Cristian Preda- Nous Les Modernes

New Europe CollegeYearbook 1996-1997

New Europe CollegeYearbook 1996-1997

ªTEFAN BORBÉLYMIRCEA CÃRTÃRESCUCRISTINA CODARCEA

FELICIA DUMASIOAN ICÃ, JR.

ION MANOLESCUCÃTÃLIN PARTENIE

CRISTIAN PREDAMIHAI SORIN RÃDULESCUVALENTINA SANDU-DEDIU

Copyright © 2000 - New Europe College

ISBN 973 – 98624 – 4 – 6

NEW EUROPE COLLEGEStr. Plantelor 2170309 Bucharest

RomaniaTel. (+40-1) 327.00.35, Fax (+40-1) 327.07.74

E-mail: [email protected]

Tipãrirea acestui volum a fost finanþatã dePublished with the financial support of

CONTENTS

ANDREI PLEªUELITEN - OST UND WEST

7

ªTEFAN BORBÉLYA PSYCHOHISTORICAL INSIGHT INTO PAST

AND PRESENT ROMANIA23

MIRCEA CÃRTÃRESCUPOSTMODERNITY AS A ‘WEAK’ ONTOLOGICAL,

EPISTEMOLOGICAL AND HISTORICAL EXPERIENCE93

CRISTINA CODARCEARAPPORTS DE POUVOIR ET STRATÉGIE DE GOUVERNEMENT

DANS LA VALACHIE DU XVIIe SIÈCLE129

FELICIA DUMASLE GESTUEL LITURGIQUE ORTHODOXE - DIMENSIONS SÉMANTIQUES

ET PRAGMATIQUES151

IOAN ICÃ, JR.POLITICAL EUROPE, SPIRITUAL EUROPE

191

ION MANOLESCUVISUAL TECHNIQUES IN POSTMODERN LITERATURE. TOWARDS AN

INTERDISCIPLINARY APPROACH OF FICTIONAL PERSPECTIVE239

CÃTÃLIN PARTENIEPLATONIC IMMORTALITY

REVISITED277

CRISTIAN PREDANOUS, LES MODERNES

301

MIHAI SORIN RÃDULESCUSUR L’ARISTOCRATIE ROUMAINE DE L’ENTRE-DEUX-GUERRES

337

VALENTINA SANDU-DEDIUCOMMON SUBJECTS IN MUSICAL RHETORIC AND STYLISTICS.

ASPECTS AND PROPOSALS367

COLEGIUL „NOUA EUROPÃ”411

NEW EUROPE COLLEGE415

NEW EUROPE COLLEGE419

7

ELITEN - OST UND WEST

ANDREI PLEªU

Hoffentlich verstoße ich nicht allzu sehr gegen den Geist derReuter-Konferenzen, wenn ich Ihnen an Stelle eines Vortrags etwas bietenwerde, das eher einer Erzählung nahe kommt. Mit anderen Worten, ichziehe es vor episch zu sein, und nicht analytisch, und das aus zweiGründen. Zum einen komme ich aus einem ehemals kommunistischenLand, in dem das Thema Eliten längst als Lebenserfahrung existierte, bevores zum Thema von Reflexionen, Forschung und akademischer Debattewurde. Die Eliten waren bei uns der Grundstoff für einen Krieg. Die Frage,die unser Leben nach 1945 prägte, war nicht „Was sind Eliten und welchesist ihre Rolle im sozialen Leben?“, sondern „Wie können die Eliten liquidiertwerden, wie kann man die Welt von ihrer verhängnis- und unheilvollenPräsenz befreien?“ Es wurde nicht nach einem Konzept gesucht, sondernnach einer Strategie. Niemand verlor Zeit mit Definitionen, undseltsamerweise - obwohl eine gründliche Definition fehlte – wußtejedermann sehr wohl, um was es ging… Der zweite Grund, weshalb ichmich für die epische Variante entschied, hat mit der Art und Weise zutun, wie ich in diesem Moment die optimale Entwicklung einesOst-West-Dialogs verstehe. Meiner Ansicht nach ist Osteuropa nach 1989viel zu schnell zu einem Studienobjekt für Westeuropa geworden. Dietheoretische Konstruktion kam zustande, bevor die Tatsachen gründlichverdaut waren. Wir wurden systematisiert, bevor wir gehört wurden, bevoruns bis zu Ende zugehört wurde. Damit möchte ich keineswegs sagen, esgäbe kein umfassendes Inventar der osteuropäischen „Wirklichkeiten”,und ich möchte auch nicht die Pose des unverstandenen Opferseinnehmen, beziehungsweise noch unterstreichen. Ich behaupte nur, dassnoch viel zu akkumulieren ist auf der Ebene der offenbarenden kleinenGeschichte, der unermerklichen alltäglichen Promiskuität. Gebraucht wirdein naiver, klatschender und tratschender Diogenes Laertius des Osten,der das „Fleisch“ der totalitaristischen Erfahrung wieder ins rechte Lichtrückt, das von politischen Analytikern, von Soziologen, Historikern undWirtschaftsexperten von überall zu früh seziert und obduziert worden ist.

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N.E.C. Yearbook 1996-1997

Kurz gesagt, Osteuropa hat seine Geschichte noch nicht zu Ende erzählt.Deswegen erscheint mir jede epische Episode willkommen.

Ich beginne jedoch mit einer Geschichte aus Westeuropa. Es war in1992, und ich befand mich in diesem Saal als Gast des Rektors. Ich hielteinen Vortrag über Engel, mein damaliges Thema, exotisch genug, umgleichzeitig Neugier und Mißtrauen zu erwecken. Zwangsläufig kam ichauf die himmlischen Hierarchien zu sprechen, mit den neun Stufen, diePseudo-Dionysios Aeropagita aufzählt: von der niedrigsten Stufe dereinfachen Engel, die gleich über dem Menschen angesiedelt sind, bis zurhöchsten Stufe der Serafim, in unmittelbarer Nähe Gottes. Bei denDiskussionen, die auf meinen Vortrag folgten, bemerkte ein bewanderterKollege aus Chicago – später wurden wir dann gute Freunde – halb imSpaß, halb ernst, dass die Hierarchien von Dionysios eine elitär-diskri-minatorische Auffassung verraten. Schon der Terminus „Hierarchie“signalisiert – durch seinen Rigorismus – eine Sklerose der Werte, ihrVerharren in einer ungerechten Schichtung.

Ich brauche wohl nicht zu erwähnen, dass ich überrumpelt war. Bisdahin hatte ich niemals daran gedacht, die hierarchische Aufstellung derEngelscharen als Ausdruck der Ungleichheit, als mangelhaftendemokratischen Geist zu analysieren und zu deuten. Mir schien, dassunter dem göttlichen Auge alle, die ihren Zweck erfüllen, gleich sind. Esgibt zugegebenermaßen in der erschaffenen Welt eine Art „Arbeitsteilung“,die jedem eine besondere Rolle zuteilt, auf der einen oder anderenkosmischen Stufe. Diese Rollenverteilung führt jedoch nicht zwangsläufigzu ungerechten Verhältnissen der Unterordnung. Der Mensch,beispielsweise, befindet sich unter den Engeln angesiedelt, ist ihnen abernicht unbedingt unterlegen – im Gegenteil, er kann „eine Überengelheit“sein, wie Angelus Silesius sagt, und folglich in der Rolle des Zentrums desUniversums verteilt werden. Keine despotisch aufgezwungeneUngleichheit sah ich im Konzept der „Hierarchie“, sondern eine freiwilligeingegangene, lebendige und funktionelle Ordnung.

Die Bemerkung des amerikanischen Kollegen ließ mich eine – für michneue – Empfindlichkeit gegenüber dem Eliten-Problem entdecken. Ichwar in einem Umfeld aufgewachsen, in dem der Terminus „Elite“ keinerleinegativen Beigeschmack zuließ. Ich glaubte mit einer nahezu schülerhaftenUnschuld, dass dieser Terminus ausschließlich etwas Gutes bezeichnet,etwas Schönes, Edles, Wünschenswertes. Nur die Aktivisten derKommunistischen Partei reagierten allergisch, wenn er beschworen wurde;für sie gab es nur eine einzige akzeptable Elite: die Gegen-Elite. Und

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ANDREI PLEªU

siehe, hier im Westen angelangt, wurde mir – ganz unerwartet und auseinem völlig anderen Blickwinkel – eingeredet, dass mit den Eliten etwasnicht stimme. Dass die Legitimität der Eliten keine „Selbstverständlichkeit“sei. Ich begann meine Unschuld zu verlieren...

Doch das war weder das erste, noch das letzte Mal, dass sich meineunter dem Kommunismus angesammelte Lebenserfahrung alsunverwendbar in der „freien Welt“ erwies. Selbst wenn wir scheinbardasselbe sagen, denken wir häufig an unterschiedliche Wirklichkeiten.Oftmals können wir gar nicht dasselbe sagen. Zwischen den beiden Weltenhat sich eine komplizierte Sammlung von Dyssymmetrien angehäuft, dieeine Wiedervereinigung mindestens in demselben Maße verhindert wiedie ökonomischen Dysfunktionen. Erlauben Sie mir einige Beispieleanzuführen. Nach 1989 galten für die ehemals kommunistischen Länderzwei Ziele als dringend und prioritär: die Gründung eines politischenMehrparteiensystems und der Übergang zur Marktwirtschaft - Demokratieund Kapitalismus. Zumindest theoretisch waren unsere Bestrebungen freivon jedwelcher Zweideutigkeit. Wir mußten nur die Ärmel hochkrempeln– unter dem Expertenblick des Westens und mit dessen großzügiger Hilfe.Nur war der Westen nicht mehr an jenem Punkt, an dem wir gewohntwaren, ihn zu suchen. Solch eine Entdeckung konnte für uns nicht ohnebedeutende taktische und strategische Folgen bleiben. Richard vonWeizsäcker, der damalige Bundespräsident, hatte gerade an die Politikerseines Landes eine mutige Botschaft über den übertriebenen Anteil desParteikampfes im öffentlichen Leben gerichtet. Das öffentliche Interesselaufe Gefahr vom Wahlkampf verraten zu werden. Der Mechanismus derpolitischen Dispute zwischen den verschiedenen Parteiformationenentwickele sich zum einzigen realen Inhalt der Demokratie, wasletztendlich einer Preisgabe der grundlegenden Prinzipien der Demokratiegleichkomme. Möglicherweise sollten wir unsere Vorstellungskrafteinsetzten, um neue Funktionsformen des politischen Lebens anzupeilenund auszuloten, in denen die Parteien nicht mehr die überlegene Prägnanzvon heute haben.

In den rumänischen Medien sorgte dieserart Argumentation fürVerblüffung. Die demokratischen Geister waren verschnupft, dieKrypto-Kommunisten jubilierten. Denn das hieße, wir hätten auf einAuslaufmodel gesetzt. Wir wollten ein System übernehmen, das sich seineErfinder vorbereiteten aufzugeben. Herr von Weizsäcker bezog sich abereindeutig nicht auf die Transitions-Länder, und es wäre zumindestunangebracht eine Idee in Rumänien anwenden zu wollen, die nur in

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einem stabilen demokratischen Kontext Sinn machte. Psychologischgesehen ist es jedoch zumindest unangenehm sich für ein Ziel stark zumachen, dessen Risse und Sprünge so leicht vorhersehbar sind. Man stehtkurz vor der Hochzeit, und da wird einem die Scheidung angekündigt.Nüchternheit ist kaum eine gute Prämisse für den reformierendenEnthusiasmus. Das ist auch der Grund, weshalb ich lange Zeit sauer aufAndré Glücksmann war, der im Dezember 1989 nach Bukarest kam undunsere revolutionäre Euphorie zerstörte, indem er sagte: „Maintenant, c’estle bordel qui commence!“ Er hatte Recht. Doch mit seinem Recht konntenwir nichts anfangen.

Ähnliche Probleme tauchten auch im Zusammenhang mit derMarktwirtschaft und im allgemeinen mit dem kapitalistischen Modell auf.Wir waren daran gewöhnt, in der Schule, in den Stunden „PolitischeErziehung“, auf den offiziellen Konferenzen oder von den Massenmedienüber die Unzulänglichkeiten des Kapitalismus aus marxistisch-leninistischer Sicht informiert zu werden. Nach 1989 haben wir es nichtmehr mit einer sozialistischen Kritik, sondern mit einer kapitalistischenKritik des Kapitalismus zu tun. Selbst George Soros hat zahlreicheBedenken im Zusammenhang mit dem zeitgenössischen Funktionierender Finanzmärkte und der internationalen Finanzorganisationen (sieheu.a. seinen Artikel „The Capitalist Threat“, erschienen im „The AtlanticMonthly“ im Februar 1997). Manche hyperentwickelte Länder, wiebeispielsweise Japan, zögern nicht, eine zentralistische Kontrolle überProduktion und Handel auszuüben, es kommen geschickte Theoretikerauf, von Galbraith bis hin zu Adolph Lowe, und beweisen, dass derMißerfolg der Planwirtschaft nicht durch eine abgöttische Verherrlichungdes Marktes korrigiert werden kann. Man spricht von einem schuldhaften„Fundamentalismus“ des Liberalismus (John Gray), während die Thesedes dritten Wegs auf das Binom Kommunismus (beziehungsweiseSozialdemokratie) - Kapitalismus (beziehungsweise Liberalismus)verzichtet und, seit Anthony Giddens, immer mehr Gehör findet.

Keinen Augenblick stelle ich Berechtigung, Subtilität und Aktualitätdieser umfangreichen Debatte in Frage. Alles was ich sagen möchte ist,dass wir, im Osten, nicht darauf vorbereitet sind, an ihr teilzunehmenund sie uns anzueignen. Mehr noch, es wäre zu diesem Zeitpunkt riskant,auf diese Debatte einzugehen und den Entschluß prompt zu handeln mitBetrachtungen über eine Problematik zu ersetzen, die keinerlei Deckungin unserer alltäglichen Erfahrung hat. Beispiele gibt es noch und noch: Sohaben wir zum Beispiel jetzt das Gefühl, dass wir uns endlich wieder in

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ANDREI PLEªU

den natürlichen Metabolismus der Geschichte einfügen können – fürunseren jetzigen Zustand ist Fukuyama unpassend und irritierend. Wirhaben das Gefühl, daß wir nach Jahrzehnten des mehr oder minder starkproletarisch geprägten „Internationalismus“ nun unsere Identitätwiederfinden müssen – der Wirbelwind der Globalisierung setzt für unszu früh ein. Möglicherweise kommt alles zu früh, was in Form vonAnsprüchen vom Westen auf uns zukommt, nachdem wir jahrzehntelangmit dem Gedanken lebten, der Bruch mit dem Kommunismus kommemöglicherweise zu spät... Wir sind auf gefährlicher Weise in dieserdrastischen Dialektik eines „Zu-früh – Zu-spät“ gefangen, was unterUmständen lähmende Auswirkungen haben kann.

Und jetzt kommen wir auf die Eliten zu sprechen. Wahrscheinlich istmeine These durchaus vorhersehbar nach alledem, was ich bereits gesagthabe. Ich behaupte, dass das charakteristischste Programm desKommunismus und dessen dauerhafteste Auswirkung die Beseitigung derEliten war. Ich behaupte ferner, dass die Schwierigkeiten, mit denenOsteuropa in der postkommunistischen Periode zu kämpfen hat, in großemMaße von den zahlenmäßig und qualitativ nicht ausreichenden Elitenbedingt sind, und dass folglich die „Neuerfindung“ der Eliten lebenswichtigist. Der globale Kontext aber, und die zu diesem Zeitpunkt dominanteIdeologie, neigen eher zur Relativierung der Eliten. Wir befinden unsdemnach in der Situation, ein Projekt zur Rekonstruktion der Eliten aufdem Hintergrund einer anti-elitaristischen Rhetorik vorzuschlagen. Eineweitere Asymmetrie also, zusätzlich zu denjenigen, die ich erst vorhinerwähnt habe. Allerdings mit dem Unterschied, dass ich diesmal eineNuancierung hinzufügen muß, die mir wesentlich erscheint: Ich glaube,dass unsere Verspätung in diesem Falle nicht verhängnisvoll ist. Ich glaube,es ist vorteilhafter, vor sich die Aussicht auf eine Rekonstruktion der Elitenzu haben, als jene ihrer Nivellierung. Ich glaube, was zu früh für uns ist,ist diesmal auch für den Rest der Welt zu früh. Und mehr noch, ich glaube,dass die derzeitige Modetendenz, Ansehen und Autorität der Eliten zubeschneiden, unproduktiv ist und auch niemals willkommen sein wird.

I. Einer der am häufigsten im modernen politischen Kommentaranzutreffenden Gemeinplatz ist derjenige, der den Nazismus als Doktrindes Rassenhasses im Unterschied zum Kommunismus definiert, der eineDoktrin des Klassenhasses sei. Im Grunde genommen übt derKommunismus seine Ressentiments nicht nach Klassenkriterien aus. Allesozialen Klassen sind potentielle Feinde, einschließlich der Klasse der

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Proletarier. Worauf der Kommunismus wirklich abzielt sind die Eliten -die bürgerlichen Eliten, aber auch die Eliten der Arbeiterschaft, derGroßgrundbesitzer, ebenso die Eliten des Bauerntums. Selbst die von derPartei nach vorne, in Spitzenfunktionen, geschobene künstliche Elite, wirdohne Vorurteile oder Bedenken liquidiert, sobald sie sich als eine Elitemit Unabhängigkeitstendenzen erweist.

Der Kommunismus ist eine Theorie des Klassenkampfes, aber einePraxis der Zerstörung der Eliten. Dass die Dinge so stehen, beweist dieBevölkerung der kommunistischen Gefängnisse, in denen Politiker,Universitätsprofessoren und Großgrundbesitzer mit des Lesen undSchreibens unkundigen Bauern, oder mit Arbeitern, Priestern, Gendarmenund Studenten zusammen leben und leiden. Die Welt derkommunistischen Konzentrationslager ist nicht der Ausdruck einesKlassenmartyriums; es ist ein perfektes Resümee der Welt. Die 100.000.000Toten – dies scheint die provisorische Bilanz des Weltkommunismus zusein – sind nicht 100.000.000 Bürgerliche. Der Titel, den Nicolas Werthfür das erste Kapitel des „Schwarzen Buches des Kommunismus“, dasKapitel über die Sowjetunion, gewählt hat, ist äußerst treffend: „Ein Staatgegen sein Volk“. Nicht gegen eine Klasse oder eine Idee – gegen einganzes Volk. Die Rhetorik der Repression sprach selbstverständlich vonden Arbeitern und Bauern als die Initiatoren und Nutznießer der„Revolution“, in Wirklichkeit aber zählten sie auch oft zu den Opfern.

Die Bolschewiken-Kommissare starteten umfassende und blutigeKampagnen zur „Befriedung der Dörfer“, die sich der Kollektivisierungwidersetzen. Eine Statistik des Volkskommissariats für Arbeit stellte fest –um nur ein Beispiel anzuführen –, dass im Jahre 1920 rund 77 Prozent dergroßen und mittelständischen Unternehmen Rußlands vonProtestbewegungen und Streiks erfaßt waren. Ein „engagierter“ Journalistder Prawda kommentierte kategorisch: „Der beste Platz für einenStreikenden, diese gelbe und schädliche Mücke, ist das Konzentra-tionslager.“ „Der reiche und habsüchtige Bauer“, „der Wucherer“, „derblutsaugende Kulak“ sind in der Parteisprache die Ziele der revolutionärenJustiz, ebenso wie die intellektuellen „Schmarotzer“ und die „Banditen“von Großgrundbesitzer. Ein subalterner Beamter schlug Lenin einenanderen Namen für das „Volkskommissariat für Justiz“ vor: „Volks-kommissariat für Soziale Extermination“. „Exzellente Idee“, antworteteLenin. „Auch ich sehe die Dinge genau so. Unglücklicherweise könnenwir es aber so nicht nennen.“ Letztendlich aber war der Name nichtwichtig. Wichtig war das Prinzip selbst, die Extermination des Feindes,

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und der Feind konnte – auch wenn er als Klassenfeind bezeichnet wurde– überall angesiedelt werden.

In Rumänien wurden allein in den Jahren 1951 und 1952 etwa 35.000Bauern verhaftet, von denen rund 29.000 wohlhabende Bauern waren.Nach welchen Kriterien aber wurde der „Feind“ identifiziert und weshalbbehaupten wir, dass seine Zugehörigkeit zu einer bestimmten Elite seindistinktives Merkmal war? Ich möchte da Metaphysik oder Psychologienicht überstrapazieren und der unmenschlichen nazistischen Arroganzdie trivialen kommunistischen Ressentiments gegenüberstellen. Eindeutigaber erscheint mir, dass der kommunistische Ideologe mit einerbeeindruckenden und beängstigenden Unterscheidungsfähigkeit die„hohen“ Register einer jeden sozialen Klasse lokalisierte und sich dannmobilisierte, um sie zu zerstören, denn er wußte, dass eben diese Registerdas Hindernis für sein großes Projekt darstellten. Man wollte den „neuenMenschen“ schaffen, einen Menschen mit anderen Kriterien und Optionenals der traditionelle Mensch. Das Schlüsselwort bei der Umsetzung diesesProjektes war „Umerziehung“: andere Modelle, andere Erinnerungen,andere Sitten. Und wer ist, auf einen ersten Blick, immun gegenüber der„Umerziehung“? (Ich sage >auf einen ersten Blick<, denn Immunitätgegenüber auferzwungener Umerziehung gibt es nicht.) Die Antwortfinden wir bei Gorki, in einem Brief an Romain Rolland: als erstes die„Intelligenzija“ mit ihren stabilen Wertvorstellungen und Optionen, diezu bewahren sie neigt, und dann der „reiche Bauer“ mit seinem Sinn fürEigentum und Besitz. Gegen diese, sagt Gorki, müsse ein unbarmherzigerBürgerkrieg geführt werden. „Und im Krieg wird getötet.“

Alles, was für das menschliche Individuum einen identitätsverleihendenWert darstellt, alles, was ihm Ansehen und Autorität innerhalb seiner Klasseverleiht, mußte abgeschafft werden. Denn schließlich sind Identität undAutorität Eigenschaften des alten Menschen... Ein Tscheka-Offizier sagte1918 zu seinen Untergeordneten: „Sucht während der Ermittlungen nichtnach Unterlagen und Beweisen für die Taten des Angeklagten (...). Dieerste Frage, die ihr ihm stellen müßt, ist (...), welches sind seine Herkunft,Erziehung, Ausbildung, Beruf.“ Das Ergebnis muß Entwurzelung sein, etwaswas in der Alchemie nigredo heißt, die Rückführung der Welt in denZustand der „materia prima“. Die Bauern-Elite muß zerstört werden, weilsie zu stark an Grund und Boden, an Bräuche, an die Vergangenheitgebunden ist. Die Arbeiter-Elite muß liquidiert werden, weil sie zu starkdem nicht ideologisierbaren Kult des Handwerks verbunden ist und nichtnur das Bewußtsein ihrer Rechte, sondern auch die Kraft hat, diese

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durchzusetzen. Die Intellektuellen müssen liquidiert werden, weil sie einenübermäßig kritischen Geist haben und mit riskanten Konzepten wie„Wahrheit“, „Kultur“, „Ideen“, usw. operierten. Die Religion mußkompromittiert, die Familie politisiert, die Schule umstrukturiert werden.Eine neue Geschichtstheorie wird ausgearbeitet, dergemäßPersönlichkeiten einfach nur Auswüchse der Massen sind, aus denLehrbüchern für Geschichte werden die nonkonformistischen Heldenverbannt und aus jenen für Literatur die Autoren, die nachmarxistisch-leninistischem Kanon nicht systematisiert werden können. Feingeregelt wird auch die Wellenlänge der Bewunderung, letztendlich einegefährliche Gemütsbewegung, wird sie nicht – mit ideologischerWachsamkeit – richtig ausgerichtet. Die Geschichte wird passendumgeschrieben, bis sie Fiktion ist, während der Fiktion so lange angedrohtwird „realistisch“ zu werden, bis sie letztendlich Propaganda ist. Reichenwerden zu Bettlern, der soziale und menschliche Abschaum machtKarriere.

Der Sinn für Hierarchien wird vergewaltigt, bagatellisiert, mitSchuldgefühlen behaftet. Das Innenleben wird wie eine Subversionbehandelt. Hochgespielt und hochbewertet werden hingegengeschwätzige Äußerlichkeit und oberflächlicher Dynamismus. Auf demWeg zum „neuen Menschen“ entstehen die Zwischenspezies desAktivisten und dessen romantische Variante – der Agitator. DerKommunismus setzt sich auf fast allen Gebieten als Weltmeister derPlanimetrie durch. Sein Universum ist ein Art Eislaufplatz ohneAnhaltspunkte, ein Wahnsinn der Gleichmacherei. Untergründigkeitenwerden in der Regel als suspekt entlarvt, die Höhe als einfacheSuprastrukturen entmythisiert. Die Tiefgründigkeit der Geschichte wirdauf das „Schaubild“ des Klassenkampfes reduziert. Die Seelentiefe istirgendein unwichtiger Reflex der sozialen Epidermis.

Was aber ist denn schließlich, unter all diesen Umständen, mit denEliten geschehen? Einige sind ganz einfach verschwunden. In denGefängnissen oder in der anonymen Misere einer peripheren Existenz.Andere haben diskret überlebt, am Rande, wie der verarmte Adel, zwarnoch fähig den Schein zu wahren, in Wirklichkeit aber entmannt: eineElite an ihrem Lebensabend, eine Untergrund-Elite, es ist gerade nochsoviel übrig, um die Erinnerung an die Normalität zu wahren. Man konnteeinen alten Schriftsteller in einer altmodischen Wohnung besuchen, odereinen von den Behörden geduldeten Philosophen in einem Bergdorf. Manentdeckte auf diese Weise eine zarte und schmächtige Kontinuität zu einem

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anderen Zeitalter, das nach „Hörensagen“ angedeutet wurde, Gegenstandeiner diffusen, schuldhaften und ängstlichen Nostalgie. Und schließlichgab es eine dritte Kategorie, die ich als die „Glashaus-Elite“ bezeichnenwill. Es handelt sich um die enge Gemeinschaft der Schriftsteller undKünstler, die in „Schaffensverbänden“ organisiert waren – eine Art gutüberwachter Reservationen, in denen ein akzeptables Überleben imGegenzug zu der Heraushaltung aus dem Jetzt, oder aber zu einemtriumphalistischen Mitmachen, angeboten wurde. Den Ideologen der„engagierten Kunst“ gelang auf diese Weise eine perfekte Isolierung derKünstler-Elite von dem realen Metabolismus der Gesellschaft. Die kulturelleElite war zum Exotismus verdammt.

Und was die anderen Eliten betrifft - diese werden entwurzelt, durchdie perfide Förderung eines krankhaften Wettbewerbsgeistes, der zuschweren Mißbildungen führte. Die Bauernschaft wird ermutigt denArbeiter-Status, folglich städtischen Status, anzustreben, man spricht überdie „Abschaffung der Unterschiede zwischen Land und Stadt“. DieArbeiterschaft wird ihrerseits aufgefordert, in Richtung Intelektuellen-Statuszu migrieren. Es werden Parteischulen gegründet, die über NachtHochschultitel an Vertreter des Proletariats verleihen, ausgewählt nachKriterien der dürftigen sozialen Herkunft und der politischen Treue. Leuteohne Gymnasialabschluss erhalten Doktor- und akademische Titel. Aufdiese Weise wird schnellstens eine widerrechtliche Aneignung jederKompetenz und die Diskreditierung jedwelcher echten Leistung erzielt.Großangelegte Veranstaltungen für Laienkünstler werden veranstaltet, umdamit unter Beweis zu stellen, dass Kreativität nicht alleiniges Recht derBerufskünstler und Talent eine demokratische Tugend ist, „la mieuxpartagée du monde“. Nivellierung, Umsturz, Entwurzelung, Destabilisie-rung – das sind die alltäglichen Winkelzüge des Regimes. Das Verhältniszwischen Zentrum und Peripherie, zwischen Überlegenheit undUnterlegenheit wird umgestülpt. Wer über echte Autorität verfügt hat keineMacht, und wer die Macht besitzt hat keine Autorität.

II. Das ist im großen Ganzen der Hintergrund, auf dem sich dierevolutionären Änderungen vom Dezember 1989 abzeichneten. Und esentbehrt nicht einer gewissen symbolischen Relevanz, dass dieseÄnderungen von einer Straßenbewegung hervorgerufen wurden, derenHelden, statistisch gesehen, keine Vertreter irgendeiner Elite waren. Elitenproduzieren eher „samtene Revolutionen“; blutige Revolutionen brauchendie anonyme Vehemenz der Masse. Nach einem radikalen Umsturz der

16


alten Institutionen ergibt sich als Hauptproblem die Frage, wer übernimmtdie Zügel, wer definiert und wer verwaltet das plötzlich möglichgewordene Neue? Aller Augen richten sich folglich auf den leergebliebenen Platz, auf den luftleeren Raum im Zentrum des Wirbelsturmsund suchen die eventuellen neuen Verwalter der Macht. Allein, nach 45Jahren totalitären Abdriftens, ist das Angebot konfus, wenn es nicht garnull ist. Zuerst suchen die Blicke in der unmittelbaren Nachbarschaft derehemaligen Führer. Die Euphorie nach der Beseitigung des Diktatorsschwächt die Fehler seiner ehemaligen Mitarbeiter ab. Die Namenmancher seiner einstigen Ministerpräsidenten ertönen, und diese erklärensich durchaus bereit, sofort mit der Reform zu beginnen. Dann wird unterden vom launenhaften Führer politisch verfolgten Aktivisten gesucht, unterden Helden der Straße und unter den wenigen im öffentlichen Bewußtseinbewahrten Dissidenten. Es ist offensichtlich – es gibt keine Reserve an„Ersatz-Eliten“. Das postkommunistische Rumänien muß folglich eine Eliteerfinden - aus dem Nichts oder aus den hinfälligen und gebrechlichenÜberresten der alten. Die ehemalige Nomenklatura erweist sichzwangsläufig als eine Kader-„Nachwuchsschule“, auf die zurückgegriffenwerden kann. Daneben tauchen von unbegründetem Ehrgeiz getriebenePersonen auf, Schlitzohren und nebulöse Romantiker, die aus Interesseoder einfach blauäugig-treuherzig bereit sind, Verantwortung in diesemDurcheinander des Augenblicks zu übernehmen. Das Spielfeld betritt auchjene von mir vorher erwähnte „Glashaus-Elite“, die ihren Statusneudefinieren und durch einen endlich mutigen – und zudem lukrativen– Aktivismus die schuldige Passivität von vor 1989 kompensieren muß.Ein Teil der Intellektuellen spürt, dass die neuen Zeiten eine andere Artvon „Stars“ durchsetzen werden, und, aufgrund der Kriterien der Aktualität,nehmen sie eine Umorientierung an ihrer Karriere vor: Sie werdenJournalisten, Politiker und – seltener – Geschäftsleute. Insgesamt kannvon einer spektakulären Umverteilung der Berufe gesprochen werden.Recht häufig anzutreffen ist die Umwandlung von Ärzten, Ingenieuren,Schriftstellern und Juristen in politische Analytiker (ein inflationärer Beruf),in Diplomaten, Parteistreiter oder Herausgeber. Manche – j’en sais quelquechose - werden Minister, Parlamentarier, Unternehmer. Nahezu alledrängen sich unter den hochfeinen Reihen der „Zivilgesellschaft“, diedazu neigt, in Zeiten des Umbruchs zum Homonym der „Elite“ zu werden.Die berufliche Restrukturierung kommt leider – zumindest vorläufig – einerallgemeinen Ent-Professionalisierung gleich. Alle Welt – vom Staatspräsi-denten und Minister bis hin zum einfachen Straßenbudenbesitzer – befindet

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ANDREI PLEªU

sich im Zustand des Debütanten, der das Fehlen einer entsprechendenAusbildung und Erfahrung durch Talent, konjunkturelle Geschicklichkeit,Glück oder Unverfrorenheit zu kompensieren versucht. Der allgemeineEindruck ist, dass „wir keine Leute haben“, dass wir für keinen einzigenBereich einen überzeugenden Katalog von Experten aufstellen können.Die jetzige Koalition kündigte im Wahlkampf 1996 an, sie werde 15.000Spezialisten ans Ruder bringen. Sehr bald erwies sich, dass dieseVersprechung sich völlig an die Regeln eines jeden Wahlkampfes hielt:Sie hatte keinerlei Deckung. Die 15.000 Spezialisten, genauer gesagt, ihrNichtvorhandensein, ist heute Anlaß für öffentlichen Spott und Hohn...

Charakteristisch ist die Tatsache, dass Bauernschaft und Arbeiterschaft,also die eigentliche Masse der Bevölkerung, sich nur minimal an denBelangen des Landes beteiligt. Ihrer elitären Dimension beraubt, habensie keinerlei klare Interessen mehr jenseits der alltäglichen Überlebens-Ansprüche, sie haben keine Kriterien mehr, keine Überzeugungen, keineInitiative. Sie sind leicht zu manipulieren und explodieren dann und wann,getrieben von einem unbestimmten Herdentrieb, oder angestiftet vongeschickten und unlauteren Anführern. Auf die 1992 einigen Frauen vomLande gestellte Frage: „Welchen der beiden Kandidaten für dasPräsidialamt werden Sie wählen?“ kamen Antworten der Art: „Solangedieser da Staatspräsident ist, werde ich ihn wählen, wenn der andere ansRuder kommt, wähle ich den!“, oder aber: „Ich wähle beide, Gott sollentscheiden, welcher der bessere ist.“ Das Aufgeben der Entscheidungs-treffung, die Delegierung des Optionsrechts beweisen eine akuteIdentitätskrise. Und mit einer Wählerschaft, die sich in tiefer Identitätskrisebefindet, können demokratische Wahlen eine angemessene politische Elitekaum korrekt destillieren.

Denn eine Führungs-Elite durch Wahlen zu erzielen setzt die politischeKompetenz der Masse, mehr noch, eine gewisse Sensibilität der Massegegenüber der Tugenden der Elite, voraus. Echte Eliten sind keine sichselbst genügende Minderheiten, kein einsamer Klub, der ein abstrakterSuperlativ verkörpert. Sie sind Ausdruck des Bedürfnisses des sozialenKörpers nach Eliten, sie sind die Projektion eines gemeinschaftlichenAffekts. Um zu entstehen, benötigen die Eliten selbstverständlichmenschliche „Qualität“, erlesene und gründlich gepflegte Eigenschaften,aber sie brauchen auch eine gewisse Investition an Respekt seitens deranderen, ein „Mandat“ des kollektiven Vertrauens. Die Eliten sind dasKorrelat einer Gemeinschaft, die eine Intuition der Eliten-Leistung hat undsie bewundert. Mit anderen Worten, eine „Aristokratie“ der Kompetenz

18


kann es ohne die Aristophilie des sozialen Körpers nicht geben. Derdramatischste Prozess aber, der in den ehemaligen kommunistischenLändern – außer der Zerstörung der Eliten – ablief, war die strategischeUntergrabung des Respekts gegenüber Eliten.

Die Folgen werden erst jetzt sichtbar, wenn wir merken, dass ein Grundfür das Fehlen der Eliten auch die Tatsache ist, dass wir kein „Organ“mehr für Eliten haben. Die „Umerziehung“, der wir unterzogen wurden,ist gelungen: Uns gefallen die Superlative nicht mehr - und Größe vertragenwir auch nicht mehr. Nach Jahrzehnten des verstümmelnden undverunstaltenden Gehorsams sind wir Zeugen der kompensierendenExplosion eines zerstörerischen kritischen Geistes – niemand ist mehrsicher vor der verallgemeinerten Wollust der Diskreditierung. Stattbeansprucht, genutzt und stimuliert zu werden, sind die Eliten eherGegenstand entfesselter Beschuldigungen. Die Qualifizierung zur Elite istverwässert und durch Atomisierung auf alle übertragen. Jeder Bürger fühltsich berechtigt, jedwelche Form von Herausragendem und Außergewöhn-lichem anzufechten und in Frage zu stellen. Eine definitorische Funktionder Eliten und zwar jene, als koagulierender Anhaltspunkt im magnetischenZentrum der Gesellschaft zu stehen, wird somit außer Kraft gesetzt.

Es scheint, wir haben es mit einem für post-revolutionäreGeschichtsabläufe typischem Drehbuch zu tun, mit dem chaotischenDrehbuch der „Transition“. Nach seiner Rückkehr aus Amerika beschreibtToqueville eine ähnliche Stimmung in Frankreich 1835: „Wo befindenwir uns wohl? Gläubige Menschen bekämpfen die Freiheit, und Freundeder Freiheit greifen die Religionen an; edle und großzügige Geister lobendas Sklaventum, und die niedrigen und senilen Gemüter empfehlen dieUnabhängigkeit; ehrliche und erleuchtete Bürger wehren sich gegenjedwelchen Fortschritt, während Menschen, denen Patriotismus und Moralabgehen, zu Aposteln der Zivilisation und des Lichtes werden! (...) …Eine Welt, in der nichts mehr zueinander passt, in der die Tugend keinGenie mehr hat, und das Genie keine Ehre mehr, in der Ordnungsliebemit Vorliebe für Tyrannen und der heilige Kult der Freiheit mit derVerachtung gegenüber dem Gesetz verwechselt werden; eine Welt, inder das Gewissen ein nur sehr undeutliches Licht auf die menschlichenAktionen 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 hattedas Modell einer Lösung: die amerikanische Demokratie. Wir, inOsteuropa, haben die Krise auch identifiziert. Wir wissen wie die ersten

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ANDREI PLEªU

therapeutischen Manöver auszusehen haben. Wir sind desgleichen bereit,ein nützliches Modell zu übernehmen, sei es westeuropäisch oderamerikanisch. Doch das „Modell“ kämpft gegen andere Krankheiten alswir. Genauer gesagt, was wir als Krankheit empfinden – die Zergliederungder Eliten –, scheint auf der Ebene des Modells als ein Symptom der Norma-lität empfunden zu werden. Wir wollen das wieder aufbauen, was sichdas Modell vornimmt, abzubauen. Wiederaufbau mit „Déconstruction“…

III. Selbst die Definition des Terminus „Elite“ hat sich eindeutig inRichtung Relativierung entwickelt. Zur Zeit von Vilfredo Pareto undGaetano Mosca hatte die „Elite“ noch eine Spur von Pracht, im Sinne deralten Tradition der griechischen aber vor allem römischen Rhetorik. Ichspreche von „Pracht“, im Sinne dass sich die Idee der menschlichenQualität (Tugend, Erkenntnis, Edelmut) mit der Idee der Größe, mit demmonumentalen Ansehen verband. Im V. Buch der „Gesetze“ (730c – 731a)verleiht Plato beispielsweise dem höheren Menschen die Attribute „mégaskaì téleios“ – „groß und vollendet“. „Große“ Menschen sind auch dieHelden der „Vitae parallelae“ von Plutarch, sowie einige Gestalten dergriechischen Tragödie und die Aristokraten von Pindar. Doch dierhetorische Emphase des „großen“ Menschen scheint in der westlichenZivilisation eher ein Erbe Ciceros zu sein (vergl. für diese ProblematikHans Joachim Mette, „Der große Mensch“, in „Hermes. Zeitschrift fürklassische 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 „politicalcorrectness“ irritierte. Aus Angst vor ungerechten, beleidigendenAusrutschern, vor unverdienten Hierarchisierungen, die zu Arroganzführen, wurde der Kult der „Größe“ aufgegeben, und mit ihm gleichzeitigauch der Kult der außergewöhnlichen menschlichen Qualität. Aus Angstvor Elitarismus ging man zur Minimalisierung der Elite über. Zuerst wurdeihre Einzigartigkeit (die Minderheit „der Besten“ – aristoi – Vertreter einerGemeinschaft) durch eine Mehrzahl ersetzt, die auf Berufe, Institutionenund Funktionen gegliedert ist. Bereits 1936 sah Harold Lasswell in denEliten die Summe derjenigen, die effizienten Einfluß in unterschiedlichstensozialen Tätigkeitsbereichen besaßen: Politik, Geschäftswelt, Religion,Armee, usw. Folglich Eliten – nicht Elite. Dann folgte eine funktionelleEinschränkung des Terminus: Heute arbeiten die Sozialwissenschaftenmit einem Elitekonzept, das praktisch nur noch die elementare Mechanikder Macht umfaßt. Eliten sind in jedem öffentlichen Bereich diejenige,

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die leiten, die führen - Entscheidungsträger also. Das Substantiv istsozusagen zu einem einfachen Attribut geworden. Eliten bezeichnen nichtlänger eine beständige Eigenschaft, sondern eine vorübergehende Position.Persönlichkeiten, Berühmtheiten, mit einem Wort, die „Stars“ (oder „dieProminenten“ oder die VIPs) kommen und gehen, und Qualifikation istletztendlich eine Frage des „image“, ein Ergebnis der „publicity“.

Äußerst bedeutungsvoll ist die Mutation, die auf genau jenem Gebietstattfand, das normalerweise für die Formung der Eliten zuständig ist:Erziehung und Bildung. John R. Searle macht in einer im Herbst 1993 in„Daedalus“ veröffentlichten Studie auf die Spannung aufmerksam, diebereits zu jenem Zeitpunkt herrschte – vor allem in der amerikanischenakademischen Welt – zwischen der mehr oder minder traditionellenPädagogik, die den Prinzipien des abendländischen Rationalismus treublieb, und der „Neuen Welle“ der „postmodernen“ Pädagogik, die sichunter dem Einfluß von Autoren wie Thomas Kuhn, Jacques Derrida, RichardRorty und in geringerem Maße Michel Foucault herausgebildet hatte. Eine„links“-gefärbte Neulesung von Nietzsche stellt Konzepte mit einerglorreichen und stabilen Herkunft in Frage: Es existiert keine Objektivität,die Wahrheit wird eher fabriziert denn entdeckt, selbst der BegriffWissenschaft wird als „repressiv“ eingestuft. Der kulturelle Kanon, dendie Universitäten pflegen und fördern, ist ein politisches Konstrukt, einwillkürlicher Werteblock, der erfunden wurde, um Außenstehendemanipulieren zu können. Auf den riesigen politischen „Mißbrauch“ dertraditionellen Universitäts-Eliten muß ebenfalls politisch reagiert werden.„Böse“ Manipulation wird durch „gute“ Manipulation ersetzt. Und deshalbwerden auch die Rekrutierungsregeln für neue Professoren geändert.Neudefiniert wird selbst das Konzept „intellektuelle Qualität“. DiePflichttugenden sind eher in der Richtung korrekte politische Einstellung,Intensität des „Engagements“, oder Hingebung zur „Sache“ zu suchen,als bei der tatsächlichen wissenschaftlichen Leistung. Wir erleben eineradikale Restrukturierung der bestehenden Hierarchien und damiteigentlich die prinzipielle Aufhebung jedwelcher Hierarchie. Es ist zumBeispiel ungerecht, unbegründet und „elitär“ zu behaupten, dass mancheBücher besser als andere, manche Theorien wahr und andere falsch sind,oder aber dass ein beweiskräftiger Unterschied gemacht werden kannzwischen 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 zubeurteilen. Ich frage mich aber, wie eine Versöhnung möglich wäre

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ANDREI PLEªU

zwischen den Krisen, die der europäische Osten nach langen Jahrzehntenkommunistischer Herrschaft nun erlebt, und dem reformatorischen Furorder postmodernen Ideologien. Wie kann ein vernüftiger Sprung aus derVor-Moderne in die Post-Moderne gemacht werden, angenommen dieserSprung ist Pflicht?

Für mich ist dieses Problem nicht theoretischer Natur. Es handelt sichnicht um eine abstrakte Debatte über die Philosophie der Bildung. Eshandelt sich um dringliche praktische Folgen. Als ich mir das Verständnisund die Unterstützung des Kollegs, in dem wir uns heute befinden, zuNutze machte und 1994 in Bukarest ein kleines Institut für FortgeschritteneStudien gründete, war mein Projekt sehr klar: die Organisierung einesAmbiente, eines Umfelds, in dem elitäre Begabung identifiziert,wiederhergestellt, angeregt, stimuliert und ihr geholfen wird sich zuverwirklichen. Die Stipendiaten sollten das bekommen, was ihnen wederzur Zeit der Diktatur, noch jetzt in der Transition geboten wurde – einendezenten Lebensunterhalt, völlige Denk- und Ausdrucksfreiheit, modernesArbeitsinstrumentarium, Kontakte zur internationalen wissenschaftlichenElite. Von ihnen wurde erwartet, dass sie wöchentlich an einemfreundschaftlichen Kolloquium teilnahmen, auf dem der Reihe nach dieProjekte eines jeden besprochen werden. Das Ziel dabei ist unter anderemdie Wiedererlangung von intellektuellen Fertigkeiten, die dabei waren zuverkümmern und zu verschwinden, infolge der durch den alten Lebensstilaufgenötigten Marginalisierung (manchmals Verheimlichung), Isolationund Mißtrauen. Ich hatte das Glück, Menschen und Institutionen zu finden,deren subtiles und promptes Verständnis von Großzügigkeit begleitetwurde. Doch sie, wie auch ich, mußten die Zeitzeichen bewältigen...Dann und wann wird um unsere Institution herum das Rumoren von„modehaften“ Befürchtungen laut: Ist dies nicht womöglich eine elitäreInstitution? Finanzieren wir nicht möglicherweise ein Glasperlenspiel? Wieprofitiert die „Gesellschaft“ von solch einer Aktivität? Der Subtext dieserBefürchtungen besteht aus der Summe von Annahmen und Vorurteilen,die - in guter Absicht - dazu neigen, mit Prinzipien in den Rekonstruktions-prozess im Osten einzugreifen, die im historischen, sozialen undintellektuellen Umfeld des Westens geboren wurden. Man versucht dieHeilung einer Krankheit mit Hilfe einer Medikation, die für die Heilungeiner anderen gedacht ist. Man versucht Mangel und Elend mit einerPhilosophie der Überproduktion zu behandeln.

Die Länder des europäischen Ostens stehen zurzeit vor einerInventurliste mit Dringlichkeiten, auf der keine prioritäre Ordnung

22


festgelegt werden kann. Alles ist prioritär, und das ist das größte Hindernisin der Wiedererlangung der Normalität. Die Rehabilitierung derLebensqualität ist nicht dringender als die Remodellierung derMentalitäten, und das aus dem einzigen Grund, dass ohne eine neueMentalität in Sachen Arbeit, Profit, Freiheit und Justiz keine Verbesserungdes Lebensstands stattfinden kann. Die Reform der Industrie ist nichtdringender als die Reform der Schule; die Rückgabe der Liegenschaftennicht dringender als die Institutionalisierung der zivilen Kontrolle überdas Militär, der Inflationsabbau nicht dringender als die Konsolidierungder Zivilgesellschaft. Desgleichen ist die Verbesserung des öffentlichenUnterrichtswesens nicht dringender als die Wiederherstellung der Eliten.Ein gewisser bürokratischer Geiz versucht uns davon zu überzeugen, dassdie Bedürfnisse des Menschen sich nicht in einer organischenGleichzeitigkeit, sondern in buchhälterischer Folge abspielen. „Primumvivere, deinde philosophari“, ein berühmter wie trivialer Sinnspruch, eineMethode, das Minimale in einen primordialen Wert zu konvertieren. InWirklichkeit braucht ein ganzer Mensch - und eine gesunde Gesellschaft- den Segen des gesicherten Lebensunterhalts und jenen der Reflexiongleichzeitig, er braucht Socken und Träume, er braucht das alltäglicheBrot und Utopien. Im Osten fehlen uns vorläufig sowohl das eine wieauch das andere. Aber wir können nicht akzeptieren, dass auf die jetzigeGeneration nur das „vivere“ entfällt, während die Philosophie späterfinanziert werden soll...

Was mich betrifft, so habe ich ein ideales Bild des „Kultur“-Sponsorsvor Augen, dem ich, so meine ich, einige Male bereits begegnet bin: Es istjemand, der – nachdem er nutzbringend in großangelegte Projekte fürHochschulausbildung, in Forschungen über die Kunst des Regierens, inGesetzgebung, Liberalismus, Umweltschutz und Minderheiten investierthat, und ebenso in Programme zum wirtschaftlichen und institutionellenAufschwung - jetzt das Bedürfnis verspürt, aus dem Umstandsbedingten,aus dem unmittelbar Vernünftigen auszusteigen, um in ein Glasperlenspielzu investieren. Die Finanzierung von Newtons Standort unter dem Apfeloder der utopischen Schifffahrt von Kolumbus hat sich durchaus gelohntund als rentabel erwiesen. Die Menschen werden sicher nicht ärmer, wennsie dann und wann bereit sind, die Serafim zu ernähren...

ªTEFAN BORBÉLY

Born in 1953, in FagaraºPh.D., “Babeº-Bolyai” University of Cluj-Napoca, 1999

Dissertation: Heroes and Anti-Heroes as a Cultural ParadigmAssociate Professor in Comparative Literature and Mythology at the Faculty of

Letters, “Babeº-Bolyai” University of Cluj-NapocaAssociate Professor in Mythology at the “Avram Iancu” University of

Cluj-NapocaDirector of the Echinox cultural journal

Editor of the “Discobolul” series of the Dacia Publishing House, Cluj-NapocaFounding member of ASPRO (Professional Writers’ Association of Romania),

member of the Writers’ Union of Romania, member of the InternationalPsychohistorical Association (IPA) and Head of its Romanian chapter,

co-founder of the Echinox and Apostrof Cultural Foundations, member of theAmerican Historical Association and of the Modern Language Association

(MLA).Visiting Scholar, FEIE Scholarship, English Centre of PEN, London, 1990

Fulbright Scholar, Indiana University, Bloomington, 1992Visiting Scholar, Columbia University, New York, 1997

Visiting Scholar, Institute for Psychohistory, New York, 1999Visiting East European Scholar, St. John’s College, Oxford, 1999

Several national and international prizes and awards, among which the DebutPrize of the Cluj Book Fair, 1995, the Debut Prize of the Writers’ Union ofRomania, 1995, the Certificate of Scholarly Achievement in Psychohistory,

New York, 1997

Books:

The Garden of Magister Thomas. Bucharest: Ed. Didacticã ºi Pedagogicã, 1995Xenograms. Oradea: Ed. Cogito, 1997

The Dream of Steppenwolf. Cluj-Napoca: Dacia, 1999Contributions to collective volumes of literary theory and history, over 300

essays and articles. Editor and translator.

25

A PSYCHOHISTORICAL INSIGHT INTOPAST AND PRESENT ROMANIA

Theoretical Background

Since this text represents the very first extensive psychohistoricalapproach to Romanian realities1 , linking together the past with the presentin order to suggest a psychogenic continuity of motifs and collectiveobsessions, a theoretical outline of the method proves to be necessary.

As Lloyd deMause puts it2 , “psychohistory has become a new scienceof patterns of historical motivations, less a division of history or psychologythan a replacement for sociology...”. According to Paul Monaco3 , a sharpcontributor to the same debate, “psychohistory is an approach, not adiscipline. That it is the most compelling of approaches to history is a

26


conviction, not a dogma. To claim to be formalizing psychohistory’s taskof creating a >>complete history of the human psyche<< is gratuitous.”

The above quotations delineate the two main trends psychohistorianshave acknowledged so far: Lloyd deMause, by far the most creativepsychohistorian ever, will always insist that psychohistory is a >>science<<bearing clear marks of scholarly independence, while more cautioushistorians will say it is a mere alternative >>approach<< to historicalrealities.

“Psychohistory as a science - replies Lloyd deMause to Paul Monaco’sposition4 - will always be problem-centred, while history will alwaysremain period-centred. They are simply two different tasks.” As such,psychohistory will not deal with the narrative history, that is a historycaptured by facts and determined by singular events, such as wars, battlesor deeds of kings and politicians, but with the deep psychic motivationsof historical individuals and groups. “Understanding history throughmotives and motives through history: this is psychohistory. Psyche causinghistory, making it intelligible.”5

In order to achieve this, one has to discover the “general laws inhistory”6 , how they function as a subliminal psychic motivation ofindividuals or groups, and the way they create psychogenic corridorsthroughout centuries and decades, transforming history into a “system”7 .The linkage between psychohistory and the French “nouvelle histoire”, aconcept launched by Fernand Braudel and the school of Annales ESC, isstill a task to be completed, and this paper has no intention of going furtherinto details; however, it seems necessary to mention the fact that both arebuilt on the understanding of the “long run”, and on the methodologicalrejection of the pre-eminence of the “event” in judging historicaldevelopment. Back in 1906, discussing Edouard Meyer’s ideas concerninghistorical understanding, Max Weber8 sharply formulated that “one mustconsider as meaningless for history, and as such alien to the rigors of ascientific exposition: a. what is accidental; b. the >>free<< decision ofparticular personalities and c. the influence of the ideas upon the activityof people.” It is fairly interesting to note what Max Weber considered tobe essential for the real historical understanding: “a. the manifestations ofthe masses as opposed to individual activity; b. what is typical as opposedto what is unique; c. the evolution of communities and of social classesand nations in particular, as opposed to the political activity of theindividuals.”

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ªTEFAN BORBÉLY

It goes without saying that Max Weber did not advocate the use ofpsychoanalysis in order to reveal the collective depths of history. His ideasprobably bear the influence of naturalism and Zola, and for him history isstill a rational being, functioning however differently. The key word hereseems 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 mistakesof 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 tobe the endless history of self-deprecation and of resentment. It is easy tounderstand now why it became the main religion of the proletarians.

Quite on the contrary, for psychohistorians the key word inunderstanding history is “regression”. The term comes from Freud (DieTraumdeutung,19009 ), and denotes the capacity of the psyche to shiftback in time in order to find a response to an external, traumatical stimulus.Regression is always present in Lloyd deMause’s works, he was interestedin showing that the reaction of an individual or a group to a specifichistorical event is ambivalent, the “internal development”10 based on theregression to the informal material of the deep psyche being more relevantthan the particular, rational response of consciousness. The psyche andconsciousness act simply differently: as such, historical motivations appearto be the “truth” of the psyche, and only on a secondary level the approvalof the rational mind.

This pattern of historical understanding is strictly evolutionary, and itis based, methodologically speaking, on the capacity of regression of thehistorian himself. The morphology of psychohistory supposes - and it isinteresting to note this detail - the openness to regression of historiographyitself. “Like all sciences - Lloyd deMause says -, psychohistory stands orfalls on the clarity and testability of its concepts, the breadth and parsimonyof its theories, the extent of its empirical evidence, and so on. WhatPsychohistory does have and is distinguishes it, is a certain methodologyof discovery, a methodology which attempts to solve problems of historicalmotivation with a unique blend of historical documentation, clinicalexperience and the use of the researcher’s own emotions as the crucialresearch tool for discovery.”11

As a consequence, historical motivations will be detected bypsychohistorians on a pre-verbal level, which implies, in a strict Freudianlineage, 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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seen as a “re-birth” of the interpreter himself. The regression to thepre-formal stage of the psyche drops psychohistory into myth and ritual:history will be perceived as a re-enactment of previous complexes byindividuals and groups, and most of all as the subconscious repressionsand actualizations of an eternally present, always evolving psychic energyin turmoil.

The term “re-enactment” defines the spontaneous, deep reaction ofthe psyche to an external stimulus. To perform a re-enactment, the psycheof 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 ofchildren. Regular answers to an external stimulus are the conventionalones, approved by the adults and by society, and corresponding to theFreudian paradigm of the reality principle. Re-enactments involve thefree associations of the deep psyche, structuring a “second”, personalhistory for each individual and group. When meeting an external stimulus,the individual or the group usually reaches back to this personal, backstagehistory, through the spontaneous mechanism of abreaction13 . Establishingits 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 arecord of the violation of or adherence to lawfulness in its totality. Andsince law signifies prior repression, the power of enacting presumes apotential for anti-social acting out...”14

To give some examples: wars are interpreted by Lloyd deMause asre-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 accountfor symbol formation; archetypal energy must be activated to re-structureimages”); for Henry Ebel17 , Star Trek and Star Wars theology are basedon the central image of an irrational hostile force spread all over theuniverse, 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 theexquisite interest of the psychohistorians in “group-fantasies”, collectiveobsessions, in filth and dirt, interpreted as primary, ever existing,birth-giving materials, opposed to the “clean” aspects of individuation. InLloyd deMause’s Fetal Origins of History18 , the pre-birth, foetal drama,dominated by two placentas, the Nurturant one and the Poisonous one,

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provides “the basis for historical group-fantasies”19 , and it is interpretedas being “imprinted” as a “matrix” in the psychogenic soil of history.

“Although the form that this endlessly repeated death-and-rebirth foetaldrama takes in later life is determined by the kind of childrearing which isexperienced - Lloyd deMause writes20 -, the basic >>imprinted<< foetaldrama can nevertheless always be discovered behind all the other overlays,pre-oedipal or oedipal.” The middle part of the quotation stresses the othergreat obsession of psychohistory: childrearing, Lloyd deMause being theeditor and first contributor of a famous History of Childhood21 . I do believechildrearing topics are overemphasized in contemporary Psychohistory,excessively formalizing the discipline, and lessening its impact on theacademics or professionals belonging to other intellectual fields22 . Thatis why I consider it necessary to restore the original meaning of childrearing,as it appears in Lloyd deMause’s writings23 , where it denotes above allthe practical, empirical forms that foetal energy has taken throughout thecenturies. Since history is interpreted as a succession of re-birthre-enactments, the evolution of childhood shows an endlessly re-stagedprimal experience of birth or death, of liberty or suffocation. Eachgeneration regresses several times in its existence to the pre-formal levelof experiencing that something around it is “nurturant” or “poisonous”.Historical crises activate the “poisonous” level of the collectivesubconscious, while the sacrifice offered in response opens the “gates” ofthe “nurturant” blood, relieving the “patients” from social anorexia.

Setting this perspective in contrast with the methodology ofpsychoanalysis and applied psychology makes obvious theanti-individuation complex of psychohistory. Regression to the informalexpresses in the very first instance a subconscious reluctance to acceptthe burdens of individuation; the psyche feels protected by the informal,just like a foetus feels protected in the mother’s womb. Facing an externalstimulus, 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, whilepsychohistory offers the joys of the unlimited regression to the informal.Quite opposite to the progress-centred history outlined above, history, aspsychohistorians understand it, is a living organism composed of differentpsychic strata, each of them potentially active in the fascinating Orientalcarpet embroidery of the present. This means that history is not lived as acontinuous separation of the present from the past, but as a dynamics of

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present and past interchanges: the present can activate, as a response toan external stimulus, whichever elements it wants from the past, and thepast can be interpreted in the focus of a psychodrama that the present isalways likely to perform. The model is subtly illustrated by GeorgesDevereux24 , who insists in the first theoretical half of his paper on theimportance of selective regression for the understanding of history, seenas a living body of energy and virtualities used by individuals and groupsin order to assimilate the experience of the present.

My paper will therefore deal with regressive shifts detectable inRomanian history. Politicians as children, exonerated from their possiblesins by virtue of lack of responsibility, politicians as players or garbagecleaners, not to mention the extensive myth of the politicians seen as adistant “family”, parasiting on the “pure” soul and body of the sacredmotherland are all examples of regression. Significantly, this regressionappears whenever Romanians face a new historical experience. Forinstance, in the very period I concluded my research for accomplishingthis paper (that is mid July 1997), the imagery of child sacrifice suddenlyburst out again in the Romanian media, after a long “amnesia” imposedby the electoral victory in November 1996 of the DemocraticConvention25 . I must confess that as a trained psychohistorian I was prettysure that this outburst would appear, expressing the ambivalent publicfantasy of shame for Romania being rejected from admission into NATOand the European Union (“we are a bad nation, killing our children; it isnot at all surprising that they disposed us”) and of the fear of beingabandoned again, as a helpless child of the unfair political sandbox. Inthe same period, Bill Clinton’s strange visit to Bucharest, following USA’soption to recommend the omission of Romania from the list of the formercommunist countries invited to join NATO, got in the Romanian mediathe connotation of a joyful carnival, performed by cheerful children whogathered in the University Square as in the “womb” of the December1989 revolution to admire a strange being - an American president usingathletic metaphors to boost Romania’s morale - and enjoy some benefitsof the great American civilization (Coca Cola, Pepsi Max) free of charge.As if to test psychohistorical perceptions, a Romanian teenager waspresented as taking Bill Clinton’s seat while the American president wasspeaking, childishly suggesting a familiarity coming from a nationmagnanimously ready to forgive its oppressors (as - textbooks teach us -it has always done during its history …).

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The following research will insist (not only as a tribute to LloyddeMause’s extraordinary work) on some aspects of childrearing inRomanian history. I do believe that childrearing procedures haven’tchanged too much from the 19th century to the second half of the 20thcentury, that is during the decades of modern Romanian history. Swaddlingis still dominant in the rural areas26 , but civilization has erased the habitof using children as poison containers, enabling them with the projectionof demonic spirits. On the contrary, childrearing in Romania is ratherloose, taking up the forms of the Abandonment Mode described by LloyddeMause in The Evolution of Childhood27 . The literature and mass mediaimagery of modern Romania are full of lost children, children who cannotfind their way back home, and children wandering on the roads alone.Their parents are so “unattentive” that they do not even realize that thechildren are missing, and when they do, they do not rush to find them. Achild, the subliminal message says, can always find its way back home,because the centre of the house, dominated by the fireplace, is magicaland is provided with a magnetic power. The mythology of the fireplace(“vatra”) is extremely persistent in the Romanian public fantasy, defininga person from the point of view of the distance which separates him/herfrom the centre. The centre, the “womb” is maternal, feminine, and it isdefined as being safe. On the other hand, leaving the “womb” is alwaysdangerous and treacherous. Being on the road is perceived as malevolentin the Romanian subconscious. As a result, a complementary structureemerges: the fireplace (the “vatra”) is assimilated with timelessness, definedas a magical circle which one can leave only at the price of being exposedto various dangers. As a consequence, history as an expression of Time isfull of bad projections in the Romanian public fantasy.

As they represent continuity - signifying the trespassing of the magiccircle of the family’s self-sufficiency and strife to build up an immemorialfireplace protected from the intrusion of the invaders -, children areperceived as threats in the Romanian public fantasy. Per definitionem,they have always belonged to history. Traditional Romanian housebuildingconfirms the spiritual structure. In the village areas, each house has mainlytwo parts: the front room, which is perfectly clean, not inhabited by anyoneand open to guests only, and the rest of the building, crowded by a familyof usually numerous, successive generations. Guests or people comingfrom the outside do not penetrate this area. In case of extensions, morerooms are added to the back, intimate structure, leaving the front part ofthe building magically untouched.

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Ready to sacrifice

Romania is an ideal place to test psychohistorical patterns. After theDecember 1989 revolution - or popular coup d’etat, as recent analystshave suggested - the country experienced a rebirth complex through avery strong “lost child syndrome”28 . Mass media and international TVchannels intensely reflected the misery of the Romanian orphanages, theroaming gangs of homeless children sniffing bags of aurolac (a fermentedglue) on the streets of Bucharest, and the “deadly” unhygienic conditionsin the Romanian schools of all grades - deprived of running water or soapand using filthy backyard lavatories. The tragedy of the gypsies - who areas a rule structured in socially marginalized families with numerouschildren, living in tents, cottages or even the local garbage fields -, thefrightening March 1990 street fights between Romanians and Hungariansin Tîrgu Mureº - a town lying in the mid part of Transylvania -, and theJune 15-16 1990 punitive expedition of the miners to Bucharest sharpenedthe media image. Romania was seen as a third-world country which hadgradually lost its immense popularity - acquired with the December 1989mass uprising - and had implacably sunk to a sort of formless,“pre-civilised” creature (sucking a “poisonous placenta29 ”), pregnant withhatred, social turmoils and nationalistic prejudices.

The two terms of Ion Iliescu’s presidency (1990-1992; 1992-1996)generated a suffocation syndrome due to a weak, practically impotentgovernment run over by deep and almost generalized corruption, by acomplete lack of public authority or control and by the desperate effort ofthe President to maintain power through political cleansing and pressure(e.g., his attempt to coerce the bank leaders and major managers of thecountry to become members of the main ruling party, The SocialistDemocratic Party of Romania /PDSR/). The functional weakness of theleading party was compensated for by dragging into a so-called “governingarch” two extremely active nationalist parties - the Romanians’ NationalUnity Party (PUNR), and The Great Romania Party (PRM) - which broughtalong an overt anti-European discourse, nationalistic megalomania andthe Messianic ideology of the “pure”, “ancient”, “organic” inner values.President Iliescu’s quest for a third, anti-constitutional term was overturnedby the November 1996 vote, the very first in the whole history of thecountry when a president was unseated through legal elections.

Having no specific ideology or political program, former PresidentIliescu’s re-election campaign insisted in vain on nationalistic issues, built

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on the stereotypes of the menaced tribe surrounded by bloodthirstyneighbours and undermined from the interior by a villainous, double-facedenemy (the Opposition, including Hungarians) ready to deliver the countryto a voracious monster: Europe. On the other hand, the Opposition, ledby Emil Constantinescu, former Rector of the Bucharest University andfrom November 1996, President, developed the anti-syndrome of thevoracious monster, that is the monster you have to avoid by accepting thegentle embrace of Europe. The name of this monster is Russia, a countrywhich has always been perceived as malignant through Romania’s history.Communism was imposed in Romania by the Red Army and by thediscretionary will of the Kremlin, and left deep scars in the people’smemory; the anti-Communist rage became the principal informal ideologyof post-revolutionary Romania. A former student obediently completinghis studies in Moscow and later a member of the red nomenclature,President Iliescu formally contributed as a hate target to the extension ofthe anti-Soviet feelings in a period when every mistake made in the processof European integration was publicly interpreted as a drawback dictatedby Moscow.

Summing up, former President Iliescu’s elections staff insisted on ethnicvalues, while the Constantinescu group - including many leadingintellectuals, such as Gabriel Liiceanu, Andrei Pleºu, Octavian Paler orthe poet Ana Blandiana, nor to forget the intellectual front of Romanianexiles, very active especially in Paris (Monica Lovinescu, Virgil Ierunca,Sanda Stolojan, Paul Goma, etc.) or in the USA (Matei Cãlinescu, VirgilNemoianu, Vladimir Tismãneanu, I.P.Culianu) - stressed ethical values,which revealed the common European heritage Romanian culture andcivilization have shared for more than a century. Nevertheless, it is anillusion to believe that chauvinistic, nationalistic beliefs suddenly driedout in Romania with the November 1996 elections. Resorting by analogyto a pattern outlined by Peter Brown in The Cult of the Saints: Its Rise andFunction 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, whilethe older generations (which still provide informal leaders of opinionparticularly in public places and factories), the peasantry and its offspring(as a mentality representing more than 65% of the whole society, some ofthem having lived for decades in towns, unassimilated and looking forrural motivations or social links) cherish organicist, traditional,self-sufficient and nationalistic values. Psychoclass conflicts play a huge

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role in nowadays Romania, the ideological split between traditionalistsand modernists on the political panel expressing actually a deep schizoidsocial identity.

As a consequence, after the ’96 elections the main group fantasy inRomania was the “brotherhood complex” of “joining the fellow states ofEurope”, which could be understood as a fatal loss of national identity(that is, death). I shall analyze later on Prime Minister Victor Ciorbea’sformal acceptance speech (December 1996), which can be shortenedthrough a psychohistorical subliminal Fantasy Analysis to a message thatsounds as follows: “We ... as Romanians ... are ... nothing.” The verdictwas involuntarily confirmed in March 1997 by the Minister of Finance,Mircea Ciumara, who shocked the whole country by publicly stating thatthe strict and almost unbearable steps taken by the new government toenforce the revival of the Romanian economy would “probably cause thedeath of a thousand people”31 , but it was better to do it this way than tocause the collapse of some millions later.

This paper intends to analyze the three psycho-social syndromesoutlined so far: the “rebirth complex” experienced after the revolution ofDecember 1989; the “suffocation syndrome” of President Iliescu’s twoterms; the “death and loss of national identity” complex, which emergedwith the victory of the democratic and pro-European forces in November1996.

Since they re-enact recurrent group fantasies also detectable in thehistory of Romania, some back glimpses prove to be necessary in order tounderstand the shift from a traditional, self-sufficient and Messianistpatriarchal society to a modern “brotherhood type” society seekingintegration with NATO (a major desire and immediate new goal of thenew government) and with Europe. In this rebirth process, Romanians arenow ready - as newspapers and statistics put it - for sacrifices. The longlist of potential victims includes old traditions, customs and the almostsacred 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 twoprincipalities, Moldavia and Muntenia elected - ignoring therecommendation of the Turks, who exercised suzerainty over them - one

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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 royalhouse of the Hohenzollerns. The quest for a father outside the country ishighly significant, showing the complex of a lack of paternity, which mayseem rather surprising if one takes into the consideration the fact that thegreat families of the “boyars” were still active, pulling strings, influencingpolitics and marriages. The hypothesis of an option for a “European father”instead of a domestic one should also be taken into consideration33 , givenits significance of a radical separation from the historical tradition, fosteredby a modernist generation interested in speeding up the process of reachingEuropean standards.

A careful perusal of the texts of the “classical” period in Romanianliterature, contemporary to the start of the dynasty, will lead to theimmediate realization of two major complexes. Firstly: the fathers areabsent from these texts. Secondly: the children are mostly nasty, bad,annoyingly loud and clothed like adults. The literature of the period clearlyexpresses the main public fantasy of a loose parentage and of anunrestrained, inexact, capricious and improper behaviour. The pattern ofconfusion doubles each impact of the Romanian immemorial soul withhistory: less than three decades later, the traditionalist ideology of tworural inspired social movements (sãmãnãtorism, poporanism) willemphatically sanction this “errant” behaviour.

For instance, in I.L.Caragiale’s (1852 - 1912) Visit the protagonist,dressed up like a cavalier, wearing shiny brass buttons and carrying asword terrorizes his mother as well as her kind and shy visitor, and in theend bestows him with a jar of jam poured into his uppershoes. The fatheris absent. In Mr.Goe (both are compulsory pieces for school textbooks),the spoiled offspring of a bourgeois family is taken to Bucharest by trainas a “reward” for his - so far - school failures: the child wears a sailor’scostume, shocks the passengers and the train crew with his behaviour,locks himself up in the lavatory, brings his mother to hysteria and takes anexcited step down to Bucharest, hoping to see the king on the “avanyou”(that is >>avenue<<, the form >>avanyou<< being an equivalent of theoriginal French distortion in the text). No male accompanies the child,the quest for a surrogate father being obvious.

Ioan Slavici’s (1848 - 1925) classical novel Mara depicts a possessive,Mutter Courage-like mother, living alone as a bridgekeeper with her two

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children - a son and a daughter. Titu Maiorescu (1840 - 1917), the leadingfigure of those years’ literature emerges directly as an adult, like Athensfrom Zeus’ chest. At the age of 24 he is already Rector of Iaºi University:his Daily Notes, published later, show a child without childhood, attentiveto “mature chat”, eager to climb the steep steps of the social hierarchyand ready to pull up the unbreakable walls of the Conservative Party. IonCreangã’s (1839 - 1889) Remembrances From My Childhood apparentlybuilt up the myth of a happy childhood in Romanian literature. In fact - asCorina Ciocârlie has already noticed34 - the text depicts a child youwouldn’t keep happily in your house: he is selfish; avoids tasks; destroysthe harvest; terrorizes the villagers and his relatives; abuses animals. Hissupervisors are females; the males - when they show up - are alwaysdistant and necessarily punitive.

