After nearly a hundred years of isolationist foreign policy based on the Monroe Doctrine, America entered World War I, and at the Paris Peace Conference, Woodrow Wilson was the first American president to cross the ocean in an official capacity. But he was coming to Paris not only in the name of America, but with an agenda concerning the entire globe, determined to fundamentally change the foundations of international relations (Charles Zorgbibe). From the politics rooted in the balance of power, which he saw as the main source of conflict, he would make the transition to the world of international institutions, epitomized by the League of Nations and enshrined in principles that were described as visionary by the president’s supporters, and lambasted as utopian by his detractors. What is certain is that Wilson played a decisive role in redefining the borders of Central Europe, in accordance with the Inquiry recommendations and the principle of self-determination (Larry Wolff). Afterwards, the idea that the rule of law should prevail over the use of force led to a series of debates centered on the Wilsonian vision in which the small countries enjoyed equal rights with the big ones, and the majority was envisioned to protect the minority, rather than destroy it. At the same time, the failures associated with these principles are also part of the discussion on Wilsonism since xenophobic nationalism, ethnicism and opposition to being citizens of a world rooted in universal peace would come to characterize the 20th century and especially the interwar period. In Romania, the union of the three regions – Bessarabia, Bucovina and Transylvania – would also be based on the principle of self-determination. Notably, the same concept also applied to the issue of protecting minorities and different ways of organizing the state: while officials in the Old Kingdom preferred the centralist model, some leaders in the new provinces were in favor of a regionalist or even autonomous form of organization.
Wilsonism and Americanism are concepts whose application deserves special attention also when taking into account the humanitarian aid sent across the ocean to post-war Romania. In this sense, we identify two research directions: an ideological dimension and an imagological one. Where the studies written by Ion Stanciu and Anca Crețu present the activity of various American organizations in Romania during this period and detail their impact on Romanian society, our analysis focuses on the message promoted by the American Junior Red Cross, which at that time, was a newly established organization dedicated to young Americans. Here, the messages published in the "Junior Red Cross News" magazine, on behalf of American children play a special role, since they conveyed the idea that post-war Americanism aimed to create a better world with the help of the youth. We will present how the Romanian representatives took up this challenge to reciprocate by examining the content of the sister publication from Romania: "Revista Crucii Roșii a Tinerimii". Our analysis will also include the letters that American schoolchildren and other young people sent to Queen Maria and Princess Ileana. Last but not least, our study will also follow how the American nurses regarded Romania in those years. The documentation will be based on primary sources from the National Archives Records Administration, the National Archives of Romania, the Archive of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs from Bucharest, the Romanian Red Cross Archive, as well as letters, memos and diaries of those involved. In terms of secondary sources, we will also consult the literature on the history of the Red Cross during the interwar period. Background image source: Red cross on white concrete building photo – Free Usa Image on Unsplash
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The twentieth century, the era of interconnections, implies constant relationships between diverse fields of knowledge and mobility of ideas. Thus, an artist’s work became a nexus of ideas giving sense to an entire cultural epoch. One of the notable 20th century events, the 1913 International Modern Art Exhibition in New York opened the Romanian artists’ way to America through sculptor Constantin Brâncuși’s participation. A year later, he held his first personal exhibition in New York, conquering the art collectors’ world. In 1926, his American experience would bring him one of the most famous lawsuits in the world of art against the state, which redefined the ‘work of art’ notion. In the interwar era the Romanian Avant Garde theme is unavoidable. In the early 1920s, upon returning home, Romanian artists were attempting to revolutionize the artistic and literary scene. Constantin Brâncuși, Victor Brauner, Max Herman Maxy, Marcel Janco, Hans Mattis-Teusch, Arthur Segal and Jules Prahim, all were influenced by the modern artistic movements and entered a “battle” with Romanian traditionalism. Romania’s late opening towards modern art did not hinder painter Eustanțiu Stoenescu in the early 1930s to exhibit in US galleries and museums, catching the attention of many important collectors.
