi pp.370, 372. e 8. Stefan Zeletin, Neoliberalismul, III dition, Bucureti, 1992, p.34. 9. Ibidem, loc.cit. 10. Ibidem, p.35. 11. Guy Chaussinand-Nogaret, La noblesse, ministre de lidal dans Noblesse 0 oblige, n 89 de la publication Autrement, avril 1987, pp.88-95. e 12. G. Clinescu, Istoria literaturii romne de la origini pn n prezent, II dition, Bucureti, 1982, p.764. 13. Ioan Ndejde, V.G.Morun. Biografia lui si genealogia familiei Morun, Bucureti, 1923. 14. Mihai Racovi-Cehan, Familia Racovi-Cehan. Genealogie i istoric, Bucureti, 1942. 15. Teodor Blan, Familia Onciul. Studiu si documente, Cernui, 1927. 16. Gheorghe Ungureanu, Familia Sion. Studiu i documente, Iai, 1936. 17. Teodor Boti, Monografia familiei Mocioni, Bucureti, 1939. 18. La revue Cetatea Moldovei, janvier 1944, p.67. 19. George D. Florescu, Planul unui Institut de genealogie. Memoriu, in Revista 0s istoric, n 10-12, Bucureti, 1938, pp.340-350. os 20. Rproduits dans Din trecutul nostru, n 36-39, 1936, pp.88-89; janvier-avril 1939, pp.1-7; mai-juillet, pp.25-31; octobre, pp.1-4. 21. Scarlat Preajb, Prezentri literare, extrait de la revue Bugeacul, Bucureti, 1941, pp.21-27. 22. N. Mooc-Epureanu, Un imperativ al vremii : Institutul romn de cercetri genealogice, Iai, 1942. 23. Arhiva Genealogic Romn, Bucureti, 1944, p.85. 24. Constantin Argetoianu, Pentru cei de mine, vol.I, partea I, Bucuresti, ed.Humanitas, 1991, pp.8-11, 13-14. 25. Al. Tzigara-Samurca, Memorii, vol.I, dition parue par les soins de Ioan erb et Florica Serb, Bucureti, 1991, p.21. 26. Idem, Muzeografie romneasc, Bucureti, 1936, pp.XIII-XIV. 27. Ibidem. 28. N. Iorga, Orizonturile mele. O via de om aa cum a fost, dition parue par les soins de Valeriu Rpeanu et Sanda Rpeanu, Bucureti, 1976, p.7. 29. Al. Paleologu, Stelian Tnase, Sfidarea memoriei (convorbiri), Bucureti, 1996, p.59.

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30. Les Brancovan sont prsents dans nombre dalmanachs de Gotha. On cite par exemple, Lalmanach de Gotha pour lanne 1912, p.287. 31. Ibidem, p.355. 32. Constantin Blceanu-Stolnici, Cele trei sgeti, Bucureti, 1990, p.59. 33. Traian Larionescu, Familii vechi bucovinene, in Arhiva Genealogic Romn, Bucureti, 1944, pp.26-27. 34. Ioan cavaler de Pucariu, Date istorice privitoare la familiile nobile romne,2 vol., Sibiu, 1892-1895. 35. Traian Larionescu, op.cit. 36. Constantin Argetoianu, Pentru cei de mine, vol.I, partea I, Bucureti, ed.Humanitas, 1991, p.110. 37. Raoul Bossy, Amintiri din viaa diplomatic, vol.I, Bucureti, 1993, p.187. 38. Constantin Argetoianu, Memorii, vol.VI, partea a VI-a, Bucureti, ed. Machiavelli, 1996, pp.220-221. e e 39. Dan Plesia, Quelques grandes familles valaques des XIV et XV sicles, dans 12. Internationaler Kongress fur genealogische und heraldische Wissenschaften, Munchen, 1974, vol.Genealogie, pp.209-219. 40. Noblesse oblige, Autrement, numro dirig par Yan de Kerorguen et Olivier Poivre dArvor, Paris, 1987. 41. Mihai Sorin Rdulescu, Despre genealogia lui Iuliu Maniu, in Iuliu Maniu n faa istoriei, Bucureti, 1993, pp.14-20. 42. Dan Berindei, Mutations dans le sein de la classe dirigeante valaque au cours e du deuxime quart du XIX sicle, in Genealogica et Heraldica. Reports of the 14. International Congress of Genealogical and Heraldic Sciences in Copenhagen 25-28 August 1988, Copenhague, 1988; idem, Societatea romneasc n vremea lui Carol I (1866-1876), Bucureti, 1992, pp.104-107. 43. Mihail Dimitri Sturdza, Grandes familles de Gr ce, dAlbanie et de Constantinople. Dictionnaire historique et gnalogique, Paris, 1983. 44. Dr. Grigore Ghyka, Mihai Sorin Rdulescu, Orlenii, in Porto-Franco nos 3-4 (9-10), 1991, p.42; idem, Din trecutul P.N.L. - Mihail G.Orleanu (Mihail o G. Orleanu, figure du Parti National Libral), in Liberalul, n 34, 18-25 janvier 1991, p.1. 45. Mihail Dimitri Sturdza, op.cit., p.315. 46. Constantin G.Mano, Documente din secolele al XIV-lea - al XIX-lea privitoare la familia Mano, Bucureti, 1907. 47. Neagu Djuvara, Les Grands Boyards ont-ils constitu dans les principauts roumaines une v ritable oligarchie institutionnelle et h r ditaire? in Sdostforschungen, Munchen, XLVI, 1987. 48. Cf. louvrage gnalogique, juste titre constest, mais parfois utilisable (pour les dernires gnrations) de Octav George Lecca, Genealogia a 100 de case din ara Romneasc i Moldova, Bucureti, 1911, planche 45. 49. Constantin Argetoianu, op.cit., pp.7-17.

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50. Mihai Sorin Rdulescu, Despre originea i nrudirile lui Nicolae Titulescu, in 0 Dreptatea, n 278, 11 janvier 1991, p.2; idem, Theodor Aman legturi genealogice, dans le volume Centenar Theodor Aman 1991, Bucureti, 1991. 51. Mihai Sorin Rdulescu, op.cit., p.26. 52. Ioan C.Filitti, Arhiva Gheorghe Grigore Cantacuzino, Bucureti, 1919, annexe II. 53. Ibidem. 54. Octav George Lecca, op.cit., planches 23, 45. 55. A. D. Xenopol, Istoria i genealogia casei Callimachi, Bucureti, 1897, pp.198-199. 56. Genealogia familiei Brtianu, dresse par George D.Florescu, vrifie et complte par Dan Cernovodeanu, publie dans la brochure de Ion I.Brtianu, Contribuia lui Ioan C.Brtianu la revoluia paoptist din Tara Romneasc i cugetrile sale despre aceast revoluie, Paris, 1983. 57. Nicolae M. Vldescu, arbre gnalogique de la famille Vldescu (indit); galement louvrage gnalogique sur la famille Vldescu, la section des Manuscrits de la Bibliothque de lAcadmie Roumaine, Bucarest (cte A 2460). 58. Alexandru Tzigara - Samurca, Memorii, vol.I, Bucureti, 1991, p.15. 59. Octav George Lecca, op.cit., planche 45. 60. Jean - Michel Cantacuzne, Mille ans dans les Balkans, Paris, 1992, p.442. 61. Mihai Sorin Rdulescu, Genealogia lui Henri Coand, in Contemporanul, 0 n 1, 8 janvier 1993, pp.1, 6, 7. 62. Ioan C.Filitti, Catagrafie oficial de toi boierii rii Romneti la 1829 , Bucureti, 1929, p.23. 63. tefan S.Gorovei, Mihai Sorin Rdulescu, Strmoii cunoscui ai lui N.Iorga, in Acta Moldaviae Meridionalis, VII-VIII, Vaslui, 1985 - 1986. 64. Florin Marinescu, Etude gnalogique sur la famille Mourouzi, Athnes, 1987, p.127. 65. Mihai Sorin Rdulescu, Posteritatea lui Mihail Sturdza Voda, expos prsent e au V symposium de gnalogie Iai, le 14 mai 1994 (sous presse). o 66. Gh.Ghibnescu, Familia Greceanu din Moldova, dans Ion Neculce, n 9, ere I parte, 1931, pp.191-219. 67. En prparation, Mihai Sorin Rdulescu, une tude sur les anctres de lhistorien P.P. Panaitescu. 68. tefan S. Gorovei, Mihai Sorin Rdulescu, op.cit., p.442, notes 23 et 36. 69. Cf. Alexandru V. Perietzianu - Buzu, arbre gnalogique (indit) de la famille Lambrino. 70. Mihail Dimitri Sturdza, op.cit., pp.257-258, 420. 71. Jean - Michel Cantacuzne, op.cit., p.440. 72. Gnral M. Racovi - Cehan, Familia Racovi - Cehan. Genealogie i Istorie, Bucureti, 1942. 73. Octav George Lecca, op.cit., planche 48.

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74. Mihai Sorin Rdulescu, Grigore Gafencu - date genealogice in o Contemporanul, n 38 (75), 20 sept.1991, p.6; idem, Completri la genealogia o lui Grigore Gafencu, ibidem, n 41 (182), 15 oct.1993, p.11. 75. Cf.larbre gnalogique indit de la famille Cernovodeanu dress par dr.Paul Cernovodeanu. 76. Mihail Sturdza, Romnia i sfritul Europei. Amintiri din ara pierdut, Alba Iulia - Paris, 1994, p.52. 77. Mihail Manoilescu, Memorii, vol.I, Bucureti, 1993, p.19. e 78. Mihail G. Stephanescu, Ioan N.Mnescu, Enluminures hraldiques des XVI e XVII sicle dans la collection de lAcadmie Roumaine, Revue Roumaine dHistoire de lArt, srie Beaux-Arts, t.XVII, 1980, pp.32-33. 79. D. Sandru, Reforma agrar din 1921 din Romnia, Bucureti, 1975, p.350. 80. Matei Clinescu, Ion Vianu, Amintiri n dialog, Bucureti, 1994, pp.31-32. 81. Elisabeta H.Varlam, Un remember, in Radu Rosetti, Pagini de jurnal, Bucureti, 1993, p.35. 82. Princess Anne-Marie Callimachi, Yesterday Was Mine, London, 1952, pp.230-231. 83. Paul Emil Miclescu, Din Bucuretii trsurilor cu cai, Bucureti, 1985, pp.101, 105. 84. Alexandru Paleologu, Minunatele amintiri ale unui ambasador al golanilor, Bucureti, 1995, p.57. 85. Roxane J. Berindei Mavrocordato, En tournant les pages, Bucureti, 1939, p.52. 86. Martha Bibescu, Jurnal politic ian. 1939-ian. 1941, Bucureti, 1979, p.220. 87. Alexandru Paleologu, Stelian Tnase, Sfidarea memoriei (convorbiri), Bucureti, 1996, p.72. 88. Ibidem. 89. Princesse Anne-Marie Callimachi, op.cit., p.236. 90. Ibidem, p.207. 91. Emanoil Hagi Mosco, Bucureti. Amintirile unui ora, Bucureti, 1995, pp.267-268. e 92. Paul Morand, Bucarest, II dition, Paris, 1990, p.247. 93. Voir, par exemple, le compte-rendu dun bal au Country-Club dans la revue os Je sais tout de Bucarest, I-re anne, n 3-4, 20 juillet 1939. 94. Constantin Argetoianu, op.cit., pp.115-116. 95. Stefan J. Fay, Caietele unui fiu risipitor, Bucureti, 1994, p.12. os 96. Par exemple dans Je sais tout de Bucarest, n 22-23, dc.1940, sans page, le vernissage de lexposition dAnna Tzigara-Berza, la salle Dalles. 97. Anne Marie Callimachi, op.cit., p.224. o 98. Manole Filitti, Jockey Clubul Romn , Dilema, II e anne, n 69, 6-12 mai 1994, p.16. 99. Jockey Club. Dare de seam pentru anul 1936, Bucureti, 1937, p.4. 100. Ibidem, p.5. 101. Jockey Club. Dare de seam pentru anul 1938, Bucureti, 1939, p.4.

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102. Jockey Club. Dare de seam pentru anul 1940, Bucureti, 1941, p.5. 103. Ibidem, p.8. 104. Jockey Club. Dare de seam pentru anul 1946, Bucureti, 1947, p.15. 105. Jockey Club. Dare de seam pentru anul 1936, Bucureti, 1937, pp.35-45. 106. Jockey Club. Dare de seam pentru anul 1946, Bucureti, 1947, p.26. 107. Ibidem, p.27. 108. Ibidem, p.28. 109. Ibidem, p.29. 110. Ibidem, p.32. 111. Ibidem, p.34. 112. Ibidem, p.35. 113. Ion Ioanid, Inchisoarea noastr cea de toate zilele, vol.II, Bucureti, 1991, p.222.

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VALENTINA SANDU-DEDIU
Born in 1966, in Bucharest Ph.D., University of Music of Bucharest, 1995 Dissertation: Stylistic and Symbolic Hypostases of Mannerism in Music Associate Professor at the University of Music of Bucharest Co-ordinator of the collection Speculum Musicae, Editura Muzical [Musical Publishing House], Bucharest, 1998-present Editor at the Editura Muzical [Musical Publishing House], Bucharest 1990-1993 Researcher in Contemporary Music at the Institute for Art History G. Oprescu, Bucharest 1993-1997 Member of the Composers and Musicologists Union of Romania, 1991-present Member of the M. Jora College of Musical Critics, Bucharest, 1991-present Member of the International Society of Contemporary Music (I.S.C.M.), 1992-present Director of the Information Center on Contemporary Music (I.S.C.M.), 1994-1995 Research scholarship granted by the Alban Berg Foundation, Vienna, 1991 Mellon Fellow at Wissenschaftskolleg zu Berlin, 2000 Awards (selection): 1st Prize at the National Competition for Young Musicologists, Cluj-Napoca, 1989 Prize of the Mihail Jora Union of Musical Critics, 1992

Prize of Composers and Musicologists Union of Romania 1998 Frder-Preis der Ernst von Siemens Stiftung, Mnchen 1998-2001 Books: Wozzeck Prophecy and Fulfillment. Bucharest: Editura Muzical, 1991 Ludwig van Beethoven. Bucharest: Publishing House of the Music University of Bucharest, 1997 Stylistic and Symbolic Hypostases of Mannerism in Music. Bucharest: Editura Muzical, 1997 Studies in Musical Rhetoric and Stylistics. Bucharest: Publishing House of the Music University of Bucharest, 1999 Dan Constantinescu : Compositional Substance. [co-authored with Dan Dediu], Bucharest: Inpress, 1998 Participation in international conferences, symposia, and seminars in Romania, Austria, Canada, and Poland. Over 300 studies, reviews, interviews, and translations published in Romania and abroad. As a pianist, concerts and broadcasts of chamber music in Romania and abroad.

COMMON SUBJECTS IN MUSICAL RHETORIC AND STYLISTICS. ASPECTS AND PROPOSALS

Some explanatory notes

For several years now, I have been concerned with the notion of musical style. In the beginning it was as a concept of art history that had migrated into musicology, by treating - globally, historically - epochs like the Renaissance, Baroque, Classic, Romantic or Modern music, or dealing with the personal style of a composer. My thesis on mannerism in music may be an example of this. This sort of approach is well known in Romanian musicology and it reflects older trends in the thinking about style. What about musical stylistics ? There is a field yet unexploited by our musicologists and that needs a necessary reference to the theory of literature. Being interested in a definition of musical stylistics, I discovered very soon that I must deal, in fact, with musical rhetorics, and that the field of my research would actually become very large. The present paper, however, remains basically an introduction to the problems of musical rhetorics and stylistics. Further details will emerge by restraining my area of research to the rhetorics of modern and contemporary music. But the following pages will draw only a general frame of the discipline (that seems to be an up-to-date subject in many musicological writings by European or American scholars) and propose a few hypotheses. Usefull clarifications and many ideas came from discussions I have had with Prof. Dinu Ciocan (Academy of Music, Bucharest), Prof. Dr. Hermann Danuser (Humboldt-Universitt, Berlin) and Dr. Reinhart Meyer-Kalkus (Wissenschaftskolleg zu Berlin), to whom I express my gratitude for helping me entering into new territories, both in Musikwissenschaft and Literaturwissenschaft. But my work on this

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N.E.C. Yearbook 1996-1997 study was supported first of all by the New Europe College and its Rector, Andrei Pleu, who offered the necessary impulse of intellectual interdisciplinarity during ten wonderful months. Modern musicology has been - often successfully - trying to transpose concepts from other domains in its vision of the sonorous phenomenon, given the fact that the latter is modelled by various disciplines. Most frequently, literature and linguistics seem to provide paradigms to follow - from structuralism to the semiotic approach -, but mathematics and computer science have been full of resources for musical research. Interdisciplinarity proves to be indispensable, the more so as we are talking about a domain, by definition pluralist, musical stylistics. It is supposed to take into account the type of approach that characterises literary stylistics: an older and better founded discipline, which is able to provide at least ideas of a methodological nature.

