Volume XXIX (2024), no. 2

The present paper presents the work-in-progress catalogue of old Hungarian books belonging to “Lucian Blaga” Central University Library of Cluj-Napoca (BCU Cluj): of this ongoing work, I present here the catalogue of the books printed between 1484-1630. The material is, therefore, organised chronologically, following the principles established in the first retrospective bibliography of old Hungarian books by Károly Szabó, the first librarian of the University Library in Cluj and of the Transylvanian Museum Society, whose (old) book collections are currently preserved at BCU Cluj, while for the copy-specific descriptions, I myself formulated a set of criteria. From the time span under scrutiny, I counted 425 titles in 522 volumes, a number which comprises the duplicates, but does not include all fragments of books – many of them still unidentified – that will be inserted in the catalogue after the processing of the entire collection of old Hungarian books. During the cataloguing process, I attached particular importance to provenance research. Beside the institutional provenance (Library of the Transylvanian Museum Society – University Library of Cluj), this also comprises previous book owners, since I consider that book history is inseparably connected to the history of their use, which can be uncovered only by identifying the former possessors. Such details bring significant contributions to intellectual history, revealing intellectual networks active in Transylvania between the 16^th and the 19^th centuries.

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This article re-evaluates the Republic of Moldova’s identity from its inclusion in the Russian Empire (the territory of Bessarabia) in 1812 and up to the present. Since identity has a volatile nature, both as a concept and a category of practice, in this paper I will approach it in its relationship with ethnicity and nationalism. Drawing on the existing literature in the field, the country’s socio-political realities are scrutinised based on the political culture theory, which points out the interdependence between state identification and individuals’ normative orientations when making their choices – such as historical foci of loyalty and identification shared by members of communities. At the same time, Moldova’s tumultuous evolution represents an opportunity to analyse nationalism “from below” and to consider the “assumptions, hopes, needs, longings and interests of ordinary people.” Such perspective underlines on the one hand the ordinary people’s dynamics and manifestations regarding nationalism; on the other hand, it shows how political culture’s various practices can influence these manifestations. With the ongoing war in Ukraine, Moldova’s identity and its multiethnic society risk new challenges.

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A young student in the 1940s, Annie Bentoiu, reconstructs retrospectively, fifty years later, the establishment of the communist regime in Romania, using a discourse that oscillates between the subjective experiences of her own history and the major events that took place in her country during the 20^th century. This paper discusses how Timpul ce ni s-a dat [The time we were given], as a consequence, becomes a feminine writing with a hybrid character, revisiting the past according to internal and external events, thus being located at the intersection of personal memory and collective history. Moreover, the study highlights the sociological accents, the philosophical meditations, the political reflections and the historical realities that these memoirs encompass, openings favoured by the author’s triple intellectual formation – in the fields of law, history and literature. Through this hermeneutic exercise, I try to show how a woman’s testimony about an epoch is superimposed over the testimony of her own life, resulting a process in which subjective sources (memories, letters and diaries) are supplemented by a major documentary effort (historical studies and journals of the time). Two different types of history meet inside this sample of feminine literature, bringing together intimate stories and significant national transformations, as an example of the strong and irreversible way in which these histories affect each other.

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The present paper aims to demonstrate the fact that between Lucian Blaga’s philosophical system and Ioana Em. Petrescu’s critical system, there are links of ideas. The main idea that achieves the unity of thought between these two systems is that the changes that occur at the cultural, respectively literary level, are preceded by changes that occur at the ontological level. Blaga’s philosophical theory is exemplary demonstrated by Ioana Em. Petrescu’s critical writings as Eminescu și mutațiile poeziei românești and Eminescu. Modele cosmologice și viziune poetică.

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Mishima Yukio is not the only Japanese writer to commit suicide. In culture like the Japanese one, in which the act of suicide is not ostracised by religious taboos, voluntary death has taken on different forms over time and has been expressed in strict codes and rituals. Osamu Dazai, Mishima’s literary rival, committed shinjū (13 June 1948), a double suicide out of love, together with the woman he loved. Akutakawa Ryūnosuke, Mishima’s idol, killed himself at the age of 35. However, the present paper’s focus on Mishima’s suicide is due to the political undertone the writer sought to impart to the ritual act of seppuku by which he ended his life. To understand the motives behind this act, in my view, it is not enough to merely present the political aspects and the historical context. A certain fascination with violent death, in general, and ritualistic death, in particular, also transpired from his work. In the present study, I will analyse Mishima’s political view from a new perspective, by starting from Gilles Deleuze’s view on the becoming of politics.

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