Background image source: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Edward_Steichen_-_Brancusi%27s_studio,_1920.jpeg This contribution explores the evolving ideals of women as markers of modernity in their dialogue with the United States though women’s fashion and representation. It builds upon the double understanding of embodiment as an experience mediated by culture (Entwistle 2014) of inhabiting a physical body in relation to beauty hygiene (Turda 2013) and gender (Bucur 2002) and as clothing the body (Giorcelli and Rabinowitz 2011) suggesting fashion and modernity (Wilson, 2010). The aim is to identify and decode the mechanisms of gendered negotiations between Romania and the United States on fashionability and their larger implications. This chapter uses an interdisciplinary model for a textual and visual semiotic analysis of relevant interwar Romanian discourse. It offers a panoramic, multi-faceted and comparative perspective on how gender norms were invented, disseminated and applied through fashion advice literature (Lees-Maffei 2001). It highlights the importance of fashion in shaping women’s lives to uncover interwar Romania’s subtle social, cultural, ideological and artistic practices in relation to the United States. This contribution continues a larger research on how fashion-consuming women mirrored interwar Romanian political, social, cultural and economic realities and offers the framework for future fashion studies research on Romanian topics.
~Bibliography~ Entwistle, Joanne. “The Dressed Body”, in Linda Welters and Abby Lillethun eds, The Fashion Reader, Oxford: Berg, 2014, pp. 138–149. Giorcelli, Cristina, and Paula Rabinowitz, eds. Accessorizing the Body, Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2011. Lees-Maffei, Grace, “From Service to Self-Service: Advice Literature as Design Discourse, 1920–1970”, Journal of Design History 14, no. 3 (1 September 2001), pp. 187–206. Wilson, Elizabeth. Adorned in Dreams: Fashion and Modernity, London: I.B. Tauris, 2010. Background image source: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Btv1b8596962v-p037.jpg An Eastern European “school” surfaced during the First World War and was connected to Wilson’s vision of a new Europe of national states. The geography, languages, history, politics, and religion experts housed in academic institutions, political and diplomatic tracks, and diaspora communities directed the policy on this newly designed geographical and political area following the empires’ dissolution. This contribution to the project looks at the particularities of this post-Wilsonian school, the interests these specialists had in Eastern Europe and specifically in Romania. What did they know about it? What research is considered politically significant? Who were they and what were their positions in academia, politics and diplomacy? What were their connections with Eastern Europe? What did the US export in Eastern Europe (specialists, diplomats, religious men) and how they collected and supplied the data back home? These are a few of the questions the chapter attempts to answer. The ideological developments in the Soviet Union directed an academic interest in Eastern Europe, translated into US diplomacy. Since the closed border offered little access to information, the Eastern European border nations became portals into this new world developing in Russia. This concern was useful during and after the World War II, when this Eastern European “school” became crucial in designing the US Cold War policies. The contribution uses research in the US National Archives and the Archives of the Romanian Foreign Affairs Minister, on primary literature (memoirs, travel books, histories of Eastern Europe from the period) and journal articles (Byrnes 1982; Case 2018; De Santis 1980; Kohlrrausch 2021; Little 1983; May 1973; Ramet 2020; Seegel 2018; Wolf 2020).
~Bibliography~ Byrnes, Robert, Awakening American Education to the World: The Role of Archibald Cary Coolidge 1866-1928, Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 1982. Case, Holly, The Age of Questions or a first attempt at an aggregate history of the Eastern Social, Woman, American, Jewish, Polish, Bullion, Tuberculosis, and Many other questions over the Nineteenth century and beyond, Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2018. De Santis, Hugh, The Diplomacy of Silence: The American Foreign Service, the Soviet Union, and the Cold War, 1933-1947, Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1980. Kohlrausch, Martin, Katryn Steffen, Stefan Wiederkehr, Expert cultures in Central Eastern Europe. The internationalization of Knowledge and the transformation of Nation States since World War I – Introduction, https://lirias.kuleuven.be/retrieve/529773, 2010, Accessed 4 May 2021. Little, Douglas, Antibolshevism and American Foreign Policy, 1919-1939 The Diplomacy of Self-Delusion, in American Quarterly, vol 35, no. 4 (Autumn 1983), pp. 376-390. May, Ernest R., “Lessons” of the Past. The Use and Misuse of History in American Foreign Policy, Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 1973. Ramet, Sabrina (ed.), Interwar East Central Europe, 1918-1941 The Failure of Democracy-Building, the Fate of Minorities, London: Routledge, 2020. Seegel, Steven, Map Men Transnational Lives and Deaths of Geographers in the Making of East Central Europe, Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2018. Wolff, Larry, Woodrow Wilson and the Reimagining of Eastern Europe, Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2020. Background image source: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Europe_readj_map27_1917.jpg The current emphasis placed by specialists in global history (Zahra 2016; Sarkisian, 2019; Hillis 2021) also impacted religious studies. Even if there were attempts to map the interactions between the North American religious landscape and Eastern Europe in the interwar period (Carlson 1993; Miller 2012; Clark 2020), the joint mobility of concepts and theologians/clergy members between the two areas remain highly under-researched. Previous scholarly research on Romanian-American religious interactions (Gârdan 2007; Săsăujan, in Bremer 2008; Clark 2020) limited their focus only to the Romanian context. Dwelling on a vast array of archival material (Romanian National Archives, regional branches of the National Archives), this study endeavors to comparatively highlight the mutual theological transfers between the American Protestant groups and the Romanian Orthodox Church during their interwar encounters. The dissemination of Evangelical ideas in the Romanian émigré milieu in the United States eventually echoed at home and led to the Orthodox popular religion hybridization and the formation of Orthodox groups of re-evangelizations known as the Lord’s Army (Oastea Domnului). Through its Orthodox bishopric, the Romanian presence in the US determined a constant accommodation of both the American state’s policies and the American religious landscape, especially in the Orthodox diasporas.