The list can be continued with Mihai Eminescu (1850 - 1889), the“national poet” of Romanian literature. His brilliant career starts with therejection of his father’s name, and the adoption of a surrogate father: theliterary critic Iosif Vulcan publishes his first verses by changing the poet’sname from Eminovici to Eminescu, without previously asking the consentof the new star. Eminescu doesn’t care about such an intrusion: his workas a whole suggests a strong mother-complex, the only father whichappears in his poems (in Luceafãrul, as “Father of the Universe”) beingcold, distant and repulsive. Eminescu is also the “inventor” of the conceptof serene childhood in Romanian literature, due to a decisively Romanticinfluence. 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 Romaniaconsolidates its political structures and its monarchy seems quite odd and,at a first glance, incomprehensible. It is, therefore, legitimate to ask: whereare the fathers in this world? Why are they so carefully rejected? The answeris rather surprising: the fathers are in politics. They sit in distant lodges, playthe endless and childish game of politics (see Illustrations 1-4), “tie anduntie” the country, and leave everyday life and struggle to females.

In Illustration 1 (from 1869), liberal leader Ion Brãtianu juggles withthree difficult “stones” of the epoch: the Bulgarian threat; the Jewishquestion; the Austro-Hungarian conspiracy. The other leader, C.A.Rosetti,is dancing on the rope while balancing the Jews and their influence onthe major challenge of the period: the extension of the railroad network.In Illustration 2 (1869), the French emperor Napoleon III (in front of the

Illustration 1

Illustration 2

Illustration 3

Illustration 4

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horse) theatrically expresses his disappointment because of liberal leaderIon Brãtianu’s inability to move forward, his wooden horse being heldback by the Russians and the Prussians. In Illustration 3 (1859), Ion Brãtianuand C.A. Rosetti help young prince Dimitrie Ghica to “keep the rightpace”, while in Illustration 4 (1869), the already mentioned couple,Brãtianu and Rosetti, enjoy - represented as Janus bifrons - the excitementof a train voyage, the wheels impassively treading on the body of thecountry lying down across the rails.

Since the males are exiled in politics - the group fantasy says - theyare necessarily in filth because politics is dirty. Females keep things going,males spoil them, according to this thinking. Males - the period says - arelike nasty, uncontrollable children: they have their own game; are reluctantto see the sufferings of the people; live far “above the earth”; must beincessantly supervised not to do too much harm to “real life”.

This Manichean perception explains a lot of things that are essential toRomanian history. To start with, kings (meaning the period starting withCarol I) were bad “fathers” in Romanian history and perceived as suchbecause they didn’t 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 inRomanian history, in spite of the multiple attempts made to promote sucha lineage. The last such attempt - and probably the most intrusive one -was made by Nicolae Ceauºescu (leader from 1965 to December 1989,shot at Tîrgoviºte) 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 ofbunches of flowers; collective political baptizing rituals. Neither hissuccessor (Ion Iliescu) nor Emil Constantinescu tried to copy these efforts,through the group fantasy of a good, protective father image being stillactive in the backstage of today’s Romanian public life, as a shadowanti-crisis figure, constructed by nostalgic communists, some people fromthe army and the Security forces and by the resentful nationalists.

The “exile” of the fathers to the filthy dens of politics has had anotherimpact on the historical group fantasy of the Romanian people. Due tothis 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 rootsin filth and mud, but not love it. That is why politics is ugly, dirty and by

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all means “alien”, “foreign” or, to put it differently, it is not part of “theclean soul of the Romanian people”35 . As a consequence, sodomizingforeigners has always been a public show in Romanian history, and aprojective stereotype, always at hand when the “pure soul of the people”was to be exonerated from sins or failures. “The other” - come it fromabroad or be it an ethnic minority (Hungarians, Germans, Gypsies) -becomes a projective hate target in Romania’s public fantasy, playing theclassical role of the cleansing poison container.

Anti-Hungarianism and anti-Semitism are part of this attentivelydirected public hysteria. The most important social and political movementof the thirties (Archangel Michael’s Legion = the Iron Guard), includingprestigious intellectuals like Nae Ionescu, Mircea Eliade, Constantin Noica,Emil Cioran and thousands of others, was Messianic and had a decidedlyanti-Semite accent. Stepping forward in time, it is significant to mentionthat a still active group fantasy, risen in Romania after the 1989 coup,explicitly suggests that in 1947 communism was imposed on Romaniansby Jews and Hungarians (zealous executives of the Kremlin), the messagebeing that this historical “shame” was “alien” to the pure soul of the inmates.The fantasy of cleansing was extremely strong in 1990, when tabloidsshouted that the executed dictator, Nicolae Ceauºescu, was actually nota Romanian but a ... gypsy!

Romania “invented” its idealistic childhood ideology as an appendixto the nationalistic pride promoted with the annexation of Transylvania(1918). This led to the formation of the “round” country as we have ittoday, by reuniting three main historical regions: a conservative Moldavia,built on old family values; a rather nervous Muntenia, where the centrifugalforces of individuals have always been more powerful than centripetalones; a cosmopolitan Transylvania, having strong Hungarian and Germanurban communities. It is therefore worthwhile to note that the ideology ofthe serene childhood emerged in the Romanian public unconscious fromtwo main drains: the traditionalism of Moldavia on the one hand, and thepride of the new historical birth stressed by Transylvanian intellectualsand political leaders on the other. Both spread down to Bucharest, andunited in a sort of official public fantasy, fashioned by the idea that Romaniais an underprivileged “child of Europe”, neglected by nasty parents, onewho has to thrive on its own to be accepted in the “great family” of nations.Thus, the Romanian “underprivileged child fantasy” is based on frustrationand compensates through self-sufficiency. According to this complex, thefather of the child might be lost, but his mother never. The mother is thenation itself.

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Indeed, in the first three decades of the 20th century the childrenportrayed in the books of literature are always threatened, almost lost inthe dark corners of the universe, and found again by adults seemingly nottoo surprised by not having them around for such a long period. Theanxiety of being alone, not protected by the family characterizes the childprojections of Mihail Sadoveanu (1880 - 1961), whose very first writingsinclude The Graveyard of a Child (1906). Another heroine of his, Lizuca,ventures in the black and frightening forest, and finds her way back withoutthe interference of her parents. Her return is not accompanied with anoutburst of relief and joy: it seems that the adults haven’t even noticed herabsence. The “absent male” motif is the main frame of Sadoveanu’s novelBaltagul (The Hatchet,1930), built on the mythical pattern of the Isis-Osirisquest: worried by the absence of her husband, a woman leaves her hometo find him and discovers that he has been murdered by greedy shepherds.The structure of the novel interferes with the main frame of the popularballad Miorita (The Little Sheep), considered to be the archaic root of theRomanian way of life and psychology. “Home” is equivalent here withprotective motherhood: distress and death (of the males, generally speaking)come when you leave home and are confronted with aliens or with foreignplaces. Intra muros means the protective womb of the nation and ethnicity;extra muros comprises the villains, “the others”, anybody who is not amember of the ethnic club.

Lucian Blaga’s (1895 - 1961) Hronicul ºi cîntecul vîrstelor (TheChronicle and the Song of the Ages, 1965, written a long time before itsfirst publication, as Blaga died in 1961) starts with a speculation of themotive of the rejected world: the child doesn’t speak for four years, delayingthe contact with a hostile world, in which he has to struggle alone, as hisparents are not of great help. To come back to Bucharest, Ioan AlexandruBrãtescu-Voinesti’s (1868 - 1946) short stories are full of abandoned, lonelychildren. The happy family seems to be absent from Romanian publicfantasy, 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 saytoday that Hungarians or Jews are hostile per se because they are wellorganized and structured in impenetrable family units, a stereotype whichexplains 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 abigger “family”, the great family of individuals sharing the same blood.

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To attain this level, you have to surpass heredity and interpret fraternity asa spiritual linkage, more efficient than the strict flesh and blooddependence. Blood becomes here spiritualized, and the wound ofsomebody is the wound of everybody, the whole nation functioning as abig organism having the same blood vessels and sharing the same heart.

In Psihologia poporului român (The Romanian People’s Psychology)36

Constantin Rãdulescu-Motru interprets national psychology as an “abilityto create a national culture”. The development of a population isdetermined - Motru says - by three main factors, the biological orhereditarian fund, the geographical conditions and the institutions, somepeople experiment history forever from a “pre-historic” stage, being unableto rise to the higher level of “spirituality”. “In the case of populations withunconsolidated spiritual institutions the influences of heredity and of thegeographic climate are overwhelming.”37 On the contrary, “spiritualityis not - Rãdulescu-Motru maintains - a produce of time”38 , which meansthat by spirituality a population surpasses its condition of being a historicalvictim, reaching a dignity which is beyond time and its vicissitudes.

The Romanian people, though not entirely articulated -Rãdulescu-Motru concludes - is determined by “spirituality” rather thanby biology or landscape, which means that the pre-condition of a personwho creates values is to surpass its biological linkages. Family meanstime, brotherhood means eternity.

One would expect Rãdulescu-Motru to assimilate fraternity withchallenge and openness, with the adventure of taking chances by meetingsomebody distant. The surprise of the text is, on the contrary, theequivalence between “spirituality” and self-sufficiency. “Spirituality -Rãdulescu-Motru says - is like an isolating armour”, the myth ofself-sufficiency and historical isolation sneaking back in the room at thevery moment you thought it had been forever thrown over the threshold.39

But the ideal of the artificial (Rãdulescu-Motru calls it “bourgeois”) fraternityis 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 cultureand public life by a major generation of philosophers and writers whoemerged in the thirties and concentrated around the fascinating figure ofNae Ionescu, a philosopher, journalist, politician and professor at BucharestUniversity. 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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and extremist ideology, characterized by national Messianism, theirrational cult of a Saviour (the leader was Constantin Zelea-Codreanu,“The Captain”), by the excited pathos of the fantasy of spiritual collectivecleansing through action, violence or culture and by sharp accents ofxenophobia and anti-Semitism.

This paper does not intend to get into the details of this ideology40 , butit would be impossible to step further without mentioning the sharpfraternity characteristics of the Iron Guard, built on male initiation ritesand separation from the biologic family. The spiritual movement led byZelea-Codreanu represented the climactic rejection of the mothers in themodern history of Romania, this tendency being doubled by the emergenceof a new motif in Romanian art and literature: that of the sensuous, strange,magnetic female41 , a fascinating target to be conquered by energetic maleswho earned their energy by leaving boring homes, wives and mothersbehind in order to experience the self-destructive combustions and strainsof the “real life”. The key words of the new epoch are “solidarity” (ofindependent spiritual “brothers”42 ) and “experimentalism” of life throughinterpersonal links.43

The rejection of the parents is obvious. The discussions hosted by theleading newspapers and literary magazines of the period (for instance:Vremea, Christmas 1932) insist on the necessity of such a “sacrifice”, bysaying that the new generation is the first one in Romanian history toconquer a place without spilling blood. Blood is, by the way, everywherein the public subconscious: at first, as shame (the previous generationsdied 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 aren’t available any more, history being rather calm atthat time, public fantasy turns towards the inner “sins” of the poisonednational body, due to some traditional enemies: first of all the foreigners,then the politicians and in the end the forefathers who kept the country inthe sinful contemplation of a village-centred community.

*

To take a glimpse into the mid/late 20th century: Romania experiencedtwo further public fantasies. The first of them was the fantasy of the powerfulfather, that is the father-centred society introduced by the Russians’ arrivalin August 1944, consolidated by the communist regime until December1989 and discretely promoted by Ion Iliescu’s regime until November1996. The second one is the strategy of the fraternal society, promoted by

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President Emil Constantinescu’s election campaign team during the fiercemedia fights which announced the November 1996 change of power. It isinteresting to note that President Constantinescu was raised to power by abrotherhood type political coalition, and not by a single party or democraticforce, the “fraternal” quarrel for positions and privileges being the mainshow of Romania’s post-election period. The government formed at thattime is still a conglomerate of self-interested individuals, belonging to aloose family of slightly different ideologies.

Nicolae Ceauºescu’s regime (1965-1989) brought about at least twopublic fantasies which prove to be essential to understanding the evolutionof Romanian society after the coup d’etat of December 1989. First of all,it promoted a strong father figure, especially after 1971, when Ceauºescureturned from China and North Korea and tried to implement in Romania- successfully, one must say - the cult of personality admired there, withhuge mass rituals of children wearing uniforms from the age of 3, andfrantic gatherings of people meant to pay tribute to the nurturing powersof the leader. This mass hysteria was associated with a carefully projectedfather-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, thoughnever recognized, persuasive image-building strategy was in it, and towhat extent it was the result of a spontaneous public reaction. I am referringto the public image of Elena Ceauºescu, the dictator’s wife. On the onehand, she was officially worshipped as a nurturant mother and world-widerecognized scientist, although she had some difficulties in building up asimple and coherent sentence. On the other hand, public opinion satanizedher and this “poison container” syndrome was used by informalpropaganda to cleanse the dictator, attributing everything that went wrongin the country to the mad influence of his wife.

As a consequence, female satanization became a common practice inRomania during the eighties and has never stopped since. The party foundatrocious 180-pound de-feminized monsters (Suzana Gâdea, AlexandrinaGãinuºe, Lina Ciobanu), and promoted them to leading positions. Youcan hardly find a delicate lady in the literature of the period. After 1989the satanization went on: there have been no females in public positionsor in the leadership of the parties, as if they didn’t exist at all, althoughstatistics say that Romania has always had more females than males in itsdemographic composition.

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Former President Ion Iliescu quickly understood the situation and neverpromoted his wife Nina, while former Chamber of Deputies PresidentAdrian Nãstase unsuccessfully tried to ignore the pressure of the public,his elegant wife being violently rejected by the crowd when she ledgymnasts Nadia Comãneci and Bart Conner to the altar. In the twilight ofIliescu’s regime (Spring 1996), a female minister emerged (Daniela Bartoº)- significantly - in the Health Department, replacing the former holder ofthe position (Iulian Mincu), who had the notorious reputation of a butcher.

Subsequently, in the very first months of 1990, famous female dissidentslike Doina Cornea or Ana Blandiana were sent to the backstage of politicallife and possible leaders (like Smaranda Enache) were set aside withoutreasonable explanations. At the moment, male domination is fullyaccomplished in Romanian society, although female figures (AlinaMungiu-Pippidi, Gilda Lazãr, Iolanda Stãniloiu) appear on TV screensevery now and then, having the precise role of serving their malecounterparts. Recently (end of June-early July 1997), the Governmentsacrificed Gilda Lazãr, spokesperson of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, asa response to a scandal revolving around her alleged abuse of power toget a distorted negative image of Prime Minister Victor Ciorbea’s visit toWashington from the media.

Pollution through sacrificial killing: a paradox?

Romania killed her “father” on Christmas Eve 1989, at Tîrgoviºte, aftera 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 laterliterally riddled with shots. The patricide was - public opinion consideredafterwards - a sinful decision, which polluted the initial purity of the massuprising. Accordingly, the Romanian revolution entered from the verybeginning in an ambivalent mode, the main tendency of the public fantasystriving to pollute and not to cleanse the initial steps of the revolt.

The reasons for such a behaviour are easy to understand. The revolutionhad been started five days earlier in Timiºoara by a Hungarian Protestantpriest, László Tökés, an “intrusive” act from a member of a minority whichsomehow overshadowed the theatrical self-esteem of the natives. TheOrthodox Church experienced the deepest sorrow: already a target ofsuspicion because of its collaboration with the “ancien régime” and its

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secret police, it felt the privilege of the sacred and collective recognitionslipping away from its hands. Consequently, there appeared the necessityof a new start and the elaboration of a new myth with an appropriatedosage of sparkling lights and dark shadows, good guys and bad guys,terrorists and occasional heroes. The strategy had something essential: itsimply didn’t have to be logical.

In the first weeks of 1990, the country experienced a popular rebirthfantasy. People spontaneously cut out the arms of the Socialist Republicof Romania from the national flag, the hole becoming the symbol of anescape from the uterus and of the delivery44 . A ghost-faced spiritual father,the politologist Silviu Brucan evasively explained to the “children” of thenew era the further steps of the democratic alphabetization, learned byhim in Moscow during the fifties and accomplished later through randomresearch in Washington D.C. Lorries loaded with goods frantically crossedthe borders, regressing each Romanian to the stage of a child happy to gohome with both hands full of gifts: bananas; second-hand clothing; outworntypewriters; pens of all sorts; shiny computers, which they had just startedto learn to handle - in order to play exciting electronic games.

Democracy seemed to be a ludicrous socializing form, played bypoliticians who were not entirely responsible for their decisions. As alreadystated in this paper, politics has always been assimilated in Romania withplay. In the first years of the post-Ceauºescu era, the public fantasy ofassimilating the politicians with children had three main reasons.

Firstly, it exempted politicians from the sins of errors, alluding to thereal 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 neverguilty. It is interesting to note that in the media imagery of the period (seeIllustrations 5 and 6) President Iliescu is always represented as a protectiveparent, the nasty child being in both cases Prime Minister NicolaeVãcãroiu45 . Another similarity: in each of the cases, the child is disciplinedby being dragged in front of an institution (the school). The stereotype istransferred in the July 6, 1995 issue of the same newspaper onto MinisterMircea Coºea, responsible for the major “play” of the period: theprivatization of the former socialist industry.

Secondly, this strategy pervades the fantasy of a strong, almost sacredleader, the holy father of the nation. Illustrations 7-8-9-10 suggest PresidentIliescu’s 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 ).

Illustration 5

Illustration 6

Illustration 7

Illustration 8

Illustration 9

Illustration 10

Illustration 11

Illustration 12

Illustration 13

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Picture 14

It is worthwhile noting that all these illustrations have been deliberatelyselected from the leading newspaper of the Opposition, which is by definitionnot favourable to the President. The tricky thing is that the persuasive fantasyof the illustrations published by this paper unwillingly undermines the explicitmessage of the texts which surround them50 .

The third aspect concerns the relation between the individual, or thecommon man, and the power. In the Romanian exercise of power, thecommon man has always been a victim of the institutions of power andnot a beneficiary of their services (although he has always been a goodand humble taxpayer). The media imagery of the period (Illustrations11-12-13) 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 handof a policeman.

Pollution was the main public fantasy during former president IonIliescu’s two mandates (1990-1996). Romania experienced the three formsof the “upheaval” stage, delineated by Lloyd deMause in The Foetal Originsof History53 , though simultaneously and not alternately. The Christmas1989 “regicidal” killing promoted the former leader, Nicolae Ceauºescu,

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as an enemy; however, his assassination, formally approved by the majorityof the population, didn’t serve to purify the atmosphere by a sacrificialdeath, but - rather paradoxically - to pollute it.

There were several reasons for such an outcome. First of all, the impurityof Christmas and the pollution of the new political structures with formercommunist leaders - Ion Iliescu was just one of them - created a fantasy ofimpotence and fatalism, which can be very easily transformed into apolitical manipulation in Romania, a country where fatalism has alwaysbeen a public ingredient to all sorts of historical failures. The enigma ofthe “terrorists”, who acted in the streets of Bucharest after Ceauºescu hadbeen executed, the moral crisis of the army - which at first shot into thecrowd and then fraternized with them - and the reluctance of the newleaders to promote transparency and public control over the decisionswhich continued to be taken behind tightly closed doors led to a fantasyof impurity. This was reinforced by the “shame” induced by the Westernmass media, which started to talk about the filthy conditions of theRomanian orphanages, about abandoned children sniffing fermented glue(“aurolac”), and about the exaggerated figures concerning the victims ofDecember 1989. In Paris in March 1990, huge placards hanging outsidethe headquarters of several leading media agencies asked one and thesame question: “Who lied in Romania?”54

The child was born, but it was dirty. In these circumstances, the newRomanian power resorted to the “Martial solution” by inventing an internalenemy, the Hungarians of Transylvania, over whom the rage of the pollutedpeople could exercise power. The street fights between Hungarians andRomanians in Tîrgu-Mures in March 1990 inaugurated several political andstrategic plans, which had been “in the cards” a long time before December1989. The first step was the reactivation of the Secret Police, of the Securitate.Then, the clashes legitimatized a nationalistic outburst, having as flagpolestwo hysterically extremist parties, the PUNR and the PRM55 . But the mostimportant outcome was the public fantasy of the threatened nation (astereotype of Romanian history), funnelled into the conviction that historyis again hostile to the country but general and unfair animosity can beovercome if everybody reacts as a pure and sincere Romanian.

Thus, ethnicity became a cleansing device again, used to sanctioncentrifugal forces and keep the people together. Law and reason ended atthe gates of the pride of being a Romanian This energetic Messianismcovered the deepest corruption one can imagine. Hundreds of thousandsof people came to Cluj to participate - and lose their savings - in an

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enormous pyramidal game (an economic swindle, like the one whosecollapse caused the 1997 riots in Albania), but when it was stopped,nobody uttered more than a few sighs of confusion. Romania is notAlbania... The childish desire to get rich without working transformedCluj into a mass hysteria and the pyramidal game owner Ioan Stoica intothe Epiphany of Jesus. “Suicidal individuals - Lloyd deMause says treatingthe third upheaval form, the <<Suicidal Solution>>56 - often resolveinternal ambivalence through a fantasy of a <<Hidden Executioner>>who helps them in their suicidal effort in killing the bad, polluted part ofthemselves so that the good purified part can be loved again.” Romania’sleaders experienced this solution in June 1990 by asking the miners fromPetroºani to come to Bucharest in order to drain the “pollution” representedby the street protests in the University Square. The “Hidden Executioner”fantasy has been used several times since, the miners coming to Bucharesteach 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 PetreRoman); however, public opinion didn’t receive the message as a purifyingsolution 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 suggestedthe decline of Iliescu’s power through reiterated symbols of death anddecomposition (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 industryrequested by the cunning Western capitalist world, represented in the June24 1995 issue of the same publication by a US dollar mousetrap (Illustration20). Other images of general collapse introduced Prime Minister NicolaeVãcãroiu (Illustrations 21 and 2258 ), known for his passion for drinking.

The difference from the previous period lies in the new habit ofrepresenting the President as a childish, irresponsible fellow (Illustrations23-24-25-26). The subliminal message suggests the regression to a family“womb”, where politicians wash their laundry and boil the ingredients ofpolitics without knowing properly what is going on outside the walls oftheir reclusion. Illustrations 23 and 25 show the happy family formed bygoverning leaders Ion Iliescu, Adrian Nãstase and Oliviu Gherman (thePresident of the Senate at the time59 ), while the children in Illustrations

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24 and 2660 are the interpreters of the national ideological “score”promoted by the power, party leaders Corneliu Vadim Tudor and GheorgheFunar. In Corneliu Vadim Tudor’s case, the message of opportunisticsacrifice is obvious, because the text says: “Do we clean him, or do weconceive another one?”

The popular image of politics as a self-sufficient game, played bydeaf-to-reality individuals has always been a stereotype of the Romanianperception of the state affairs, having its roots in the ontological understandingof ethnicity as a thing to itself, an a priori type “essence” (“Romanianism”)incorporated in a worldly structure, namely the state as a historicalphenomenon. This rather simple theory, shared by the majority ofRomanians, has as a turning point the belief that historical vicissitudes mayalter the worldly identity of the state, but cannot harm its deep, good-for-ever“substance”. Since 1990, the interpretation of communism in Romania asan imported plague, which corrupted some millions between 1947 and1989 but didn’t harm the ethnic substance of the natives, has been a recurrentstereotype of public debates in Romania. To challenge it is sacrilegious. Asimilar mental stereotype is associated with King Michael I, living now inSwitzerland, whose role in arresting former head of state Marshall IonAntonescu on August 23, 1944 and in turning Romania against Germany atthe end of World War II is still a topic of debate amongst historians.

The conclusion would be that politicians belong to the historical formsof the state, and not to its timeless “substance”. As such they are the nastychildren of a restless family, scratching only the crust of the universe, butnever reaching down to its core. This perception explains the greatfrequency of the imagery of play and leisure involving politicians in theRomanian mass media (Illustrations 27-28-29-3061 ) during a perioddominated by the fantasy of rebirth into a world which must be destroyedentirely 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 positiveone too. In this respect, dirt is associated with debris, that is with the warmand secure ecstasy of the lair, of the den. Lair means here regression to theformless, the certainty of the womb. Starting from the treatment of the debris,there are, one may believe, two kinds of societies: disposal societies andthrifty ones. Disposal societies are, so to say, detergent trained societies. Imean by that the continuous exercise of leaving behind unnecessary things,or - to put it differently - the exercise of making one’s way in life by alwaysleaving the past behind. On the other hand, thrifty societies cope with the

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present and with the new stimuli by crouching in the lair, that is by protectingthemselves 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 andbags pile up topsy-turvy into room corners, backyard lumber boxes orbarns. If asked about the reason for keeping all these things, the ownersgenerally have one and the same answer: one never knows when youneed one thing or another.

The real, psychic reason is the desire to lessen the impact of the presentby having at hand, as a protection, a certainty of the past. I’d call it, stretchinga Jungian term a little, social abreaction. That is why historical analogieshave always been present in Romania’s way of life, where the only truestep is the step legitimatized by tradition. “The population of the Romanianvillages - Constantin Rãdulescu-Motru concludes - stays under the traditionof collective work. Every peasant will act as he believes everybody will act.He doesn’t feel the incentive to start work but at the time everybody startsit. To step aside the line is, for the Romanian peasant, not merely a risk, butsheer madness.”63 As things have gone on this way for centuries, Romania’s“shame culture”64 wasn’t distressed too much by the media images of thedirty children roaming in flocks in the streets of Bucharest or by the similarillustrations of the roms. Filth is the metaphysical substance of the past: whybother if you find it on your threshold?

Politicians as garbage cleaners

A suffocation syndrome characterized Ion Iliescu’s final months ofpresidency (Spring - Summer 1996). Clear symptoms of the “collapse”phase turned into a media imagery which embodied the shared fantasiesof abandonment and suffocation. Though Romania is not part of anevacuation trained civilization and it is by no means sure that the pressillustrations contributed to the drop Iliescu’s popularity in the polls, mediarepresentations insisted on the fantasy of a country led by politicianssurrounded by dirt and garbage, as symbolic equivalents for socialdisintegration, corruption and crisis. For instance, in Illustration 3265 ,President Iliescu is featured sinking into water, while in the October 14thissue of România Liberã (Illustration 33) the disastrous state of the healthcare is represented by a sleeping child, seemingly abandoned in a sort of

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floating basket, like Moses or - nearer to us - the mythical ancestorsRomulus and Remus. In Illustrations 3466 and 3567 President Iliescuappears as a garbage man, in the second picture sharing the joy of thedisposal with Adrian Nãstase, his major henchman and former presidentof the Chamber of Deputies. In Illustration 3668 (an extremely acid andunusual one for the Romanian media) President Iliescu enjoys the painsof defecation, using the Constitution as toilet paper.

The titles of articles published at that time clearly expressed a suffocationcrisis. Here is a sample of them: Trash. The Ecologist Organizations Requirethat Salubrity Should Be Paid by PDSR69 (România Liberã, Nov.1996);Timiºoara: The Opera Square Again in Turmoil (Ibid.); A Plague CalledRãducãnoiu; Mudava: Our People’s Head Is Rotten (Academia Caþavencu,no 41/1996); From Topliþa to Borsec: Poisoned Water for Everybody(România Liberã, Oct.26,1996); When Food Becomes Poison (RomâniaLiberã, Dec.16,1996); The American Ambassador Is Blind (România Liberã,Sept.14,1996); Sclerosis of Our Roads (România Liberã, Oct.9, 1996); IonCristoiu: “Iliescu drags the sacred values of Romanianism into the mire.”Not at all surprisingly, the September 16, 1996 issue of România Liberãputs an article on its front page saying that in the previous six months ofthe year Romania registered the sharpest deficit of population in her wholehistory. Romania sacrifices children.

It is then obvious that when times change, media imagery insists onrepresenting the newly elected leaders as poison drainers or detoxifiers,like Illustration 3770 , which shows Prime Minister Victor Ciorbea killingcorruption virus holders with a bug tox pump.

“We ... as Romanians ... are nothing”

Nationalism kept being a major issue in Romania’s Autumn 1996elections, which brought to power a “political fraternity” (the DemocraticConvention, built up as a coalition of numerous parties) and a newPresident, Professor Emil Constantinescu, former Rector of BucharestUniversity. Ion Iliescu’s PDSR was, paradoxically, a party without apersonal ideology. To compensate for such a deficiency, the leaders ofthe party stressed an opportunistic and very poignant nationalism, a popularpersuasion 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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victory of the Democratic Convention was therefore presented as a farewellto the sacred and ancient values, and as a fatal loss of national identity.

Romania is sharing now the public fantasy of frustration because ofthe cautious hugs of a rejective surrogate mother (Europe) and a similarlyrepulsive surrogate father (NATO). The lack of parentage is very obviousin recent public fantasies: the government is accused of beingnon-protective, insensitive to the needs of its “offspring”. Actually, Romaniaexperiences a completely new leadership system at the moment, basedon the premeditated diffusion of the Centre, the responsibility being takenup by a loose fraternity of equals.

The crisis is illustrated by the public fantasy of travelling, of being onthe road (that is nowhere), the most controversial minister of the newGovernment being Traian Bãsescu, the head of the Department ofTransportation. Articles about deadly unsafe belts of communication andabout absurd road taxes to be paid by car-owners blasted Romanian mediauntil mid July 1997, associating the officially induced enthusiasm to joinEurope and NATO with the subliminal public fantasy of threat andexpulsion because of a cut umbilical cord.

A Fantasy Analysis of Prime Minister Victor Ciorbea’s discourse at thepresentation of the Governing Program and of the members of theGovernment to the Parliament71 shows, contrary to its explicit, primevalmessage, a subliminal fear of losing identity when joining Europe andNATO. Words suggesting a catastrophe start from the very beginning ofthe 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 mustn’t have complexes ... Romanians do not make quality products... must change destiny ... we are not condemned ... not a miracle ...mustn’t fear ... bad ... for everybody ... winter ... sacrifices ... total war ...fight against ... crisis program ... ministers who do not ... the picture of theRomanian reality is distressing ... dangerous loss ... our life expectancy isthe lowest in Europe, infant mortality the highest ... the biological beingof the Romanian people ... affected ... Romania ... still a risky country ...painful evaluation of the situation ... the top of pain ... children infectedwith AIDS ... malnutrition ... fear ... not transform ... will not hide ... notnotice ... Romanians were not told ... unsafe Christmas ... waste theresources of a rich country, Romania ... sap the Romanians’intelligence,initiatives and everyday strife.”

Illustration 15

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tion 3

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In its last passages the discourse reiterates the ambivalence of the“terrible moments” of history (understood as the empirical cover ofethnicity) and the deepest imperative of “surviving as a nation”, thus shiftingpoliticians from the generally accepted level of the surface to the deepestlevel of the essence for the first time in a Romanian political discourse. Itis also interesting to note that the cooperation with ethnic groups as wellas the understanding of the minorities are exiled to the abstract reef of“the common platform of the religious morals”72 . The whole speech claimsthe exigence of “making history together”, in order “to leave anonymityand 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 announcedthat only Albania kills more children than Romania in Europe.

NOTES

1. Previous approaches include: Stefan Borbély: Romania and the Myth of theLost Child, Romania literara, no. 48, November 1992 and the whole issue ofEchinox, Cluj, XXVII, no. 3-4-5, which includes the Romanian versions oftexts by David R. Beisel, William L. Langer, Henry Lawton, Bruce Mazlish,Alenka Puhar, Juhani Ihanus, Paul H. Elovitz, Howard F. Stein, Stefan Borbély.

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, Winter1978

6. Carl Hempel: The Function of General Laws in History, in: Readings inPhilosophical 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 Philosophyof History. With an Afterword by John William Miller. The Norton Library, W.W. Norton & Company Inc. New York, 1962

8. Apud: Hervé Coutau-Begarie: Le phenomène >>Nouvelle histoire<<. Stratégieet idéologie 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 ofPsychohistory, Creative Roots, Inc., New York, 1982, p. 89

11. Op. cit., p. 90. The italics belong to the author, but the marks underlining thefinal part of the quotation belong to me, in order to stress the acceptance ofpersonal involvement, of “transference” by Psychohistory.

12. Thou Shalt Not Be Aware. Society’s Betrayal of the Child. Translated byHildegarde and Hunter Hannum. A Meridian Book, 1990, pp. 19-20

13. The abreaction is defined by classical psychoanalysis as the dramaticreenactment of a previous traumatic experience by the deep psyche (See:Andrew Samuels, Bani Shorter, Fred Plaut: A Critical Dictionary of JungianAnalysis, Routledge & Kegan Paul, London-New York, 1986. Abreaction)

14.Daniel Dervin: Enactments. American Modes and Psychohistorical Models.Madison-Teaneck. Fairleigh Dickinson University Press. London: AssociatedUniversity Press, 1996, pp. 35-36

15. Historical Group-Fantasies, in: Foundations ... , ed. cit., pp. 172-24316. 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 ofPseudo-rationality, in: History of Childhood Quarterly: The Journal ofPsychohistory, vol. 5, no. 4, Spring 1978

18. The Journal of Psychohistory, vol. 9, no. 1, Summer 1981, reprinted in theFoundations of Psychohistory, op. cit., pp. 244-332

19. Op. cit., p. 26120. Op. cit., p. 26021. 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 Dervin’s Critical Reflections on Key Aspects of LloyddeMause’s Seminal Psychohistory, and Lloyd deMause’s 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 ofChildhood (op. cit.) and in the Foundations ... (op. cit.)

24. La psychanalyse et l’histoire: une application à l’histoire de Sparte, AnnalesESC (20) 1965, reprinted in Alain Besancon’s L’Histoire psychanalytique.Mouton-Paris-La Haye, 1974

25. Aproape 100.000 de copii abandonaþi în instituþii de ocrotire/Almost 100,000children abandoned in foster homes/, România liberã, July 19, 1997; Societatearomâneascã nu-ºi mai poate permite sã piardã copii în instituþii de tip lagãr/Romanian society can no longer afford to lose children in concentration camptype institutions/, ibid.; Cei mai mulþi copii se îmbolnãvesc din cauza sãrãciei/Most of the children get sick because of poverty/, România liberã, July 21,1997; Doar în Albania mor mai mulþi copii decât în Romania/Only in Albaniado more children die than in Romania/, România liberã, July 22, 1997

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26. An excellent model of childrearing for the Balkans can be found in AlenkaPuhar’s Childhood Origins of the War in Yugoslavia, I-II, The Journal ofPsychohistory, vol. 20, no. 4 Spring 1993 and vol. 21, no. 2 Fall 1993

27. The History of Childhood (op. cit.), p. 5128. See my text in România literarã, November 199229. Lloyd deMause’s terminology from The Fetal Origins of History, see supra30. The University of Chicago Press, 198131. TV and media reports, May 199732. Spaþiul mioritic, Bucharest, 193633. 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, Timiºoara, 1995

35. The expression is a commonly widespread public stereotype in formal debatesand informal arguments in Romania (St.B.)

36. Short version in: Enciclopedia României, Bucureºti, 1938, pp. 161-16837. Op. cit., p. 16138. Ibid., p. 16139. It’s necessary to say that Constantin Rãdulescu-Motru’s theory opposes Lucian

Blaga’s famous thesis concerning “the boycotting of history” expressed inSpaþiul mioritic (The Mioritical Space, 1936). As Blaga puts it, the psychologyof the Romanian people is based on the reluctance to face history (that is, bythe desire to “boycott it”), its actions being performed in a “pre-historical”time (“eternity”). On the contrary, according to Rãdulescu-Motru, “spirituality”rises a nation beyond time and contingencies, in the “pure” space of creativevalues.

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 ofMircea Eliade’s Spiritual and Intellectual Development. Thesis presented tothe Faculty of Arts of the University of Ottawa as a partial fulfillment of therequirement for the degree of PhD, Ottawa, 1975; I. P. Culianu, Mircea Eliade,Cittadella Editrice, Assisi, 1978 (Romanian version in 1995, by NemiraPublishing House); Man Linscott Ricketts, Mircea Eliade. The Romanian Roots1907-1945, Boulder Co., East European Monographs, 1988; Z.Ornea: Aniitreizeci. Extrema dreaptã româneascã /The Thirties. The Romanian ExtremistRight/, Editura Fundaþiei Culturale Române, Bucureºti, 1995

41. Camil Petrescu, Ultima noapte de dragoste, întîia noapte de rãzboi, I (1930);G. Ibrãileanu, Adela (1933); M. Sebastian, Femei(1933); Gib I. Mihãescu,Rusoaica (1933); M.Eliade, Maitreyi(1933), Domniºoara Christina(1936);G.Cãlinescu, Enigma Otiliei (1938)

42. M. Eliade, Cuvântul, VIII, no. 2502/ July 11, 193243. P. Comarnescu, Azi, no. 1/ 1932. The term “experientalism” is a forced creation

of the author

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44. The significance of rebirth from a malignant womb theatrically reemerged onJuly 11, 1997, when President Bill Clinton visited Bucharest after blockingRomania’s access to NATO. When finishing his speech, Petre Roman, Iliescu’sformer Prime Minister and the actual President of the Senate unexpectedlyoffered the American President a flag having a hole in its middle. By doingthis, Roman tried to persuade the guest to legitimatize Romania’s new politicalleadership by raising the unfolded flag of the December 1989 revolution infront of the enthusiastic crowd. Clinton either misunderstood the claim, orwas reluctant to honour it. (St.B.)

45. România Liberã, 1995, May 9 and June 9 respectively46. România Liberã, July 1, 1995 (It is worth mentioning that the beneficiary of a

similar consecration was President Carter, represented with an aura aroundhis head in Lloyd deMause’s Reagan’s America, Creative Roots, 1984, p. 18)

47. Ibid., July 1 199548. Ibid., May 6 199549. Ibid., April 18 199550. For further details see my text Psihoistoria în imagini /Psychohistory in

Illustrations/, Echinox, XXVII, no. 3-4-5/ 1995, pp. 3 & 2051. România Liberã, 1995: February 6, June 15 and March 20 respectively52. Ibid., June 3 199553. Creative Roots, Inc., New York, 1982, pp. 246-24754. Personal observation (St.B.)55. PUNR: Partidul Unitãþii Naþionale Române /The Romanian National Unity

Party; leader: Gheorghe Funar, until end of March 1996; after losing theelections, Funar was unseated, and the party elected a new president, ValeriuTabãrã/; PRM: Partidul România Mare /The Greater Romania Party; leader:the anti-Semite poet Corneliu Vadim Tudor/

56. Lloyd deMause, op. cit., p. 24657. România liberã, February 1 and March 30 respectively58. România liberã, March 1 1996 and February 7 1996 respectively59. România liberã, February 16 and 9 1996 respectively60. Ibid., April 22 and July 15 1996 respectively61. Ibid., February 15, April 3, January 24, January 10 1996 respectively62. Ibid., June 9 199563. C. Rãdulescu-Motru, Psihologia poporului român (op. cit), p. 16164. The term belongs to E. R. Dodds: The Greek and the Irrational, The Regents of

the University of California Press, 1951 /Romanian version translated byCatrinel Pleºu: Dialectica spiritului grec, Meridiane, 1983/

65. Academia Caþavencu, October 16-22 199666. România Liberã, October 14 199667. România Liberã, September 26 199668. România Liberã, September 28 199669. PDSR = Partidul Democraþiei Sociale din România, the leading party until the

1996 general elections

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70. România Liberã, December 16 199671. Discursul Primului Ministru desemnat, Victor Ciorbea, cu ocazia prezentãrii

programului de guvernare ºi a Guvernului în faþa Parlamentului, in: Dreptatea,nr. 121, December 18-24 1996, pp. 15-16

72. It is worthwhile noting that in the Romanian Constitution (1991), the Presidentis the only point where the mundane meets the sacred...

MIRCEA CÃRTÃRESCU

Born in 1956, in BucharestPh.D., University of Bucharest, 1999

Dissertation: Romanian PostmodernismAssociate Professor at the Faculty of Letters, University of Bucharest

Visiting Professor at the University of Amsterdam, 1994-1995Member of ASPRO (Professional Writers’ Association of Romania),

member of the Writers’ Union of RomaniaFellow of The International Writers’ Program, Iowa City, 1990

Numerous prizes and awards, among which the Prize of the Writers’ Union ofRomania 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 Médicis, Le Prix de l’Union Latine and Le Prix

pour le meilleur livre étranger.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 Româneascã, 1980Love Poems. Bucharest: Cartea Româneascã, 1983

Everything. Bucharest: Cartea Româneascã, 1985The Dream. Bucharest: Cartea Româneascã, 1989

Levant. Bucharest: Cartea Româneascã, 1990The Chimeric Dream. Bucharest: Litera, 1991

Nostalgia. Bucharest: Humanitas, 1993Love. Poems 1984-1987. Bucharest: Humanitas, 1994

Travesty. Bucharest: Humanitas, 1995Blinding. The Left Wing. Bucharest: Humanitas, 1996

Double CD. Bucharest: Humanitas, 1998Romanian Postmodernism. Bucharest: Humanitas, 1999

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POSTMODERNITY AS A ‘WEAK’ONTOLOGICAL, EPISTEMOLOGICAL AND

HISTORICAL EXPERIENCE

1. Postmodernism and postmodernity

The concept of “modernism”, defining an attitude and an artisticpractice which emerged towards the end of the last century, cannot beprobed into without discussing the philosophical, historical andsocio-cultural background of modernity, a much wider notion, yet onewhich is closely interrelated to the artistic and literary phenomena inquestion . Likewise postmodernism, one of the most widespread conceptsin contemporary theories of art (and elsewhere) simply cannot beunderstood — or is even prone to gross misinterpretation — without anunderstanding of the world that has engendered it : ‘il convient de faireune distinction entre “postmodernite” comme type de condition humaine(existentielle, mais aussi sociale) et “postmodernisme” en tant que courantlitteraire (ou culturel, si vous voulez)’1 . Moreover emphasising the bondbetween postmodernism and postmodernity is of greater significance thanrelating modernism to modernity. If modernists, despite their claim to beartists 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 haveshifted their focus towards the insertion of their works in everyday life andhave become engaged in contemporary ethical, political and religiousdilemmas. Consequently the aesthetic criterion, which was looked uponas all-powerful by modernity, proves insufficient to pass a right judgementand to estimate the genuine value of any work of art. From this point ofview, postmodernism draws a full circle in European culture, since itrepresents a return to the environmental, utilitarian, ornamental andessentially “democratic” perception of art which preceded the Romanticrevolution.

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I am going to seek the conceptual roots of postmodernity in threefundamental fields of knowledge, while emphasising the common purposeof their three respective endeavours: defining the contemporary humanbeing. For each of these cognitive areas I have chosen the theory of oneillustrious analyst of post-modernity as a guiding light. While faithfullyfollowing the paths opened by their theories, I will nevertheless considercontradictory viewpoints so that, by the end of this paper, I hope to haveachieved a clearer insight into what postmodernity is, not only in itsday-to-day tangible occurrences, but in the intricate paradoxical networkof its underlying theory. A discussion of postmodern ontology will compriseGianni Vattimo’s reflections on his “forerunners” Nietzsche and Heidegger,as well as Gadamer’s, Jauss’s and Rorty’s contemporary hermeneutics. Ihave regarded Jean-Francois Lyotard’s work as representative for theformulation of essential issues pertaining to epistemology and for thelegitimisation of new patterns of cognition. The concept of the “end ofhistory”, dealt with by all postmodern theorists as one of the basic aspectsof the postmodern age, has been audaciously, if not always persuasivelyenough, discussed by Francis Fukuyama, the author of the noteworthybook “The End of History and the Last Man”. I will enlarge upon his pointof view in the third section, although the American historian does notdeclare himself a disciple of postmodernism. Although divergent as tomethodology and detail of investigation, the three theories have in commonthe sense that modernity, as an age in the history of humankind, has reachedits end .The world is taking a new turn, and fundamental concepts likereality, 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 Vattimo’s main endeavouris to find points of correspondence between the various contemporarydiscussions of the concepts of modernity and postmodernity and thetheories of Nietzsche and Heidegger, both late modern philosophers, fullyaware of the dissolution of modernity and of the obsolescence of its initialdesign. As an inheritor of the 18th century rationalist Enlightenment,modernity carried forward the mainstream of European thought, at thecore 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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can indeed be characterised as being dominated by a view of the historyof thought as progressive enlightenment, which develops by means of anever deeper appropriation and reappropriation of fundamentals, oftenconsidered as origins, so that the theoretical and practical revolutions inWestern history are often viewed and justifiably labelled as recoveries,revivals, returns.’2 This utopian teleological view has been castigated byvarious thinkers who have revealed the role played by chaos, hazard,and the subconscious in the making of history, the so-called “negativecategories”, which, did not only enable prosperity and progress to governcertain ages, but also generated blind alleys, decadence and dissolution,and brought about the death of entire cultures and civilisations. Followingin the footsteps of Copernicus’s revolution, which demoted the humanbeing from the centre of the universe, the ruthless Kulturkritik went so faras to shatter traditional humanism into pieces. Fr. Nietzsche is, indisputably,“the great shatterer”, whose philosophy has made its imprint upon thecentury following him, and whose impact is now more powerful thanever. His act of discrediting and, ultimately, of annihilating those valuesEuropean culture regarded as the most stable and secure, started with thevery concept of “founding”, of “base”, of establishing that ontological orcognitive “foundation” without which there could be no metaphysics.Both Nietzsche, and, less radically, Heidegger, bring into discussion thenotion of metaphysical foundation, but, unlike other critics of Europeanculture, they do not propose any other kind of grounding. With these twophilosophers, being is no longer a fixed, immutable plane to which realworld 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 bymetaphysics) can neither be prolonged nor surpassed: the only acceptablesolution is a separation from modernity. The following chapter willdemonstrate how the meaning of the prefix “post-”, a morpheme in wordssuch as postmodernism and postmodernity has aroused many controversiesbecause the this separation has been misunderstood.

“The shattering of ontology”, “the weakening of being” and “nihilism”were among the scathing expressions by which humanist philosophersattempted to isolate and discredit Nietzsche’s influence. All these categorieshave nevertheless been espoused by those to whom the modern ageappears mistrustful of absolute values, seeing them as the storehouse ofhuman prejudices and the source of discriminatory and totalitarian

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practices. We acknowledge, these rejecters of absolute values say, thatwe live in a nihilist age, but, taking nihilism to its conclusion is our onlychance, since nihilism has come to mean our ability to endlessly createtruth and value — albeit short-lived like everything else — instead offalse, once-and-for-all norms and dogmas. The “weak” value, createdamong people for people who live a precise moment in their history is theonly kind of value postmodernity enables us to create, since all the othervalues have proved to be false idols. The dissolution of metaphysics bythe revelation of the “weak” nature of being and thinking, the end ofhistory as the never-ending headway of the human being in search ofselfhood (for the subject itself, as a substratum — subjectum —, has notbeen able to resist criticism) and the reformulation of truth, a notion whichgrows similar to an aesthetic concept, are all “nihilistic” ideas. They areequally the premises required by the only optimistic, positive, approachto the contemporary world: the postmodern critique. It is worthwhileexpanding upon this last idea. In Vattimo’s opinion, postmodernity nolonger regards truth as a gnoseological concept, since it is no longergrounded in a stable metaphysical reality. Like the subject, truth goes on“a slimming diet”, it becomes an instrumental concept of communicationand interrelation, very much like aesthetic concepts. Consequently,postmodernism sustains ‘a non-metaphysical conception of truth, whichshould be interpreted starting not so much from the positivist model ofscientific knowledge as from (...) the experience of art and the model ofrhetoric.’3 From now on, the aesthetic experience, which is essentially“weak” will be the model for any type of knowledge. This step is neededfor the “aestheticization” of life in the post-modern world, the unexpectedconsequence of which is a dramatic change in the way culture and art areassessed 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 centrex-wards.’4 . ‘The devaluation of the supreme value’ is expressed by theconcomitant “Death of God” and that of man (as an ideal, sublime,atemporal being, as pure judgement). Genuine freedom only emergesonce our illusions about man have come to an end. Surprisingly enough,on the wasteland which Nietzsche created by demolishing rationalisthumanism, radically opposite ideologies could be formulated. The ideathat, after God’s death “everything is permitted” and that morality itselfdisintegrates, while the only law left is the right of the stronger, has enabled

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the establishing of a morality of the “masters” or of the “superior race”; inother words it has led to fascism. Paradoxically and ironically, history hastestified 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 thetribe, a morality which took the form of the new democratic ethics basedon human rights. The Ideal Man had to die in order for human beings toarise, in all their complexity and diversity, as they are in real life. Absolutevalue had to dissolve in order for individual values and group values tohave their say, values created between people, not once-and-for-all, butfor a limited period, and only contextually valid. As already mentioned,the unavoidable consequence of Nietzsche’s perspective is a certainde-realisation of the world. Unbound from the metaphysical chains whichhad kept it in bondage during the classical age, the post-Nietzscheanworld is depleted of reality, a phenomenon which finds its most faithfulexpression in The Twilight of the Gods : ‘the real world has become afairy-tale.’5 In the same way, for Heidegger being is annihilated to theextent that it is completely converted into value, which is in its turnfluctuating and convertible. This effect of unreality, so salient in today’sworld, has led to various trends of thought joining against the nihilism ofour age. Starting with the first decades of our century, a strong philosophicalfront has stood up in defence of humanist values. Reunited under theshared motto of “the pathos of authenticity”, early existentialists,phenomenologists, Marxists, and more recently, representatives ofcontemporary hermeneutics such as Habermas have made greatendeavours to defend the great values theoretically. Vattimo points outthat all these endeavours have failed. Despite the charges brought againstit — “dehumanisation”, “confusion”, “alienation”, “generalisedprostitution” — total nihilism has proved much less harmful and morefruitful than all the ideologies which have led to wars and dictatorships.The failure of humanism is perceptible everywhere in our century, in whichnot only has communism caused unparalleled disasters, but respectablephilosophical and artistic trends (existentialism, surrealism, futurism andavant-garde movements) have become compromised by supporting allkinds of dictatorships, from Stalinism to fascism, from Maoism tointernational terrorism. Vattimo points out that, in striking contrast withthese trends, ‘unerring nihilism calls for an experience of reality, whichhas become fabulous, and which is our only way to achieve freedom.’6

Wherever a society has undergone de-ideologisation and the abolition ofabsolute creeds (as is the case of contemporary Western, and especially

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American society), that society has enhanced its complexity, prosperityand freedom, despite the psychological already referred to.

Together with Niezsche’s assertion that ‘God is dead’, in the practicalsphere modern technology, which was originally regarded as a source ofopening the gate towards totalitarian practices, has contributed to thedissolution of all absolute values and has brought about an unprecedentedcrisis of humanism, a concept that Heidegger considered equivalent tothe possibility for metaphysics itself to exist. Between around 1900 andthe period after the Second World War, human values underwent a painfulcrisis, which was mirrored in all philosophical trends. One attempt toprovide a cordon sanitaire for these values was the use of dichotomies ofthe type humanities versus natural sciences or culture (humanist) versuscivilisation (dehumanising). These dichotomies — in which the first termsdefined the fortress of everlasting humanism, a sort of Goethean Castaliawholly isolated from the present day world of decay — proved groundless,partly because humanist values did not appear essentially different fromother values, and partly because modern technology, far from emergingas a deadly menace, turned on the contrary into a positive reality. IfSpengler 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 theworld of technology as the best instantiation of metaphysics, and,consequently, as the first mark of Ereignis, of re-discovery of the self. Thesubject, as it is conceived by humanists, is not worth defending, as it isidentified with reason and conscience, which are defined as correlativesof the object, sharing in the immutable stable character of the object. Thesubject is a substratum (sub-jectum) and, as such, paradoxicallyrelinquishes its very subjectivity, its historicity (Dasein). As a conclusion,Heidegger reinforces the necessity to abandon metaphysics, not bytransgression as such, but by Verwindung, which rather means recoveryor convalescence. There is a need for the subject to take up a “slimmingdiet”, since it can no longer claim to be the absolute spirit. As a result ofthis “slimming”, the subject acquires historicity and location, becomingcontextual and ephemeral, an entity ‘which dissolves its presence-absenceinto the networks of a society which increasingly turns into a sensitivebody of communication.’7 The cycle referred to above is thus completed,since postmodern philosophy and practice prove to be solidary andcomplementary.

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Art is the first area to benefit from the consequences of this. The decayof metaphysics provides fertile ground for a general aestheticisation oflife. The problem of the “death of art”, which might be seen as the centraltopic of modernity, acquires a quite different meaning in postmodernity.From the avant-garde breakthrough of the 20s, which denied anyconfinement of art, to the new avant-garde, with its ubiquitous art, whichsteps beyond the traditional, isolated and protected spaces (theatres,museums, exhibition and concert halls), the classical view on art has beenviolently challenged throughout our century. Never has the concept of artreached such relativisation as in the age of media supremacy, since thecommunication media have become nowadays a kind of perverse (stillnot totally distorted) embodiment of the Hegelian concept of the absolutespirit. Art does not fade away with postmodernity, but it loses its isolationfrom the social body (that famous autonomy of the aesthetic proclaimedagainst all kinds of populisms and dictatorships) into which it finallydissolves. The survival of art implies the renunciation of the “absolute”,so that what was not habitually regarded as art becomes art. The work ofart’s questioning of its own status becomes a criterion of value. It can beseen that postmodernity witnesses a triumph of avant-garde concepts, oncondition that they be “tamed”. When the avant-garde becomes routineand fits into the “norm”, when what used to be shocking no longer shocksanyone, while that which formerly did not shock has vanished from thepicture, we may say that we have entered the postmodern world.Undeniably, any postmodern work includes its own denial, in the form ofcritical distance, irony, parody, (self) pastiche, which means that the deathof art is literally implied in any artistic product, which indeed somehowfeeds on this implication. Turning the disappearance of art into the verysource of art’s vitality and survival is the optimistic solution the postmodernthinker provides to a problem which the modernist failed to resolve, sincethe 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 andpostmodern avant-gardes, since technology favours the endlessreproduction and the ubiquitous nature of all works of art and thus destroysone of the essential criteria employed by the elitist estimation of the workof art: its uniqueness. The mass reproduction effect mentioned by Benjaminin his famous work ‘The Work of Art in the Age of MechanicalReproduction’8 leads to a curious “living death” of art. Although artpervades all possible spaces and permeates all possible forms, it loses the

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immense prestige it used to have when it was considered (admittedly bythe restricted elite to whom it was accessible) the repository of all humanvalues 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 aestheticcriterion: pleasure. Mass communication alone can achieve socialconsensus nowadays, a consensus which is neither political, norideological, but ‘a resignedly aesthetic function.’9 That is why the deathof art should be understood in two ways : its strong meaning points to theend of “high” art as the moulder of humankind, as an occult, initiatoryworld, the preserver of transcendental revelation (we may clearly recognisethe “elation-inducing” perspective of modernism); its weak meaningconcernes the mutation, which traditional thinking would have regardedas unacceptable, even apocalyptic, leading to the dissolution of art intosocial life through the mass media. The “myth of art” crumbles and artundergoes a boundless democratisation. The “weak” viewpoint does notcome after the “strong” one; they are simultaneously displayed and stronglyinterrelated. Modernism is not dead when postmodernism appears; rathermodernism survives by means of postmodernism, due to the specificallypostmodern simultaneity of all aesthetic attitudes, ideologies and styles inan ahistorical world, where, according to Al. Philippide, ‘old and newages in motley merge; all as one swiftly surge’. “High” art still survives,despite the dwindling of its audience and prestige. It dwells in its tinysecluded room, ‘where, within a complex system of connections, the threeaspects of the death of art: utopia, kitsch and silence, play and interacttogether.’10 The next chapter will enlarge upon the concept of silenceand demonstrate, following Ihab Hassan’s line of thought, that both trendstypical of modernity, intellectualism and violent avant-garde, end up insilence — the one in intense meditation over the blank page, and theother in the white noise of pandemonium. On the contrary, postmodernitystarts from silence in order to build up parallel worlds that will somedaycompete with the World itself. With postmodernity, while art loses its“life” in the traditional sense of the word (namely its value, significanceand mystery), it equally loses its death, entrapped in the limbo of paradox,like the hunter Gracchus in Kafka’s tale. Its condition might be called the“twilight” or the “agony” of art. The art of the present day can only bedefined by oxymoron: dead life, sweet agony, “merry apocalypse”, whichonly draws it closer to the aesthetic trend it so strikingly resembles:mannerism.

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Together with art, traditional aesthetics is also prone to decay. The“exemplary” character of the work of art lacks support. If it technologicallyreproducible (consider, for instance, the playing of Vivaldi’s music in awashing-powder advert or the glimpsing of the Gioconda’s smile on amatch-box), the work of art can only induce a “sideways”, “marginal”,“casual” perception, as an object glanced at “out of the corner of one’seye”. Devoid of any stable substantiation of values, the aesthetic approachbecomes “weak”. Temporary and perishable, the work of art becomes amere “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 theWork of Art, Heidegger describes art as a “background happening”,describable only by means of a “weak” ontology. Casting art back intothe role it used to play before Romanticism “ennobled” it and wideningthe concept until it covers the entire social body are processes whichperform the conditions necessary in order for the whole world to becomea work of art, as was foreseen by Nietzsche as far back as the previouscentury, when he wrote: ‘The world is a work of art in the process ofself-making.’11 To conclude the discussion on the death of art in thecontemporary world, one might say that, like the seed in Christ’s parable,art remains alone unless it dies, but if it dies it may bear much fruit.

In proposing ‘an essentially humanistic philosophy of history’12 , themost important representatives of contemporary hermeneutics, Gadamer,Apel and Jauss stray away from the Heideggerian spirit they would wishto share and turn into opponents of the postmodernity foreshadowed byHeidegger. The great philosopher supplies a nihilist definition for therelationship 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 intolanguage, being “weakens”, and the history of metaphysics becomes thehistory of the progressive oblivion of being. Among contemporary theoristsof hermeneutics, Richard Rorty is closest to a postmodern standpoint(without being a postmodern theorist himself). In his main book, Philosophyin the Mirror of Nature, Rorty lays emphasis on “empathy”, on the intuitivenature of hermeneutic knowledge. In Rorty’s view, once the attempt tobuild up an epistemology has been relinquished, hermeneutics dissolvesinto 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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looks like ‘a huge building site of survivals.’14 The same definition couldapply to contemporary art, which displays a wide variety of trends —from the historicising to the marginalising —, simultaneously unified andpluralised by the great media discourse.

3. Knowledge in postmodernity

As far as postmodern epistemology is concerned, the most clear-sightedanalysis is Jean-Francois Lyotard’s15 . Having studied various types oflegitimising discourses, Lyotard has evinced the increasing substitution ofnew legitimising procedures for the “modern” legitimisation of power,science, knowledge, etc. Dealing with the beginning of postmodernthinking, Lyotard, like Vattimo, mentions the works of Nietzsche andHeidegger. He regards other influences, such as Freud’s psychoanalysis,Max Weber’s demonstration of the connection between the Protestantspirit and capitalism, and the philosophy promoted by the Frankfurt School,as equally decisive. Neither are Marxist and Neo-Kantian thoughtneglected, since they inspire postmodernism with major topics. The twopostmodern theorists equally agree as to certain common points sharedby these theories, and as to overlapping areas in the views of Foucault,Derrida, Deleuze, etc. One major area would be the scathing criticism ofthe European Enlightenment, of its faith in reason and its grandiose coherentteleological scripts, which always set man in the centre of being and ofhistory and on the ascendant line of unbounded progress. TheEnlightenment provided “scripts” or “grand narratives” which were to playa legitimising and comforting role in European thought for almost threecenturies. These scripts generated the illusions bred by humanist thinkingabout human “predestination” and encouraged far-fetched attempts tofully and coherently justify man’s worldly destiny. The rationalist andidealist-Romantic heritage urged modernity to believe in the “objectivetruth” of various explanatory scripts. Modern man, although deeplyfissured, continues to embody an abstract ideal. On the other hand,postmodernity utterly mistrusts meta-narratives and, once it has acquiredthe skill of deconstructing them, it unveils all the ideological andself-mystifying presumptions underlying any seemingly “objective”discourse. In Lyotard’s view, this mistrust, this scepticism towardsobjectivity, coherence and completeness is the main symptom ofpostmodern thinking. ‘When this meta-discourse [i.e. philosophy] explicitly

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resorts to one grand narrative or another, such as the dialectics of spirit,the hermeneutics of meaning, the emancipation of the national or workingsubject, the development of wealth, I have decided to designate as modernthe science to which they relate in order to get legitimised.’16 Surprisinglyenough, doctrines and ideologies so profoundly divergent such asHegelianism, nationalism, Marxism, hermeneutics and market liberalismappear as various facets of a “totalitarian” modernity, in the sense thateach of them proclaims itself the only legitimate and thoroughinterpretation of Man and the only way to influence and shape Manaccording to certain abstract principles. Lyotard supports the idea of atrenchant opposition between modernity and postmodernity; however,as already suggested, postmodernism does not simply “replace” modernismat a precise historical moment, since there are complex relationships ofcoexistence and interdependence between the two. Lyotard’s relativemanichaeism has been exposed by other theorists, such as Matei Calinescu,who, in the introductory chapter of the postmodern anthology he editedtogether with Douwe Fokkema17 , explicitly asserts the following: ‘Actually,Lyotard’s opposition between modernity and postmodernity, seen withinthe corpus of his philosophical work, is just another way of personifyingthe eternal conflict between Ahriman (domination, capital, the acquisitivedrive, the will to infinity, mastery, control, richness) and Ormazd (thedesire for opacity, paralogy, non-communication, autonomy, the “figural”and “deconstructive” search for “incommensurability”. Modernity wouldthen be a synonym for Lyotard’s strangely timeless notion of capitalism,while postmodernism would be a personification of an equally timelessdesire for freedom and justice.’18 If the notion of a strange “ageless”capitalism (or rather, an “industrial age”, perceived either as a backgroundor as a metaphor) may fit into the notion of modernity as defined by Lyotard,Matei Calinescu’s statement that postmodernism is an “opaque”“non-communicative” world sounds questionable. To counter Calinescu’sopinion, both Lyotard and Vattimo (the author of a book specifically dealingwith this topic19 ) perceive transparency and communication — whichare, after all, one and the same thing — as the core of the new postmodernliberalism. Lyotard emphasises the fact that within this transparent (or atleast translucent) world, only those more conservative institutions thatobviously preserve residues from the past will withstand this tendency fora while: ‘The state will start to look like a factor of opacity and “noise”undermining an ideology of “communicational” transparency, which isaccompanied by a commercialisation of knowledge.’20

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With Lyotard, knowledge no longer plays a formative role. In his view,postmodernity wholly rejects the idea of man’s ceaseless “completion”,of knowledge enriching the human mind, an idea still supported by modernhumanism. In the new post-industrial world, knowledge is valueddifferently: any value becomes an exchange value, which, like anycommodity, fluctuates according to the “exchange rate”: ‘Knowledge hasbeen and will be produced to be sold, has been and will be consumed tobe put to use in a new production.’21 Redefined as such, value differsboth from the “production force” — in positivist terms —, and from themoulding force — in hermeneutic terms —, which is meaningful only ina world of absolute values and purposes. Knowledge has become an issuethat goes far beyond the production of commodities. The real place whereknowledge proves decisive is the realm of decision: ‘In the age ofinformatics knowledge as an issue has become more than ever an issue ofgoverning.’22 , Lyotard writes, then adds that the question “Who shouldmake the decisions?” lies at the heart of this matter. Instead of the grandnarratives, it is the logical and linguistic criteria, devoid of ideology butstill supporting an endlessly expandable network, that could be able todescribe the informational clouds of the present society. Among thesecriteria, Lyotard shows a particular interest in “language games”, asunderstood by Ludwig Wittgenstein. The following demonstration relieson this specific criterion. Under the conditions provided by the new society,ruling is no longer identified with political decision: ‘The former poles ofattraction consisting in nation-states, parties, professions, institutions andhistorical traditions have ceased to arouse interest’ and have been replacedby ‘a composite blanket made up of managers, officials, leaders of largeprofessional , trade union, political, and religious bodies, etc.’23 . Thisgroup takes decisions which impact upon the entire “social fabric” withina complex game, which is in its turn constituted by numberless otherlanguage games. In order to be noticed, the social bond need to encompassa “language change” in the context of such a game. Consequently a generalagonistics takes shape, as a new “power” mechanism in the postmodernworld, in which ‘to speak means to fight in the sense of to play.’24 On theone hand, Lyotard’s analysis includes those contrastive aspects which arespecific to linguistic structuralism; on the other hand, it lays considerableemphasis on the ludic aspect of decision, which is the truly novel elementin the new social relations of postmodernity. However the issue of decisionis merely described and far from being solved by depicting the new societyas an informational cloud governed by a general agonistics. For a decision

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to be made possible and to be able subsequently to structure the socialfabric, it has to be perceived as legitimate. Legitimisation is a key conceptwith Lyotard. Having experienced world-wide conflicts, holocaust andcommunist totalitarian regimes, the post-war world can no longer begoverned according to the grand legitimising narratives, be they nationalistor Marxist. The erosion of man has entailed demolishing all the ideals andutopias in the name of which countless crimes have been committed. ToLyotard, the main issue which postmodernity faces is the following: howcan legitimisation occur otherwise, so that it may preserve its credibilityand prove its validity? Combining epistemology with game theory, Lyotardtries to answer this question by disclosing the way in which ‘the atomisationof the social in flexible language game networks’25 takes place.Legitimisation will be determined by the very nature of these languagegames.

From the beginning of his study, Lyotard distinguishes two major waysof acquiring knowledge. One is “narrative” knowledge, of folk origin, inwhich narrative form prevails over content or discursive aims (recollectingthe past). The need for fiction, in the form of classical or modern myths,thus becomes synonymous to the need for oblivion, or for the fabricationof a fake memory, more suitable for collective desires and cravings. Withthis type of knowledge, there is no need for legitimisation, since thenarrative provides self-legitimisation. Scientific knowledge is in strikingcontrast to narrative knowledge. The pragmatics of the two forms ofknowledge 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 Lyotarddeals with further on is scientific knowledge, which is highly specific ofpostmodernity.

In its turn, scientific knowledge can be split into two basic branches(or games): research and education. Research features the followingpresuppositions (or game rules): 1. The addressee and the addresser areequally competent; 2. The referent should be appropriate to reality; 3.The addresser is assumed to be telling the truth; 4. There is a doublesuitability rule: dialectical and metaphysical; 5. Research achieves itspurpose once consensus as to its validity has been reached. In its turn,education is underlain by several presuppositions: 1. The addressee doesnot share the same amount of knowledge as the addresser; 2. The addresseemay become an expert; 3. There are “unquestionable” utterances whichare conveyed as truths. Lyotard combines the features of the two games

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pertaining to scientific knowledge and reveals the following characteristicsof this type of knowledge : 1. Scientific knowledge only allows for adenotative language game; an utterance is accepted according to its truthvalue; 2. Scientific knowledge is indirectly acquired knowledge, isolatedfrom the other aspects of social bonds; 3. Competence is compulsoryonly for the addresser; 4. The scientific utterance does not get validatedby its own formulation. 5 Science is a cumulative process which, becauseof its diachronic character, involves memory and design.

Between narrative knowledge and scientific knowledge there is anasymmetrical compatibility. If narrative knowledge tolerates a scientificmentality to a certain extent, scientific knowledge proves altogetherintolerant of a narrative mentality. This is exactly what opponents ofpostmodernism as being a loss of meaning, a loss of the human value ofknowledge. There can be detected in their attitude a nostalgia for thehumanist modernity of the past, when knowledge was indeedpredominantly narrative.

Once the religious-metaphysical legitimisation have collapsed,knowledge of the European type reaches an impasse. Various types oflegitimisation have been devised, in a general endeavour to avoid“nihilism”, or in other words legitimisation by consensus. ThusRomanticism brought legitimisation from the people by means of debateand consensus. This view invests the people with the status of “universalexpert”, whose representatives demolish traditional narrative structuresonly to replace them by modern, equally narrative, structures. The notionof progress flourished during this period, seen as the acquisition ofcompetence over generations. The golden age, which ancient philosophersidentified with a mythical past, was re-located by modern thinkers in thefuture: it was to be possible owing to the general progress of humanity’s.This type of legitimisation still dominates the political life of nations. Itturns the issue of state into an issue of scientific knowledge. As a universalexpert, the people becomes concerned with the legitimisation of political,economic and scientific power by means of meta-narratives. This interestgenerates the great “scripts” or legitimising narratives in their two versions:political and philosophical. In the great political script of Europeanmodernity, humanity as a whole is represented as a hero of liberty. Thisview assigns the state with the mission of moulding the people as a nationand of guiding it on the pathway to progress. A classical example is thePrussian state in Hegel’s time, regarded by the philosopher as the ideal,

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unsurpassable form of state, the emergence of which marked the end ofhistory as the unimpeded development of the absolute spirit.

The philosophical version of the legitimising narratives centres aroundmetaphysics as the exquisite all-comprehensive synthesis of all sciences.In their turn, these sciences are but moments in the development of thespirit, meant to achieve a meta-history of the spirit. It is easy to recognisethe Hegelian design in the philosophical version, since they both rely onknowledge of the narrative type. This knowledge engenders that ofhermeneutics, which is so suitable for modernity, but altogetherincompatible with postmodernity. All great ideologies rooted in theEnlightenment and Romantic idealism have been legitimised either bythe 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 atleast two centuries, postmodernity witnesses a process of ideologicalde-legitimisation as the great scripts have lost their credibility. This processshifts the focus from aims (teleology, progress, utopia) to means. Agreeingwith Gianni Vattimo and other postmodern theorists, J.-F. Lyotard pointsout that the decay of the great legitimising scripts is not the result solely ofhumanity’s having entered its post-industrial age, but primarily of certainprocesses regarding the theoretical aspects of knowledge. The seeds ofde-legitimisation and of nihilism should be first sought in the erosion ofthe speculative (philosophical) discourse generated, as Nietzscheremarked, by the sciences being subordinated to and validated byphilosophy. If philosophy was predominantly narrative, sciences wouldbecome ideological tools in the service of power, losing their truth valueand, implicitly, their credibility. Likewise, the emancipatory (political)discourse becomes eroded since there are two types of discourse generatedby the people: one descriptive and the other prescriptive. The two typesof 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 atthe end of the past century and during the first decades of the presentcentury. Irrespective of their proclivities, thinkers were forced to face ahuge proliferation of languages which had emerged without any traditionallegitimisation. Lyotard points out that the age of pessimism came to anend once new forms of legitimisation had emerged, forms specific to thisvery proliferation of languages, arising from linguistic practices and

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interactive communication. Lyotard goes on to analyse these practices inmore 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 pragmaticsof research is influenced nowadays by two changes: the enriching ofargumentation and the complication of the administration of evidence.While discussing the richer argumentative strategies, Lyotard shows thatargumentative languages are regulated by logical meta-language, whichimplies consistency, completeness, decidability and interdependence ofaxioms. Formal logic has lately become considerably enriched: Godel’sfamous demonstration proves that all systems have limitations, whichappear whenever the systems are translated into a natural, inconsistentand paradox-generating language. This leads to the impossibility ofexhausting a system by demonstration, somenthing which traditionalthought used to consider unacceptable, but which postmodern thinkersconsider inevitable, even stimulating. By accepting the haphazard, theincomplete and the contradictory, the very notion of reason undergoesfundamental change:

‘The principle of a universal meta-language is replaced by that of aplurality of formal and axiomatic systems capable of argument in favourof denotative utterances; these systems belong to a universal, howeverinconsistent meta-language.’26 There is a salient discrepancy betweenpostmodernity and all previous ages as to scientific knowledge: whileclassical and modern science rejected paradox, postmodernity draws itsargumentative force from it.