From rhetoric to musical stylistics. The rhetorical device as a binder.

First of all, relating rhetoric with stylistics - a commonplace in linguistics - might offer enough fields to explore in musical composition, especially in the analysis of rhetorical devices, even though musical rhetoric, flourishing in the Middle Ages, the Renaissance and the Baroque, has practically faded away as a science generating real treatises of writing. But isnt the situation the same in other humanistic disciplines as well? From ancient rhetoric, a technique with a pragmatic character (of orally persuading the audience), the following centuries will gradually lose this pragmatism, maintaining only the notions of structuring a beautiful discourse. Thus, out of the components inventio, dispositio, elocutio, pronuntiatio, memoria, all is left in the end is elocutio - as an art of style, and the last Rhetorics of the 18th-19th centuries represent almost a mere enumeration of devices. And it is not a matter of chance that, as rhetoric disappears from the educational system (also because of the romantic spirit, manifestly opposed to rules and classifications), a new science comes up, somehow replacing it: literary stylistics consecrated at the turn of this century (although the notion of style is much older) as a direct inheritor of rhetoric.1 Similarly, and to a certain extent, in music, the climactic period of rhetorical theorising and applications in composition - the Baroque - seems

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VALENTINA SANDU-DEDIU to be followed by a total disappearance of the interest in the latter. It was only for 20th century exegeses to rediscover the Bachian creation from the perspective of rhetoric and the theory of affections.2 At the same time, though it is also at the beginning of the century that we register the first musicological-stylistic approaches (Guido Adler, Knut Jeppesen, Ernst Bcken, Paul Mies a.s.o.), they do not claim derivation from the science of musical rhetoric - the situation in this case being different from that of the literary science. However, in order to point out what brings them together (in a less obvious way), we shall have to describe, as briefly as possible, the profile of the two disciplines in their historical evolution. Musicians (in the Renaissance and the Baroque) will take over musical-rhetorical devices from ancient oratory (Aristotle, Cicero, Quintilian), and the rediscovery of the work Institutio oratoria by Quintilian (in 1416) will lead to 16th century musical rhetoric, but the very stylistic delimitation between the two types of ancient oratoric discourse - Atticist (dense, concentrated, brief, harmonious, conservative) and Asianic (equivocal, prolix, purposefully faking the angle of perspective, disharmonical, modern, loaded with tension). This will subsequently be applied (by art history and, to a lesser extent, by musicology) in defining stylistic typologies (namely classical/non-classical or Apollonian/ Dyonisian). Later on, liturgical chant - of the Gregorian and Byzantine types -, as well as early polyphony will contain frequent and various reflexes of rhetoric. But the direct, indisputable impact of rhetoric with music will be produced starting with the end of the 15th century. It is then that a new attitude appear, the creator with respect to music linked to a text (be it sacred or profane), transforming musical composition into a science based on the word-sound relationship. If in the Middle Ages there are theorists that (stylistically) classify music into theoretica, practica, then poetica3 , into sacra and secularis or ecclesiastica / vulgaris, and monodic creation into cantus planus, musica mensurabilis a.s.o, starting with the beginning of the 16th century we can talk about a conceptualisation of the term style, most often equivalent with the manner of composition in a certain genre (such as stile grave / stile madrigale4 ). At the same time, humanist influences bring music (at the time, exclusively accompanied by text) close to the art of rhetoric by imitazione delle parole, which is absolutely natural in a creation, be it religious or secular, which is strictly to follow the significance of the word sung. Thus, stile espressivo will stand for the climactic point of the expressive emphasis of the text, of the sonorous reproduction of the affection in a type of creation reserved for the initiated

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N.E.C. Yearbook 1996-1997 - as revealed by its very title, musica riservata. (Out of all these stylistic classifications there also results the specified relationship between the two disciplines.) The stylistic break around the year 1600 - acknowledged and defined as such in all histories of the musical style seen as an age5 -, obvious in the fundamental syntactic change (from modal to tonal, from polyphony to homophony and polyphony, from vocal to instrumental and vocal etc.), resulting in the appearance of new genres (opera is the most outstanding example), will generate a theoretical perspective oriented towards the old and the new. Of course, the important syntactic modifications are due to the new pragmatic attitude towards culture (a certain growing secularisation of music), to a new musical semantics, given the fact that stylistic mutations are first of all related to the history of ideas. Consequently, writings will abound in oppositions of the kind stile antico /stile moderno, prima prattica/seconda prattica6 , where the second category emphasises the affection. (Giulio Caccini, in Le nuove musiche, 1601, describes modern style by cantare con affetto, which will lead directly to the theory of affections in the Baroque.) On the other hand, other classifications are based on style as a musical genre or compartment: musica teatrale, musica da camera, musica da ballo; stylus ecclesiasticus (masses, motets a.s.o.), cubicularis (the madrigal a cappella), scenicus (opera). Important authors of treatises develop an elevated theory of style in the 17th century, from Christoph Bernhard (who, in Tractatus compositionis augmentatus, ca. 1660, makes a distinction between stilus gravis or antiquus, illustrated by Palestrina, and stilus luxurians or modernus, that is free phrase, in instrumental music included, with rhetoric and the theory of affections as an expression of human passions) with Athanasius Kircher (who, in Musurgia universalis, 1650, differentiates between musica ecclesiastica and vulgaris, between stylus impressus and expressus, that is, art influenced by the human psyche and the art of composition with affections, between stylus ecclesiasticus, drammaticus, madrigalescus, melismaticus)7 . Athanasius Kircher also includes in Musurgia universalis a section entitled Musurgia rhetorica, in order to complete the music-rhetoric analogy by the vitality of rhetorical concepts: the baroque composer is bound to invent the idea as a suitable basis for a composition, equivalent to a construction, a development according to the rhetorical discourse. Actually, the musical treatises of the Baroque consider composition as an art of a primarily rhetorical nature, offering real summaries of musical

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VALENTINA SANDU-DEDIU figures analogous to the ones in ancient oratory (but I will come back to the rhetorical figure in more details). For instance, Joachim Burmeister is the first to come up with a systematic grounding for musica poetica (in three treatises - 1599, 1601, 1606, out of which the last one is even entitled Musica poetica). Johannes Lippius (Synopsis musices, 1612) considers rhetoric as a structural basis of a composition and Johannes Nucius (Musices Practicae, 1613) analyses various Renaissance masters (from Dunstable to Lassus) as exponents of a new rhetorical-expressive musical tradition8 . What may come out of this enumeration is the growing interest for the music / rhetoric analogy (especially in the German exegesis) which will come to a climax in the 17th-18th centuries, finding a way into the multiple levels of musical thinking - style, form, expression, interpretive practice. Here is an example of the migration of concepts from one domain into another, in the making of a composition plan on rhetorical grounds: Johann Mattheson (Der vollkommene Capellmeister, 1739) proposes the generating of a work according to the stages inventio (the invention of the idea), dispositio (the arrangement of the idea into the parts of the musical discourse), decoratio or elaboratio or elocutio (the elaboration of the idea), pronuntiatio (the performance of discourse production). Here, the most important stage, dispositio, contains in its turn exordium (introduction), narratio (telling the facts), divisio or propositio (foreseeing the main points, to the composers advantage), confirmatio (the affirmative proof), confutatio (opposing counter-arguments), peroratio or conclusio (conclusion), all these being nothing else but routine techniques of the composition process9 . Thus, a theory of composition is established, a syntax, a grammar of the text, not only of the sentence (accomplished definitely through figures), which follows components of classical rhetoric. Pronuntiatio and memoria are connected to another creative process, that of musical interpretation, without which, of course, composition cannot really have a life of its own. Many other examples of important theorisings, however, may illustrate the baroque ideal of fusion between music and rhetorical principles (from Mersenne to Heinichen...), as a distinctive feature of the age-specific rationalism, but also of the stylistic unity based on those emotional abstractions called affections. The purpose of rhetoric being, since ancient times, that of rendering human passions, it will be made in adequation to the representations of affections, which will appear as a necessity to baroque composers, especially to those in the German space. (Getting once again on the territory of interdisciplinarity, we are bound to mention the origin of the concept of affections in philosophy - Descartes, Francis

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N.E.C. Yearbook 1996-1997 Bacon, Leibnitz -, wherefrom musicians took over the rational rendering of passions, the objectivisation of emotions). The same above-cited exegetes - Mattheson, Kircher a.s.o. - will celebrate the expression of affections in creation, not only in the one with a text, but also in the instrumental one, in order to transmit emotional states to the audience, according to the musical message. Therefore, the composer plans the affective content of the work - he directs the semantics of the work, in modern terms -, all the sonorous parameters (tonalities, harmonies, rhythms, forms, timbres) being interpreted effectively. Even if he thus lays the emphasis on feeling, his approach will however be much different from that of the romantic creator, based on emotional spontaneity, on a different kind of ideology, which rejects rationalism (without, however, being able to entirely avoid it). One must insist upon the fact that resorting to rhetorical figures (components of a real musical vocabulary) to embody musical affection is not enough to ensure the value of a musical piece, which may remain a mere summing up of figures, without getting a place among masterpieces. Anyway, for the 20th century researcher, rather used to a syntactic representation of Renaissance and baroque music, the restoration of the interest for an exact interpretation of the latter, in the authentic terms that were being circulated at the time, means the obligation to reformulate the perspective. This is why all this (brief) outline of certain characteristic notions had as sole purpose to open a - still opaque - horizon to Romanian musicology (with the outstanding exception of Sigismund Todu, in Formele muzicale ale Barocului n operele lui J.S. Bach). At this time, modern musical writings abound in references to rhetoric within the analysis of certain creations, genres or composers in the above-mentioned epochs. But, unlike in literature, the researchers do not manifestly declare their rhetorical approaches as related to stylistics, although there is no doubt with respect to that. On the other hand, studies and volumes written on musical style and stylistics only briefly refer to rhetoric and only when, for instance, the author deals with the style of the age - the Baroque, most often -, where rhetorical concepts cannot be avoided10 . I would, however, go on, wondering why one couldnt write a history of styles through the filter of types of musical rhetoric, which might clarify many uncertainties, especially within the modern landscape. For instance, a severe reformulation of musical rhetoric of a traditional type can be found with Anton Webern, that exponent of the second Vienna school. He condenses the timing of sonorous events to several minutes for a work

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VALENTINA SANDU-DEDIU (which, to many, occasioned a comparison with Japanese haiku art), this being loaded with information anyway. How are the stages of the musical discourse metamorphosed here11 , what types of rhetorical devices could we discover in a music that is rather ascetic, purified of any persuasive ornament, practically of elocutio itself? The old baroque wish to communicate emotional states as diverse as possible seems (but only in a superficial look) to be missing here altogether. This is where one might find a profound change in the perception of new music: not so much in the atonal language, the serial one etc., but rather in another rhetorical manner, prolongued and radicalized after World War II by integral serialists (such as Stockhausen or Boulez) and which has come to a deadlock that has not yet found its solution. The new type of affections or emotions might be defined by an appeal to ideology, will, personality, temperament... Beyond the apparent exploding into the individual12 of contemporary music, what brings together creations that are special from the perspective of the sonorous system may be the type of rhetoric - or... anti-rhetoric used (as in John Cages extreme case). A good composer knows how to combine and graduate his arguments from an initial idea towards a climax, he infers for how long or in what place to use figures of repetition (to put it differently - anaphora, repetitio, gradatio, polyptoton, synonymia), of contrast (antitheton, mutatio toni ), of silence (suspiratio, abruptio, aposiopesis) a.s.o. Irrespective of the sonorous system used or of various techniques - serialism, aleatorism, modalism, textures, stochastic or spectral elements etc. - and however far all these may be from the musical tradition, the configuration of the musical discourse should however respect the somewhat organic laws of rhetoric, with a view to intelligibility and establishing a relation with the audience, who will undoubtedly feel that type of construction, even if one of the strictly musical techniques enumerated is foreign to them. As what is rhetoric if not, ultimately, a relationship of communication by means of which an individual, through his discourse, tries to obtain from an interlocutor his adherence to certain acts13 . The discourse must point out and persuade by means of inventio (the search for arguments), dispositio (the syntax of arguments), elocutio (the presentation of arguments) - here is a necessity formulated by Aristotle and constantly valuable for the viability of a work of art. Ultimately, rhetorical devices are based on old and generally valid conventions, whose description seems easy: usually, light, the seraphic, joy or some kind of elevating state of mind will be suggested by means of the acute register and, on the contrary, the gloomy and the teluric by

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N.E.C. Yearbook 1996-1997 means of the low register. Negating or neglecting such conventions may constitute an aesthetic in itself (Cage again), but, as demonstrated by the musical present, reconciliation with the past, if not achieved at the level of language or forms, could rather be correlated to rhetoric. In fact, what brings together stylistics and rhetoric, irrespective of the age or of the composer analysed, that is, rhetorical devices, must first of all be defined as those means of adorning, of elaborating a discourse on the basis of a purposeful affective representation, of adding musical dramatic tension to words and poetic concepts. As basic units, building stones, elements of vocabulary (situated at the level of the musical phrase), rhetorical devices - melodic, rhythmic, dynamic, timbral microstructures - render unity and homogeneity to the musical discourse. Inherent parts of decoratio, rhetorical devices were theorised and considered essential in musical composition, at some point. Of course, baroque theorists borrowed Latin and Greek rhetorical terminology for musical devices, inventing however many other names, out of specific sonorous needs. But there is no well-defined system of devices, though 20th century exegesis has been trying to organize, to classify them on the basis of 17th-18th century treatises (Burmeister, Lippius, Nucius, Thuringus, Herbst, Kircher, Bernhard, Ahle, Janovka, Walther, Vogt, Scheibe, Spiess, Forkel)14 . The most illustrative, concise and eloquent is the suggestion of the Grove Encyclopaedia to systematically group seven categories of devices that are most frequently used in creation (wherefrom I have already quoted repetition, contrast or silence devices): of melodic repetition, based on fugue imitation, formed by dissonance, intervallic, hypotyposis, sonorous, as well as break-formed structures.15 Resorting to linguistics once again, to bring the parallel I have previously suggested to a conclusion, we shall see that the most widely spread definition of rhetorical device is the concept of deviation, of modification of a primary expression which is considered as normal (the norm being, for instance, everyday language)16 . This does not imply that we can find in music (an exclusively artistic language) the possibility to trace any distinction of the kind that exists between everyday language/literary language, the norm will have to be sought elsewhere, but the devices will stay as much connected to an affective or a decorative purpose. Actually, discussions around the idea of deviation have generated quite a lot of controversies in literary theory: not all devices are deviations (according to an imaginary rule of a language that should have no devices in order to meet the requirements of the idea of norm) and the other way round;

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VALENTINA SANDU-DEDIU devices are not a privilege of literary language etc., that is, the entire scaffolding of deviation from the rule fails at the level of explanation, but may offer suggestions in a concrete description.17