~Bibliography~ Bremer, Thomas (ed.), Religion and the Conceptual Boundary in Central and Eastern Europe. Encounters of Faiths, Houndmills: Palgrave, 2008. Carlson, Maria; No Religion Higher Than the Truth. A History of the Theosophical Movement in Russia, 1870-1922, Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1993. Clark, Roland, Sectarianism and Renewal in 1920s Romania: The Limits of Orthodoxy and Nation-Building, London: Bloomsbury, 2020. Gârdan, Gabriel, Episcopia Ortodoxă Română din America parte a Ortodoxiei Americane, Cluj-Napoca: Presa Universitară Clujeană, 2007. Hillis, Faith, Utopia’s Discontents: Russian Émigrés and the Quest for Freedom, 1830s-1930s, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2021. Miller, Matthew Lee, The American YMCA and Russian Culture. The Preservation and Expansion of Orthodox Christianity, 1900-1940, Lanham: Lexington Books, 2014. Sarkisian, Aram. 2019. The Cross between Hammer and Sickle: Russian Orthodox Christians in the United States, 1908-1928. Ph.D. dissertation, Northwestern University, Evanston, IL, USA. Zahra, Tara, The Great Departure. Mass Migration from Eastern Europe and the Making of the Free World, New York: W. W. Norton, 2016. Background image source: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:First_Romanian_Orthodox_Church_in_North_America,_Regina,_1904.jpg. In the context of the world wars and the growth of American interests in Central and Eastern Europe, the American press agencies dispatched their reporters there (Gorrell 2009). The research focuses on interwar American correspondents who traveled to Romania and whose memoirs have been published in volumes. The topic is under-researched, except for synthetic articles (Latham 2012). This study focuses on discourse analysis of an extended choice of war correspondents, the cultural negotiations between Romanian propagandistic policies and the American reporters who did not cooperate with the Romanian authorities (Dascălu 1998). It juxtaposes objectivity with prejudice or propaganda. The American war correspondence offers a complex image of the interwar Romanian political, social and cultural life, including dictatorships and anti-Semitism, both perceived as common Central and East European phenomena (Vasvàri and Tötösy 2009). Discourse analysis concentrates on primary sources, including the American reporters’ volumes and press collections. The topic is approached interdisciplinarily (comparative literature, cultural, identity, memory, travel studies, imagology) and builds upon the fluidity of transnational borders (Mihăilă and Georgescu 2000; Branea 2017).
~Bibliography~ Branea, Dorian, Statele Unite ale românilor. Cărțile călătoriilor românești în America în secolul XX, Bucharest: Humanitas, 2017. Dascălu, Nicolae, Imaginea României Mari în Statele Unite ale Americii în perioada interbelică: 1919-1939, Bucharest: Editura Universității din București, 1998. Gorrell, Henry T., Soldier of the Press: Covering the Front in Europe and North Africa, 1936–1943, Columbia, MO: University of Missouri Press, 2009. Latham, Ernest H. Jr., Timeless and transitory. 20th Century Relations between Romania and the English ˗ Speaking World, Bucharest: Vremea, 2012. Mihăilă, Rodica, Georgescu, Irina (eds.), Transatlantic Connections. Essays in Cultural Relocation, Bucharest: Integral, 2000. Vasvári, Louise O. and Tötösy de Zepetnek, Steven. "Introduction to New Work in Holocaust Studies." CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture 11.1, 2009. Background image source: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Journal_of_the_session_of_the_North_Carolina_Conference_of_the_Methodist_Protestant_Church_(serial)_(1900)_(14598362479).jpg The chapter continues with further research and documentation the author’s previous work in Romania’s participation to interwar international fairs, the United States included (Vlad 2006). Symbolizing the persistence of the American dream even through the great depression, the theme of the 1939 New York World’s Fair was “The World of Tomorrow” (Dascălu 1998; Ureche 2015; Kargon et al 2015). Romania thus experienced the American dream and devoted herself to the ethos of dialogue, education, culture, history, respect for identity values and hope for the future within the two Romanian pavilions (ANIC 1938; AMAE vol. 212). The exhibition envisaged by D. Gusti, the Romanian Commissioner General and supported by Radu Irimescu, the Romanian Minister to the United States, contributed to the cultural dialogue and negotiation between Romania and the United States, beyond the propaganda directed to King Carol II’s dictatorship regime.