The other recent change undergone by pragmatics is the complicationof the administration of tests The central paradox of this issue is that thetest itself needs testing. To apply a test means to find out a fact by meansof certain recording procedures, obeying the principle of performativity.The procedure implies the use of complex and costly hardware, which isnot available to any scientist. The triad that regulates the administration oftests is wealth - efficiency - truth, where causality sets the order of theterms. In the new “empire of performance”, the scientific idealism, whichused to enliven classical science and urge the dedicated scholars intogetting committed to the sheer quest of truth for their own benefit andpleasure, has become not only a naive goal, but also an unattainabletarget. Science has stopped being a guarantee of humanity’s unlimitedprogress, and has simply become an instance of the circulation of capital:

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‘It is the desire to get rich, rather than the desire to acquire knowledge,which imposes the imperative of better performance and higher qualityproducts upon technology.’27 Research starts being scheduled accordingto enterprise management and capitalism grants credits either by financingvarious departments with practical “applications” or by creating specialisedfoundations. Consequently, the administration of tests ‘is controlled by adifferent language game, where not truth, but performativity is at stake(...) The state and/or the enterprise abandon the idealistic or humanisticlegitimising narrative in order to justify power as the new asset at stake’28 .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 thattechnology which is meant to investigate reality. This is the only reallegitimising method acknowledged by the modern world.

Consequently, if in modernity technology was regarded as an appendixof science, in the postmodern world it acquires priority over science. Takingthis reversal into account, sciences exist only in order for ever moreperformative technologies to emerge. A cycle is thus established, in whichany increase in power can only be achieved by increasing the amount ofinformation. The postmodern world system is essentially informational.

The second component of knowledge, education, differs from researchby its functioning as a sub-system of the social system and not irrespectiveof the social bond. Its purpose is to contribute to general optimisation. Toachieve this purpose, the new forms of education have discarded thehumanist ideal of character delineation and simply content themselveswith 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 partsin the pragmatic positions institutions need them for.’29 Within thisframework, Lyotard highlights the meaninglessness of academic autonomy,an issue so much debated in the 70s, since educational institutions arenecessarily subordinated to that power which allows them to function.Their role basically consists of the uninterrupted training of individuals. Inthe new type of society, education has come to replace the question “is ittrue?” by “is it saleable?”, which finally entails a profound change in thenotion of reality itself, and thus represents the most puzzling and shattering

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challenge of postmodernity. Contrary to all expectations, it is not the idealistand humanist education, the preserver of values and of the sense of reality,which has proved to foster the development of knowledge, but thepragmatic education, based on sheer performativity. ‘The perspective ofa huge market for operational competence opens up. The holders of thistype of knowledge have been and will be the object of demand and eventhe target of seductive practices. From this point of view, what is heraldedis not the end of knowledge, but quite the contrary. Tomorrow’sencyclopaedias will be databases. They exceed any user’s capacity. Tothe postmodern citizen they are “nature”.’30 The idea that the scientist nolonger explores nature directly, but searches the databases on nature, inother words explores a secondary reality, created by humans, into whichthe human being gets integrated from now on, comfortably dwelling inun-reality, may be the absolute hallmark of postmodernity. When Lyotard’sbook was published, in 1979, PCs had not yet invaded the market; onlylater on their did their rapid spread confirm the cynical, yet insightfulpredictions of the French thinker. PCs have introduced virtual reality, theillusory core of posmodernity, into the life of ordinary people by means ofincorporated databases, person-to-person facilities, multimedia andinternet connections.

At the same time, Lyotard favours the idea that there is a certaintraditionally “humanist” traditional quality which preserves its role in thenew society as well. This quality is imagination. When knowledge is fullytransparent and informationally substantiated, something else is neededin order to get the advantage in a competitive situation. This advantage isprovided by an excess of imagination, by the ability to conceive newmoves in a language game, assembling scattered pieces of information ata speed exceeding that of others. As in Asimov’s famous story, educationrelies on two levels of performance, a “mass” one, based on the memorisingand recounting of knowledge, and an “elitist” one, which aims at enhancingcreativity. The “Age of the Teacher” comes to an end, as teachers arerivalled by databases and research teams and de-legitimisation andperformativity gain priority.

Legitimisation is not a closed issue. Performativity indeed presupposesthe existence of a stable deterministic system. In postmodernity, however,stability and determinism lose their absoluteness and, as with all othercharacteristics, become variable and contextual. Therefore, neither canlegitimisation be absolute. Within the framework of post-modernknowledge, it is subject to perpetual fluctuation, while sciences find a

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new basic function for themselves: the permanent questioning of theirown legitimisation. Consequently, the legitimising discourse becomesimmanent, and dependent on local and consensual circumstances.According to Godel’s theory, the internalisation of this discourse necessarilybrings 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, atomicphysics introduced the notion of boundaries to knowledge by quantumtheory and Heisenberg’s principle of indeterminacy. Heisenberg, forinstance, reveals that, on the one hand, observing all conditions within asystem requires more energy than that consumed in that system, and onthe other hand, that perfect control diminishes efficiency. The higher theprecision, the higher the uncertainty, the only predictable quantities beingthe statistical percentages. Next to immanence, indeterminacy is thesecond basic characteristic of postmodernity. Mathematical theories ofnon-linear equations (Rene Thom’s catastrophe theory, the theory of chaos,Mandelbrot’s theory of fractals) have followed the same trend towards thetheoretical congruence of the post-modern world. Absolute determinismlacks both meaning and reality. In an ocean of chaotic movement thereare mere unstable “islands of determinism”, engendered by the local stateof the system. Paralogies are to be encountered throughout thepost-industrial universe. Culture and art will also face disorder, paradoxand indeterminacy. In Lyotard’s view, the human being is re-positionedas a conscience striving (as always) to invest chaos with meaning, but thismeaning is now not global but punctual at each and every moment: ‘In itsconcern with the undecidable, with the boundaries of controlled accuracy,with quanta, with clashes of incomplete information, with fractals, withcatastrophes, and with pragmatic paradoxes, postmodern science theorisesits own discontinuous, catastrophical, unrectifiable and paradoxicalevolution.’31 . Mutatis mutandis, this might equally well describe thecondition of postmodern literature: focused on its transcendence duringmodernity, the text becomes immanent, ceaselessly questioning its ownartistic legitimacy.

The end of legitimising narratives becomes thus the end of closedsystems. The new science provides the open system anti-model, whichundergoes a process of morphogenesis, as Rene Thom calls it. This processimplies introducing new rules into the game, related to the unpredictablelocal conditions which may emerge within the ‘huge clouds of linguisticmatter that make up societies’32 .

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In its new interpretation, scientific pragmatics can even redefine itslinks to society. It acts ambivalently, both against power (be it prescriptiveor meta-prescriptive) and in favour of power. During a first stage of theinformational impact, the manipulation of information by the media wasfeared as a potential ‘dream instrument for the control and regulation ofthe market system’33 , as well as the political system. Numberlessmid-century anti-utopias describe such totalitarian worlds governed byrigorous information control. On the contrary, having followed the historyof the world during the last decades, the latest postmodern thinkers considerthat a boundless proliferation of information renders its large scalemanipulation impossible. In their view, a scientific pragmatics based oninformatisation ‘may serve discussion groups in addition tometa-prescriptions, while providing them with the missing informationthey most often need in order to make knowledgeable decisions’34 .Knowledge itself becomes part of the power of decision. Althoughpostmodern theory starts from a radical nihilism, it ends up by offering anoptimistic perspective on knowledge, which modernity would have foundit hard to imagine. This new optimism, which cannot pass unnoticed inpostmodern artistic theory, is still one of the most characteristic aspects ofpostmodernity. Every person’s free access to all knowledge (memory anddatabases) ‘foreshadows that kind of politics where the desire for justiceand the desire for the unknown will be equally obeyed’35 . This is theconclusion reached by Lyotard at the end of a survey which brilliantlycombines 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 nightmareI cannot awake from’, above and beyond the terrifying sentential generalityof his utterance, he undoubtedly voiced a modernist viewpoint. Sincehistory as a science separated itself from historiography, acquiredself-awareness and subsequently laid the foundation for a philosophy ofhistory which claimed to “account for” events by all-embracingmetaphysical schemata, that is, roughly speaking, since the Enlightenment,numerous historical outlooks, despite their divergences, have shared theidea of a continuous evolution of society, from barbarism to civilisation,in the sense of its material and moral improvement. The final purpose ofhuman evolution was to achieve a “human ideal” pertaining either to the

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past, or to the future. Each historical event had to be acknowledged aspart of this triumphant march towards perfection, in which “more recent”meant, by definition, “better”. Even pessimistic views on history, whichdepict humankind as sliding downwards into evil and degradation — suchas Romanticism or modernism — share an ideal and teleological point ofview: humankind “has gone astray”, “has deviated from its lofty purpose”,which is simply a different way of asserting the existence of a pathwaytowards the ideal, the teleology of history and the privileged condition ofthe human being in the world. The Enlightenment view has beenquestioned in history as well as in the fields already discussed, by thosethinkers who have discarded the idea that history acquires meaning bypredestination. With Kierkegaard, Nietzsche, and later Heidegger, thehuman being is never immobile and absolute; with time, humans aresubject to becoming by random fluctuations. As a conclusion, there canbe no immutable ideal that humankind should strive to reach and therecan be no-one to show humankind the way to the peak along the pathwayof progress. Abandoning the notion of progress, which underlay the entirephilosophy of history during the previous century, opens the way to adifferent approach to history, which is consonant with postmodern theoryin other fields. Postmodernity marks the end of the Joycean nightmareand the human being awakens from history. Recurrent with all postmodernthinkers, the “end of history” signifies, beyond its various nuances, anabandoning of the notions of linear evolution and teleology. Arnold Gehlenwas dealing with post-history as early as 1957, meaning that the presentworld of technology, in which progress has ceased to be spectacular andhas turned into routine practice, conceals a certain immobility at its corewhich separates it from previous history and somehow places it outsidehistory36 . With Gianni Vattimo, contemporary history is fundamentallydifferent from modern history due to the dissolution of the science of historywith all its branches, including both the philosophy of history and thepractical historiography, be it rhetorical or ideological. A history of thecontemporary world can no longer be written because everythingnowadays ‘shows a flattening tendency on the plane of contemporaneityand simultaneity owing to the new communication media, especiallytelevision.’37 This simultaneity or synchrony of all history via the media isone of the essential traits of the postmodern world. It has considerableconsequences for art and literature: the artists is suddenly granted accessto all forms of art, no matter how “historicised” (therefore dead) they mayseem from the viewpoint of modernist critique.

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The notion of the “end of history”, which is fundamental topostmodernism, is not actually a postmodern contrivance. It has been setforth, in either an explicit or a veiled manner at certain other moments inEuropean historical-philosophical thinking. Hegel is probably the first toreiterate, after millenia, the terrifying sentence from the Apocalypse: ‘Andtime shall be no more.’ In Hegel’s view, world history was a continuousadvance of humankind towards self-knowledge, that is towards thecomplete fulfilment of the absolute spirit. In the tangible historical plane,this fulfilment was tantamount to everybody’s acquiring awareness of theirliberty: ‘Oriental peoples knew that you were free; the Greek and theRoman worlds knew that certain people were free; while we all knowthat absolutely all people (humans as humans) are free.’38 This statement,in which the aim of history is commensurate with liberty, recalls a Kantianassertion: ‘The history of the world is nothing else but the improvement ofthe awareness of Liberty.’39 Hegel was nevertheless going a step further,since he was trying to prove that fully acquiring a free conscience was nolonger a desideratum, but a wish come true. Admittedly, people couldaccede to freedom only under the conditions supplied by certaininstitutions, the most important of which was a modern constitutionalstate. These conditions were met with, in Hegel’s view, by the Prussia ofhis time, after the battle of Jena in 1806. As a result, Hegel regarded thisdate as the landmark of “the end of history”. Historical events would keepon taking place, but the principles of freedom and justice which all liberalmodern states rely on had been discovered and implemented, althoughonly partially and in a few states (apart from Prussia, mention could bemade 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 anend for history was Marx. After the final victory of communism throughoutthe world, humankind was not to witness further historical stages. Oncethe final aim was reached, history would come to an end and no trackwould be kept of any real progress. The state itself was sentenced todissolution and class struggle, “the power engine of history”, would endin the victory of the proletariat.

The controversial book of the young American historian FrancisFukuyama The End of History and the Last Man (preceded, three yearsbefore, 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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circumstances in which it was written. The book was published in a contextwhich supported the idea of the end of an evolutionm, and of the dissolutionof linearity, causality and teleology, especially in culture, art and literature.Fukuyama does not declare himself to be postmodern and does not usethe term systematically. Nevertheless, his book may be consideredpostmodern in its description of the historical, social, economic and (lastbut not least) psychological conditions which enable the moving onwardof all societies, at various speeds, towards a unique form of socio-politicallife, identified by Fukuyama as bourgeois democratic liberalism. In myopinion, Fukuyama’s book rounds off a bird’s-eye view on postmodernityfrom a historical and political viewpoint, focusing on a type of societywhich could not be achieved outside contemporary democracy andliberalism. His analysis is all the more plausible as it comprises recentevents of an overwhelming importance for world history . He deals withthose events of the late 80s which led to the irreversible breakdown of theworld’s second totalitarian regime, communism, fifty years after the fascistregime had been destroyed by the same Western democracies. Under thecircumstances, the conclusion is self-evident: on a world-wide scale,democratic liberalism is no longer rivalled by any ideology that mightconstitute a serious threat or a plausible alternative. The purpose of FrancisFukuyama’s book is, however, not to reveal a state-of-affairs (which mightonly be sheer historical hazard), but to prove its necessity: the necessary, increasingly manifest ongoing movement of all societies towards Westerncapitalist ideals, in other words towards what we call the postmodernworld.

Fukuyama finds the philosophical foundations substantiating a possibleend to historical evolution in the work of Alexandre Kojeve, a fascinatingpersonality among the French intellectuals of the 30s. Kojeve had delivereda series of lectures providing an unconventional interpretation of Hegel.He agreed with the author of The Phenomenology of Mind that historyhad ended in 1806, with the battle of Jena. All events after this date, someof 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 stageand representing the “alignment of the provinces” to the mainstream trend,namely the dissemination of the same principles of liberty and equalityamong the less advanced nations, under specific forms: ‘Observing whatis going on around me and what has happened in the world since thebattle of Jena, I understood that Hegel had been right to see the end of

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history as such in this battle. In and by this battle, the avant-garde ofhumanity actually reached its limit and its purpose, namely the end ofMan’s historical evolution. What has been happening ever since has beenbut a spatial extension of the universal revolutionary force whichRobespierre and Napoleon implemented in France.’40 And if for Hegel,Marx or Kojeve the end of history was the harmless process of fulfilmentof human liberty, the deeply-rooted pessimism of our century, which haswitnessed two devastating world wars, the holocaust, the HiroshimaA-bomb, and two totalitarian regimes of unprecedented monstrosity, hasutterly discredited history as a unidirectional, progressive and intelligibleaction force. For the ordinary human being, the very notion of history hasacquired negative connotations, as in the Joycean nightmare. Under thegiven circumstances, Fukuyama’s optimism distinguishes his theory fromthose promoted by modern historians (such as Toynbee) and draws it closerto postmodern theories.

The American historian deals with two aspects of human life whichshould necessarily overlap in order for liberal societies to achieve theirpresent day form. One aspect is material, the one is idealist-psychological.Economical analysis reveals that there is only one human process that isundoubtedly cumulative and progressive: science. The accumulation ofknowledge provides tangible advantages for a society committed toscientific progress. Even those societies that are utterly opposed to thescientific spirit cannot do without scientific findings nowadays, even ifonly in the military field. The technical and scientific revolution has aconsiderable impact not only on those states which initiated it, but on allstates, whether they are communist, Islamic or feudal. The socialadvantages generated by science and technology in all fields of life(medicine, entertainment, education, etc.) are so obvious that renouncingthem seems inconceivable. Should a world-wide disaster occur, thesurviving groups would necessarily resume the process. Thus, at least fromthis point of view, history follows an irreversible path: ‘And if the masteryof modern science is irreversible, once it has been achieved, then adirectional history and its various economic, social and politicalconsequences are fundamentally irreversible as well.’41

This does not in any way mean that the accumulation of knowledgeshould necessarily lead to a society of the liberal type, but only that itconstitutes a necessary premise for such a society. States such as the SovietUnion or South Korea are examples of highly industrialised countries whichhave never been democratic; on the contrary they have lived under one

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authoritarian regime or another. Until the 60s and 70s, when theinformational post-industrial society emerged, the impact of science andtechnology was considered rather negative, a source of dehumanisation,uniformity and dictatorship. The imperative of performativity has howeverled to the progressive rationalisation of production, which has reached itsacme in the development of free markets, top technologies andmanagement. Unexpectedly, it was technologies that abolishedhyper-authoritarian regimes and that became “the grave-diggers ofcommunism” to use Raymond Aron’s phrase42 . Communist states sufferedfrom economical stagnation because of their centralised economy, basedon planning from above and unable to adjust to market fluctuations. Thereis no alternative today to free market mechanisms for achieving that fullmodernity which is postmodernity.

Under these circumstances, the old socialist idea according to whichcapitalism survives by exploiting Third World resources and causing theirunderdevelopment appears as erroneous. Those countries which benefitedfrom industrialisation later on have not been disadvantaged in comparisonwith the old industrial states. The contrary can be proved by the economicboom of certain countries in south-eastern Asia, which decided in favourof industrialisation by adopting top technologies and which stepped outof their feudal underdevelopment into the post-industrial age. Irrespectiveof the amount of resources and the backwardness of the population,capitalism has been successful wherever it has been imposed by firmpolitical decision. The underdeveloped countries of the present day donot lack propitious conditions; what they lack — Fukuyama emphasizes— is the political will to pass on to a prosperous society. The idea is alsoillustrated by Germany’s and Japan’s miraculous recoveries, these countriesbeing able to rebuild everything out of wreck and ruin.

Without the decision to create a hi-tech economy, the ideal ofdemocracy stays utopian. All over the world there is a salient link betweena society’s level of prosperity and the degree of democracy in its institutions.Mass education, communication and public services, and a political systemable to express the wide range of group and individual interests createdby the post-industrial age, have improved the political culture of thepopulation. Consequently, industrialisation generates bourgeois societies,which need legal and political protection in order to secure freedom andequality for their citizens.

Despite the above considerations, authoritarian states of the right wingor Islamic dictatorship type may prove as capable as democracies of

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securing economic prosperity both in principle and in practice. They mayfollow a sterner economic path and spend less on social assistance. Theeconomic growth rate in the Republic of Chile during Pinochet’sdictatorship was the highest in the country’s history. Therefore, mereeconomical growth does not seem sufficient to create a modern democraticsociety, as it may easily lead to bureaucratic authoritarianism. What isevident is that, irrespective of the different ways the constitutive states aregoverned, today’s world community is unified by a single culture, owingto the one-way path the process of scientific knowledge has embarkedupon. Both traditionalist societies and totalitarian experiments have provedinvalid. Among the traditionalist societies, the most primitive, such asthose in Africa, Papua or South America are almost extinct, while thetotalitarian ones are hybrids bordering on the dominant civilisation. RichardRorty shares this opinion and in Philosophy in the Mirror of Nature pointsout that the encounter with “absolute otherness” is ideal and utopian43

under present day circumstances, when a generalised European-Americanculture allows the existence of antiquated societies only as “sites ofsurvivals”44 . 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 mightappear, proves fruitful in the search of the philosophical and psychologicalroots of democracy.

This component is human nature, the “ideal” factor which needs to beadded to the economic factor. The citizen of the liberal-democratic worldis no longer the grotesquely satirised selfish philistine bourgeois, solelyconcerned with their own prosperity. The essence of their existence ispolitical, and economy plays but a minor part in political life. After all,the political struggle is a struggle for idealistic and psychologicalrecognition, specific to the genuine human being. While searching forthe “first Man” and his political motivations, the American historian resortsto Hegel once again. In The Phenomenology of Mind the original Manappears as a being who experiences wholly non-material needs alongsidehis natural needs. Among these non-material needs, the “desire for thedesire of others” ranks primary and implies the need for recognition, loveand appreciation on the part of other members of the community. In theirstruggle towards recognition, human beings surpass their biologicalcondition, as they come to act against their own instinct of self-preservationand to show heroism and a spirit of sacrifice. This need for recognitioncould be called vanity, self-love, craving for glory, pride or dignity.

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Fukuyama uses a term he borrows from Plato’s Republic, “thymos”, whichcould be translated as boldness or wit. The Greek word has neither negativenor positive connotations (or rather accepts both) and enables the historianto employ it as the basic element of his demonstration. The present daydemocratic world is generated by the joint action of technology andthymos. All along history, thymos has embodied the human spirit of justiceand the rebellious rage against injustice. The thymotic component of thehuman mind is responsible for most historical events such as wars orrevolutions to a higher extent than economic causes. In 1989, for instance,East-Europeans did not demonstrate in the streets in order to ask for highermaterial prosperity, but because their dignity had been painfully injuredfor so long.

Thymos is a duplicitous component of the spirit. Its exacerbation, inthe form of megalothymia, becomes aggressive and anti-social. This iswhy philosophers such as Hobbes or Locke had attempted to confine it oreven eradicate it as if it were a human vice. This exacerbation defines thearistocratic thymos, which is essentially opposite to the bourgeois spirit,as it is liable to perpetuate a morality of the master, as opposed to a moralityof the slave. Although so bitterly despised by Nietzsche, the morality ofthe slave has paved its way triumphantly through history, from the Christianrevolution to the bourgeois one. Spiritually, the slave has proved to bemore complex than the ancient philosophers or Nietzsche himself hadever fancied, since the slave is equally endowed with a thymotic nature,which is wholly opposed to that of the master. Present day bourgeoissociety is the consequence and the end of the “slaves’” struggle forrecognition, which has constituted the historical movement itself, in theform of a “universal recognition” which combines the morality of themaster and that of the slave. The liberal state transcends all the irrationalmodalities of thymos — nationalism, racism, etc. — granting the individualfull recognition as a human being. It is the only possible way to rationallysatisfy the thymos of all citizens. The form of state which confers thisrecognition is, to quote Kojeve, “fully satisfactory” and history as amovement of ideas comes to an end. In real life, it is the granting of rightsthat enables the recognition of citizens.

Francis Fukuyama manages to combine the necessity of an advancedeconomy with that of the free, thymos-based, option for democracy. Theeconomic liberalisation of society generates the conditions required bydemocracy through the need for universal education, egalitarian parexcellence, which in its turn creates the need for universal recognition.

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But for this need, people would go on living happily under dictatorshipsthat 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 oncethe liberal democracies vanquished all the other types of state: monarchic,aristocratic, theocratic, fascist, communist, etc. With the exception of theIslamic world (a peculiar case which I do not propose to discuss here)democracy has become the explicit ideal, asserted as such, of all societiesdwelling on this planet and the central component of a transnational world.It is not hard to identify this transnational world with Lyotard’s informatizedworld or with Vattimo’s “recovery” from the nightmare of a horrendoushistory, in other words with a post-historical, post-industrial, post-humanist,consequently post-modern world, in which ‘time shall be no more’ as inthe Apocalypse prediction. The merits of Fukuyama’s demonstration areall the greater as it goes beyond its own conclusion. The final part of hisbook pits the idea of the inevitable ongoing movement of the world towardsdemocracy against the extremely contradictory actual geopoliticalsituation. 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 Americanhistorian 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 Escher’sengravings, and finally creating a feeling of unreality. The notion of timeis also subject to other bizarre, yet everyday phenomena. Postmodern,transhistorical time becomes a “weak”, aestheticised time, no longerperceived under the tragic, elegiac, nostalgic or pathetic aspect it wasenvisaged in the modern age, but as a storehouse of images ranged inconformity with weak and artistic criteria: the pleasant, the amazing, thedelightful. A photo album, a slide set, a video tape displaying images weourselves have shot, postmodern time undergoes the same process ofirrealisation as does space and turns into a motley, simultaneous andshallow patchwork. The myth of Chronos devouring his children is replacedby the myth of the same Chronos, castrated by a diamond scythe.

The same feeling of unreal time permeates an article written by SergioBenvenuto, ‘The Third Time’45 , which basically deals with heambiguisation of temporal concepts in present day American society, inwhich a bizarre hybrid is growing within the past-present interstice. Thepast becomes a kind of present owing to the hundreds of museums,

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entertainment parks and castles, which in California (undoubtedly themost postmodern region on the globe) and in other parts of the UnitedStates, reconstruct the historical realities of the ages past at a one-to-onescale, in a bedazzling surrealistic melting- pot in which history becomesa storehouse of shallow images, all of which are exhibited on the presentplane. In such places, the most famous (or ,as Americans would say,infamous) of which are places like Disneyland, the Paul Getty Museum orRenaissance Fayr, a European feels completely disoriented. This recklessenterprise is inevitably accompanied by dizziness and an acute feeling ofkitsch. To the American, these places are only part of their ahistorical,popular — in the Bakhtinian sense — perception of reality. The past madepresent and flattened is one side of the American perception of time. Itscounterpart is the reverse tendency, equally powerful in the Americanworld and equally strange to Europeans: that of historicising the present.Among the museums and entertainment institutions which present pastmonuments as being present, there are others, just as numerous, whichdisplay 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 thehippie movement, all minutely reconstituted. There are exactreconstructions of renowned establishments. Prisons like Alcatraz arevisited as if they were museums. Hence the feeling that Americans livetheir whole history at once, while, on the other hand, they keep visitingtheir own present as if it were their past: ‘Mummifying the present meansgiving a popular dimension to the social sciences that haunt the UnitedStates... 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, thepresent, because of the irony of the “spectacle” or of museum — andphilological — display, grows increasingly remote. Thus the Americanloiters through a different time dimension, somewhere between our(historical) past and our (invisible and non-representable) present: adifferent 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 ampersuaded that the topic exceeds the confinements of a literary survey.However, I find it impossible to understand postmodern art and literaturewithout these preliminary discussions. Had I focused on literaryphenomena alone, I might have run the risk of presenting a mere list ofprocedures and traits inexplicably featuring in post-war poetry and fiction,and of enhancing, instead of diminishing the confusion of contemporaryliterary criticism. That the evolution of the literary system can only beexplained by means of its inner logic is sheer illusion. The global changesin present day architecture and mentality are decisive for any artisticapproach, since, more than ever, art participates nowadays in the world’ssocial and communicational network. While moulding the network, arthas become one of its epi-phenomena as well. Such changes are dramaticenough for us to discard the concept of “trend” in art or thought (such asclassicism, Romanticism or modernism) and to talk instead about theemergence of a new civilisation, as different from the modern one (that ofthe period from the Renaissance to the Second World War) as the modernage was different from the Middle Ages. That would be one reason whypostmodernism could be called post-humanism or even post-Europeanism.

Facing not only a literary or artistic trend but a whole new world entailsfundamental options on the part of any intellectual (or indeed anyone)educated in the spirit of European humanist culture. Integration intopostmodernity requires a long and painful process during which theintellectual must witness the breakdown of many basic premises of theirlocation in the world. The more the individual used to be attached to certainideals or values regarded as perennial and immutable, the greater the anxietyand confusion experienced in front of an apparently (and programmatically)indetermined, chaotic and unstable world. This end of millenium witnessesa tragedy of alienation. The revival of nationalisms, tribalisms andfundamentalisms, as well as the excessive anti-Americanism present evenin advanced European countries, are the anguished response of peoplesand individuals whose fear for the future has reached its climax, so that theonly solution they can devise is taking refuge in the past. The feeling ofprivacy, safety and comfort inspired by religious faith, or the creed in ahomeland or in a nation (leading at the extreme to chauvinism, intoleranceand nationalism) appears to many as more appealing than an impersonalsociety of an infinite abstract complexity, in which individuals compete

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fiercely, according to the rules imposed by performativity. But this is only apastiche of the liberal world. In real life, the postmodern world that is beingcreated nowadays, although not “fully satisfactory”, is closer to the ideal ofa world “that can be lived in” than any other world ever created on earth.Detachment from reality (and even irrealisation), perspectivism regardingvalues, the end of history as humankind’s triumphant progress towards onehuman ideal or another, and pluralism, are all the new premises whichprovide the foundation upon which personhood may be structured. It is upto everyone to decide whether they want and whether they can exist in thepostmodern world, whether they want and can pursue art, science ormanagement under the new circumstances. Resignation is no solution. Nostate of things should be accepted only because it looks inevitable. Anyintellectual that strives to be a postmodern thinker should be aware of theprice postmodernity asks us to pay. Questions such as how one can keep areligious faith when any kind of faith becomes relative and contextual (howcan one “contextually” believe in God?), or how one can practise art whenvalues are dissolved, involve commitment of the individual conscience andlife design. The hope that one may relieve oneself from irrational thymosesovernight and that democracy and tolerance may be learned as part of thecurriculum is simply utopian. Regarding postmodernity as a new myth ofthe golden age, as a new Cernishevskian “crystal palace” where all problemsget solved by themselves and where humans are necessarily happy soundsmore than naive. Dostoyevski’s man from the pit would answer these utopiasin a boastful, wayward, yet fully humane voice: ‘What I’m asking you isthis: what can you expect from man, a being endowed with such bizarrefeatures? Bestow all the goodness of the earth on him, or immerse him inthe pool of happiness till he is blowing bubbles to the surface. Bestow uponhim 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 hityou with some piece of mischief at you (...) It is precisely his fancy dreamsthat he will want to hold on to, his villainous tomfoolery, only to prove tohimself that people are still people and not piano keys (...) And unless morefitting means are within his reach, he will contrive destruction and chaos,he will concoct God knows how much suffering, but he will act to hisheart’s delight.’47 Far from being extinct today, communist and fascistnostalgias, terrorism and nationalisms are seeing a recrudescence that onlytestifies to their responsive nature as an expression of dread for the future. Itis the high price, unendurable for some, of integration into the newcivilisation, since nobody parts with the past smiling, but bleeding.

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NOTES

1. Virgil Nemoianu, ‘Notes sur l’etat de postmodernite’ in Euresis, 1-2/1995, p.17. In the same essay Nemoianu also proposes one of the most interestingviews on postmodernity, which is characterised, in his opinion, by nineessential elements: ‘1. La centralite de l’element communication/mobilite; 2.La societe postindustrielle; 3. La transition de la revolution de Gutenberg (...)au visuel televise et a la presence virtuelle; 4. L’etablissement de nouveauxrapports entre les hommes et les femmes; 5. La tension entre le globalisme etle multiculturalisme; 6. La conscience de soi, l’autoanalyse; 7. La relativisationet l’incertitude des valeurs; 8. Le jeu parodique avec l’histoire; 9. La religiositepostmoderne ‘spirituel/mystique’’ (pp. 18-19).

2. Gianni Vattimo, Sfîrºitul modernitãþii, 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 Vattimo’s 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, Condiþia postmodernã, 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 transparentã, 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 Sfîrºitul istoriei ºi 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 Benvenuto’s article.47. Feodor Dostoievski, Omul din subteranã, Bucharest, Orfeu Publishing House,

1993.

CRISTINA CODARCEA

Née en 1966, à BucarestDoctorat accordé par l’Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Science Sociales, Paris,

1997Thèse : Pouvoir et Société au 17ème siècle en Valachie. Entre Tradition et Loi.

Attachée de recherche à l’Institut d’ Etudes Sud-Est Européennes de l’AcadémieRoumaine, Bucarest

Membre du Groupe Image, E.H.E.S.S., Paris, 1992-1997Bourse du gouvernement français, 1992, 1994-1997

Bourse Tempus, Università Statale, Milan, 1995Participations aux colloques et rencontres scientifiques internationales en

Roumanie, France, Italie.

Livres:

Société et pouvoir en Valachie (1602-1654), Entre la coutume et la Loi.Cluj-Napoca, Presses Universitaires de Cluj-Napoca (en préparation)

Les malédictions à travers l’Europe médiévale. Recherches d’anthropologiehistorique. Bucarest, Ed. Fundaþiei Culturale Române (en préparation)Articles et études sur l’histoire médiévale occidentale, l’anthropologiehistorique et l’ethnologie européenne parus en Roumanie et en France

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RAPPORTS DE POUVOIR ET STRATÉGIE DEGOUVERNEMENT DANS LA VALACHIE DU

XVIIe SIÈCLE

Dans la société valaque du XVIIe siècle la propriété sur la terre et surles hommes signifie à égale mesure pouvoir, prestige social et positionprivilégiée. De plus en plus, à cette époque, la terre devient le deuxièmepôle qui, à côté du pouvoir, participe à la composition du système politiquevalaque. A partir de la possession foncière et de la capacité de l’exploiterse distinguent à la fois les fortunes, les hiérarchies, les aptitudes politiques,les alliances dans le cadre d’une même catégorie sociale, se définissentles rôles, les légitimités et les rituels qui composent cette catégorie socialeprivilégiée. En effet, c’est la terre (et il faut insister sur le fait qu’il s’agitsurtout pour cette époque de la terre exploitée, la seule qui soit source debénéfices) qui favorise la conservation de la fortune seigneuriale et quipermet aux velléités politiques de se manifester par l’exercice des fonctionspubliques. Pour déterminer la part de l’institution princière1 dans laconfiguration des rapports reliant la terre (propriété) - le pouvoir local(statut social) - et le pouvoir public (Etat) il est nécessaire de savoir commentet par quels moyens à l’intérieur du système politique sont élaborées lesstratégies et les manières dont se réalise la translation d’un élément à unautre.

La définition du statut social de l’aristocratie («boierime») en Valachiese heurte toujours aux ambiguïtés qui sont évidentes dès l’origine. Eneffet, il est bien difficile de délimiter avec précision les contours sociauxde cette catégorie car les principes mêmes qui permettent d’opérer lasélection font défaut. On rappelle ici l’exaspération de l’administrationautrichienne lors de la conquête de l’Olténie au début du XVIIIe sièclequi envisageait de départager selon des critères rationnels et clairs lacatégorie des privilégiés. La plupart de ceux voulant obtenir uneexonération d’impôts (et ils sont nombreux) se déclarent «boieri» sansque ce statut puisse être défini rigoureusement en dehors d’une vaguecoutume locale2 .

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Les éléments qui nous permettent de classer une personne dans lacatégorie des seigneurs, tiennent compte en premier lieu des relationsseigneur-serf3 , auxquelles on doit ajouter la fortune et la fonction publique.Un seigneur peut avoir ces trois éléments caractéristiques ou une partieseulement, ainsi, un personnage grec venu de Constantinople dans lasuite d’un prince et qui occupe à la cour une fonction importante (le plussouvent celle de trésorier, ce qui en dit long sur les intentions du prince etde ses accompagnateurs) peut ne pas avoir au début, ni fortune, nidomaine; un autre, peut être d’une condition sociale modeste, mais il sertle prince ce qui lui ouvre la possibilité d’acquérir des domaines et doncd’avoir des relations seigneur-serf; et ainsi de suite. Les analyses deshistoriens roumains ont cru identifier comme critère essentiel la fortuneou la fonction publique4 .

Ces trois critères, qui connaissent un rapport dynamique selon le sortdu pouvoir central du prince, mènent inévitablement à une séparationentre les seigneurs, car ils établissent une hiérarchie. Liée étroitement ausort du prince, la situation de l’aristocratie apparaît comme paradoxale,car forte et faible à la fois.

Comme la puissance économique conditionne l’avancement desoptions politiques et l’occupation d’une fonction dans l’administration oudans la hiérarchie politique supérieure du pays, elle est à son tourcautionnée et renforcée par la charge publique qui la réclame. Cettesituation est censée résister aussi longtemps que dure le privilège 5 octroyépar le pouvoir central, car il semble être l’instrument par lequel l’autoritépolitique du prince intervient pour régler les mécanismes du pouvoir.

Au début du XVIIe siècle la cour du souverain avec ses ramificationscommence à dessiner une administration locale sous obédiencepersonnelle du prince, qui s’impose au fur et à mesure que se construit unappareil fidèle6 . L’évolution de ces formes de fidélités envers le princemontre combien les rapports de pouvoir s’établissent à partir desinteractions subtiles entre coercition7 , monopole8 , largesse9 et grâce.Ainsi, non seulement la force coercitive est censée imposer le pouvoircentral par rapport à ses adversaires et à ses alliés mais aussid’instrumentaliser en sa faveur le rapport dynamique fortune-pouvoir. Lacour du prince, l’administration dont elle est la source, autant que sapersonne favorisent la promotion sociale par le biais des charges qu’elleoffre, promotion qui est à la base du prestige social, des richesses, desprivilèges (l’exonération d’impôts par exemple a des conséquenceséconomiques importantes). La haute fonction publique comme toute autre

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fonction permet aux familles aristocratiques d’augmenter leur patrimoineet surtout d’envisager des stratégies matrimoniales qui assurent laconservation et la transmission d’une position privilégiée, d’initier desalliances capables d’accroître le pouvoir des boyards afin de garantir lasurvivance des privilèges et d’influencer et dominer la décision politiquedans le pays.

La relation entre le pouvoir central et les boyards se particularisent parles paradoxes. Dans ce début de siècle, la société roumaine connaît unepériode confuse où le passé est encore visible, soutenu par la tradition,mêlé à des éléments nouveaux liés encore à la suspicion générale quipèse sur l’innovation, trop faibles pour imposer les stratégies degouvernement. Comme les éléments nouveaux ne peuvent pas pourl’instant fonder entièrement les prétentions de suprématie du pouvoircentral, ni la possibilité d’organiser la société politique, ni, par la médiationde celle-ci, de toute la société en tant qu’unité. Le prince emploie desformules diverses qui touchent également le registre traditionnel et celuimoderne pour orchestrer sa domination et son propre contrôle sur lasociété. A cette époque la dimension et la fonction militaire du pouvoirdiminuent, ceci a pour conséquence l’effacement des stratégies derecrutement et de promotion basées sur des exigences et des vertusguerrières, devant un système politique géré par des moyens civils moinsviolents et plus efficaces. La définition du statut social de boyard à partird’un privilège princier ou d’un office, les modes de sélection des hautsfonctionnaires, la diversification des moyens qui lient personnellementles membres d’une famille influente au prince, constituent quelques-unsdes procédés mis en place par l’autorité du prince pour s’assurer le premierrôle dans son pays.

Ces éléments composent l’image d’un pouvoir préoccupé à la fois derenforcer l’efficacité des moyens qui assurent un contrôle accru sur sessujets, et de développer des pratiques censées le présenter comme l’uniquesource de légitimation10 (en se proclamant sommet et source). L’autoritéprincière apparaît ainsi comme étant reconnue et investie par la sociétéelle-même de fonctions particulières. Le prince dans sa personne, commeincarnation du droit, de la Loi divine («legea dumnezeiascã»), est acceptéeet sollicitée comme présence nécessaire et toute puissante. Quoique parfoisses attributs politiques (les plus touchés par l’arbitraire) soulèvent desoppositions de la part de l’aristocratie, son arbitrage en matière judiciaire,son autorité sur les titres de propriété, les droits, les privilèges, sont autantd’éléments fortement recherchés. Les décisions du prince dans le domaine

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de la justice lui permettent de contrôler la fortune de ses sujets, d’intervenirdans le processus de constitution de leurs domaines, de fixer leurconfiguration par l’imposition de règles dont l’application est égalementsurveillée par les institutions locales et le prince.

Dans ces conditions, on attribue à l’institution princière la capacitéunique de consacrer un fait social en lui rendant stabilité et légitimité.

L’intervention du prince au niveau de la propriété privée

La coutume interdit l’immixtion du pouvoir public dans la propriétéprivée des sujets mais il arrive souvent que le prince soit sollicité pourintervenir et consacrer une acquisition ou appliquer les règles assurant lasurvie de la propriété et même son agrandissement. Par son prestige, ilpréserve le cadre juridique qui permet le maintien des formes detransmission de la propriété, cautionnées par la tradition.

La plupart des cas qui nécessitent l’assistance du prince concernentles litiges de propriété qui opposent les ayants droit d’une même ou deplusieurs générations, liés par la parenté ou par une relation de voisinage.L’autorité du prince est souvent sollicitée pour évaluer la hiérarchie desdroits selon des règles coutumières et pour actualiser cette hiérarchie.

Un acte émis par Alexandre Iliaº prouve combien il est difficile detrouver une vérité et de l’imposer dans une réalité sociale marquée par laconfusion (voir fig. n° 1). Le litige sur une partie du village de Vârâti etune partie du village de Grãdiºte, commence en 1554 pendant le règnede Pãtraºco le Bon; à cette date, la dame Paraschiva conteste le droit deBarbu du village de Borãºti, de doter sa fille Maria des deux villages carune partie lui appartient. Le prince permet à Paraschiva de se présenteraccompagnée par 12 témoins pour prêter serment et certifier qu’elle dit lavérité. Sur la base de ce serment, Pãtraºco voïvode admet que Paraschivaest en droit de détenir une partie des deux villages. Quelques années plustard, sous Alexandre II Mircea (1568-1577), la fille de Maria, Stana, quireçoit de sa mère les deux villages, rouvre avec son mari le procès contreles fils de Paraschiva pour les éliminer de la propriété. Ils amènent devantle prince 24 témoins qui rendent caduc le témoignage antérieur et celui-ciremet dans leurs droits les descendants de Barbu. Un troisième procès sedéroule dans les années du règne du prince Mihnea l’Islamisé(1577-1583,1585-1591) qui donne gain de cause toujours à la famille de

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Barbu, représentée par les mêmes, cette fois-ci contre le neveu deParaschiva. En 1621, à la mort du mari de Stanca, le relais est pris par sesfils qui s’opposent devant le prince Radu Mihnea aux fils de la nièce deParaschiva. Enfin, en 1628, Alexandru Iliaº confirme encore une fois lesdroits de propriété d’un seul lignage sur les villages de Vârâti et deGrãdiºtea, éliminant les prétentions des descendants de Paraschiva11 .

C’est toujours le prince en position d’arbitre qui confirme uneréconciliation de deux parties en litige et cautionne le respect d’un pacteengagé. Matei Basarab, devant le mécontentement exprimé par lesseigneurs du village de Cepturile, oblige un nouveau venu sur le domaine,le grand boyard Preda Buzinca de respecter les droits des frères Pãtru,Dumitrasco et Pãdure, fils de Staico spãtar car, comme précise ledocument, il a obtenu cette propriété par achat et non par héritage. Plusencore, il est averti de ne plus se comporter comme «un boyard important»(«boier greu») car le prince pourrait prendre en considération le droit depréemption des autres boyards et chasser Preda12 .

Le jugement du prince fixe les termes du fonctionnement du droit depréemption ou de retrait, appliqués toutefois à cette époque d’une manièreassez subjective. Dans le cas de Dumitru Dudescu, vistier de deuxièmerang, Alexandru Iliaº satisfait sa demande de chasser de sa propriété leseigneur Musat qui avait acheté des terres dans le village de Drãcesti sansprévenir Dudescu13 , tandis que dans un cas similaire Matei Basarab décideque l’achat effectué par le grand boyard Marco Danovici dans le villagede Sâmbureºti reste valable, en dépit des plaintes formulées par les héritiersde Vlad Rudeanu, le propriétaire du village14 .

La même attitude contradictoire est visible dans les jugements desprinces lorsqu’il s’agit d’une vente déguisée sous l’apparence d’unefraternisation. Le prince Alexandru Iliaº déclare «déliées» les parties quiont suivi le cérémonial religieux de la fraternisation (Stroe, fils du chancelierOprea et André postelnic), car il considère que les frères de Stroe ont plusde droits à acheter le village de leur père, Sirineasa15 . Quant au princeRadu Mihnea, ayant à juger un autre cas de préemption qu’on essaye decontourner par une cérémonie de fraternisation s’étant déroulée «dans lasainte église» (unissant les seigneurs Pârvul paharnic et Preda postelnicsur une partie du village de Voinigeºti ), confirme la validité de l’actecontesté par des ayants droit. Le prince donne comme argument de sadécision d’annulation du droit de préemption, le cérémoniel religieuxsuivi par les parties qui fraternisent car :

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«Ma seigneurie a vu la charte de Pârvul paharnic entre les mains dePreda postelnic comprenant de grandes malédictions... Ainsi, MaSeigneurie n’a pas pu procéder autrement, mais Ma Seigneurie a laisséexactement comme ils l’ont décidé et selon leur fraternisation»16 .

Il n’est pas sans importance de préciser que dans ces deux cas lejugement du prince a été influencé par l’appartenance sociale despersonnes impliquées. Si dans le premier litige, le procès opposaitstrictement les représentants de la catégorie privilégiée des seigneurs, ledeuxième a comme protagonistes des paysans asservis qui sollicitent ledroit de se racheter en vertu du droit de préemption17 .

On réclame l’intervention du prince dans les cas de succession quisoulèvent des litiges entre les héritiers, qu’il s’agisse d’une transmissionnormale ou d’une dévolution, que cela se fasse par voie testamentaire ouab intestat . Le nombre des disputes sur la propriété jugées par juridictionprincière lors des héritages se rapproche visiblement de celui des disputesde voisinage qui opposent des personnes non-apparentées.

L’action du prince, lorsqu’un héritage provoque une crise, se résumeà un arbitrage, car il est le garant de la Loi et non pas un législateur à quion reconnaît la capacité d’innover en matière de droit successoral; sesmoyens d’intervention sont limités strictement par la coutume. Lesdécisions qui accompagnent le jugement ne peuvent qu’obéir aux règlespuisées dans la tradition du pays («legea pãmântului») et rarement dansles codes de lois utilisés à l’époque («pravila»). Ce domaine semble avoiralors une importance stratégique moindre pour le pouvoir central, et dansla plupart de ces cas le prince délègue ses attributs de juge au métropolitedu pays. Seulement certains cas sont soumis au jugement du prince quine les ignore pas, car de toute façon le service public est payé sur mesure.Par exemple, ce sont les hommes envoyés par Matei Basarab quiinterviennent pour appliquer les commandements du legs du grand boyardDumitru Filisanul lorsque les héritiers trouvent que la fortune est tropinjustement répartie. Le prince décide alors de ne pas changer la destinationdes principaux domaines de la famille en installant le cadet comme héritierprincipal, mais il intervient dans la répartition du reste de la fortune aunom de la justice rendue18 .

Le prince est appelé comme garant du droit lorsque des parents endispute avec les héritiers de droit risquent de porter atteinte aux règles desuccession. Il se trouve que le code de loi valaque19 défend les héritierscontre les décisions des parents voulant par un accès de colère, changer

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le cours et la destination de leur patrimoine. A cet égard, on comprendmieux que le contenu de la propriété d’autrefois se traduit plus par undroit de possession et d’administration (qui incluent la quasi-obligationde la transmettre aux successeurs légaux) que par un droit absolu,individualisé, permettant de décider librement de sa destination. Dans cecontexte traditionnaliste assez rigide, l’autorité du prince se présentecomme le garant de l’application juste des habitudes et des règlescoutumières. Seulement dans ce cadre on peut interpréter le geste deMatei Basarab qui empêche la moniale Marta du village de Pãtârlagelede toucher à ses propriétés durant sa vie, en la déclarant possesseur auxdroits limités, il lui interdit d’aliéner ses biens ou d’interrompre lasuccession en ligne masculine; elle ne peut non plus laisser la fortune àses filles, ni la donner à un monastère, tant que ses trois fils sont en vie20 .Dans le même sens il intervient contre l’un de ses boyards , Stoica spãtar,fils de grand dignitaire, lorsqu’il abandonne sa famille et donc ses devoirsenvers elle; Matei Basarab l’oblige à doter ses trois filles, comme le veutla Loi et même à racheter les propriétés qu’il a vendu sans se soucier desdroits de ses successeurs21 .

De même que le prince représente la caution de stabilité et de continuitéd’une règle, son autorité est sollicitée pour sceller les modifications dansla structure d’un patrimoine lors d’une vente, d’une vente déguisée sousforme de fraternisation ou d’une donation envers l’Eglise ou envers unparticulier. Un document du prince confirmant une transaction ou undon, garantit la validité du transfert ou au moins diminue la possibilité decontester l’acte par les générations suivantes. Une fois qu’un geste estdevenu public, présenté devant le prince et devant sa cour, il ne peut plusêtre annulé par une décision ultérieure. Ana, la femme d’un certain ªtefan,fait don (pour «son âme») au monastère de Snagov d’un vignoble situé surla colline des Negovani ; ensuite elle regrette sa décision et veut revenirsur ce don, mais le prince s’oppose et lui interdit de «casser l’aumônequ’elle seule a faite pour son âme»22 .

Pour les mêmes raisons, tout acte impliquant publiquement laparticipation du pouvoir, a la capacité d’annuler les engagements privésqui l’ont précédé.

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L’intervention du prince au niveau de la parenté

Pour la société du passé la parenté23 joue un rôle essentiel dansl’organisation et la transmission de la propriété. On comprend à traverselle son évolution de même que le prestige qui entoure un lignage. Plusencore, c’est à travers la parenté que se tissent les solidarités qui assurentla prépondérance et la domination d’une élite définie à la fois du point devue social et politique24 .

Le pouvoir politique arrive à valoriser les structures relationnelles baséessur la parenté comme un réseau efficace, dont il se sert dans ses effortspour gouverner la société en général et dominer (par le contrôle desalliances et des successions) la société politique en particulier. La positiond’arbitre du pouvoir politique ne peut que privilégier le processusd’utilisation du réseau constitué à partir de solidarités lignagères, en effet,la parenté est intimement liée à la promotion sociale ou au contraire, à ladéchéance des membres d’une famille. Ainsi, le pouvoir central utilise saposition d’autorité reconnue et exigée par la société pour exercer uncontrôle attentif sur les implications des relations de parenté. Il est le seulà décider si le membre d’une famille, peut être éloigné légitimement d’unhéritage par punition ou si au contraire, comme expression de libéralité,il doit être réinstallé dans ses droits.

Maria, la fille du grand boyard Ivasco Bãleanu, mariée à Vasile spãtar,lui aussi fils de grand boyard, est chassée de son foyer à la suite d’uneplainte d’infidélité formulée par son mari devant les chefs spirituels del’Eglise, le métropolite du pays Luca et Macarius, exarque de Târnova,l’homme du patriarche Cyrille de Constantinople. Ceux-ci jugent le cas etadmettent que Maria est coupable et mérite d’être déchue de ses droits,sa fortune passant dans la propriété absolue de son mari. Le procès rouvresur les insistances de la dame Maria devant le tribunal de Matei Basarab,qui l’innocente sur les témoignages qu’elle amène car elle «a demandéjustice le jour de l’Epiphanie devant les archevêques, les évêques, leshigoumènes et devant tout le synode, les boyards et tout le pays»25 . Parconséquent, le prince lui rend ses droits sur ses propriétés et son maririsque la condamnation suprême pour parjure tout autant que ladéchéance.

Devant le prince se présentent les cas les plus divers qui réclament laremise en droit lorsqu’il s’agit d’un héritage, d’une dot, d’un droitd’appartenance à un lignage, c’est toujours devant lui qu’on exige lapermission de renoncer à un héritage donc à une filiation compromettante

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ou tout simplement trop coûteuse. Radu, le fils du grand boyard DumitruDudescu, représentant du prince Matei Basarab à Constantinople, estcontraint en 1636 de renier son père («se leapãdã») et de renoncer aupatrimoine paternel empêchant ainsi d’être touché par les dettes de sonpère, car il a «des petits enfants et un ménage difficile à entretenir»26 .Son père, ancien fidèle du prince Alexandru Iliaº et de son fils Radu Iliaº,avait soutenu les prétentions du dernier au trône de Valachie contre MateiBasarab. Après une confrontation militaire qui s’est déroulée à Plumbuita,près de Bucarest (1632) il regagne le pays à la suite des appels lancés parle prince victorieux Matei Basarab qui lui octroie des missions auprès duSultan à Constantinople. En outre, la haute dignité de grand trésorier qu’illui offre durant la période 1634-1636, le prince permet à Dumitru Dudescude récupérer ses biens confisqués à la suite de son soutien à Radu Iliaº27 .Pourtant, très vite (février 1636) Dumitru Dudescu se retrouve parmi lesaccusés du prince qui lui fait payer avec ses propriétés les sommes d’argentdisparues à Constantinople lorsqu’il était en mission diplomatique(«capuchehaie»)28 . Cet argent, que Dumitru aurait gaspillé (selon lestémoignages des envoyés du prince qui transportaient le tribut) «sansmesure», le fait «qu’il n’a pas pu rendre compte de cet argent d’une manièresage et juste « l’ont amené devant le grand conseil de Matei Basarab quise réunit exceptionnellement pour juger l’ancien trésorier du pays. L’actionsemble être dirigée spécialement contre le grand trésorier, car finalementles autres personnages présents à Constantinople, le grand sluger Calotãet le chancelier Marco Danovici29 sont innocentés après avoir prêtéserment dans une église devant le synode et devant le métropolite. Qu’ils’agit d’un plan destiné à compromettre des anciens ennemis du prince(pratique courante dans les stratégies politiques du temps qui fait débuterun règne par une «réconciliation» avec l’ancienne équipe«gouvernementale») le prouve aussi le devenir de ces trois fonctionnaireset de leurs descendance. Ce procès met en lumière le rôle du prince dansle contrôle qu’il exerce sur la distribution des fonctions et des fortunes.Malgré des alliances matrimoniales avantageuses30 que Radu Dudescu(fils de Dumitru déclaré félon par le conseil du prince31 ) a contracté dansla haute aristocratie valaque, il n’arrive pas à valoriser politiquement saposition sociale. Ni son fils Radu, également marié dans une grande famille,ne réussit à être récompensé par une haute fonction. Ce n’est que tard, auXVIIIe siècle, qu’un neveu de Radu Dudescu (I), fils du second Radu,réussit à relever le prestige de son lignage en lui ajoutant un nouveaugrand dignitaire.

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La situation des deux autres boyards accusés et ensuite disculpés parl’assemblée du pays n’est pas meilleure du point de vue social. Par contre,du point de vue politique, elle semble être plus avantageuse. Ainsi, bienque la carrière de Calotã grand sluger soit stopée, son fils, Mâinea Popescua un cursus honorum ascendant qui aboutit en 1655 à la fonction degrand sluger, sous le règne du neveu de Matei Basarab, Constantin ªerban.

Quant à Marco Danovici, il connaît lui-même une ascension politiquereconnue par le prince Matei Basarab qui l’avait autrefois accusé. Il estnommé pour deux années (de 1641 à 1643) grand paharnic et occupeensuite durablement la dignité de grand aga entre 1644-1652.

«Juste et fidéle service»32

Afin de s’assurer de la solidarité des personnes qui l’entourent etl’appuient, le prince utilise également le domaine princier reçu en mêmetemps que sa fonction, de même que sa possibilité d’intervenir dans lepatrimoine seigneurial si il s’agit d’une situation exceptionnelle de trahison.La pratique des donations princières («mila domneasca») complétée parcelle des confiscations fournit au prince un instrument efficace dans l’actionde contrôle qu’il exerce avec son groupe de pression sur les fortunes dessujets. Elle est sans doute soutenue par l’existence du domaine princier33

qui évolue au rythme des confiscations qui l’augmentent et des donationsqui le diminuent.

En dehors des périodes brèves et ponctuelles dans l’histoire de laValachie (les débuts de la centralisation de l’Etat et l’époque de Michel leBrave) le domaine princier ne joue pas vraiment un rôle économiqueimportant car ses ressources sont très fluctuantes, ponctionnéessystématiquement par les donations, et ceci malgré les confiscations. Ainsi,son importance est de permettre au prince d’avoir des libéralités à l’égardde ses sujets, et d’adopter une stratégie de gouvernement visant àrassembler autour du trône des personnes solidaires. Si le don pour «justeet fidèle service» récompense concrètement les gestes répétés de fidélitéet les actes de bravoure, il n’en est pas moins vrai que celui-ci a desréférences symboliques qui renvoient aux rapports de pouvoir quis’établissent entre le prince et ses serviteurs. On voit se cristalliser unestructure de pouvoir profondément personnalisée qui fonctionne à partird’une relation de don (le service) et contre-don 34 (la donation princière),pratique mise en évidence par le sociologue Marcel Mauss pour les sociétés

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archaïques mais qui caractérise également cette société traditionnelledéterminée historiquement. Quant au prince, il devient le principaldispensateur de grâces et de bénéfices qui associent intimement la fortuneà la promotion sociale.

Une autre fonction du prince qui se dégage à la suite de cette positioncentrale est celle de «nourricier». Bon nombre de donations ont justementcomme but déclaré celui de «nourrir» («a hrãni») les bénéficiaires de lagénérosité du prince35 , qu’il s’agisse des grands ou des petits boyards,des serviteurs ou des paysans.

Une question qui a soulevé des controverses est celle du régime de ladonation princière; s’agirait-il d’une propriété à titre absolu ou d’unepossession viagère conditionnée par la fonction? Les documents nousrenseignent peu à ce sujet et seule l’analyse de l’évolution de ces donationsdans le cadre du patrimoine seigneurial pourrait fournir quelques réponses,malgré le peu d’informations des actes de cette période..

Les conclusions des chercheurs ont dans un premier temps, été altéréespar la manière d’aborder le sujet. Les deux réalités sociales, celle de laValachie et celle de la Moldavie, n’ont pas été traitées différemment cequi a conduit à l’extrapolation du système moldave à la Valachie36 . Enoutre, la préoccupation de trouver des similitudes entre les éléments de laréalité roumaine et des modèles occidentaux ou byzantins a égalementnui à l’identification des particularités de l’histoire de la Valachie et deson organisation sociale et politique37 .

Pour essayer à notre tour d’ébaucher une réponse concernant cettequestion on doit tout d’abord détacher les deux niveaux de références:premièrement, il est nécessaire de localiser la source des biens cédés parle prince - qu’il s’agisse de confiscations pour trahison, pour dette fiscale,pour deshérence,ou d’achats fait spécialement pour cette destination;deuxièmement, il faudrait établir quels services sont récompensés par cesdons et de quel statut juridique ils jouissent par rapport à l’ensemble dupatrimoine détenu antérieurement - s’agirait-il d’une restitution ou d’uneconcession ? Ce sont des problèmes dont les réponses peuvent mieuxéclairer le statut de la donation princière. Les renvois à ces deux registres,conjugués et combinés diversement selon le hasard du jeu social etpolitique du temps, offrent au statut de la donation princière une apparenced’instabilité et de fragilité. De cette manière, une donation qui récompensele service fidèle d’un proche du prince et qui a comme source uneconfiscation (pour punir une trahison par exemple) peut avoir un statut

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beaucoup plus incertain qu’une donation qui a comme but lerétablissement du droit d’un membre déchu de l’aristocratie.

Cette instabilité est d’autant plus saisissable lorsque les fréquentschangements des règnes modifient les caractères de ces donations. Ainsi,ce qui dans un règne apparaît comme un acte de félonie, situant lecoupable par rapport au pouvoir dans la sphère du droit de confiscationde ses biens, sous un autre règne apparaît comme l’acte d’un fidèleserviteur, censé recevoir la grâce du prince. En examinant les documentsconservés pour cette période, on observe que les donations qui entrentdans le patrimoine des seigneurs ont le même statut que les autrespropriétés, héritées ou achetées. Elles peuvent être aliénées ou transmisesaux successeurs selon les règles habituelles de transmission despatrimoines. Les ambiguïtés liées à cette forme de propriété ne semblentpas seulement connues aux bénéficiaires, mais aussi assumées, car ilséprouvent le besoin récurrent de chercher une confirmation écrite lorsd’un nouveau règne. Pourtant, cette confirmation princière ne veut pasdire (comme on le croyait jusqu’ici38 ) qu’il s’agit d’un renouvellement dela grâce ou d’une deuxième donation, mais simplement d’une confirmationdes droits sur une propriété. La charte princière répond à une recherchede garanties qui prémunit tout propriétaire nouveau contre les prétentionsformulées par l’ancien propriétaire ou par ses héritiers. Ceci est d’autantplus nécessaire qu’il n’existe pas un cadre clair pour régler les trahisonset les punitions, laissant une grande liberté au prince et à son arbitraire39.Il arrive parfois que la famille d’un félon puisse récupérer un domaine(surtout s’il s’agit du domaine hérité qui donne le nom de la famille) toutde suite après le changement d’un règne ou parfois durant le même règne.Comme ni la coutume ni la loi ne précisent si la peine de félonie frappetoute la famille ou simplement le membre déclaré coupable, lesinterprétations sont à la merci du prince et du groupe au pouvoir40 . Si lecoupable est puissant et menace la position même du prince, ou s’il sesolidarise avec un groupe trop dangereux qui met en péril le règne, ilrisque de recevoir une peine exemplaire (la décapitation), sa familles’efforcera par la suite, durant plusieurs règnes, de reconstituer difficilementle patrimoine initial ou attendra que son propre groupe ait pris le pouvoir.

Etant donné que les donations pour «juste et fidèle service» ont commesource le domaine princier, elles sont sensibles aux changements et auxhésitations propres à un règne. Qu’elles proviennent de confiscations(nombreuses surtout sous un règne autoritaire) ou d’achats, les donations

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ont un régime précaire si on les compare avec les autres formes de propriétécar leur destin ne cesse d’être mouvementé.

Par exemple, le village de Cãtun du département de Muscel se vendau seigneur Leca à une date inconnue durant le règne de Radu ªerban(1602-1610). En 1616, le prince Radu Mihnea soupçonne de trahisonLeca, qui occupait dans son propre Conseil la fonction de grand spãtar; ilconfisque ses propriétés et le condamne à la mort. La même année ilrécompense la fidélité d’un autre grand boyard du Conseil, Bratu le grandcomis41 , parent du prince, en lui donnant le village de Cãtun. Mais en1631 le village se trouve dans la possession de la femme de Leca, Grãjdana,qui lègue ses biens, faute d’héritiers directs, à Preda le deuxième spãtar,son neveu42 . S’ensuit un procès de partage intenté par les neveux deLeca, Mihai le postelnic et Tudosie le spãtar43 qui reçoivent à leur tour,devant la justice du prince, le village et un vignoble, vendus tout de suiteaprès44 à Manea le grand postelnic du Conseil de Leon Tomºa.

Peu de temps après l’arrivée du prince Matei Basarab en Valachie etla confirmation de son règne, il confisque le village de Manea («hommeméchant et menteur») resté fidèle au prince Alexandru Iliaº qui régnait enMoldavie. En 1639, lorsque Matei Basarab devient le parrain de Petru lepaharnic («il le marie suite au fidèle service rendu au prince et au pays»45 )il lui fait don pendant les noces du village de Cãtun étant donné qu’ il estun descendant de la dame Grãjdana.

L’observation des donations conservées par les archives et dont on apu suivre le devenir, permet de se rendre compte de la mobilité particulièrequi les caractérise. Sur un total de 16 donations faites pendant les deuxrègnes de Radu Mihnea, 10 ont changé par la suite de propriétaire46 .Ainsi, le village de Bucºa (Ialomiþa) est donné par Radu Mihnea à DumitruDudescu, deuxième vornic47 qui est obligé de le vendre en 1646 au princeMatei Basarab pour lui payer ses dettes48 . L’ancien emplacement du villagede Selistioara (Romanati) est donné en 1613 à Gheorghe deuxièmeclucer49 qui probablement le vend puisqu’on le retrouve en 1639 dans lapropriété de Dragomir grand armas50 , parent du prince régnant à cettedate, Matei Basarab. La donation du village de Frãsinetul (Ilfov) récompensel’amitié de Radu Mihnea pour Constantin Baptista Vevelli (qui accompagnele prince depuis sa Péra natale)51 , mais pour peu de temps, car deux ansplus tard, en 1623, le même village est donné à un autre grec qui s’étaitétabli antérieurement en Valachie, Dumitrache Cantacuzino52 .

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Pendant le règne de Matei Basarab d’autres exemples encore illustrentla fragilité de la possession d’une donation princière. Ce n’est pas sansimportance si le bénéficiaire est un grand boyard, ou un boyard dedeuxième rang, ou un serviteur de la cour. Sans doute que le premier aplus de moyens de renforcer et de conserver ses nouvelles acquisitionscar sa position auprès du prince est forte. Le grand armas Dragomir, parentde Matei Basarab, avoue que sa fortune est due en grande partie à lagénérosité du prince («mila domnului»)53 ; on est alors tenté de supposerqu’il a reçu des donations; et que sa fortune ne provient exclusivementdes fonctions qui permettent l’acquisition massive de villages et derichesses.

Plus que les donations de terres ou de villages, ce sont les privilègesoctroyés sous forme de récompense pour «juste et fidèle service» quipermettent aux grands boyards de conserver et surtout d’augmenter leursdomaines. L’exonération d’impôts ou de certaines taxes nous expliquepourquoi les revenus des grands boyards s’accroissent considérablementet pourquoi de pareilles donations ont un poids particulier dans l’ensembled’une fortune. Cependant, outre la signification d’une récompense queces donations supposent, elles sont censées apaiser les ambitions desmembres de l’aristocratie en les faisant participer à la distribution desrichesses du pays.

Les donations envers les sujets moins importants54 , de deuxième rang,sont moins importantes (villages, parties de villages, emplacementsd’anciens villages); en plus, elles sont touchées par une plus grandeprécarité. En effet, ce type de propriété obéit à un régime spécial qui sesitue quelque part entre la propriété absolue et la propriété conditionnée,en se rapprochant toutefois plus de la première. Ce type de propriétaireprélève la dîme sur la production des serfs, est responsable devant le fiscpour son village, libère les serfs ou vend le village sans que quelqu’unpuisse l’en empêcher. Ses droits sont pourtant amoindris par la possibilitédu prince de révoquer sa donation.

Le caractère ambigu de cette forme de propriété est donné par le faitque plusieurs éléments contradictoires co-existent à l’intérieur de celle-ci.La capacité du prince de révoquer le droit de possession fait penser à unepropriété conditionnée par le service mais cependant, à chaque fois qu’unedonation est reprise, le prince dédommage le bénéficiaire. En 1633, MateiBasarab donne une partie du village de Micºuneºti (Ilfov) au capitaineIancu pour «fidèle service»55 . Très vite le prince révoque sa donationfaite à son sujet car il vient de construire un monastère (Cãldãruºani) dans

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le département de Ilfov et désire le doter d’un patrimoine convenablepour un monastère princier. En le faisant, il paye au capitaine une sommede 200 ‘ughi’, somme importante qui compense la perte de cette propriété.

Dans un autre cas, ce sera le prince qui touchera la plus grande partiede la somme obtenue par le iuzbasa Radu pour le rachat des serfs duvillage de Polovinele (Romanaþi), donation qu’il avait reçue auparavant.A cette occasion Matei Basarab reçoit 100 «ughi» du total des 150 «ughi»payés par les villageois56 mais il ne conteste pas la liberté de son sujet dedisposer du sort des serfs du village.

L’intervention du prince peut aboutir à la perte de la donation (lorsqu’ildécide de lui donner une autre destination ou de permettre aux ancienspropriétaires la récupération de leurs biens), mais n’efface pascomplètement la grâce accordée car il la remplace par une sommed’argent. Ce sera le cas lorsque Matei Basarab accepte finalement lademande du fils du grand boyard Trufanda, déclaré félon, de reconstituerle patrimoine de son père à condition de racheter les villages offerts commedonation par le prince57 ce qui équivaut en effet à une grâce accordée.

Il semblerait que même ceux qui reçoivent des dons en villages ou enparties de villages préfèrent les vendre à cause de leur instabilité maisaussi à cause des obligations fiscales qui grèvent une propriété foncière58 .

Malgré la fragilité qui caractérise la donation princière pour servicerendu il n’est pas moins vrai que cette forme de récompense a une fonctionstratégique dans l’ensemble de relations de pouvoir. La répartition desrécompenses à l’intérieur de la catégorie privilégiée des boyards et desserviteurs du prince nous fournit une idée sur la structuration des solidaritésautour du trône. Si on prend en compte les règnes les plus longs de cettepremière période du XVIIe siècle et qui ont laissé des traces documentaires,on arrive aux données suivantes les concernant:

Grands Boyards Serviteurs et

Boyards IIe rang Militaires

Radu ªerban 7 3 0

Radu Mihnea 5 7 3

Matei Basarab 7 8 17

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Ces donnés corroborées par d’autres concernant l’origine des donations,peuvent compléter l’image d’un règne et de sa stratégie.

Radu Radu Matei

ªerban Mihnea Basarab

Villages appartenant déjà au 10 13 5

domaine princier

Villages achetés par le prince à 0 2 1

l’occasion de la donation

Villages confisqués pour félonie 0 1 10

Villages confisqués pour cause de

non-paiement des impôts 0 0 8

Terres désertes 0 0 3

Le prince Radu ªerban s’installe avec l’appui de la grande aristocratieet jouit de son appui dans son dessein de rapprochement des puissanceschrétiennes, en poursuivant manifestement le programme de Michel leBrave. Au contraire, dans des circonstances beaucoup plus rudes,d’aggravation du régime de domination ottomane et de renforcementéconomique et politique de l’aristocratie, Matei Basarab ne cesse d’obtenirle soutien des couches moyennes de la société, en même temps qu’ilexerce un règne autoritaire. Parallèlement au processus de croissance dupouvoir central et du rôle de la cour du prince se tisse tout un réseauadministratif en partant de la cour où les relations de fidélité unissentdirectement les sujets à 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 MiddleAges, Cambridge, 1995, v. surtout pp. 245-271.

2. ªerban Papacostea - Oltenia sub stãpânire austriacã, Bucarest, 1971, p. 227. 3. Marc Bloch – La société féodale, Paris, 8e éd. vol. 1 . On penche plutôt vers

une définition qui valorise l,élément relationnel que celui de définitionpurement juridique qui risque d’être rendu fictif par une réalité trop diversifiéeet trop peu soucieuse de se penser dans des catégories raisonnables.

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4. C. Giurescu - «Despre boieri» , pp. 381-440. L’observation faite par l’historienN. Stoicescu, il nous semble très significative; elle montre comment au niveaudu vocabulaire transparaît la conscience d’une hiérarchisation des positionset des rôles des privilégiés. Ainsi, les membres de l’aristocratie ayant desstatuts égaux se nomment entre eux «frères» tandis que ceux qui leur sontinférieurs comme rang social sont dénomés «amis» – v. Sfatul domnesc ºidregãtorii din Þara Româneascã ºi Moldova, secolele XIV-XVII, Bucarest, 1968,p. 74.

5. Par privilège nous comprenons les avantages qui découlent de l’office, de lafonction et non l’immunité comme l’ont interprété plusieurs historiensroumains.

6. Un modèle du corps de contrôle qui se rapproche sans doute plutôt de celuiexistant en Russie (v. Richard Pipes - La Russia, Potere e Societa dal Medioevoalla dissoluzione dell’Ancien regime, Milano, 1989, pp. 124-157.) plus quede celui de l’occident dont l’utilité administrative s’articule à partir de lafonction publique et non de la fidélité envers le souverain.

7. Alain Guery - «L’oeuvre royale. Du roi magicien au roi technicien» in Ledébat , n° 74, 1993, pp. 123-142.

8. Norbert Elias - La dynamique de l’Occident, Paris, 2e édition, 1969. 9. Roland Delmaire - Largesse sacrées et Res privata...L’Aerarium impérial et

son administration, Ecole francaise de Rome, Rome, 1989.10. Pour cette raison, croyons-nous, l’aristocratie n’essaie jamais de substituer au

modèle monarchique celui de la république nobiliaire bien qu’au long detoute l’histoire du XVIIe siècle elle se soit efforcée d’augmenter son emprisesur le pouvoir princier. Pour elle, le prince malgré son arbitraire (qu’elleparvient à contrôler à certains moments) reste le moteur du mécanisme social.

11. 13 juin, 1628, Documenta Romaniae Historica, (DRH) B, vol; XXII, doc. 108,pp. 230-235

12. 24 avril 1645, Catalogul Documentelor Þãrii Româneºti 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 août 1638, Catalogue..., vol. IV, doc. 1272, p. 561. Il faut préciser que les

seigneurs eux-mêmes prennent des précautions dans le cas d’une ventesusceptible d’être contestée plus tard. Ils rassemblent des voisins du lieu lorsde la vente et ils demandent que les ayants-droits déclarent publiquementleur droit caduc. Ainsi, on dispose des preuves et on limite le plus possiblel’arbitraire du prince.