Musical style as deviation

The same problems will be raised in the vision of style as deviation, one of the possible interpretations of particular features in an artistic discourse, together with style as choice or as elaboration (categories I shall come back to). Starting from Aristotle (The Poetics), poetic discourse is defined as deviation, opposed to practical, everyday discourse: these are the origins of the concept of deviation, seen by Aristotle in two situations, either exteriorised in concrete elements for the unwontedness of the discourse (devices), or becoming one with the unwonted discourse itself.18 Difficulties that may sometimes be insuperable are raised by the need to specify, to establish a norm according to which one may detect deviation. To resort to a concrete example, the Bachian style would distinguish itself as deviation from an average baroque style, possibly illustrated by the works of someone who is a lesser composer, but a great theorician Mattheson. His fugues are impeccable from a technical point of view, however they lack the semantic load, the refinement and the complexity of Bachs fugues; only by comparison will one be able to analyse the means to measure all these Bachian attributes in the score. Or, getting to further details, the Mozartian style, as compared to that of one of Bachs sons, Johann Christian (whose influence on Mozart is a commonplace in music history), will reveal an increase of poeticity at least at the level of the construction of musical phrases. With Johann Christian Bach, quadrature has a consistence that is almost untouched by asymmetries, while the analysis of the musical text in an instrumental work by Mozart will lead to the discovery of patterns of the type 3 + 5 bars or 4 + 6 or 6 + 3 etc. Specifying the four types of literature, and thus a construction that may reverberate in musical stylistics, Heinrich Plett19 analyses deviation depending on them. Let us briefly remember - with the inevitable risk of a schematisation - the typological acceptions. Mimetic literature lays the emphasis on mimesis, on imitating reality, but not as a mere copy, but as a representation of a reality that may exist, being adequately reflected in literary genres such as the epic or the tragedy, with the specific man-universe relationship. Expressive literature means emphasising emotionality,

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N.E.C. Yearbook 1996-1997 spontaneity, originality, the notion of genius, it means exteriorising the poetic ego by a suggestive character, any imitation (both of nature and of classical models) being of evil repute in genres such as lyrical poetry, autobiography, diary, subjective essay, epistle, memoirs, literature with philosophical reflections. Receptive literature is translated through the effect, the impression produced by the work of art on the reader/audience, the reception being pshychoagogical, sociological, intraliterary, the latter aiming at the effect of texts on texts and containing references to the sources, parallels between themes, motives and forms. Finally, rhetorical literature, that literature that distinguishes itself by a special linguistic form, contains the system of rhetorical devices as deviations that describe in a differentiated way the various degrees of linguistic artificiality and of aesthetic and emotional effects produced by them.20 If we trace possible correspondences between mimetic literature and aspects of musical Classicism , between expressive literature and Romanticism (especially the programmatic one) -, then it is easy to bring together rhetorical literature and music based on rhetorical devices and on the theory of affections in the Renaissance and the Baroque. Finally, receptive literature, offering a scale of values depending on reception, may also be transposed on musical grounds - as various aesthetics of reception, hermeneutics or musical pragmatics have already proved. Of course, it is not for these types to be found in an absolutely pure form in creation (the author admits their importance only as instruments of systematisation), but a multitude of valid interferences - such as a mimetic text with a rhetorical linguistic form and an affective effect. Plett himself signals the connection with historical styles: the neoclassicists stress the mimetic, but never give up a rhetorical linguistic form; the romantic passage from mimesis to expressivity does not mean giving up linguistic art and its effects; rhetoric and reception have always been in tight connection. And as regards deviation, this comes, with the mimetic notion of literature, from the opposition between fiction and reality; with the expressive notion, from the opposition between reference to the ego and reference to the object; with the receptive one, from the opposition between the emotional effect and the rational one; with the rhetorical one, from the opposition between the language of art and everyday language21 . Only the two median situations can be translated into musical composition, offering models to follow. But what reveals many resources for musicology is the specification of the four criteria of poeticity (two qualitative and two quantitative ones) -

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VALENTINA SANDU-DEDIU of course insufficient in themselves to ensure the aesthetic value of a literary, respectively musical text. Deviation as non-grammaticality, that is, deviation from the rule by not observing the grammatical norm of standard language at several levels, a text being however supposed to combine grammatical phenomena with anti-grammatical ones, may be illustrated by the example above: Mozart - J. Chr. Bach, at the level where musical microstructures are intertwined. Deviation as equivalence, a deviation that strengthens the rule (equivalent structures overlapping the rules of everyday language grammaticality) may be rendered by means of synonyms as repetition, correspondence, concordance, identity, similarity, analogy etc. If here Plett exemplifies by the device of paronomasia, the latter has a musical equivalent, according to Scheibe22 , by repetition of a musical idea on the same sounds, but with new additions or modifications, with a view to emphasising it. Deviation as occurrence, a statistically rare appearance of linguistic phenomena, determines the following alternative: all that is rare, exceptional, appears as poetic - such as atypical dissonances and diabolus in musica in the Renaissance, the plagius in the tonal system, the major chord in atonalism (see the C major chord in Wozzeck by Alban Berg, in Polymorphia by Penderecki or in Winter Music by John Cage) -, all that is frequent, normal, is non-poetic. Finally, deviation as recurrence, the statistically frequent return of linguistic phenomena, with an excess of linguistic elements that is not to be found in everyday language, may be found in the abundance of rhetorical devices in a baroque musical text - which however does not ensure its value. Therefore, structural asymmetry, the multitude of rhetorical devices or the rareness of a phenomenon are not enough to ensure the poeticity of a music, but the four principles enumerated may be a good starting point in a stylistic analysis. But they must be completed by a literary-aesthetic pragmatics (performance), that should confirm the validity of one or the other of the aesthetic norms by certain textual updating in a certain place and at a certain moment and in a certain society.23 When applied, for instance, at the level of styles in an era, they may become the vehicle of describing, hypothetically, a mannerist period (with a predominance of non-grammaticality, of occurrence) or a classical one (where equivalence and recurrence have the status of norms), with an emphasis, respectively, on singularity, non-predictability, newness or frequency and predictability.24 A last specification with respect to deviation will be useful to musical research, for which, as I have already stated, norm cannot be represented

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N.E.C. Yearbook 1996-1997 in everyday language: linguistic-aesthetic deviation is not only different from the synchronic everyday norm, but also from a poetic norm of the forerunners, which it, as a deviation from the deviation, has replaced in the process of <literary evolution>.25 This is why we are - for instance analysing musical forms or harmony in Romanticism by signalling permanent deviations from the classical norm: widening, structural liberties, as well as the enrichment or chromatisation of harmony implies an underlying classical model which the romantics take over, modifying it.

Musical style as choice

The acception of style as deviation does not exclude the one of style as choice, which other literary theorists operate with, thus explaining the option of the author within the elements provided by a given system.26 In this case, there is a musicological approach in the American space belonging to Leonard B. Meyer - which grounds the idea of choice in musical stylistics: Style is a replication of patterning, whether in human behaviour or in the artifacts produced by human behaviour, that results from a series of choices made within some set of constraints.27 The author is referring to lexical, grammatical, syntactic choices in a given language, justified by the premise that the entire human behaviour appears as a result of a choice. Differentiation comes up in the context of stable styles (such as Classicism) or of prospection, leaving room for few, respectively many possibilities of choice, equivalent to alternative modes of saying the same thing. Meyer does not exclude, however, the possibility of classifying a style function of deviations, seen as differences of manner with respect to constant, recurrent features, which actually constitute the major preoccupation of musicology. This is what a difference of style perspective in literary criticism and in musicology would consist in: either does it refer to particular features of a poem, novel etc., or to common features, reproduced by a musical work, an artists work, a movement or a period. This is maybe why people of letters correlate style with deviation from norms and conventions, while musicologists insist on common conventions and norms. A few specifications made by Meyer - of the psychological approach type of his book28 - configurate the theory of choice. It may for instance be analysed by the relationship between composition sketches and the

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VALENTINA SANDU-DEDIU complete work (starting from Beethoven, a famous source for such comparisons, this has been common practice) to explain the purposes, the intentions in the composition choice. Of course, aesthetic elegance or expressive richness, the wish of a specific master or audience, orders, interpretation or acoustic conditions, a cultural ideology the author belongs to may become - separately or in a combined way - the determining parameters of artistic choice. What is still important is the way in which imitation turns into influence. According to the specificities of their personalities, some composers tend to choose more novel relations than others - Handel seems more of an adventurer than Bach (a debatable assertion!) -, which does not necessarily presuppose the value of the respective works. Ultimately, particular choices depend to a greater extent on cultural-musical constraints than on personal inclinations. Innovations compatible with the inclinations and constraints of the human processes of knowledge tend to be understood as stable, coherent, memorable. A key formulation, signalled by L.B. Meyer - a pattern, concept, attitude, and so on, is not chosen because it is influential; rather it is influential because it is chosen29 - remains emblematic for a certain mentality of research. Music history tends to lay the stress on the action of the past on a passive present - of the kind: Enescu was influenced by Faur or by Brahms (etc.)... -, omitting the fact that it is for several contemporary composers to be exposed to the same virtual influences, though not all of them take them over, or, if they do, it is not in the same way. Influence implies interpreting the source: Beethovens fugues are certainly tributary to Bach or Handel, but how big is the distance from the baroque composers to the classical one! A specific situation thus brings face to face the classical fugue and the baroque fugue. In the former, articulations are disjunct (closing cadence, then the new beginning of the polyphonic discourse) as compared to the second, where they overlap (the reason probably being in the need for a greater tonal-cadential clarity with the classics - see Haydns fugue in the String Quartet Op. 20 No. 5 or the fugue-sonata at the end of Mozarts Jupiter Symphony). Stylistic change consequently seems to take place not by a gradual transformation of certain complex entities, but by permuting and recombining certain more or less discrete features or ensembles of features which, chosen by the composer, may come from separate sources. It is not so much the past that models the present, but the present, selecting from the abundance of its possibilities, models the type of past that we are building, history thus being the result of a selective present.30

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N.E.C. Yearbook 1996-1997 In order to establish a repertoire of alternatives out of which the composition choice will be operated, it is necessary to specify the constraints , which in the case of the nature of musical style are psychological and cultural constraints. Conceptualised by musicians in treatises of composition, harmony, counterpoint, forms, constraints are analysed by Meyer by means of a hierarchy of laws, rules and strategies. Namely, laws are transcultural, universal constraints, such as regularity, repetition, similarity of stimuli and events, generating connections. Rules, as the highest level of stylistic constraints, differentiate large periods (such as the Middle Ages, the Renaissance, the Baroque, Classicism and Romanticism, the 20th century). The discussion is placed within the dimensions of harmony or counterpoint rules (and, as such, of the history of the respective treatises) or of dependence rules, which are contextual and syntactic. Ultimately, the modification of rules in music history leads to delimiting the epochs in a more or less precise way: the modal, then the tonal one (starting from ca. 1600) and looking for solutions to avoid the tonal (after 1900). And strategies aim at the individual by composition choices within the possibilities established by the rules of a style, thus resulting an infinity of possible strategies. Changes of rules make new strategies possible, the strategic game is that which can be defined as an exception from the rule, stylistic theory thus witnessing a combination of deviation and choice. In its turn, the composers individual choice is also placed at three levels, according to the above-cited American author. Dialect would be equivalent with a sub-style, such as Northern / Southern Renaissance music, Venetian/Roman opera, early/high classical style, impressionism/ expressionism. (Which means, we must add, that 20th century music engulfs sub-styles within a style that has not yet found its name.) Idiom would represent the level of individual selection: Bach and Handel use the same dialect, in different idioms. Idiom - somehow synonymous with manner - is divided into other sublevels, such as a composers creation stages. Predictably, what is left is the intra-opus style as a level of the work itself, the distinction between intra-opus style and intra-opus structure31 generates the differentiation between style criticism and style analysis (the former being a more refined stage of the latter, according to Meyer). Stylistic analysis does not deal with what recurs with a certain constancy, and individual works serve as a basis for generalisation on the nature of the rules and strategies which guide the option of a composer or of a group of composers. The style of a work is not only a matter of

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VALENTINA SANDU-DEDIU intra-opus constraints, but also of constraints predominating at the level of idiom and of dialect. All these classifications, besides pointing out the importance of choice in the building of a style, have gradually led us to the type of approach, ultimately to the methodology of stylistic analysis. There are many modern analytical models focusing on the notion of style, without specifying a certain position with respect to the understanding of style as deviation or as choice, nor as elaboration32 , therefore limiting themselves to the musical arena, without trying to establish any parallels (that may be productive sometimes) with the literary theory of style. But certain analytical grids remain of importance in musicology by getting away from structuralist approaches and opening towards comparison in order to establish the style of a work, of a composer, of an epoch, of a certain region, a.s.o. - as we shall see while looking at certain taxonomies proposed.

Analytical models in musical stylistics

A review of the stylistic consciousness in 20th century musicology is, consequently, not without use. Musical stylistics seems to mainly attract the interest in the context of a fin de sicle syndrome, paradoxically as it may seem in a moment when musical composition - as well as the other arts - lacks definitions, global stylistic orientations. The fashion of postmodernism (which anyway did not offer a terminological solution to musical creation) fades away in the conclusion that there are, of course, infiltrations of a postmodern aeshetic in the late 20th century art of sounds, without its being subsumable to an integrating concept. Manifest stylistic pluralism, the creative individualisation started by Romanticism and sometimes led to its extremes in our century could be characterised by one single unifying feature: the experimentation and systematisation of a getting away from the tonal system or its reinterpretation in a modern perspective. This is why the types of analysis performed on classical texts can, in most cases, no longer match the new situations - may they be impressionistic, expressionistic, serial, aleatory, spectral a.s.o. On the other hand, new analytical grids are being suggested even for the tonal music of past centuries, corresponding to the renewing vision of the present. And, as any valid musical analysis ends up being a stylistic approach -

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N.E.C. Yearbook 1996-1997 even if only owing to its stages of description (putting forth a list of features, their frequency) and classification, comparison, study of features replicated in works or a repertoire of works, elaboration of hypotheses and their interpretations -, modern systems of musical analysis may be almost entirely circumscribed to stylistic research. Theorising may take the aspect of a rhetorical analysis, especially with Renaissance, baroque music (manifestly operating, as we have already seen, with musical-rhetorical figures, with devices), but extended to other types of music, including modern and contemporary creation, by analogy with literary research. Western musicology has already demonstrated this in various texts, such as Missa Solemnis by Beethoven, for instance33 ; it is true that, in this particular case, the rhetorical tradition may easier be discovered in a vocal-symphonic work, with religious lyrics, thus directly originating from the Renaissance and Baroque musical past. Generally, vocal music allows rhetorical interpretations, be it in Lieder by Schubert, Schumann, Wolf, Webern, von Einem34 or in the opera, where rhetorical analysis becomes indispensable, irrespective of historical context.35 Another field of stylistic analysis would aim at computer-assisted generation of music types in a given style, forcing a dissection - as minute, rigorous and exhaustive as possible of that style (most often, a composers style).36 For such approaches, the methodological apparatus remains the first condition to meet, that is, the choice of a method of analysis is fundamental, and this is why I shall enumerate several modern analytical models, some of them manifestly stating their stylistic finality. Distinct modalities of approach to the musical text have challenged modern analysts to try to create systems based either on the fundamental structure (Heinrich Schenker), on the thematic process (Rudolph Rti) or functional analysis (Hans Keller), on stylistic features and parameters (Jan La Rue), on semiotics (Nicolas Ruwet and Jean-Jacques Nattiez), information theory (Norbert Bcker-Heil) or the theory of sets (Allen Forte) a.s.o.37 , all these adding to (and completing, opposing) older, well-known approaches, signed by Hugo Riemann (phraseological analysis), Guido Adler and Knut Jeppesen (analysis based on stylistic concepts) or Ernst Kurth and Alfred Lorenz (the gestaltists) etc. In each case, modern analysis is trying to overcome traditional guidemarks that created artificial situations of form, frozen patterns, necessary to study music, but separating it from one of its primordial elements - temporal movement. The models enumerated more or less avoid this shortcoming (it is not easy to resist the temptation of a Procustean