~Bibliography~ Arhivele Naționale Istorice Centrale (ANIC), Bucureşti, fond Ministerul Industriei şi Comerțului (MIC), Direcția Personal, Administrativ, Secretariat (DPAS), dosar nr. 16 / 1938; fond Muzeul Saint-Georges (MSG), dosar 80 / 1939, http://arhivelenationale.ro/site/wpfb-file/muzeul-saint-georges-1750-1951-inv-1126-pdf/ Dascălu, Nicolae, Imaginea României Mari în Statele Unite ale Americii în perioada interbelică: 1919-1939, Bucharest: Editura Universității din București, 1998. Kargon, Robert H., Karen Fiss, Morris Low, Arthur P. Molella, World’s Fairs on the Eve of War: Science, Technology, and Modernity, 1937–1942, Pittsburgh, PA: University of Pittsburgh Press, 2015. Ministerul Afacerilor Externe, Arhiva, (AMAE) Bucureşti, fond Washington, vol. 212, https://www.mae.ro/node/1386. Ureche, Nicolae, Propaganda externă a României Mari, 1918-1940, Bucharest: Editura Enciclopedică, 2015. Vlad, Laurențiu, “România la expoziția internațională de la New York (1939-1940). Un moment din istoria diplomației culturale autohtone: documente privind înființarea şi funcționarea unui birou de propagandă în SUA”, in Studia Politica. Romanian Political Science Review, VI, 4 (2006), pp. 949-958. Background image source: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Maurice_Ascalon_1939_New_York_Worlds_Fair.jpg. This under-researched theme focuses on the Romanian-American academic mobility (Romanian intellectuals’ migration to the US and their possible relocation in Romania) and the promotion of Romanian-American relations, intellectual elite formation, and transfers of models. It develops previous studies on Romanian academic itineraries (Sigmirean, Section B; Nastasă-Kovacs 2006), the Romanian intellectuals’ migration to the US, their participation in cultural events or the US science, politics, arts or literature, the Romanian diaspora’s organization, the Romanian-American societies and institutions in the US promoting cultural bilateral relations (Society of Friends of Rumania, Institute of Rumanian Culture in the United States) (Dobrinescu 1993; Sasu 1993). It envisages a comprehensive investigation of Romanian intellectual itineraries to the US, their interests in disciplines and professions, American academic centers, staff and curricula, or the students’ life, focusing on scholarship holders. Beside Rockefeller Foundation recipients in the fields of health, hygiene, sociology, demographic statistics, sciences, literature, it also investigates the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, in education (Petrina 1997; Stanciu 1996). Further examination aims to uncover data about the American professionals in Romania and their contribution to interwar Romania’s modernization (from culture and education to architecture and telecommunication; air and automobile transportation; oil production, refinery and marketing, financial and insurance systems). It is an interdisciplinary (history of intellectual elites, cultural and social history, and history of international relations) exploration of primary sources (archives and published memoirs, the Rockefeller Foundation Annual Reports, the Carnegie Endowment Year Books).
Bibliography: Dobrinescu, Valeriu Florin, "Emigrația română din lumea anglo-saxonă", Iași: Institutul European, 1993. Nastasă-Kovacs, Lucian, "Itinerarii spre lumea savanta. Tineri din spaţiul românesc la studii în străinătate (1864-1944)", Cluj-Napoca: Limes, 2006. Petrina, Ecaterina, "The Impact of Rockefeller Foundation on Romanian Scientific Development: 1920-1939", Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1997. Sasu, Aurel, "Cultura Română în Statele Unite și Canada", Vol. 1, 2, Bucharest: Editura Fundației Culturale Române, 1993. Stanciu, Ion, "În umbra Europei. Relațiile României cu Statele Unite în anii 1919-1939", Bucharest: Silex, 1996. Background image source: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Nationality_Rooms_2_(14400601666).jpg |
The Ethos of Dialogue and Education
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