15. 8 mai 1628, D.R.H., B, vol. XXII, doc. 68, p. 140.16. 24 septembre 1614, Documentele. Istoriei. României, (DIR), vol. II, XVII, doc.

290, p. 327.17. Normalement les serfs peuvent aussi bénéficier d’un droit de préemption

lorsque la vente qui les concerne ne se fait pas dans la parenté des propriétairesoù lorsqu’un autre seigneur ne détient pas une partie de la propriété mise en

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vente. v. par exemple le cas du village acheté par Chirca comis qui, avant latransaction avec le propriétaire interroge les paysans s’ils veulent se racheter;2 novembre 1612, ibidem, doc. 118, p. 116.

18. 4 mai 1649, Catalogue..., vol. VI, doc. 1377, p. 514.19. Carte româneascã de Învãþãturã, 1636, (ed. Andrei Rãdulescu), Bucarest, 1961,

p. 162, Chapitre 52: « ...la malédiction lancée en état de colère est grave etsera considérée comme toute autre forme de malédiction; seulement dans lescas de séparation, d’exhérédation ou de vente les décisions ne seront pasprises en considération si elles sont entâchées par la colère».

20. 1645, Catalogue..., vol. VI, doc. 250, p. 114.21. 11 janvier 1640, Catalogue..., vol. V, doc. 4, p. 26. Il procède de la même

manière avec les frères Hamza, Stanciul, Udrea et Balaci, les fils de Socol duvillage de Pade, qui refusent à leur soeur la dot attribuée par leur père. C’estle prince qui rend à Vlãdaia, la fille de Socol la moitié du village de Clãbuceariavec 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 parenté dans l’Occident

médiéval , Rome, 1977; David Herlihy - La famiglia nel Medioevo, Rome,1995 (Medieval Households, 1éd. 1985), voir ch. 6 - «Il sistema familiare neltardo Medioevo», pp. 169-200.

24. Nancy Shields Kollmann - Kinship and politics. The making of the MoscovitePolitical System, 1345-1547, Stanford, California, 1987.

25. 10 janvier 1635, Catalogue..., vol. IV, doc. 449, p. 217.26. 21 décembre 1636, Catalogue..., vol. IV, doc. 891, p. 408-409.27. La chronique du pays décrit l’épisode de la lutte entre les deux ennemis,

prétendants au trône de la Valachie, Matei et Radu Iliaº: «...et les boyards dupays, Necula vistier, Hrizea vornic, Papa logofat, Necula Catargi et DumitruDudescul, et Neagul aga et d’autres n’ont pas voulu accepter le prince Mateiet sont partis en Moldavie chez le prince Alexandre Iliaº pour qu’il vienneavec son fils, Radu voyvode dans le pays. (Istoria Þãrii Româneºti, 1299-1690.Letopiseþul 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 n’est pas sans importance le fait que les deux sont au début, (directement

ou leurs parents proches), contre le règne de Matei Basarab. Calotã se trouveparmi les boyards réfugiés dans le camp de Radu Iliaº en Moldavie tandis quel’oncle par alliance de Marco, Mitrea du village de Stãneºti, se rend àConstantinople pour formuler auprès de la Porte des plaintes contre le prince.

30. N. Stoicescu - Dicþionar al marilor dregãtori din Þara Româneascã si Moldova,Bucarest, 1971, p. 173, Radu s’est marié une première fois avec la fille dugrand chancelier Fiera Leurdeanu et une deuxième fois avec la fille de VladRudeanu, à son tour grand chancelier.

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31. L’historien Constantin Rezachievici affirme que Dumitru Dudesco aurait étécondamné et même décapité par ordre du prince (v. «Fenomene de crizãsocial-politicã în Þara Româneascã în veacul al XVII-lea» in Studii si Materialede Istorie Medie, vol. IX, 1978, p. 77) fait qui n’est pas confirmé par NicolaeStoicescu dans son Dictionnaire.

32. Une question qui a été traitée par les historiens roumains toujours en grandehâte - G. Potre - «Matei Basarab în lumina unor documente referitoare larãsplãtiri de servicii, iertãri de rumânie ºi ordine date» in Matei Basarab ºiBucurestii , Bucarest, 1983, pp. 35-48.

33. Ion Donat - Domeniul domnesc în Þara Româneascã, 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 à

deux de ses serviteurs la donation qu’il leur avait faite auparavant, car ils se«sont suffisament nourris» dans un village. Le statut du prince dans cettesociété patriarcale rappelle plutôt le statut de père de famille que celui d’unsouverain occidental. Le langage des remontrances que le prince adresse àses grands boyards a des fois un ton familier; celui des ordres respecte peuune étiquette curiale et exprime simplement le courroux princier.

36. O. Sachelarie (Instituþii feudale din þãrile române, Bucarest, 1988, p. 137) estplutôt évasif sur cette question car il affirme que la donation peut avoir uncaractère conditionné; (il cite un document de la Moldavie de la mêmeépoque). Valentin Georgescu croît que dans les pays roumains une propriétéviagère est conditionnée par le service, (Bizanþul ºi instituþiile româneºti pânãla mijlocul secolului al XVIIIlea, Bucarest, 1981, p. 66: «en ce qui concernele statut foncier de la classe dominante il se rapproche plus de la propriétéconditionnelle de l’Occident médiéval»).

37. Valeria Costãchel - Les immunités dans les Principautés Roumaines aux XIVeet aux XVe siècle, Bucarest, 1947.

38. I. Donat - «Le domaine princier rural en Valachie (XIV-XVI) «, in RevueRoumaine d’Histoire, T. VI, n° 2, 1967, p. 216

39. Ibidem - le prince avait toute latitude de choisir entre les décisions suivantes:a)restituer au boyard gratuitement ou par achat les villages qui lui avaient étéconfisqués b)reconfirmer la donation causé à quelqu’un en maintenant lepréjudice fait à un autre et c)retirer un bien confisqué à un bénéficiaire pourle donner à un autre; V. Georgescu fait une comparaison avec les loisbyzantines punissant le crime de lèse majesté et signale lui aussi la flexibilitédu cadre juridique roumain, Bizanþul......., p. 130-141.

40. P. Delmaire, Les largesses..., p. 602.41. D.I.R., XVII, vol. III, doc. 5. v. aussi N. Stoicescu - Dicþionarul dregãtorilor...,

p. 120.42. D.R.H., B, vol. XXIII, doc. 230, antérieur à l’an 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 août 1639, Catalogue..., vol. IV, p. 667-668.46. Nous avons pu suivre l’appartenence des villages suivants: Cãtun (Muscel et

Pãduret), Strehaia (Mehedinþi), Sopârliga (Saac), Bucºa (Ialomiþa), Seliºtioara(Romanaþi), Groºani (Buzãu), Frãsinetul (Ilfov), Izvorul Alb (Mehedinþi), Cioara(Ilfov), Bucºa (Ialomiþa).

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 Iliaº qui gouverne le

pays en suivant ses recommandations, D.I.R., XVII, vol. II, doc. 138.52. Ibidem, doc. 288 - en outre il reçoit l’exemption d’impôt pour son village qui

garde encore en 1649 le statut de «slobozie».53. N. Iorga - Studii ºi Documente, vol. V, pp. 548-549.54. On n’est pas toutefois d’accord avec l’affirmation de Nicolae Stoicescu que

les donations ne concernent que les hauts fonctionnaires. Ce qui fait ladifférence entre les sujets c’est la durabilité du don, la possibilité effective dele 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 (Mehedinþi)

pour «juste et fidèle service au prince et au pays éprouvé par des blessures»à ses serviteurs Drãghici logofãt et Ianiu postelnic (D.R.H., B, vol. XXIV, doc.56). En mars1645, Iordache, le fils de Trufanda, ancien grand vistier,accompagné par sa grande mère Catrina, se présente devant le prince pourrécupérer leurs biens, demande qui leur est refusée car ils n’ont pas voulurentrer au pays lorsqu’ils ont été rappelés par le prince et parce qu’un deleurs parents avait agi à Constantinople contre les intérêts du prince(Catalogue..., vol. VI, doc. 67). Toutefois, en septembre 1649, Iordache parvientà déterminer Drãghici de lui vendre le village de Stejarul, vente renforcée parune charte princière (Ibidem, doc. 1499).

58. En 1643 Matei Basarab récompense le service de trois de ses serviteurs(Doxoteaiu iuzbasa, Cãciulat iuzbasa, Vlãdilã iuzbasa, les trois habitantBucarest), avec le village de Þigãneºti situé sur la rivière de Mostiºtea. Ceux-cile vendent à Istrate logofãt pour 15000 aspri (Catalogue...., V, doc. 1062).Calotã clucer vend les village de Clinceni et de Mãicãneºti (Catalogue..., IV,doc. 135), les fils de Ianiu postelnic vendent la partie du village de Stejarulqui revenait à son père en 1647 (Catalogue..., VI, doc. 963).

FELICIA DUMAS

Née en 1970, à PiteºtiDoctorat accordé par l’Université “Al. I. Cuza”, Iaºi, 1998

Thèse : Techniques non-verbales de communication dans la liturgie byzantineDoctorande en anthropologie religieuse, Ecole Pratique des Hautes Etudes,

ParisThèse : Du geste liturgique byzantin dans les églises roumaines

contemporainesMaître assistante à la Faculté des Lettres, Université “Al. I. Cuza”, Iaºi

Membre de l’Association des Philologues RoumainsBourse Tempus, Poitiers, 1992

Bourse postdoctorale du gouvernement roumain, Paris, 1999Participations aux colloques et rencontres scientifiques internationales en

Roumanie, Pologne, FranceNombreux articles, études et traductions

153

LE GESTUEL LITURGIQUE ORTHODOXE -DIMENSIONS SÉMANTIQUES ET

PRAGMATIQUES

1. Le geste comme signe. La sémiologie gestuelle dans le

cadre de la sémiologie non verbale

Après la deuxième guerre mondiale, les recherches faites dans ledomaine de la théorie de la communication ont connu un grand essor.Pendant ces dernières décennies, un grand nombre d’études ont étéconsacrées aux communications non verbales. Couvrant plusieursdomaines (l’anthropologie, l’éthologie, la psychologie des affects), lescommunications non verbales, définies comme types de communicationmanifestée par des canaux différents de celui du langage verbal, ont jouid’un succès assez important même parmi les linguistes (et les sémioticiens):Greimas 1970, Benveniste 1966, Guiraud 1980, Barthes 1967. D’ailleursle «champ sémiotique» du non verbal (Eco 1972) a été délimité par rapportau langage verbal, tout comme celui du para-verbale (ou para-linguistique:Trager 1958), défini en tant que sous-système vocal» de ce dernier (Cosnier1984), comprenant les phénomènes vocaux supra-segmentaux: les accents,l’intonation, etc.

Les recherches modernes consacrées aux communications non verbalesrefusent cependant cette acception synonymique (devenue d’ailleursclassique) de la communication non verbale avec la communication nonlinguistique: une partie du langage verbal est non verbale, tout commeune partie du non verbal ne constitue pas du langage (Cosnier 1984). Ondevrait donc parler d’un non verbal co-textuel (dans le premier cas) et,respectivement, d’un non verbal contextuel (Idem, p. 7). D’ailleurs, toutesces recherches proposent, entre autres, les concepts de «communicationtotale» ou d’interaction communicationnelle (Winkin 1981, Goffman 1974,Watzlawick 1972).

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Les communications non verbales utilisent trois types de supports(Corraze 1980): 1.le corps et ses qualités physiques ou physiologiques etavec ses mouvements, considéré comme «un support privilégié de lacirculation du sens» (Le Breton 1988, p .22), 2.des artefacts liés au corps(chez l’homme), comme les vêtements, les tatouages, les mutilationsrituelles ou non (voir, entre autres, Maertens 1983) ; 3.la disposition dansl’espace des individus, qu’il s’agisse d’un espace fixe ou territorial, ou decelui très personnel qui entoure le corps de chaque individu (voir, parexemple, les études de E. T. Hall : 1971 et 1984, ou bien de Schilder1968).

La communication gestuelle occupe une place très importante dans lecadre du large domaine des communications non verbales, si l’on penseau nombre impressionnant d’études consacrées aux manifestationscommunicationnelles de cette nature. Comme la plupart des autres étudessur la communication non verbale, les recherches du champ sémiotiquedu gestuel ont également connu, une grande influence de la part de ceque les représentants du groupe µ appelaient «l’impérialisme linguistique»(Le Groupe µ 1992, p. 10). Une grande partie des concepts opérationnelsde la linguistique générale (surtout du structuralisme linguistique) ont étéextrapolés et utilisés pour la description de la plupart des systèmes designes non verbaux (voir les études : Barthes 1967, Porcher 1976, Schefer1969, Lagrange 1973, Birdwhistell 1981).

Un type d’analyse gestuelle est représenté par l’analyse kinésique deBirdwhistell, qui propose l’étude des mouvements corporels manifestéspendant une conversation (verbale !). Son système, la kinésique, est forméde la prékinésique (qui s’occupe de l’étude des déterminantsphysiologiques des gestes), la microkinésique (qui analyse les gestes dansles plus petites unités significatives) et la sociokinésique (qui s’occupe del’étude des variations culturelles des gestes) (Birdwhistell 1981). Malgréle système assez lourd de notation (56 unités élémentaires proposéesseulement pour le visage), l’analyse kinésique de Birdwhistell reste l’undes plus intéressants modèles d’analyse gestuelle (mais aussi l’un desmodèles qui offrent le plus d’exemples concernant l’extrapolation denombreux concepts de la linguistique, surtout de la phonologie).

En utilisant comme instrument d’étude le stéréotype, Marc-AlainDescamps propose à son tour, une étude descriptive des principalestaxinomies gestuelles, dans le cadre d’une présentation plus large, desdifférentes formes de manifestation communicationnelle du corps humain(Descamps 1989). Les gestes des moines trappistes, des bénédictins de

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Cluny ou de Cîteau, sont inventoriés par Clelia Hutt, en tant que substitutsdu langage verbal (Hutt 1968). Marcel Mauss étudie toute une série degestes traditionnels concrétisés dans des techniques du corps (Mauss 1973),et Pierre Guiraud nous propose une taxinomie très intéressante des codescorporels (qui peuvent être des substituts du langage verbal ou desauxiliaires de celui-ci), tout comme une ré-interprétation des principalesanalyses gestuelles que nous avons déjà mentionnées (Guiraud 1980).Un autre système de description micro analytique a été réalisé par lesauteurs de l’une des plus intéressantes classifications gestuelles : desillustrateurs, régulateurs, signaux et emblèmes (Ekman et Friesen 1969).Cependant, la plus importante pour nous reste l’analyse séquentielle del’activité corporelle réalisée par S. Frey, dont nous allons emprunter laméthode pour l’étude des gestes rituels orthodoxes (Frey 1984). Les gestesde rite chrétien n’ont que très peu été étudiés par un nombre assez réduitd’historiens. Dans le monde occidental, l’œuvre monumentale deJean-Claude Schmitt (1990) nous propose des informations inédites surcertains gestes de pénitence exécutés par différents ordres monastiques,sans faire aucune référence à la spiritualité orientale. En ce qui concerneles gestes rituels orthodoxes, ils n’ont fait, à notre connaissance, l’objetd’aucune étude d’analyse communicationnelle, ou plus largement,sémiotique. A part un merveilleux livre d’Hélène Lubienska de Lenval(1957), nous n’avons pas trouvé d’ouvrages «scientifiques» sur ce type degestes. Nous proposons donc une étude sémiotique de ces gestesmanifestés pendant la célébration de la liturgie eucharistique byzantine,et définis au niveau d’une triade interactionnelle qui comprend le gestuel,la disposition dans l’espace et l’habillement des actants liturgiques.

2. Le gestuel liturgique orthodoxe - l’objet de notre

recherche

2.1. La liturgie et la liturgie eucharistique

Par gestuel liturgique byzantin nous comprenons l’ensemble desmanifestations gestuelles actualisées pendant la célébration de la liturgieeucharistique byzantine attribuée à saint Jean Chrysostome. Il est doncnécessaire de faire la distinction entre ce qu’on appelle la liturgie en généralet la réalité rituelle de la liturgie eucharistique, en particulier. Les

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spécialistes liturgiques définissent la liturgie comme la mise en scène dequatre composantes principales : les acteurs, les lieux, les paroles et lesobjets. Cette définition peut très bien s’appliquer à la liturgie eucharistiqueégalement, car celle-ci ne constitue que l’un des aspects de la liturgie engénéral. Tandis que la liturgie comprend la littérature liturgique (les livres,les prières), les œuvres des écrivains qui ont disserté sur le culte, lesdifférents offices de l’Eglise, tout comme les gestes et les mouvements desactants liturgiques, la liturgie eucharistique (la «messe» de l’EgliseOrientale) représente la célébration de l’eucharistie. C’est pour cela qu’elleest appelée d’ailleurs, la divine Liturgie, orthographiée dans la plupartdes cas, avec une majuscule. La Liturgie eucharistique byzantine comprendtrois grandes parties : la prothèse (ou la partie introductive, pendant laquelleun prêtre ou un diacre prépare les dons pour la consécration), la liturgiedes catéchumènes (ou la liturgie de la parole, centrée sur la louange deDieu, l’écoute de sa parole, et l’intercession, tout le monde étant autoriséà y participer, notamment les catéchumènes) et la liturgie des fidèles(centrée sur la célébration du mystère eucharistique).

Dans les plus anciens eucologes byzantins (tel l’eucologe Barberini,par exemple), la liturgie de saint Basile précède toujours la liturgie desaint Jean Chrysostome. La liturgie de Chrysostome a évincé la liturgie desaint Basile vers le Xe ou le XIe siècle (Paprocki 1993, p. 72). Nous allonstravailler sur la liturgie de saint Jean Chrysostome (qui appartient à lafamille liturgique syro-antiochienne), parce que c’est la liturgie célébréependant la plus grande partie de l’année liturgique et parce qu’elle nousest la plus familière des liturgies eucharistiques byzantines.

2.2. Quelques aspects méthodologiques

Notre modalité d’approche de ce rituel liturgique a été celle de«l’observation participante» : le chercheur s’insère dans le groupe qu’ilétudie et interagit avec les acteurs sociaux, en s’impliquant avec eux dansdes situations communes (Maisonneuve 1988, p. 16). Nous avons doncparticipé à un grand nombre de célébrations liturgiques (eucharistiques)dans différentes églises de Roumanie, des paroisses ou des monastères,surtout en Valachie et en Moldavie (mais aussi en Transylvanie), enobservant et en enregistrant (sur pellicules photo et bandes vidéo) lapratique gestuelle des prêtres et des fidèles participants à ce rituel liturgique.Les gestes rituels manifestés pendant la célébration de la liturgie de saintJean Chrysostome constituent un inventaire bien défini et limité. Nous

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allons donc nous constituer un corpus avec les variantes exécutionnellesde tous les gestes rituels actualisés par les deux grandes catégories d’actantsliturgiques : le prêtre qui officie et les fidèles participants à la liturgie. Unefois le corpus constitué, nous allons entreprendre la structuration, l’analyseet l’interprétation du matériel gestuel accumulé de la sorte. Nous allonsétudier ainsi, les modes de production sémiotiques de ces gestes, lestechniques de réinvestissement sémantique qui ont participé à larécupération de plusieurs gestes profanes et à leur «transformation» engestes liturgiques, réinvestis avec des significations symboliques sacrées(l’agenouillement, le fait de faire brûler un cierge, etc.). Quant à l’étudedes dimensions pragmatiques du gestuel liturgique orthodoxe, nous allonsprocéder à une segmentation du continuum gestuel enregistré sur bandevidéo en séquences signifiantes, définies dans la temporalité. Nousétudierons de cette façon les différentes variantes pragmatiques manifestéespar les fidèles participants au rituel liturgique byzantin, tout comme lafréquence et le rythme d’exécution de ces gestes.

Comme le rituel liturgique byzantin représente un processusinteractionnel complexe, dans l’étude des dimensions pragmatiques dugestuel actualisé pendant sa célébration, nous allons nous occuperégalement des relations qui fonctionnent entre l’appropriation de l’espaceecclésiastique par les actants liturgiques et l’actualisation de leurs gestes.Quant à l’étude des dimensions sémantiques de ces gestes, nous allonsanalyser les significations et l’importance sémiotiques des objets rituelsimpliqués dans le processus de réinvestissement sémantique, tout commela signification des habits sacerdotaux et la mise en scène du corps par lesvêtements des fidèles participants à la liturgie de l’eucharistique.

2.3. Geste et communication dans la liturgie byzantine

La liturgie eucharistique, ou la «divine liturgie», est le plus importantdes offices orthodoxes. Interprétée, à travers le temps (et à des époquesplus ou moins différentes), soit comme un véritable scénario symbolique,une remémoration de la vie de Jésus (voir, par exemple, Evdokimov 1966),soit comme une montée spirituelle vers le grand Repas eucharistiquecélébré par le Christ dans son Royaume (Schmémann 1985), la liturgieeucharistique byzantine est une grande prière, une prière commune (del’assemblée et du prêtre officiant), la plus impressionnante forme delouange adressée par les hommes à Dieu. Et qui dit prière, ditcommunication, c’est-à-dire, communion entre deux (ou plusieurs)

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présences. C’est pour cela que la liturgie de saint Jean Chrysostome peutêtre également interprétée comme le contexte extrêmement généreuxd’actualisation (dans certaines conditions de temps et d’espace) d’unecommunication de type symbolique («la communication par le biais dudéclenchement dans le destinataire d’un processus d’évocation» : Sperber1979, p. 27).

En prenant comme point de départ la thèse de Maxime Kovalevsky(1984), on peut parler d’un modèle canonique de communication à quatrepôles, situés dans deux plans de conditions différentes (le modèle deshiérarchies célestes de Denys le pseudo aréopagite comporte plusieursaspects concernant ce type de répartition : cf. Dionisie le pseudoAréopagite 1994) : d’un côté Dieu, et de l’autre les hommes (mis déjàsous le signe d’une pluralité), l’assemblée eucharistique, dont on distinguele prêtre (le diacre fait partie de la même catégorie liturgique), le chœuret les fidèles participants à la liturgie. «Le prêtre s’adresse au nom de tousdirectement à Dieu, écrit Maxime Kovalevsky ; le diacre (nous allonsétudier uniquement le rituel liturgique officié par le prêtre tout seul, sansévêque, ni diacre) parle à l’assistance en l’incitant à prier (lorsqu’il n’y apas de diacre, précise le même théologien, c’est le prêtre qui assume sesfonctions) ; les chantres exposent des textes objectifs ou de méditation ;les fidèles, eux, répondent au prêtre et au diacre (par exemple en disant :<<Amen>>, ou <<Avec ton esprit>>), dialoguent avec lui, ou ils s’adressentdirectement à Dieu (par exemple en disant : <<Kirie Eleison>>...)»(Kovalevsky 1984, p. 92).

Dans les églises roumaines, la pratique liturgique des fidèles -participantsrelève plutôt d’un modèle tabulaire de communication (Dumas 1994), dansl’acception de Serres : une communication à plusieurs pôles (Serres 1968).Il s’agit d’un modèle extrêmement mobile, qui ne contredit pas vraiment lamotivation qui se trouve à la base de cette conception de la communicationà quatre pôles (qui peuvent, en fait, être réduits à trois) dont nous avonsdéjà parlé : la liturgie signifie «louange commune», «action de grâcecommune», le sacrifice eucharistique devant être célébré par toutel’assemblée des chrétiens.

De nos jours, le chercheur avisé, sociologue, anthropologue etherméneute de la communication, remarque plusieurs efforts decommunication personnelle avec la Divinité, intériorisée, mais surtoutextériorisée au niveau gestuel et postural, en dehors, à côté et même àl’intérieur de la communication «commune» du modèle imposé commenorme par la tradition dogmatique : les fidèles participants (+ le chœur),

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le prêtre et Dieu. Il y a d’abord (en dehors du rituel liturgique) une formede communication gestuelle utilisée en tant que substitut du langage verbal(interdit pendant la célébration de la liturgie), entre les fidèles participants.C’est une communication qui a comme but l’initiation des néophytes dansla pratique liturgique : les fidèles initiés, possesseurs de certainesconnaissances liturgiques, indiquent par le geste, aux autres, la manièrecorrecte dont ils doivent participer au rituel liturgique : les moments oùils doivent s’agenouiller, l’endroit où ils doivent se tenir, pour respecterun certain ordre traditionnel, ou tout simplement, pour ne pas gêner leprêtre, lors de ses sorties du sanctuaire, etc. Un autre type decommunication, définie cette fois-ci à l’intérieur du rituel liturgique, estcelle établie entre les fidèles participants et le prêtre. Cette communicationpeut être verbale (musicale), imposée et contrôlée par le chœur, ou nonverbale -gestuelle-, orientée par le discours du prêtre, envisagé commeofficiant du culte divin. L’assemblée des fidèles répond en même tempsque le chœur, aux invitations à la prière adressées par le prêtre : «Prionsle Seigneur» - «Kirie eleison», ou bien «Demandons au Seigneur pardonet rémission de nos péchés» - «Accorde, Seigneur». Les réponses desfidèles peuvent également être gestuelles, engendrées par certainesexhortations du prêtre officiant, telles : «Inclinez la tête devant le Seigneur»,ou bien «Sagesse, debout, écoutons le saint Evangile ! Paix à tous !»

Un troisième type de communication est représenté par la communi-cation directe, de chaque participant au rituel liturgique (prêtre et fidèles)avec la Divinité. Elle peut être verbale (il s’agit des prières dites par lesfidèles devant les icônes de l’iconostase à n’importe quel moment de laliturgie, ou par le prêtre, à voix basse, dans le sanctuaire, pendant laprothèse, par exemple, pour la rémission des péchés des fidèles présents,ou pendant l’épiclèse pour invoquer la descente du Saint Esprit sur lessaints dons), ou non verbale. La communication gestuelle (y compris celleposturale) du prêtre avec Dieu, mais surtout celle des fidèles participants,représente, avant tout, la preuve incontestable de leur reconnaissance dustatut et de la position communicationnelle privilégiée de la Divinité. Le«message» de cette communication peut être une demande d’exaucer unvœu (l’agenouillement, les mains jointes, devant les icônes de l’iconostase),ou bien une action de grâce (après la communion, par exemple, ou aprèsl’accomplissement d’un voeux).

On peut donc constater que le gestuel liturgique orthodoxe est engendré(dans les conditions d’une participation active et consciente des actantsliturgiques à la pratique commune de la liturgie) par le discours verbal.

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Les gestes liturgiques constituent de véritables répliques d’actualisationgestuelle de certains actes de langage (verbal !) énoncés par le prêtreofficiant, par les membres du chœur dans les textes chantés, ou par lesfidèles participants à ce rituel. Exécuté comme réplique à l’énoncé duchœur de la première grande partie de la liturgie (la liturgie descatéchumènes), «Venez, adorons et prosternons- nous devant le Christ»,le geste de se signer, fait par les fidèles, combiné avec celui de laprosternation, représente l’accomplissement gestuel «effectif» de deuxactes de langage comportatif (Austin 1970, p. 161). Cette dimensiond’actualisation gestuelle est soutenue d’abord par la disposition des actantsliturgiques dans l’espace intérieur de l’église (type interactionnel vis-à-vis:les fidèles-participants se trouvent devant les icônes du Christ del’iconostase, dont l’emplacement oriente tout le processus interactionnelliturgique) et par la nature symbolique du mimodrame (Jousse 1974)déroulé devant eux pendant la séquence rituelle immédiatement antérieure(la «petite entrée», procession qui symbolise le départ du Christ dans lemonde pour prêcher l’enseignement de sa nouvelle loi : Cabasila 1989).«Au moment où le prêtre sort du sanctuaire et passe devant les fidèlesavec l’Evangile, le peuple se signe et se prosterne, comme si le Sauveur yétait présent» (Ionescu-Amza 1982, p. 24).

On remarque ici la présence de l’impératif, en tant qu’expression d’une«force illocutoire prescriptive», défini par Anna Jaubert comme «unperformatif primaire, qui fait reconnaître un acte de discours directement,sans passer par la réflexivité» (Jaubert 1990, p. 136). En même temps,comme expression de la nature du pronom personnel impliqué dans laproduction de l’énoncé verbal (le pronom <<nous>>, défini par <<vous>>et par <<je>>, à l’initiative énonciative et symbolique du <<je>> du prêtre;il s’agit d’un <<nous>> inclusif, d’une personne amplifiée : Benveniste1966, p. 233, 235), on observe également la manifestation gestuelle (dumême type) du prêtre.

Le geste de se signer, exécuté comme réplique à l’énoncé du chœur,ou du prêtre officiant : «Gloire au Père et au Fils et au Saint Esprit !»,représente toujours l’actualisation d’un acte de langage, expositif, cettefois-ci (Austin 1972, p. 162), si l’on pense à la signification canoniqueattribuée à ce geste liturgique (on reviendra là-dessus : Mitrofanovici 1929,p. 434). Un autre exemple de pareilles «répliques» d’actualisation gestuellede certains actes de langage est constitué par l’exécution du geste simplede se signer et des séquences gestuelles de la prosternation et de la grandemétanie, lors de l’énonciation de l’une des prières les plus importantes du

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rituel liturgique, qui «accompagne» le moment symbolique de laconsécration des dons dans le sanctuaire : «Nous te chantons, nous tebénissons, nous te rendons grâces, Seigneur, et nous t’implorons, ô notreDieu». Le processus d’actualisation gestuelle est déterminé dans ce cas,par la présence de plusieurs verbes performatifs, définis par Vandervekende la manière suivante : «chantons (avec le sens de louer) : verbe de typeexpressif» (Vanderveken 1988, p. 202) ; rendre grâce : «verbe de typeexpressif» (Idem, p. 199), et «implorer : verbe de type directif» (Idem, p.184).

Un autre type de répliques gestuelles, définies toujours par rapportaux énoncés verbaux produits dans le cadre de l’interaction rituelleliturgique, est représenté par les gestes exécutés à la suite de quelquesénoncés qui visent des effets perlocutionnaires (Searle 1972) de naturesymbolique (dans le sens de l’obtention de certains effets positifs, en tantque preuves de l’efficacité rituelle), prononcés par le prêtre officiant : lefait d’incliner la tête, lorsque les fidèles entendent l’exhortation du prêtre :«Inclinez la tête devant le Seigneur» ; la station debout ou, dans la plupartdes cas (bien que d’une façon paradoxale), la position agenouillée, commeréplique de l’énoncé verbal (appartenant toujours au prêtre) : «Sagesse.Debout. Ecoutons le saint Evangile...» Les formes différentes du pronompersonnel (dans le premier cas, <<vous>>, et dans le second, <<nous>>)mettent en évidence la définition des rôles et de la position interactionnelledes deux grandes catégories d’actants liturgiques -le prêtre et les fidèlesparticipants-, par rapport à la troisième présence communicationnelle :la divinité.

D’autres répliques gestuelles des énoncés qui visent de tels effetsperlocutionnaires (dans le sens mentionné plus haut), prononcés par leprêtre officiant surtout au moment liturgique du sermon (et qui reprennent,d’ailleurs, des fragments des discours normatifs des Saints Pères), sont laséquence gestuelle de porter des offrandes au sanctuaire et la communion.

Certains gestes liturgiques peuvent également fonctionner du point devue sémiotique, comme un type particulier de répliques interactionnellesde quelques énoncés du prêtre officiant (interprétés en tant que seuilsd’institution symbolique et efficace de certaines séquences liturgiques),en définissant de cette façon, une manière de ponctuer temporellementle déroulement séquentiel et symbolique du scénario liturgique : lesfidèles-participants se signent et s’agenouillent lorsque le prêtre dit del’intérieur du sanctuaire «Aimons-nous les uns les autres, afin que dansun même esprit nous confessions», parce qu’ils savent que cet énoncé

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perlocutionnaire représente l’élément verbal introductif de la séquenceliturgique de la récitation du Credo.

Ce ne sont que quelques repères évoqués pour mettre en évidence lamanière dont le discours liturgique verbal engendre et oriente du pointde vue sémiotique, les manifestations gestuelles définies lors de lacélébration du rituel liturgique, en utilisant, entre autres, quelques verbesperformatifs, plusieurs énoncés illocutionnaires et perlocutionnaires, oudes variations de la personne (du pronom personnel).

2.4.Le geste liturgique en tant que geste rituel. Définition

«Si le corps est à l’origine de la chute, il est aussi porteur d’une promessede salut, il peut devenir un moyen de rédemption. [...] Ainsi, est-ce dansle corps, à travers le corps, donc aussi dans les gestes, que doit se prépareret se mériter la destinée de l’âme» (Schmitt 1990, p. 67). Dans la culturechrétienne, le corps n’a pas d’autonomie reconnue ; il est toujours présentéen relation avec l’âme. Les Pères de l’Eglise parlent des «mouvements del’âme» et des «mouvements du corps», ces derniers n’étant que les formesde manifestation extérieure des premiers (Idem, p. 66). Dans les rituelschrétiens (et religieux, en général), le corps devient de la sorte unparticipant actif à la production et à la circulation des sens investis dansle but de l’obtention d’une «efficacité rituelle» maximale (Maisonneuve1988).

Durkheim considérait les principales attitudes rituelles, comme faisantpartie des «formes élémentaires de la vie religieuse» (Durkheim 1912). Ildistingue d’ailleurs, deux grandes catégories de telles attitudes : le cultenégatif, constitué d’un ensemble de tabous, d’interdictions, et le cultepositif, qui établit des relations avec la sacralité. Le rituel liturgiquereprésente la mise en pratique d’une attitude (rituelle) de culte positif.Jean Maisonneuve définit la liturgie comme une «cérémonie sacrificiellequi comporte une phase communielle, qui permet à l’homme d’assurerson lien avec la divinité en s’incorporant les offrandes qu’il vient de luiconsacrer» (Maisonneuve 1988, p. 35). C’est toujours en termes decommunion, de participation à l’essence d’une divinité transcendantaleque J. Cazeneuve interprétait, lui-aussi, l’ensemble des rituels religieux(Cazeneuve 1971).

Ce qui nous semble le plus intéressant, c’est le fait que la plupart desétudes consacrées aux rituels proposent des approches et des

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interprétations de type communicationnel : «Le mot rituel désigne toutsystème de communication avec le monde imaginaire, systèmesémiologique autonome, utilisant essentiellement des gestes» (Heusch1974, p. 213) ; «L’activité rituelle constitue un système de communicationhiérarchisé» (Idem, p. 232) ; «Les pratiques rituelles sont éminemmentsymboliques car elles médiatisent par des postures, gestes ou paroles,une relation à une <<entité>> non seulement absente [...], mais impossibleà percevoir, inaccessible sauf par le moyen du symbole lui-même»(Maisonneuve 1988, p. 10) ; ou bien : «Du <<point de vue deshommes... >>, le rite religieux est une expérience réussie de lacommunication de l’homme et de Dieu, transmise dans l’espace et dansle temps par la fixation de son sens et de son but» (Oliviéro 1991, p. 36).Cela nous intéresse particulièrement, parce que notre approche du rituelliturgique byzantin est toujours une approche communicationnelle.

Une notion importante de la ritologie est celle d’efficacité rituelle. Lecœur de la liturgie est représenté par l’efficacité symbolique. Dans le casdu rituel liturgique, c’est le clergé ordonné qui rend valide son efficacitésymbolique et sacramentale, cette efficacité étant reconnue d’une manièrecollective. Le souci d’efficacité rituelle est très important pour l’hommequi participe à la liturgie. Nous verrons que la plupart des gestes liturgiquesont, outre leur signification d’origine (symbolique), une significationpragmatique aussi, ou d’efficacité rituelle (en général, celle de demanded’exaucer un vœu).

En prenant comme points de départ l’étymologie du mot geste (définipar le dictionnaire Larousse de la Langue française comme «mouvementdu corps, surtout des bras, des mains, ou de la tête, porteur ou non d’uneintention de signification» : Larousse 1977, p. 795, ce mot provient dulatin gest-us. En latin, le sens de ce dernier était «manière de se tenir, port,attitude, geste» : Ernoult et Meillet 1939, p. 420, ce nom étant un dérivédu verbe gero, gerere, qui signifiait «porter» et après, par extension,«exécuter, accomplir, faire» : Idem, p. 421) et la définition du rituelproposée par Jean Maisonneuve dans le livre cité (1988, p. 12), nousappellerons geste rituel tout mouvement du corps (donc, non seulementdes bras et de la tête), une manière de se tenir et de se porter, investi d’unsens conformément à un système codifié de pratiques, sous certainesconditions de temps et d’espace, pratiques ayant un sens vécu et unevaleur symbolique et un certain rapport avec le sacré. Le geste liturgiquepeut donc être défini comme un geste rituel manifesté dans les conditionsparticulières de temps et d’espace et de scénario symbolique de la liturgie

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(eucharistique) byzantine. Le mode de production sémiotique de ces gestesest celui que Umberto Eco appelle la reconnaissance : «Un processus dereconnaissance a lieu quand un objet ou un événement donné, produitde la nature ou de l’action humaine (intentionnellement ouinintentionnellement), fait parmi les faits, est interprétée par un destinatairecomme l’expression d’un contenu donné, soit en fonction d’une corrélationdéjà prévue par un code, soit en fonction d’une corrélation établiedirectement par le destinataire» (Eco 1992, p. 72).

2.5. Les gestes liturgiques byzantins : significations et variantes

pragmatiques

Pour une présentation plus cohérente de l’inventaire clos de ces gestesliturgiques, nous avons procédé à une structuration de celui-ci en fonctiondes actants liturgiques qui les exécutent. En réfléchissant aux conceptsd’acteur social utilisé par Goffman (Goffman 1973) pour désigner leparticipant à une interaction sociale, d’interactant, utilisé par Scheflen(Scheflen 1981) pour nommer le participant à une interaction (verbale oucomplexe), ou à celui d’acteur, utilisé par Greimas (Greimas 1970) pourdésigner les parties du corps qui participent à la réalisation d’un geste,nous avons préféré employer le syntagme d’»actant liturgique», pourdésigner le participant à une interaction rituelle liturgique. Les deux grandescatégories d’actants liturgiques sont le prêtre officiant et les fidèles-participants à la liturgie. La troisième présence communicationnelle (et,donc, implicitement interactionnelle) est la Divinité.

Nous avons classé les gestes liturgiques byzantins en trois grandsgroupes : les gestes simples, les positions du corps et les séquencesgestuelles (des signes gestuels combinés d’une manière «synchronique» :cf. Frey 1984). Nous commencerons par la catégorie la plus nombreused’actants liturgiques, les fidèles participants à la liturgie eucharistique :a) gestes simples : se signer, élever les mains pour la prière, joindre lesmains pour la prière (junctibus manibus), communier, faire brûler un cierge,embrasser les icônes, embrasser l’évangéliaire, embrasser la main du prêtreà la fin de l’office liturgique ; b) positions du corps : la station debout,l’agenouillement, la position inclinée de la tête (la tête baissée) ;c) séquences gestuelles : porter son don (des offrandes) au sanctuaire (engénéral, de l’huile, du vin, de l’encens et du pain de froment fermentéservant à l’eucharistie, appelé prosphore), la prosternation, la grande

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prosternation, ou la grande métanie, d’origine monastique. Les membresdu chœur exécutent en général les mêmes gestes, la fréquence et leurrythme d’exécution étant modifiés par leur emplacement dans l’espaceintérieur de l’église : du côté droit de la nef, debout devant l’iconostase,ou bien (surtout dans les cathédrales métropolitaines et épiscopales) àl’étage, au-dessus du narthex, assis sur des bancs.

Pour ce qui est du prêtre officiant, nous mentionnerons ses gestes enprenant en considération ses trois hypostases liturgiques : en tant quefidèle participant au rituel liturgique, il actualise une série de gestes simples: se signer, embrasser les icônes, embrasser l’évangéliaire, embrasser lasainte table du sanctuaire, la croix avec laquelle il bénit le peuple, lacommunion, l’élévation des mains pour la prière, tout comme la plupartdes postures mentionnées dans le cas des fidèles participants à la liturgie: la position debout, l’agenouillement et la position inclinée de la tête. Entant que prêtre-célébrant de la liturgie eucharistique, il exécute un grandnombre de séquences gestuelles : la séparation des parcelles de prosphorequi vont être consacrées pendant l’eucharistie, le fait de remuer lentement,de haut en bas, le grand voile liturgique au-dessus des saints dons (signifiantla descente du Saint Esprit), ou la distribution de la communion. En tantque symbole du Christ (le théologien roumain Dumitru Stãniloae l’appelle«le transparent du Christ» : Stãniloae 1986), le prêtre fait un geste simple(la bénédiction), et actualise au moins une séquence gestuelle : le faitd’entrer dans le sanctuaire (à certains moments du scénario liturgique)par les portes centrales de l’iconostase -les portes «royales».

Tant la norme d’exécution de ces gestes, que leurs significationssymboliques (connues d’ailleurs, de moins en moins, de nos jours, par lesfidèles-participants à la liturgie) ont été transmises par imitation (ou grâceà l’éducation religieuse, réalisée en famille, ou organisée par l’Eglise : lecatéchisme), et, respectivement par la voie orale (pour ce qui est desfidèles-participants), ou écrite (dans le cas des futurs prêtres). La plupartdes manifestations gestuelles actualisées par le prêtre pendant lacélébration de la liturgie eucharistique ont une tradition lointaine, étantmentionnées par exemple, par les Constitutions Apostoliques, ou lesCatéchèses mystagogiques de saint Cyrille de Jérusalem (la position debout,l’agenouillement, la bénédiction, la communion, le baiser de la paix).D’autres gestes sont de tradition plus récente, étant apparus à certainsmoments d’évolution du rituel liturgique : le fait de remuer le grand voileau-dessus des saints dons pendant la récitation du Credo, la bénédictiondu peuple avec le calice et la patène après la communion.

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Les significations des gestes liturgiques byzantins, mentionnées dansles écrits des Pères de l’Eglise et reprises par les théologiens auteurs desmanuels liturgiques, sont des significations symboliques. Vu l’accès assezlimité des fidèles à ce type de sources liturgiques, cette catégorie d’actantsliturgiques connaît, généralement, très peu ces significations symboliques.Cependant, ils connaissent très bien les significations pragmatiques,d’efficacité rituelle de ces gestes, mentionnées dans des livres depopularisation des symboles liturgiques ou dans les sermons des grandsprédicateurs des monastères les plus célèbres du pays. C’est toujours dansles écrits à valeur normative des Saints Pères que l’on trouve aussi ladescription de ce que l’on pourrait appeler un modèle canoniqued’exécution de ces gestes (l’un des exemples les plus connus est celui dusigne de la croix, décrit par saint Jean Chrysostome).

En ce qui concerne le rythme et la fréquence d’exécution des gestesliturgiques, nous avons très peu de prescriptions de cette nature : dansquelques documents synodaux, ou dans les mêmes livres de popularisationdes saints Sacrements de l’Eglise et de la symbolique de la Divine Liturgie(voir, par exemple, Màndità 1994).

Le geste simple de se signer signifie la foi en la Sainte Trinité et dans lesalut de l’âme, réalisé par le Christ sur le bois de la croix (saint JeanChrysostome, apud Mitrofanovici 1929, p. 434). Ce geste a égalementune signification d’efficacité rituelle (postérieure à la première), appeléepar le même Mitrofanovici, la signification «effective», celle d’attirer àcelui qui l’exécute plusieurs dons positifs, tout en éloignant de lui lesmauvais esprits (ibidem). On se signe avec la main droite, les trois premiersdoigts réunis et tenus droits et les deux derniers pliés à l’intérieur de lapaume, du front vers le bas de la poitrine, et du côté droit vers le côtégauche, la verbalisation de ce geste étant représentée par la formule bienconnue, «Au nom du Père, du Fils et du Saint Esprit. Amen.» Nous avonsdéjà étudié, ailleurs, les variantes pragmatiques de ce geste (Dumas 1997),que nous nous contenterons seulement de mentionner ici (pour ladescription du gestuel liturgique byzantin, nous utiliserons la transcriptionlinguistique d’Anne-Marie Houdebine : barres obliques et parenthèsespour les candidats signifiants, barres obliques pour les «caractèrespertinents du signifiant Gestuel», et crochets pour les signifiés ou «effetsde sens» : apud Brunetière 1991, p. 283) : 1) /la main droite «essaie» detoucher le front, s’arrêtant au-dessus de celui-ci, les doigts en positioncanonique/ + /la main droite essaie de toucher le bas de la poitrine, sansla toucher pour autant, les doigts gardent les mêmes positions/ + /la main

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droite au-dessus de l’épaule droite, mais sans la toucher, les doigts enpositions canoniques/ + /la main droite au-dessus de l’épaule gauche,sans la toucher, les doigts en positions canoniques/ ; 2) /la main droitetouche la poitrine, entre le menton et le ventre, mais plus près du menton,les trois premiers doigts réunis et tenus droits, les deux derniers légèrementcourbés vers l’intérieur de la paume/ + /la main droite touche la poitrine,entre le menton et le ventre, plus près du ventre, mais très près aussi del’endroit touché antérieurement, les doigts gardent les mêmes positions/+ /la main droite touche le côté droit de la poitrine, au-dessous du sein,les doigts dans les mêmes positions/ + /la main droite touche le côté gauchede la poitrine, au-dessous du sein gauche, les doigts gardent les mêmespositions/ ; 3) /la main droite touche le front, les doigts en positionscanoniques/ + /la main droite touche le bas de la poitrine, les doigts enpositions canoniques/ + /la main droite touche l’épaule droite, les doigtsen positions canoniques/ + /la main droite touche le côté gauche de lapoitrine, au-dessous du sein, les doigts en positions canoniques/. Si lesdeux premières variantes se caractérisent par leur actualisation dans lecadre d’un enchaînement gestuel de plusieurs signes de croix, la troisièmetrahit une sorte de fatigue d’exécution.

Le geste d’élever les mains (+les bras) pour la prière est exécuté surtoutpar le prêtre, en général à l’intérieur du sanctuaire, debout, et tourné versla table de l’autel. Il est exécuté au début de la liturgie de la parole, avantla lecture de l’évangile ou le moment de la grande entrée, et au momentde la consécration des saints dons, pour l’invocation du Saint Esprit.Combiné avec la position agenouillée du corps, ce geste peut êtreégalement exécuté par les fidèles-participants à la liturgie, lors d’une prièreindividuelle, faite d’habitude devant une icône (de l’iconostase). Lasignification de ce geste simple, dont le signifiant peut être décrit de lafaçon suivante : /(tête droite)/ + /paumes orientées vers l’intérieur del’espace défini par leur position «vis-à-vis»)/ + /(doigts réunis)/, est cellede «l’élévation du cœur de celui qui prie vers Dieu, sa dévotion intérieure,tout comme sa demande d’exaucer un vœu urgent» (Mitrofanovici 1929,p 447) . Ce geste représenterait donc, l’actualisation non verbale d’unemétaphore indicielle.

La même signification est attribuée également au geste de joindre lesmains pour la prière. Ce geste connaît deux variantes d’actualisation :1) /(les mains jointes au niveau de la poitrine)/ + /(position agenouillée ducorps)/, utilisée seulement par les fidèles-participants au rituel liturgique,devant les icônes de l’iconostase, lors des prières individuelles, ou, partout

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ailleurs, dans l’espace intérieur de l’église, pendant la récitation du Credo,ou de la prière dominicale, et 2) /(les mains jointes au niveau du ventre)/+ /(les bras pliés au niveau du ventre)/ + /(la station debout)/, manifestéepar certains prêtres dans le sanctuaire (surtout, lorsqu’il y en a plusieursqui célèbrent la liturgie) et par certains fidèles aussi, pendant tout le longde la liturgie (sauf, pendant les moments où ils doivent s’agenouiller). Cegeste liturgique a été récupéré du paradigme gestuel profane, du rituellaïque de l’hommage (Schmitt 1990, p. 296), étant investi après, parl’intermédiaire d’un processus de métaphorisation, avec la significationsymbolique d’élévation du cœur vers Dieu.

Mentionné par saint Basile en tant que geste de vénération des saintespersonnes représentées dans les icônes (cf. Basilius, Epist. 340 ad IulianumApostatum, in Migne, Patr. Gr. T.XXXII, p. 1100), le geste d’embrasser lesicônes est exécuté par les deux grandes catégories d’actants liturgiques,généralement au début de la liturgie, mais aussi à tout autre moment duscénario liturgique.

Le geste simple d’embrasser l’évangéliaire est exécuté par le prêtreofficiant, tout comme par les fidèles, après le moment de la lecture del’évangile, entre les portes royales (donc, au seuil de l’iconostase, considérécomme la partie la plus «sacrée» de l’église, bien qu’elle n’ait pas étésoumise à une consécration spéciale, lors du rituel de la consécration del’église en entier), et exprime la vénération de la parole divine qui y estcontenue. Cette parole transmet sa sacralité à l’objet de culte embrassé,et par «contagion», à la personne qui exécute ce geste.

La signification du geste simple d’embrasser la main du prêtre à la finde la célébration liturgique, est celle de respect manifesté par rapport àce serviteur privilégié du Christ, et surtout par rapport à sa main droite,celle qui œuvre le mystère eucharistique et qui se trouve en contact avecles objets liturgiques et, surtout, avec les saints dons.

Les fidèles orthodoxes roumains reçoivent le Saint Sacrement, le corpset le sang du Christ (comme tous les autres orthodoxes, d’ailleurs), dansune petite cuillère, qui leur est proposée par le prêtre, devant le sanctuaire,entre les portes royales. Le geste de la communion a connu à travers letemps, une modification d’actualisation. Aux débuts, les fidèlescommuniaient comme les prêtres communient de nos jours, c’est-à- dire,à même le calice, tel que nous le présente saint Cyrille de Jérusalem dansla Vème Catéchèse mystagogique : «Quand tu t’approches, ne t’avancepas les paumes des mains étendues, ni les doigts disjoints ; mais fais de lamain gauche un trône pour la droite, puisque celle-ci doit recevoir le Roi

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et, dans le creux de ta main, reçois le corps du Christ [...]. Ensuite [...],approche-toi aussi du calice de son sang. N’étends pas les mains, maisincliné, et dans un geste de respect et d’adoration, en disant «Amen»,sanctifie-toi en prenant aussi le sang du Christ.» (p. 21 et 22). Il sembleraitque l’usage de la cuillère fût introduit à l’époque de (et même par) saintJean Chrysostome, pour empêcher que le Saint Sacrement soit consommépar des païens. (cf. Nicephorus Callistus, Hist. eccl. L 13, c 7, apudMitrofanovici 1929, p. 249).

Le geste de faire brûler un cierge a été récupéré du paradigme gestuelprofane et réinvesti après, par l’intermédiaire d’un processus demétaphorisation réalisé au niveau de l’objet rituel qui définit ce geste, lecierge, avec une signification symbolique. (Dumas 1995-1996, p. 11).Utilisé aux débuts du christianisme dans un but pratique très précis, pouréclairer l’espace sombre des catacombes, ce geste signifie la foi et ladévotion de l’actant liturgique qui l’accomplit, envers Dieu, parce que«la lumière matérielle du cierge symbolise la lumière éternelle, [...] JésusChrist, la lumière de la vraie foi [...], la vie, la joie et notre adoration, ennous montrant que nous-mêmes, nous sommes et nous devons être les filsde la lumière» (Mitrofanovici 1929,p.239). Ultérieurement, ce geste a étéinvesti par les fidèles-participants à la liturgie, avec une significationd’efficacité rituelle : la demande d’exaucer un vœu, une action de grâce,ou une demande de rémission des péchés.

Pour ce qui est des positions du corps, la station debout est considéréecomme l’attitude habituelle de l’homme en prière (Lubienska de Lenval1957, p. 10). Elle se définit donc, «normalement» (le premier concileœcuménique a interdit de s’agenouiller le dimanche, car «le dimancheest Pâques» : Clément 1982, p. 178), à l’intérieur d’une opposition réaliséepar rapport à la position assise. De nos jours, dans la pratique liturgiqueroumaine, elle s’oppose à la position agenouillée, qui a finit par s’emparer,en partie, de sa signification. Origène écrivait parmi ses réflexions sur laprière : «Pour louer, célébrer, rendre grâce, on prie debout, les mainsétendues. La prière à genoux est de pénitence et de supplication» (apudClément 1982, p. 178).

La position agenouillée du corps est en général, «l’expression de lapénitence, de la dévotion et de notre humiliation devant Dieu»(Mitrofanovici 1929, p. 441). On s’agenouille pendant les moments lesplus importants (du point de vue symbolique) du rituel liturgique : la lecturede l’évangile, la petite entrée, la grande entrée, la récitation du Credo etdu Notre Père, la consécration et la prière finale, de l’ambon. Durant le

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Moyen Age, la position agenouillée du corps devient «l’attitude normalede la prière» (Schmitt 1990, p. 299). Nous n’avons pas trouvé dedescriptions écrites de la façon dont on devait s’agenouiller ; cependant,les expressions utilisées pour désigner cette attitude de la prière -parexemple, fléchir les genoux (Basile de Césarée, Traité du Saint Esprit, 27,apud Clément 1982, p. 179) -, tout comme les représentationsiconographiques qui lui ont été consacrées nous aident à reconstituer unmodèle canonique d’exécution de ce geste : /(genoux fléchis)/ + /(jambesdroites)/ + /(buste droit)/. C’est par rapport à ce modèle que nous pouvonsdéfinir (tout comme dans le cas du signe de la croix) plusieurs variantespragmatiques de la position agenouillée du corps, que nous avonsenregistrées en Roumanie, pendant la célébration de la liturgieeucharistique. Par variante pragmatique, nous comprenons toute variantequi s’écarte, du point de vue de l’exécution, du modèle canonique de cegeste, sans présenter pour autant de changements de la signification decette norme. Deux de ces variantes ont été inventoriées, en tantqu’inclinaisons, par Humbert de Romans, dans son commentaire desconstitutions de l’ordre dominicain (genuflexiones recta et prostrationes,le corps reposant sur les genoux) (apud Schmitt 1990, p. 302). Voyonsmaintenant quelles sont ces variantes : 1) /(genoux fléchis)/ + /(fessesappuyées sur les jambes et les pieds)/ + /(buste droit)/, exécutée notammentpar des femmes, jeunes ou âgées et des enfants ; 2) /(genoux fléchis)/ + /(buste parallèle au sol)/ + /(bras réunis) + (appuyés contre le sol)/ + /(molletsétendus derrière)/, exécutée surtout par de vieilles femmes (très rarementpar de vieux hommes) et des enfants ; 3) /(genoux fléchis)/ + /(fessesappuyées sur les pieds)/ + /(bras croisés sur les jambes)/ + /(buste appuyésur les bras et sur les jambes)/, exécutée seulement par des femmes, jeunesou âgées, qui restent agenouillées pendant longtemps (parfois, pendanttoute la durée de la célébration liturgique), et en général, dans des lieuxun peu cachés de l’église : derrière une table, une petite colonne ;4) /(genoux fléchis)/ + /(jambes droites)/ + /(bras étendus) + (appuyés contrele sol)/ + /(mains jointes)/ + /(buste allongé sur les bras)/ + /(tête posée surles mains)/. Cette variante pragmatique est actualisée par la même catégoriede femmes, situées dans le même type d’endroits (cachés) de l’église. Cesont les significations d’efficacité rituelle attribuées à ce geste (demandesd’exaucer des vœux urgents, rémission des péchés) qui déterminent etqui engendrent, même, ces variations de la forme du signifiant.

La signification de la position inclinée de la tête est la vénérationintérieure de Dieu, «la dévotion profonde manifestée par rapport à lui»

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(Mitrofanovici 1929, p. 445). Les fidèles baissent leur tête, pendant ledéroulement du rituel liturgique, lorsqu’ils se signent, lorsqu’ils reçoiventla bénédiction du prêtre, ou bien, lorsque le prêtre les invite à le faire(«Inclinez la tête devant le Seigneur»).

La séquence gestuelle de porter son don au sanctuaire était exécutée àl’origine en dehors du rituel, avant le commencement de celui-ci (le vinet les prosphores étaient tout simplement apportés à l’église pour laréalisation «effective» de l’eucharistie), puis avant la liturgie des fidèles(jusqu’au IXe siècle, lorsque le rituel de la prothèse a été déplacé avant laliturgie des catéchumènes), et enfin, pendant la partie préparatoire de lacélébration liturgique, la prothèse (ou la proscomidie), comme aujourd’hui.La signification de ce geste est celle d’une participation de typecontributionnel au rituel, de communion symbolique, par l’intermédiairede ces offrandes, avec le Christ, présent sous la forme des espèceseucharistique, lors de la célébration de l’eucharistie. Ce geste aussi a étéinvesti à son tour, avec une signification pragmatique, d’efficacité rituelle :réussite et succès dans différents domaines, rémission des péchés, etc. Denos jours, les fidèles-participants à la liturgie eucharistique portent leursdons au sanctuaire à tout moment du déroulement liturgique, parfois,même à la fin de la célébration. Dans la plupart des cas, il s’agit des donsde dimensions plus réduites : un cierge, de l’encens et des diptyques avecles noms et les vœux de l’actant liturgique qui exécute le geste et desmembres de sa famille.

Une autre séquence liturgique, exécutée tant par les prêtres (dans lesanctuaire, avant le commencement de la liturgie, avant la procession dela petite entrée, pendant le chant de l’hymne du Trisagion, et avantl’épiclèse), que par les fidèles (dans la nef ou le narthex, pendant le chantdu Trisagion, ou lors de la vénération des icônes de l’iconostase) est cellede la prosternation (ou la petite métanie). La signification de ce geste, quiest toujours accompagné de celui de se signer et qui peut être défini de lamanière suivante : /le corps incliné/ + /la tête inclinée/ + /les bras tendusvers le sol/, est la vénération, et l’humilité, manifestées à l’égard de Dieu,ou des saintes personnes représentées sur les icônes. C’est un gesteengendré par une interaction posturale de type vis-à-vis avec une présencesymbolique, de nature sacrée : le Christ, la Sainte Trinité (dans le cas duTrisagion), ou les saints figurés dans les icônes.

La grande métanie, ou la métanie monastique, c’est-à-dire le fait defléchir les genoux, et de toucher le sol avec les bras et le front, est uneséquence gestuelle exécutée par certains prêtres dans le sanctuaire, lors

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de l’épiclèse (l’invocation du Saint Esprit) et par les fidèles les plus pieux(hommes et femmes) en tant que modalité très humble de vénérer lesicônes de l’iconostase (à n’importe quel moment de la liturgie) et, commenous l’avons déjà vu, en tant que réplique d’accomplissement gestueld’un acte de langage comportatif (lorsque le chœur chante, au momentde la petite entrée : «Venez, adorons et prosternons-nous devant le Christ.Sauve-nous, ô Fils de Dieu...»).

La bénédiction est un geste simple exécuté par le prêtre-officiant,notamment en sa qualité de symbole du Christ. La bénédiction est donnéeavec la main droite, en réalisant le signe de la croix sur l’assemblée desfidèles, de haut en bas et de gauche à droite, de façon à ce que ce signe«se pose» normalement, de droite à gauche, sur les destinataires de cegeste. La position des doigts de la main droite est bien codifiée : «l’indexest tendu pour former la lettre <<I>>, tandis que le médius est plié enforme de <<C>>. Le pouce et le quatrième doigt sont croisés en forme de<<X>>, et le petit doigt est à nouveau plié en <<C>>, de sorte que nousavons <<I, C, X, C>>, les lettres initiales et finales du nom grec deJésus-Christ.» (Lewis, 1988, p. 49). La signification de ce geste est l’envoide la paix, de la sérénité et de la grâce divine sur le destinataire de labénédiction. La réaction gestuelle des fidèles -participants à l’officeliturgique, engendrée par ce geste, est celle de se signer tout en baissantleur tête.

La bénédiction est un geste simple qui accompagne une bénédictionverbale (un énoncé verbal, donc), qui existait déjà aux débuts duchristianisme : les Constitutions Apostoliques mentionnent, entre autres,de pareilles bénédictions pour les catéchumènes, pour les énergumènes,etc. A cette époque-là, la bénédiction était donnée par l’évêque, parceque c’était lui qui célébrait l’eucharistie. Ensuite, la bénédiction acommencé à être donnée également par les prêtres. De nos jours encore,lorsqu’un évêque participe à la liturgie, c’est lui qui bénit le peuple, avecdeux groupes de deux et respectivement, de trois cierges allumés dansses mains.

Pendant le rituel liturgique, le prêtre bénit l’assistance plusieurs fois :avant la lecture de l’Evangile, en disant les mots «Paix à tous» («Sagesse !Debout ! Ecoutons le saint Evangile, paix à tous !») ; avant le momentliturgique de la grande entrée, pendant que le chœur chante l’hymne duChérubikon, avant de commencer la procession avec le calice et la patène(c’est le seul moment de la liturgie, où la bénédiction du prêtre n’est pasaccompagnée d’un énoncé verbal) ; après la consécration des saints dons,

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tout en disant une bénédiction verbale : «Que les miséricordes de notregrand Dieu et Sauveur Jésus-Christ soient avec vous tous !»; et après larécitation de l’oraison dominicale, accompagnant les mots «Paix à tous !».Lorsqu’il accompagne un énoncé verbal (c’est-à-dire, dans la plupart descas de son exécution), ce geste représente l’actualisation effective de lasignification de cet énoncé. Il s’agit d’un cumul de signifiants différentsqui vise l’augmentation de l’efficacité rituelle de la signification. Pourquoile prêtre est-il le seul actant liturgique qui ait le droit d’exécuter ce geste,pendant le rituel liturgique ? Parce que sa main droite (et pratiquement,tout son bras) est un support privilégié de la transmission de la grâcedivine. Parce qu’il a donc, le pouvoir de le faire ; sa main droite lereprésente d’ailleurs, d’une manière métonymique, lui, le prêtre officiant,en tant que servant de l’autel et célébrant du mystère eucharistique. Auxmoments où la bénédiction accompagne les mots «Paix à tous», le prêtreest effectivement le symbole du Christ, en remémorisant la bénédictiondonnée par celui-ci aux apôtres, après la Résurrection, ou pendant sonAscension.

Outre ces gestes liturgiques, qui relèvent de la Tradition avec unemajuscule, mentionnés par les écrits des Saints Pères, et décrits par lesthéologiens liturgistes, nous en avons observé d’autres, sans tradition écrite,mais exécutés déjà, dans certaines régions du pays, et dans certainesparoisses et monastères, depuis assez longtemps, et placé sous le signed’une tradition évidemment plus récente. Il s’agit du geste duprêtre-officiant de toucher les têtes des fidèles, lors de la procession de lagrande entrée, avec le calice porté dans la main droite, et de plusieursgestes et séquences gestuelles exécutés par les fidèles participants au rituelliturgique : le geste de toucher les vêtements sacerdotaux, lorsque le prêtrese trouve à leur proximité (c’est, donc, un geste dont l’actualisation estdéterminée par la disposition des actants liturgiques dans l’espace intérieurde l’église) ; le geste de s’allonger par terre, entre la porte de gauche del’iconostase et les portes royales, pendant le moment liturgique de la grandeentrée, pour que le prêtre qui sort en procession avec les Saints Dons, lesenjambe ; l’agenouillement tout près du prêtre, lors du moment liturgiquede la lecture de l’Evangile ; la séquence gestuelle de s’approcher dusanctuaire, en se signant, à l’invitation du prêtre pour la communion :«Approchez avec crainte de Dieu, foi et amour !» Le mode de productionsémiotique de ces gestes est l’invention : «un mode de production quiexige que le producteur de la fonction sémiotique choisisse un continuummatériel, non encore segmenté en fonction des intentions qu’il se propose,

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et suggère une nouvelle manière de le structurer, pour y opérer lestransformations des éléments pertinents d’un type de contenu.» (Eco 1992,p. 95).

Ces gestes aussi ont été récupérés du paradigme profane et investisaprès avec des significations nouvelles ; sauf que, dans leur cas, la premièreétape de ce processus de re-sémantisation gestuelle a été celled’investissement avec des significations d’efficacité rituelle, récupéréesultérieurement en tant que symboliques, dans la continuité dessignifications symboliques attribuées aux autres gestes rituels actualisésdans le contexte communicationnel de la liturgie eucharistique byzantine.

La signification d’efficacité rituelle du geste de toucher les vêtementsdu prêtre est l’attraction de certains dons positifs, ou bien, une guérisonmorale ou physique. Les fidèles touchent et embrassent la chasuble oul’épitrachilion du prêtre, avec leur main droite ou avec leur front, lors desprocessions de la petite et surtout de la grande entrée, ou lorsque le prêtrepasse parmi eux pour encenser l’église (avant la lecture de l’évangile, etpendant le chant du Chérubikon). Cette séquence gestuelle connaît undéveloppement maximal pendant le moment liturgique de la grande entrée,lorsque le prêtre reste plus longtemps au milieu des fidèles. Dans ce cas,elle se compose des figures gestuelles suivantes : /(position agenouilléedu corps)/ + /(on embrasse le bas de l’épitrachilion)/ + /(on touche le frontavec le bas de l’épitrachilion)/ + /(on touche les yeux avec le bas del’épitrachilion)/ + /(on embrasse un pan de la chasuble)/ + /(on touche lefront avec le pan de la chasuble)/ + /(on touche les yeux avec le pan de lachasuble)/ + [ dans certains cas] /(on embrasse le sticharion)/ + /(on touchele front avec le sticharion)/ + /(on embrasse le bas de la soutane)/. Lasignification symbolique, investie par l’intermédiaire d’une analogie (detype symbolique) entre le prêtre et le Christ, est l’humilité extrêmemanifestée par rapport à la personne qui porte le vêtement en question(vêtement qui fait partie de l’image de son corps), le geste étant mentionnépar l’évangile selon saint Matthieu (9, 20) : «Et voici qu’une femme atteinted’une perte de sang depuis douze ans s’approcha par derrière, et touchale bord de son vêtement. Car elle disait en elle-même : si je puis seulementtoucher son vêtement, je serai guérie».

Pratiquement, la même signification d’efficacité rituelle : guérison,rémission des péchés, est investie dans le cas de la séquence gestuelleexécutée par les fidèles lors de la grande entrée, en s’allongeant par terre(entre la porte de gauche de l’iconostase et les portes royales), pour que leprêtre officiant les enjambe avec les saints dons. Pareils aux malades des

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évangiles qui s’approchaient en toute humilité du Christ, en espérant êtreguéris, les fidèles-participants au rituel liturgique s’abandonnent, dansune position très humble, à la volonté divine et au pouvoir thaumaturgedu Christ, qui, conformément à l’interprétation allégorique de la grandeentrée, se dirige à ce moment liturgique, vers Jérusalem.

En ce qui concerne le geste du prêtre, actualisé au même moment duscénario liturgique (la procession de la grande entrée), de toucher lestêtes des fidèles (agenouillés ou non), avec le calice qu’il porte dans samain droite, la signification d’efficacité rituelle est celle de sanctificationdes bénéficiaires de cette manifestation gestuelle. Nous pensons que lamotivation de ce geste est la volonté du prêtre de faire partager à sesfidèles la nature sanctificatrice du «saint calice» (soutenue par sa fonctionrituelle, de contenir et de conserver les saints dons), tout en les impliquant,de cette façon participante, à la célébration du rituel eucharistique. Dansla plupart des cas, dans les églises où la liturgie eucharistique est officiéepar deux ou plusieurs prêtres, ce geste est accompagné par la séquencegestuelle de présenter aux fidèles-participants, pour l’embrasser, la croixqui reste d’habitude, sur l’autel, et dont le prêtre se sert pour bénirl’assemblée à certains moments du scénario liturgique. Cette croyanceselon laquelle on peut se sanctifier par le contact avec les objets porteursde sainteté n’est pas tellement récente. Dans la Vème Catéchèsemystagogique (22, 1-6), saint Cyrille de Jérusalem enseignait aux chrétiensqui recevaient la communion, «tandis que leurs lèvres étaient encorehumides, de les effleurer de leurs mains, et de sanctifier après, leurs yeux,leur front et leurs autres sens». Dans ses réflexions sur le Sacerdoce, saintJean Chrysostome leur donnait le même conseil (III, 4,30).

Le prêtre touche le front des fidèles qui se tiennent debout pourl’actualisation de ce geste, ou la tête de ceux qui s’agenouillent pendantce moment liturgique. Les fidèles ne sont que les bénéficiaires de ce geste ;il leur est interdit d’embrasser le calice ou de le toucher avec la main.

Le geste des fidèles-participants au rituel liturgique, de s’agenouillertrès près du support-chevalet qui soutient l’évangéliaire pendant la lecturede l’évangile (support utilisé seulement dans les églises où la liturgie n’estpas célébrée avec des diacres, qui lisent l’évangile sur l’ambon, dans lanef) est engendré par la signification attribuée à l’évangéliaire, l’objetliturgique qui définit cette manifestation gestuelle. «Le sens d’un objetrituel, écrit Pierre Cordoba, est à distinguer de sa fonction ; celle-ciappartient au domaine de la conscience claire, celui-là relève de l’impenséculturel qui est l’objet propre de la recherche anthropologique» (1990,

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p. 139-140). La fonction rituelle de l’évangéliaire est celle de contenir leverbe divin, c’est-à-dire, un aspect révélé de la divinité. En tant quecontenant, il est donc, imprégné de la sainteté de son contenu, et c’estpour cette raison que cet objet rituel est considéré comme sanctificateuret comme porteur de vertus de guérison. Les fidèles s’agenouillent le plusprès possible du chevalet qui soutient l’évangéliaire, pour bénéficier, parcontagion, de la sainteté de l’objet liturgique posé par le prêtre sur cesupport. La qualité sanctificatrice de l’évangéliaire se transmet, parcontagion, à son support, et, après, toujours par contagion, aux fidèlesqui touchent le chevalet avec leur tête ou avec leur front. L’investissementde la signification d’efficacité rituelle de cette position gestuelle (guérisonet sanctification) est réalisé par l’intermédiaire d’une analogie avec lesguérisons faites par le Christ, avec la parole, pendant son existencehistorique. Et l’interprétation allégorique de la séquence liturgique de lalecture de l’évangile (le moment d’actualisation de ce geste) est, justement,l’annonce, la propagation, de l’enseignement du Christ, de son vivant,qui a toujours été accompagnée par la guérison des malades qu’Ilrencontrait à cette occasion.

Quant à la séquence gestuelle de s’approcher du sanctuaire (en faisantun ou deux pas vers l’iconostase), lorsque le prêtre invite, en fait, lesfidèles-participants à l’actualisation du geste de communier (en prononçantles mots : «Approchez, avec crainte de Dieu, foi et amour»), nous pouvonsaffirmer qu’elle représente une sorte de geste compensatoire, apparulorsque la communion a commencé à devenir de plus en plus rare (étantconditionnée par des prescriptions restrictives : confession obligatoire etjeûne). De nos jours, ce geste est repris, par imitation mécanique, parplusieurs fidèles-participants à la liturgie, dont la plupart ignorent, le plussouvent, la motivation initiale de son «invention».

Comme nous l’avons déjà vu, l’actualisation de certains gestesliturgiques suppose l’intervention de quelques objets rituels. Essayons donc,d’étudier, par la suite, leurs significations symboliques, leur rôle sémiotique,les moments de leur intervention, les gestes liturgiques engendrés et lescroyances roumaines rattachées à ces objets.

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3. Les objets rituels impliqués dans le déroulement de la

liturgie byzantine et leur importance sémiotique

Les objets rituels utilisés par le prêtre officiant pendant la célébrationde la liturgie eucharistique, et montrés à l’assemblée des fidèles, sont lacroix, l’évangéliaire, le calice + la cuillère, et la patène ou le diskos. Ilsconstituent des phanies, des représentations du sacré, qui engendrent unegrande partie des manifestations gestuelles des fidèles- participants aurituel liturgique, tout en définissant certains gestes du prêtre. D’ailleurs,dans ce dernier cas, ils représentent des prolongements du bras droit (oudes bras) de celui-ci.