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VALENTINA SANDU-DEDIU bed as an analytical grid), all having, however, comparison as a common, indispensable method. Another obstacle in accepting traditional analyses remains their limitation to tonal, functional scores, that is, the impossibility to use them in exploring a modern or contemporary text.38 Among the exegeses interested in stylistics, Guido Adlers modifies the angle of historical writing on music, introducing the notion of STYLE (Der Stil in der Musik, 1911), as an ensemble of those features that bring together the works of a certain historical period. Jeppesens works on counterpoint (especially Palestrinas Style and Dissonance, 1925) have consecrated among the most outstanding examples of concrete, detailed analysis. On the one hand, Guido Adler defines concepts such as stylistic direction, stylistic modification, stylistic transfer, stylistic hybridisation, stylistic mixture and, on the other hand, he exposes two analytical methods (and the criteria implied): the inductive one (consisting of examining several works in order to identify what they share and in what sense they differ) and the deductive one (comparing one given work with the surrounding ones, both contemporary and preceding creations, measuring it by a set of conditions and establishing its position in a given context). In fact, Adler remains one of the first musicologists who consider that the comparative method is the essential one for the stylistic kind of approach. Adlers opinion - expressed in the statement the building of style is made of minor, as well as major devices 39 - is essential in pointing out the importance of a creative personality such as Mozarts, for instance, as compared to a middle style of his age represented by Bachs sons, and not only. Adlers disciples, who carried on his stylistic preoccupations - Ernst Bcken and Paul Mies - will intensively work on Beethovens scores, an adequate object to focus on when investigating personal style, and similar methods will be applied in their research by other of Adlers followers, up to our days - Helm, Becking, Besseler. The empirical-descriptive method, comparable to Adlers, is also used by Knud Jeppesen in tracing the (intervallic, rhythmical etc.) coordinates of Palestrinas melodic style, on the basis of comprehensive analyses of the Renaissance composers vocal creation, the scientific aspect coming from the exhaustive, detailed analysis that objectively puts forth laws of writing. Jeppesen stresses the statistic aspect and thus opens the way to modern computer-assisted analyses, based on statistic techniques.40 But these are only possible in the case of a restricted observation corpus, even reduced to one single dimension: for instance, in the study of the

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N.E.C. Yearbook 1996-1997 romantic lied, five musical versions on the same poetic text have been compared, but only the vocal line could be computer-generated.41 The easiest to formalise is serial music - to which one may adequately and successfully apply the theory of sets -, which is explainable also by the abstract aspect of its generating process. Although with promising results, computer-assisted analysis of modal-tonal music maintains a certain difficulty of language conceptualisation, necessary to computer manipulation. While just overviewing historiographic generalisations signed by Richard Crocker - A History of Musical Style, 1966 - and Gnter Hausswald Musikalische Stilkunde, 1973 - to point out the late 20th century preoccupation for style as period, La Rues methodological suggestion in Guidelines for Style Analysis42 deserves, in its turn, special attention. The novelty of stylistic analysis in Romanian musicology will determine two obstacles - not easy to handle at all - in the understanding of this work, namely: adapting Anglo-Saxon terminology to Romanian musicological language and accepting the fact that, generally, American musical theory (where the author belongs) contains certain principles different from the European one. I refer, first of all, to the five elements suggested to be analytically cut up by Jan La Rue - on the side of stylistic observation - and to the temptation (that is not to follow) of assimilating them to sound parameters in European theory: Sound, Harmony, Melody, Rhythm and Growth.43 These will be pursued according to a well-established routine, specifying three standard dimensions of analysis (which may vary according to the genre and the length of the work analysed, the levels modifying in an instrumental miniature as compared to an opera work, for instance): small (the level of the motif, phrase, maybe period), middle (maybe period, paragraph, section, part) and big (movement, work, group of works). A certain three-fold rule generally governs La Rues approach, with the intention to avoid polarities of the type acute / low, faint / loud, simple / complex, rarefied / dense, stable / active, disorder / order etc., by admitting a medium solution between the two extremes: for instance, simple/ composed / complex. And the stylistic artistic phenomenon analysed goes through three main stages: background, observation, evaluation, detailed through various phases and conditions, from establishing the historical references of the period the work analysed belongs to, to the following step - significant observation (not dispersion into details, but selection of important data) -, each musical text generating a particular analysis law, even if there is a generalising grid providing the guidelines. The first

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VALENTINA SANDU-DEDIU axiom of the analyst in the three stages (which may appear as self-explaining, but not at all negligible if we take into account the simplifying temptation to go all along the analytical path, step by step) will always be the integrating vision of the work as a whole, and only afterwards the extraction of significant details. Jan La Rues principles best apply to music of the traditional functional kind (modal, tonal music), though they may be adapted to 20th century-specific languages. The authors musical-analytical exemplifications are however mainly limited to the period 1600-1900, with a predilection for the Baroque (for whose creation there is a special competence), though the SHMRG formula also contains - even though only theoretically - references to the Sonority of concrete music or to atonal, dodecaphonic, serial Harmony . (Here is, once again, the first-ranking difficulty of an analytical method, that of offering a comprehensive generality.) From the stylistic point of view, however, La Rues volume has the merit of offering various sets of questions (according to the three dimensions) which the analyst - after having gone through the given work by a method always adjusted to the respective conditions must be capable to answer, in order to define as exactly as possible the stylistic orientation of a composition. Although the spectrum of American musicology is rich in stylistic definitions, I shall only refer to two works that seem essential to me, one of them being contemporary with La Rue (therefore belonging to the 70s), the other being more recent, maybe the latest significant approach in the field of musical style, namely Charles Rosen - The Classical Style44 and the already cited work of Leonard B. Meyer - Style and Music. Theory, History, Ideology. Rosen offers extremely valuable analyses from the creation of the three Viennese classics, purposefully limiting the spectrum of his preoccupations to the style of a certain group of creators, defined by the most individual accomplishments. The analysts role is, therefore, to select the most advanced works, the elements that denote the most elaborated musical thinking of Haydn, Mozart or Beethoven, but also a comparison between them and the average of the composers of the age (for instance, by pointing out the most frequent melodic outlines and then detecting distinctive features). In his turn, Meyer synthesises decades of research in a book of authentic theorising of musical style (which is unique from this point of view), where, inevitably, an enumeration of principles of stylistic analysis also finds its place (only a chapter of the complex texture of the volume). Establishing

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N.E.C. Yearbook 1996-1997 a hierarchy of levels of analysis imposes natural similitudes with literary theory, where the notion of extremely wide extension - style - may apply to a group of languages, to one language, to an age, to literary genres or subjects, to certain literary schools or milieus, to a writer or to a moment in his creation, to a work or a part of a work (chapter, fragment, paragraph, phrase).45 At the same time, a similar ordering is plastically represented by the upside-down pyramid of the semiotician and musicologist Jean-Jacques Nattiez46 , where the semantic strata of the concept of musical style start at the upper part, with the universal dimension of music, crossing the system of reference, the style of a genre or of an epoch, a composers style, the style of a period in a composers life, in order to arrive at the top of the pyramid - the work. With Meyer, stylistic analysis treats as a set the works in a certain repertoire, suggesting the following taxonomy47 : a. a composers works (in periods or as a whole); b. the works of a group of composers (maybe from a certain period and belonging to the same culture, such as the Viennese school, impressionism etc.); c. works written in the same geographical area (the Russian style, North-Indian music as compared to the South-Indian one); d. works of a specific genre (opera, lied, chamber etc.); e. works written for a specific socially-defined cultural segment (folk music); f. works written for a utilitarian purpose (liturgic, military music); g. works written in an important period, in an extended cultural area (the Renaissance, the Baroque etc. in Western European music)48 ; h. the music of an entire civilisation (Amerindian music, Renaissance European music etc.), and other divisions and subdivisions are possible. The classification of certain features is achieved according to affinities among elements, aspects that are extracted out of time and treated as isolated entities: for instance, according to the melodic contour, rhythmical and metrical groupings, according to formal typologies, expression (a.s.o.). There result structures of classes, where the (non-hierarchical) relationships are synchronic, not diachronic (but the importance of history must not be neglected). But classification - as a descriptive discipline - is only the primary stage of stylistic analysis, which continues by formulating and testing hypotheses. A concrete example of an analysis scheme, in Meyers book, refers to the features of Wagners maturity style. Here were several suggestions of analytical systems focusing on stylistic parameters; we may, however, come back to the idea that, ultimately, any analysis that does not stop at the level of classifications and deals with comparison in the first place is equivalent with a stylistic research, that is, with the definition of specific characteristics of a composer or a

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VALENTINA SANDU-DEDIU group of composers, reflected in the way of turning to good account language, of choosing specific instruments within the latter. The description of a style, of the specificity of the creative gesture ultimately means relating the object of study to a normative system, it means pointing out the norm and the exceptions from the norm. Consequently, the two postulates of linguistics - style as deviation and style as choice - may be combined, may interfere in defining the musical style, towards a discipline that goes beyond the historiographic frame of traditional writing on style, in order to become a modern, interdisciplinary one.

A few particular aspects

For a natural completion of the theoretical principles exposed, a few examples of practical applications will be chosen, first of all from relatively recent theoretical writings that rediscover musical rhetoric. I have already stated that (in general) these studies do not manifestly claim to be of a stylistic nature, but their definition as such cannot be doubted. A notable exception, a book fundamental for understanding the German musical Baroque - Der Musikbegriff im deutschen Barock by Rolf Damman49 clearly and profoundly emphasises the inclusion of rhetoric musical thinking in the respective about style, as well as the relationship of continuity with ancient rhetoric-style. An exquisite example of analysis of an epochs style, by its interdisciplinary - philosophical, aesthetic, theological parameters -, but also specifically musical ones, the work contains, within its six chapters, one that is entitled Das musikalisch-rhetorische Prinzip and another one, Der Affektbegriff. The very term of style, which starts being more and more frequently circulated in scientific-musical writings around the year 1600, comes from rhetoric, and in the Baroque a vast theoretical system of musical style is built, which could not be conceived of without resorting to rhetoric. G.B. Doni, for instance, was defining (in 1640) solo vocal singing in three stylistic categories, on the basis of its evoking the affections: stile Narrativo (natural declamation), stile specialo Recitativo (a type of disocourse that specifies the affections) and stile Espressivo (climactically dramatic representation).50 Damman also establishes a necessary distinction (coming from the same theories of the age) between simple composition and adorned one, namely between composition with and without musical-rhetorical devices, wherefrom one can derive the composition possibilities to create a pure

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N.E.C. Yearbook 1996-1997 music, with a specifically sonorous semantics, or one that resorts to the vocabulary of devices adding a type of semantics which is connected to a certain literary text. Finally, the most convincing approach is the one that concretises theoretical ideas by score analysis. The author cited deals with prosody with Schtz and Bach (that is, in two distinct periods of the Baroque), demonstrating the complexity and the efficiency of rhetorical analysis especially in vocal-symphonic creation on religious texts. At the same level of an epochs style one may place rhetorical detailing of a musical mannerism, in Claude V. Paliscas study51 , but this time by means of particularising a certain composer - Orlando di Lasso - from the perspective of the writings at the time. Consequently, Lassos elegant style, which is unpredictable and resourceful rather than transparent, clear, uniform, presupposes constructivist procedures, allusions, word and sound combinations, artifices of musical notation etc., as well as a phrase of vocal composition that represents an affection which is distinct by a certain text-inspired manner. The favourite rhetorical figures become various modalities to correlate the parts of a polyphonic composition - such as fugue, mimesis, anadiplosis, hypallage, anaphora -, or means of achieving continuity - climax, auxesis. Given the remarkable frequency of melodic repetition devices, the author of the study cited, Claude Palisca, puts down the conclusion of a music like a natural sanctuary for the rhetorical figures that involve repetition.52 If we accept the fact that in late Renaissance music there is no well-formed manneristic style with a group of creators - as it happens in fine arts -, but that mannerism appears, in the hypostasis of curiosities or of novelty, infiltrated in the creation of certain composers, then we shall move the level of stylistic analysis to the author. The consecrated example of manneristic music is Gesualdo da Venosa, and it is not the figures in his madrigals as such that we call manneristic, but his way of making use of them: when he reveals shocking sonorities, expressive tension, aesthetic violence, then it corresponds to the manneristic aesthetic ideal - as it was first and foremost described by the fine arts of the age. Moreover, the novelty of expressing the poetic oxymoron in music pleads for a manneristic coordinate, given the fact that oxymoron is among the favourite figures of manneristic literature. It is the first time a composer tries, by breaks in the unifying structures of a work - here a madrigal or a polyphonic motet - to express oxymoron of the type <suave dolore> or <dolorosa gioia> in the texts it uses, which belong to certain mannerist poets of his time. (Aurel Stroe)53

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VALENTINA SANDU-DEDIU Finally, the characteristic tendency - not to destroy traditions, but to modify them up to the extremes (as Carl Dahlhaus points out54 ) - may also be noticed in the rhythmical transformations of dissonant figures, inexhaustible with Gesualdo, the concettisto: Multiplicatio (the split of a dissonance by reapeating the respective sound), Extensio (prolonging a dissonance, contrary to the rule requiring that this should not last more than the preparing note and the solving one), Ellipsis (an interruption in the connection between the preparing consonance and dissonance or between dissonance and the solving consonance, by a break).55 Thus, from a secondary phenomenon, dissonance becomes a primary one; but it does not appear unjustifiably, by contradicting the valid norms, but by deforming them (as it can be deduced from the examples above). Technical means cannot be then analysed in themselves, but viewed from a semantic perspective, as it is only like this that the agglomeration of dissonances and exceptions, as well as the expressive tension generated by them, will find an explanation. Other importan contributions in the field of musical rhetoric may configurate the style of a certain genre, such as 17th century harpshichord music or baroque fugue56 , in situations that include welcome interferences with an interpretive stylistics. As, finally, emphasising the sonorous language of that epoch as a direct translator of human affections and passions by means of rhetorical devices nowadays reveals its importance, especially in the field of musical interpretation. No instrument-player or singer that approaches this type of repertoire can avoid understanding the structuring of the rhetorical discourse and the role of the art of persuasion (elocutio), nor the emphasis on particularities such as the expressive importance of ornament (with its function, not at all negligible, of entertaining) or of madrigalisms (word-painting). It is true that an extreme of attention given to the bien-dire can be reached to the detriment of the content, both by the composer and by the performer, and an agglomeration of rhetorical devices in a musical text is not enough to ensure its artistic value. But a mentality that has for a long time been reducing Renaissance and baroque scores (and not only) to strictly syntactic analyses57 should be surpassed, so as to integrate the real practice of the age - that of rhetorical devices -, which brings together purely musical semantics, as well as the one deriving from the word-music relationship. This is why an evaluation of the fugue genre (in its historical evolution from mere imitation to the complex Bachian form), from the perspective of 16th-18th century writings, is the more so interesting. Erudite Greek or

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N.E.C. Yearbook 1996-1997 Latin terminology will maybe make a musicological approach more difficult, but will render the reality and the initial intentionality of the score in a more faithful and more refined manner. For instance, Gregory G. Butler, in a vast study dedicated to the rhetoric of the fugue genre and form, demonstrates how the use of terms such as episode or interlude for certain fugue structures distorts the authentic nature of musical description, much more plastically suggested by confutatio. Present-day theory emphasises counterpoint compatibilities among voices, but leaves the fugue devoid of life, of poetry, neglecting the vitality it used to have at the time when it represented the supreme formal musical frame. While, in fact, fugue proves to have been, at the time, one of the most analysed musical-rhetorical structures, from the frequent application: fugue = canon = mimesis, mere analogies between fugue and mimesis or fugue and repetition (anaphora, repetitio), to the scope of a demonstration that minutely compares the sonorous building with a vast, complicated one of the classical rhetorical discourse. Namely, the parallellism of the chria scheme, equivalent, with the German rhetorician Christoph Weissenborn, with dispositio58 , with fugue development defined by Johann Christoph Schmidt (in 1718), reveals an art of composition impossible to conceive without being initiated in rhetoric. Here is the example of relating fugue-specific composition techniques with sections and subsections of dispositio and of chria, as offered by G. Butlers study:
DISPOSITIO (classical rhetoric) exordium narratio propositio divisio confutatio CHRIA (Weissenborn) FUGUE (Schmidt)

protasis aetiologia (probatio) ... amplificatio - a contrario - a comparato - ab exemplo - a testimonio ... conclusio

propositio (dux) aetiologia (comes) oppositum (inversion) similia (alteration in duration of notes of subject) exempla (transposition, augmentation, diminution) ... confirmatio (stretto) conclusio (closer stretto over pedal)

confirmatio conclusio

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VALENTINA SANDU-DEDIU Theoretical references to fugue rhetoric are numerous in Gregory G. Butlers remarkable systematisation. I would like to point out only two principles that might be derived from here, one serving as a basis for generally analysing fugue as an extended rhetorical discourse, amplifying a given subject, like a conversation, an argument, a dispute, a debate or even a fight, and the other one placing fugue musical structures in parallel with various rhetorical devices. The multitude of interpretive possibilities in this second situation reveals a fascinating semantic universe for the musician of the present. Who is nowadays thinking of naming a double fugue metalepsis, a counterfugue, hypallage, an incomplete subject entrance - apocopa or an incomplete subject exposition - anaphora? In what counterpoint treatises does one meet inversion defined as commutatio, renversement as antimetabole, slightly altered repetition as traduction or adnominatio or polyptoton, accumulation as congeries, augmentation as incrementum, subject / countersubject or dissonance / consonance opposition as antitheton a.s.o.? It is true, present-day practical, didactic spirit cannot be criticised for limiting itself to the syntactic arena, which is easier to explain and to apply, especially in an age when the study of classical rhetoric has disappeared. But just as in literary theory, its place has been taken by stylistics. The discipline of style in musicology can no longer avoid such a problem either, the approach at any level being necessarily interdisciplinary. From the age and the genre, rhetorical analysis naturally arrives at the composer and the creation, that is, at other two stylistic levels. Their permanent interference does not need emphasising when, for instance, the analytical conclusions derived from a work demonstrate their efficacy for an authors entire creation (or the other way round, situations that are however not obligatory). Here are two cases from different ages and geographical areas: Machaut and Purcell59 , two creators who are just as much interested in the deep fusion of sound and music, either in the ballads of the French Ars Nova or in English baroque stage productions. Marie-Danielle Audbourg-Popins musicological perspective on a ballad by Machaut has the merit not only to particularise the respective musical language, but also to treat musical rhetoric in a comprehensive sense. Any musical message, just like any literary one, necessarily has a rhythm, a gradation, it interferes with another one or it is opposed to another one. Consequently, any score with a text may be regarded from the perspective of the ancient procedures of reciting, declaiming: voicing, maintaining

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N.E.C. Yearbook 1996-1997 the sound, gliding or protracting sounds, maintaining or adorning a reciting string etc., artifices well-known in composition as early as the Meistersingers age, belonging both to talking and to singing.60 Actually, the strategy of analysis suggested by the author for a 14th century vocal piece may be extended to any other type of music: if the identifying cadential and precadential elements may be achieved only in music of a functional type, the stresses pointed out by heights, durations, intervals, ascending or descending movements make up a rhetorical ensemble which is possible to evaluate in any style - for example, spontaneous effects of contrast, owed to the opposition between ascending or descending lines, generated by an intervallic style in a predominantly gradual melody (or the other way round), by the disproportion of consecutive durations a.s.o. At the same time, poetic contrast may stand for one of the rhetorical analysis criteria in Purcells semi-opera, King Arthur, the idea of contraries being musically embodied in good / evil or the chtonic / the celestial.61 Besides the musical figures with which Purcell adorns a text by Dryden well-known as one of the great rhetorical poets of the time -, rhetorical gestures such as intervallic leaps for the word far and gradual amble for near or the affective properties of tonalities correlated with the Aristotelian rhetorical concept (such as the ethos of D-Minor and F-Major) are integrated to a rich range of composition meansm, meant to persuade the audience. After all these examples, which suggest the generalising capacity of a rhetorical analysis, all that is left to us is to concretely show its qualities, for example following the figure of exclamatio in different styles. Defined within the Baroque by Johann Gottfried Walther 62 , exclamatio is reproduced in musical terms by a small sixth ascending leap, signifying a certain pathetic expression (with Bach, in invoking divinity), a dramatic climactic point, an emphasis of the pathos, an amplifying means often correlated to another rhetorical device, interrogatio. The acception widens in current practice, any intervallic leap bigger than a third is interpretable as exclamatio (according to text and character), and if it becomes dissonant (decreased seventh), it usually bears the name of saltus duriusculus. Baroque music abounds in such leaps, but also subsequent creations even if purely instrumental ones - do not completely lose its significance. This is why a paradigmatic class can be formed of famous motives containing exclamatio, from the air Erbarme Dich in Matthus Passion by Bach to the first theme of the first part of Symphony No 40, in G-Minor by Mozart, at the beginning of the Prelude in Tristan and Isolde by Wagner,

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VALENTINA SANDU-DEDIU up to Marias air (Soldaten, Soldaten...) in the third scene of Act I of Wozzeck by Alban Berg. Other figures maintaining their structural and semantic importance along time are those formed by breaks, silence having its own expressive role in an art of sounds. Two main types of such figures come to the fore - one of them containing a general pause or a silence that surprisingly comes up within a musical development, the other one interrupting the melody by breaks meant to illustrate the text.63 In the first category we may include abruptio, aposiopesis, homoioteleuton, tmesis, and in the second - suspiratio. (Plasticising the sigh by breaks which fragment a melody is common practice in the Renaissance and the Baroque, in many musical works - such as the madrigal Itene, o miei sospiri by Gesualdo or the 6th scene in Act III of the opera Lincoronazione di Poppea by Monteverdi.) And, to follow along music history, break or silence in the musical discourse remain sources of expressivity, in various situaions. The functions of a break coming up in the discourse abruptly (in traditional, as well as new creation) may aim at heightening the curve of semantic tension, like (emphatically) withholding breath before a climactic point; either, in the case of a gradual fading away, to draw attention to the disappearing sound (The Separation Symphony by Haydn, the last part), or to produce humorous effects (like Haydn in the String Quartet Op 33 No 2, at the end, when breaks are interspersed between thematic fragments), or simply to mark segments of form, like in Bruckners Symphonies.64 Musical language (with the theory of musical phrases and their classification into main, secondary, subordinate) includes syntactic punctuation signs: the discourse starts, has respiration moments, it is led further on, it contains interrogation signs, semicolon, period. (All these are integrated in an age-specific musical rhetoric, but with certain generally valid laws.) Johann Nikolaus Forkel already (in 1788, Allgemeine Geschichte der Musik) was mentioning musical punctuation marks (comma, semicolon, period, interrogation mark, parenthesis etc.). Concretely, one may talk about silence in music also when fermatas, caesuras, interrogations interrupt the musical movement stream; performers, for instance, know what a crown that sounds means, as well as a telling break, unlike breaks proper or free bars in which a partner is to be waited for.

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N.E.C. Yearbook 1996-1997 20th century music marks - just as it happens in almost all of its components - a change of composition paradigm in evaluating silence or quietness as a musical parameter (paradoxically as it may sound) and not as a secondary phenomenon, like breaks in the classical tradition.65 Moments of silence in new music multiply the functionality of the procedure: breaks may count not as interruptions, cut, caesura in the sonorous development, but as elements with equal rights in a sound-silence continuum66 . This is how, after democratising the 12 semitones, after introducing noise in modern music, a third great renewal is represented by the position of equality of the break (the non-sound) with the sound, emphasising the ephemerity of music as a temporal phenomenon (sonority appears from and disappears into silence). This is not the right place to go into further details, and important contemporary theorising (Martin Zenck and Ulrich Dibelius) have already approached the theme of silence in present-day composition, the extreme example being, of course, John Cage. Cages famous silence work in which no sound is produced for, 433 is a work declared to consist of three parts, the pianist or the ensemble chosen performs on stage, without actually playing anything. A paradoxical formulation of music of silence may here mean the foregrounding of the inner image by a practical initiation into listening to silence.67 Many others of Cages creations or Cage-inspired contemporary works may be cited as examples. What we must emphasise in the given context is that silence, as a parameter of musical thinking, has not been an occasion for meditation in itself, going through the musical tradition (up to the end of the 19th century) only peripherally, in particular ways, the essential preoccupation focusing on acoustic achievement. The change of the sound / silence paradigm can be noticed with late Mahlerian creation, Weberns and Bergs orchestra works, then Cage, Zimmermann, Nono. From now on, music is no longer projected from and towards sound, but from the absence of sound, from silence, from the various timbres of silence.68 With a view to establishing a necessary typology, M. Zenck puts forth four dimensions of the concept analysed: 1. Silence in western European music up to the end of the 19th century, with three variants - pianissimo / morendo (after big outbreaks or preparing the grounds for them, when complex chordic masses get thinner etc.), the remoteness effect and break, free bar -, is argued for with traditional examples (with Schumann - the echo effect in Davidsbndlertnze, piece No 17, Come da lontano; with Mahler - the well-known remoteness

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VALENTINA SANDU-DEDIU effects with brass instruments, grounding an orchestral principle of music spatialisation). The ordering of break types in western tradition is achieved with the same consistence in Zencks study, which reminds of the baroque rhetorical figure for death (aposiopesis), with Schtz and Bach (to be later found with Beethoven in Egmont69 ); breaks as empty bars, as an expression of the trivial (Zenck exemplifies by analysing the 13th of the Diabelli Variations, showing how Beethoven uses breaks to change the trivial character of Diabellis waltz); General Pause, as a tough cut in the musical movement, as a form of a powerful contrast, as a connection of disparates etc. (examples are given by Scherzi by Beethoven and Schubert). The 20th century change of paradigm will not mean a spectacular leap, but the three already existing dimensions of silence the fading of music into silence, music disappearing in the distance, suppression of music in general breaks or free bars -, will combine sound and nothingness within music. 2. The philosophy of evanescence means, to Zenck, going through certain essential guidemarks in Kants and Hegels thinking, showing that the philosophy of musical time felt irritated by the opposite of sound, that is, by silence. The particularisation of the concept of Verlschen, in function of each of the two philosophers and in relation to other romantic thinkers (E.T.A. Hoffmann, Hlderlin) is invested with significance, especially from the perspective of new music. The reflection on silence in music, on the birth and disappearance of music will lead to the predilection of authors such as Webern and Berg to compose by (consciously) conceiving of music out of silence and then coming back to the same stage, a tendency fully asserted with Cage and Nono as well. 3. The Dal niente places and finales in Alban Bergs music will point out three moments of assimilating tradition in Bergian music (with a certain affinity for the idea of infinite, expressed in musical terms): a. the romantic rhetorical device quasi da lontano (achieved by spatial disposition of the orchestra from a distance, by thinning out sonority, by nuancing, by weakening dynamics etc.), in Reigen from The Three Orchestra Pieces Op 6; b. a radical change in the typology of the finale in Mahlers last works (Symphony No 9, The Song of the Earth) as compared to 19th century symphonic music, where finales were conceived of apotheotically, as glorious climaxes (Beethoven, Bruckner a.s.o.) - a change with a direct impact on the second Vienna school: it is enough to mention the pendulum movement in the finale of the Lyrical Suite (and Bergs indications of vllige Verlschen - complete fading), in the Orchestra Pieces Op 6 or

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N.E.C. Yearbook 1996-1997 in Wozzeck; c. taking over certain effects of nature music from Mahlers symphonies (quint sonorities, birds chirping etc.): in Wozzeck, scene 2 of Act I, the static vacillation of three chords plasticise the silence of the field, but it is not a quiet happy one (like sometimes with Mahler) but a threatening, expressionistic one. (In this latter case - although Zenck does not specify it - the type of silence is dramaturgical, achieved by sonorous means that are meant to suggest silence in the middle of nature, practically only the silence of human characters, veiled in noises specific to the natural environment.) 4. Evanescence in Nonos music means first of all approaching the creation of the 70s-80s, while emphasising the fact that now music does not start with a tone or a sound, but before and after any music there is silence; hence, the transformation of the poetics of beginnings and endings of musical works (as compared to tradition). Thus, some of Helmut Lachenmanns works either explicitly assert a destruction of sonorous musical time 70 , like the clarinet piece Dal niente, or they point out those processes of sonorous appearance and fading, before and after the music - in Ausklang, concerto for piano and orchestra. Together with many works entitled Silence, Silenzio, belonging to contemporary composers, Nono writes the String Quartet Fragments, Stille - an Diotima, without intending (as the title might suggest) to obtain silence between one musical fragment and another, on crowns and endless breaks, but incorporating the parameter of silence in a continuity where it becomes a norm, and it is for the sonorous figures (delicate eruptions) to represent the exception. Silence thus gives birth to continuity, it is projected into the foreground of composition preoccupations (hence the often-cited change of sound / silence paradigm). All this theory of silence in new music, continuing a systematisation of rhetorical devices coming from breaks in the Renaissance and the Baroque, illustrates only one compartment of musical stylistics that operates with rhetorical notions. Applications may be extended to following all types of figures in the 17th-18th centuries, their becoming in music history - in text-bound or merely instrumental creation -, in order to bring to the fore their efficiency and vitality exclusively in present-day music. Paradigmatic catalogues can thus be made up, out of musical pieces built on ascensio / descensio, anabasis / catabasis a.s.o. But the purpose of these lines has been only to arouse the interest for such approaches, and only big volumes could adequately complete the subject of the relation between musical rhetoric and stylistics.

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The viability of the rhetorical concept in present-day musical thinking

One may raise the question: what is the good of stressing rhetorical problematics, of arousing the interest in it, in an age when any scholastically-connoted approach seems elitist ? Well, my intention is not to insist on the classical meaning of rhetoric, but on the widening, the opening of musical-stylistic research by engulfing the general, fundamental principles of rhetoric. From the role of a mediator between music and speech, from the importance of an adequate decoding of the meanings of a text-bound music, the applicability of rhetorical theories may be extended - in contemporary composition - towards achieving communication. Especially in the present, it is very suitable to talk about the old rhetorical desiderata - persuadere, docere, delectare, movere - and this is irrespective of the sonorous language adopted by a contemporary creator, which can no longer be that of the Renaissance, baroque, classical or romantic creator. But if the technical aspect of writing (as complicated as it may be) preoccupies the composer in his intimate creation workshop, he should be as much interested in the way of determining a convincing sonorous configuration. The only process that cannot be learnt and is connected to an authentic composers nature is inventio (Erfindung in the Baroque, Inspiration in Romanticism). The others (dispositio, elocutio, memoria, pronuntiatio) are more or less generated by acquired skills, and they should be followed in the temporal development of a musical discourse, at the level of its syntax, as they will be perceived as such by a listener predominantly educated in a traditional culture. In contemporary art history writings, one may often meet a similarity between 20th century and baroque (or mannerist) creation, owing to the luxuriousness of ornament, the predilection for disharmony, asymmetry, irregularity, the oneiric and the fantastic, in general. Without directly aiming at this type of stylistic affinities, I shall only point out that, if, in the Baroque, rhetoric offered theoretical grounds for musical composition, emphasising the relationship of a reciprocal interaction between Ratio and Affekt, some dialects (Impressionism, Neoclassicism, partially Expressionism) or idioms (Berg, Berio, Lutoslawski, Ligeti a.s.o.) of the style of our century still observe it. (I do not intend, of course, to attribute any baroque feature to these dialects or idioms, but only to appreciate the necessary equilibrium of reason and affection in a music, irrespective of the language it is written in.) The problem that remains is however to define the new types of rhetoric derived from the poetic ideas and the

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N.E.C. Yearbook 1996-1997 avant-garde techniques used, for instance, in integral serialism, in stocastic, aleatory music, in the New complexity a.s.o., all these dialects being more or less permeable to the audience. Thus, maybe the multitude of 20th century musical dialects could be summed up in a few rhetorical types, and musicological classification could be simplified - which remains a field open to research. Alongside the indispensable musicological instruments of rhetorical discourse and of rhetorical-musical devices, which any musicologist should possess when approaching Renaissance and baroque music, here are some possible applications of rhetoric in modern and contemporary music, in stylistically defining some decades that have not yet been reunited under some global stylistic name. Musical interpretation represents, in its turn, a privileged field of rhetorical explanations, especially from the perspective of memoria, pronuntiatio or actio concepts. Also, one must recreate a Renaissance or baroque score with fidelity in understanding the specific musical devices. Even the theories of style as deviation or as choice are being permanently reformulated. For instance, the difficulty of establishing a norm with respect to which one may measure deviation becomes almost insuperable given the fact that exception often quickly turns into a rule, and the other way round. The 20th century musical landscape would rather permit - but only at the level of dialect, idiom, intraopus structure a stylistic clarification on the basis of the concept of choice. The extremely wide stylistic spectrum, at the disposal of composition options, may turn either into a handicap, leading to the birth of a style first of all by negating another one (as it happened with atonalism or dodecaphonism), or into a blessing for a creator that knows how to extract any sources that are convenient to him from (European and extra-European) musical tradition. In a period that is marked by a postmodern lack of prejudices, and then in another, contemporary one, of a need for integrating syntheses, the starting point for authentic innovation will probably be found in poetic ideas (inventio) that originally and coherently combine the multiple suggestions of tradition.