3.1. La croix

La croix représente le signe «du Fils de l’Homme», le signe de la victoiredes chrétiens contre la mort, et contre les péchés. En tant qu’objet rituel,elle est utilisée par le prêtre officiant surtout pour l’actualisation de l’unedes formes du geste liturgique de la bénédiction. Dans ce cas, ellereprésente un prolongement du bras droit du prêtre, qui bénit les fidèles,en faisant sur eux le signe de la croix, l’objet représentant une sorted’authentification de la bénédiction. Nous avons déjà vu quel était lemoment liturgique d’actualisation de la bénédiction avec la croix (aprèsla récitation du Credo). Les réactions gestuelles engendrées par ce gestesont la position inclinée de la tête et le signe de la croix (en ce qui concerneles fidèles- participants au rituel liturgique) et, pour ce qui est du prêtrequi l’exécute, le fait d’embrasser la croix, à la fin de cette bénédiction.

La croix est également montrée à l’assemblée pendant la processionde la grande entrée, et proposée pour être embrassée auxfidèles-participants, spécialement disposés dans l’espace intérieur del’église (de la porte de gauche de l’iconostase, devant les portes royales etaprès, en laissant un petit couloir au milieu de la nef, jusqu’à la ported’entrée). Dans ce cas, elle participe à la définition sémiotique du gestesimple d’embrasser la croix, actualisé par les fidèles en même temps quela séquence gestuelle (exécutée par le prêtre) de toucher leurs têtes,pendant le même moment du scénario liturgique.

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3.2. L’évangéliaire

L’évangéliaire représente le livre de la nouvelle Alliance, de la nouvelleloi du Christ, le livre qui renferme le Verbe divin. C’est pour cela qu’il estrelié en or ou en argent doré, avec des pierres précieuses. En tant qu’objetrituel, l’évangéliaire est montré au peuple, pendant la célébration de laliturgie eucharistique byzantine, lors de la procession de la petite entrée :le prêtre sort par la porte de gauche du sanctuaire, en tenant l’évangéliairedans ses mains, précédé par le sacristain, un cierge allumé dans sa main,et entre (après avoir béni le sanctuaire) par les portes royales del’iconostase. A l’origine, cette séquence liturgique avait une fonctionpurement «pratique», celle d’entrée proprement-dite dans le temple (senspremier de la petite entrée), puis celle de «procession du clergé à sa placepour célébrer la liturgie de la Parole» (Schmémann 1985, p. 68).

Le rôle sémiotique de l’évangéliaire est celui de définir le geste simpled’embrasser cet objet liturgique. Actualisé par les fidèles à la fin du momentde la lecture de l’évangile, ce geste simple détermine tout un changementde la disposition des actants liturgiques dans l’espace intérieur de l’église.Debout, au seuil du sanctuaire (entre les portes royales), tenantl’évangéliaire dans ses mains, le prêtre le présente aux fidèles-participantsà la liturgie, qui quittent leurs places, se déplacent vers l’iconostase etpassent devant celle-ci pour embrasser l’évangéliaire. Ensuite, ilscontinuent leur déplacement, en passant devant l’icône de la Vierge (del’iconostase), et regagnent leurs places.

Nous avons déjà vu que l’évangéliaire engendrait également le gestedes fidèles de s’agenouiller très près du chevalet-support sur lequel il estmis lors de la lecture de l’évangile. Un autre geste liturgique àl’actualisation duquel il participe est la bénédiction avec l’évangéliaire,réalisée par le prêtre à la fin de la lecture de l’évangile, en tenantl’évangéliaire dans ses mains et en faisant avec lui, le signe de la croix(selon le trajet sémiotique de toute bénédiction : de haut en bas et degauche à droite) sur l’assemblée. Les réactions gestuelles desfidèles-participants au rituel liturgique, à la vue de l’évangéliaire, pendantla procession de la petite entrée, tout comme lors de la lecture de l’évangileou de la bénédiction avec cet objet de culte, sont la position agenouilléedu corps, la position inclinée de la tête, le geste de se signer et laprosternation.

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3.3. Le calice (+ la cuillère)

Le calice est l’un des objets liturgiques les plus anciens, dont l’utilisationremonte aux origines de la célébration eucharistique. Sa fonction est cellede garder le vin eucharistique et le Saint Sacrement pendant la liturgie.Fait aux débuts du christianisme de matériaux très simples (bois ou verre),il a commencé à être réalisé après (à partir du IVe siècle), de plus en plussouvent et presque exclusivement, de matériaux précieux, or, ou argentdoré. Il est gardé également dans le sanctuaire, et montré à l’assembléedes fidèles pendant la procession de la grande entrée, pendant lacommunion, et après la communion, lors de quelques bénédictionsréalisées avec cet objet de culte, dont nous avons déjà parlé.

La vue du Saint Sacrement a engendré depuis toujours, chez les fidèles,des réactions gestuelles de vénération, tout comme le désir du contactdirect, par l’intermédiaire du toucher, avec l’objet de culte qui lerenfermait. Si le monde orthodoxe ne connaît pas «le désir de voir l’hostie»(Dumoutet 1926), par contre, la vue du calice (en dehors du sanctuaire,bien évidemment, et surtout pendant la grande entrée) engendre toujoursdes manifestations gestuelles de vénération et d’humilité : l’agenouillement,la position inclinée de la tête et la prosternation, (dans certains cas, lagrande métanie), tout comme le désir de l’embrasser (geste actualisé danscertaines églises orthodoxes roumaines de paroisse, pendant lesbénédictions données avec le calice après le moment liturgique de lacommunion).

Le calice est également montré au peuple lors de l’invitation prononcéepar le prêtre à l’actualisation du geste de la communion. Le tenant dansses mains, le prêtre s’avance un peu en dehors du sanctuaire, devant lesportes royales, en exhortant les fidèles à s’approcher pour communier :«Approchez avec crainte de Dieu, amour et foi». Les réactions gestuellesde ces derniers sont le geste simple de communier, la séquence gestuellede s’approcher effectivement, en faisant quelques pas dans la directiondu sanctuaire, ou le signe de la croix combiné avec la prosternation.

Accompagné de la cuillère, le calice réalise la définition sémiotiquede la séquence gestuelle, actualisée par le prêtre-officiant, de donner lacommunion aux fidèles. En citant un fragment de l’explication donnéepar saint Ephrème le Syrien au sixième chapitre du livre d’Esaïe,Mitrofanovici affirme que la petite cuillère utilisée pour la communionreprésente la pincette avec laquelle l’un des séraphins avait touché leslèvres du prophète, après avoir pris une pierre ardente sur l’autel, en le

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purifiant, de cette façon, de ses péchés : «Il en toucha ma bouche et dit :Ceci a touché tes lèvres ; ton iniquité est enlevée, et ton péché est expié»(Esaïe 6,7) (Mitrofanovici 1929, p. 250). Par conséquent, la significationdu geste de communier serait engendrée non seulement par la significationdu Saint Sacrement, conservé dans le calice, mais aussi par la significationsymbolique de la cuillère.

3.4. La patène

La patène, ou le diskos, est toujours montrée au peuple avec le calice,à deux moments liturgiques très précis : pendant la procession de la grandeentrée, et en accompagnant une bénédiction verbale, prononcée par leprêtre officiant, après la communion: «En tout temps, maintenant et toujourset dans les siècles des siècles». La signification symbolique de typeallégorique de la patène (vase liturgique de forme ronde et plate) est cellede crèche, de lieu de la Nativité du Christ (Mitrofanovici 1929, p. 246).Sa fonction liturgique est de garder les parcelles de prosphores, découpéespendant la proscomidie, qui serviront à l’offrande eucharistique.

Pendant la procession de la grande entrée, la patène est portée par leprêtre (qui garde le calice dans sa main droite) dans la main gauche, àl’exception des cathédrales épiscopales et métropolitaines, où elle estportée par un autre prêtre co-célébrant. Elle ne participe pas àl’actualisation du geste du prêtre de toucher les têtes des fidèles avec lecalice, ni à la définition sémiotique d’un geste d’embrasser la patène. Leseul geste qu’elle définit sémiotiquement, mais avec le calice, est labénédiction réalisée par le prêtre avec ces deux objets de culte, au momentliturgique déjà mentionné.

Ces objets rituels sont présents également dans certaines croyancesroumaines, qui valorisent, en général, des significations d’efficacité rituelle:«Si quelqu’un a mal à la tête, on croit que c’est bien de s’agenouiller sousl’évangéliaire, et il sera guéri» (Gorovei 1925, p. 52); «On croit que pouréchapper à une douleur de la tête, c’est bien de regarder dans le saintcalice» (ibidem).

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4. L’appropriation de l’espace ecclésiastique et l’actualisation

des gestes liturgiques

4.1. Un espace sacré: l’église

L’espace intérieur de l’église byzantine est un espace bien défini etindividualisé. C’est un espace sacré, découpé dans l’ensemble amorphede l’espace profane, un «vase» qui reçoit, après un rituel de consécration,le transcendant qui descend, pour s’y révéler (Blaga 1994). Définie parsaint Siméon, l’archevêque de Thessalonique, en tant que maison de Dieu(1865, p. 120), l’église byzantine se compose de trois grandes parties,parce que «Dieu est Trinité»: le vestibule, la nef et le sanctuaire. Chacunede ces parties est occupée par les actants liturgiques selon une logiquetraditionnelle: le sanctuaire est réservé aux prêtres et au clergé en général(le canon 69 du concile in Trullo interdit aux laïcs l’entrée du sanctuaire:Paprocki 1993, p. 195), la nef est occupée par les fidèles, et le vestibuleest réservé aux pénitents et aux femmes impures. En ce qui concerne ladistribution des fidèles dans la nef, les femmes doivent se tenir à part, àl’écart des hommes (Les Constitutions Apostoliques le mentionnent déjà),d’habitude dans la partie gauche, la partie droite étant occupée par leshommes; les moniales, les moines et les enfants se tiennent toujours dansla nef, devant tout le monde.

Les fidèles participent donc à l’interaction liturgique orientés vers lesanctuaire, à l’intérieur duquel le prêtre célèbre l’eucharistie, et qui estséparé de la nef, dans l’église byzantine, par la paroi de l’iconostaserecouverte d’icônes. Ils se trouveront donc toujours devant les icônes del’iconostase et devant le prêtre qui leur permet, à certains momentsliturgiques, l’accès visuel dans le sanctuaire (par exemple, conformémentà la décision du synode des Cent Chapitres, le prêtre doit fermer les portesroyales après la grande entrée: Paprocki 1993, p. 290). Cette dispositionspatiale oriente la plupart des manifestations proxémiques des actantsliturgiques: le prêtre s’avance vers le peuple, en sortant du sanctuaire, etles fidèles s’approchent de l’iconostase (le seuil du sanctuaire), pouractualiser toute une série de gestes ou de séquences gestuelles: le fait deporter son offrande au sanctuaire, l’agenouillement sous l’évangéliairelors de la lecture de l’Evangile, le geste d’embrasser les icônes del’iconostase, l’agenouillement et les mains jointes pour la prière devantses icônes, le déplacement vers l’iconostase pour communier, la séquence

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gestuelle de faire quelques pas dans la direction du sanctuaire lors del’invitation du prêtre d’approcher pour la communion.

En même temps, le geste exécuté définit son propre espace, découpépar les mouvements du corps à l’intérieur de l’espace personnel de chaqueactant liturgique. Cette délimitation est faite en fonction de quelquesaspects anthropologiques, tels le bilatéralisme du corps humain dont parleJousse (Jousse 1974), qui définit la gauche et la droite, et la verticalité decelui- ci. Cet espace peut être modifié selon les distances établies entreles actants liturgiques pendant le rituel; on remarque, par exemple,l’impossibilité de se signer, ou de s’agenouiller, à cause de l’entassementdes fidèles, dans des églises trop pleines.

4.2. La relation espace - geste liturgique

La disposition des actants liturgiques dans l’espace intérieur de l’égliseengendre, dans le cas des fidèles-participants à la liturgie eucharistique,une série de gestes et de postures congruentes par rapport à ceux duprêtre (l’agenouillement ou le signe de la croix), tout en leur imposant uncertain rythme et une certaine fréquence d’exécution. Le premier augmenteà mesure que l’on s’éloigne du sanctuaire, tandis que la deuxième diminueà mesure que l’on s’éloigne de l’iconostase et que l’on approche de lasortie.

Les manifestations gestuelles et proxémiques actualisées par les fidèlespendant la célébration du rituel liturgique sont orientées également par lamodification des distances que le prêtre établit par rapport à eux, engénéral, lorsqu’il sort du sanctuaire. Ainsi, la procession de la petite entréedétermine-t- elle l’actualisation de l’agenouillement et du geste de se signer;celle de la grande entrée, le déplacement vers le prêtre pour qu’il leurtouche la tête avec le calice et l’agenouillement; l’encensement de l’églisea comme réactions gestuelles chez les fidèles le geste de se signer, laposition inclinée de la tête, et de se rapprocher du prêtre pour toucher sachasuble ou l’épitrachilion; l’apparition du célébrant entre les portesroyales (en général, pour bénir l’assemblée) détermine l’agenouillementdes fidèles, leur geste de se signer ou leur prosternation.

L’actualisation de certains gestes liturgiques est condition- née parune disposition bien précise des actants qui les exécutent, dans l’espaceintérieur de l’église. Ainsi, le prêtre exécute la plupart des gestes quirelèvent de sa qualité de célébrant de la liturgie, seulement dans le

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sanctuaire; il s’agit, par exemple, de la séquence gestuelle de découperles parcelles de prosphore, de celle de remuer le grand vélon au-dessusdes saints dons pendant la récitation du Credo, tout comme des gestessimples d’élever les mains pour la prière et du baiser de la paix. Labénédiction et la séquence gestuelle de donner la communion aux fidèlesne sont actualisées qu’au seuil du sanctuaire, entre les portes royales.Enfin, dans la nef, le prêtre actualise le geste de l’encensement de l’égliseet les séquences gestuelles de toucher les têtes des fidèles avec le calice,pendant la grande entrée, et celle de distribuer aux fidèles, à la fin de laliturgie eucharistique, les fragments des prosphores d’où il a extrait lesparcelles consacrées: l’antidoron.

Il en est de même des manifestations gestuelles des fidèles-participantsau rituel liturgique. Le signe de la croix, l’agenouillement, la prosternationet le geste de joindre les mains pour la prière sont exécutés à n’importequel endroit de la nef et du narthex. L’actualisation des gestes simples dela communion et de celui d’embrasser l’évangéliaire, tout comme del’agenouillement sous l’évangéliaire pendant la lecture de l’Evangile, sefait uniquement devant les portes royales de l’iconostase. Quant à laséquence gestuelle de porter son don au sanctuaire, elle n’est exécutéeque devant la porte de gauche du sanctuaire.

5. La contribution du vêtement à l’actualisation des

significations du gestuel liturgique orthodoxe

5.1. Les vêtements sacerdotaux

Les vêtements sacerdotaux ont un rôle fondamental dans la définitionde la fonction liturgique du prêtre, en réalisant son investissement en tantque célébrant du mystère eucharistique. Ils font donc partie de l’image ducorps du prêtre officiant, serviteur de l’autel. D’ailleurs, le Rituel contientplusieurs prières que les célébrants prononcent pendant qu’ils s’habillentavec ces vêtements. Quant à leurs significations (toujours symboliques),elles présentent un rapport d’analogie, soit avec la forme, soit avec lafonction du «référent».

Le sticharion, la longue robe blanche que le prêtre met par-dessus lasoutane, représente le linceul du Christ, et la pureté de celui qui le porte(Siméon de Thessalonique, 1865). L’épitrachilion, l’étole qui entoure le

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cou du prêtre, dont les deux parties sont cousues sur le devant, symbolisela grâce du Saint Esprit qui descend sur celui qui accomplit le sacrificeeucharistique, représentant le joug doux de Jésus et la ficelle avec laquelleil a été attaché à la croix. La chasuble ou le phélonion est le vêtementliturgique de dessus, qui dérive de la pèlerine romaine (Paprocki 1993,p. 176). Selon le même Siméon de Thessalonique, elle symbolise lemanteau écarlate dont les soldats du gouverneur avaient couvert Jésusavant la crucifixion, ou, selon A. Schmémann, la gloire de l’Eglise commecréature nouvelle (Schmémann 1985). La ceinture est un signed’obéissance, de disponibilité, de sobriété et de service (Schmémann 1985,p. 17). Enfin, les surmanches, devenues vêtements liturgiques des prêtresau XIIe ou au XIIIe siècle, «symbolisent que les mains de ceux-ci [...] nesont plus à eux, mais bien au Christ» (Paprocki 1993, p. 170).

Par rapport à d’autres offices, pour la célébration desquels, le prêtrepeut porter seulement l’épitrachilion et la chasuble, son habillementcomplet, avec tous ces vêtements, est obligatoire pour l’accomplissementdu mystère eucharistique. Pratiquement, un geste liturgique que le prêtredoit exécuter en sa qualité de serviteur de l’autel ne peut être actualiséqu’après qu’il se soit vêtu complètement comme célébrant liturgique. Ilen est de même des séquences gestuelles qu’il doit exécuter dans sonhypostase de symbole du Christ.

5.2. Les habits des fidèles

L’habillement liturgique du prêtre est orienté, tout comme l’habillementdes fidèles participants à la liturgie, vers deux catégories de récepteurs: laDivinité et les hommes. Si «aux yeux» de la Divinité, les vêtementssacerdotaux confèrent au prêtre une identité nouvelle, choisie pour lacélébration du mystère eucharistique, aux yeux des hommes, ilsreprésentent des objets sacrés, sanctifiés et gardés dans le sanctuaire, qu’ilstouchent et qu’ils embrassent avec vénération, lorsqu’ils ont l’occasionde le faire (quand le prêtre se trouve à leur proximité). Quant à leur proprehabillement, pour leur rencontre avec Dieu, les fidèles participants à laliturgie portent des vêtements corrects, convenables. Proposé aux autreshommes qui participent au rituel liturgique, leur habillement est unhabillement de fête, qui comporte, en général, leurs dernières acquisitionsvestimentaires.

Un habillement correct signifie une manière de s’habiller décente, quine détourne pas l’attention ou les regards des autres, des choses essentielles

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de la liturgie, vers une élégance extravagante (condamnée entre autres,par Tertullien dans La toilette des femmes), ou la dénudation de certainesparties du corps, qui, conformément à un code traditionnel (plus ou moinsécrit), doivent être couvertes: la tête, les épaules et les jambes. Les plusfondamentalistes interdisent même l’usage du pantalon (du moins à l’église)chez les femmes. En fait, on rejette une image trop moderne de la femme,habillée de pantalon, considérée comme signe d’un mélange des sexes,en voulant garder à tout prix une image traditionnelle de celle-ci, quin’est pas du tout étrangère à celle des femmes du temps de Jésus: elle doitavoir la tête couverte (Les Constitutions apostoliques mentionnent déjàcette prescription), porter une longue jupe, et une blouse décente (qui luicouvre les épaules, et qui ne soit pas trop décolletée). Tout écart définipar rapport à cette norme vestimentaire détermine une certaine dispositiondes fidèles dans l’espace intérieur de l’église (ceux qui ne sont pas habillésd’une manière correcte se tiennent plus près de la sortie, dans le vestibule),tout comme l’interdiction d’actualisation des gestes qui supposent lerapprochement du sanctuaire, de l’élément sacré et du regard divin: laséquence gestuelle de porter son don au sanctuaire, ou la communion.

Les habits du fidèle-participant à la liturgie font partie de l’image de soncorps. Ils contribuent donc, en même temps que celui-ci à l’actualisationde ses gestes liturgiques. Si les vêtements sacerdotaux confèrent au prêtreofficiant une nouvelle identité, et leurs significations déterminentl’actualisation des significations de ses gestes liturgiques, les habits des fidèlesdoivent conférer à ceux-ci une identité la plus proche possible du religieux.Les significations des gestes liturgiques qu’ils exécutent sont actualisées aumoment de l’exécution de ces gestes, leurs habits devenant (dans le casidéal) des sortes d’habits incarnés, qui font partie de leur corps, devenu,pendant la liturgie le Corps de l’Homme, qui se rachète par la prière et setransfigure par la communion avec le Christ.

6. En guise de conclusion

Dans une perspective théologique, les manifestations gestuelles desfidèles-participants à la liturgie eucharistique pourraient être classées etdéfinies en fonction de deux manières différentes de concevoir et de vivrele christianisme: l’orthodoxie et l’orthopraxie. Si l’orthodoxie représentela vérité doctrinale, exprimée au niveau de la pratique gestuelle liturgiquepar un état de connaissance, qui engendre une participation consciente,

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en toute foi, à la prière liturgique, l’orthopraxie est constituée par tous lesécarts définis et enregistrés par rapport à un modèle juridique, par unepratique gestuelle désordonnée et multipliée du point de vue de lafréquence, engendrée souvent par une connaissance insuffisante dessignifications des gestes exécutés.

Pour le chercheur sémiologue, le gestuel liturgique byzantin constitueun objet de recherche extrêmement riche et varié, dont la complexitérelève de la manière dont les deux grandes catégories d’actants liturgiquesenvisagent leur participation communicationnelle à l’interaction liturgique.

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12. Cordoba, P., 1990, «La pomme et les ciseaux. Pour une sémiotique de l’objetrituel», in La fiesta, la ceremonia, el rito, Coloquio internacional, Actas reunidasy 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 & Niestlé,

Neuchâtel, Paris;15. Cyrille de Jérusalem, Catéchèses mystagogiques, deuxième éd. revue et

augmentée, trad. de Pierre Paris, introduction, texte critique et notes de AugustePiédagnel de l’Oratoire, Cerf, Paris, 1988;

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17. Dionisie pseudo Areopagitul, 1994, Ierarhia cereascã ºi ierarhia bisericeascã,traducere ºi studiu introductiv de Cicerone Iordãchescu, Postfaþã de ªtefanAforoaiei, Institutul European, Iaºi;

18. Dumas, F., 1994, «Sur la communication dans la liturgie orthodoxe» (enroumain), în Analele Universitãþii «Al. I. Cuza» din Iaºi, Filosofie, Tome XL-XLII;

19. Dumas, F., 1995-1996, «Techniques de re-sémantisation dans le gestuelliturgique orthodoxe» (en roumain), în Analele Universitãþii «Al. I. Cuza» dinIaºi, Section de Linguistique, Tome XLI-XLII;

20. Dumas, F., 1997, «Le signe de la croix -étude sémiologique», în Actelecolocviului internaþional de ªtiinþe ale Limbajului, Suceava;

21. Dumoutet, E., 1926, Le désir de voir l’hostie et les origines de la dévotion auSaint Sacrement, Paris, G. Duchesne;

22. Durkheim, E., 1912, Les formes élémentaires 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 Générale Française;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 étymologique de la langue latine,

Histoire des mots, Paris, Kliencksieck;27. Frey, S., & alii, 1984, «Analyse intégrée du Comportement non Verbal et

Verbal dans le domaine de la communication», in Cosnier, J., Lacommunication non verbale, Delachaux & Niestlé, Neuchâtel, Paris;

28. Goffman, E., 1974, Les rites d’interaction, Paris, Minuit;29. Goffman, E., 1981, «Engagement», in Winkin, Y., La nouvelle communication,

Paris, Seuil;30. Greimas, A.J., 1970, Du sens. Essais sémiotiques, Paris, Seuil;31. Groupe µ, 1992, Traité du signe visuel. Pour une rhétorique de l’image, Paris,

Seuil;32. Guiraud, Pierre, 1980, Le langage du corps, Paris, P.U.F.;33. Hall, E.T., 1971, La dimension cachée, Paris, Seuil;34. Hall, E.T., 1984, Le langage silencieux, Paris, Seuil;35. Heusch, Luc de, 1974, «Introduction à une ritologie générale», in Pour une

anthropologie fondamentale, Essais et discussions présentés et commentéspar E. Morin, Tome 3, Paris, Seuil;

36. Hutt, C., 1968, «Dictionnaire du langage gestuel chez les trappistes», inLangages, 10;

37. Ionescu-Amza, I., 1982, Sfînta liturghie pe înþelesul tuturor, Bucureºti;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, L’Anthropologie du geste, Gallimard;

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41. Kovalevsky, M., 1984, Retrouver la source oubliée, Paroles sur la liturgied’un homme qui chante Dieu, Editions «Présence Orthodoxe», Paris;

42. Lagrange, M. S., 1973, Analyse sémiologique et histoire de l’art, Paris,Klincksieck;

43. Larousse, 1977, Librairie Larousse;44. Le Breton, D., 1988, Corps et sociétés, Essais de sociologie et d’anthropologie

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, deuxième édition,

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. Mãndiþã, N., 1994, Dumnezeeasca liturghie cu însemnãtatea ei, Editura

Bunavestire, Bacãu;51. Mitrofanovici, V., 1929, Liturgica Bisericei Ortodoxe, Cursuri universitare,

Cernãuþi;52. Oliviéro, P., 1991, «L’expérience rituelle», in Enjeux du rite dans la modernité,

Paris, Recherches de science religieuse;53. Paprocki, H., 1993, Le mystère de l’Eucharistie, Genèse et interprétation de

la liturgie eucharistique byzantine, traduit du polonais par F. Lhoest, préfacepar I.-H. Dalmais, Cerf, Paris;

54. Porcher, L., 1976, Introduction à une sémiotique des images, Credif, LibrairieM. Didier, Paris;

55. Schefer, J.L., 1969, Scénographie d’un tableau, Paris, Seuil;56. Scheflen, A.E., 1981, «Systèmes de la communication humaine», in Winkin,

Y., La nouvelle Communication;57. Schilder, P., 1968, L’image du corps, Paris, Gallimard;58. Schmémann, A., 1985, L’Eucharistie, Sacrement du Royaume, traduit par C.

Andronikof, O.E.I.L./YMCA Press;59. Schmitt, J.C., 1990, La raison des gestes dans l’Occident médiéval, 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 pensée symbolique est-elle pré- rationnelle» ?, in La

fonction symbolique, Essais d’anthropologie réunis par M. Izard et P. Smith,Gallimard, Paris;

63. Stãniloae, D., 1986, Spiritualitate ºi comuniune în liturghia ortodoxã, Craiova,Editura Mitropoliei Olteniei;

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64. Trager, G.L., 1958, «Paralanguage: A first approximation», in Studies inLinguistics, 13;

65. Vanderveken, D., 1988, Les Actes de discours, Pierre Mardaga Editeur,Liège-Bruxelles;

66. Watzlawick, P., 1972, Une logique de la communication (trad. fr.), Paris,Seuil;

67. Winkin, Y., 1981, La nouvelle communication, textes recueillis et présentéspar Y. Winkin, trad. de D. Bansard, A. Cardoen, M.-C. Chiarieri, J.-P. Simonet Y. Winkin.

IOAN ICÃ, JR.

Born in 1960, in SibiuPh.D., Orthodox Theological Faculty of Cluj-Napoca, 1998

Dissertation: Mystagogia Trinitatis. The Trinitarian Theology of St. Maximus theConfessor

Associate Professor in Philosophy of Religion at the Orthodox TheologicalFaculty of Sibiu

Associate Professor in Philosophy of Religion at the Orthodox TheologicalFaculty of Cluj-Napoca

Visiting Professor at the Lateranense Pontifical University, Rome, 2000-2001Editor and General Director of the Deisis Publishing House, 1994-present

Deacon of the Romanian Orthodox Church, ordained 1988Member of the International Association for Patristic Studies, 1995-present

Representative of the Romanian Orthodox Church in the InternationalCommission for Theological Dialogue between the Orthodox Churches and

the Roman Catholic Church, 1997-presentResearch scholarship of the Evangelische Kirche Deutschlands (EKD) at the

Friedrich-Alexander University, Erlangen-Nürenberg, 1990–1991Research fellowship at the Pontifical Oriental Institute, Centro Aletti, Rome, 1998

Books:

Mystagogia Trinitatis. Sibiu: Deisis Publishing House, 1998Numerous articles, studies, and papers published in Romania and abroad.

Editor and translator.

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POLITICAL EUROPE, SPIRITUAL EUROPE

The following pages are meant to be a meditation on the relationshipbetween the political and the spiritual (culture, religion) dimensions inWestern and Eastern Europe, starting from the new historical circumstancescreated in this century by the prospects of European unification (in theWest) and European integration (in the East).

European unification is undoubtedly the most important phenomenonwitnessed in the second half of our century and it will most likely dominatethe beginning of the following century as well. It’s a design which hasbeen dreamt of for centuries by a Europeans divided on national anddenominational grounds, inheritance of 28 centuries1 of “European”thought and “conscience” (a “European idea”). European unification hasasserted itself as the political, economic and military co-ordinate of ourcontinent for the 21st century. European thought and the creation of thisdesign were strongly stimulated by the major historical crises which haveconstantly endangered the existence of Europe, be it in the form of externalaggressions - the almost constant attacks of Islam lasting from the 7th tothe 17th century, or the communist aggression - “the Islam of the 20thcentury” (J. Monnerot) - or of an endless civil strife between the Europeannations themselves. The culminating point of this conflictual paradigmwas reached in this century - a “century of extremes”2, indeed - in theform of the great “European Civil War”3 of 1914-1915. The “hot” versionof the two World Wars was doubled by a “Cold War” between opposedprinciples and alliances. It ended only in 1989-1991 with the East Europeanrevolutions and the collapse of the USSR. During all this period, thedestructive spectrums of totalitarian utopias and ideologies based on racehatred (Nazism) or on class hatred (communism) hung over Europe, asboth were seeking to impose their continental and world hegemony.Radically denying the traditional sources of European identity (Greekrationalism, Roman law and Biblical morals) in their Christian synthesisas 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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came to be authentic totalitarian “political religions”4. Unjustly combiningpolitics and theology in a sui generis mixture of secularised religion andconsecrated politics, they basically resulted in some “pervert imitations”of Judaism (Nazism) and, respectively, Christianity (communism)5. Bringingtogether, through the myth of the revolution, the cult of the particular andthe mysticism of the universal, nationalism and imperialism, the totalitarianideologies competed one another into creating a “new Europe”,post-liberal, post-democratic and post-Christian. They aimed at creatinga “new man” and a “new society” by means of a violent attempt to levelall categories of natural existence. According to a secularised “Gnostic”scenario6 inherited from romanticism, all natural realities were to be meltinto the phoney “supra-reality” of a perverted eschatology, guided by thetotalitarian ideology which provided for the confiscation of the entiresociety by an all-powerful state, worshipped and with an imperialist call.

The disappearance of the old Europe which begun in the year 1871with a mounting of antagonism, nationalism and imperialism - on thebackground of the domination of a late capitalism and of the devastatingrecrudescence of totalitarian ideologies in our century - was doubled by adeep crisis of the classical European values (Ortega, Spengler, Toynbee,Husserl). Reason, science, liberalism, democracy, Christian morals, allseemed to shift towards a legitimisation of force and of social levelling.Technology, economy, politics, all came to question the spiritual valuesof Europe. Original thought and spiritual freedom seemed to irreversiblysuccumb to their utilitarian manipulation, the accumulation of wealthand knowledge; the stir in the mass-media, the economic, technical andpolitical mobilisations of the masses were announcing a deep “crisis ofthe spirit” (Valery)7 and an irreversible “forgetfulness” of the ultimate being.“The calculating thought” of technology and the mass mobilisations ofthe totalitarian systems were thus irreversibly blocking the access of manto the real “meditative thought” of poets, the gentle and careful voicing ofwhich is the only refuge of the real being in front of technologicalaggression, political conspiracy and expansion of globalising economies(Heidegger)8. Western Europe seemed to find its last shelter in the spirit ofits poets and of some philosophers, yielding in front of ideological violence,techno-scientific invasion and military and political mobilisations whichwere announcing an imminent finis Europae.

In the meantime, “the other Europe”, Central and Eastern Europe, wasconcentrating its efforts towards a forced modernisation (capitalism,democracy, liberalism) and a political consolidation of the young national

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states which had emerged after 1918 from the ruins of the previous empires.This effort was considerably undermined by the tensions existing betweenthis policy of modernisation and national consolidation and the archaicbackground of the traditional folk civilisations defining most of theEast-European populations, on the one hand, and the existence of strongminorities within the new national or federal states, on the other. Theobsession of national homogenisation and of revisionism, the economicand political crises that occurred, made these states easily turn towardsauthoritarianism, while their unfavourable geopolitical location betweengreat empires with expansionist tendencies made them extremelyvulnerable to aggression and annexation. Trapped between the imperialambitions of Germany and Soviet Russia, in 1945 Central and EasternEurope fell under a Soviet domination which was to last for almost half acentury. Communist ideology, economy and politics were to isolate itfrom Western Europe for five decades. Utopian social engineering andthe collectivist, totalitarian system were to result here in tremendouseconomic failure and moral disaster. During all this time of internaloccupation, the resistance to the anti-European aggression of thecommunist “humane barbarism” was concentrated into spirituality andculture. Faced with poverty, moral humiliation and ideological oppression,Central and Eastern Europe would, in its turn, seek shelter in the spirit ofsome poets, writers and philosophers who refused to accept the “captivethought”.

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 opposedpolitical, social and ideological systems, but also, as a reaction to Sovietexpansionism, the revival in Western Europe of the idea of Europeanunification. The history of the two Europes and of the European idea weredivided 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 therelation between the political and the spiritual in the understanding andthe accomplishment of the European idea. At the end of the two storieswe 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 gainedmomentum following the demands created by the European resistance to

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the attempts of Nazi enslavement. Under the pressure of history, theEuropeans were forced to remember their living sources, the Europeanvalues and virtues. The end of the Hitlerite nightmare and the realprospective of Sovietization under the strong pressure of communist parties,increasingly strong in the West, made the clear-headed politicians of thetime understand the imperative of passing “from cultural unity to politicalunity”, from “cultural organism to political organisation”. And, as Europeanculture had the form of “unity in diversity”, the political unity it inspiredcould only be a “federal union”9.

We must not forget that Western Europe’s cure from the schizophreniaof totalitarian ideologies and its double reconstruction within the statesand as interstate union were largely inspired from the thought and actionsof 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 therevival of Christian democracy as a political alternative (“the third way”)to liberalism and communism and the economic reconstruction along thelines of social market economy, but also the concrete initiation in the freeWest of the European unification along federal lines. These outstandingChristian-democrat politicians - true “Founding Fathers” of a united Europe- saw the federalisation of the continent, the integration of European nationsalong the spiritual-cultural model of unity in diversity as merely theapplication, at a regional as well as at a national and international level,of the principles of communal personalism11 of Christian extraction (takenfrom the social doctrine of the Catholic Church). It’s on this basis theyoperated the denazification, defascization and the internal anti-totalitarianand democratic political reconstruction of post-war Germany and Italy.

At the core of this unique attempt at political reconstruction one couldidentify the theoretical and practical redefinition of the relations betweenindividual, society, state, as well as of those between states. The ambitionof the programme was to avoid, within a new version of democraticcapitalism and social market economy (a Christian-democrat concept,not a socialist one!), the dangerous extremes of the anarchical ultraliberalindividualism as well as those of the centralising socialist collectivism,nevertheless preserving the legitimate concern of liberalism for individualfreedom, initiative and creativity and the just as legitimate socialistcommitment to social justice. To the idea of freedom exulted by liberalsand to that of equality worshipped by socialists, the social doctrine of theCatholic Church and the Christian-democrat one as vision of an “integralhumanism” (Maritain) oppose as an integrating principle of absolute value,

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the ontological dignity of any human being as “image of God” (imagoDei). But human dignity is what authenticates real freedom and equality.Therefore, the normative purpose of society is ensuring the dignity of thehuman being against the corruption of both liberty and equality: anarchicallibertinage and levelling egalitarianism. But the basic goal of the entireprogramme was the reconstruction of the civil society through a limitationand reform of the modern Jacobite-Napoleonic state. Bureaucratic,centralist and national state, it was operating as an authenticProvidence-State. Claiming absolute sovereignty outside as well as inside,it was practising absolutism inside and autarchic or imperialist selfishnessoutside. 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 theoreticalaxis it is, the principle of subsidiarity12 was included in the constitutionsof the post-war Western federal states, as well as in article 3b of theMaastricht Treaty. Subsidiarity expresses a certain outlook on authority,reflecting the pre-eminence of society over state: between individual andstate we have the multitude of autonomous intermediate groups, with thevarious 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 consideredas pertaining to the accomplishment of common welfare and social justice.Thus, the intermediate communities have all the prerogatives normallybelonging to states with the exception of the competencies freely grantedto the central authority. The principle of subsidiarity demands that authorityshould not interfere with the autonomy of the social groups and at thesame time that it should positively act in matters pertaining to the mutualagreement of groups and to social justice. Consequently, it allows aconciliation between a decentralised state and a social policy, “payingthis paradoxical combination with a double abandon: that of socialistequalitarianism in favour of the value of dignity and, respectively, that ofphilosophical individualism in the formation of a structured and federatesociety”13. This realistic anti-ideological and antiutopian outlook proceedsupwards, “from the roots of the grass” (M. ªora), from individual tocommunity, from community to state, from states to federation.Consequently, it involves a radical acceptance of pluralism and of thefinitude of human existence, giving thus back to individuals their dignity,their ontological pre-eminence (as the only existing real substances) aswell as their theological pre-eminence (as different beings, equally created

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in the image of God, nonetheless). We are not talking about an anarchicaldenial of the state existence or of a central authority; these are notsecondary, but second, namely subsidiary, they must be actions of thestate in relation to the individuals, because the accomplishment of commonwelfare must pass through individuals and groups. The main problem ofsubsidiarity and of federalism is the sharing of competencies: the freedomof action and the proximity of authority and individuals claiming theconsolidation of autonomy (and stressing the non-interference of the state),while the need for justice, security and solidarity leads to a shift ofcompetencies towards the central authority (stressing the interference ofthe state). The subsidiary state is a limited and decentralised one whichrequires considerable effort and discretion from the part of the authorityas well as maximum initiative from individuals or groups; therefore, it isan anti-natural state, to the extent in which the natural tendency of authorityis its monopolisation, multiplication and enhancement, while that ofindividuals is the search for protection and security, resulting in thedestruction of the unstructured civil society. The subsidiary state protectsthe state from abusive groups or individuals and at the same time it protectsthe society and its groups from the abuse of the state. It offers a solution tothe dilemma of the Jacobite-Napoleonic democratic regimes, in whichequality is obtained through a forcible atomisation and levelling of society,resulting in a suffocation of individual initiative, disappearance ofintermediate groups and excessive development of a bureaucraticabsolutist state, the modern Providence-State. The superiority ofAnglo-Saxon evolutionist democracy lies, as Tocqueville himself hadnoticed (1840), precisely in the existence of autonomous associationswhich leads to an alternate, federal and non-invading state.

Still, subsidiarity and federalism are not tied to a specific form ofgovernment, but to the manner of exercising authority (answering not tothe question which?, but how?). Consequently, examples of subsidiaryand federal theories and practices are also to be found in the WesternMiddle Ages, with the juristconsults of the Roman-German Empire (Baldus,Dante, Ockham, Marsilio of Padua) or with the canonists supporting theconciliary theory of the Church (Gerson, Cusanus a.o.)14. The imperialconstitution was based on an articulated and pluralist outlook on law,society and politics. “Christianity” (christianitas) was a federation of localcorporations and associations (cities, republics, lands etc.) based on therule of associative consent; each level had its own dignity, independentand not coming from the upper one. (See the remarkable book of the

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Emden jurist Johannes Althusius, Politica methodice gestita (1603),authentic manifesto of the subsidiary and federal state, of surprisingactuality15). The sovereignty of the prince or of the emperor was in its turnsubordinated to associative consent and did not absorb that of groups, itwas a global sovereignty based on the Aristotelian theory of spontaneouspolitical association of people, and not on the stoic, Augustinian andmodern one of trading protection for submission. The unity of thischristianitas was based on the reference to a common law, the Romanone, and to just one emperor, whose sovereignty was global and notabsolute, with clearly defined competencies. But the model of thisEuropean “Christianity” was undermined by the papal absolutism whichrepressed conciliatoriness, and also by the confiscation/secularisation ofthis spiritual absolutism by the kings of the modern nations (especiallyFrance) (cf. J. Bodin’s Republica, 1576). Based on this monist and absolute(not global) idea of sovereignty, they were to claim complete monopolyover law and political power, as well as the full centralisation of theirexercise. This idea and practice came to define the absolutist nationalmonarchies and remained unchanged in the democratic republics thatfollowed, which only transferred the sovereignty of the monarch to thepeople. Nevertheless, the model of the national absolutist state was aderived one, historically conditioned; it appeared in the 16th century, ina Europe torn by endless religious wars and internal instability for whichthe imperatives of ensuring unity and maintaining internal security, aswell as that of a massive military presence abroad were essential. Thismodel became dated in the 19th - 20th century when, against thebackground of an uncontrolled upsurge of nationalism, revolutions andnationalism, the Providence-State confiscated not only the politicalstructures, society, but also the religion which it secularised, and theimperial ideology it nationalised. The effects of these confiscations wereto be seen in the expropriation, or more precisely, in the nationalisationof the universalist discourse on man as member of a universal communityof judicial nature (romanitas), or of a religious one (christianitas). Eachnation will see itself as the only one expressing the essence of mankind,the Europe of democratic or authoritarian absolutisms becoming “acollection of tiny empires” (B. Farago) stirred by bellicose ideologies, asEuropean unity could now be imagined only through the brutal hegemonyof 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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the triumphant march of the late capitalism were to result in theconsiderable de-personalisation of social existence within the liberaldemocratic societies centred on the individual, as well as within thetotalitarian ones promoting socialist collectivism.

The thought of the Founding Fathers of united Europe had the merit ofhaving 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 communitysolidarity. Authentic articulus stantis et cadentis Europae, the person isnevertheless a reality, or rather a theological-political design inextricablytied to the Christian faith. According to this outlook, Europe was born inNicaea in the year 32516 with the first Ecumenical Synod of the ChristianChurch, convened as a reaction to the Arian heresy. The latter werepreaching a Unitarian and subordinationist view of the divinity (only theFather is the real God, the Son and the Holy Spirit are inferior entities, latercreated by Him to serve as tools in the creation of the world). This outlookwas to be actively supported for an entire century by the emperors fromConstantinople, as they saw in Arianism an ideological legitimisation of theabsolutist theocratic monarchy they were exercising (there is a God inheavens who sends a Redeemer to earth, Jesus, who later ascends back toheaven and leaves the emperor as His vicar). Opposing this political theology,the Nicaean Synod drew up the orthodox creed, namely the fundamentaldogma on God, revealed in Jesus Christ as Trinity: comm-union of Love inthe relationships of which the ontological con-substantiality of Three divinePersons is expressed: the Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost.

So, Jesus Christ is not a creature, a mere prophet. He is at the sametime 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 asThree. The understanding of the mystery of this revelation as unity indifference required and still requires a new relational and paradoxicalmanner of thinking (and living); it keeps a tension between two opposedand irreducible, but equally valid terms (their reduction was the distinctivemark of the heresy as compared to orthodoxy). This manner of thinking -opposed not only to the dialectic reduction to a monist identity, but alsoto the alternative dualism - has become through Christianism the trueforma mentis of Europe, spreading in the most various fields, leading to arelational-personal outlook not only on God, but also on man, world andhistory. Based on this, Europe could assimilate the most various traditionsand cultural inheritances, becoming an open culture.

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Now the key-notion of European culture and unknown as such in Asia,the person - distinct from the individual - has (as shown by Denis deRougemont) a double genesis: theological and political17. Politically, itmanaged to integrate the two opposed acceptations previously given toman: as “individual” existing in himself and by himself (discovery of ancientGreece, in fact of the revolution of the “axial” era mentioned by K. Jaspers18)and as “citizen” existing exclusively through and for the state (ancientRome). If the individual is exposed to the temptation of selfishness,scepticism, profanation and anarchy, the citizen is exposed to thecollectivist-totalitarian one. Bringing - through the virtues of faith, hopeand love - a new “vertical” reference axis, that of the personaltranscendence of the three-and-one God, the person breaks the vicious“horizontal” circle of the vacillation between individualism andcollectivism. This vertical relation sets the believer free from the terror ofthe social and of the arbitrariness of the individual, compelling him to aninfinite responsibility towards his neighbour and to the creation of a newtype of community: the supra-natural, and therefore universal, comm-unionof the Ecclesia (Church) whose model is the Trinitarian Communion.Through faith and grace, the person goes beyond the arbitrary and selfishindividual and also beyond the citizen unconditionally subservient to thecommunity. Relational entity, the person means therefore not only theleap to a paradoxical “logic”, but mainly the adoption of a new, paradoxical“manner” of existence, at the same time solitary and solidary, personaland communal, that of the comm-union. The asymptotic aspiration towardsthis convergence between the personal and the communal marks the entirehistory of Europe, the “dialectics” of which Denis de Rougemont views inthe 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 FrenchRevolution+Napoleon

Scepticism SOCIAL VACUUM Absurd in the Hellenistic Society andin the 18th century”

Which basically leaves two possibilities:

“EITHER Nationalism - STATE-NATION - Fanaticism - Totalitarianregressive collectivism

OR Democracy - FEDERATION - Faith - Progressive Community”19.

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This personalist-communal wisdom of Europe representing the“orthodoxy” of the authentic Europe is undermined by the subversion ofthree “heresies” or “idolatries” perverting its inner structure, either theperson 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 aswell as its “gnostic” ideological subversion, Europe has therefore toreassume not only the theological-philosophical “orthodoxy”, but alsothe social-political “orthopraxy”, accomplishing the personal-communalcomm-union in the form of the pluralist institutions of the subsidiary andfederal state. This will be regulated by the old scholastic adage distinguereper 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 dynamicgroups. Subsidiarity and federalisation proceed upwards and do not identifywith the decentralisation ordered and imposed from the top to the bottom21.They can be achieved in those societies in which communities prosperand allow the development of individual freedom and creativity and thecapacity of creative and spontaneous association, as individuals need suchcommunities for the development of their capabilities. Beyond the merenatural communities (family, nation, people), the cultural, political andeconomic consensus of the free persons leads to the creation of new freecommunities: communities of faith (the Church), political (parties, society)and economic ones (free markets). The creationist perspective of humandiversity and the existence of finitude, of evil and sin, require not only theseparation of powers, but also the division of the systems and institutionsof society, three-one system of plural systems: the political system; theeconomic system; and the moral-cultural-religious system as in- andinterdependent systems. The institutionalised operation of these threesystems in the spirit of communal personalism results in freedom withinthe community, and this is the “key for Europe”: “through freedom incommunity, Europe imitates the life of God”22. But the real freedom in thecommunity cannot be taken apart from the economic dimension and isbest ensured and turned to account by the system of democratic capitalism.The right to property and to economic initiative are an inalienableexpression of human dignity and creativity. In spite of the longanti-capitalist tradition of the Western spiritual and cultural elite,democratic capitalism is based upon undeniable moral and religious

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resources. The most defining invention of the democratic capitalist system(says M. Novak) is not the possessive individual or the citizen subservientto the state, but the free association or the corporation23. Markets have acentripetal force, they take individuals out of isolation, put them intostimulating contact with their fellow men, even with those at a greatdistance24. Markets are highly social institutions, they presuppose a seriesof special virtues, like for instance creativity, trust, openness. The marketsand the trade in goods have always accompanied and enhanced theexchange of ideas, the market of cultural values. The analogy betweenthe economy of material needs and that of spiritual values, between theeconomic categories and the spiritual ones was identified long ago25. Afree economy is centripetal, and not centrifugal. Economic freedom pushesindividuals 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 theindividuals who feel responsible for their deeds in front of God and oftheir fellow men. This is a “third” concept of freedom (theorised byJefferson, Lord Acton), different not only from the “negative”, liberal one,but also from the “positive”, socialist, totalitarian one (theorised by IsaiahBerlin)27. We are talking about the freedom gained through a determinationto do what has to be done, and not what you would like to do. But thiscan only be promoted in an indirect manner: positively through educationand rational persuasion, and negatively through a clear cut sharing andlimitation of social authority. All this in order to avoid the risks of dogmatismand constraint in the education of a guided “positive” freedom, risks whichaffected the Christianism and the socialism of the “great inquisitors”, aswell as the indefinite vacuum of “negative” freedom. The cultivation ofresponsible freedom in each human soul is “the supreme art of humanreason - the work of practical wisdom”28. The presence or the lack ofequilibrium in the moral-spiritual field are reflected in the sphere ofeconomy as well as in that of politics.

It is precisely the political nature of the European Union which wasand still is at the core of all ambiguities manifested in the process ofEuropean construction. “The paradox of political Europe”29 has remainedthe supreme challenge for the architects and the supporters of Europeanunification. The entire process of European construction has been takingplace “under the sign of provisionality”30, taking advantage of the twogreat fractures in the world order that made it possible, in 1947 and in1989. The first stage of Western European construction began together

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with the Cold War. The European political federalist impetus wasdampened by the failure of the European Constituency and of the EuropeanDefence Community in 1954. The 1957 Treaty of Rome put an end tothese attempts, resetting European construction in the framework of theEconomic Community initiated in 1950 with the Coal and SteelCommunity. Thus, the economically integrated Europe stood at the centreof European construction until the late 80s. In thirty years, economicintegration resulted in a bizarre accumulation of European technical andpolitical institutions with supranational characters, approximating what issupposed to be an executive, two legislative bodies, a court of law, coveringthe member nation-states and deprived of authentic democratic legitimacyand of efficient mechanisms for applying the communal decisions. Thefall of the Berlin Wall in 1989, that of communism, German unificationand the prospects of Union enlargement towards the east radically changedthe terms of the matter. The Maastricht Treaty, solid from a monetarypoint of view, leaves a lot to be desired from the political one and keepspostponing the key issue of institutional reform before the planned easternexpansion. There is a crisis of European institutions accused of lacking inof transparency, efficiency and democratisation. There are economicproblems related to the decline of industrial competitiveness (Asiancompetition) and to the prospects of globalisation. The Yugoslavian crisisand the soaring unemployment rates have eaten into the prestige of theUnion and consolidated the Euro-scepticism. There are different outlooksregarding the Union: a Europe-space for Britain, a Europe-power for France;a considerable gap can be seen between the German model focused oneconomy and security, aimed at surpassing the sovereignty of thenation-state and the creation of a federal European Wirtschaftsnation underthe NATO umbrella, and the French one stressing the political dimensionand the subordination of economic matters to a grandiose Europeanpolitical adventure (dream of General de Gaulle): a Europe from theAtlantic to the Ural Mountains, independent from America31. Therefore,there is talk about “taking Europe out of the mud”32, about surpassing“the political infirmity of Europe” which is “a fact”, about avoiding the“Polish syndrome” represented by the “scenario of decision paralysis”33.It was requested to drop the “Monnet method” of creating institutionsfrom above (to which the adhesion was to be imposed from the outside).As opposed to this method it was finally requested to “begin a populardebate on the objectives of the European process”, the “design resultedfrom this debate being the one to dictate the European institutions and

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procedures”34. “The great market is the engine, but essential is the modelof the society”35. 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 economicintegration to political unification is the strategic issue of Europeanconstruction. Paradoxically, a major difficulty is represented by the absenceof 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, practicallyreduced to mere institutionalised inter-government conferences. Vacillatingbetween a “helpless confederation” and an “illegitimate federation”,Europe could be seen as a real “empire of helplessness” (similar to theAustrian-Hungarian Kakania described by Musil), a “pseudo-empire” witha “phoney citizenship” and a “phoney parliament”. The solution wouldbe a break with the existing non-political and antidemocratic federalismbased on a technical-judicial pseudo-legitimacy and the adoption of anauthentic democratic and political federalism, with a real citizenship andefficient European sovereignty. A democratic and federal political Europe,finally master not of others, but of herself, “could be the ‘republican’ empireof the future that we need”36. The Europe of today appears as an artificialobject, a technocratic and pseudo-federal construction, a “political forgery”suffering from a “incurable political deficit”. European norms express apurely economic logic whose ultimate foundations are the dogmas of theultra-liberal ideologies of the four liberalisations and of the free circulationof people, services, goods and capitals imposed by the multinationalcorporations quite often in conflict with the regional and national civilsocieties. These reflect the tendency of “depolitisation” in Europeanmatters, transforming the latter into “infra- and para-political” ones, takingthem out of public debate and democratic control. The conclusion: if thetwo tasks currently assumed by Europe - expansion and consolidation -will be pursued within the existing European mechanisms, there isconsiderable risk that, just like the Austrian-Hungarian Empire, theEuropean Union might become “the threatening image of our irreparabledecadence”37. A solution would be the creation of a united and democraticfederal Europe as one Nation-State of the American type. But for this weneed to invent or rather recover (Europe is facing the task of “re-strikingroots” - réenracinement) a “European” political “nation” which wouldnot 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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“Such sovereignty could only be rooted in the only European reality whosetraces are still present in the cultural identity of Europe. Before becominga Europe of nations, Europe was essentially a romanitas and christianitas,realities marking the absolute priority of the city and of man, anterior andsuperior to the division into nations. In fact, it was only by assuming thesetwo attributes that the “all Christian” nations of the continent centredaround the “empire” of their kings could find the way towards theirdiversifying developments. “Isn’t it time for them to give back to Europe apart of this inheritance precisely in order to be able to preserve what theyhave essential?”38 Patterns of a “universal people”, chriatianitas andromanitas can be a “paradigm creating a new possible citizenship and anew European cultural universalism”. Anyway, Europe must turn back tothis tradition, “buried for a moment by the historical developments andbetrayed by ideologies to the national royalty”39. But the vision of a federalEurope does not have to be connected to the dated prospects of theNation-State. It should rather use the Roman-German Empire as term ofreference. Even a very brief examination of the European judicial historywill reveal the surprising actuality of the subsidiary and federal model ofthe old medieval imperial jurists (like, for instance, the polymorphic anddecentralised empire of Baldus Ubaldi); this “must be brought out ofoblivion”, “a return to the debate abandoned by political philosophy inthe 16th and 17th centuries”40 being the theoretical pre-requisite essentialfor the rediscovery of political analysis and practice required by theEuropean construction.

Contrary to what one may think, the process of European unificationdoes not mean going beyond nations. Europe can only be a commonaction of the European nations. The moral and political axis of Europeanconstruction (the French - German reconciliation) was created through apolitical decision taken by nations, and not by supranational institutions.If immediately after World War II federalists saw in nations the source ofall evil and were pleading for abandoning them, the European federalistsof today clearly plead for there political resuscitation. Europe is now seenas a “federation of nations” meant to consolidate and not annihilate them41.Only the nation can offer “substance” to democracy, serving as warrantof individual rights and as source maintaining and rebuilding socialcohesion. But one point has to be made: we must make a differencebetween nation in a “cultural” sense as a distinctive feature, passive, pastidentity, 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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a particular activity frame open to the universal. The nation must berecovered, “not as particular feature, but as a political body, not caringfor particularity but for universalism”42. The nation can be also renderedobsolete, but only by developing its features as political entity, and notforgetting them, aware of the fact that “the road towards Europe is bydeveloping and opening the national political cultures”43.

But the political and democratic deficit of the Union expresses throughthe faults of its political culture a deep spiritual crisis of Western liberalsocieties. “There is no passion for the public matters. The phenomenon isa serious one and it endangers the vitality, the prosperity and the actingcapacity of our democracies. I am not talking about the behaviour ofthose elected, but about the efforts made by a citizen to go beyond hisown problems and take an interest in the public matters. There is nodemocracy without minimum virtue”44. The decline of democracy wasessentially caused by the “so-called media fast food policy”, a simulacrumof political culture made by the mass-media through opinion polls andtalk shows. “It is clear than in such an environment one cannot exerciseambitious policies, meant to set the society moving and make it capableof both memory and future”45. Moral and philosophical relativism, theintellectual decline caused by the global levelling and mediatisation ofsocieties are leading to a crisis of reason and of communication, weakeningthe wills and causing a decline of interrogation and argumentation, ofdialogue. The phenomenon of political decline is connected to the religiouschanges occurred in the liberal societies of the late modern period, a timeof denominational involution and “triumph of Godless religions”46.Secularism appears today just as fragile as Christianism, declining alongwith the latter. The comeback of religion is a fact, but it marks the triumphof some new religious forms (from sects to esoterism and neo-Buddhismup to the cult of paranormal phenomena) which cancel the classical bordersbetween the realm of God and that of Man. The great religions vacillatebetween extreme politicisation (the Islam) and complete lack ofinvolvement (Buddhism). The triumph of the new religious forms reflectsthe recoil of the classical Jewish-Christian culture, a suspension of thesymbolic and spiritual elements which structured in depth the Europeanidentity as well as the classical modernity, the European spirit anddemocracy. Their intellectual and spiritual framework (the spirit of thedistinction between values: political, religious, aesthetic etc. and theinstitutions they represent) is questioned or rejected. Centred on thepersonal search for a meaning and a supreme care for oneself (an

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Epicureanism of a stoic type - very much in vogue), they take the form ofequivocal wisdom, of the autist-comforting and pietistic utopias ofinteriority, practising the fideism, sapientialism and the sentimentaloutbursts. The dominant feature is the refusal or the clear attack on thepolitical and its autonomy. At the same time, we are witnessing a declineof hope and faith (generated by the collapse of the great messianicphilosophies of history), an end of linear time through a devaluation ofboth past and future and a unilateral fixation on the present moment andon the self. The refusal of the future is also accompanied by the decline oftranscendence and of the vertical axis, the new spiritual techniques beingstructured on “horizontal” polarities (meaning/non-meaning; life/death;self/non-self; unity/duality; reality/unreality etc.). The split of the classicalreligious-political articulation under the form of the State-Church dualityaffects not only the political but also the religious. The withdrawal of thepolitical causes the privatisation of both philosophy and religion, reducedto the status of practical wisdom or mysticism without God ortranscendence. The situation seems to repeat that of the Hellenistic andRoman-Greek periods, when the advent of stoicism, Epicureanism andneo-Platonism as techniques of individual salvation marked the end ofthe ancient city, the passing from the polis to an apolitical cosmopolis.Interesting is the fact that the connection between democracy, pantheismand cosmopolitanism had been noticed by Tocqueville (1840): the ideaof equality finds separation and transcendence hard to bear, “as democraticnations are naturally tending towards pantheism”, “this system, albeitdestroying human individuality or precisely because of this, will have amysterious influence upon those living in a democracy... nurtures thepride of their spirit and encourages laziness”. Therefore, “all those believingin the true greatness of man must rally and fight against it”47.

So far, there are two global scenarios imagined for the new geopoliticalsituation created in Europe and in the world after 1989. To various extents,they set into question within different, even opposed approaches, therelationship between the political and the spiritual. We are talking aboutthe scenario of the “end of history” and, respectively, that of “civilisationclash”. Both mean to give a global interpretation of the post-1989 era.

The “End of History?” scenario was born in 1989 together with thefamous essay with the same interrogative title of the American politicalscientist of Japanese origin Francis Fukuyama48. The entire demonstrationwas taken and enhanced three years later by the same author in the book“The End of History no question marke and the Last Man”49. Starting from

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the suggestion of A. Kojève’s Hegelian interpretation50, Fukuyamaconsiders that the fall of communism in Eastern Europe in 1989 mustn’tonly be seen as an end to the Cold War and a death of ideologies. Thevictory of liberalism, the triumph of market economy and democracy,marking the exhaustion of alternate resources, signifies, through auniversalisation of liberal democracy, of market economy and of consumercapitalism, in its media version, the end of the ideological and philosophicalevolution of mankind. “The end of history” announced by Hegel for theyear 1806 took in fact place in 1989 after a century and a half of Marxistand totalitarian parenthesis. Western - American and European - societiesof liberal and democratic capitalism are the ones which in fact secureprosperity and egalitarianism, equal and universal acknowledgement ofhuman beings, of a classless society as seen by Marx, moving towards theuniversal and homogeneous State in which Hegel saw the “end of history”.Satisfying material needs and reaching equal and universalacknowledgement, the liberal state solves in principle all intellectual andsocial contradictions (between “master” and “servant”) which have markedour history, and all mankind has to do now is to solve the technical andecological problems connected to a more refined consumption andenvironment protection. With this, liberal societies reach the post-history.The place of wars and conflicts is increasingly taken by economy, tradeand consumption. World politics and international relations enter a processof “Common Marketisation”. A symbol of this evolution would be preciselythe countries of Western Europe in the post-war period, “flaccid andprosperous countries, dominated by self-satisfaction deprived of will,whose major project did not challenge heroism beyond the creation of aCommon Market”51. The world will be divided into two large camps: thedeveloped societies of liberal democracies and capitalism who enter thepost-history, and the historical ones, underdeveloped, torn by religious,nationalist or ideological conflicts, by sacrifice and endless struggle forprestige or superiority.

The weak point of this description lies, on the one hand, in the mirageof any neo-Hegelian philosophy of history: favouring one sense of societydevelopment and correlatively disqualifying others, implicit in theunderstanding of the wars and totalitarianisms of the 20th century as hugeand pointless parentheses and aberrations of history on its road towards aliberal-democratic post-history. Fykuyama seems to vacillate betweenHegel/Kojève and Spengler/Sorokin. Is the present situation of liberalsocieties an essential mutation within world history, an end of history as

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such, or a just symptom of decline for a mere historical cycle, theexhaustion of which opens the way for the following cycle52? On theother hand, this hesitation is rooted in the anthropological risk of describingthe situation of the post-historical man (detailed by Fukuyama in the 1992book). Kojève’s interpretation of the “end of history” comes here close tothe description made by Nietzsche to the “last man”. If the end of historyis the road towards a generalised common life, then this means for Kojèvethat the world has been demystified: all myths, arts, philosophies, scienceshave in the long run contributed only to the satisfaction of our originalanimal needs. We are witnessing the ultimate trivialisation of man, asreason, history and philosophy bring him back among the beasts. Wehave now “the last man”, the “bourgeois”, the “democratic” man ofTocqueville, the “slave” man of Nietzsche, deprived of ambitions andaspirations, made only of “reason” and “desire”, but with no “soul”, “heart”,“impetus”. For the sake of self-preservation, consumption, of petty interestsand designs, of peace and prosperity he gives up the fight and the riskingof life for an immaterial ideal and prestige; the only purpose of this strugglebeing to create in battle free men, “masters”.

In his analyses, Fukuyama outlines the surprising actuality of Plato’spsychology from the book IV of his “Republic”. The soul is made up ofthree faculties: a transcendent one - the intellect - oriented towards theimmaterial, of divine origin and located in the brain, an immanent one -concupiscence, desire - oriented towards matter, of animal extraction andlocated in the abdomen, and an intermediate one, constituting as suchthe essence of human soul, represented by “impetus” - or “spirit”, withthe stoics -, located in the heart. The “thymos” is source not only ofviolence, 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 religioncome from the passion of the heart or of the spirit. They are the mainforms of education for “impetus” or for “spirit”, of gainingacknowledgement and cultivating the aristocratic or chivalrous feeling ofmoral superiority, but at the same time they are the main sources of conflictsfor supremacy and domination. This is why the thymos was the constantconcern of practical philosophy from Plato to Nietzsche53. They all meantto educate or resuscitate it. An essential mutation in this respect was broughtby the modern era. Obsessed with the eradication of aristocracy and theaccomplishment of democratic equality, this era tried through Hobbesand Locke to completely eliminate the thymos from public life, replacing

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it with a combination of desire and reason, respectively economy andscience, combination typical for the “bourgeois” man. According to thenew social contract, the philosopher becomes a scientist (intellect isreduced to reason), the warrior is supposed to become a merchant, givingup risk and glory for the sake of material gain and the prospect of ahappiness understood as quiet life secured by the endless accumulationof wealth and possible for everybody. The modern liberal and democraticstate was meant to ensure a universal rational acknowledgement of allindividuals bent on the pursuit of some rational personal interests. Economyand science were encouraged at a social level, while nationalism, religionand politics had to become private or subordinated to the first two. Thedemocrat and liberal capitalist man (bourgeois) “was a deliberate creationof early modern thought, an effort of social engineering trying to createsocial peace by changing human nature itself”54. The apparition of the“heartless man”, of the “last man” brings an internal crisis within modernliberal democracy itself, also undermined by the constant pressure foregalitarianism and relativism. These came to erode the very values ofliberalism and democracy, whose political culture, as Tocqueville haddemonstrated, cannot afford the luxury of abandoning the pre-liberaltraditions (religious, philosophical, national, ethnic etc.) of cultivating thethymos or the spirit, without seriously endangering its existence. And thisbecause the best political system is the one satisfying all three Platonicparts of the soul. The generalisation of the “last man” deprived of thymoswould clearly mean the “end of history”, the death of politics, ofphilosophy, of art, the end of human creativity and the prospect of “a verysad era”, of “centuries of boredom” which might make the human beingsreduced to a state of post-historical animals (Kojève) feel the need toreaffirm their human nature, to regain through revolt their “impetus” inthe form of an unleashed megalothymia; they will thus return to the conflictsforming the “first man”, opening the era of “tremendous wars of the spirit”(Nietzsche), much more dangerous as they will put together fanaticismand advanced technology. Because, on the one hand, the elements ofhuman nature can be repressed or sublimated, but never completelyeliminated, and on the other, the stability of all regimes is eroded by thecorrosive power of time. Aristotle and Plato seem to be much closer to thetruth than Hegel or Kojève, at least from a conservative standpoint. Thefall of communism does not necessarily mean the unconditional triumphof liberalism. “Fascism was defeated on the battlefield, his possibilitieswere not completely exhausted”; in various forms, under the guise of

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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 isbest in them”, “the external threat disciplined us within”, “gave us clearmoral and political, albeit negative goals”55. “In spite of our triumphantair, American democracy is in danger... We have won the Cold War, butthis means that now we are the enemy, and no longer them”56.

In fact, Kojève’s theories had received a theoretical reply of great depthin the fifties, from the part of Léo Strauss. The Strauss/Kojève debate uponthe interpretation given by Strauss to Xenophon’s dialogue “On Tyranny”57

was rightfully considered as “probably the deepest debate between twophilosophers of our century”58. Léo Strauss thoroughly demonstrates theinconsistency of historicism, the superficial and precarious character ofKojève’s simplifying anthropology, brilliantly outlining the unmatcheddepth and the actuality of classical philosophy as compared to its modernreductions. Neither war, nor work or consumption, but thought is seen bythe ancients as the expression of human nature; it is not through universalacknowledgement, but by ensuring the conditions of a search for wisdomand of a new contemplation for each man that the universal andhomogeneous democratic state can gain legitimacy. Given the weaknessof human nature, the ancients believed that universal happiness isimpossible, as the best regime could only give it the conditions to happen,its accomplishment being conditioned not by history, but precisely by theindividual separation from history. On the other hand, the moderns believethat they can secure universal happiness within history, but for this theylower the ideal of man replacing moral virtue with universalacknowledgement and understanding happiness as coming from thisacknowledgement and from material wealth59. Believing that it broadenedthe horizon of ancient and medieval “idealism”, modern philosophicaland political “realism” only brings an unfortunate narrowing of theanthropological and philosophical horizon. Rejecting the transcendenceof spirit and the horizon of eternity (the access to the “heliological” truthfrom the parable of Plato’s cave), it condemns man to the captivity ofnatural, 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” theorisedin 1993 in a famous essay by the Harvard professor and director of the“Olim” Institute for Strategic Studies, Samuel Huntington60. According tohim, far from heading towards a liberal democratic and increasingly

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economic post-history, post-communist mankind will find itselfincreasingly wrapped up in history and politics. The thymos will experiencea dramatic world-scale escalation. Conflicts will become a common sight,but they will no longer be ideological or economic in nature, but rathercivilisation conflicts. The future will not see the advent of a worldcivilisation. 7-8 civilisations will compete on the political arena of theworld (Western, Slavic-Orthodox, Islamic, Confucianist, Japanese,Hinduist, Latin-American, African). Nations will be grouped according tocultural, spiritual and not ideological and economic criteria, followingthe “sister country syndrome” and that of the spiritual “sister nation”. Theaxis 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 ofrepeating 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 Huntingtonamong the descendants of Spengler and Toynbee, the essay takes the riskof compensating for the absence of one explanatory paradigm, unavoidablydistorted (P. Hassner), for the geopolitical situation of the world after 1989.But he is of top interest, as he seems to actually inspire American foreignpolicy, and even that of the institutions of the European Union. He istrying to impose the idea that the real Europe is only that of the Westerncivilisation, implying that Eastern Europe (Orthodox), belonging in fact toanother civilisation, should not be included in the European Union. Theboundaries of the latter would be, according to Wallace’s map (1990),those of Western Christianity around the year 1500, stretching as far asthe former boundaries separating the Habsburg Empire, Poland and theBaltic states from the Ottoman and Tsarist Empires. “The velvet curtain ofculture has replaced the iron culture of ideology as main separation linefor Europe”61. It might also indicate the possible limits of European Unionexpansion.

The presentation of these two scenarios brings about a legitimatequestion: what is left of the classical Europe in the gentle apocalypse ofpost-history and in the historical Armageddon of civilisations? How muchspirit and politics will survive in a Europe implacably dissolved by theeffects of economic globalisation or reduced to the role of defence bulwarkfor a besieged civilisation with its centre outside? Everything seems toconfirm the extremely lucid diagnosis of the European condition developedby Paul Valery as early as 1919 in his reflections on the “crisis of the

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spirit” or “on the greatness and the decadence of Europe”. The utilitarianreduction of European spirit to science and of science to ware, thetransformation of culture in economy, all made possible the globalspreading of technology. Together with the democratic levelling, in hisopinion this would lead to an unavoidable deminutio capitis of Europe. Ina civilisation determined by figures and quantities, by some statistics inwhich “forces become proportional to masses”, “there is still someconfusion, but we shall witness, in the long run, the advent of a miraculousanimal society, perfect and ultimate anthill”. Europe unavoidablysuccumbs. Or, “the superiority of Europe had to be determined by thequality of man”, by the European spirit or soul (psyche), characterised by“active eagerness, burning and unselfish curiosity, a fortunate mixture ofimagination and logical rigour, a certain unpessimistic scepticism, anunresigned mysticism”62. “Europe conspicuously aspires to be lead by anAmerican commission. This is the direction of its entire policy”. But “Europewill be punished for its policy”, or rather for the discrepancy between itssubtle 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 outlookon man and even an opinion regarding the destiny of the species, anentire metaphysics, from the most crude sensualism to the most daringmysticism”63. “Be them parties, regimes or statesmen, it could be mostinstructive to draw from their tactics and actions the ideas they have orthey are making on man”64. Or, Europe meant above all the creationthrough Romanisation, Christianisation and Hellenisation of a homoeuropaeus, stake of its entire historical design65. The crisis of Europeanpolitics 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 Europeby the philosophers from the centre and the east of the continent, fromPrague, Pãltiniº or Bucharest.

Central-European interlude

One of the most disturbing reflections regarding the essence and thehistorical and contemporary destiny of Europe, and at the same time aspiritual and political design, belongs to Czech philosopher Jan Patocka.Strong disciple of Husserl and Heidegger, private philosopher kept in theshadow for decades by all totalitarian regimes oppressing the CzechRepublic, Nazi as well as communist, reduced to a secret existence in the

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basements of Prague where he kept underground seminars, he becameparticularly known as the philosopher-martyr. His short activity asspokesman (together with Vaclav Havel) of the “Charta ‘77” movement,Socratic gesture of sublime philosophical testimony, was to cost him hislife in consequence of the brutal questionings to which he was subjectedat an age of 70 by the political police. But his sacrifice was to bring to theEuropean public opinion a vast philosophical work, centred around anoriginal re-argumentation of the natural world phenomenology andcompleted with a fascinating philosophy of history66, at the centre of whichwe find the problem of Europe’s destiny.

The Czech philosopher begins his meditation by noticing the generalfatigue and decline felt by contemporary Europe. Uncertain as to itsessential values and institutions, Europe seems crushed by its giganticsuccessors: America and Russia, and increasingly dispossessed of itstechnical-scientific inheritance by the non-European nations now free fromits colonial rule.