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NOTES
1. See Oswald Ducrot, Tzvetan Todorov, Dictionnaire encyclopdique des sciences du langage, Seuil, Paris, 1972: Rhtorique et stylistique. 2. By way of illustration, the bibliography offered by Sigismund Todu and Hans-Peter Trk in The Musical Forms of the Baroque in J.S. Bachs Works, The Musical Publishing House, Bucharest, 1973, vol. II, pp. 67-92, contains an important Bachian exegesis (especially up to the middle of this century) which permanently emphasises the implications of rhetoric in Bachs creation or of that of his contemporaries. Thus, among the musicologists cited there are Arnold Schering, Philipp Spitta, Hans Keller, Wilhelm Gurlitt, Arnold Schmitz, Gotthold Frotscher, H.H. Eggebrecht, Heinrich Besseler, Walter Serauky, Hans Heinrich Unger, Rolf Damman a.s.o. 3. In 1537, Listenius adds to the duality formulated by Boethius - musica theoretica / practica a new division - musica poetica. S. George J. Buelow, Rhetoric and Music, in The New GROVE Dictionary of Music and Musicians, ed. Stanley Sadie, Macmillan Publ. Ltd., London 1981. 4. Here are just a few examples from the brief review of the stylistic historical conscience, that is, of the writings about style - even before this concept was defined as such -, from Gnter Hausswalds book, Musikalische Stilkunde, Heinrichshofens Verlag, Wilhelmshaven, 1973 / 1984, pp. 37-87. 5. For instance, A History of Musical Style by Richard L. Crocker, McGraw-Hill Book Company, 1966. 6. The composer Claudio Monteverdi is the author of this distinction, defined precisely on the basis of the musical representation of the text, seconda prattica standing for the expressive style of the work; another classification made by him: stile concitato, molle, temperato is based on three fundamental human affections, ranging from passion to silence, according to the registers of human voice. 7. See Hausswald, op. cit. 8. See George J. Buelow, op. cit. 9. Idem. 10. See Manfred Bukofzer, Music in the Baroque Era, from Monteverdi to Bach, New York, 1947 and Rolf Damman, Der Musikbegriff im deutschen Barock, Kln, 1967. 11. The very concept of discourse, very frequent in musicological terminology, denotes its being taken over from rhetoric. 12. The phrase belongs to composer tefan Niculescu, in Un nou spirit al timpului n muzic, in Muzica Review No. 9/1986, Bucharest. 13. Iulian Munteanu, Stil i mentaliti, Edit. Pontica, Constana 1991. 14. See George J. Buelow, op. cit. 15. Idem.

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16. See Ducrot, Todorov, op. cit., as well as Heinrich Plett, Text Knowledge and Text Analysis, Univers Publishing House, Bucharest, 1983, Romanian version by Sperana Stnescu, for the following definition of rhetorical devices: system of modification categories, that is, deviations, which describe in a differentiated way various degrees of linguistic artificiality and aesthetic and emotional effects triggered by the latter. (p. 26) 17. Ducrot / Todorov, op. cit. 18. I. Munteanu, op. cit. 19. Op. cit. 20. Plett, op. cit., pp. 25-26. 21. Plett, op. cit., p. 134. 22. Quoted in GROVE, p. 796, in the category of melodic repetition devices. 23. Plett, op. cit., p. 145. 24. Idem. 25. Idem, p. 149. 26. See Terminologie poetic i retoric (Poetical and Rhetorical Terminology), Al. I. Cuza University Publishing House, Iai, 1994, p. 190. 27. Leonard B. Meyer, Style in Music; Theory, History and Ideology, Philadelphia, Univ. of Pennsylvania Press, 1990, p. 3. 28. Defined as such by Nicholas Cook, in A Guide to Musical Analysis, Oxford Univ. Press, 1987, but referring to another of Meyers works, Emotion and Meaning in Music, Univ. of Chicago Press, 1956. 29. Style in Music, op. cit., p. 143. 30. Idem, p. 148. 31. A distinction also operated by Eugene Narmour in Beyond Schenkerism, University of Chicago Press, 1977. 32. See Roman Jakobsons theory in Poetic and Rhetorical Terminology, op. cit., Stil (Style). 33. See Warren Kirkendale, Beethovens Missa Solemnis und die rhetorische Tradition (1971), in Ludwig van Beethoven, edited by Ludwig Finscher, vol. CDXXVIII in Wege der Forschung, Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft Darmstadt, 1983. 34. See Lothar Hoffmann-Erbrecht, Vom Weiterleben der Figurenlehre im Liedschaffen Schuberts und Schumanns, in Augsburger Jahrbuch fr Musikwissenschaft 1989, ed. by Franz Krautwurst; Robert Schollum, Wolf-Webern-von Einem. Anmerkungen zu Deklamatorik, musikalischer Gestik, Szenik , in Wort-Ton-Verhltnis. Beitrge zur Geschichte im europischen Raum, ed.by E.Haselauer, Graz 1981. 35. See Hartmut Krones, 1805-1823 : Vier Opern - Ein Vokabular. Musiksprachliche Bedeutungskonstanten in Fidelio, Il Barbiere di Siviglia, Der Freischtz und Fierrabras, in sterreichische Musikzeitschrift 44 / 1989.

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36. See V. Lefkoff: Computers and the Study of Musical Style, in West Virginia University Conference on computer applications in music, Morgantown 1966; N. Bcker-Heil: Musikalische Stilanalyse und Computer: einige grundstzliche Erwgungen and L. Treitler: Methods, Style, Analysis in International Musical Society, Report of the 10th Congress, XI, Copenhagen 1972, I; J.L. Broeckx & W. Landrieu: Comparative Computer Study of Style, Based on Five Lied Melodies, in Interface I, 1972. 37. See The New Grove Dictionary of Music, ed. cit., the article Analysis, signed by Ian Bent; as well, Ian Bent & William Drabkin, Analisi musicale, Editioni di Torino, 1990. 38. An exception is the reinterpretation of the Schenkerian approach which, though it appeared in the first decades of the 19th century - see Harmonielehre, 1906 and Der freie Satz, 1935 -, demonstrated its modernity by the fact that its parameters were taken over by the present-day American school, in analyses such as those of Allen Forte, for instance. 39. Quoted by Bent, op. cit. 40. See Bent, Grove, op. cit. and Jean-Pierre Bartoli, Le notion de style et lanalyse musicale: bilan at essai dinterpretation, in Analyse musicale, 1989. 41. An example given by Jean-Pierre Bartoli, op. cit. In Romanian musicology, a singular case of computer-assisted stylistic analysis has lately been represented by Professor Dinu Ciocan, the Academy of Music in Bucharest, see also his study in The Muzica Review No 3/1995: Quelques aspectes de la modlisation smiotique et computationelle du langage musical. 42. Ed. W.W. Norton & Co, New York, 1970. 43. Sound, Harmony, Melody, Rhythm, Growth - marked as SHMRG. 44. Faber, New York, 1971. 45. See Poetic and Rhetorical Terminology, op. cit., Style. 46. See Musicologie gnrale et smiologie, Paris, 1987, p. 172. 47. Op. cit., p. 38. 48. In this category one may include important volumes of musicology, such as Manfred Bukofzer - Music in the Baroque Era, 1947, or Epochen der Musikgeschichte in Einzeldarstellungen, a collective volume, Brenreiter ed. MGG, Kassel 1974 a.s.o. 49. Op. cit. 50. See Damman, op. cit., p. 149. 51. Ut Oratoria Musica: The Rhetorical Basis of Musical Mannerism, in The Meaning of Mannerism, ed. Fr. W. Robinson & St. G. Nicholas, Univ. Press of New England, Hanover, New Hampshire, 1972. 52. Palisca, op. cit., p. 56. 53. Bifurcations chez Gesualdo, in Quadrivium musique / sciences, ed. ipmc, Paris, 1992, p. 67. Aurel Stroes refers to a work in the sixth book of madrigals by Gesualdo.

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54. Carl Dahlhaus, Gesualdos manieristische Dissonanztechnik, in Festchrift W. Boetticher, B 1974. 55. Acc. to Christoph Bernhard, Tractatus compositionis augmentatis, quoted by Dahlhaus, pp. 38-39. A larger analysis of the Gesualdo subject, in a stylistic-rhetorical acception, I have done in my doctoral thesis - Stylistic and Symbolical Hypostases of Mannerism in Music, The Music Academy, Bucharest, 1995. 56. See Emilia Fandini, Ornement et structure musicale: essai danalyse rhtorique de la musique pour clavecin du XVIIe sicle, in Analyse musicale No 17, Oct. 1989 and Gregory G. Butler, Fugue and Rhetoric, in Journal of Music Theory, 21.1, Yale University, Spring 1977. 57. This was happening at least in the musical training in Romania before 1989, when the relationship between music and the sacred text was omitted, therefore all the poetical-rhetorical implications disappeared, in favour of a syntactic, truncated analysis, not only of a Mass or a Passion, but also of instrumental repertoire, where figures migrate from the vocal one. 58. See Gregory G. Butler, op. cit., p. 70 and foll. 59. I shall refer to the studies: Riches damour et mendians damie. La rhtorique de Machaut by Marie Danielle Audbourg-Popin, in Revue de musicologie, Tome 72, Paris 1986 and Hither. This way: A Rhetorical Musical Analysis of a Scene from Purcells King Arthur by Rodney Farnsworth, in The Musical Quarterly 74/1, 1990. 60. See M.D. Audbourg-Popin, op. cit., p. 103. 61. See R. Farnsworth, op. cit., p. 88. 62. See George J. Buelow, op. cit., p. 798 and Rolf Damman, op. cit., p. 138. 63. Idem, p. 800. 64. See Ulrich Dibelius, Kraft aus der Stille. Erfahrungen mit Klang und Stille in der Neueren Musik, in MusikTexte, Zeitschrift fr neue Musik, 55/August 1994, Cologne. 65. Acc. to M. Zenck, Dal niente - Vom Verlschen der Musik . Zum Paradigmenwechsel vom Klang und Stille in der Musik des neunzehnten und zwangzigsten Jahrhunderts. In MusikTexte, Zeitschrift fr neue Musik , 55/ August 1994, Kln. 66. U. Dibelius, op. cit., p. 10. 67. Idem. 68. M. Zenck, p. 16. 69. Only that Beethoven was no longer situated within the theory of musical figures, which had faded away before the climax of musical Classicism. The break, however, remains a means of expression with a similar meaning. 70. Idem, p. 20.

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Selective Bibliography
ARLT, WULF : Zur Hanhabung der inventio in der deutschen Musiklehre des frhen achtzehnten Jahrhundert, in New Mattheson Studies, ed. by George J. Buelow and Hans Joachim Marx, Cambridge University Press, 1983. AUDBOURG POPIN, MARIE-DANIELLE : Bach et le Got Franais and Riches damour et mendians damie. La rhtorique de Machaut, in Revue de musicologie, Tome 72, Paris 1986. BARILLI, RENATO : Poetics and Rhetoric, Edit. Univers, Bucharest 1975. BARTEL, DIETRICH : Handbuch der musikalischen Figurenlehre, Laaber Verlag 1985. BARTHES, ROLAND, Elements de smiologie, Paris, Seuil, 1965. BARTOLI, JEAN-PIERRE : La notion de style et lanalyse musicale : bilan et essais dinterpretation, in Analyse musicale, 17 / 1989. BENTOIU, PASCAL : Openings through Music World, Edit. Eminescu, Bucharest 1973. BENTOIU, P. : Image and Significance, Edit. Muzical, Bucharest 1975. BERGER, WILHELM GEORG : General Theory of Sonata, Edit. Muzical, Bucharest 1987. BERGER, W. G. : Classicism from Bach to Beethoven, Edit. Muzical, Bucharest 1990. BERGER, W. G. : Mozart. Culture and Style, Edit. Muzical, Bucharest 1991. BESSELER, Heinrich : Spielfiguren in der Instrumentalmusik, in Deutsches Jahrbuch der Musikwissenschaft fr 1952, Peters, Leipzig 1957. Blaga, LUCIAN : Trilogy of Culture, Edit. Minerva, Bucharest 1985. BOOTH, WAYNE C. , The Rhetoric of Fiction, Bucharest, Univers 1976. Bcken, ERNST, Geist und Form im musikalischen Kunstwerk, Potsdam, 1932. BUDDE, ELMAR : Musikalische Form und rhetorische dispositio im ersten Satz des dritten Brandenburgischen Konzertes von J. S. Bach, in Rhetorik zwischen den Wissenschaften, ed. by Gert Ueding, Max Niemeyer Verlag, Tbingen 1991. BUELOW, GEORGE J. : The Loci Topici and Affect in late baroque Music. Heinichens practical Demonstration, in The Music Review, Cambridge, 27 /1966. BUELOW, G. J. : Music, Rhetoric and the Concept of the Affections : A Selective Bibliography, in Notes, 30 / 1973. BUELOW, G. J. : Rhetoric and Music, in GROVE, London 1994. Bukofzer, MANFRED : La musique baroque, edit. J. C. Latts, 1988. Butler, GREGORY G. : Fugue and Rhetoric, in Journal of Music Theory, 21. 1, Yale University, spring 1977. Bent, JAN ; Drabkin, WILLIAM : Analisi musicale, Edizioni di Torino, 1991. CLINESCU, GEORGE; CLINESCU, MATEI; MARINO, ADRIAN; VIANU, TUDOR : Classicism, Baroque, Romanticism, Edit. Dacia, Cluj 1971.

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CHOUVEL, JEAN-MARC : Matire et manire. Le style : une Forme pour un Fond?, in Analyse musicale, 32 / 1993. CICERO : De oratore. . . CIOCAN, DINU ; RDULESCU, ANTIGONA : Problems of Musical Semiotics, in Studii de muzicologie, vol. XXI, Edit. Muzical, Bucharest 1989. CIOCAN, DINU : Quelques aspects de la modlisation smiotique et computationelle du langage musical, in Muzica Review, 3/ 1995, Bucharest. CONSTANTINESCU, GRIGORE : Stylistic Diversity of Melody in Romantic Opera, Edit. Muzical, Bucharest 1980. COLAS, DAMIEN : Anamorphoses et mtamorphoses dans larabesque rossinniene: tude stylistique des variantes ornementales, in Analyse Musicale 17 / 1989. COOK, NICHOLAS : A Guide to Musical Analysis, Oxford University Press, 1987/ 1995. COURT, RAYMOND : La pertinence de la notion de style baroque pour lanalyse musicale, in Analyse musicale, 17 / 1989. Crocker, RICHARD : A History of Musical Style, McGraw-Hill Book Company, USA, 1966. Dahlhaus, CARL : Gesualdos manieristische Dissonanztechnik, n Festschrift W. Boetticher, B 1974. DAHLHAUS, C. : Seconda prattica und musikalische Figurenlehre, in Festschrift Reinhold Hammerstein, ed. by Ludwig Finscher, Laaber Verlag 1986. DAHLHAUS, C. : Zur Geschichtlichkeit der musikalischen Figurenlehre, in Festschrift M. Ruhnke, Hnssler Verlag, Neuhausen-Stuttgart 1986. DAHLHAUS, C. : Bach und der Zerfall der musikalischen Figurenlehre, in Musica 42 / 1988. DAMMAN, ROLF : Der Musikbegriff im deutschen Barock, Kln 1967. DANUSER, HERMANN : Die Musik des 20. Jahrhunderts, vol. VII from Neues Handbuch der Musikwissenschaft, Laaber Verlag 1982. DEDIU, DAN : Phenomenology of Composition. Archetypus, Archetropus and Ornament, Ph. D. Thesis, Academy of Music, Bucharest 1995. DELALANDE, FRANCOIS : Analyser le style en musique lectroacoustique : approximation et pluralit en analyse comparative, in Analyse musicale, 32 / 1993. DELIEGE, CELESTIN : Les fondements de la musique tonale. Une perspective analytique post-schenkerienne, edit. J. C. Latts, Paris 1984. DESCARTES, RENE : Les passions de lme, Edit. tiinific i Enciclopedic, Bucharest 1984. Dibelius, ULRICH - Kraft aus der Stille. Erfahrungen mit Klang und Stille in der neueren Musik, n MusikTexte, Zeitschrift fr neue Musik , 55/ August 1994, Kln. DIE MUSIK IN GESCHICHTE UND GEGENWART, ed. by Ludwig Finscher, Brenreiter, vol. 6, 1997.

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DUCROT, OSWALD; Todorov, TZVETAN : Dictionnaire encyclopdique des sciences du langage, Edit. du Seuil, 1972. EGGEBRECHT, HANS HEINRICH : Zum Figur-Begriff der Musica Poetica, in Archiv fr Musikwissenschaft, XVI. Jg. ENCYCLOPDIE DE LA MUSIQUE, Fasquelle, Paris 1959. EPOCHEN DER MUSIKGESCHICHTE IN EINZELDARSTELLUNGEN, Brenreiter, ed. MGG, Kassel 1974. FADINI, EMILIA : Ornement et structure musicale : essai danalyse rhtorique de la musique de clavecin du 17-me sicle, in Analyse Musicale, 17 / 1989. FARNSWORTH, RODNEY : Hither, This Way : a Rhetorical Musical Analysis of a Scene from Purcells King Arthur, in The Musical Quarterly 74/ 1, 1990. FEDERHOFER, HELMUT : Musica poetica und musikalische Figur in ihrer Bedeutung fr die Kirchenmusik des 16. und 17. Jahrhunderts, in Acta musicologica LXV, 1993. FLOTZINGER, RUDOLF: Vorstufen der musikalisch-rhetorischen Tradition im Notre-Dame-Repertoire ?, in Schenk Festschrift, 1975. FORCHERT, ARNO: Bach und die Tradition der Rhetorik, in Bericht ber den internationales musikwissenschaftliches Kongress, Stuttgart 1985; Brenreiter Kassel 1987. FORTE, ALLEN; GILBERT, STEVEN E. : Introduction to Schenkerian Analysis, W. W. Norton and Company, 1982. FROTSCHER, GOTTHOLD : Die Affektenlehre als geistige Grundlage der Themenbildungen J. S. Bachs, in Bach Jahrbuch, 1926. GRANGER, GILLES-GASTON, Essai dune philosophie du style, 1968. GURLITT, WILIBALD : Musik und Rhetorik, Helikon V, 1944. HARRAN, DON : Word-Tone Relations in Musical Thought, American Institute of Musicology, Hnssler Verlag 1986. HARUTUNIAN, JOHN : Haydn and Mozart : Tonic-Dominant Polarity in Mature Sonata-Style Works, in Journal of Musicological Research, 9/ 4, 1990. Hausswald, GNTER : Musikalische Stilkunde, Heinrichshofen Wilhelmshaven, 1984. HOFFMANN-ERBRECHT, LOTHAR : Vom Weiterleben der Figurenlehre im Liedschaffen Schuberts und Schumanns, in Augsburger Jahrbuch fr Musikwissenschaft, ed. by Franz Krautwurst, 1989. IMBERTY, MICHEL : Le style musicale et le temps : aspects esthetiques et aspects potiques, in Analyse musicale, 32 / 1993. IONESCU, EMIL :Handbook of General Linguistics, Edit. ALL, Bucharest 1992. JAKOBSON, ROMAN, Linguistics and Poetics , in Style in Language , Massachussets, The Technology Press of MIT 1960. KIRKENDALE, URSULA : The Source for Bachs Musical Offering : The Institio oratoria of Quintilian, in Journal of American Musicological Society, Richmond, 33 / 1980.

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KIRKENDALE, WARREN: Ciceronians versus Aristotelians on the Ricercar as Exordium, from Bembo to Bach, in Journal of American Musicological Society, 32/ 1979. KIRKENDALE, W. : Circulatio-Tradition, Maria Lactans, and Josquin as Musical Orator, in Acta musicologica, Basel, 56 / 1984. KRONES, HARTMUT : Das Wort-Ton Verhltnis bei den Meistern der Wiener Klassik. Insbesondere am Beispiel des Liedschaffens, in Wort-Ton-Verhltnis, ed. by E. Haselauer, H. Bhlhaus Nachf. , Graz 1981. KRONES, H. : 1805-1823: Vier Opern - Ein Vokabular. Musiksprachliche Bedeutungskonstanten in Fidelio, Il Barbiere di Siviglia, Der Freischtz und Fierrabras, in sterreichische Musikzeitschrift 44/ 1989. KRONES, H. : Musik und Rhetorik, in MGG, 6. th vol. , Brenreiter 1997. La RUE, JAN : Guidelines for Style Analysis, W. W. Norton & Co, New York, 1970. LENNEBERG, HANS : Johann Mattheson on Affect and Rhetoric in Music, in Journal of Music Theory, 2 / 1958. LIEBERT, ANDREAS : Die Bedeutung des Wertesystems der Rhetorik fr das deutsche Musikdenken im 18. und 19. Jahrhundert, ed. Peter Lang, 1993. LUDWIG VAN BEETHOVEN , ed. by Ludwig Finscher, Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft Darmstadt, 1983. MEEUS, NICOLAS : Les rapports associatifs comme dterminants du style, in Analyse musicale 32 / 1993. Meyer, LEONARD B. : Emotion and Meaning in Music, Univ. of Chicago Press, 1956. MEYER, L. B. : Music. The Arts and Ideas. Patterns and Predictions in TwentiethCentury Culture, Univ. of Chicago Press, 1967. MEYER, L. B. : Explaining Music, Essays and Explorations, Univ. of California Press, 1973. MEYER, L. B. : Style in Music; Theory, History and Ideology, Philadelphia, Univ. of Pennsylvania Press, 1990. MEYER-KALKUS, REINHART : Schreit Laokoon? Zur Diskussion pathetischerhabener Darstellungsformen im 18 Jahrhundert, in Von der Rhetorik zur Aesthetik, ed. by G. Raulet, France 1995. MEYER-KALKUS, R. : Richard Wagners Theorie der Wort-Tonsprache in Oper und Drama und Der Ring des Nibelungen, in Athenum, Jahrbuch fr Romantik, 6. Jahrgang, 1996. Mhe, HANSGEORG :Stilkunde der Musik, VEB Deutscher Verlag fr Musik, Leipzig 1989. MUNTEANU, TEFAN : Introduction in Stylistics of Literary Work, Editura de Vest, Timioara 1995. NATTIEZ, JEAN-JACQUES : Quelques rflexions du style, in Analyse musicale, 32 / 1993.

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VALENTINA SANDU-DEDIU
NEUES HANDBUCH DER MUSIKWISSENSCHAFT, Band VII (Hermann Danuser - Die Musik des 20. Jahrhunderts) & X (Carl Dahlhaus, Helga de la Motte Haber, hg. - Systematische Musikwissenschaft), Laaber-Verlag, 1982. PALISCA, CLAUDE, V. - Ut Oratoria Musica : The Rhetorical Basis of Musical Mannerism, in The Meaning of Mannerism, ed. Fr. W. Robinson & St. G. Nichols, Univ. Press of New England, Hanover, New Hampshire 1972. PAPU, EDGAR : About Styles, Edit. Eminescu, Bucharest 1986. PASCALL, R. J. : Style, in GROVE, London 1994. Plett, HEINRICH : Textwissenschaft und Textanalyse, in Romanian by Sperana Stnescu, Editura Univers, Bucharest 1983. POETIC AND RHETORIC TERMINOLOGY, Editura Universitii Al. I. Cuza, Iai 1994. POPESCU, IULIAN : Style and Mentalities, Edit. Pontica, Constana 1991. QUINTILIAN : Institutio oratoria, Harvard University Press, Cambridge University Press, 1989. RECKOW, FRITZ : Vitium oder Color rhetoricus? Thesen zur Bedeutung der Modelldisziplinen grammatica, rhetorica und poetica fr das Musikverstndnis, in Forum musicologicum, 3 / 1982. RENAISSANCE RHETORIC, ed. by Heinrich F. Plett, Walter de Gruyter, Berlin-New York, 1993. RIOTTE, ANDR : Les matriaux du clair de lune : pralables une tude formalise du style chez Debussy, in Analyse Musicale nr. 17, oct. 1989. Rosen, CHARLES : The Classical Style, Faber, New York, 1971. RUHNKE, MARTIN : Musikalisch-rhetorische Figuren und ihre musikalische Qualitt, in Festschrift Heinrich Hschen, ed. by Detlef Altenburg, Kln 1980. RUHNKE, M. : Gattungsbediente Unterschiede bei der Anwendung musikalisch-rhetorischer Figuren , in Gattung und Werk in der Musikgeschichte Norddeutschlands und Skandinaviens, ed. by F. Krummacher and H. W. Schwab, Brenreiter Kassel Basel London, 1982. SADAI, YIZHAK : Dune phnomnologie du style musical, in Analyse musicale, 32 / 1993. SANDU-DEDIU, VALENTINA : Wozzeck - Prophecy and Fulfillment, Edit. Muzical, Bucharest 1991. SANDU-DEDIU, V. : About silence in music : on papers by Ulrich Dibelius and Martin Zenck. Muzica Rev. , nr. 4, Bucharest 1994. SANDU-DEDIU, V. : Stylistic and Symbolic Hypostases of Mannerism in Music, Ph. D. Thesis, The Academy of Music, Bucharest, 1995. SCHMITZ, ARNOLD : Die Bildlichkeit der wortgebundenen Musik J. S. Bachs, ed. by Akad. Verlag Schotts Shne, Mainz 1950. SCHMITZ, A. : Die Figurenlehre in den theoretischen Werken J. G. Walthers, in Archiv fr Musikwissenschaft, Jg. 1952. SCHMITZ, A. : Figuren, musikalisch-rhetorische, in MGG, Band 4, Kassel 1955.

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SCHOLLUM, ROBERT: Wolf-Webern-v. Einem. Anmerkungen zu Deklamatorik, musikalischer Gestik, Szenik. in Wort-Ton-Verhltnis, ed. by E. Haselauer, H. Bhlhaus Nachf. , Graz 1981. SCHNBERG, ARNOLD : Stil und Gedanke, hg. von Ivan Vojtech, S. Fischer Verlag, 1976. SERAUKY, WALTER : Die Affekten-Metrik des Isaac Vulpius in ihrem Einfluss auf Joh. Kuhnau und J. S. Bach, in Festschrift Max Schneider, DVfM, Leipzig 1955. SHELDON, A. DAVID : The Galant Style Revisited and Re-evaluated, in Acta musicologica XLVII, 1975; and The Concept Galant in the 18. th Century, in Journal of Musicological Research, 9/ 2-3, 1989. STROE, AUREL : Bifurcations chez Gesualdo, n Quadrivium musique/sciences, ed. ipmc, Paris 1992. STYLE IN LANGUAGE, edited by Thomas A. Sebeok, The M. I. T. Press, Cambridge Massachusetts, 1960. THE ENDS OF RHETORIC. HISTORY, THEORY, PRACTICE, ed. by J. Bender and D. E. Wellbery, Stanford Univ. Press, California 1990. THE NEW GROVE DICTIONARY OF MUSIC AND MUSICIANS, ed. by Stanley Sadie, Macmillan Publ. Limited, London, 1981, 1994. Todu, SIGISMUND AND Trk, HANS PETER : Musical Forms of Baroque, 3 volumes, Edit. Muzical, Bucharest 1969-1978. RANU, CORNEL : Elements of Musical Stylistics (XX. th Century), vol. I, Conservatorul de muzic G. Dima, Cluj, 1981. UNGER, HANS HEINRICH: Die Beziehungen zwischen Musik und Rhetorik im 16-18 Jahrhundert, Hildesheim, G. Olms, 1969. WINKLER, GERHARD J. : Wagners Erlsungsmotiv. Versuch ber eine musikalische Schluformel. Eine Stilbung, in Musiktheorie 5/1 , 1990. WINTER, ROBERT S. : The Bifocal Close and the Evolution of the Viennese Classical Style, in Journal of the American Musicological Society, 42/ 2, Summer 1989. Zenck, MARTIN: Dal niente - Vom Verlschen der Musik. Zum Paradigmenwechsel vom Klang und Stille in der Musik des neunzehnten und zwangzigsten Jahrhunderts, n MusikTexte, Zeitschrift fr neue Musik , 55/ August 1994, Kln.

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COLEGIUL NOUA EUROP

Punctul de pornire
New Europe College, un mic centru de excelen independent n domeniul disciplinelor umaniste i sociale, primul i cel puin deocamdat unicul de acest fel din Romnia, a fost ntemeiat n 1994 ca persoan juridic de drept privat. Punctul de pornire l-a constituit New Europe Prize, acordat profesorului Andrei Pleu n 1993 de un grup de institute de studii avansate (Stanford, Princeton, North Carolina, Wassenaar, Uppsala i Berlin). Acest premiu a fcut posibil nfiinarea Colegiului i selecia primei generaii de bursieri ai acestuia. Finanri ulterioare au permis continuarea programului, astfel nct, n momentul de fa, exist cca. 100 de bursieri i alumni NEC. Prestigiul internaional al colegiului a fost recunoscut prin acordarea premiului Hannah Arendt, instituit pentru a ncuraja eforturi exemplare n domeniul nvmntului superior i al cercetrii. n 1999 Ministerul Educaiei Naionale a recunoscut Colegiul Noua Europ ca form instituionalizat de educaie permanent i formare profesional.

Obiective
realizarea unui context instituional care s ofere tinerilor cercettori romni din domeniile tiinelor umaniste i sociale posibilitatea de a lucra la nivelul standardelor europene: burse care s le permit s se dedice n mod eficient muncii lor tiinifice, echipament tehnic modern i o atmosfer de lucru, de natur s ncurajeze dezbaterea critic, inter- i trans-disciplinar;

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N.E.C. Yearbook 1996-1997 sincronizarea cercetrii din Romnia cu aceea a mediilor academice internaionale i, totodat, valorificarea a ceea ce e nc preluabil din achiziiile intelectuale obinute, mpotriva oprelitilor, n perioada dictaturii comuniste; intensificarea contactelor dintre specialitii romni i colegii lor strini din centre universitare i de cercetare din ntreaga lume; constituirea unui nucleu de intelectuali tineri care s contribuie la normalizarea vieii tiinifice i intelectuale din Romnia.

Programe
NEC nu este, propriu-zis, o instituie de nvmnt; activitatea NEC este axat pe cercetare, la nivelul studiilor avansate, prin urmtoarele programe:

Bursele NEC
n fiecare an New Europe College ofer, pe baza unui concurs public, zece burse pentru tineri cercettori romni din domeniile tiinelor umaniste i sociale. Bursierii sunt selectai de un juriu format din specialiti romni i strini i beneficiaz de o burs care se acord pe durata unui an universitar (octombrie - iulie). Cei selectai i discut proiectele de cercetare n cadrul unor colocvii sptmnale (colocviile de miercuri). n timpul anului academic fiecare bursier are posibilitatea de a petrece o lun ntr-un centru universitar din strintate. La sfritul anului universitar bursierii prezint o lucrare ce constituie rezultatul cercetrii efectuate n cadrul Colegiului. Lucrrile sunt publicate n anuarul NEC.

Bursele RELINK
Iniiat n 1996, programul RELINK vizeaz (cu predilecie) tineri cercettori romni din domeniile tiinelor umaniste i sociale care au beneficiat de burse/stagii de studiu n strintate i s-au rentors n Romnia, ocupnd posturi n universiti sau n institute de cercetare. Urmrind mbuntirea condiiilor de cercetare i revigorarea vieii academice n

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NEW EUROPE COLLEGE Romnia, programul RELINK ofer anual (pe baza unei proces de selecie similar celui pentru bursele NEC) un numr de zece burse, durata acestora fiind de trei ani. Bursele includ: un stipendiu lunar, un suport financiar care permite fiecrui bursier s ntreprind o cltorie de cercetare de o lun pe an la un centru universitar din strintate, pentru a-i menine i lrgi contactele cu specialiti strini; un laptop pus la dispoziie fiecrui bursier pentru utilizare individual; fonduri pentru achiziionarea de literatur de specialitate.

Programul GE-NEC
ncepnd din toamna anului 2000 Colegiul Noua Europ va organiza i gzdui timp de trei ani universitari un nou program, finanat de Getty Grant Program. Acest program i propune s contribuie la dezvoltarea nvmntului i cercetrii n domeniul culturii vizuale prin invitarea unor specialiti marcani care vor susine prelegeri i seminarii n cadrul NEC, n beneficiul unor studeni, masteranzi, doctoranzi i tineri specialiti interesai de acest domeniu. Programul include dou burse senior i dou burse junior pe an. Bursierii, selectai n consultare cu Consiliul tiinific al Colegiului, sunt integrai n viaa Colegiului, primesc un stipendiu lunar i au posibilitatea de a efectua o cltorie de studii de o lun n strintate. Colegiul Noua Europ organizeaz pentru toi bursierii si, ct i pentru ali specialiti romni din diverse domenii, un program permanent de conferine (conferinele de sear), susinute de personaliti tiinifice strine i romneti. Periodic se organizeaz, deasemenea, seminarii i simpozioane la nivel naional i internaional.