The central idea of the Prague philosopher is concentrated in astatement which at a first glance seems exclusive: History is in fact thehistory of Europe - all that the rest of the world knows is historiography -and it appears together with the creation of philosophy and politics in theancient Greek city, to disappear with the loss of this spiritual inheritance.According to him, there are three types of societies based, in their turn, onthe existence of three fundamental movements of human life in relationto the natural world67: - the movement of unconditional acceptance ofnatural life, specific to the an-historical societies whose life takes place inthe timeless anonymity of the cyclic rhythms of nature; - the movement ofself-defence typical for the developed archaic and traditional societieswhich have a collective memory in the form of mythical traditions andwhose life, oriented towards an archetypal past, takes place still in thepre-history; - the movement towards truth, specific to European societiesand cultures. These have cut all ties with nature and mythical past andassumed the problematic character of existence, the risk of uncertaintyand of the search for a rational meaning of existence. This meaning wasfound not in the past but in the stable and eternal presence of real andultimate principles behind the phenomenal and changing manifestationof the natural flow of things. Real history is the expression of this movementtowards truth; it only exists where existence itself receives a problematiccharacter, because, according to Patocka, neither labour nor myth caneffectively break the circle of natural life.

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History - and consequently Europe - appear thus only with theemergence, as individual and social ideal, of the virile movement of thesoul which lives the risks and the tension of an existence in truth andfreedom, resisting the double temptation of the comfort of a usual naturalexistence and, respectively, of the orgiastic outburst (sexual, violent,passional) compensating for its annoying routine - outlets offered by thenatural sacredness of archaic religions.

For him who accepts the movement towards truth, world and man aretaken apart doubling themselves into a natural phenomenal side, obviousand varied, but subjected to accident, illusions and falsehood, perishableand ending in finitude and death, and another, less obvious, spiritual,essential, eternal (and consequently divine), real and authentic. Facingthis dilemma, the problematic man must freely and rationally assumeresponsibility for accomplishing his essential spiritual and authenticdimension (see the Platonic myth of the choice between the two ways oflife made by Hercules at a cross-roads). Based of a philosophical belief68,a reasonable decision not deprived of risks though, it is this individualdesign of real and authentic existence - of the care for one’s soul, foroneself through oneself (cf. Alcibiades 132c) - expanded to socialdimensions that constitutes, according to Patocka, the essence of historicaldevelopment.

Thus, the principle of historical existence is the struggle69, theacceptance of the problematic nature of existence and the exposure tothe risks of an unnatural existence in order to attain a true, free andconsequently fearless life. History is thus lived not only from the diurnalangle of acceptance, but also from the nocturnal one, that of the nightand of the open battle, dangerous and terrifying; it lies in fact under thesign of Polemos. History, philosophy and politics are born of Polemosand Eris - as said by Heraclitus himself: “We must know that war is commonand justice is struggle and that all are born of struggle and need” (fragment80) or: “war is father to all and emperor of all; some he showed to begods, other humans, some he made slaves, others he made free men”(fragment 53). Beyond the destructive aspects, the violence of war has apositive nature - metaphysical as well as sacred. He creates among thosefighting a unity of thought (phrónesis), a special “solidarity” “of the shakenbut fearless”. The means of this struggle are, alongside war, philosophyand politics; only when the last two appear can we speak of History, saysthe Czech philosopher. In fact, philosophy and politics were born duringAthens’ struggle for freedom and democracy against the Orient represented

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by the Persian Empire, as well as against the internal tyranny and theSpartan militarist tribalism70.

But the internal crisis of the Greek city is marked by the killing of thephilosophical man par excellence, Socrates, by the representatives of themost free and democratic society of the time, the one which had defeatedthe Persians. The testament left by Socrates to his disciples was that, whilemeditating upon this catastrophe, they should create a city in whichphilosophers could no longer be killed and justice would not be based onfluctuating traditions or on the irrational tyranny of the power-hungry orof the crowds manipulated by them, but on the reason and the science ofphilosophers. Yet, the creation of this rational state requires first a recoveryof the unity of the soul. Consequently, the Greek philosophical-politicaldesign 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 ofthe soul in the general architecture of existence; the second would explainthe analogical relations existing between the functions of the psyche andthose of the polis; the third would establish, in contrast with the finitudeand morality of physical existence, the eternity of the Psyché, as a corollaryto its nature as principle of movement (that autò heautò kinoûn, “movingitself” from Phaidros 246a).

From this unitary fundamental design - developed in other but notcentrifugal directions by Plato, Democritus and Aristotle and later takenby the stoics and the neo-Platonists - Europe was born. In spite of thecatastrophes leading to the successive falls of the Polis, the Roman Empireand the medieval Christian one, and of its successive historicalmetamorphoses, the philosophical design of creating a community basedon the aspiration towards the complete and ultimate truth of existencewas preserved - according to the Czech philosopher - until the 16thcentury72. Gradually replacing the “care for the soul”, that is for truth andbeing, with the passion for possession and dominance of the outside world,the Renaissance, the Reform, the Enlightenment, modern scientism andtechnocracy would unavoidably lead to the nihilism, scepticism and socialand moral crisis of contemporary Europe. In front of man’s will ofknowledge and power, the being finds shelter behind the beings turnedinto simple things. In his desire to dominate the external objects, mancomes in fact to be dominated by the realities of the world turned into a

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mere network of forces73. The absence of a global metaphysical design,the collapse of the impetus towards an absolute meaning and truth ofexistence under the circumstances of an utilitarian operation of reason,have come to generate a gigantic boredom (taedium vitae), sign of a falseexistence, dominated more and more by a dull, absurd and impersonalpresent. According to Patocka, the main problem of Europe is thereforenot the solution to the West-East, liberalism-socialism,democracy-totalitarianism alternative, but the paradox of an increasinglyinvolution of history towards pre-history, towards the situation of a societysatisfied with natural life, with reproduction and material sustention74.The boredom and the anxieties of this society are solved by the eternalorgiastic rites: sex, drugs, violence, revolutions and especially “war”, theperfect revolution for the world of everyday boredom. This has made the20th century practically an “endless war”75.

The only chance of avoiding this strong decline of Europe (and America)from history to pre-history (the utopia of liberal post-history belonging toKojève-Fukuyama) - the only possibility of maintaining mankind on thetrack of history is conditioned, says Patocka, by a “huge, unseen before”philosophical “metanoia” of the European elite76. In other words, he istalking about the rehabilitation of the ancient ideal of the “spiritual man”,the ideal of a problematic and truthful existence which neverthelessrequires a break with the naive natural meaning of existence and takingthe risks of fighting falsehood.

Exemplary figure, the archetype of this European “spiritual man” wouldbe Socrates in whose myth drawn up by Plato (and continued by theneo-Platonists) the Czech philosophers thinks he can find all the essentialfeatures of Christ - the same distinction between the dishonest but reputedlyhonest man and the perfectly honest sentenced to death by thepseudo-honest77. Therefore, in his opinion (very close here to that ofSimone Wiel), Europe is not based upon two pillars - the ancient traditionand the Jewish-Christian one - as it is generally accepted, but just on one,the ancient Greek one which “Hellenised” both the Jewish and theChristian elements entered in its spiritual corpus.

“Europe as Europe was born of the care for the soul. It has perishedbecause it was once again left in oblivion”78.

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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 inthe Central-European space, they were generated in reply to the historicalterror represented by the Soviet occupation and communism, felt asideological and historical forces aiming to “take Romania out of Europe”.But the European reflections of the Romanian philosophers and intellectualswere not something new, their apparition did not only have the value of areaction to unfavourable historical circumstances. They belong to a vastnational cultural “debate”79 which still goes on today and the origins ofwhich are to be found in the 19th century, at the beginning of Romania’smodernisation, as it accompanied the main stages in the creation of themodern national and unitary Romanian state. This vast debate has cometo 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 ofliberalism, capitalism and Western democracy, the others are thechampions of the peasants, advocating a rural economy and anauthoritarian, patriarchal political regime.

Common to all East-European nations, the debate in Romania gainsunique complexity, as it comes to tackle the thorny issue of the “Romanianspecific” and identity. In the structure of this Romanian national specificwe can find, due to the geo-spiritual setting and to historical circumstances,contrasting and often contradictory notes which render extremely difficulta clear and final identification. Formed as a nation and located rightbetween the great European empires (Roman, Byzantine, Ottoman,Austrian-Hungarian, Russian), the Romanians have managed to surviveand politically exist due to the weakness of the empires in whose area ofinfluence they were and with regard to which they had to secure a difficultautonomy. Latin nation of Eastern Christian faith, from a linguistic andethnic point of view they belong to Western Europe, but from a religiousand spiritual one to South-Eastern and Eastern Europe. Consequently, theynever fully identified with nor were fully acknowledged as such by any ofthe political and spiritual entities fighting for domination in Europe. Quitesignificantly, romanitas and christianitas have become for the Romaniansformulas of national self-identification (designating the Romanian “people”and “law”) and not of integration in supranational political or spiritual

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structures, like the Empire and the Church in the West. The generaltendency was instinctively that of locally absorbing the universal resourcesof acknowledgement and identification, using them to the advantage of anational policy of solitary, isolationist independence, defined by a stubbornrefusal of integration in, or co-operation with, the supranational politicalor religious structures perceived as potential factors of spiritual annexationand alienation. Consequently, typical for the entire Romanian culture andpolitics was a fixation of the spirit on the idiomatic, the tendency to renderuniversal the already existing particular, proclaiming universalistorientations, and not that of rendering particular the universalsindependently or previously existing by including them in theautochtonous. The specific movement was therefore one from local togeneral, and not the other way around. Thus, the action of forceduniversalisation through the Catholic faith (13th-14th century) or, later,through a modernisation along Western lines was seen as an aggressionagainst the Romanian nature itself. The reaction to the strong demands ofmodernisation was a double one. The first was the utopian attempt toadopt a right-wing nationalist political-cultural attitude, traditionalist-Orthodoxist, authoritarian, violently irrational, anti-Western, anti-Semiteand xenophobe80, doomed to fail by history itself. The second was theattempt to affirm in front of the harsh dilemmas, typical for a developingsociety, the national specific sublimating it into cultural creativity. Avoidingthe extremes of regressive autochthonism and “progressive” imitation,the representatives of this trend tried to find surprising combinations andidentify new thought formulas which would fruitfully combine traditionand modernity. Their purpose was to offer “coherent visions to a deeplyschizoid society, trapped between an archaic and pre-feudal way of lifeand a stratum of modern urbanisation, a society which had begun onlylate, in a twisted and incomplete manner, the modernisation of a socialpsyche haunted by the complex of marginality”81.

One of the dominant features of Romanian philosophy is the absenceof a political philosophy of the classical type, the social-political fieldbeing, with some notable exceptions, confiscated by a reductionistsociological outlook of Marxist extraction and with materialist overtones.On the other hand, a privileged place and a dominant role went to theaesthetic values82. Their importance is explained by the essentiallycontemplative character of Orthodox theology and religious practice,through which the patristic neo-Platonism (to which the romantic onewas later added) became one of the fundamental constituent elements of

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Romanian culture83. “We might say that, in fact, the modernisation ofRomanian public life and its full access to a European status and sovereigntywere accompanied by an option for aesthetic and mystical-rationalconnotations, ultimately of neo-Platonic extraction; this special type ofphilosophical tradition can be identified in the very fabric of mostintellectual discourses on Romania”. It explains why “within Romanianculture the aesthetic values kept a long and rare prestige, being superiorto the political and ethical ones”. The aesthetic was offering an idealspace for mediation and harmonisation between the “archaic” traditionof “instinctive faithfulness” belonging to the Romanian society and the“rationalist, contractual and modernising impulses”84 defining the publicand intellectual sphere. Romanian philosophers were to seek thus formulasfor the relativisation of the classical oppositions within Western thought(man-nature, subject-object, identity-difference, empiricism-rationalismetc.) which would go beyond the dialectics of final contradictions andoffer epistemological alternatives and ontological options meant torehabilitate 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 reconcileunder the sign of a generous humanism science and tradition, West andEast (Aron Dumitriu), dogma and science, conscious and unconscious,philosophy and poetry (Lucian Blaga), archaic and modern, sacred andprofane (Mircea Eliade, Sergiu Al-George), theology and philosophy, faithand reason (Mircea Vulcãnescu, Mihai ªora), being and becoming,idiomatic and universal (Constantin Noica).

All these outstanding representatives of Romanian thought havemanifested at the same time a real cultural fury inspired by the desire tocompensate through creativity the historical delay and for fragility ofpolitical constructions. This feeling consolidated after 1945. As Romaniawas Sovietised, “culture came to replace politics; creation became analmost mystical technique to fight and defeat time”86, being invested witha quasi-soteriological function. The terms of the “great debate” reversedtheir sign: the “progressive attitude” and the modernisation becameanti-European through Sovietisation and traditionalism becamepro-Western87. Europe was shown that because of an excessive feeling ofguilt towards the abandoned East, its elite fell victim to Marxistpropaganda88 and accepted with an irresponsible frivolity the division ofEurope by the Iron Curtain89. Accepting the suicidal amputation of theEast-European patrimony, Europe basically agreed with a large scale attack

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on the diversity which gives it its richness. “We cannot imagine a Europeanculture reduced only to its Western forms. From a cultural and spiritualpoint of view, Europe is completed by everything that the area of theCarpathians and the Balkans has created and preserved”. Therefore, “todayEurope can no longer afford to once again abandon Dacia”, this sacrificemight “endanger the very existence and spiritual integrity of Europe”90.

In Romania, the model of “resistance through culture” to the communistera was best represented with all his accomplishments and ambiguities,by philosopher Constantin Noica. “Culturalism as access to a moreauthentic history” and as measure of the real history, plus the “paideicdimension” turned cultural creativity into a secular esoterism and into amodern version of sacredness which both had, due to his disciples fromthe “Pãltiniº School”, an enormous echo in the Romanian culture of the80s91. The central theme of Noica’s philosophy is metaphysical in nature.It aims to recover from a reversed perspective Hegel’s plan of speculativereconciliation between ancient philosophy and the modern philosophyof becoming in the form of the so-called “becoming into being”92. Betweenbeing (absolute) and becoming (nature) there is a unilateral contradiction:becoming contradicts being, it is not being but tends towards being (withouthaving to reach it when it remains a mere “becoming into becoming”),while being does not contradict becoming, it is becoming accomplishedin 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 alife of its own, as absolute reason, ideal model which makes possible allits 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. Differentfrom Hegel’s version: general - determinations - individual (G-D-I), andfrom the Marxist one: determinations - general - individual (D-G-I), withNoica it finds the Platonic form individual - determinations - general(I-D-G): something individual gives its determinations which, by meansof their constituent fields or elements, turn it into something universal. Ina highly general analogy, Noica’s ontological model has the followingsynthetic 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 andthe entwinement of being and becoming are, according to Noica, “a priori”

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embedded in the Romanian language93 and especially in the preposition“întru” (towards, into) which gave the philosopher the ontological operatorfor the integration of being and becoming, man and nature, one andmultiple, impossible to reconcile for the religions and the philosophies ofthe world.

The Romanian solution to the becoming into (towards) being underthe form of the multiple One offers the philosopher, in one last book withthe value of a legacy, the principle for the recreation of the scheme,structure and model of the European culture94, considered to be the culturepar excellence, the “culture of cultures”. The general classification ofcultures is operated by Noica according to the criterion of the five possiblesolutions to the fundamental metaphysical problem of the relation betweenOne and multiple95: 1) One and its repetition - totemic cultures; 2) Oneand its variation - monotheistic cultures (Islam, America); 3) One in multiple- pantheistic cultures (India); in all these three forms the multiple isshadowed by the One which, in its turn, is degraded and reduced to therank of mere unit; 4) One and multiple - polytheistic cultures (AncientGreece); and, finally, 5) multiple One, the only to legitimate the multipledistributing itself without splitting - the Trinitarian culture of Europe96.The trinitarian culture, the culture of Europe as such, was born not howSpengler believed, in the Germany of the years 900-1000 as a Faustianculture, but in the Byzantine East, “namely in the year 325 of our Lord, atNicaea”97 together with the Trinitarian idea and the myth of theembodiment. This theological beginning left a decisive mark on the entireEuropean culture which, in all its authentic forms of manifestation, evenin the most secularised ones, has a Trinitarian constant: all that is authentichas 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 modelopposes a new kind of unity, the synthetic unity characterised bydiversification and expansion. This type of synthetic unity seeks itself inall creations of the European spirit: religious, artistic, scientific, technical99.

C. Noica thinks that the periods of European culture can be understoodas chapters in an original morphology of culture, which includes the“grammar” of the logos and of being with the uncertainties of theontological model imperfectly or partially accomplished100: 1) MiddleAges - 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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to the collectivist “we”); 5) modern and contemporary era - era of thenumeral and of the conjunction (stagnation, alienation, absurd, nihilism)and, finally, 6) future - age of the preposition (of the “întru” - into, towards),of synthetic units, with no correctives, of the multiple One type. This willmark the end of the tyranny of generalisations and the completerehabilitation of the individual (obviously proportional with theaccomplishment of the ontological model, namely universalised). On thebasis of this argumentation, Noica feels entitled to a final suggestion101:as the mathematical logos has today drifted into formalism and the historicalone into nihilism, the only chance of Europe is to recover the ontologicalmodel on the open line of the cultural logos. We are talking about a realcultural eschatology: this culture is the chance for surpassing not only thecyclic character of the ancient natural time, but also the linearity of theentropic Christian historical time. It introduces a new, ecstatic temporalityof the non-gentropic “kairotic” kind, similar to that of the mystics, notstatic and contemplative, but active and dynamic. As it offers access tobeing in its ideal model, culture even comes to tame time itself, which itencapsulates in creations and turns from devouring it. By acceleratingtime, it allows access to the good infinity (and not to a bad one, as inert asthe eternity of mysticism) of a sui generis cultural super-nature andsuper-history: authentic transcendence without transcendence, the endlessculture will finally render superfluous even the platitude the ofmillennia-old fundamental obsession of mankind: death102.

There are two main objections to Noica’s cultural Platonism, theexclusivism and attachments of which have never ceased to cause protestsand condemnation. A first objection has in view the confusion, or ratherthe reduction of spirit to reason. But reason is different from intellect (theformer operating with ideas or meanings, the latter with mere concepts orknowledge) and also from the soul (made of intellect - feeling - will).Noica’s “spiritual”/cultural man could very well be a man with no heartor soul; he is comfortable “offending the world”, taking interest only inthe “logical (or ontological) individual” and not in the “statistical one”,concern of the “politicians, common logicians and theologians with nopreference”. “The politicians, logicians and prophets do not have thecourage to say: ‘I’m 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 oftime”104. Such proud indifference and philosophical superiority towardsthe real human community expressed so directly were quick to cause

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critical reactions, this attitude being openly accused in the press of thattime as the expression of elitism or cultural gnosticism105. Dissidentintellectuals were to radicalise their objections denouncing in Noica’scultural utopia not only the compromise with Ceauºescu’s aggressivenational communist regime, but also some other negative featuresenhanced by the economic and moral disaster lived by Romania in the80s: lack of responsibility, social indifference, ethical inconsistency,speculative retreat in front of the seriousness of reality, culturalprovincialism, the inadequacy and the aggressive complex of Romanianpride by means of which Noica found excuses for Ceauºescu’s regime106.Noica was indeed paying no attention to the issues of political regime oreconomic system. Without being a supporter either of socialism, or ofcapitalism, totalitarianism, democracy, his outlook on politics found anideal in the utopia of a “state of culture”, at equal distance between theexcessive prosperity of the West and the poverty of the East, as both werehindering cultural creativity. According to his disciples, Noica “did notimagine post-communist Romania at all”, and even if he would have livedto see it, “his lesson in terms of philosophy of history would have beenthat we must leave the communist inferno without heading for the falseparadise of the West”107. In his opinion - similar up to a certain point tothat of Heidegger on contemporary Western civilisation -, by choosingthe consumption and libertarian kind of society, the technical civilisationof the Faustian type, the West has betrayed the Europe of spirit and culturefor the sake of the Europe of “butter”, has lost the being and thephilosophical meanings of existence for the sake of an endlessaccumulation of wealth and knowledge. In front of a diseased Europe,lost in statistics and nihilism, the real resurrection of European spirit canonly come from the East, where its ontological model was miraculouslypreserved in the Romanian language108. With this we come to the secondmajor objection that can be raised to Noica’s thought. Identified even byhis own disciples, it is connected to the “unsolved tension between theidiomatic and the universal”109. As I was trying to show above, this is notspecific to the Pãltiniº philosopher, but to the entire Romanian traditionalculture which has always had the tendency to consider that the universal,the “spirit”, the being (Christianism, culture) are to be found in theparticular, in the “body” of Romanian autochtonous realities, appearingas a mere exhalation or aura of these, after the model of the manifestationor exteriorisation of something hidden, and not after that of the embodimentor the interiorisation of an external universal “spirit” into a particular“body”.

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The model of the “manifestation of the universal”, with its determinedpresence, accounts for the resistance to the idea of European integrationwhich is perceived and operates along the model of its “embodiment”. Italso accounts very well for the tensions and the debates appeared inRomania after 1989. The Romanian intellectual elite, dominantlypro-European, is now once again divided, “the great debate” of Romanianculture continues in a new form between the supporters of the “return” toEurope through a fast integration and adoption by Romania of EuropeanUnion legislative and economic standards and demands110, on the onehand, and the supporters of the theory according to which, by its cultureand spirit, Romania has “remained” in Europe, never abandoning it, infact111. According to the former, Romania’s European identity must beimposed from the outside and built against the Romanian tradition, whilethe latter say that it only has to be manifested from within in the directionof the same tradition112. The former lay stress on uniformity and institutionalidentity, the latter on diversity, difference, culture, tradition.

But the main challenge brought by the historical events of 1989 toRomanian society obviously regards the extraordinary opportunity it hasto reinvent and redefine itself in a new, more flexible and beneficialmanner. This would first of all mean to discipline and adapt our economyand society so as to meet the criteria of performance and legislativecompatibility allowing us to hope for an adhesion to the European Union.Second, we have to face the hardships of post-communism and gatherthe courage to rethink from the very foundations the state and the type ofsociety we want. Finally, this requires a cultural redefinition of nationalidentity as Romanian and at the same time as European identity, whichwould freely combine, in a creative and beneficial manner, the multipleand stratified resources present in the seemingly ill-assorted andheterogeneous elements of the Romanian traditional identity as well as ofthe European identity. Refusing here, on a cultural and spiritual level, anyform of exclusivism or uniformity (like, for instance, the adoption of alevelling “European rhetoric” of the ideological kind, a new “continentalwooden language”, with “new propaganda agents and party workers”)113,beneficial would be precisely the adoption of an ever open dialecticsbetween “imitation and identity” which would imitate not the static, butthe “dynamic” side of the Western world. “The example to follow wouldbe that of an abundant and ingenious culture, of a respect for humandignity, of a fascinating and tenaciously supported diversity, of liberty assupreme guide in human relations, of the creative openness towards the

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potential of transcendence (rather than blind obedience to a set image),of the endless search for new relations between the material and theideal”114. This does not exclude, but implies a critical attitude towardsthe social-political developments in the Western society, but only on thebasis of a consciously assumed solidarity of destiny. Lucid foreignobservers, solidary with the Romanian phenomenon, are today drawingthe attention on the obsessively repeated slogan of the “entrance inEurope”. We are suggested that, before proclaiming the adhesion, theinterrogation regarding the space called “Europe” should be much moreradical, reaching even the extreme: “Is there still a Europe? Or, inHeidegger’s 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 ofpure economic immanence whose “Holy Trinity is: Production,Consumption, Profit” and in which “being” (être) has become one with“welfare” (bien-être) (R. Guideri), being ultimately reduced to the exchangevalue (according to G. Vattimo, equation representing the essence ofnihilism). Reduced to a social model of the alliance betweentechno-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 cultureswill have to become the defenders of the classical European spirit, orrather of the “spiritual man”, as archetype of homo europaeus. Surpassingthe fixation on the idiomatic and rediscovering the pluralist, democratic,universalist potentialities implicit in christianitas and romanitas, using theopen modernising and diversifying resources of tradition in front of theunsettling prospects of uniformisation by turning to account the differencesopened by a late, post-modern modernity, a Christian democracy116 awareof the meaning of its choices could play a decisive part in the Europeanreconstruction of Romanian society in a tolerant and natural spirit.

Romanians are today faced with the transition from a “free Europe” tothe more prosaic demands of a “united Europe”, seriously risking to becomethe “victims of a bad investment of freedom” in front of a “united Europe”which seems less and less like a “crowning of the ‘free Europe’”117 and ofthe spirit, in which administrative unification tends to increasingly eraseall differences. The integration is also rendered difficult by the perceptiondominant in the West that this is a process of reintegration of a “diseasedworld” (the East) into a “healthy world” (the West). Or, more realisticaly

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that this triumphalist outlook is that of the “two infirmities” caused by the“pampering” or by the “barbarity” of history, which have to complete oneanother to attain common health118. In front of the Western “new Europe”,Eastern Europe is aware of being the past of Europe, the “old Europe”, theEurope of the “rejuvenating elixir” of the spirit, but also of the “dangeroustoxins” of nationalism. Its problem is that of “using the elixir andtransubstantiating the toxin”, while the problem of the “new Europe” isthat of being a Europe “in which the prestige of the eternal and ancientEurope would be visible through transparence”119.

The object of this essay was to present the actual situation of thediscussions regarding European unification in the West and Europeanintegration in the East. We have briefly presented the debates in Franceand in Romania in the form of two stories, West-European andEast-European, with a Central-European interlude. At the core of thesedebates the political nature of the European design has appeared asinextricably tied to the destiny of the European spirit. Taking into accountthe difference of temporal sequences between West and East, the politicaland spiritual nature of European unification is challenged from aneconomic point of view (West) and, respectively, from a cultural one (East)within the two scenarios drawn up for the post-communist era: “the endof history” and “the civilisation clash”. Institutional Europe needs spiritualEurope and the other way around, provided that the spirit be not confiscatedby the economic dimension (West), or by national civilisations and cultures(East). Consequently, the accomplishment of a unitary political Europedemands an extremely serious redefinition of spirit in order to defendboth its transcendence and universality.

From what has been presented so far, we believe that two correlativetheories can be considered as demonstrated:

1) Spiritual Europe cannot be taken apart from political Europe. Thespiritual “soul” of Europe, created along a Trinitarian model, as Christiansynthesis between Greek rationalism, Roman law and Biblical ethics, needsin order to survive the “body” of adequate institutions. The politicalexpression of the philosophy of European spirit is given by the distinctionsand the articulations brought by communal personalism and the principleof subsidiarity on which in the 50s the Founding Fathers of United Europecentred 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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by the spiritual “soul” of Europe only by means of the individuals whoembody this spirit. The analysis of the work of several important West-and East- European philosophers has pointed out the great actuality ofhomo europaeus, shaped along the lines of the archetype of the ancientor Christian “spiritual” man (the person), in ensuring and maintaining thepolitical 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 Europeat the same time political and spiritual - cannot be deprived of an “angel”.But this indispensable protective spirit, this mysterious angelus Europaehas a strange behaviour, similar to the paradoxical structure of the entityit protects. “He is behaving like the mysterious angelus novus of W.Benjamin in front of history: he is flying rapidly towards the future, butbackwards, so that his eyes recover every second the entire past ofmankind, a past that is always and completely actual, a seminal past, theonly vital substance of any renewal”120.

NOTES

1. Cf. Denis de Rougemont, Vingt-huit siècles d’Europe. La conscience européenea travers les textes d’Hesiode à nos jours, Paris, 1961, and Jean-BaptisteDuroselle, L’idée d’Europe dans l’histoire, Paris, 1965.

2. Cf. Hobsbawm, The Age of Extremes, and the debate around this book in LeDébat no.

3. Cf. Ernst Nolte, Der europäische Bürgerkrieg 1917-1945. Nazionalsozialismusund Bolschevismus, Berlin, 1987.

4. Cf. the monumental monograph of Jean-Pierre Sironneau, Secularisation etreligions politiques (Religions & Society 17), Mouton, The Hague - Paris -New York, 1982.

5. Alain Besançon, La confusion des langages. La crise ideologique de l’Église,Paris, 1978. Romanian translation by Mona and Sorin Antohi, Humanitas,Bucureºti, 1992, p. 54, 52.

6. Ibid., p. 75 sq. 7. Paul Valery, the essay “Criza spiritului” (1919) in Criza spiritului ºi alte eseuri;

Romanian translation by M. Ivãnescu, Polirom, Iaºi, 1996, p. 260 sq. 8. Martin Heidegger, Die Frage nach der Technik (1954) and Brief über den

Humanismus (1946); Romanian translation by Th. Kleininer and G. Liiceanu,introductory study by C. Noica in Originea operei de artã, Univers, 1982, p.106 sq, 321 sq, and in Repere pe drumul gândirii, Ed. Politicã, Bucureºti,1988, p. 297 sq.

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9. Denis de Rougemont, Vingt-huit siècles d’Europe, 1961, p. 333 sq, 390 sq.10. Cf. Jean-Dominique Durand, L’Europe de la démocratie chretiénne (Questions

au XXe siècle), Éditions Complexe, Bruxelles, 1995, p. 143 sq and passim.11. Jean Lacroix, Le personnalisme, sources, fondement, actualité, Lyon, 1981

and Roberto Papini (dir.), L’apporto del personalismo alla costruzionedell’Europa, Milano, 1981.

12. Chantal Millon-Delsol, L’Etat subsidiaire. Ingérence et non-ingérence de ‘Etat:le principe de subsidiarité aux fondements de l’histoire européene, PUF, Paris,1992.

13. Ibid., p. 14.14. Cf. Antoine Winckler, “Description d’une crise ou crise d’une description?”,

Le Débat, no. 87, nov.-dec. 1995, p. 59-73. With references to the works ofsome historians specialised in medieval law and politics: O. Gierke, Q. Skinner,W. Ulmann etc.

15. On Althusius and his Politica, cf. Ch. Millon-Delsol, L’Etat subsidiaire, 1992,p. 45 sq. The crucial importance of Althusius’s thought for federalism hadbeen noticed by Denis de Rougemont, L’avenir c’est notre affaire, Paris, 1977.

16. Denis de Rougemont, L’aventure occidentale de l’homme, Paris, 1957, p. 55sq, 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 ofAxial Age Civilisations, New York University Press, 1986.

19. Denis de Rougemont, L’aventure occidentale de l’homme, 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 ofthe European Nations. An International Colloquium in the Vatican, 3-7November. 1981, Le Monnier-Florence, 1982, p. 245-252, here p. 251. Thereare seven “stamps” of European spirit: 1) pluralism; 2) person; 3) consentualcommunity; 4) emergent possibility (history is open, but not determined,progress in contingent); 5) sin, conteracted through 6) separation of powersand triple-one division of political, economic and moral-cultural systems,leading to pluralist institutions; and 7) commercial and industrial skillsextremely necessary given the demographical explosion and multimediaculture.

23. Michael Novak, Morality, Christianity and Democracy, IEA Healthal WelfareUnit, London, 1990, p. 13.

24. Ibid., p. 13-14.25. Cf. Paul Valery, the essay “Libertatea spiritului” (1939) in Criza spiritului ºi

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. ªtefan-Scalat, Humanitas, 1996, p.200sq; cf. the C. Preda’s review in Polis nr.1/1996, p. 183 sq.

28. M. Novak, op. cit., p. 23.29. Cf. Dominique Bocquet, “Le paradoxe de l’Europe politique”, Le Débat no.87,

nov.-dec. 1995, p. 50-58.30. Cf. Perry Anderson, “Sous le signe du provisoire”, Le Débat no. 91, sept.-oct.

1996, p. 115-133, analysing the books of Alain Milward (The Reconstructionof Europe, London, 1984, and The European Rescue of the Nation-State,London, 1994). The latter is a supporter of the “neo-realist” outlook inexplaining the process of European construction. According to this perspective,European integration was based on a plan of the founding nation-states foundedon the similarity and compatibility of social-economic interests and democraticconsensus, and was consequently meant to strengthen and not to weaken thenation-state. The European Union would be in this case a mereinstitutionalisation of an inter-government conference. The “neo-realist”outlook is opposed to the “neo-functionalist” one promoted by one of itsmain architects in the 50s, Jean Monnet, according to whom Europeanunification will be the result of a process of creation and development ofcommunal institutions, the gradual accumulation of which will turn the“community” into a “union”, respectively, into a supranational democraticfederation. Cf. Paul Thibaud, “Jean Monnet, entrepreneur en politique”, LeDébat no. 97, sept.-oct. 1996, p. 142-162. For the conflict between federalistsand inter-governmentalists from a federalist perspective, cf. Martin Holland,European Integration. From Community to Union,London, 1993 [fragmentstranslated into Romanian in Polis nr. 3/1995 (special issue dedicated toInstituþiile Uniunii Europene), p. 5-46].

31. Cf. the debate on “L’Europe sera-t-elle allemande?” “Allemagne - un ‘phare’pour l’Europe?” in Esprit, no. 221, mai 1996; Marc Olivier Padis, “Au coeurdu débat europeén” (p. 5-9), L. Debattre, “La logique allemande” (p. 10-23),and especially Paul Thibaud, “L’Europe allemande... définitivement?” (p.53-62).

32. Jean François-Poncet, “Désembourber l’Europe”, Commentaire no. 68, hiver1994-1995, p. 797-801.

33. D. Boquet, op. cit., p. 54, 53.34. Henri Prévot, “La fin de la ‘méthode Monnet’”, Esprit no. 221, mai 1996, p.

168-172.35. “Le moment et la méthode: entretien avec Jacques Delors”, Le Débat no. 83,

jan.-fevr., 1995 (issue dedicated to the topic “L’Europe de Delors, l’Europeaprès Delors”), p. 22.

36. Bela Farago, “L’Europe, empire introuvable?”, Le Débat, no. 83, jan.-fevr.,1995, p. 42-58.

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37. Bela Farago, “Le deficit politique de l’Europe”, Le Débat, no. 87, nov.-dec.,1995 [dedicated to the topic “Nation, federation - quelle Europe?”], p. 26-43.Bela Farago’s essay is critically analysed in the same issue by Olivier Beaud(p. 44-49) and Antoine Winckler (p. 59-73), the debate being concluded withthe 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 Débat no. 83, 1995, p. 17-19 and P. Thibaud, Esprit no. 221,

1996, p. 63-64.42. P. Manent, “La démocratie sans la nation?”, Commentaire no. 76, été 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 situationfrom 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 democraþie în America II (1840) partea I, cap.VII; Romanian translation, Humanitas, Bucureºti, vol. II, p. 37-38.

48. Francis Fukuyama, “The End of History?”, in the American foreign policyreview 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, Sfârºitul istoriei?, Ed.Vremea, Bucureºti, 1994.

49. Francis Fukuyama, The End of History and the Last Man, New York, 1992;Romanian translation: Sfârºitul istoriei ºi ultimul om, Paideia, Bucureºti, 1994.

50. Alexander Kojève, Introduction à la lecture de Hegel, Paris, 1947; Romaniansummary by E. Pastenague: Introducere în lectura lui Hegel, Editura Apostrof,Cluj, 1996. Cf. Dominique Duffret, A. Kojève: La philosophie, l’état, la fin dela philosophie, Paris, 1990.

51. Fukuyama, Sfârºitul istoriei? I, p. 15.52. P. Hassner, in Fukuyama, Sfârºitul istoriei?, p. 64.53. Cf. Fukuyama, Sfârºitul istoriei ºi ultimul om, cap. 13-19, p. 129 sq. Cf.

Catharina Zuckert, Understanding the Political Spirit: PhilosophicalInvestigations 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, Sfârºitul istoriei?, p. 75.57. Cf. Léo Strauss, De la tyrannie, Gallimard, 1954; A. Kojève, Tyrannie et sagesse

(p. 215-280) - L. Strauss, Mise au point (p. 283-344).

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58. Alan Bloom, in Fukuyama, Sfârºitul istoriei?, p. 57.59. Léo Strauss, De la tyrannie, Paris, 1954, p. 339-340 (Mise au point).60. Samuel Huntington, “Will Civilisations Clash?”, Foreign Affairs, 1993, French

translation in Commentaire, no. 66, été 1994 (Le monde au XXIe

siècle?), p.238-257: “Le choc des civilisations?”. With critical comments by Daniel Bell,Alain Besançon, Pierre Hassner, Giuseppe Sacco, Francis Fukuyama a.o.

61. Ibid., p. 242.62. Paul Valery, the essay “Criza spiritului” (1919) in Criza spiritului ºi alte eseuri,

Polirom, Iaºi, 1996, p. 266-272.63. The essay “Reflecþii despre mãreþia ºi decadenþa Europei”, ibid., p. 6-7.64. “Divagaþia despre libertate” (1938), ibid., p. 31.65. “Nota (sau Europeanul”, ibid., p. 227-240.66. This is included in a wide study on Europa ºi post-Europa. Epoca postmodernã

ºi problemele ei spirituale (late 60s, early 70s), ideas developed within theprivate seminars of 1973-1975, the lectures and debates of which circulatedunderground (samizdat) in Prague under the titles: Plato and Europe (summerseminar 1973) (translation by Erika Abrams, Platon et l’Europe, Verdier, 1983)and Heretic Essays in the Philosophy of History (1975) edited by the Institutfür die Wissenscheften vom Menschen (Wien) in the series Jan PatockaAusgewälte Werke: Ketzerische Essais zur Geschichte der Philosophie undergänzende 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 l’Europe, 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 ofhistory theorised by Hegel in his Phänomenologie des Geistes (1806).

70. Ketzerische Essais, p. 64-68.71. Ibid., p. 265-285; Platon et l’Europe, 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 finalfall 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 historicaltime, which is the * that does not move, this tension in monotony, this reversedeternity which opens towards nothing, not even towards death”.

75. Ibid., p. 146 sq.76. Ibid., p. 101-102, 162.77. Platon et l’Europe, p. 138-159.78. Ibid., p. 79.79. Cf. for details Keith Hitchins, Romania: 1866-1947, Oxford University Press,

1994; Romanian translation: Românii: 1866-1947, Humanitas, Bucureºti,

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1996, cap. VII, p. 311-358. The most comprehensive anthology with the textsof 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, Tradiþionalism ºi modernitate în deceniul al treilea,Bucureºti, 1980, and Anii ‘30. Extrema dreaptã româneascã, Bucureºti, 1995.

81. Virgil Nemoianu, Diagnostic românesc: trecut, prezent, viitor, the anthologyof Iordan Chimet (ed.), Momentul adevãrului, Editura Dacia, Cluj, 1996, p.134-142, here p. 139. This dense text dated “Washington D.C., December1989” offers the most interesting and challenging re-evaluation of theRomanian culture of the years 1860-1950 made in the recent years. Its essentialmerit is that of going beyond the extreme polarisation in the evaluation of thecreativity of Romanian philosophers and traditionalist intellectuals within theclichés of the Manicheist ideology of the “reactionary-progressive” kindcultivated by their democrat or communist opponents. The right-wing ornationalist 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 lastdecades (cf. Virgil Nemoianu, A Theory of the Secondary. Literature, Progressand Reaction, John Hopkins University Press, 1989; Romanian translation byL.S. Câmpeanu: O teorie a secundarului, Ed. Univers, Bucureºti, 1997, p.168 sq = cap. 9: Dialectics of Imperfection: Girard, Blaga, Serres). Consideredfrom a processual and dynamic point of view, rather than from a particularand static one, as interaction in the context as “continuous debate startedaround 1840” “in the general context of the developing societies everywhere”,the Romanian intellectual debate of the pre-communist century “becomesmuch more clear, but also escapes the full and radical condemnations” (p.140, 139). Consequently, the “debational” perspective of Professor Nemoianuallows one to avoid in interpretation the idolatric exaltations as well as theiconoclast exaggerations, giving a calm, lucid perspective, free of anyresentment. “Impressive, above all, is the diversity of the debate: from theleft-wing considerations of Stere, Dobrogeanu-Gherea, ªerban Voinea andIbrãileanu, to the liberal centrism of Zeletin and Lovinescu, to theconservatorism of Maiorescu and Blaga, through the nationalist populism ofIorga or the integrating or progressive “peasant”-ism of Spiru Haret, Gusti orMadgearu, to the ontological localism of Noica or the rationalist idealism ofVianu, and to the existentialist vitalism of Eliade or Cioran - a gallery of creativeand original voices” (p. 140).

82. Ibidem, p. 136.83. Virgil Nemoianu, “Neoplatonism ºi culturã românã” (conference at the New

Europe College, May 1995), Revista de istorie ºi teorie literarã, 43 (1995), no.3-4, p. 261-271.

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84. Virgil Nemoianu, “Mihai ªora and the Traditions of Romanian Philosophy”,Review of Metaphysics, 43 (March 1990), p. 591-605, here p. 594; Romaniantranslation by Mona and Sorin Antohi: “Mihai ªora ºi tradiþiile filozofieiromâneºti”, in S. Antohi and A. Crãiuþu (coord.), Dialog ºi libertate. Eseuri înonoarea lui Mihai ªora, Nemira, Bucureºti, 1997, p. 186-201, here p. 189.

85. Ibid., p. 596-600; Romanian translation p. 190-194.86. Mircea Eliade, “Destinul culturii româneºti” (article from the exile, 1949), in

Impotriva deznãdejdii. Publicistica exilului, Humanitas, Bucureºti, 1992, p.28-37, here p. 35, 49-50.

87. Idem, “Probleme de culturã româneascã” (1951), ibid., p. 73-79, here p. 76.88. Id., “Infelix culpa” (1952), ibid., p. 147-150.89. Id., “Europa ºi cortina de fier” (1952), ibid., p. 151-160. The entire article is a

remarcable avant la lettre reply to the “Huntington doctrine”. “The Iron Curtaincorresponds only to a balance of forces and to nothing more”, “it does notseparate two ‘worlds’, two opposed lifestyles of two opposed ‘philosophies’”.“The East is not necessarily a bloc because the dominant religion is theOrthodox 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 româneºti” (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 Pãltiniº 1977-1981,un model paideic în cultura umanistã, Bucureºti, 1983, and Epistolar, Bucureºti,1987, with the main reactions to the Jurnal.

92. Presented in a speculative form in two versions: “Încercare asupra filosofieitradiþionale” (1950) and “Tratat de ontologie” (1980), both published in thevolume Devenirea întru fiinþã, Editura ªtiinþificã, 1981.

93. Cf. Constantin Noica, Sentimentul românesc al fiinþei, Editura Eminescu,Bucureºti, 1978. For a basic criticism from a Heideggerian angle of Noica’sentire approach attempting to perform a metaphysical synthesis between beingand becoming, itself expression of the transcendent harmony between traditionand modernity, as solution to the identity crisis of Romanian culture, seeClaude Karnoouh, L’invention du peuple. Chroniques de Roumanie, Arcantère,1990; Romanian translation: Românii. Tipologie ºi mentalitãþi, Humanitas,Bucureºti, 1994, p. 171 sq (chapter: “C. Noica, metafizician alethniei-naþiune”). For the French anthropologist tradition and modernity, stateand city are basically incompatible, each belonging to a different “age ofbeing”.

94. Modelul cultural european, Humanitas, Bucureºti, 1993. This is the last bookof the philosopher and had been published in the form of articles in the culturalpress of the years 1986-1987. To be found in the German version of G. Scherg:De dignitate Europae, Editura Kriterion, Bucureºti, 1988.

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95. Solutions already presented in the article “Unu ºi multiplu” published in:Izvoare de filosofie. Culegere de studii ºi texte, ed. C. Floru, C. Noica and M.Vulcãnescu, Bucureºti, 1942, p. 233-241.

96. Modelul cultural european, 1993, p. 42 sq.97. Ibid., p. 64 sq. Also cf. Jurnal de idei, Humanitas, Bucureºti, 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 inbeing will not. The Norse replaced Europe in the year 1000 and made it moredynamic. But it continues to be the trinitarian one. This remained in the deepstructure. Christianism is the “religion of religions” and Europe the culture ofcultures”.

98. “The embodiment (G-I) is the core of our world. Philosophy follows the modelof Christ. I know no other divinity than Jesus Christ. He gives truth to historyand 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 intobelievers and arians. The former believe in the multiple One (Trinity), thelatter 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 Taboritelight 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 Steinhardt’s article, “The Cathars form Pãltiniº” (Familia,

decembrie 1983), also included in: G. Liiceanu, Epistolar, 1987, p. 324-327.106. Cf. the essay of Gabriel Andeescu, “Resurecþia spiritualã la Pãltiniº” (nov.-dec.

1986), published in: Spre o filosofie a dizidenþei, Editura Litera, 1992, p.78-93.

107. Andrei Pleºu in Gabriel Liiceanu, “Despre Constantin Noica” (interviewwith R. Þurcanu), Euphorion (Sibiu), nr. 6-8/1991, p. 16, 26.

108. Cf. the pathetic “Scrisoare cãtre un intelectual occidental” set as preface toModelul cultural european (1993, p. 7-10), the harsh reproofs of which causedthe indignation of pro-European intellectuals (Ion Negoiþescu, Virgil Ierunca,Adrian Marino).

109. Gabriel Liiceanu, Jurnalul de la Pãltiniº, 1983, p. 230 sq. Also cf. ClaudeKarnoouh’s criticism, supra, note 93.

110. Adrian Marino, Pentru Europa. Integrarea României. Aspecte ideologice ºiculturale, Polirom, Iaºi, 1996; Gabriel Andreescu, cf. infra, note 112; AlinaMungiu, “Identitate politicã româneascã ºi identitate europeanã”, Cuvântulnr. 12/1995 also published in Revenirea în Europa (infra, note 112), p. 281-291and Momentul adevãrului (supra, note 81), p. 253-260. The support of thisunconditional Europeanisation is accompanied by a harsh criticism of Nae

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Ionescu’s traditionalist thought and of his school represented by P. Þuþea andN. Ionescu, accused of “reactionary” (anti-progressive) thinking, of“nationalism”, “anti-European attitude”, “anacronism” and “bad” influenceupon the present intellectual circles, cf. the polemic essays of Al. George andM. Petreu (vs. N. Ionescu) or A. Marino (vs. N. Ionescu, Þuþea, Noica). “Teoriiantieuropene”, “Cazul Noica”, in the chapter “Modele fictive, modele nocive”of the anthology Momentul adevãrului, p. 294-382. Perfectly legitimate andnatural, the critical debate of the “reactionary” Romanian thinkers of theinter-war generation is a useful and necessary approach. Unfortunately, itoften unjustly combines thought with the political involvement and the privateopinions of the thinkers and often degenerates in an ideological trial withinquisitorial overtones resulting in anathemae and exclusions passed in thename of a “canon” of in triumphant liberal-democratic “vulgata”. The resultof these “disclosures is a profound understanding, an unacceptableimpoverishment 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. Marino’s anthology, Revenirea în Europa. Idei ºi

controverse româneºti 1990-1995, Editura Aius, Craiova, 1995, 448 p. andthe recent debate of 1995-1996 between G. Andreescu, on the one hand,and O. Paler and Al. Paleologu, on the other, partially included in GabrielAndreescu’s book, Naþionaliºti, antinaþionaliºti. O polemicã în publicisticaromâneascã, Polirom, Iaºi, 1996.

113. Cf. Andrei Pleºu, interview by M. Sin in the 22 magazine, Nov. 1992, alsopublished in Revenirea în Europa, 1996, p. 311-315.

114. Virgil Nemoianu, “Imitaþie ºi identitate”, 22 magazine, nr. 355 (49), 1996,p. 17-18.

115. Claude Karnoouh, “Mai existã oare Europa?” (May 1993), as introduction tothe volume of essays Adio diferenþei. Eseu asupra modernitãþii târzii [= Adieuà la difference, Arcantère, 1993], Editura Dacia, Cluj, 1994, p. 7-19.

116. Cf. Virgil Nemoianu, “Ce rost are miºcarea creºtin-democratã?”, 22 magazine,nr. 361, ian. 1997.

117. Andrei Pleºu, “De la ‘Europa liberã’ la ‘Europa unitã’”, Dilema nr. 124, mai1995, also published in Chipuri ºi mãºti ale tranziþiei, Humanitas, Bucureºti,1996, p. 282-284.

118. “Europa între douã infirmitãþi”, Dilema nr. 45, nov. 1993, and in Chipuri ºimãºti..., p. 237-239.

119. “Noua ºi vechea Europã”, Dilema nr. 44, nov. 1993, and in Chipuri ºi mãºti...,p. 233-236.

120. Ibid., p. 236.

ION MANOLESCU

Born in 1968, in BucharestPh.D., University of Bucharest, 2000

Dissertation: The Dictatorship of the Image in PostmodernismAssistant 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 LiteratureFounding member of ASPRO (Professional Writers’ Association of Romania)

Advanced Study Fellow at the Netherlands Institute for Advanced Study in theHumanities and Social Sciences (NIAS), Wassenaar, 1998

First Prize of the Amfiteatru magazine, for short story, 1988First prize of “Morning Fictional Encounters”, Iaºi, for short story, 1988Debut 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, 1998Happenings in Our Little Town. Bucharest: Cartea Româneascã, 1993

Fictions. Bucharest: Litera, 1992Numerous articles, essays, and works of fiction published in Romania and

abroad (Netherlands, USA). Editor and translator.

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VISUAL TECHNIQUES IN POSTMODERNLITERATURE. TOWARDS AN

INTERDISCIPLINARY APPROACH OFFICTIONAL PERSPECTIVE

Introduction

The present study focuses on two main theories of narrative and iconicperspective, as identified in the post-modern fiction of American andEuropean writers. The first one is the deconstructive theory, showing realityas a self-referential, undecidable process, while image becomes its ownmirror or a series of self-reflecting mirrors, deprived of any original source.The second one is the fractal theory, emphasizing the chaotic, yet orderedpatterns of reality; here, image is perceived in its shattered, irregular textualand iconic design.

Both parts of the study (A Voyage on the Deconstructive Continentand A Voyage on the Fractal Continent) are conceived as multi-cultural,inter-disciplinary scientific debates, which cross the borders of literatureand lead to the formation of new aesthetic, philosophic and psychologicalgeographies. They are meant to deal at the same time with fictionalexamples of visual structures specifically considered post-modern, andwith the scientific grounds these structures rely on.

As a conclusion of the study, post-modern fiction is to be seen as partof a wider aesthetic and existential attitude, characterized by theacceleration 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 fora thorough exploration implies undermining the very geography it is basedon: its theoretical boundaries get diluted, its philosophical shapes becomegeometrically variable, while its literary topography is lost in a virtual,post-modern map. Any investigation, of whatever kind, becomes a part ofthe paradox which it systematically enhances by attempting to solve it. Ina similar way, by means of deconstructive contamination, any criticalattempt turns into a meta-critical one, itself related to its meta-meta-criticalreferent. This paradoxical situation may be perceived as a naturalconsequence of the phenomenon of intertextuality, such as it was definedby the members of the Tel Quel group (Kristeva, 1968; Sollers, 1968).

Therefore, in the post-modern age (considered as a cultural period inthe second half of the 20 th century), one may discover that the veryenunciation of the most elementary theoretical or critical matter is boundto cross an almost endless network of notes and references. Consequently,any account is to be conceived as an infinite set of quotations and as abricolage of quotations. Even this plain, unimportant remark you arereading this very moment could be related to a substantially large numberof post-modern critical references, meant to sustain it!

Although developed in the mid-sixties, the theoretical innovationsbrought in by deconstruction to the post-modern way of thinking andunderstanding art are still quite uncomfortable to us, no matter the natureof their implications: methodological as well as hermeneutical, axiologicalas well as ontological, logical as well as literary. Connected to fields asvarious 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 orposition, technique or strategy (Derrida, 1972 a; Hartman, 1981; Culler,1982 etc.).

Yet more troubling for our common sense would be the suggestionunderlying the theoretical contributions of the so-called “cognitivephilosophers”. They assert the fact that our rational structures are basedon mise-en-abîme-like mechanisms which we may be able to identify ina process similar to that of deconstruction; hence, there would supposedlyexist some kind of a deconstructive DNA of the human mind, which wecould recognize, without ever fully “decoding” its pattern (Dennett, 1978;Hofstadter, 1979).

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In order to see whether deconstruction represents, in itself, a theory ofperspective, 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 ofconcepts such as truth and certitude. Embodying one of the most frequentlyused post-modern principles, fragmentarism (Hassan, 1982, and especially1990, pp. 18-23), deconstruction enforces an entropic perception of thenotion of truth, itself used in order to criticize and undermine what isconsensually regarded as truth (1). Since deconstruction does not call fora 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 alarmingwith 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 culturalreaction against many long-lasting historical prejudices (the elitistprejudice, or the prejudice of the closed, inertial canon). At the sametime, during the past four or five decades, understanding literature as adisplay of conflicting options and chaotic tensions has allowed us toreinterpret in a post-modern fashion the entire process of culturalproduction. To put it bluntly, by fragmenting acquired certitudes andpreconceived ideas, deconstruction enabled literary historians and theoriststo redefine their object of study and reconstruct it beyond any imaginable,deterministic limits.

The second main problem which deconstruction deals with in anunconventional way is that of meaning. No matter if they refer to linguisticor literary meaning, the deconstructive philosophers proclaim a violentdismissal of any kind of consensus (Derrida, 1972 a; Lyotard, 1979, 1986).They shatter hierarchies traditionally accepted as stable, by asserting thatmeaning, as well as text and reading, is being produced within a flexibleprocess of contextualization, decontextualization and recontextualization.As a matter of fact, the discovery of the principles of semantic instabilityand unavailability does not belong to deconstructive philosophy, but tolinguistics and literary criticism. It may start with the elementary Saussuriantheory of the linguistic sign’s arbitrary character, go further to the Tel-Quelnotion of intertextuality and reach the more recent definitions of thetransactional text (Holland, 1968) and of the text as reader (Prince, 1980)elaborated by reader-response criticism (2).

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Rather unsurprisingly, most of the theoretical concepts used byreader-response critics, as well as by aestheticians of reception of theso-called Konstanz School, can be transferred from the field of literarystudies to that of semantics. Such is the case with the “transactionality” ofthe literary text (Holland, 1968, p.123), the “virtuality” of the literary work(Iser, 1980, p.106) or the “indeterminance” and “unconclusiveness” ofreading (Freund, 1987, pp.152-53). Consequently, from the viewpoint ofcontemporary linguistics and philosophy, meaning becomes a negotiableunit, largely depending on the way in which it deconstructs the veryprinciples it is constructed on. If deconstructing a discourse implies showing“how it undermines the philosophy it presupposes or the hierarchicaloppositions it is based on”, while identifying within the text the rhetoricaloperations which provide the basis of argumentation (Culler, 1982, p.86),then the deconstruction of linguistic or literary meaning may be referredto as a potentially irrational, schizoid operation. Ultimately, both meaningand truth would turn into concepts of perspective, as easy to manipulateas a Rubik cube.

However, what is at stake here, the equally profound and alarmingchallenge of deconstructive philosophy, is not the urge to bring back intoattention the ever-lasting problem of perceptive subjectivity. The essentialissue of deconstruction lies at the same time in the radical questioning ofthe most stable premises of our conscious mental activities, and in theenunciation of a valid alternative for these activities. The extended versionof the antique Epimenides paradox (also known as the liar’s paradox) maybe regarded as a convincing example of relativization of certitudes, whichclearly 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 asatisfactory explanation of the neuro-psychological, semantic or logicalmechanisms which led to its existence, suggests that human thinking maybe structured on random permutations on different levels. Whendeconstructing a paradox, one can notice that its “proper” functioningdepends on the contradictory, inter-changeable relation between aninformational/semantic excess and a similar kind of omission. For instance,the graphic paradox of M.C. Escher’s hands drawing each other (Tekenen,1948) is built up at the same time on the excess of realism of the twohands and on the pictural absence of the “real” hand creating them.

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Conceived “three-dimensionally” in comparison to the “bi-dimensional”sheet of paper (pinned to a table) on which they draw each other, thesetwo self-recycling hands miss the graphic Big-Bang which would eithercancel, or justify their frozen perpetuum mobile state (3). A third, “real”hand (Escher’s one, for example), drawing the other two “artificial”/”artifactial” hands and suddenly appearing as an extension of a camerawhich took simultaneous shots of the lithography, its contents and thecreator-operator’s arm would have probably offered a partial solution tothe paradox.

The same difficulties in defining a stable semantic dimension can beencountered in several short stories of Romanian author I.L.Caragiale,notably Inspecþiune, published in 1900. Here, the suicide of a bankemployee one day before a routine financial inspection generates severalcontradictory suppositions among his closest friends. The mystery of thesuicide is the more inexplicable as the employee, Mr.Anghelache, had anirreproachable reputation. Even more troubling is the result of the financialinvestigation: not only did Mr.Anghelache carefully keep all the moneyhe was supposed to handle, but he also put an extra golden nickel in thesafe deposit, “wrapped up in a cigarette paper” (Caragiale, 1960, p.190).Curiously enough, the story’s excess of information -the existence of thisgolden coin, as some kind of a “narrative indication of the employee’shonesty” (F. Manolescu, 1983, p.282) - is connected to an essentialnarrative omission: what logic leads Mr.Anghelache’s actions? Since thedead are not to be psychoanalysed, despite all the naive efforts of theemployee’s friends; since the logical/narrative networks of the story havebeen deliberately short-circuited; since information has been suspended,without being cancelled, Inspecþiune remains a brilliant example ofunsolvable fictional paradox (4). In a manner similar to that of Epimenide’sparadox, as well as to Escher’s lithography, the narrative possibly ofdisplaying various permutations in Caragiale’s short story, between thetextual/semantic minimal and maximal structures, creates anoverwhelming 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 discoursemeans to simultaneously analyse it from inside and outside and ifdeconstructing a hierarchic sister means reversing its levels, thendeconstruction is a matter of repositioning perspectives and negotiating anew contract with “reality”. These two characteristics are also specific topostmodernism. Moreover, they have been discussed by several literary

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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 deconstructionhas at the same time ontological, epistemological and aestheticimplications. Both Jacques Derrida and Paul de Man reverse the traditionalhierarchic relation between philosophy and other disciplines and seriouslyquestion the predominant role of philosophy; in their opinion, the firstplace within any systemic hierarchies is to be taken by literature (Derrida,1967, 1972 a; de Man, 1983). They contend the hypothesis that, shouldtruth be regarded as fiction and serious language as a particular case ofunreliable language, then the historical, philosophical, psychoanalyticaldiscourses -and not literature- ought to be treated as deviant, parasiticinstances of language (Culler, 1982, p.181). Applying the category of the“literary” to any kind of language, one may conclude that philosophy, forexample, represents a particular literary genre, quite close to poetry. Thisassumption seems less outrageous if we accept that both these fields operatewith numerous meta-codifying, meta-significant elements. Ultimately, boththe strict “precision” of the philosophical language and the “liberty” ofthe 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 effectsof a puzzling split taking place within our mind’s personal library. Thevery use of the metaphor “mind’s library” in a context quite polemical tothe efficiency of poetic language represents a deconstructive self-recyclingcause and effect: the more we try to plead for a neutral, non-connotativelanguage, the less we should reject the “impure” elements of poeticlanguage. Or, to put it in psycho-cognitive terms, should we systematicallylook for structures of human rationality and confirmation of their validity,we would have to decompose these same structures by means ofnon-rational criteria, in fragments hierarchically opposed to the truthsand rational certitudes they are based on.

Irrespective of the levels on which it operates, deconstruction createsan implicit and at the same time explicit theory of hybridized perspective,redefining the relation between reality and its representation. Its mainarticulations are to be found in meta-perspectivism (Chinese boxes andMatrioshka dolls perspectives), self-recycling perspectivism (Ouroboros

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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 theconcept of mimesis, arguing that representation, and not its object, comesfirst. Therefore, it states the superiority of the copy with respect to theoriginal. On such theoretical grounds, deconstructive philosophersproclaim the existence of infinite series of imitations of the imitations(Derrida, 1972 a, p.217). The original has vanished, coming to beingalready as an imitation, and everything begins with a reproduction. InJonathan Culler’s words:

The mimetic relations may be regarded as intertextual: relations betweenone representation and another, rather than between a textual imitationand its non-textual original.

(1982, p.187)

The Derridean idea of the mimesis with no origins clearly illustratesthe deconstructive theory and method of the affirmation which becomesits 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 ofa copy whose original can never be traced (5). Hence, one may shape aconvincing 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 theirinfluence on the linguistic and literary levels. For instance, deconstructionreverses the relation between use and mentioning and asserts that use is aspecial case of mentioning. No matter how eager we were to “use” certainexpressions, we would simply mention them, that is, have them asquotations (Culler, 1982, p.120). The validity of this phenomenon is testifiedby the effects of “using” expressions such as “I love you” or “I adore you”in everyday life. Lacking originality, losing their significance because ofexcessive use, they belong to an infinite series of mirrored expressions,like Juliet’s in Romeo and Juliet or Ali MacGraw’s in Love Story.

In psychology (to take another example), the deconstructive perspectiveseems to embody the very basis of theory. Freud’s psychoanalysis, forinstance, 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 isthe definition of the second one which makes the understanding of the“fundamental” terms possible (see Freud, 1904).

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In literature, deconstruction deals with the mechanisms through whichtexts generate effects in the area of meaning and truth, undermining boththese notions. Especially in his second edition of Blindness & Insight, Paulde Man discusses the undecidable character of textual meaning and theinstability of the structures which validate texts. To him, there are no suchthings as a priori privileged principles and there are no longer any structureswhich may be considered exemplary for other structures; all theassumptions regarding ontological hierarchization have been shrugged:

If we no longer take for granted the idea that a literary text can be reducedto a finite meaning or set of meanings, viewing literature as an endlessprocess in which truth and falsehood are inextricably intertwined, thenthe predominant criteria used in the history of literature (and generallyderived from genetic models) are no longer applicable.

(1983, p.ix)

Although de Man’s perception of the literary text and literary historymust be considered an extensive one (because of the supposed existenceof an archi-literature which determines its own particular historical,anthropological, psycho-analytical instances and so on), his suggestion toresort to forms of analysis oriented towards the dismemberment of thestable concepts of meaning and textual identity may also be directed tothe field of literature, as an autonomous discipline. Hence, his theory ofthe critical “blindness” would become not only a means to assert theinterdependence text/interpretation, but also a way to state the ontologicalstatus of error within the production of literature and its investigation as aparticular genre:

The critic not only says something the work doesn’t say, but he even saysthings he himself doesn’t want to say. The semantics of interpretation hasno epistemological consistency and therefore cannot be consideredscientific [...] The critics’ moments of greatest blindness with regard totheir own assertions are at the same time the moments of their greatestinsight.

(p.109)

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

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what makes the cause be perceived as cause), then any post-modernhermeneutics of perspective is bound to turn into aporia and unsolvablealternance (6). The lack of any original “presence” (truth, reality, idea,meaning etc.) which analysis or interpretation could be derived from standsfor the dictatorship of the mimesis without origins (Derrida, 1972 a) anddetermines what we may call the universalization of undecidability.

The concept of undecidability was discovered by mathematician KurtGödel, in his study “Uber Formal Unentscheidbare Satze der PrincipiaMathematica und Verwandter Systeme I”. It is a part of the so-calledincompleteness theorem. According to it, a proposition is undecidablewhen, having a system of axioms which govern a multiplicity, thatproposition neither is a consequence, nor does it contradict these axioms;in other words, it is neither true, nor false with respect to them (Gödel,1931, pp.173-98). Essentially, Gödel’s theorem asserts that any systemwhich is sufficiently “powerful” is by virtue of its “power” incomplete,meaning that “there are well-formed strings which express true statementsof number theory, but which are not theorems” (Hofstadter, 1989, p.101).In Douglas Hofstadter’s paraphrase of the theory, all consistent axiomaticformulations of number theory include undecidable propositions (p.17).In other terms, there are truths which belong to number theory that cannot be proved within the system.

Transferring Gödel’s theorem from mathematics and logic to literature,we may bring up several puzzling hypothesises. One of them would berelated to the assumption that consistency is not an intrinsic characteristicof any formal system, since it depends on the interpretation it is beingsubjected 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 theliterary 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 competingfor the right to constrain inter pretation (text, reader, author) are now allseen to be the products of interpretation.

(1980, pp.16-17)

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Another conclusion derived from the literary application of Gödel’stheorem would be linked to the undecidability of imagination. Shouldimagination be considered undecidable, since it is neither true, nor false,then literature would be deprived of all identity, while authors, readersand interpretations could mirror themselves in an endless intertextual,inter-iconic process. In fact, this is the case of postmodernism, whichasserts that the modern belief in the authenticity of image and the validityof text should be undermined. To paraphrase Richard Kearney, who showshow reproduction has managed to replace the original in postmodernism”The image which is, already existed “ (1988, p.4), we may perceive thetext as the space of its own recycling and literature as its owndeconstruction. Nothing arises, without having previously existed; nothingis said, without having already been said. In a similar manner, hermeneuticsis based on the paradoxical use of its own pre-existence.

Ultimately, the application of Gödel’s theorem to deconstruction (orvice-versa) illustrates the implosive effects of self-reflexivity andmeta-self-reflexivity, which lead to the dissolution of all demonstrativevalidities. Deconstruction, much the same as literature, provesundecidable. Thus, we reach an unsatisfactory theoretic model of literarypostmodernism, created by its own stroboscopic recycling. It is at thesame time a “strong” model, because of its universal invulnerability, anda “weak” one, due to the ontological, epistemological, axiological vacuumin which it is situated by its very invulnerability. Q.e.d., by means of ademonstration which precedes itself in an infinite series of accolades...(7)

One last conclusion resulting from the literary use of Gödel’s theoremconcerns literature’s capability of confering aesthetic value to its owninsufficiency. 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 “aestheticpersonality” in the work of post-modern prose writers. Much the same asit happened with the so-called literary textualism (which led to a significantRomanian fictional trend, illustrated by writers such as Mircea Nedelciuand Gheorghe Crãciun), deconstruction has shifted from theory to literarypractice. As a result, nowadays it has become a literary structure, theme,motive and character. If we take into account the fact that deconstructionhas turned into some kind of fictional trend, we may just as well dismissthe distinction between theory and literature. And is this not just thesupreme evidence that Gödel’s undecidability principle is as valid in art,as in science?

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The literary applications of deconstruction are usually illustrations of alogical, semantic, iconic or narrative reversal: between cause and effect,interior and exterior, beginning and end. The deconstruction of these twokinds 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 manyothers, Hassan, 1982; Brooks, 1984; McHale, 1987). It can be related to anew aesthetic sensibility, based on simultaneity, bricolage and perceptivesimulacrum (see mainly Baudrillard, 1981; 1983).

For the American writer Donald Barthelme, for example, the naturalconnections between the beginning and the end of a narrative can beshattered any time, according to a logic of infinite reversibility whichallows the text to “take off the mask of its own fictionality” (Federman,1975, p.8), without revealing an original referent. As Barbara L. Roe pointsout in a recent study of Barthelme’s short stories, we deal with a“double-minded” author, who enjoys using narrative multiplications andpermutations; they often stand for several mixed shifts of perspective:

In these aural and visual complexes, a spatially designed text displaceslinear plot, an ahistorical presence supersedes character, and a collageformat fragments narrative viewpoint.

(1992, p.xiv)

In one of Barthelme’s short stories, called The Dolt and included in hisSixty Stories volume, a character named Edgar concocts a story for hiswritten examination. During this process, he complains that his text hasno substance (no “middle”), but only an “oblique” end. The story’s narrator(a paranoid alter-ego of Edgar’s) has his own opinion about writing texts.He complains about the same identity problems as his character and endsup his story by deconstructing its beginning:

I myself have these problems. The endings are elusive, the middle partsnowhere to be found, but the hardest thing is to begin, to begin, to begin.

(1981, p.96)

In The Wound, one of Barthelme’s short stories in Forty Stories (1987),the author does not merely deconstruct the relation between the beginningand the end of the narrative, but also dismantles to such extent the relationbetween originary reality and meta-reality, that distinctions are no longerpossible. 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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mother, the lover), viewed on a meta-fictional stage inspired byHemingway’s stories, become themselves “directors”: they consider theverbal images of the story which they are part of as an attractive movie,which they can play back home. Hence, the narrative perspective ofBarthelme’s story turns into a flexible unit, directly depending on thefluctuations 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 benoticed in the stories and novels of French author Michel Tournier. Hiscollection of stories Le medianoche amoureux (1989), translated inRomanian three years later, provides many examples of deconstructivetextual or iconic perspectives.

In the opening story of the volume, omonimously called Le medianocheamoureux, Tournier proceeds to the deconstruction of the relation between“real” life and fictional life [the term real is being put here within quotationmarks 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 tonineteen stories (the very number of stories in Tournier’s book!) whichinfluence their lives while being written:

They watched with great interest the slow transformation which thosesuccessive fictions made them subject to. It seemed that the pessimistic,destructive, mercilessly realistic novelettes were meant to separate themand tear their relationship apart, while the optimistic, warm, welcomingstories, 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 betweenpresent and past and between the present narrator and his predecessors.As a result, the former elements become the implicit cause of the later’sexistence: the prisoners from Clericourt send the narrator a desk “on whichBalzac, Victor Hugo and Alexandre Dumas used to write in the past”(1992, p.162). By writing himself on that desk, while “standing up”, thenarrator implicitly becomes the ancestor of his own literary predecessors.

Nevertheless, the most interesting cases of logical deconstruction arisingfrom the disturbances of the past-present and cause-effect relations canbe related to science-fiction literature. They either belong to thepost-modern current, or precede it by far (but does it really matter, whenthe present is bound to begin in the past and vice-versa?). We may recall

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here the time paradoxes on which are based stories and novels such asthose written by H.G.Wells (1895), Isaac Asimov (1955), Poul Anderson(1965), Gerard Klein (1971). Needless to say, the mechanisms of the timeparadoxes and their specific functions in science-fiction literature havebeen analysed by various critics and theorists, with or without beingassociated to deconstruction. Romanian critic Florin Manolescu, forinstance, asserts that:

Imagination can resort to different strategies which allow the past or thefuture to become accessible realities and remove the barrier of time [...]When writers dismiss the law of time irreversibility, invent a way ofescaping historical determinism and try to solve the resulting logicaldifficulties, time travel turns into a major theme of S.F. literature.

(1980, pp.113-14)

Coming back to Michel Tournier’s stories, we should discuss one ofthe most sophisticated examples of deconstructive narrative and iconicperspective in Lucie. Here, the narrator makes a seemingly uninterestingdigression 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” statementis, in fact, a subtle deconstruction of female and textual body. Both relyon atypical inversions, both are shaped through a redistribution of causesand effects. Consequently, the female and textual bodies in Tournier’sstory perform a role depending on the fluctuating perspectives in whichthey are viewed. Thus, they become inter-changeable elements of acommon body, subject to anamorphotic deconstructions.

This is precisely what happens in one of Gheorghe Crãciun’s stories,Alte copii legalizate, where a sex scene takes place at the very pointwhere the female body’s anatomy intersects with a typographic text rippedoff the bedroom’s walls:

Let the light flow into the room, but let the walls remain dirty, stained, pencilwritten, scribbled, pealed [...] Let her struggle, apparently helpless: shame onyou! Let your white teeth clinch her golden neck and hear her yell: you crazyfool! Bite her and see her shudder in defeat, moaning with delight, fallingaside and pressing your lips with her merciless mouth with sharp canines. Anthen tell her, later on: guess what I had in mind; what about a story in whicha man lies in a room like this one and stares at the walls...

(1988, p.8,13)

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The deconstruction of human or textual anatomies usually reflects thepost-modern writers’ intention to negotiate the relation between interiorand exterior, as well as their will to redesign logical, textual and iconicperspectives according to new premises. For example, what we think ofas the most internal spaces of the body (vagina, stomach, intestines) wouldin fact be some kind of external pockets, “folded” within. Transferring thistheory to literature, Jonathan Culler argues that the structure (and implicitlythe 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, foldingwithin it; and vice-versa, what seems the most interior, the central aspectof a work will assume this role through the features which unfold it outsideand against the work.