Finanare
Activitile Colegiului Noua Europ au fost finanate pn n prezent de Elveia (Departamentul Afacerilor Externe i Zuger Kulturstiftung Landis & Gyr), Germania (Stifterverband fr die Deutsche Wissenschaft i Volkswagen-Stiftung), de Open Society Institute, Budapesta, prin Higher Education Support Program pentru Programul RELINK i de Getty Grant Program pentru Programul GE-NEC.

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N.E.C. Yearbook 1996-1997 Fondator al Fundaiei Noua Europ i Rector al Colegiului Noua Europ: Dr. Andrei PLEU Director executiv Marina HASNA Director tiinific Dr. Anca OROVEANU Consiliul Administrativ: Dr. Victor BABIUC, profesor de drept, Universitatea Bucureti Maria BERZA, secretar de stat, Ministerul Culturii Heinz HERTACH, director, Zuger Kulturstiftung Landis & Gyr, Elveia Dr. Helga JUNKERS, Volkswagen-Stiftung, Hanovra, Germania Dr. Joachim NETTELBECK, director executiv, Wissenschaftskolleg zu Berlin, Germania Dr. Heinz-Rudi SPIEGEL, Stifterverband fr die Deutsche Wissenschaft, Germania Dr. Ilie ERBNESCU, director, Ziarul Financiar Mihai-Rzvan UNGUREANU, lector, Universitatea din Iai, secretar de stat, Ministerul Afacerilor Externe Consiliul tiinific: Dr. Horst BREDEKAMP, profesor de istoria artei, Humboldt-Universitt, Berlin Dr. Iso CAMARTIN, scriitor, Zrich; specialist n romanistic; director, Departamentul cultural al Televiziunii Elveiene (SFDRS) Dr. Daniel DIANU, profesor, Academia de Studii Economice Dr. dr. h.c. Wolf LEPENIES, profesor de sociologie, Freie Universitt Berlin; rector al Wissenschaftskolleg zu Berlin Dr. Gabriel LIICEANU, profesor de filosofie, Universitatea Bucureti; director, Editura Humanitas Dr. Andrei PIPPIDI, profesor de istorie, Universitatea Bucureti; preedinte al Comisiei Naionale a Monumentelor Istorice Dr. Istvan REV, director, Open Society Archives, Budapesta

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NEW EUROPE COLLEGE

Institute of Advanced Study

Starting Point
The New Europe College is a small independent Romanian center of excellence in the humanities and social sciences. It was founded in 1994 by Professor Andrei Pleu (philosopher, art historian, writer, 1990/91 Romanian Minister of Culture, 1997/99 Romanian Minister of Foreign Affairs), as a private foundation subject to Romanian law. Its starting point was the New Europe Prize, awarded to Professor Pleu in 1993 by a group of institutes of advanced studies (Stanford, Princeton, North Carolina, Wassenraar, Uppsala and Berlin). This price made possible the founding of the college and the selection of the first generation of its fellows. Subsequent financial support enabled the college to continue and enlarge its program, so that it currently numbers around a hundred fellows and alumni. In 1998 the New Europe College was awarded the prestigious Hannah Arendt Prize for its achievements in setting new standards in higher education and research. In 1999 the Romanian Ministry of Education officially recognized the New Europe College as an institutional structure of continuous education in the humanities and social sciences, at the level of advanced studies.

Aims and Purposes

to create an institutional framework with strong international links, offering young Romanian scholars in the fields of humanities and social sciences working conditions similar to those in the West: individual grants enabling them to focus on their research projects, access to modern technical equipment, an environment that stimulates the dialogue between different fields of research and encourages critical debate

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N.E.C. Yearbook 1996-1997 to cultivate the receptivity of scholars and academics in Romania towards methods and areas of research as yet not firmly established here, while preserving what might still be precious in a type of approach developed, against all odds, in an unpropitious intellectual, cultural and political context before 1989 to promote contacts between Romanian scholars and their peers worldwide to contribute to the forming of a core of promising young academics, expected to play a significant role in the renewal of Romanias academic, scholarly and intellectual life

Academic Programs
NEC is not, strictly speaking, a higher education institution, even though it has been consistently contributing to the advance of higher education in Romania in a number of ways, through the activities organized under its aegis. It focuses on research at the level of advanced studies, through the following programs:

NEC Fellowships
Each year, ten NEC Fellowships for outstanding young Romanian scholars in humanities and social sciences are publicly announced. Fellows are chosen by an international Academic Advisory Board, and receive a monthly stipend for the duration of one academic year (October through July). The Fellows gather for weekly seminars to discuss their research projects. In the course of the year, the Fellows are given the opportunity to pursue their research for one month abroad, at a university or research institution of their choice. At the end of the grant period, the Fellows submit a paper representing the results of their research. These papers are published in the New Europe College Yearbook.

RELINK Grants
The RELINK Program targets highly qualified, preferably young Romanian scholars returning from studies abroad to work in one of

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NEW EUROPE COLLEGE Romanias universities or research institutes. Ten RELINK Fellows are selected each year through an open competition; in order to facilitate their reintegration in the local research milieu and to improve their working conditions, a modest support lasting for three years is offered, consisting of: a monthly stipend, funds in order to acquire scholarly literature; an annual allowance enabling the recipients to make a one-month research trip to a foreign institute of their choice in order to sustain existing scholarly contacts and forge new ones; the use of a laptop computer and printer.

The GE-NEC Program

Starting with the academic year 2000-2001, the New Europe College will organize and host for three consecutive academic years an additional program, supported by the Getty Grant Program. This program aims at strengthening research and education in visual culture by inviting leading specialists to give lectures and hold seminars at the New Europe College for the benefit of MA students, PhD candidates and young scholars from this field. The program includes two senior and two junior fellowships per year, selected in consultation with the Academic Advisory Board. The recipients of these fellowships are integrated in the life of the College, receive a monthly stipend, and are given the opprotunity of spending one month aboad for a study trip. The New Europe College hosts a permanent program of lectures given by prominent Romanian and foreign academics and researchers, open not only to its fellows, but also to a larger audience of specialists and students in the fields of humanities and social sciences. The College also organizes national and international seminars, workshops and symposia.

Financing
To date, the activities of the New Europe College have been financed by German and Swiss foundations (Stifterverband fr die Deutsche Wissenschaft, Volkswagen-Stiftung, Zuger Kulturstiftung Landis & Gyr), by the Swiss Department of Foreign Affairs, the Higher Education Support Program of the Open Society Institute, Budapest for the RELINK Program, and by the Getty Grant Program for the GE-NEC Program.

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N.E.C. Yearbook 1996-1997 Founder of the New Europe Foundation and Rector of the New Europe College Dr. Andrei PLEU Executive Director Marina HASNA Scientific Director Dr. Anca OROVEANU Administrative Board Dr. Victor BABIUC, Professor of Law, University of Bucharest Maria BERZA, Secretary of State, Romanian Ministry of Culture Heinz HERTACH, Director, Zuger Kulturstiftung Landis & Gyr, Zug, Switzerland Dr. Helga JUNKERS, Volkswagen-Stiftung, Hanover Dr. Joachim NETTELBECK, Secretary, Wissenschaftskolleg zu Berlin Dr. Heinz-Rudi SPIEGEL, Stifterverband fr die Deutsche Wissenschaft, Essen Dr. Ilei ERBNESCU, economist, Director of the daily Financial News Dr. Mihai-Rzvan UNGUREANU, Associate Professor, University of Iai, Secretary of State, Ministry of Foreign Affairs Academic Advisory Board Dr. Horst BREDEKAMP, Professor of Art History, Humboldt University, Berlin Dr. Iso CAMARTIN, writer, specialist in Romansh Literature and Culture, Zrich; Head of the Cultural Dept. Swiss Television (SFDRS) Dr. Daniel DIANU, Professor, Academy of Economic Sciences, Bucharest Dr. Dr. h.c. Wolf LEPENIES, Rector, Wissenschaftskolleg zu Berlin; Professor of Sociology, Free University, Berlin Dr. Gabriel LIICEANU , Professor of Philosophy, University of Bucharest; Director of the Humanitas Publishing House Dr. Andrei PIPPIDI, Professor of History, University of Bucharest; President of the National Commission for Monuments, Bucharest; Dr. Istvan REV, Director of the Open Society Archives, Budapest

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NEW EUROPE COLLEGE

Institut dtudes avances

Point de dpart
New Europe College (NEC) est un institut dtudes avances, un centre dexcellence indpendant dans le domaine des sciences humaines et sociales. Fond en 1994, il est le premier, et pour le moment tout au moins, reste le seul dans son genre en Roumanie. A lorigine de sa cration il y a eu le Prix La Nouvelle Europe attribu au professeur Andrei Pleu en 1993 par un groupe dinstituts dtudes avances : Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences, Stanford, Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton, National Humanities Center, Research Triangle Park, North Carolina, Netherlands Institute for Advanced Study in the Humanities and Social Sciences (NIAS), Wassenaar, Swedish Collegium for Advanced Study in the Social Sciences (SCASSS) Uppsala et Wissenschaftskolleg zu Berlin. Cest grce ce prix que le Collge a pu voir le jour et slectionner sa premire gnration de boursiers. Des financements ultrieurs ont permis au Collge de poursuivre ses activits, de sorte quaujourdhui le nombre de ses boursiers a atteint la centaine.

Objectifs
Crer un contexte institutionnel avec une large ouverture internationale, qui offre aux jeunes chercheurs roumains dans les sciences humaines et sociales la possibilit de travailler dans des conditions comparables celles de leurs collgues de lOuest : des bourses leur permettant de se ddier leurs recherches scientifiques dans des conditions de travail acceptables, un quipement technique moderne et surtout une atmosphre de travail de nature stimuler le dialogue entre diffrents domaines de recherche et encourager les dbats critiques Cultiver la rceptivit des chercheurs et des universitaires roumains pour des domaines de recherche et des approches encore insuffisamment dveloppes en Roumanie, tout en prservant ce qui

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N.E.C. Yearbook 1996-1997 peut tre encore prcieux dans des types de dmarche mises en place avant 1989, malgr un climat intellectuel, culturel et politique nfaste Faciliter et largir les contacts entre spcialistes roumains et trangers en dveloppant des contacts avec des centres denseignement et de recherche du monde entier Constituer un noyau de jeunes intellectuels pouvant contribuer la normalisation de la vie scientifique et intellectuelle en Roumanie

Programmes
Le NEC nest pas une institution denseignement au sens propre du mot. Son activit est consacre la recherche au niveau dtudes avances, par les programmes suivants :

Les bourses NEC

Chaque anne le New Europe College offre, sur la base dun concours public, dix bourses destines des jeunes chercheurs roumains dans les sciences humaines et sociales. Les boursiers sont slectionns par un jury des spcialistes roumains et trangers et reoivent une bourse dune anne universitaire (doctobre juillet). Pendant lanne universitaire, les boursiers participent aux rencontres hebdomadaires (les colloques de mercredi), au cours desquelles ils prsentent, tour de rle, leurs projets de recherche, qui sont discuts par le groupe interdisciplinaire ainsi constitu. Au cours de lanne universitaire, chaque boursier a la possibilit de passer un mois dans un centre universitaire ltranger dans le cadre dun voyage dtudes. A la fin de lanne universitaire les boursiers doivent prsenter un travail scientifique, rsultat des recherches effectues dans le cadre du Collge. Ces travaux sont ensuite publis dans lannuaire du NEC.

Les bourses RELINK

Initi en 1996, le programme RELINK sadresse aux chercheurs roumains, de prfrence jeunes, dans les sciences humaines et sociales, ayant bnfici des bourses ou des stages dtudes ltranger et tant rentrs en Roumanie pour y occuper des postes dans des universits ou des instituts de recherche. Le programme RELINK vise amliorer les conditions de recherche et donner un nouveau souffle la recherche et lenseignement suprieur en

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NEW EUROPE COLLEGE Roumanie. Pour ce faire, le programme RELINK offre chaque anne (selon la mme procdure de slection que pour les bourses NEC) 10 bourses qui attachent les boursiers au Collge pour une dure de trois ans. Ces bourses comprennent : une bourse mensuelle ; un soutien financier permettant chaque boursier dentreprendre un voyage de recherche dun mois par an ltranger, pour maintenir et dvelopper ainsi leurs contacts avec des spcialistes dans leur domaine de recherche ; des fonds spcifiques pour lacquisition des ouvrages de spcialit ; un ordinateur portable mis la disposition de chaque boursier pour un usage individuel.

Le programme GE-NEC
En commenant par lanne universitaire 2000-2001, le New Europe College sera, pendant trois annes universitaires conscutives, lorganisateur et lhte dun nouveau programme, financ par le Getty Grant Program. Ce programme se propose de contribuer au dveloppement de la recherche et de lenseignement dans des domaines ayant trait la culture visuelle, en invitant des spcialistes rputs pour tenir au NEC des confrences et des sminaires, au bnfice des jeunes tudiants, doctorands et spcialistes dans ces domaines. Le programme inclut deux bourses senior et deux bourses junior par an. Les boursiers, slectionns en consultation avec le Conseil Scientifique du Collge, sont intgrs dans les activits du Collge ; ils reoivent une bourse mensuelle et ont la possibilit deffectuer un voyage dtudes dun mois ltranger. Le New Europe College organise pour ses boursiers, ainsi que pour un cercle plus large duniversitaires et chercheurs roumains, un programme permanent de confrences, dont les protagonistes sont des personnalits scientifiques de Roumanie et de ltranger. Le NEC organise galement des manifestations spciales, tels que sminaires, ateliers, colloques et confrences, caractre national et international.

Financement
Les activits du New Europe College ont t finances jusqu prsent par la Suisse (Dpartement des Affaires Etrangres et Zuger Kulturstiftung Landis & Gyr), par lAllemagne (Stifterverband fr die Deutsche Wissenschaft et Volkswagen-Stiftung) par Open Society Institute de Budapest travers son Higher Education Support Program pour le programme RELINK et par Getty Grant Program pour le programme GE-NEC.

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N.E.C. Yearbook 1996-1997 Recteur et fondateur de la Fondation Nouvelle Europe et du New Europe College Dr. Andrei PLEU Directrice administrative Marina HASNA Directrice scientifique Dr. Anca OROVEANU Conseil dAdministration : Dr. Victor BABIUC, professeur de droit, Univesit de Bucarest Maria BERZA, secrtaire dtat, Ministre de la Culture Heinz HERTACH, directeur, Zuger Kulturstiftung Landis & Gyr, Suisse Dr. Helga JUNKERS, Volkswagen-Stiftung, Hanovre, Allemagne Dr. Joachim NETTELBECK, directeur administratif, Wissenschaftskolleg zu Berlin, Allemagne Dr. Heinz-Rudi SPIEGEL, Stifterverband fr die Deutsche Wissenschaft, Essen, Allemagne Dr. Ilie ERBNESCU, conomiste, directeur du journal Financial News Mihai-Razvan UNGUREANU, matre de confrence, Universit de Iassy; secrtaire dtat, Ministre des Affaires Etrangres Conseil scientifique : Dr. Horst BREDEKAMP, professeur dhistoire de lart, HumboldtUniversitt, Berlin Dr. Iso CAMARTIN, crivain; spcialiste de littrature et de culture retoromane, Zrich; directeur du dpartement culturel de la Tlvision Suisse (SFDRS) Dr. Daniel DIANU, professeur, Acadmie des Etudes Economiques, Bucarest Dr. dr. hc. Wolf LEPENIES, professeur de sociologie, Freie Universitt Berlin ; recteur de la Wissenschaftskolleg zu Berlin Dr. Gabriel LIICEANU, professeur de philosophie, Universit de Bucarest ; directeur des Editions Humanitas Dr. Andrei PIPPIDI, professeur dhistoire, Universit de Bucarest ; Prsidant de la Commission Nationale des Monuments Dr. Istvan REV, directeur, Open Society Archives, Budapest

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