(1982, pp.198-99)

A convincing illustration of this theory may be found in MichelTournier’s novel Vendredi ou les limbes du Pacifique (1967). Here, theisland Robinson is shipwrecked on is not inasmuch a territory of land andvegetation, as a fictional world, a meta-island built up by the unfolding ofthe intertextual, multi-cultural geographies of all the fictional/mythologicalislands over the “real” island. Exploring the “real” island actually meanssearching for the mechanisms of the entire universe in a deconstructivemanner:

However, that milky night, to Robinson the lightning’s effects seemedreversed [...] One would say an ink wave flowed in the cave, then instantlyreceded, without any visible trace.

(1977, p.128)

The protagonist’s sensations and perceptions are desubstantialized;they turn into ghosts of mind, created by reversing experience and memory:in Tournier’s novel, memories are included in direct experience, and notthe other way round. For instance, baking bread on the island allows thehero to “rediscover” (in other words, to substantialize) his own smell andtouch, within a process which dismantles traditional deterministic relations:bread precedes sediment, while sediment precedes smell!

Relying on several such fragments, Robinson’s story systematically foldsand unfolds itself, in a textual attempt to question the very limits of languageand meaning. However, language and meaning themselves are beingdeconstructed, by a continuous dissolution of the signifier/signified relation.

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This makes the character’s efforts to provide an acceptable, coherentperspective on himself or the events he is part of undecidable:

For a long time, my mind was filled with enough memories to provideimagination with desirable, yet inexistent creatures. Now it’s all over. Mymemories are bodiless. They are merely empty, faded pods. I say: woman,breasts, hips, hips moving by my own free will. Nothing happens. Themagic of these words is no longer working.

(1977, p.137)

One last example of a post-modern anatomical deconstruction is relatedto Ursula K. Le Guin’s science-fiction novel, The Left Hand of Darkness(1969). Here, an ethnologist comes to the planet Gethen, which has anandrogynous population (meaning that, at the climax of their sexual cycle,its members can become either men, or women). The story of theethnologist’s painful accommodation to the mentality and the rich feelingsof the Gethenians reflects not only the theme of the lack of humancommunication in the future to come, but also that of actual sexualprejudices and sexist attitudes. In a wider sense, it illustrates the idea ofcultural alienation.

The novel can be understood by deconstructing the oppositions male/female, left/right, light/darkness; consequently, an adequate perceptionof the former terms becomes impossible in the absence of the latter.According to Ursula K. Le Guin’s deconstructive pattern, the androgynousanatomy can be decoded by reinterpreting the title as Male Is the LeftHand of Female (Scholes, 1985, p.127).

At the end of the voyage on the deconstructive continent, one mayrise several objections against the deconstructive principles. First of all,the very limits of perspective are too loose: from whose point of view andwith respect to what can we create a theory of perspective? In other terms,which is the subject, and which is the object of perspectivism? Isdeconstruction an instrument of research in post-modern perspectivism,or is it simply a medium? As long as the principle of shifts among levels ofinvestigation (logical, narrative, iconic) represents at the same time adeconstructive cause and effect; as long as postmodernism (no matterhow we perceive it: as a chronological moment, a current, a movementor a wider sensibility) recycles the past and searches for the future, withoutexplicitly drawing a line between them (see Lyotard, 1979; 1986); finally,as long as these very lines are the ambiguous result of an universalintertextual process in which in order to establish the identity of text,

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interpretation and reader one has to permanently shift from one categoryto 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 makesuccessive estimations of post-modern perspectives, by means of deliberateincomplete criteria and instruments.

Secondly, to dismiss perception and reference on grounds of their ownimperfection is to proclaim the uselessness of hermeneutics: since thepremises of deconstructive reading assert that any investigated system isinsufficient (as well as any method of investigation we intend to use inorder to prove its insufficiency!), why should one bother reading/interpreting literature, for instance? If deconstructive indeterminence ofmeaning has such high theoretical credit, can the deconstructive approachbe said to have any particular valid goal, except being enuntiative? Theseare questions which both critics of deconstruction (Scholes, 1985) and itssupporters (Culler, 1982) find difficult to answer.

However, the plain affirmation of incomplete, fallacious character ofthe critical act may stand for a more profound phenomenon: that ofbestowing an ontological status to relativity. The manifold, acuteimplications of this phenomenon will be dealt with in the following partof this study.

2. A Voyage on the Fractal Continent

The geography of literary postmodernism includes a second importantcontinent, 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 fractalcontinent is probably the most elaborate form of present literature, togetherwith the virtual (or cyberspace) one, which it matches entirely or partially.Because of its simultaneously entropic and negentropic structure, it bringsup theories of a logical, iconic and narrative perspective which lookshattered, dismembered in an infinite number of differently shaped shards.These splinters are connected by a seemingly random commondenominator. Consequently, both the mapping of post-modern fiction andthe global understanding of literature, on all its levels (fictional, critical,historical, theoretical etc.), undergo a substantial process of reconsideringand restructuring.

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The key-term useful to understand a great part of contemporary fictionby means of perspectivism belongs to the field of mathematics and wasdiscovered by French mathematician of Polish origins, Benoit Mandelbrot.It was theorized in his 1975 volume, nowadays regarded as a classic ofscience: Les objets fractals:forme, hasard et dimension.

Etymologically speaking, fractal comes from the Latin fractus, havingthe same lexical root as fraction and fragment; it is also related to the verbfrangere, whose signification is close to irregular and fragmented. In oneof the simplified definitions provided in Fractals.Forms, Chance andDimension, a fuller, modified version of his 1975 book, Mandelbrotconsiders the fractal:

[...] a mathematical set or a concrete object, whose form is extremelyirregular and/or fragmented in all dimensions.

(1977, p.294)

Further on, we may speak of fractal objects, fractal dimensions and afractal geometry, all meant to orchestrate several universal non-Euclideanpatterns, 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 arecharacterized by an intrinsic complexity of fundamental irregularity, whichis present at all the levels of observation.

(1996, p.26)

The fractal theory appeared as a theory regarding the geometry ofnature. In time, its applications were transferred to several other extremelydifferent fields, such as astronomy, economy, social theory or humananatomy. Hence, fractal mathematics allows at the same time themeasuring of the clouds’ dimensions in the sky, of air turbulencephenomena, of the waves in the ocean and of the pellet we can obtain byrumpling this very piece of paper. As measurable in their apparentirregularity and lack of precision are also the moon’s craters, the erratictopography of a large city’s streets, the shape of a river such as the Missouri,our sanguine system of veins and arteries or the oil trails leaking in theocean from some desperate tanker (8).

Irrespective of its applications or explanations, fractals are stillcharacterized by a feature which was called self-similarity (Mandelbrot,

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1977, p.31) or dilatative symmetry (Hurd, 1989, p.1). This feature makesit possible for any section of a fractal which is magnified by an arbitraryfactor to look exactly the same as the original fractal. As Leonard M.Sanderpoints out, discussing fractal geometry implies an analysis of a fractalgrowth:

A fractal is an object with a sprawling, tenuous pattern. As the pattern ismagnified, it reveals repetitive levels of detail, so that similar structureexists on all scales. A fractal might, for example, look the same whetherviewed on the scale of a meter, a millimetre or a micrometer.

(1989, p.15)

Since fractal dimensions are being expressed in fractions and not innumbers, the self-similarity of fractals should be related to their fractionalcharacter. This is one of Mandelbrot’s main ideas, enabling his mathematicsto reshape our entire view of the surrounding universe. By findingself-similarity in a series of irregular phenomena, apparently taking placeat random, by comparing the shapes of mountains, clouds, plants, soapbubbles, ice crystals and lunar cavities, by putting together the structureof the Eiffel tower, of an old branching tree and of the linguistic trees fromthe transformational grammar, the French mathematician provided bothour 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 boundaryconditions that govern the behaviour of many potentially chaotic orturbulent phenomena: vortexes, twisters, lightnings, galactic clusteringsetc. (Wooley, 1992, p.90). Moreover, the two of them discussed in theUnited States (where Mandelbrot settled since 1958 as one of the mainscientists at IBM Research Center in Yorktown Heights, New York) thevery importance of measuring the unmeasurable and shaping theunshapable. As Wooley remembers in his book Virtual Worlds. A Journeyin Hype and Hyperreality, the father of all fractals told his listener, whileeating a “highly fractal” endive:

I did not discover the fact that clouds are like billows upon billows uponbillows. Every child knows that. What I did was identify tools that turn thisintuitive perception of shape into something that science can grab.

(1992, p.89)

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

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fractal mathematicians’ success to create a geometry of the traditionallynon-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, irreparablydisorganized, forever irreductible to mathematic formulas and equations,are being gradually mastered by mathematicians, chemists, physicists andbiologists (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 Britain’s shore or the shape of a cauliflowercut from the middle in two pieces exist between the one-dimensional lineand the two-dimensional surface. That is, we are surrounded by manysinuous curves, which give the impression they fill a surface. Theirmathematical measuring, as well as its graphic materialization, is mainlybased on the understanding of the relation between dimension and thedegree of filling of the space. In other terms, this means we deal with ascientific highlighting of a perspective problem. Such is the case, forexample, when reinterpreting on fractal grounds the relation betweenveins, arteries and tissues in the human body: each point in a non-vasculartissue relies on the boundary between two sanguine networks; the tissuefilled with veins and arteries intersecting in all points (none of whichremains free) is called a fractal surface (see Mandelbrot, 1977, pp.77, 79;1983, pp.150, 159). Ultimately, through the deconstruction of its ownprinciples, fractal geometry can be considered a fractal itself, built up onthe fragile boundary between two mathematic dimensions:

Fractal geometry is a workable geometric middle ground between theexcessive geometric order of Euclid and the geometric chaos of generalmathematics. It is based on a form of symmetry that has previously beenunderutilized, namely invariance under contraction or dilation.

(Mandelbrot, 1989, p.8)

The most interesting thing regarding the relationship fractals have withliterature is of a general concern. Since fractal theory does not provideexact mathematical predictions, but quantitative, subtle models to describethe 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 bychecking its display of forms, than by comprising it through figures andstatistics, it can be regarded as an almost poetic theory. Its aesthetic

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relevance, resulting both from the observation of natural fractals and thecomputer graphics’ materialization of fractal equations, have been noticedby most of the researchers in the field.

For example, Mandelbrot refers to the “plastic beauty” of the fractalworld and a “new form of geometric minimal art” (1983, pp.2, 23). Healso identifies its poetic interactions with realist and abstract art (1989,pp.8-11). H. O. Peitgen and P. H. Richter, two of the most famousresearchers in fractal mathematics and physics, discuss “The Beauty ofFractals” (the title of their classic book from 1986). Mathematician MartinGolubitsky collaborates with Michael Field for a photographic album inwhich fractals are discovered in or associated with the Islamic art ofsymmetry -tapestries, stained glass, ceramics- (1992), while the aestheticianand psychologist John Briggs argues that fractals belong to “a new aestheticsof art, science and nature” (1992, p.4). In a similar manner, James Gleick,author of several popular books on chaos theory, asserts that the fractaluniverse is one of natural, intrinsic beauty (Gleick, 1987; Gleick and Porter,1990) (9).

Among the most pertinent demonstrations of the logic and aestheticimpact of fractal theory, at least two are worth mentioning: Clifford A.Pickover and Ian Stewart’s. The former, a researcher at IBM ResearchCenter in New York, writes kinds of pop-up books (partly scientific, partlyliterary -in the absurdist manner of Lewis Carroll). They are illustratedwith drawings and computer-generated pictures, which turn themathematical inquiry of the surrounding world in true “Visual Adventuresin a Fractal World “ - that is the subtitle of his 1994 book, Chaos inWonderland (see also 1990; 1991; 1992). The latter, Ian Stewart, amathematician specialized in the research of universal symmetry, haswritten several...scientific comics in which he attempts to make catastrophyor fractal theories accessible to non-academic readers. Although they maybe taken as frivolous (especially from the viewpoint of the scientificcommunity) - fractals, for example, are defined as “A class of veryinteresting objects, whose dimension is not entire” (1982, p.24)-, theyremain an extremely useful instrument to illustrate the principles of recentmathematics. In fact, Ian Stewart’s scientific comics enable theliteraturization of scientific fields already considered significant from anaesthetic point of view (see above). In comic strips, the fractal world getsa personal ID, mathematical calculation becomes a game at hand, whereasthe new logical mechanisms on which it relies seem more accessible (asanecdotic micro-narratives).

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For instance, in one of the episodes of Les fractals. Les chroniques deRose Polymath (1982), Rose Polymath and her friend Gaston (twoalien-looking characters, similar to the Martians in the pulp magazines ofthe thirties) get a strange job from an inter-galactic boss: they have tomeasure 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 ofinvestigation, 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 mappedis infinite (endlessly self-similar in smaller or larger folds of the original“lace”); as a result, they are being fired, because their boss intended tobuild a dam on the entire surface of the shore!

Apart from the deliberate theorizing of the expressive character offractals (sometimes achieved by less orthodox scientific methods, as onemay see in the previous example), there are also intuitive, rather empiricaltestimonies of the “beauty” of self-similar disorder. Many of them precedeMandelbrot’s discovery or are contemporary to it.

For instance, back in 1965, Theodore Schwenk, a researcher in thefield of water and air chaotic turbulence, suggested the existence of anatural, human and cosmic geometry based on the regularity of irregularshapes. The 1976 English edition of his work collects both photographicillustrations which we may identify as fractal today (waves, curls of thesand, vortexes, clouds, rinds), and empirical reference to the functioningof 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, theworld of plants and the atmosphere make one big organism, through whichwater flows like the blood of a living organism.

(1976, p.14)

Less “antroposophical” and more clearly scientific are the remarksmade in the seventies by Peter S. Stevens, a researcher at Harvard MedicalArena. In his opinion there is a close resemblance between the innerstructure of the human ear and the spirals of snails and galaxies or betweenthe branching of trees and the winding of rivers; this resemblance is basedon the infinite recycling of a finite number of patterns:

When we see how the branching of trees resembles the branching ofarteries 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 similarmanner, we cannot help but wonder why nature uses only a few kindredforms in so many contexts... It turns out that those patterns and forms arepeculiarly restricted, that the immense variety that nature creates emergesfrom 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 ofmetals, is also interested in the “beauty” of ordered chaos. At least two ofhis books, From Art to Science. Seventy-Two Objects Illustrating the Natureof 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 betweenfragmentation and continuity and on the decoding of branching structuresincluded in the design of chaos (1981, p.54).

The research of both Mandelbrot and the theorists of chaos andcatastrophies proves to be extremely valuable. Its applications helpscientists refine synthetic images and study telephonic perturbations. Theyalso enable an accurate mapping of nature’s interactive dimensions andthe reinterpretation of baroque architecture by reconsidering the relationbetween the global shape of a building and the distribution of its ornaments(10). No matter which of these segments we may refer to, the impersonalfigures and equations that explain the fractal perspective are simplyirrelevant when compared to its easily accessible, universal beauty:

The beauty of fractals is accessible not just to scientists and engineers, butto everyone who has an eye for art.

(Hurd, 1989, p.1)

The application of fractal and chaos theories in the field of literaturemay be traced in several directions. One of them is resumed in the followingquestion: is literature, in general, and post-modern literature, in particular,a fractal unit? This supposition implies, on the one hand, the redefinitionof literature as a field of open tensions in which the authors and theirworks are rather erratically placed, and, on the other, the discovery of theordered “equation” (or “equations”) to be considered their commondenominator.

However, if the unifying factor is in itself the reiteration on severalscales of the initial fractal pattern (namely literature), then its “mathematic”redesigning turns out to be as difficult as Gaston and Rose Polymath’s

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attempt to measure the shore of Ombilicus! With no doubt, understandingliterature 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 establishwhat is literary “deviant” and “abnormal”. Such a perspective hardly takesinto account the erratic, non-linear characteristics of those splinters in thefield of tensions which we conventionally name “literature”.

To regard literature as a fractal unit therefore implies a strong argumentwith 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, Cãlinescu, 1941;Simion, 1978-1989; N. Manolescu, 1990; Ulici, 1995). Actually, literatureshould not be considered a wax museum where the public are bound towear gloves and protection glasses in order to visit it. Maybe it should beviewed as a space with chaotic geometry (some kind of an infinitelybranching fractal, on an infinity of scales), whose dimensions, styles,configurations and centres are being simultaneously and alternativelymultiplied. The result would by no means lie in the construction of aliterary monument, but in the shaping of a discontinuous, conflictualarchitecture (similar to the deconstructive one), capable of transformingthe museum in a series of changing holograms (I. Manolescu, 1996,pp.196-200). Such a specific post-modern synopsis would help thedesigning of what theorist Jim Collins calls intertextual arenas, namely:

[...] tension-filled environments that have enormous impact on theconstruction of both representations and the subjects which interact withinthem.

(1989, p.27)

The fractal perception of literature may be regarded as one of the majorgoals of post-modern theorists, even if they do not explicitly resort toMandelbrot’s mathematical vocabulary and instruments. We should quoteseveral such examples in an endless series of definitions or estimations ofpostmodernism’s features. For instance, the chains of postmodernismestablished by Ihab Hassan include the terms anarchy, hazard, dispersion(1982, pp.184-85) and fragmentation (1990, p.18); the strategies ofpostmodernism identified by David Lodge are related to discontinuity andhazard (1977, pp.220-45); Douwe W. Fokkema’s analysis of post-modernconventions follows the relation continuity vs. discontinuity and situatesinclusiveness and assimilation at the core of the post-modern semantic

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universe; last but not least, the simultaneously closed and open, entropicand negentropic character of post-modern literature is asserted andillustrated by Gerhard Hoffman’s examples (1996, pp.132-69).

Hence, even the terms postmodernism and fractal have something incommon, due to their mutual semantic ambiguity and the lack of criticalconsensus around their definitions. With respect to postmodernism, thisambiguity is still obvious more than half a century from the first use of theterm:

Nothing concerning the term is free from debate, nothing regarding it issatisfactory.

(McHale, 1989, p.3)

On the other hand, the lack of consistency in the definition of thefractal is being stated by its inventor:

Although the term fractal is defined in Chapter 3, I continue to believethat one would do better without a definition.

(Mandelbrot, 1983, p.361)

A second way in which fractals could be related to post-modernliterature is that of reconsidering the latter as a fractal dimension. Fromthis perspective, post-modern literature can be perceived as a fractalgeometry working between two dimensions: one of the cultural past (whichit systematically recycles) and the other of the future to come (which itanticipates by means of its most experimental forms). Between the twodimensions, postmodernism permanently negotiates its origins, while itsgenealogical determinations remain suspended in a paradoxical, blurredtemporality (Lyotard, 1979). Therefore, we deal with an infinitely diversedimension, whose fragmentations and foldings reflect on different scalesthe same repetitive, self-similar features. Ultimately, post-modern literaturecould be seen as an intermediate fractal dimension, among an infinitenumber of other possible fractal dimensions (history, mentalities, culture,the history of literature etc.).

To understand post-modern literature as a fractal dimension also raisesa problem of reading. Should post-modern novels be regarded as a literarydimension of ordered chaos? Then any reading would be necessarilyrelated to each of the dimensions in the proximity of the post-modernone. In other words, reading becomes a compelling intertextual,inter-cultural, inter-iconic act. Or, to put it in scientific terms, it becomesan inter-fractalic process.

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On the other hand, if post-modern literature does not alter its self-similarfeatures irrespective of the scales we decide to view it on, then two differentways of reading become possible: we may read a novel starting fromwhatever other post-modern one; or we may read the same novel startingfrom whatever point of its narrative. That is, in postmodernism, we mayread one single infinite novel, made of a series of other novels belongingto the post-modern age or to any other cultural period, or we may read alarge number of separate novels, starting from wherever we wished andending wherever we wanted (11). Both options are equally valid. Actually,the virtues of such a fractal reading (quite similar to the acceleratedpost-modern ways of reading, like browsing or scanning) are mentionedby many of the theorists in the field. John Briggs, for example, opens hisbook on Fractals.The Patterns of Chaos contending that:

Chaos and fractals are non-linear phenomena, so you are hereby invitedto avoid reading this book linearly. Try weaving your own fractal paththrough the text. Perhaps you started to do that when you first picked thebook up. Jumping around might seem a little chaotic, but that’s the patternunder discussion here.

(1992, p.11)

Finally, a third way in which a close connection between fractals andpost-modern literature can be accomplished is by identifying and defininga fractal perspective in post-modern fiction. In general, no matter the placeor level we intended to view it from, the relation between literature andfractal theory is based on a problem of perspectives. The reinterpretationof links between authors, texts and periods leads to a new kind ofperspective in literary history, whereas the reconsideration of proportionsin the relation reality-image emphasizes a new aesthetic sensibility,consistently illustrated in post-modern fiction. One deals here with a theoryof logical, narrative and iconic perspective, relying less on the endlessdeconstructive mirrorings and more on the chaotization of concepts suchas reality and image. One also has to find out the “subliminal” patternswhich reassemble these concepts.

In such particular cases, the decoding of the post-modern narrativecan 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 ofthe whole. Most of the time, the scale resulted from reading the text in afractal manner is simply a small fragment of a logical, psychological,philosophical, historical, literary, mediatic reality and so on, itself shattered

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to infinite pieces. Moreover, one must not forget that between thedimension of the whole and its pieces there are always other variousfractal dimensions.

The most convincing examples of fractal perspective in post-modernnarrative come from American fiction. With Thomas Pynchon, the narrativeis conceived as a fractal dimension dependent of the interaction of twoprinciples: the textual entropy and negentropy. Between brownian disorderand reordering, between chaotic dismemberment and reassembling,between increasing and decreasing, Pynchon’s narrative thermodynamicsfluctuates in one of the most weird fractal patterns. For instance, in hisshort story Entropy, published in 1960 and included in the volume SlowLearner (1984), the narrative itself is a fractal dimension whose patternsare released by the interaction of two spatial, iconic and thermodynamicdimensions: it connects two flats (situated one above the other and “sealedhermetically”) to the chaos of the outside town. By breaking a window,which may be seen as an act of destroying the symbolic seal betweenorder and chaos, the balance between the two dimensions is lost and thecharacters resignedly await a new and final form of equilibrium, that isthe thermic death of the universe:

[...] she turned to face the man on the bed and wait with him until themoment of equilibrium was reached, when 37 degrees Fahrenheit shouldprevail both outside and inside, and forever, and the hovering, curiousdominant of their separate lives should resolve into a tonic of darknessthe final absence of all motion.

(1985, p.94)

A similar phenomenon takes place in Pynchon’s novel The Crying ofLot 49 (1965), where by means of a device called The Nefastis Machinethe universe of thermodynamics is connected in a chaotic and orderedway to the informational one, while the narrative appears as a fractalfeed-back mechanism between these two universes. Without beingdescribed as such, the fractal condition of Thomas Pynchon’s narrativehas been approximated by some critics and theorists who have associatedit to interface fiction (Schaub, 1981, pp.103-20; partly, McHale, 1992,pp.236-37). Thomas S.Schaub, one of the most thorough investigators ofPynchon’s work, identifies several kinds of fictional interfaces in theAmerican writer’s novels:

Pynchon’s characters exist in the conditional space between the facts oftheir situations and the meaning these facts could have. The readers of

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Pynchon’s texts fill the same ambiguous space, because his stories do nothave an ending to tie form and meaning.

(1981, p.103)

Besides, the oblique, fractal relation reader-printed word- text, wheremeaning is often a medium, is usually mastered by characters who areengineers: they work on the interface between events and their explanation(John Nefastis, in The Crying of Lot 49; Tyrone Slothrop, in Gravity’sRainbow and so on).

The fractal perspective on which Pynchon’s texts are “engineered” adecade before Mandelbrot’s discovery results not only from the architectureof narrative interfaces, but also from the fictional distribution of fractalobjects or images. They are themselves a part of a larger random pattern.Thus, in Gravity’s Rainbow (1973), the trajectories of the falling GermanV2 rockets in Second World War London design a chaotic, yet orderedpattern: their points of impact tend to regroup in clusters similar to thegalactic ones (1975, p.222), while in The Crying of Lot 49 one of theprotagonists, Mucho Maas, finds the human face to have symmetries similarto those of the Rorschach spot (1979, p.11).

Nevertheless, the main fractal feature of Thomas Pynchon’s fictionresults from the interaction between dimensions and the degree in whichthe narrative space is filled. From this point of view, the deconstruction ofthe originary mimesis in an endlessly regressive series (from which the“model” has vanished) is followed by a pulverization of this series in chaoticshards: the relation “reality”-image is no longer dependent on thephenomenon of infinite mirrorings. Actually, it is caught in a dispersiveprocess through which mirrors reflect the shattered splinters and make upan intermediate picture of the patterns among them. What in visual arts isthe relation between the positive and negative space of a drawing, paintingor video [see, among others, Hofstadter’s analysis of Escher’s graphics(1989, pp.63, 67)], in Pynchon’s fiction becomes a way of narrativestructuring, with disturbing logical and iconic implications.

For example, in the novel Vineland (1990), the fractal shards of awindow through which the protagonist, Zoyd Wheeler, jumps (in order tocash an annual cheque for mentally disabled people) are being recomposedin the imperfect splinters of the different narrative episodes. This leads toboth a disordered and a precise narrative/iconic pattern. From a logicalperspective, the novel looks like a schizoid mixture of episodes (see alsothe name of the protagonist!), whereas from an iconic perspective, it has

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the appearance of a random, multi-dimensional space. The element whichunifies the fractures in the text is embodied by the presence of anomnipotent supra-narrator, some kind of a fractal God of the narrative;this textual God is shattered in an infinite number of pieces, but its merepresence allows him to control the conventions of dispersion, of dispersionwithin dispersion and of dispersion among other dispersions. Thus, bymeans of an authorial pantheism working on all possible scales, thepost-modern narrative displays its multiple perspectives within a generalpattern whose existence is emphasized by its very infinite imprecision.

Persuasive illustrations of fractal objects and dimensions are also to befound in John Barth’s novels. In The Tidewater Tales (1987), the tides ofthe ocean in Chesapeake Bay and the narrative’s tides in which Katherineand Peter Sagamore are, in turn, characters and fictional authors, tell morethan a story of symbolic coincidence. In a similar way, the increase anddecrease of Katherine’s sexual lust during her pregnancy and the increaseand the decrease of the told stories’ intensity stand for a chaotic, stillordered pattern of textual and iconic movement. Moreover, although themovement of the waves seems as hard to represent as the foetal slidingsinside the amniotic liquid, John Barth suggests both these two submit tothe 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 Voyageof Somebody the Sailor (1991), where the repetitions of “chaotic” narrativeand iconic details work on very different scales. For instance, a similarfractal unit is to be perceived in the pattern of the Atlantic Ocean, of theocean of stories on which Sindbad’s metafictional alter-ego, Somebodythe Sailor (himself a meta-meta-fictional projection of newspapermanSimon “Baylor” Behler) is sailing, and of the placentary ocean in whichSimon was born. Another fractal unit is represented by the neighbouringpresence of the chaotic Maryland shore and of the scorchings on the toastSimon eats during breakfast:

The scorchings on the egg-yellow field of my French toast made afalse-colour map of our tidewater county.

(1991, p.30)

Obviously, both Thomas Pynchon and John Barth’s fiction witness achaotically ordered relation between their narrative foldings and the

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foldings of different fictional objects (such as scorchings on a toast, scorcheson trees, fragments of windows and so on). It is the same relation as theone between the branching of a tree in nature and the vascular geometryof the human body. However, we should not necessarily confer objectivestatus to an always interpretable reality -since it depends on the perspectivethrough which the observer “reads” it; we also need not mechanicallyapply a pre-established reading mode, turned into an universal remedy.According to scientists, in the absence of the creator of this world, no onecan grasp the correct relation between observers and the object of theirobservation:

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 ofpost-modern literature is the problem of the ontological redefinition ofthe surrounding universe. Nevertheless, we should not associate such anendeavour with an attempt to submit the world to forceful aestheticpatterns, nor should we adopt it as a unique ontological code, since theworld does also exist otherwise than sensed by our human perception (forinstance, cats can “smell” colours, while bees have an ultra-violet spectrum“sight”). The fractal theory simply provides one of the many possibleanswers to the question: can chaos be ordered? -or, in other terms, are weable to measure the “unmeasurable”? Through it, universal asymmetrieshave been found a repetitive symmetry; at the same time, scientists andartists have drawn a transitory boundary between chaos and order, so asto illustrate the spectacular character of natural and artistic creation.

At this point of the analysis, we may discuss at least two importantissues: is the fractal “material” unlimited? and, if so, what would the roleof literature in ontologically redefining the world look like?

The examples concerning fractal applications selected frompost-modern American fiction are enough for an affirmative answer to thefirst question. However, recent Romanian novels such as those written byMircea Cãrtãrescu and Sebastian A. Corn prove the same thing.

In Mircea Cãrtãrescu’s novel Orbitor (1996), almost every micro andmacro-cosmic structure is bound to represent a fractal unit: from the atomsin the body of the narrator (himself named Mircea), to the particles ofstellar dust; from the wings of the Lorenz butterfly which haunts theprotagonist’s dreams and fantasies, to the random architecture of

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underground pipes in Doamna Ghica district; from the chaotic geometryof streets and avenues in Nicolae Ceauºescu’s Bucharest, to the neuronalmind patterns of the protagonist’s teen-aged friends:

Our cerebro-spinal body is the very proof we are worms of a large astralbeing.With its marrow like a root and with its two brain hemispheres liketwo plumpy cotyledons, it looks exactly like a small plant in its firstblooming stages.

(1996, p.61)

In other episodes of Cãrtãrescu’s novel, the suggestion of a universallyextended fractal network is even more poignant, while the narratologicaleffect 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 nucleusof the sun, gathered in a unifying force the entire pattern our mind perceivesat the time when it is allowed to perceive it. Inside, it had bubbles ofspace and strings, milky galactic streams and the planet’s political mapand the unpleasant smell of the neighbour’s mouth in the tram andJezechiel’s vision on the shore of the Chebar and each molecule of melaninin the freckles under the left eyebrow of the woman you undressed andmade love to the night before and the wax from the year of one ofArtaxerxes’ ten thousand immortal warriors and the bunch ofcatecolamynergic neurones in the rahidian bulb of a badger sleeping inthe forests of the Caucasus.

(1996, p.57)

In Sebastian A. Corn’s science-fiction novel Aquarius (1995), the actionsimultaneously and alternatively takes place in the real, historical Americaof John Kennedy and in the diffuse geography of the liquid tissues interactingin the president’s body and mind. These mysterious tissues are also populatedwith primitive humanoids, cyber-spatial sects and fractal assassins. However,the assassination of president Kennedy in his “real” dimension does notcancel the existence of the inner fractal dimensions, but reinforces it inother mental dimensions piled inside the president’s mind. Moreover, thenarrator’s conclusions become an infinitely branching fractal unit:

Actually, a conclusion regarding common things is no longer possible; ithas been replaced by a set of multiple conclusions. Piled over the logicsof biology, should it really exist. Should it be rational. A restart ofMandelbrot’s way of establishing tendencies, although starting from simplecause-effect statements.

(1995, p.209)

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The same examples may also provide an answer to the second questionconcerning the ontological redefining of the surrounding world. The fractalview of literature upon the universe is essentially a fictional transcript of anew kind of existential sensibility, where the dispersion of experiencedfacts is equal to that of imagined ones, logical and iconic associationsbetween symmetry and asymmetry have a common pattern and the“processing” of information is being achieved through zappings from oneperspective to the other.

Therefore, the discussion is focused on a new sensibility, allowing oneto access perceptive simultaneity and successivity without disturbing themind in a schizoid way. By means of systematic logical and iconicjuxtaposition, interpolation and overprint, which recent psychologists andtheorists 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 fractalelements, together with the deconstructive ones, provide multiple pathwaysto the realm of post-modern alternative aesthetics.

From this final, pluralist perspective, there is no question that bothdeconstruction and fractal theory have proved their ability to challengeour firm belief in the stability of rational artistic structures. In the future tocome, one may assume the switch to variable, hyper-rational patterns ofmind and art will be completed.

Notes

1. Even the term deconstruction suggests an undermining and a surpassing ofthe oppositional logic on which it is founded (construction/deconstruction).

2. However, we should still mention the fact that Derrida’s deconstructivephilosophy is conceived as an attack on the structuralist opposition betweensignifier and signified (1967, 1972 a). The Saussurian logical opposition isradically questioned on basis that there is no valid transcendent reason toconnect a certain signifier to a certain signified, in order to assert a unique,immobile meaning of that signified. In other words, Derrida criticizes thereduction of the signifier to a stable signified, that is he disagrees with thetendency of attributing the signifier a privileged position in the process ofmaking meaning. Instead, he asserts the existence of an infinitely regressivemovement of the signifiers (Derrida, 1972 b, p.38).

3. Here, the use of the oxymoron (“frozen perpetuum mobile”) was thought bestsuited to the explanation of the paradoxical logics of deconstruction in Escher’s

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graphics. As one may easily notice, the very deconstruction of a paradoximplies the use of paradox.

4. Actually, because of its simultaneously perfect and imperfect structure, the“geometry” of I.L.Caragiale’s story resembles the geometry of impossibleobjects, such as those in the graphics of Bruno Ernst, Oscar Reutersvard, Josde Mey (see, among others, Ernst, 1986, pp.62-67).

5. In semiotic research, the process is identified by Charles Sanders Peirce. Tohim, the process of signifying is equivalent to an infinite regression of thesignifiers (“interpretants”, as he calls them) towards a logical illimitation, thatis, towards an endless semiosis (Peirce, 1932, p.300; 1935, p.470).

6. In the field of logics, the profound motivations of unsolvable alternations arebeing analysed, among others, by Douglas Hofstadter, who tries to dismantlethe epistemological prejudices they created in time (1979, 1985).

7. Apart from the deconstructive philosophical context, the problem of accoladesalso has an explanation in the field of cognitive psychology. It may be foundin the attempts of several researchers to identify the mechanisms throughwhich mental imagery is being produced; functionally, these mechanismsare associated with the operations of computers: both are able to “copy” andstroboscopically process all the intermediary “steps” (Kosslyn, 1980).

8. The relation between a series of deterministic causes and the random effectsthey generate is discussed especially by chaos and catastrophy theorists. Insituations such as the evolution of stock exchange or the riots of prisoners,they are likely to detect unexpected “turbulent” effects, produced by linearcauses (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 ofugliness. Several mathematicians who have created fractals without havingany idea about what they meant (such as Waclaw Sierpinsi, David Hilbert orGeorg 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 tounderstand most of Escher’s drawings. They may be defined as dimensionallyambiguous and perspectivally polysemantic; so may several post-modernnovels (Pynchon, 1973; Cãrtãrescu, 1996).

11. The same kind of inter-changeable layered reading may also be applied topost-modern short stories, such as those included in the Romanian anthologyDesant’83 (1983). Here, although quite different, the stories of eighteen youngRomanian writers make up something like a Tel-Quelian novel of everydaylife.

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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 lascience, Paris, Galimard, 1979

Prince, Gerald, ”Notes on the Text as Reader”, in Suleiman/Crosman (eds.), 1980,see above

Pynchon, Thomas, Gravity’s 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, TwaynePublishers, 1992

Sander, Leonard M., ”Fractal Growth”, in Hurd (ed.), 1989Schaub, Thomas S., Pynchon:The Voice of Ambiguity, Urbana, Chicago, London,

University of Illinois, 1981Scholes, Robert, Textual Power.Literary Theory and the Teaching of English, New

Haven & London, Yale University Press, 1985Schwenk, Theodore, Sensitive Chaos.The Creation of Flowing Forms in Water

and Air, NY, Shocken Books, 1976 [first edition, in German:1965]Simion, Eugen, Scriitori români de azi, I-IV, Bucureºti, Cartea Româneascã,

1976-1989Smith, Cyril Stanley, From Art to Science.Seventy-Two Objects Illustrating the

Nature of Discovery, Cambridge, Massachusetts and London, England, MITPress, 1980, A Search for Structure.Selected Essays on Science, ibidem, 1981

Sollers, Philippe, Logiques, Paris, Seuil, 1968Stevens, Peter, Patterns in Nature, London, Penguin, 1977 [first edition: 1974]Stewart, Ian, Les Fractals.Les chroniques de Rose Polymath, Paris, Belin, 1972Stewart, Ian; Golubitsky, Martin, Fearful Symmetry.Is God a Geometer?, Oxford

UK & Cambridge USA, Blackwell, 1992Suleiman, 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, Bucureºti, Univers, 1977], Lemedianoche amoureux, Paris, Gallimard, 1989 [translated Amanþii taciturni,Bucureºti, Univers, 1992]

Ulici, Laurenþiu, Literatura romanã contemporanã, Bucureºti, Eminescu, 1995Vianu, Tudor, ”Dubla intenþie a limbajului ºi problema stilului”, in Arta prozatorilor

români, Editura Contemporanã, 1941Wells, H.G., The Time Machine and Other Stories, NY, Holt, 1895Wooley, Benjamin, Virtual Worlds.A Journey in Hype and Hyperreality, Oxford

UK & Cambridge USA, Blackwell, 1992

CÃTÃLIN PARTENIE

Born in 1962, in Piteºti, RomaniaB.A., University of Bucharest, 1986Ph.D., University of Glasgow, 1998

Dissertation: Plato’s Hypothetical MethodVisiting Assistant Professor of Philosophy, Bucharest Academy of

Fine Arts, 1998-99Research Fellow, Institute of Philosophy, Bucharest, 1995-1996Horia Georgescu Scholarship, University of Oxford, 1990-1991

University of Glasgow Doctoral Fellowship, 1991-1994Overseas 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-Universität Heidelberg,1994-1995

Bourse postdoctorale, Université du Québec à Montréal, 1999-2001Author of various articles and studies on Greek philosophy; co-translator

(into Romanian) of Plato’s Timaeus (1993); editor of the complete works ofPlato in Romanian (forthcoming)

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PLATONIC IMMORTALITY

REVISITED

This text is based on a series of lectures I gave in 1996-97 at the NewEurope College in Bucharest, as a NEC Fellow. The lectures were pitchedto an audience of scholars from all fields except philosophy. I am gratefulto Prof. Andrei Plesu, Father André Scrima, Mr. Alexandru Dragomir andall 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 doesexist, and the proof is that he does not want to get involved in anything. Iwould like to express my profound gratitude to Wissenschaftskolleg zuBerlin, the main patron of the New Europe College, for encouraging Godto get involved in this part of Eastern Europe. Finally, I wish to thank theNew Europe College for awarding me a NEC Fellowship. I dedicate thisessay to all my fellow Romanians who in December 1989 overcame theirfears and stood up for freedom.

On. Say on. Be said on. Somehow on. Tillnohow on. Said nohow on. [...] All of old.

Nothing else ever. Ever tried. Ever failed. Nomatter. Try again. Fail again. Fail better.

Samuel Beckett, Worstward Ho

I

Nowadays we seem to wonder more whether there is life after fiveo’clock than whether there is life after death. So, if we happen to seeWoody Allen’s Hannah and Her Sisters, we are bound to be more or lesssurprised, for this film deals precisely with the issue of afterlife (and withthat of Sein zum Tode, if I may use this Heideggerian expression).

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The character played by Woody Allen is a TV director who is ahypochondriac and who realizes, eventually, that his hypochondria iscaused by his fear of death. “If death means nothingness”, he says, “thenisn’t that enough to spoil everything?” He then seeks comfort in religion.He attempts to convert to Catholicism, but his father mocks him (“WhyJesus?” “Well, I know it sounds funny...”). Then he muses about joining aHare Krishna group, but he mocks himself (“You’re gonna shave yourhead and put on robes and dance around airports? You’ll look like JerryLewis. Oh God, I’m so depressed”). In the end, after he fails to shoothimself, he enters a cinema theatre where, looking at a most funny scenefrom 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 thepeople up there on the screen. You know, they’re really funny and, whatif the worst is true? What if there is no God, and you only go around onceand that’s it? Well, you know, don’t you want to be part of the experience?You know, what the hell, it’s not all a drag. Geez, I should stop ruining mylife searching for answers I’m never going to get, and just enjoy it while itlasts. And, you know, after, who knows? I mean, you know, maybe thereis something. Nobody really knows.

Allen’s character is, as I said, a TV director and he has his illuminationabout afterlife in a cinema theatre, while he watches a Marx Brothersfilm. We, the spectators, may experience the same illumination while wewatch, in a cinema theatre, this Woody Allen film. Here, however, weare in medialand and that should make us suspicious. Films are addressedto the masses, to hoi polloi, the vulgus, to das Man himself; so thisillumination may contain just a lay view about afterlife.

The most successful experts are nowadays the scientists. What do thescientists say about afterlife? Do they claim that the most reasonable thingto 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 accompaniedby its own vulgata. But things have deteriorated lately, for we, the lay public,can hardly follow nowadays any scientific vulgata (in 1995 the Universityof Oxford announced a vacant readership in the public understanding ofscience; let us hope that they will come up with something).

New Europe College, where we are now, is an institute for advancedstudies in the humanities. We, the experts in humanities that form itscommunity, must admit that we do not have a clue about what the scientistssay about afterlife. We only know that some of them, after they have wonthe Nobel Prize, start to talk about God, but no one, apparently, takes

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them seriously when they do this. So, all we can do, hic et nunc, is to seewhat the experts in humanities have to say about afterlife.

Maintenant, sur une immense terrasse d’Elsinore, qui va de Bâle à Cologne,qui touche aux sables de Nieuport, aux marais de la Somme, aux craiesde Champagne, aux granits d’Alsace — l’Hamlet européen regarde desmilliers de spectres. Mais il est un Hamlet intellectuel. Il médite sur la vieet la mort des vérités. Il a pour fantômes tous les objets de nos controverses;il a pour remords tous les titres de notre gloire [...]. S’il saisit un crâne,c’est un crâne illustre. — Whose was it? — Celui-ci fut Lionardo. [...] Et ceautre crâne est celui de Leibniz qui rêva de la paix universelle. Et celui-cifut Kant qui genuit Hegel, qui genuit Marx, qui genuit ... Hamlet ne saittrop que faire de tous ces crânes. Mais s’il les abandonne! ... Va-t-il cesserd’être lui-même?

These are Paul Valéry’s words1. They manage, I think, to express verywell what happens to the modern humanist, who, unlike the modernscientist, is haunted by the history of his own discipline and who cannotmake sense of any problem if he does not unfold its history. So, if we raisethe question about afterlife to a modern humanist, we are bound to endup with something about the history of the doctrines and views that regardthe issue of afterlife.

Like any other expert, the modern humanist is someone who managesto know something well because he, inter alia, has narrowed down to theextreme 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 thehistory of this question. My field is philosophy, and within this field I havenarrowed down my interest to one philosopher – Plato. So, if one asks mewhat I have to say about afterlife, I shall offer him an account of what Platosays about it. But, how relevant can be for us such a small segment of thehistory of the doctrines and views that regard the issue of afterlife? Let usfirst see, however, what Plato has to say about this issue.

II

“The most appealing account of the Big Bang I’ve ever read”, claimsSalman Rushdie in his Imaginary Homelands, “was written by Italo Calvinoin his marvellous Cosmicomics. In the beginning, we’re told by Calvino’snarrator, the proto-being Qfwfq, ‘Every point of each of us coincided with

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every point of each of the others in a single point, which was where weall were ... it wasn’t the sort of situation that encourage sociability.’ Thena certain Mrs Ph(i)Nko cried out, ‘Oh, if only I had some room, how I’dlike to make some noodles for you boys!’ And at once — bam! — there itwas: spacetime, the cosmos. Room.”2

In Plato’s late writings there are several accounts of the soul’simmortality and afterlife. They are a mixture of traditional legends andPlatonic myths, linked with a cosmology that is even stranger than ItaloCalvino’s account of the Big Bang – a cosmology that involves a Demiurge,human reincarnation and many other curious things. We certainly do notwant to rush into that. We had better start chronologically. (The modernhumanists are so addicted to unfolding stories, that they would use anyexcuse for a chronological approach.)

Plato’s earlier writings, the so-called Socratic dialogues, are dominatedby their main character, namely Socrates, who was Plato’s guru. Socratesis the weirdest philosopher ever. When the Delphic god was asked who isthe 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, buteventually he came to the conclusion that all his fellow citizens – poets,politicians, sophists, skilled craftsmen – were less wise than he (for theyall claimed they knew something without actually knowing it). And so, heproved the god’s oracle to be true. Obviously, he annoyed everybody.Soon after he was brought before an Athenian court on a most ridiculouscharge (corrupting the minds of the young and believing in other deitiesinstead of the gods recognized by the state); and, eventually, he wascondemned to death. The fact that all this happened in a democratic Athensis usually taken as an accident; for philosophers, we believe, have alwaysbeen safe in a democratic regime. To this, Heidegger replies: it is true thatSocrates seems to be the only philosopher killed by a democracy; but thisis more likely to mean that, since the time of Socrates, not a singlephilosopher of his stature has ever lived in a democracy4. Mais passons;regardless of whether this is or not true, Socrates remains the most singularand eccentric philosopher.

Part of his eccentricity consists in his refusal to write anything. Hewould have perished of course, had Plato (and a few others) not writtenabout him. As far as Plato’s account of Socrates’ views is concerned, thereare no reliable means to determine its fidelity to them (the moment weapproach Plato, we are faced with the issue of original and copy.) This is,however, what Socrates says about death at the end of Plato’s Apology

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(one of Plato’s earlier writings, which contains, allegedly, the speech givenby Socrates in his defence at the trial):

Death is one of two things. Either it is annihilation and the dead have noconsciousness of anything, or, as we are told, it is really a change — amigration of the soul from this place to another. Now if there is noconsciousness but only a dreamless sleep, death must be a marvellousgain [for it is like a one single resting night – cf. 40 c 9-d 1]. [...] If on theother hand death is a removal from here to some other place, and if whatwe are told is true, that all the dead are there, what greater blessing couldthere be than this, gentlemen? [For that would mean that one can entertainhimself with all the famous man that have ever lived and with all thehalf-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 aneternal dreamless sleep as appealing as Socrates did, while others mightbe reluctant to mingle with half-divinities for ever. But apart from thesepeculiarities, Socrates appears, surprisingly, fairly sensible in his viewsabout afterlife, for he simply says that death is either a conscious or anon-conscious state.

Plato’s views on the matter, however, are less sensible; and yet, one ofthem, 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 inthe Apology, he “is not referring literally to Socrates; he has merely takenmy name as a paradeigma” (23 a 8-b). A paradeigma is, in this context, aninstance or embodiment of something. It seems then that Socrates, Plato’sspiritual 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 doesSocrates embody?

In the Crito, when Crito asks Socrates to run away from prison andsave his life, Socrates says: “[...] it has always been my nature never toaccept advice from any of my friends unless reflection shows that it is thebest 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, 84a-b). He embodies then, we may say, the possibility of living according toreason.

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Now, most of us also claim to live according to reason. Does thatmean that Socrates and we embody the same thing? Obviously, we arenot as serene as he was when we contemplate the finitude of our life. Wedo 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 wheneverwe live according to what our reason tells us, we embody the same thingas he did and so we resemble him. Only that our embodiment of a life ledby reason is not as resistant and enduring as his; that is: we are not ascommitted to our reason as he was to his, and we cannot live all the timeaccording to what reason tells us, as he did.

Socrates, says Alcibiades in the Symposium, “does not resemble anyother 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, andso what differentiates him from other men, is his remaining the same forthe 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 somethingwhich does not agree with what he believes reason recommends us asbeing 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 divinemust always remain the same is to be found in many ancient religiousdoctrines, 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 thisbelief? This is a very difficult question, which I cannot enter here; but thismotif of remaining the same, which Socrates brought forward in his life, isinterwoven with all major Platonic themes.

In the Symposium Plato claims that human beings (like all mortalcreatures) are always changing (207 d-e), and so they cannot, like thedivine, be fully and always the same (208 a). Not even Socrates, we maysay, going along with Plato’s thought; although he always listens to whatreason has to say, Socrates grows older too and thus he is not fully andalways the same. So, Plato concludes, the only way in which man partakesof what is always the same is by perpetuating himself, i.e. by “leavingbehind 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 eachindividual man during his life), is nothing but a longing for maintainingthe sameness of the human race (cf. for instance 206 e, 207 a, 212 a). Avery similar view occurs in the Laws (allegedly, Plato’s last work), at 721

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b-c; here, claiming that a man should marry when he has reached the ageof 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 winrenown and not lie in our graves without a name is a desire of this. Thusthe race of man is time’s equal twin and companion, bound up with himin a union never to be broken, and the manner of their immortality is inthis wise. By succession of generations the race [of man] abides one andthe same [tauton kai hen on aei], so partaking in immortality throughprocreation.

That is: it is the human race that has (actually: can have) an endlessduration, not the individual soul. This implies that there is no actual afterlifeand conveniently solves the whole matter. Thus, the Symposium and theLaws contain a view of the soul’s immortality that seems, to us, quitereasonable (though in the Book X of the Laws things are slightly morecomplicated). In the Phaedo, however, Plato argues that it is the individualsoul 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’ lastconversation with some of his friends. Socrates knows that he will soondie and he tells his friends, as he told the jury at his trial, that he looksforward to it.

If I did not expect to enter the company, first, of other wise and goodgods, and secondly of men now dead who are better than those who arein 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 youthat I shall insist most strongly — that I shall find there divine masters whoare supremely good. That is why I am not so much distressed as I mightbe, and why I have a firm hope that there is something in store for thosewho have died, and, as we have been told for many years, somethingmuch better for the good than for the wicked.

(63 b-c)

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This echoes what he said in the Apology. Now, however, he is Plato’svoice and he is caught up in a scenario that has at stake an elaboratedphilosophical construction.

Cebes, one of those listening to Socrates’ brave words, says that, afterall, “it requires no little faith and assurance to believe that the soul existsafter death and retains some active force and intelligence” (70 b). Socrates,in response, produces several arguments that, in his view, demonstratethat the soul is immortal: one about the existence of pure knowledge (63e-67 a); one about opposites (70 d-71 e); one that introduces the so-calledtheory 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 modernreader. The one about opposites, for instance, states that, since “everythingwhich has an opposite is generated from that opposite and from no othersource” (70 e), and since death is the opposite of living (71 c), the livingmust 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 ofthese arguments, however, the one that introduces the so-called theory ofrecollection, is a most complex philosophical argument. It resumes, in adifferent form, the argument about pure knowledge and it goes like this:“if what we call learning is really just recollection, [...] then surely whatwe recollect now we must have learned at some time before, which isimpossible unless our souls existed somewhere before they entered thishuman 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 seldomunderstand what does in fact happen when we see something. When welook 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 asa tree, that one as a mountain; which means that when we look at thingswe instantly identify them as being what they are. Now, in order to identifyan object as something, say that thing over there as being a chair, I mustrealize 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 ofchair, in that thing over there. This act of recognizing a particular aspectin a given object brings forth a can of philosophical worms, which wasfirst opened by Plato.

If in looking at things we identify them as being what they are, thenour seeing is not actually a mere visual sensation: it is rather a sort of aninterpretation, in which I see something as something. In which case we

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should say that that which must be responsible for this interpretation, forthis hermeneutic experience (to be pretentious), cannot be my eyes, butmy mind. Plato stresses out this point explicitly in the Theaetetus, a dialoguewritten 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, dowe see with the eyes or do we see with something else — “a soul, orwhatever is to be called” (184 d) — through the eyes, as they would bemerely an instrument? And Plato’s answer is very clearly stated: we seethrough the eyes with the soul (184 d). Let us go back, however, to thePhaedo.

Here the question of recognizing specific aspects in the things we lookat is explicitly put; at 74 e-75 a and 75 b ff., for instance, Plato bringsforward the case of seeing equal things:

We must have had some previous knowledge of equality before the timewhen we first saw equal things and realized that they were striving afterequality, but fell short of it. […So] before we began to see and hear anduse our other senses we must somewhere have acquired the knowledgethat there is such a thing as absolute equality. Otherwise we could neverhave realized, by using it as a standard for comparison, that all equalobjects of sense are desirous of being like it, but are only imperfect copies.

Here in the Phaedo Plato calls the act of recognizing specific aspectsin the things we look at anamnêsis, recollection (73 c-d, 74 c-d; cf. also73 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 renderedin English by “form”. (Both eidos and idea contain an implicit reference tosight, 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 Plato’s terms: when we look at an object and see it as being aparticular object, say, an arrow (or as having a particular feature – say, asbeing equal to another arrow), we actually recollect the form, the idea ofarrow 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 anactual doctrine about them, usually referred to as his theory of forms. Hebelieved, however, that to know what a form actually is, say, the form ofequality, it is not enough to recollect it in the various equal things we seearound 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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likely to prevent us from reaching true knowledge). But we have to leaveall this aside and focus on our subject – recollection and immortality.

If seeing implies a recollection of forms, then we must somehow knowthat form beforehand; and this brings forth the question of when we firstcame to know all those forms. In the Phaedo he claims that the rightanswer 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 surelywhat we recollect now we must have learned at some time before, whichis impossible unless our souls existed somewhere before they entered thishuman shape.

So, Plato argues, if your soul existed before your birth, it will continue toexist after your death, which means that your soul is immortal (athanaton)and imperishable (adiaphthoron) (102 b-106 e). And if all this is so, heconcludes, then after death soul reaches pure knowledge (66 e); and,eventually, it is reincarnated and lives another earthly life (81 d ff.), butwithout 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 theso-called theory of forms, which is introduced as a theory that explainsthe way our soul knows things (e.g. our recognizing forms in the thingswe look at). And immortality is an issue that is brought forth by the issuesof recollection and reincarnation. That is: immortality, as it appears in thePhaedo, is a question that occurs within the broader context of Plato’sway of putting the problem of knowledge (cf. 92 d: “the theory that oursoul exists even before it enters the body surely stands or falls with thesoul’s possession [of the forms]”). This theoretical package about formsand recollection, however, comes with an ethical point, which, in itsturn, brings forth a complex and fantastical eschatology.

IV

In the Phaedo, Plato attaches to the theory of recollection a mostunexpected argument, which may be summarized as follows. (i) Theknowledge that we recollect is a pure knowledge of forms (66 d), i.e. aknowledge 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 accessto this pure knowledge is not democratic; “for one who is not pure himself

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to attain the realm of purity would no doubt be a breach of universaljustice” (67 b) (cf. also 82 b-c: “no soul which is not absolutely pure whenit 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 possiblefrom the body” (67 c). (iv) So, one should attempt to accomplish thisseparation in his earthly life (67 b, 69 d, 84 a-b); yet, this “desire to freethe soul [from the body] is found chiefly, or rather only, in the truephilosophers” (67 d), who seem thus to “make dying their profession” (67e) 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 thisan 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 alsofrom their own wickedness together with the soul, but as it is, since thesoul is clearly immortal, it can have no escape or security from evil exceptby becoming as good and wise as it possibly can.

I do not think that this inference – “since the soul is immortal, it canhave no escape or security from evil except by becoming as good andwise as it possibly can” – is safe from objections. And the claim madefurther on, at 107 d, that the soul takes with it to the next world not onlyits education (paideia, i.e. its knowledge in a very broad sense) but alsothe way it has lived, is simply postulated. One may accept that if knowledgeis recollection, then soul must be immortal in order to acquire that pureknowledge that makes possible the act of recollection; and that if pureknowledge is easier to acquire when the soul has purified itself in itsearthly life through philosophy, then one should consider the practice ofphilosophy very seriously. But the view that one should be not only aswise, but also as good as one possibly can is, apparently, not grounded onanything.

Plato, however, construes in the Phaedo a complex eschatology, atthe core of which lies the idea that soul, in its afterlife, is judged and thenpunished, or rewarded (as the case may be), for its moral conduct in itsearthly life (107 d-108 a, 113 d) (an idea that was also expounded, in adifferent form, in the Gorgias 523 ff.; cf. also R. 614 b-621 d); and heargues that when soul is reincarnated, its reincarnation and its new life ispart of the punishment or the reward for what it did in its former earthlylife (see for instance 81 e: “those who have cultivated gluttony andselfishness or drunkenness, instead of taking pains to avoid them, are likely

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to assume the form of donkeys and other perverse animals [when they arereincarnated]”). Here is a sample of this eschatology as it occurs in thePhaedo:

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 certainplace where all must assemble, and from which, after submitting theirseveral cases to judgement, they must set out for the next world, under theguidance of one who has the office of escorting souls from this world tothe other. When they have there undergone the necessary experiencesand remained as long as is required, another guide brings them back againafter many vast periods of time. Of course this journey is not as Aeschylusmakes Telephus describe it. He says that the path to Hades isstraightforward, but it seems clear to me that it is neither straightforwardnor single. If it were, there would be no need for a guide, because surelynobody could lose his way anywhere if there were only one road. In fact,it seems likely that it contains many forkings and crossroads, to judgefrom the ceremonies and observances of this world. Well, the wise anddisciplined 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, hoversround it and the visible world for a long time, and it is only after muchresistance and suffering that it is at last forcibly led away by its appointedguardian spirit. And when it reaches the same place as the rest, the soulwhich is impure through having done some impure deed, either by settingits hand to lawless bloodshed or by committing other kindred crimes whichare 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 somethingabout Plato’s 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 havesucceeded to their own satisfaction in reading the dialogues that they call‘critical’ as primitive essays in their own philosophical method. The authorof these works, they feel, they could adopt as their worthy precursor, if onlyhe could be absolved of the embarrassing doctrine of ideas that he elaboratedin all its metaphysical and epistemological absurdity in the Phaedo, theSymposium, the Republic, and the Phaedrus”8. Well, if you think you havea difficulty in accepting Plato’s theories from the Phaedo, you had betterhave 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 thelatter somehow embody the former. So we have to admit that there aretwo main ontological realms — that of the forms and that of their sensibleembodiments. And this brings forth the question of the nature of the relationbetween forms and their embodiments.

In the Phaedo Plato says that this relation is causal, in the sense thatthe forms are responsible for the way their sensible embodiments are (100c-d). But he does not determine this causal relation (which he refers to bythe obscure verb metechein, usually rendered in English by “to partakeof”) (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 aff.), he describes this relation as a model-copy relation; that is: the formswe 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 heclaims the Cratylus, “you cannot know that which has no state” (440 a);because, in other words, “we cannot reasonably say that there is knowledgeat 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, surfacesagain). You may have never thought about it, but here Plato is certainlyright: only that which remains the same can be known. That table overthere is obviously quite old; its colour has become uncertain and its drawerslook stuck. But I still recognize it, I have sat at it many times. Yet, Platowould claim, each time you looked at that table, your mind saw, throughyour eyes, only unchanging forms – the form of table, the form of drawer.

And here comes the Timaeus, which makes everyone interested inPlato’s philosophy despair. Plato develops in this dialogue the model-copyidea by claiming that the whole universe is a product framed from aprimordial given matter (52 d), by a Demiurge (28 a ff., 29 d-e, 31 b) andother gods, who had an ideal model in front of their eyes (30 c), i.e. anideal 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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Time, claims Plato, is a “moving image of eternity” (37 d). In otherwords: 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. Onemay 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 asa limited duration. This interpretation, however, has to cope with a majordifficulty, 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) isendless: the created universe, he says at 38 c, “has been and is and willbe in all time” (cf. also 33 a, where it is claimed that the existence of theuniverse is not limited by old age and disease).

Plato says very little about what eternity is, and this very little is arather confusing phrase, namely that “eternity remains in one” (37 d).What could this “one” mean here? Plato does not explicitly say, in theTimaeus or elsewhere, what this “one” might be. According to severalAncient scholars the Platonic notion of eternity should be understood as atimeless present9. In which case we should read the phrase from 37 d likethis: “eternity [is: to] remain in the same one [now]”, and we should takeeternity as a “remaining in the same now”, and time as a “moving fromone now to another”. The Latin scholars, who were very good at findingclear-cut expressions for the obscure thoughts of the Greek philosophers,called the timeless present of eternity nunc stans, and the running presentof time nunc fluens; and Boethius is credited with introducing anotherclever pair of Latin words into all this: sempiternitas, for the endlessnessof 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 therealm of that which is always the same, i.e. the realm of forms, should beunderstood as existing in a nunc stans, i.e. as being eternal, while thesensible embodiments of the forms as existing in a nunc fluens, i.e. asbeing sempiternal.

If so, what happens to the human soul? Is it eternal? If eternity is “toremain in a single now”, then a soul cannot be eternal during the time inwhich it is embodied in a man, for during this time it exists in the movingnow of time. Yet a soul, one might argue, can be eternal after the death ofthe 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 ifthere 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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general cannot be separated from motion; cf. also Tht. 153 b-c: “soulacquires knowledge and is kept going and improved by learning andpractice, which are of the nature of movements”). Yet in the Phaedo (andin some later dialogues, such as the Phaedrus 246-249), Plato claims thatonly 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, afterit witnessed the harmony of the world and fate (616 ff.), journeys to thePlain 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 inwhich it is not perceiving anything any more (and this complete oblivionis 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 I’m never goingto get, and just enjoy it while it lasts” – one can say, borrowing this linefrom Woody Allen’s character in Hannah and Her Sisters. Almost all ofPlato’s Socratic dialogues, however, end up in an aporia; and for him anaporia 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 practicaladvice about luggage which goes like this: when you pack, put in onlythe necessary things; then take them all out and put back only half ofthem. 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 leftout, that is, half of the things I first considered necessary for a brief accountof Plato’s views on immortality and I confined myself to the task of stressinga few points he makes about it in the Symposium, the Phaedo and theTimaeus10.

Now, does my account of Plato’s views on immortality describeaccurately his thoughts? My account is just one interpretation amongstmany; and there is no widely accepted interpretation of Plato’s philosophy(like there is one of, say, Newton’s physics). Suppose, however, that Plato

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himself would endorse my account of his views and let us ask ourselves ifthese views are true.

In Oedipus Wrecked, if I may refer to another Woody Allen film (whichis his segment of New York Stories), Allen’s character listens to a womanwho plays something very nice on the piano; she is a fortune-teller and amagician 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, “Iwas a musician in a former life”. Most of us find this joke funny andPlato’s doctrine of reincarnation ridiculous.

Some of us may accept several philosophical points made by Plato’stheory of forms. But most of us would find embarrassing the countlessfantastical details that occur in his philosophical accounts of the origin ofthe universe and afterlife. And it is precisely these fantastical details thatalmost convince us that his views could not be true. The Renaissancescholars found Plato’s mythical explanations of the universe ratherseductive, but in the long run these explanations provoked the hostility ofthe majority of modern scientists. There are nevertheless a few notableexceptions to this severe excommunication – such as Heisenberg orPopper, to cite only the best known names – who claim that Plato’sexplanations of the universe have influenced many important scientists,from Galileo to Kepler, Newton, and even Einstein. But, most of the modernscientists tend to consider Plato an illustrious representative of Greekpseudo-science; and we are quite tempted, I would guess, to say they areright 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 withphilosophical matters, with what is most abstract, we cannot but produce,eventually, various metaphors. Can we rely on a metaphor? According toPlato, we certainly can, for according to him metaphorical language hasheuristic powers, i.e. it has a certain ability to lead us to truth (cf. Ti. 48 dand 53 d-e). But why did he hold such a view?

Roughly speaking, Plato’s fantastical stories aim at finding a non-abstractembodiment for an abstract matter, in such a way that that embodiment(partially) reveals that which is embodied in it (cf. what he says in thePoliticus, at 277 d: “It is difficult […] to demonstrate anything of realimportance without the use of examples. Every one of us is like a manwho sees things in a dream and thinks that he knows them perfectly andthen 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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by the fact that the forms are embodied, and thus partially revealed, bythe sensible things. That is: for Plato the fact that we can (partially) expressabstract ideas through non-abstract terms is grounded on the fact that thesensible is a “manifestation” of the intelligible.

So, we may conclude, for Plato a philosophical account of the originof the universe and afterlife cannot be phantasm-free (for the unfolding ofthese subjects requires, besides an abstract, yet rough framework, anamount of fantastical details); and these details, insofar as they embodysomething 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-physicsand meta-phorical discourse correspond to each other in their attempt togo beyond, meta, what is before our senses)11. This is a very refinedexplanation of Plato’s use of fantastical stories. But it somehow fails topersuade us to believe that his fantastical cosmology and eschatologymay lead us to truth.

Whitehead is credited with a saying that has made a beautiful career:“the safest general characterisation of the European philosophical traditionis that it consists of a series of footnotes to Plato”12. For many philosophersthis is simply an exaggeration, though no one could deny Plato’s enormousinfluence on the history of philosophy. But, you may ask, if his philosophyseems so unlikely to be true, then, apart from satisfying a historical interest,à quoi bon lire Platon?

VII

Plato claims in the Phaedo that his eschatology is accessible only tothe true philosophers (67 d, 80 e, 83 b) and that it is quite different fromthe views entertained by the “masses” (64 b, 68 c, 77 b, 80 d, 83 e). Andin the Timaeus, his cosmology is presented as being the view of one who“has scaled the heights of all philosophy” (20 a), namely Timaeus (thecharacter who tells Socrates and a few others the story of the creation ofthe 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, andeven if we found him, to tell of him to all men would be impossible”). So,we may say, we are apprehensive about Plato’s fantastical cosmologyand eschatology because we are not true philosophers. What is then forhim a true philosopher?

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Plato’s most famous myth is the so-called myth of the cave, from theRepublic. 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 someshadows projected on the wall of the cave which they believe are truebeings (cf. 515 c). One of them, however, escapes from his fetters andrealizes that the shadows seen before on the wall of the cave are onlyshadows (515 c ff.), and that the true light and the true beings are outsidethe cave (516 a ff.). The sun, which generates the true light, seems here tobe 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, theDivided 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 analogyfor “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 thePhaedo 107 c-d that it is a thing the soul takes with itself to the nextworld)? After Socrates told his audience the myth, he says that educationis not “what some people proclaim it to be in their professions”, whenthey 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 thisanalogy (which is at the core of the myth of the cave), education appearsas the process of turning one’s eyes from darkness to light (518 a-c). Thatis: education is not like an art of producing vision in an eye, but, “on theassumption that it [i.e. the eye] possesses vision but does not rightly directit 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) exceptby “turning the whole body” (without which the eye cannot be broughtoutside the cave); and, he continues, so it is with knowledge, which requires“a turning around of the entire soul” (periagôgê tês holês psuchês) fromthe world of becoming to the world of ideas, of which the brightest one isthe idea of the good (518 c-d). And he concludes: “a conversion andturning about of the soul from a day whose light is darkness to the veritableday [is] that ascension to reality of our parable which we will affirm to betrue philosophy” (521 c).

Most of us will certainly look with suspicion at the claim that theultimate goal of one’s education is to grasp, sometimes through metaphors

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or fantastical stories, the principle of everything, which one can comparewith the sun and call “the good”. Yet, we must admit, the idea thateducation implies the effort to see things differently does appeal to us. Wemay even put everything in Kuhn’s terms and say that each one lives in aparadigm, which becomes, eventually, one’s own cave. So, we mayconclude, one’s spiritual growth (i.e. his paideia) depends on his attemptto escape from such a paradigm and experience something else. If so,then even a particular philosophy, say the Platonic one, may turn into acave, outside of which there is a world full of other disciplines and pointsof 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 givenphantasms about immortality that surround us and attempt to reach anotherpoints of view about it, even if some of them, like the Platonic ones, arenothing more than a collection of more sophisticated phantasms. Onecould 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 isimportant is the attempt to grasp the ultimate, singular truth. But he wouldcertainly encourage us to do whatever we can to challenge all the viewsand opinions that we take for granted and turn our mind from what isfamiliar to us to what makes us wonder and lead us to an aporia. So, ifthinking about afterlife and what Plato has to say about it will do, thenwhy look further?

Notes

1. La Crise de l’esprit, Oeuvres (Paris: Gallimard, Bibliothèque de la Pléiade,1957) t.1, 993.

2. S. Rushdie, Imaginary Homelands: Essays and Criticism 1981-1991 (London:Granta, 1991), 262.

3. References to Plato’s text are given by means of the marginal sigla derivedfrom the pagination and page subdivision of the Stephanus edition of Plato’sworks (1578). The abbreviations I use are those of the Liddell-Scott-Jones’sGreek-English Dictionary (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1961).

4. M. Heidegger, Vom Wesen der Wahrheit. Zu Platons Höhlengleichnis undTheätet (Frankfurt am Main: Vittorio Klostermann, 1988), Gesamtausgabe,Band 34, 84-5.

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5. Translations of Plato’s 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 scopeof this essay, however, does not permit a proper discussion of it.

7. Before souls are reincarnated, he says in the Republic, they journey to thePlain of Oblivion and there they drink from the River of Forgetfulness, thuslosing that pure knowledge they reached after they separated from they formerbodies (621 a-b).

8. H. Cherniss, “The Relation of the Timaeus to Plato’s Later Dialogues”, TheAmerican Journal of Philology (1957) LXXVIII, 3, 234.

9. See for instance Proclus in Tim., Diehl, 3, 51, 11.15-21 and Plotinus III, 3, 20ff..

10. In the Politicus, which comes, chronologically, between the Phaedo and theTimaeus, Plato introduces a rather strange cosmological account that can besummarised as follows:

(i) The universe has two alternating cosmic eras: the reign of Kronus, in whichtime moves from past to future (making that “with which it moves” older), andthe reign of Zeus, in which time moves from future to past (making that “withwhich it moves” younger) (269 a-270 e).

(ii) In the reign of Kronus “all men rose up anew into life out of the earth, havingno 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 outof the ground without man’s toil” (272 a).

(iii) In the reign of Zeus, God abandons men. “[...] things go well enough in theyears immediately after he abandons control, but as time goes on andforgetfulness of God arises in it [the world], the ancient condition of chaosalso begins to assert its sway” (273 c-d). (“At last, as this cosmic era draws toits close, this disorder comes to a head. The few good things it produces itcorrupts with so gross a taint of evil that it hovers on the very brink ofdestruction, both of itself and of the creatures in it. The God looks upon itagain, he who first set it in order. Beholding it in its troubles, and anxious forit lest it sink racked by storms and confusion, and be dissolved again in thebottomless abyss of unlikeness, he takes control of the helm once more. Itsformer sickness he heals; what was disrupted in its former revolution under itsown impulse he brings back into the way of regularity, and, so ordering andcorrecting it, he achieves for it its agelessness and deathlessness” — 273 d-e.)

Could this account be integrated in the larger picture I have retrievedfrom the Symposium, the Phaedo and the Timaeus? In my view, it could; butmost Plato scholars do not like combining Plato’s doctrines that belong todialogues written in different periods and so every claim of this kind needs acareful argumentation. Given the limited space I have at my disposal here, Ihave 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 discoursecorrespond to each other in their attempt to “emporte les mots et les chosesau-delà..., meta... revient à dire que tout l’usage de l’analogie, en apparenceneutre au regard de la tradition ‘métaphysique’, reposerait à son insu sur unconcept métaphysique d’analogie qui désigne le mouvement de renvoi duvisible à l’invisible; la primordiale ‘iconicité’ serait ici contenue: ce qui,fondamentalement, fait ‘image’, ce serait le visible tout entier; c’est saressemblance à l’invisible qui le constituerait comme image; conséquemment,la toute première transposition serait le transfert du sens de l’empirie dans le‘lieu intelligible’” (La Métaphore vive, Paris, 1975, 366). This view is to befound in several other philosophers, such as Heidegger, who claims, in DerSatz vom Grund, (Pfullingen, 1957, 89) that “das Metaphorische gibt es nurinnerhalb der Metaphysik”.

12. A. N. Whitehead, Process and Reality: An Essay in Cosmology (New York,1929), 62.

CRISTIAN PREDA

Né en 1966, à BucarestDocteur en sciences politiques à l’Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences

Sociales, Paris, 1998Thèse : Le libéralisme du désespoir. Tradition libérale et critique du

totalitarisme (1938-1960)Maître de conférence à la Faculté des Sciences Politiques et Administratives,

Université de BucarestConseiller présidentiel, Département de politique publique, bureau des

analyses politiques internes,à partir de 1999

Rédacteur des revues Sfera Politicii (1992-1996) et Polis, à partir de 1995Coordonnateur de la collection “Societatea politicã” des Editions Nemira,

Bucarest, a partir de décembre 1998Membre de la « Social Science Center » de l’Université de Bucarest, 1993-1994

Membre de l’Association roumaine de sciences politiques, à partir de 1995Membre du Groupe de Dialogue Social, Bucarest, à partir de 1995

Membre du Centre d’Etudes Politiques de l’Université de Bucarest, à partir de1995

Bourse du gouvernement français, Paris I Panthéon Sorbonne, 1990-1994Bourse AUPELF-UREF, EHESS, Paris, 1995

Bourse Tempus, Université Libre de Bruxelles, 1996Bourse du gouvernement français, EHESS Paris, 1998

Livres:

Modernité politique et «roumanité». Bucarest, Nemira, 1998Notre Occident. Bucarest, Nemira, 1999

Le libéralisme du désespoir. Tradition libérale et critique du totalitarisme dansles années 1938-1960. Bucarest, Babel (en préparation)

Nombreux articles, études et traductions dans la presse quotidienne, culturelle,dans des périodiques scientifiques et dans des volumes collectifs. Editeur et

traducteur.

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NOUS, LES MODERNES

1. La crise de la philosophie politique

En parlant de la crise de la philosophie politique, nous cherchons enfait à définir la philosophie politique. En effet, par la mise en évidence deses limites et de ses tensions internes, la crise d’un certain type de penséeoffre le meilleur prétexte pour définir la pensée même ; or, de ce point devue, il est difficile de considérer que la philosophie politique pourrait êtreune exception.

La définition que nous emploierons ne ressemblera pas à un article dedictionnaire sec et exact, car, dans ce cas, elle interdirait touteconversation. Tout le monde sait que le dialogue ne résulte pas de lamanipulation des articles de dictionnaire ; au contraire, pour constituerautre chose qu’une juxtaposition de monologues, une véritable discussiona besoin d’un point de départ vague qui puisse être amendé. La définitionvague que nous voulons proposer ici sera une tentative de provoquer undialogue. Mais, avant tout, on doit préciser qu’elle-même sera déduite dela confrontation, de la conversation très particulière de quelques grandsesprits. Nous cherchons à suivre, de cette manière, une suggestion de LéoStrauss, le plus sagace des historiens de la philosophie politique de notresiècle. Strauss invitait ceux qui s’occupent de l’histoire des idées à fairedialoguer les esprits éclairés, les grands philosophes politiques, car ceux-ci,alors même qu’ils ont écrit des dialogues, ne faisaient autre chose quemonologuer1 .

La supposition impliquée par l’invitation de Strauss était que tous lesmonologues des philosophes politiques communiquent au niveau profonddes questions fondamentales auxquelles ils cherchent une réponse. Malgréles apparences, Strauss n’était pas optimiste. Car le principe de cettecommunication des monologues est en fait très difficile à préciser,notamment dans le cas où le dialogue que l’historien des idées doit créerconfronte, d’un côté, un philosophe antique, et de l’autre, un philosophe

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moderne. Dans ces cas, les différences sont parfois fondamentales et l’unitésupposée par la définition d’un principe devient une illusion. Malgré cela,il est certain, par exemple, qu’un dialogue entre Platon et Thomas Morepeut être plus aisément mis en scène qu’un dialogue entre Hobbes etAristote. Finalement, la raison en est banale : tandis que l’auteur de l’Utopievoulait reprendre la vérité platonicienne, la vérité des “républiquesimaginaires” (pour parler comme Machiavel2 ), Hobbes voulait contredireradicalement Aristote3 . De sorte que la première partie de l’Utopie deMore qui, du point de vue littéraire, est un dialogue inspiré par l’histoirela plus banale (celle de la diplomatie), est suivie par une seconde partiequi, en dépit de sa forme descriptive, peut être lue comme un dialogueartificiel avec Platon ; au contraire, le Léviathan de Hobbes, dépourvud’un regard historique authentique, est une réplique implicite à la thèsearistotélicienne du caractère naturel de l’être politique, mais une répliqueorganisée dans tout le texte comme un monologue austère. Il semble quela manière dont les questions strictement historiques s’insèrent dans lediscours des philosophes politiques est décisive pour l’orientation qu’ilsdonnent à leur propre monologue.

Pour simplifier, on pourrait dire que la difficulté qui apparaît dans lacompréhension de la “communication des monologues” n’est pas tellementliée au sujet du dialogue artificiel des grands esprits (en dernière instance- Strauss avait raison -, les monologues ont les mêmes thèmes) qu’au styled’une telle conversation. Un dialogue artificiel court en effet le risque defalsifier le ton particulier qui accompagne la pensée de chaque auteur. Enoutre, selon la remarque de Léo Strauss, il y a une différence énormeentre le style de la philosophie politique classique et le style de laphilosophie politique moderne4 . La première était naturelle et vulgaire :en d’autres mots, elle a inventé les questions politiques fondamentales eta fait cela en utilisant la langue de l’homme commun de la cité grecque.En échange, la philosophie politique moderne est dérivée (car elle ne faitautre chose que réinterpréter les questions classiques) et technicisée (sonlangage étant radicalement différent du langage naturel).

Il existe quand même une issue à cette situation désagréable : car si laphilosophie classique parlait la langue de l’homme de la cité, à présentl’homme démocratique parle un dialecte de la langue des philosophesmodernes. Les mots-clé de ce dialecte - souveraineté, représentation,régime, volonté, constitution, révolution ou acteur politique - sontempruntés à la philosophie où ils ont subi - avant de devenir une référencepolitique habituelle - un examen philosophique. En fait, c’est justement

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parce que nous vivons dans un tel monde, qui a rendu vulgaire laphilosophie jusqu’à ce qu’elle ne puisse plus être reconnue, que noussommes obligés de faire appel aux esprits les plus éclairés. Comme nousl’avons suggéré au début, ce n’est pas la rigueur de la définition plate,mais la profondeur de la pensée (fût-elle vaguement exprimée) qui peutouvrir les voies du dialogue véritable.

Il va de soi que, dans ce contexte, la détechnicisation du discours estune solution profitable à tout le monde : l’homme démocratique pourrafeindre de comprendre ce qu’on lui dit, l’historien des idées (confonduaujourd’hui souvent avec le philosophe politique) pourra sauver à sontour l’apparence du caractère subversif de son propre discours. Quel sujetpourrait être choisi pour définir la philosophie politique par le style deson dialogue actuel, dans une tentative explicite de “co-intéresser”l’homme démocratique ? Un sujet s’impose à notre attention, pour ainsidire, de manière absolue : il s’agit de la nature de la démocratie, de sonétat actuel. Quel meilleur prétexte pour parler de crise ? L’histoire intervientde nouveau dans la discussion.

Nous avons choisi comme guides de cet exposé consacré à la crise dela philosophie politique (et non de la démocratie !) trois auteurs libéraux,trois grands esprits de notre époque : il s’agit de Pierre Manent (né en1948), de Karl Raimund Popper (1902-1994) et de Ludwig von Mises(1881-1973). Bien qu’ils fassent partie tous les trois de la très honorablefamille des esprits libéraux, ils sont très différents. En fait, notre choix viseleur différence. Nous nous sommes permis parfois - pour rendre plus souplecette démarche - de considérer le premier comme un représentant dupoint de vue “conservateur”, le second comme un représentant de la“social-démocratie contemporaine”, le troisième comme un bon exempledu “libertarianisme”. Ces trois “orientations” font partie déjà de la traditionlibérale ; il est vrai que les trois perspectives sont souvent confondues, cequi est au détriment de chacune d’elles, dans la mesure où l’esprit libéralassume explicitement la fécondité du conflit5 , et non pas du consensusinterprétatif. Les étiquettes sont d’une certaine façon arbitraires, car le“conservatisme”, la “social-démocratie” et le “libertarianisme” ne sontpas du tout épuisés par le discours de ces trois auteurs. Les étiquettes sontliées pourtant à quelques accidents historiques. Ainsi Pierre Manent, ledisciple préféré de Raymond Aron, n’a-t-il pas caché son admiration pourdeux conservateurs américains, Léo Strauss et son disciple le plus brillant,Allan Bloom6 . Popper a été à un certain moment, plus précisément audébut des années 80, l’une des références obsédantes de la

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social-démocratie allemande7 , tandis que Ludwig von Mises a inspiré lecourant anarcho-capitaliste américain, dominé par des théoriciens telsMurray Rothbard et Hans-Hermann Hoppe8 .

Qu’est-ce que la démocratie pour ces trois auteurs ? À quelle histoireintellectuelle s’attache chacune des trois définitions proposées par eux ?Quelles sont les conséquences de ces trois réponses pour la compréhensionde la philosophie politique ? Ce sont là les questions qui seront abordéesdans les pages suivantes.

Qu’est-ce que la démocratie ?

Les trois réponses sont très éloignées des préjugés communs, mais cetécart est justifié par des raisons différentes. Faisons l’analyse de chacuneà son tour.

Dans un texte de 1993, Pierre Manent considérait la démocratie, tellequ’elle nous apparaît aujourd’hui, comme un système qui “pour lapremière fois de son histoire”, n’a plus, “au moins dans le monde chrétien”,aucun “concurrent idéologique crédible”9 . Pour l’auteur français, “lesconcurrents de droite – qui veulent remplacer la démocratie par un régimenon démocratique ou antidémocratique – sont pour ainsi dire mauditsdepuis 1945 ; les concurrents de gauche – qui veulent remplacer ladémocratie par un régime supposément encore plus, c’est-à-dire enfinvraiment démocratique – ont été discrédités par l’évidence croissante,ces dernières années, de la catastrophe communiste”. Bref, la démocratieest à présent le régime unique. La suggestion ironique de Manent peutêtre saisie par tous ceux qui connaissent le domaine des idées politiques:l’unicité de la démocratie est très problématique. En effet, la philosophiepolitique - dans ses développements classiques et modernes, de Platon àRaymond Aron10 - a toujours traité la question des régimes politiques àpartir de la supposition de leur multiplicité, à partir de l’idée qu’il y a desstyles de vie différents, que les relations entre le commandement et lasoumission sont (ou peuvent être) extrêmement diverses. En d’autres mots,donner une réponse au problème central de la philosophie politique –“quel est le meilleur régime ?” - a toujours signifié choisir, dans unemultiplicité de régimes réels ou seulement possibles11 , celui qui s’avèreêtre supérieur à tous les autres. Devenant unique, la démocratie sembleperdre justement la qualité de … régime, dans la mesure où - commenous l’avons montré ci-dessus - celui-ci suppose la multiplicité. Voici lemotif pour lequel à la fin de son article Pierre Manent se demandait - de

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façon rhétorique, évidemment - si la démocratie n’est pas en fait “la formeenfin trouvée de la religion de l’Humanité”12 .

Pour Karl Raimund Popper, le deuxième personnage de notre dialogueartificiel, non seulement la démocratie n’est pas un régime, mais elle nel’a jamais été13 . Il serait erroné de penser que Popper voulait seulementradicaliser une conclusion comme celle adoptée par Manent. Commenous allons voir, le fameux épistémologue voulait affirmer tout autre choseque l’auteur français. Dans sa démonstration, Popper partait du sens leplus banal, celui étymologique, de la démocratie. Parler du “pouvoir dupeuple” est très dangereux, car - disait Popper - “chacun des membres dupeuple sait très bien qu’il ne commande pas, et il a donc l’impression quela démocratie est une escroquerie. C’est là que réside le danger”.L’alternative terminologique proposée par Popper est clairement exprimée:“Il est important que l’on apprenne dès l’école que le terme démocratie,depuis la démocratie athénienne, est le nom traditionnel que l’on donneà une Constitution qui doit empêcher une dictature, une tyrannis”.L’invocation d’Athènes n’est pas rhétorique, comme le montre le passagesuivant du texte poppérien : “On peut démontrer historiquement que ladémocratie athénienne, déjà, au moins jusqu’à Périclès et Thucydide,n’était pas tant une souveraineté du peuple qu’un moyen pour essayerd’éviter à tout prix une tyrannie”. Popper avance deux preuves pour justifiercette identification de la démocratie à un moyen, et toutes les deux sontchoquantes. La première preuve est une tentative de réinterpréterl’ostracisme : souvent mal compris, celui-ci serait, en fait, le prix, parfoistrès coûteux, payé pour éviter la tyrannie ou, plus exactement, “le moyenpar lequel tout citoyen qui devenait trop populaire pouvait et devait êtreéloigné, en raison justement de cette popularité”. La seconde preuve estencore plus choquante, car l’histoire est lue par l’intermédiaire du grandThucydide, qui nous apprend, selon Popper, que “Périclès lui-mêmesemble s’être rendu compte que la démocratie athénienne n’était pas unesouveraineté populaire et que celle-ci ne pouvait exister. En effet, dansson fameux discours, que l’on peut lire dans Thucydide, il dit : bien querares soient les gens capables de concevoir un projet politique, noussommes néanmoins tous à même de le juger. Cela signifie que nous nepouvons pas tous gouverner et diriger, mais que nous pouvons tous porterun jugement sur le gouvernement, que nous pouvons jouer le rôle dejurés”14 . Comparée aux deux preuves résumées ci-dessus, l’imprécisionterminologique de Popper - qui parle par exemple de “dictature”, inventionromaine, quand il explique l’ostracisme grec – n’est plus stridente. En

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somme, la thèse de Popper affirme que la démocratie n’est pas (et elle n’apas été) un régime, mais un moyen ; il s’agit de quelque chose de similaireà l’ostracisme, c’est-à-dire, en général, d’un instrument qu’on peut utiliser(et qui a été déjà utilisé) pour éviter la tyrannie, acte dont - en dépit decelui de gouverner - nous sommes tous capables. Ainsi qu’on peut aisémentle remarquer, en tant que moyen, la démocratie implique le choix, et unchoix qui est à la portée de chacun. Pour Popper, la souveraineté dupeuple n’existe pas, elle est justement une illusion dangereuse ; le seulchoix réel est celui vulgaire.

Le troisième personnage auquel nous ferons appel, Ludwig von Mises,organise son discours autour du statut du choix humain. Sa thèse est laplus simple de celles qui ont été présentées ici. En dernière analyse, Misesaffirme que le type de choix que la démocratie suppose est seulementune préfiguration, une esquisse imparfaite du choix qu’on rencontre àl’intérieur du système du marché : “lorsqu’on dit de la société capitalistequ’elle est une démocratie de consommateurs, on veut dire par-là que ledroit, attribué aux chefs d’entreprises et aux capitalistes, de disposer desmoyens de production ne peut s’obtenir autrement que par le vote,renouvelé chaque jour sur le marché, des consommateurs… Dans cettedémocratie, il est vrai, n’existe pas l’égalité du droit de vote, mais le droitde vote plural”15 . En d’autres mots : la démocratie et le marché ont encommun le choix, elles sont épuisées par cet acte. L’électeur et leconsommateur choisissent. Mais, alors que le choix démocratique est unchoix rare, qui a lieu a des intervalles précisément déterminés, le choixdu consommateur est quotidien, orienté en fonction des préférences etdes goûts qui ne peuvent pas être réglementés. Le consommateur parfaitle comportement électoral, en réduisant la vie même à une succession dechoix. Voici la raison pour laquelle c’est lui, le consommateur, qui est levrai maître du marché, et non pas le capitaliste sans scrupules que nouspropose la vulgate marxiste16 . Aujourd’hui, la démocratie, le choixincomplet, est seulement une annexe du marché, du choix complet ;l’annexion est justifiée : seule la démocratie peut assurer la paix, sinécessaire au développement des échanges commerciaux, ou selonl’expression de Mises, “si nécessaire au progrès constant vers un état deplus en plus satisfaisant des affaires humaines”17 . Les affirmations de Misessont, il faut l’avouer, séduisantes. Machiavel aurait été probablementenvieux : en effet, une telle réduction des relations humaines à un seulprincipe n’est pas à la portée de chacun. En outre, si Machiavel pariait surla “fécondité du mal”18 , Mises est beaucoup moins ambitieux : il fait

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l’apologie de la “fécondité du choix”. Le parallèle avec Machiavel n’estpas accidentel car, tout comme le secrétaire florentin, Mises considéraitque la pensée politique devait prendre en compte la verità effetuale dellacosa, les gens “tels qu’ils sont” et non pas tels que les métaphysiciens seles imaginent. (Est-il vraiment important que dans le premier cas il s’agitde la métaphysique des platoniciens et dans le second de la métaphysiquedes socialistes ?) De Machiavel à Mises, le libéralisme est le discours dece système du “monde d’en bas”, des gestes quotidiens19 . Or, dans cetteperspective libertarienne, loin d’être un régime, la démocratie est l’esquisseimparfaite du choix quotidien.

La démocratie n’est pas/n’est plus un régime politique, mais unereligion ; la démocratie n’est pas (et elle n’a pas été) un régime politique,mais un moyen d’éviter la violence ; la démocratie n’est pas (bien qu’elleait été) un régime politique, mais une incarnation imparfaite du marché.Nous avons affaire à trois thèses qui se rencontrent dans leur négation dela manière traditionnelle de définir la démocratie, mais qui semblent seséparer quand même radicalement, si nous prenons en compte le contenude chaque opposition mise à part. Comment peuvent communiquer cestrois thèses ? On ne peut rien dire jusqu’à présent, puisque leurssuppositions fondamentales, que nous avons cherché à mettre en évidence,nous avertissent que nous avons affaire plutôt à trois monologues imparfaits.

Nous devrons nous orienter peut-être vers les conséquences des thèsesexposées pour identifier des éventuels points de contact. Mais, avantd’examiner ces conséquences, nous allons chercher à déceler lesrevendications fondamentales de ces trois thèses de la philosophie politiquemoderne.

Qu’est-ce que l’histoire ?

Étudier la manière dont un auteur se réclame de la philosophie politiquemoderne, c’est découvrir ce que l’histoire représente pour lui. Car l’histoiremoderne est uniquement texte20 . En effet, la mutation profonde qu’opèrela modernité politique peut être comprise comme une substitution del’être politique traditionnel, où le logos et la praxis étaient ensemble, parun être politique réduit à un simple texte. Le traité de principes, lesidéologies et le bulletin de vote sont des formes de manifestation de cetêtre politique très inédit. C’est pour cela que tout rapport nouveau aupolitique est inévitablement un commentaire consacré à l’une de cesformes. Suivant la manière dont s’articulent les commentaires des trois

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philosophes que nous avons mentionnés ci-dessus, nous découvrironsque la réponse à la question “qu’est-ce que l’histoire ?” est une réponse àla question “comment est l’histoire ?”. Communiqueront-ils à ce niveauoù l’enjeu devient accablant ?

Remarquons tout d’abord que Pierre Manent n’est pas le premier auteurqui ait suggéré la condition paradoxale que la démocratie assume quandelle devient une sorte de religion. Il y a plus de 150 ans, Tocquevilledécrivait dans le même registre, la terreur religieuse que l’auteur de Ladémocratie ressentait devant le phénomène démocratique21 étant dèslors un emblème de la sensibilité libérale française. Il est indubitable queManent est un esprit tocquevillien, dans la mesure où il n’hésite pas àsoutenir les affirmations suivantes : “Il semble donc qu’il y ait une forceirrésistible dans cette démocratie dont la droite dénonçait jadis la honteusefaiblesse ou corruption, dont la gauche dénonçait naguère la honteuseimposture ou injustice”22 . Mais si Tocqueville affirmait l’irrésistibilité dumouvement démocratique pour l’opposer à l’ancien régime auquelpersonne ne croyait plus, Manent préfère multiplier le nombre desadversaires vaincus de la démocratie. Pour expliquer ce qu’est l’histoirede cette perspective, Manent reprend Nietzsche, celui qui écrivait que“l’histoire des deux derniers siècles ressemble à un fleuve qui veut arriverà son terme”. De façon ironique, l’auteur français se demande“sommes-nous parvenus au point où le fleuve voulait aller ?”. Au momentoù la démocratie devient religion, l’histoire commence à ressembler à unfleuve qui a trouvé son terme. Notons que, pour Manent, il s’agit d’unesituation inacceptable, car une telle histoire est seulement l’expressiond’une volonté “faible”, celle de l’homme qui est resté seul, de l’hommequi ne se revendique plus ni de Dieu, ni de la nature23 . Telle est, dans desmots simples, mais quand même effrayants, la Cité de l’homme.

Popper n’était pas si pessimiste. Au contraire, il croyait que notreépoque est la meilleure de celles vécues par l’homme jusqu’à présent etrecommandait sans réserves son propre optimisme24 à la jeune génération.Sa vision, beaucoup plus tranchante que celle de Manent, était fondéesur l’idée que la démocratie-moyen a depuis toujours affronté la tyrannie.Plus précisément, l’Athènes des Trente Tyrans et la Chine de Deng Xiaopingont en commun “l’immoralité de la dictature”, celle “dont on ne peut s’enlibérer sans effusion de sang” ou celle qui “condamne les citoyens del’Etat, contre leur conscience et leurs convictions morales, à collaboreravec le mal ; ne serait-ce que par leur silence. Elle prive l’homme de saresponsabilité morale, sans laquelle il n’est plus qu’une moitié, voire un

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centième d’homme”. Le principe de la démocratie est d’essence morale,bien qu’il revêtît toujours cette forme négative qui dit que “toute dictatureest moralement mauvaise”. Par contre, la démocratie est bonne car ellenous permet “de destituer les gouvernants sans que le sang soit versé”25 .En fait, la perspective poppérienne combine le manichéisme le plus banalavec l’austérité d’une morale de la responsabilité et de la faillibilité :l’histoire est de cette façon traversée par la lutte entre la démocratie et latyrannie, entre la destitution pacifique des gouvernants et le fait de lestuer ; de cette perspective, arriver à la meilleure époque parmi cellesconnues par l’homme, atteindre l’âge démocratique, c’est accepter leprincipe du changement pacifique, c’est-à-dire reconnaître qu’on peut setromper. On comprend probablement que, à l’encontre de Manent, Popperne goûtait pas l’ironie. Pour lui, l’histoire moderne est une histoire de lavolonté “forte”, mais qui acquiert sa force par la reconnaissance de sapropre “faiblesse” : en acceptant qu’il puisse se tromper, l’individu refuserala violence. Nous devons reconnaître qu’un optimisme construit sur unetelle alchimie est tout aussi séduisant, c’est-à-dire tout aussi naïf que celuiqui voulait faire du travail une “joie” infinie, pour le banaliser ensuitecomme “droit”. L’auteur de la formule citée a vécu, tout commeTocqueville, au siècle précédent : il s’appellait Karl Marx.

Ludwig von Mises n’était ni ironique, ni optimiste quand il s’agissaitde l’histoire. Malgré tout cela, tout comme pour les deux autresinterlocuteurs que nous avons introduits dans ce dialogue, l’histoiredemeurait pour Mises la scène de quelques confrontations plus ou moinsviolentes. Selon Mises, le plus intéressant conflit du monde moderne estcelui qui a opposé les partisans du droit naturel aux utilitaristes. Quelleest la forme de manifestation de ce conflit ? Prenons l’exemple de l’égalitédevant la loi. Le jus naturalisme l’a soutenue, disait Mises, en vertu de lacroyance que “les hommes sont égaux du point de vue biologique, ayantainsi un droit inaliénable à une égale répartition de tous les biens”.Remarquons qu’une telle définition du droit naturel permet à Mises desoutenir la thèse paradoxale selon laquelle le socialisme est une variantede la “fausse et absurde” théorie jus naturaliste : ainsi, “tout comme leséminents citoyens de Virginie, dont les idées ont inspiré la Révolutionaméricaine, ont admis le maintien de l’esclavage des Noirs, le plusdespotique système connu par l’Histoire, le bolchevisme, prétend êtrel’incarnation authéntique du principe de l’égalité et de la liberté de tousles hommes”. Refusant la supposition de l’égalité biologique et croyantque c’est justement l’inégalité qui crée la coopération sociale, les

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utilitaristes ont considéré, par contre, que “l’égalité devant la loi étaitl’appareil capable d’assurer à toute l’humanité le maximum d’avantageque les hommes puissent tirer de cette inégalité… Pour les libéraux, l’égalitédevant la loi est une bonne chose non pas du point de vue d’un prétendudroit inaliénable des individus, mais parce qu’elle sert au mieux les intérêtsde tous. Elle laisse aux électeurs le soin de décider qui va détenir lesfonctions publiques et aux consommateurs le soin de décider qui doitproduire”26 . Les utilitaristes, les seuls libéraux authentiques, selon Mises,sont ceux qui ont identifié la relation qu’entretiennent la démocratie et lemarché. Malgré cela, quand il définit l’individu qui fournit “le corps” decette relation, Mises s’inspire de manière explicite d’un adepte fervent dujus naturalisme : il s’agit de John Locke. Définir l’homme comme être quichoisit en tant que consommateur ou, encore inachevé, en tant qu’électeur,c’est une tentative de réinterpréter la célèbre formule de Locke qui ditque l’homme agit justement pour éliminer une insatisfaction27 . L’histoiremoderne est la création d’une volonté “forte”, capable d’éliminer, d’abordincomplètement, ensuite entièrement, toute insatisfaction. L’interprétationen termes de volonté de la formule misésienne n’est pas du tout forcée :l’auteur des traités sur le socialisme et sur l’action humaine accentuait lefait que l’action est raison et que la raison est volonté28 .

Tocqueville, Marx et Locke offrent pour Manent, Popper et Mises leprincipe de la compréhension de l’histoire. Le point où nous sommesarrivés est choquant, notamment si l’on compare les résultats obtenusdans les deux sections. Ainsi, la question “qu’est-ce que la démocratie”alimentait un consensus négatif (la démocratie n’est pas un régime), maisen même temps une séparation positive radicale des trois auteurs analysés,qui y voyaient une religion (Manent), un moyen banal (Popper) et uneanticipation du marché libre (Mises). En échange, “qu’est-ce que (commentest) l’histoire ?” produit un consensus positif (l’histoire doit être interprétéeen termes de volonté), mais aussi un conflit inconfortable descompréhensions du principe de l’histoire : la volonté est soit éminemment“faible” (Manent), soit “forte”, née d’une “faiblesse” (Popper), soitéminemment forte (Mises). Alors que nous avons affirmé que l’histoirepolitique moderne est seulement un texte, nous considérions la manièredont la coexistence entre des combinaisons de ce genre est possible : unereligion fondée sur une volonté faible, un moyen d’éviter la violence àl’aide d’une volonté dont la force provient de la faiblesse et, finalement,une anticipation du marché qui extrait ses énergies vitales d’une volontéforte, toutes ces choses revendiquent le nom de démocratie. Une telle

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dispute est imaginable seulement si tout l’univers politique est un universtextuel29 . Mais de quel côté est la raison alors que tout est texte ? Est-cequ’on peut distinguer entre ces trois solutions ?

Qu’est-ce que la philosophie politique ?

Une réponse pourra être plus aisément anticipée si, selon ce qu’on asuggéré plus haut, on prenait en compte quelques-unes des conséquencesauxquelles mènent les thèses sur la démocratie. Pour ordonner lesconséquences qui nous intéressent, on va privilégier ici un seul critère : ils’agit du rapport que la démocratie entretient avec le temps. La diversitédes perspectives proposées à cet égard à l’intérieur de la famille libéralenous aidera à comprendre ensuite la relation de la philosophie politiqueavec sa propre histoire intellectuelle, condition décisive de sa définition.

La solution conservatrice est sans ambiguïté : si “durant ce cycle dedeux siècles que nous venons de parcourir, la démocratie ne pouvaitvivre au présent”, dans la mesure où, “déchirés entre le passé et l’avenir”,les démocratie se trouve aujourd’hui dans une situation qu’on peut envier.En effet, nous connaissons la démocratie grecque grâce aux discours quise sont constitués après la fin du grand cycle de la politique classique ;nous avons connu ensuite la démocratie moderne comme projetphilosophique, comme un avenir esquissé en concurrence avec les projetsdes régimes qu’on a cru possibles jusqu’à un temps récent ; aujourd’hui,la démocratie, en tant que fait et idée, est enlacée au présent. Laphilosophie politique a eu comme objet la description des régimes et, surcette base, la désignation du meilleur régime. N’ayant à faire qu’à un seulrégime, la philosophie politique se transforme en histoire de la philosophiepolitique, en analyse de cette évolution à la suite de laquelle, avec uneformule qui est agréable aux métaphysiciens, le Multiple est réduit à l’Un.

La réponse social-démocrate est tout aussi tranchante : la démocratie,ce moyen qui s’oppose à la violence, a non seulement un passé et unprésent, mais aussi un avenir qui est ouvert. Car le retour à la tyrannie estpossible. Notons que c’est justement le point où Popper se sépare deMarx : ce dernier ne croyait pas que l’histoire puisse rebrousser chemin.D’autre part, si la démocratie n’a jamais été un régime, la philosophiepolitique n’a existé que comme une illusion. En d’autres mots, le discourssur la politique a mal choisi son objet : selon Popper, de Platon à Hitler,les hommes se sont demandés “qui doit commander ?” et non pas - etc’est là la question juste - “quelles sont ces institutions capables de diminuer

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les risques d’un gouvernement tyrannique ?”30 . Le débat sur les régimes aété une erreur, dans la mesure où ce qu’on croyait être le but était en faitun moyen. Aujourd’hui, dégénéré de but en moyen, l’objet de l’explicationpolitique offre l’occasion de substituer à l’ingénierie utopique unepiecemeal engineering, la seule formule raisonnable d’action.

La solution libertarienne est ambiguë : anticipation du marché, ladémocratie n’est que du passé. Son remplacement par le système généralisédes consommations individuelles est accompagné par le remplacementde la philosophie politique par la praxéologie, cette science de l’actionhumaine qui veut éliminer l’insatisfaction31 . Le reste est métaphysique,affirme de manière très convaincue Mises. La démocratie est aujourd’huitout au plus une annexe du marché, conservée évidemment aussi pourdes raisons d’utilité. De manière symétrique, la philosophie politique est,à la rigueur, une annexe de la praxéologie, conservée pour des raisonspolémiques.

Une récapitulation s’impose. La solution conservatrice affirme que ladémocratie, devenue religion d’une volonté faible qui se veut soi-même,aboutit à un discours de type historique, qui doit évoquer l’évolutionintellectuelle du régime qu’on appelle démocratie. La solutionsocial-démocrate soutient que la démocratie, qui a été depuis toujours unmoyen d’éviter la violence, engendre aujourd’hui un discours où, toutcomme la volonté devient forte en reconnaissant sa faiblesse et parfoisses échecs, l’ingénierie sociale graduelle est justifiée, conditionnée par lareconnaissance de l’erreur du projet utopique. La solution libertariennevoit dans la démocratie cet arrêt intermédiaire d’une volonté forte, dontla force entière s’est manifestée seulement dans le marché libre, toutcomme la philosophie politique est un arrêt provisoire de l’entendementqui révèle sa vérité seulement dans la praxéologie, science de l’hommequi veut faire oublier le disconfort.

Qu’ont en commun ces trois solutions ? En effet, en affirmant qu’ellesappartiennent, en dépit des différences, à la même famille spirituelle, àl’idéologie libérale, nous avons supposé qu’elles ont quelque chose encommun. Le résumé présenté ci-dessus nous permet de découvrir ce fondscommun : la philosophie politique est aujourd’hui le discours qui considèreque la démocratie n’est pas un régime et que l’histoire est l’incarnation dela volonté humaine libre. La relation entre la démocratie et l’histoire faitl’objet de la philosophie politique. Mais l’accord sur cette définition esttrès fragile : il est en permanence subminé par les sens qu’on donne à ladémocratie et à l’histoire.

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2. La démocratie, un monde bigarré

D’habitude, la liaison entre la démocratie et la philosophie est limitéeà un cadre historique qui nous est absolument étranger : il s’agit del’Antiquité. On croit généralement que les philosophes antiques peuventnous éclairer sur ce qu’est la démocratie, malgré le fait que - il ne faudraitpas oublier ce détail - ils détestaient le régime démocratique. La liaisonentre les philosophes modernes et la démocratie moderne est plus rarementétudiée, bien que plusieurs parmi les philosophes politiques d’aprèsSpinoza aient considéré, avec enthousiasme, que la démocratie soit lameilleure formule politique que l’homme ait imaginé.

On pourrait en conclure que l’enthousiasme devient suspect quand ils’agit de comprendre le politique ; par contre, cette compréhension pourraitêtre favorisée par le cynisme ridiculisant (et esthétisant) avec lequel Platon,par exemple, regardait la “cité démocratique”. En effet, après avoir suggéréque la démocratie est le plus beau régime, car on “trouve des hommes detoute sorte dans ce gouvernement plus que dans aucune autre” et “chacunorganise sa vie de la façon qui lui plaît”32 , Platon affirmait que la beautéde la démocratie est seulement apparente. Pour comprendre ce problèmedu discours platonicien sur la démocratie, on doit préciser qu’il y avaitencore un régime qu’il considérait comme “le plus beau” : il s’agit de latyrannie33 ; le fait que Socrate ne conteste pas du tout cette secondeobservation sur la beauté des régimes politiques nous montre trèsclairement la perspective d’où est apprécié le trait principal attribué à ladémocratie. Voici le passage qui illustre de la meilleure façon ce quenous nous sommes permis d’appeler le “cynisme esthétisant” de Platon :“il y a chance que la démocratie soit le plus beau régime de tous. Commeun vêtement bigarré qui offre toute la variété des couleurs, offrant toute lavariété des caractères, il pourra paraître d’une beauté achevée. Et peut-être,ajoutai-je, beaucoup de gens, pareils aux enfants et aux femmes quiadmirent les bigarrures, décideront-ils qu’il est le plus beau”34 . En somme,on pourrait dire que, pour Platon, la démocratie, l’ordre où chacun vivraselon sa propre volonté, est loin d’être le meilleur régime ; bien plus, sabeauté est celle que les enfants ou les femmes éprouvent devant lesvêtements vivement colorés35 . C’est probablement une “ironie del’histoire” le fait que les dernières lignes du Traité politique inachevé deSpinoza, “le premier philosophe à avoir écrit une défense systématiquede la démocratie”36 portent toujours sur la faiblesse des enfants et des

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femmes, pour justifier une conclusion que Platon aurait probablementadmis lui-même : “on ne pourrait instituer le règne égal des hommes etdes femmes sans grand dommage pour la paix”37 . Spinoza diffèreradicalement de Platon par l’optimisme viril qui se dégage de son écriture.On pourrait soutenir que c’est ici la première différence clairement affirméeentre la sensibilité politique moderne et celle antique qui porte sur ladémocratie.

Évidemment, chacun de nous peut choisir entre le cynisme ridiculisantet l’optimisme viril. Ce qu’on doit retenir, c’est que la seconde varianteest celle qui a inspiré la modernité politique. Deuxièmement, il fautobserver qu’en dépit de notre choix nous sommes obligés de nous justifierde manière rigoureuse. Nous essayerons de montrer quelles sont lessurprises de cette justification rigoureuse à partir des conclusionsauxquelles nous sommes arrivés dans le chapitre précédent. Nousessayerons de démontrer qu’il y a une liaison entre la démocratie moderneet la philosophie, liaison qui n’est pas épuisée par une certaine sensibilité,mais par une intelligence particulière.

La démocratie est un projet philosophique : le plus vulgaire desrégimes requiert la pensée la plus raffinée

Quand nous avons parlé de la crise de la philosophie politiquecontemporaine, nous avons décrit trois approximations de la démocratiequi, malgré le fait qu’elles utilisaient des termes quasi-identiques, necommuniquaient pas directement (immédiatement), cette diversitéincommunicable étant l’essence de la crise qu’on a évoquée.

Afin de rendre intelligibles les trois définitions, nous étions obligés defaire appel à quelques philosophes modernes, à partir de l’idée que lacrise actuelle devient explicable si on retourne aux sources plus anciennesde la pensée libérale.

Nous nous proposons d’appeler à notre aide de manière plus ordonnéeles philosophes modernes, pour voir la façon dont ils peuvent éclaircirune nouvelle démarche de la philosophie politique ; cette nouvelledémarche devrait, à notre avis, réorienter l’attention et les énergies deceux qui ressentent une crise dans la diversité incommunicabled’aujourd’hui. Afin de comprendre les philosophes contemporains nousaurions pu, évidemment, comparer les définitions qu’ils donnent à ladémocratie avec ce que chacun de nous considère comme étant la réalitépolitique actuelle, avec notre perception, celle qui nous rend, pour ainsi

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dire, des êtres politiques sensibles. Cet appel aux sensations politiques dumoment présent (et le terme de sensation doit être pris ici dans tous sessens, du contact “faible” avec le réel jusqu’au choc séduisant dusensationnel) est indiscutablement nécessaire. Mais il doit être précédépar une comparaison entre les définitions données aujourd’hui par lesgrands esprits et les définitions de la démocratie proposées par la traditionintellectuelle du libéralisme. Nous essayerons de comprendre ladémocratie en tant qu’êtres exclusivement intellectuels.

Il y a au moins deux raisons qui justifient cet appel à la tradition de lapensée libérale avant de comparer les définitions actuelles de la démocratieavec les opinions des êtres politiques sensibles. Il s’agit, tout d’abord, dufait que les philosophes contemporains - Mises, Manent ou Popper - ontélaboré leurs discours comme une note aux élaborations très sophistiquéesdes philosophes modernes. Bien que, tout comme nous le verrons plustard, la tentation de la nouveauté ait traversé toutes les démarchesmodernes, tout discours post-machiavélien sur la politique est intertextuel.

La seconde raison est plus profonde, car elle est plus radicale : l’histoirepolitique moderne est, dans son essence, un texte et elle nous oblige àrevenir aux Pères fondateurs en tant qu’auteurs de notre propre vie, d’autantplus qu’il s’agit de la démocratie, forme politique qui est fondamentalementsoumise au texte. En effet, avant d’être une réalité et en dépit de l’intérêtprofond pour la réalité, la démocratie est pour les modernes un projet, undiscours philosophique. La démocratie, la cité de l’homme, le régime dela vie terrestre, la formule politique la plus vulgaire a comme point dedépart un texte, le discours philosophique, le plus raffiné discours possible.

La question qui apparaît de façon naturelle est si le projet philosophiquede la démocratie est unique. Autrement dit : les philosophes modernesont-ils élaboré une seule démocratie ? La réponse est évidemment négative.Les philosophes modernes se contredisent délibérément quand il s’agitde la démocratie. Le monde démocratique moderne est avant tout ununivers où les idées sont bigarrées.

Est-ce qu’on peut vivre dans un monde pareil ? Analysant la manièredont les philosophes modernes se contredisent sur la question de ladémocratie, nous allons voir la façon dont on peut vivre dans une cité del’homme. Plus exactement, nous allons comparer les textes de Popper etde Mises aux thèses de Locke et de Spinoza pour voir la manière dont seconstruit la diversité de la philosophie démocratique.

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Mises et Locke : du marché ou de la démocratie qui est apparu lepremier ?

Rappelons la thèse principale de Mises : la démocratie est unepréfiguration du marché libre. Les conséquences de cette thèse se situentdans des horizons différents : la première conséquence affirme l’oppositionentre le droit naturel et l’utilitarisme, le premier étant la source d’inspirationdu socialisme. La seconde conséquence est que la démocratie n’est quedu passé, pouvant être, à la rigueur, annexée par commodité par lesrégimes libéraux, plus précisément par les systèmes libres et multiplesd’échange. Finalement, la troisième conclusion affirme que la philosophiepolitique doit être remplacée par la praxéologie pour pouvoir décrire lecomportement humain de manière vraiment efficace. La définitionmisésienne de l’homme était empruntée à Locke : tout homme agit pouréliminer une insatisfaction.

L’auteur des Deux traités sur le gouvernement civil n’aurait pas acceptéquand même la thèse principale de Mises. Nous devons en voir la raison.L’idée que la démocratie est une anticipation du marché libre est fondéesur la supposition que le choix humain peut s’étendre infiniment, quel’élection des gouvernants (rare, fixe, réglementée) peut être remplacéepar le choix des produits, des biens de toutes sortes (l’homme politiqueétant lui-même, en dernière instance, un bien quelconque, comparableau hamburger ou à un livre de philosophie). Chez Locke, par contre, lechoix est foncièrement limité : à l’état naturel, c’est-à-dire à l’étatpré-politique (dont les lois sont ensuite copiées à l’état politique), “la naturea nettement défini les limites de la propriété en fixant l’étendue du travaildont les hommes sont capables et en fixant ce qui est nécessaire pour lacommodité de la vie”38 . Personne ne pouvait commander sur tout, disaitLocke, personne ne pouvait consommer pour son propre plaisir plus qu’unepetite partie du tout : “il était ainsi impossible à un homme d’empiéter surle droit d’un autre, ou d’acquérir pour lui-même une propriété au préjudicede son voisin”39 . La possession de chacun avait des limites très modestes.“cette même règle de propriété, à savoir que tout homme devrait posséderautant de terre qu’il sera capable d’en faire usage, demeurerait validedans le monde sans gêner personne, puisqu’il y aurait encore assez deterres disponibles dans le monde pour pourvoir à un nombre deux foisplus important d’habitants, si l’invention de la monnaie, et l’accord tacitedes hommes pour lui accorder une valeur n’avaient introduit (parconsentement) des possessions plus vastes et établi un droit sur elles”40 .

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Ce passage est extrêmement important pour plusieurs raisons : toutd’abord, Locke suggère que l’état naturel, essentiellement pacifique,devient état de guerre au moment où l’on invente la monnaie ou, dansdes termes actuels, au moment où le marché est inventé. D’autre part, leconsentement que suppose la naissance du marché était pour Lockecertainement antérieur au consentement requis par la naissance de lacommunauté politique. Le marché est antérieur à toute existence politique.Dans les termes de Locke, la monnaie est antérieure à toute “démocratieparfaite”. Cette expression, assez bizarre, avait un sens précis : “lorsquedes hommes s’unissent pour la première fois en société, la majorité possèdenaturellement l’ensemble du pouvoir de la communauté ; elle peutemployer ce pouvoir pour faire de temps à autre des lois pour lacommuanuté, et pour les faire exécuter par des officiers qu’elle nommeelle-même ; dès lors, la forme de gouvernment est une démocratieparfaite”41 . La monnaie engendre l’état de guerre, la “démocratie parfaite”engendre l’état politique.

En d’autres mots, bien que l’homme de Locke soit le même quel’homme de Mises, les conclusions des deux auteurs sont radicalementdifférentes : pour le premier, le marché est antérieur et contraire à ladémocratie, pour le second, il est postérieur et parfaitement compatible àla démocratie (étant une extension, un accomplissement de celle-ci).Remarquons que la suggestion de Locke (la monnaie produit l’état deguerre, l’économie est le domaine de la confrontation impitoyable) estplus proche du sens commun ; en ce sens, Marx est lui aussi un philosophedu sens commun.

Les autres thèses de Mises perdent à leur tour la valabilité, si la définitiondonnée à l’homme reste rigoureusement encadrée dans les limites del’interprétation lockéenne : la démocratie ne peut être que du passé ; parcontre, chez Locke, la démocratie est le lieu d’un nouveau début, d’unnouveau commencement : si le souverain enfreint les règles du contrat,n’ayant plus de juge neutre, on tombe à l’état de nature en tant qu’état deguerre, et les gens ont de nouveau besoin de la “démocratie parfaite”42 .D’autre part, la philosophie politique ne peut pas être réduite à lapraxéologie, à une théorie de l’action qui n’accorde rien à la naturehumaine et qui dissout la politique dans l’économie. Si nous suivons Locke,la philosophie politique naît de l’effort de distinguer l’insatisfaction (laraison d’agir de l’homo oeconomicus) de la justice (le mobile de l’actionpolitique). En effet, c’est l’existence d’un juge commun investi de l’autoritéd’appliquer la loi civile qui distingue l’état naturel de la société civile. La

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protection de la propriété, qui est le but de l’institution de la communautépolitique, est assurée par celui qui partage la justice. La démocratie est laforme politique moderne qui accueille ce débat sur la justice après quel’homme ait quitté l’état de guerre (c’est-à-dire l’économie, dansl’interprétation lockéenne). La troisième conséquence de la démarche deMises, celle qui porte sur l’opposition droit naturel / utilitarisme, devientinsignifiante.

La confrontation de la thèse de Mises à quelques-uns des contenus dela philosophie de celui dont il emprunte la définition de l’homme nous aconduits finalement à une remarque sur la démocratie : la démocratie estle régime où la justice se substitue à la violence, où le juge remplacel’ennemi économique.

Popper et Spinoza sur l’excellence de la démocratie : pourquoi êtreoptimistes ?

La thèse principale de Karl Popper était que la démocratie n’est pas (etn’a pas été) un régime, mais un moyen d’éviter la violence. Pour lephilosophe autrichien, l’opposition politique fondamentale est entre latyrannie (le changement violent des gouvernants) et la démocratie (lechangement pacifique des gouvernants) ; dans ce sens, la démocratie aun avenir, car on peut revenir à la tyrannie ; finalement, si la démocratien’a pas été un régime, alors la philosophie politique, la discipline qui aessayé de chercher une réponse à la question “quel est le meilleurrégime ?”, n’a pas existé.

Si dans les pages antérieures nous avons essayé de démontrer qu’àpartir de la même définition de l’homme on peut arriver (on est arrivé)aux conclusions politiques opposées et aux images différentes de laphilosophie politique, nous chercherons maintenant à montrer qu’on peutconstruire la même approximation de la philosophie politique et la mêmesensibilité liée au sort de la démocratie à partir des références tout à faitdifférentes. Nous comparerons donc la démarche de Popper à celle deSpinoza.

Popper n’invoque pas Spinoza. Malgré cela, les thèses de Popperauraient probablement été acceptées par Spinoza. Les deux sont liés, avanttout, par une certaine opinion sur le statut et le sort de la démocratie : ladémocratie, qui est la meilleure formule politique, suppose l’effort del’homme43 . En d’autres mots, la démocratie est difficile, elle est la formepolitique la plus sollicitante. Popper exprimait cette chose en écrivant

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que “nos démocraties occidentales – et surtout les Etats-Unis, la plusancienne des démocraties occidentales – sont une réussite sans précédent ;cette réussite est le fruit de beaucoup de travail, de beaucoup d’efforts, debeaucoup de bonne volonté et avant tout de beaucoup d’idées créatricesdans des domaines variés. Le résultat, c’est qu’un plus grand nombred’hommes heureux vivent une vie plus libre, plus belle, et plus longueque jamais auparavant”44 . Spinoza disait à son tour que la démocratie est“du tout absolu”45 et que “dans le gouvernement démocratique, tousdécident, d’un commun consentement, de vivre selon l’injonction de laRaison”46 ; or, pour Spinoza, c’est la raison qui définit l’effort duphilosophe ; rien de plus difficile, donc, que le gouvernementdémocratique. On ajoute à cette tautologie (la Cité de l’homme supposeévidemment son effort, la démocratie est le gouvernement où l’on écoutela raison humaine), l’optimisme commun à Popper et à Spinoza. ChezPopper, cet optimisme peut se déduire du passage qu’on a cité ; chezSpinoza, les choses sont plus difficiles à saisir : bien qu’il ne recommandele Traité théologico-politique aux gens communs, étant su qu’il est“également impossible d’extirper de l’âme du vulgaire la superstition et lacrainte”47 , Spinoza définissait quand-même l’individu (et la Nature, pourlui, ne crée que des individus) par le fait qu’il “est le défenseur de sapropre liberté” ; mais la liberté est la suite de l’accomplissement du but dela philosophie, la connaissance de la vérité ; Spinoza pensait que sonTraité théologico-politique a réussi à imposer la liberté, en d’autres mots,à séparer à l’intérieur de la nature humaine la passion, la superstition et lacrainte de ce qui est la raison ; l’optimisme de Spinoza concernant le sortde la démocratie est alors du type suivant : si on réussit à découvrir laliberté, nous serons des philosophes, c’est-à-dire nous vivrons suivant laraison ; moi, un homme, “qui aurait pu se tromper”, j’ai découvert la liberté,donc chacun qui croit qu’il est un homme et qu’il peut se tromper peutdevenir philosophe. La démocratie est le régime où l’abandon de l’état denature est accessible, selon le modèle du philosophe, à chacun. Personnen’a argumenté de manière plus séduisante que Spinoza l’idée de ladémocratie comme le régime des citoyens philosophes. Remarquons qu’ona reproché parfois à Popper que le modèle de l’action humaine qu’ilpropose - l’essai et l’erreur - est trop élevé, philosophique. Tout ce qu’onpeut dire c’est que l’optimisme commun à Spinoza et à Popper trouve sonénergie non pas dans la condition des gens vulgaires, mais dans laconfiance en la raison. Notons ensuite que les références qui marquent ladémarche de Spinoza et celle de Popper sont apparemment les mêmes :

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la démocratie poppérienne est l’opposé de la tyrannie, c’est-à-dire del’utilisation de la violence ; la démocratie de Spinoza est l’opposé de l’étatnaturel, caractérisé par la guerre. Remarquant les détails, on se rend compteque les références sont différentes : Spinoza définit en fait la démocratied’abord comme “droit de la société” auquel on transfère le pouvoir del’individu, ou plus exactement comme “l’union des hommes en un toutqui a un droit souverain collectif sur tout ce qui est en son pouvoir”48 .Avant d’être régime, la Démocratie est un droit. (L’auteur hollandais utilisela majuscule pour différencier ce droit du régime nommé toujoursdémocratique.) De la définition de la Démocratie, Spinoza tirait laconclusion que “le souverain n’est tenu par aucune loi et que tous luidoivent obéissance pour tout, car tous ont dû, par un pacte tacite ouexprès, lui transférer toute la puissance qu’ils avaient de se maintenir,c’est-à-dire tout leur droit naturel”. Encore plus, “nous sommes tous tenusd’exécuter absolument tout ce qu’enjoint le souverain, alors même queses commandements seraient les plus absurdes du monde ; la Raison nousordonne de le faire, parce que c’est choisir de deux maux le moindre”49 .L’affirmation de Spinoza est fondée sur la croyance qu’il est “extrêmementrare que les souverains commandent des choses très absurdes ; il leurimporte au plus haut point, en effet, par prévoyance et pour garder lepouvoir, de veiller au bien commun et de tout diriger selon l’injonctionde la Raison” Et pour être encore plus explicite, Spinoza ajoutait : “dansun Etat démocratique l’absurde est moins à craindre, car il est presqueimpossible que la majorité des hommes unis en un tout, si ce tout estconsidérable, s’accordent en une absurdité”50 . Pour Spinoza, ladémocratie est préférable à l’état de guerre puisque la majorité ne peuttomber d’accord sur une absurdité. Popper voyait les choses de manièretout à fait différente : de l’observation que tout individu peut se tromper(acceptée aussi par Spinoza), l’auteur autrichien tirait - rigoureusement -la conclusion que les majorités peuvent aussi se tromper ; la démocratieest préférable à l’état de guerre non pas parce que la majorité ne pourraitsoutenir une absurdité, mais purement et simplement puisque la violenceest absolument inacceptable ; elle pourrait nous affecter en dépit du faitque nous ayons raison ou tort.

La différence entre la démarche de Popper et celle de Spinoza estmise en évidence plus clairement si nous prenons en compte un autreaspect. Refusant à la démocratie le statut de régime, Popper niaitimplicitement le sérieux de la démarche de la philosophie politique : si laquestion sur le meilleur régime est une erreur, alors la discipline

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intellectuelle qui l’a formulée est inutile. Spinoza affirmait lui aussi que laphilosophie politique n’a pas existé réellement51 . Mais le penseurhollandais voulait dire qu’il est le premier qui ait réussi à la construire ;cette prétention lie Machiavel et Hobbes, Spinoza et Tocqueville. Chacund’eux, dans des formes plus ou moins décentes, a essayé de suggérer qu’ilest le vrai fondateur de la science du politique. Spinoza faisait cela prenantcomme référence ce qu’il appelait la Théologie ou la Croyance : celle-cia eu comme but la soumission et la piété, et comme fondement l’Écriture ;il n’y a pas eu de philosophie, c’est-à-dire une véritable justification de laliberté humaine, puisque tous les philosophes antérieurs, opérant dansles limites indiquées par la Théologie, ont conçu “les affections qui selivrent bataille en nous comme des vices” ; il a donc considéré commejuste “de tourner en dérision ces affections, de les déplorer, de lesréprimander, quand ils voulaient paraître plus moraux, de les détester” ;croyant qu’ils agissent de manière divine, ils ont apporté de cette façondes louanges à “une nature humaine qui n‘existe nulle part”, concevantles gens “non tels qu’ils sont, mais tels qu’eux-mêmes voudraient qu’ilsfussent”52 . Rien de plus étranger à la démarche poppérienne que ceslignes de Spinoza. Pour Popper, le gouvernement des philosophes est unedes réponses données à une question erronée : “qui doit gouverner ?”,question à laquelle on peut répondre également (en fait, de façon toutaussi désastreuse) “les meilleurs” (Platon), les “prolétaires” (Marx) ou “moi”(Hitler)53 . À la question “qui doit commander ?” il faut substituer la question“y a-t-il des formes de gouvernement qui, pour des raisons morales, sontrépréhensibles ?” ou, sous une autre forme, “y a-t-il des formes degouvernement qui nous permettent de nous défaire d’un gouvernementmauvais, ou seulement incompétent, qui cause du tort au pays ?”54 .

Voici donc que bien qu’apparemment ils soutiennent les mêmes thèses- la démocratie, effort de l’homme rationnel, est la meilleure formulepolitique, la philosophie politique n’a pas existé, le retour à la tyrannieest possible55 -, Spinoza et Popper sont séparés par des références tout àfait différentes. Leurs certitudes (liées à la majorité, par exemple), maissurtout leurs questions (avant tout, la question qu’ils considèrent commefondamentale) les séparent.

Toutes ces choses tiennent à l’histoire de la démocratie. Nous sommesobligés, tout comme nous l’avons dit ci-dessus, à choisir rigoureusementune solution ou une autre. Le choix rigoureux d’une solution, qui peutsignifier parfois le simple choix de la question, est propre à la philosophie.

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Dans le monde bigarré des idées que constitue la démocratie moderne, laphilosophie nous aide à survivre.

3. L’histoire moderne comme texte

Comment pourrait-on expliquer cette coexistence des questions et dessolutions si contradictoires ? Tout ce qu’on sait est que la modernité a faitde la diversité contradictoire son propre manifeste. Elle a trouvé aussi lajustification ultime, tout comme les limites politico-juridiques de ladiversité : il s’agit ici de la Constitution. Ce mot serait, à coup sûr, celuiqu’on choisirait, si on nous demandait d’exprimer le sens de l’histoirepolitique moderne à l’aide d’une seule notion, à l’aide d’un terme unique.

La constitution est un texte, le Texte du citoyen. Une suite de mots,ordonnée dans un ensemble, qui est non seulement suffisant à soi-même,mais aussi - par principe - capable de rendre possible d’autres énoncés.Fermé (par rapport aux règles de l’existence politique antérieure) et ouvert(car c’est à lui qu’on doit subordonner les lois proprement dites), le textede la Constitution assure tant la stabilité que l’évolution de la communautépolitique. Il accompagne - en les réglementant, en les situant au mêmeniveau, c’est-à-dire en annulant la différence entre elles - tant le tempscommun (le quotidien banal de l’exercice des droits ou de l’activité desChambres législatives), que le temps extraordinaire (les élections, larévocation des dignitaires, la réponse à une agression externe etc.). À vraidire, ce règne tout-puissant de la Constitution ne peut être imaginé quedans ce qu’on pourrait appeler de façon conventionnelle “l’âgedémocratique du monde”.

En fait, la phrase de Tocqueville selon laquelle “le peuple règne sur lemonde politique américain comme Dieu sur l’univers. Il est la cause et lafin de toutes choses ; tout en sort et tout s’y absorbe”56 devrait êtreamendée. Aujourd’hui, elle n’est plus valable seulement pour “le mondepolitique américain”, mais pour tout le monde chrétien57 ; ensuite, lerègne démocratique n’est pas direct, mais médié, et donc d’une touteautre façon qu’au temps de l’auteur De la démocratie en Amérique.Tocqueville avait raison : le peuple a détrôné Dieu et il n’est pas surprenantque “l’irrésistible révolution” inspire aujourd’hui, tout comme au momentoù l’auteur français le pressentait, une sorte de “terreur religieuse”58 . Cequ’il y a de nouveau à notre époque, c’est que les textes des différentesConstitutions du monde chrétien ont remplacé les variantes locales de la

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Bible. Un Texte, celui constitutionnel, domine - finalement - le monde.Plus exactement, chaque monde politique.

Celle-ci n’est que la séquence finale - la plus spectaculaire, à vrai dire- d’une évolution qui s’est déployée dans les derniers cinq siècles. Il s’agitde l’évolution à la suite de laquelle le texte comme tel est devenu l’uniqueréférence de l’individu, la “substance” politique de celui-ci. En effet,l’homme était naturellement, selon la tradition, un être politique, un êtrequi combinait un logos et une praxis ; il n’est plus aujourd’hui décrit quepar le texte. Nous allons montrer en ce qui suit la manière dont la praxiss’est dissoute dans le logos pour engendrer le texte. Il y a trois repèresfondamentaux, dans notre perspective, sur le chemin de la transformationde l’homme en tant qu’être politique en texte. La connaissance de cestrois repères est indispensable pour la compréhension de la suprématiede la Constitution, car ils scandent la modernité politique.

Machiavel

Le premier repère est étroitement lié au moment machiavélien de lascience politique, moment à partir duquel l’être du Prince n’est plus uneunion personnelle du logos et de la praxis. Cette union résultait clairementd’un genre littéraire traditionnel au Moyen Âge, ce qu’on appelait Lemiroir des princes - un véritable secretum secretorum, selon Roger Bacon59

- qui décrivait la manière dont l’auto-gouvernement, et non pas legouvernement, est possible, c’est-à-dire la formation de son propre discourset de sa propre action. Son action est préparée et justifiée dans et par letexte de quelqu’un d’autre, de celui qui - secrétaire ou, plus tard, idéologue- dira “ce qu’il est à faire”. Ce qui signifie que le Prince post-machiavélienrenonce à chercher le bonheur en gouvernant sa propre communauté ; ilne fait qu’agir, en appliquant une science, qui est préparée par lesidéologues et qui n’est pas destinée à l’auto-gouvernement princier, maisau gouvernement du peuple. Dans ce sens, et c’est aussi la remarque deSir Isaiah Berlin, Machiavel est le premier ancêtre connu de Lénine60 , caril est le premier qui ait placé la science politique au début de l’action, etnon pas à la fin de celle-ci, comme c’est le cas après Thucydide61 . Jusqu’àMachiavel, le texte de la science politique est donc postérieur à l’action,qui est accompagnée par le logos de l’homme politique. C’est seulementune obsession typiquement moderne - l’altérité et l’antériorité du discourspar rapport à l’action - qui a fait que Platon, par exemple, soit lu commeidéologue, y inclus par des critiques comme Popper62 . En séparant le

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logos et la praxis et en les réservant à des personnages distincts, lamodernité annonçait en fait sa nouveauté radicale, d’une simplicitédifficilement égalable : l’idéologue produit des idées, l’homme politiqueagit. Rousseau était très clair sur ce point : “si j’étais prince ou législateur,je ne perdrais pas mon temps à dire ce qu’il faut faire ; je le ferais, ou jeme tairais”63 . Le premier principe de la modernité établit que le mondepolitique n’existe que s’il est d’abord affirmé en tant que “programme”.Voici pourquoi Marx n’est pas le premier moderne qui ait affirmé lanécessité que les philosophes renoncent à l’interprétation du monde, enfaveur de sa modification, mais toujours Machiavel64 . Car l’auteur duPrince est celui qui s’arroge - pour la première fois - la capacité de fournirle texte du bon gouvernement. Son discours - qui revendique à juste raisonla nouveauté65 - voulait être la Constitution du Prince, un texte quiréglementait l’action de ce haut personnage sur les humbles, satisfatti estupidi. Il est évident, d’autre part, que ce premier moment de la modernitépeut être considéré comme celui de la cohérence absolue du texte. Le faitque Machiavel invoquait, à l’aide de son propre discours, “la longueexpérience des antiques”, doit être jugé de ce point de vue : le logos,séparé de l’action, précédant celle-ci - sera complètement (épuisant d’unecertaine façon à l’avance l’action du Prince) et rapidement assimilable (lasupposition tacite de Machiavel étant que le Prince n’a pas de temps àperdre avec les lectures)66 . Seul un texte traversé par une cohérencemaximale est complètement et rapidement assimilable. Les lecturesconsacrées à Machiavel lui ont confirmé d’ailleurs l’intentionsystématique67 .

De Hobbes à Tocqueville

Le second repère nous est offert non pas par l’œuvre d’un certain auteur,mais par la transformation opérée - de Hobbes à Tocqueville - au niveaudu nouveau texte politique subordonné à l’action. Dans cet intervalle, il ya deux mutations profondes. Il s’agit, tout d’abord, de la multiplication dunombre de ceux qu’on suppose être capables de préparer et de justifierl’action du Prince (du souverain, selon Bodin) : la place de l’auteur savantsera prise par les citoyens, qui sont devenus pendant ce temps - dansl’imaginaire politique - capables de savoir vouloir. “Les hommes que lesactions de Borgia laissent satisfatti et stupidi voudront être satisfaits, etsauront comment obtenir cette satisfaction. Pour être satisfaits, ilsdeviendront intelligents”68 . Deuxièmement, il s’agit de la transformation

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radicale du type de texte fondateur de l’action, le traité de principes (detype machiavélien) étant simplifié dans le discours électoral et, à la rigueur,dans le bulletin de vote. Voyons la façon dont ces simplifications se sontpassées, en conduisant de la cohérence machiavélienne absolue àl’incohérence démocratique absolue.

La première mutation - la démocratisation du texte - est, en fait, cellequi accompagne la définition de la démocratie comme le meilleur régime(pour la première fois, dans l’œuvre de Spinoza) et, ensuite, latransformation de la démocratie d’un régime en une société (Tocquevilleétant responsable de cette transformation unique d’un type de régimepolitique, parmi les régimes classiques, en une société). Ce processuspeut être regardé, selon la remarque de Léo Strauss, comme le résultatd’un “adoucissement” nécessaire de Machiavel69 . Au lieu de l’auteurorgueilleux qui énonce les conditions de possibilité de l’action du Princeon trouve à présent le citoyen commun, capable d’énoncer les conditionsci-dessus par l’acte simple du vote. Et si Machiavel avait besoin, pourélaborer le résumé destiné au Prince, “de la longue expérience des chosesmodernes et d’une lecture continuelle des anciennes”, pour le citoyenqui se trouve devant le bulletin de vote il suffit “la simple capacité de lireet d’écrire”. C’est là l’intelligence requise du citoyen, c’est par-là qu’ilprouvera qu’il sait ce qu’il veut. En effet, selon la remarque juste de LéoStrauss, “tout électeur est conscient que la démocratie moderne semaintient ou s’écroule par la capacité d’écrire et de lire”70 . La formuleselon laquelle l’acte d’élire démocratiquement est fondé sur la capacitéd’écrire et de lire semblerait à coup sûr appartenir à un libéral commeMises d’un point de vue métaphysique. Et quand même, le conflit quimine l’identité démocratique moderne - conflit qui mène à l’incohérenceabsolue des textes - est justement relevé par cette métaphysique sommaire.En effet, pour celui qui définit l’action humaine comme choix, il estextrêmement tentant de soutenir que la démocratie est le prélude,l’anticipation imparfaite du marché71 . Mais la substitution complète del’électeur par le consommateur est impossible, car l’imposition définitivedu marché est équivalente à la disparition de tout discours. Or, rien n’estplus étranger aux temps actuels que la disparition du texte. Par contre, ceque chacun peut constater est la multiplication illimitée des textes et leursimplification extrême. Ce constat “phénoménologique” nous montre quele monde d’aujourd’hui peut être plutôt subordonné au modèlecontractualiste (et non pas à celui économiste) de la politique moderne,modèle à l’intérieur duquel on suppose la production d’un texte qui épuise,

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dès le moment initial, toutes les conditions de la survivance physique,c’est-à-dire de l’existence politique (conformément à la thèse hobbesienne).La seule différence entre le monde de Hobbes et le monde de Tocquevilleest que, dans le second cas (le cas des démocraties constitutionnelles-pluralistes72 ), le texte épuise - non seulement au moment de la fondation,mais à chaque moment - les conditions de la survie73 . Voici pourquoi lemonde démocratique post-tocquevillien n’est pas le monde sans mots,mais le monde où le texte justifie - par principe - tout arrangement desrelations entre individus, y compris le marché. Le caractère inévitable dela naissance d’un tel monde incohérent ne devient intelligible que si onprend en considération le mot-clé qui a accompagné cette évolution. Ils’agit de la “volonté”.

De Bodin à Rousseau

“L’universalisation de la volonté” est en fait le troisième repèreintéressant dans le schéma dont nous nous occupons. Elle peut nous aiderà mieux comprendre l’horizon où l’on a placé la définition moderne de ladémocratie. Nous allons évoquer ici, en résumé, les deux variantes limite,conflictuelles, de cette définition et de cette “résolution” surprenantedonnée à ce conflit. Nous avons en vue, tout d’abord, le moment limitedu discrédit du modèle de la démocratie antique74 , moment où commenceen fait l’histoire de la démocratie moderne. Jean Bodin est celui qui - parla définition donnée au souverain - a démontré l’impossibilité de ce qu’ilappelait “l’état populaire”, l’impossibilité de la démocratie d’Aristote. Laclé de l’interprétation bodinienne se trouve dans la justification en termesde volonté de la position privilégiée du souverain : si souverain est -argumentait Bodin - celui qui formule la loi, sans pouvoir s’y soumettre,c’est parce qu’il est “impossible par nature de se donner loi”, car il estimpossible “de commander à soi-même chose qui dépende de savolonté”75 . Comme le peuple forme - dans une démocratie à l’ancienne- un seul corps, il ne peut obliger personne : ni soi-même (car on ne peutcommander à sa propre volonté), ni les autres (car dans un état populaireil n’y a personne sauf le souverain)76 . La volonté rendait impossible ladémocratie antique. Le second moment limite est celui du discréditthéorique du modèle de la démocratie moderne. Rousseau est celui quiillustre - avec la grâce des grands “amoureux de la liberté”, selonl’expression de Benjamin Constant - ce moment. Le souverain - disaitRousseau - ne peut s’imposer une loi qu’il ne puisse enfreindre77 . En

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d’autres mots, le contrat social - la condition de possibilité de la démocratiereprésentative - rencontrera toujours sur sa voie cet obstacle : la soumissionest toujours plus faible que l’action qui la prépare. En fait, la véritérousseauiste est d’autant plus tragiquement expérimenté que lareprésentation de la volonté est plus raffinée (plus compliquée) ou,autrement dit, que “l’exercice de la souveraineté seulement pourl’abdiquer”78 se fait dans des termes plus vagues, différents d’un contrat àun autre. À la rigueur, diluée jusqu’à être toujours, à chaque nouveauchoix, autre chose, la volonté fait possible la démocratie moderne qui vitalimentée par sa propre contradiction. Le conflit entre “le peuple ne peutse donner loi car il n’existe personne pour s’assujettir” et “le peuple nepeut se donner aucune loi qu’il ne puisse enfreindre” a été “résolu” (ouplutôt sa résolution a été remise) dû au fait d’assumer la démocratie entant que formule politique, annonçant peut-être une religion de “la volontéqui se veut elle-même”. Ce sens de la démocratie est celui qui peut nousfaire appeler le monde politique moderne la Cité de l’homme79 . Il estindiscutable qu’une croyance si claire - partagée le siècle passé (parConstant ou par Tocqueville), mais aujourd’hui aussi, par tout le monde(qui a été) chrétien, après la chute du totalitarisme - une croyance tellel’irrésistibilité de la démocratie est traversée par l’idée que la démocratien’est que l’institution de la volonté : la démocratie est finalement inévitablecar l’homme moderne a choisi de vouloir et ne peut ne pas vouloir cequ’il veut lui-même80 .

Comment s’explique le fait que “l’universalisation de la volonté” a faitdu texte son unique instrument? Pourquoi, en d’autres mots, la relationhumaine, la relation des volontés humaines, est seulement texte? D’oùprovient la censure exercée sur toute passion? Comment l’histoire politiqueest-elle devenue simplement texte? La seule réponse raisonnable est cellequi assume comme n’étant pas problématique la prémisse cartésienne dela volonté en tant que partie de la réflexion81 . En effet, à condition queseule la volonté soit une zone de la réflexion, on peut comprendre laraison pour laquelle la vie humaine s’est transformée en texte. La citéd’aujourd’hui est intertextuelle car l’ordre fictif du texte est la seuleincarnation de la volonté qui comprend ou de la compréhension qui veut.Les citoyens des démocraties d’aujourd’hui sont, en ce sens, des copiesdu philosophe Descartes, et leurs textes, ceux qui rendent possibles legouvernement, des discours électoraux aux simples bulletins de vote, sonttout aussi profondément liés à leur intimité démocratique que le Discoursde la méthode était lié à l’intimité philosophique de Descartes. Ce stade -

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qui nous est très connu, car il est celui de nos jours - est celui où lacohérence et l’incohérence sont dépassées, afin de se confondre dans lasimple capacité de produire des textes. Il faut ajouter ici que la sociétémoderne s’est offert le luxe du raffinement de l’ancien porteur de cestextes: le passage de l’imprimerie à l’imprimante est le passage du mondeoù l’individu cherche à multiplier les textes des autres (utiles au bongouvernement) au monde où l’homme lui-même n’existe que dans lamesure où il participe au jeu intertextuel.

Tous ces phénomènes forment un ensemble sans fissure : la cohérencedu texte fondateur, l’incohérence des citoyens, donc la capacité deproduire des textes s’entrelacent dans un univers politique caractérisé parKarl Popper comme le meilleur qu’a connu l’homme82 .

C’est là le fonds sur lequel la Constitution est devenue le Texte quirend possibles les textes. Remarquons que, dans ce dispositif, les deuxderniers repères - l’incohérence des citoyens et la (con)textualisation deleur volonté - sont ceux qui produisent, le plus souvent, le sentiment de larelativisation maximale des styles de vie. Seul le Texte fondateur estcontrôlable et évaluable dans l’absolu. D’ailleurs, sans la cohérence dechaque texte fondateur de chaque communauté politique, les deux autresphénomènes (la démocratisation et l’intertextualisation des relationshumaines) se transforment radicalement. En effet, choisir“démocratiquement” en l’absence d’un texte qui limite ces choix signifiecréer un univers politique qui arrive n’importe où: il n’est plus un mystèrepour personne que la domination la plus cruelle peut être instituée par unvote populaire valablement exprimé. Un monde libéral peut aussi arrivern’importe où, dans la mesure où choisir “sur-démocratiquement” (en tantque simple consommateur) n’est pas un acte accompagné par ladélibération sur ce qu’est commun, sur la justice, par exemple. En l’absenced’une telle délibération, on peut vivre dans une Cité de l’homme, où toutappartient aux individus solitaires, qui ne sont pas à l’état de nature, maisà la fin de toute histoire. De la même façon, sans la cohérence du textefondateur, la capacité de produire des textes peut signifier la coexistencedestructrice de tous les contraires, l’absence de tout sens moral, etfinalement, le manque de sens de tout texte. La simple succession d’images,la récupération et le recyclement, dits “postmodernes”, de tous lesfantasmes passés est le stade vers lequel tendent toutes les démocratiesqui ne contiennent pas en leur sein une aristocratie spirituelle83 . Un mondedémocratique (ou sur-démocratique) sans aristocratie spirituelle est unmonde tel celui produit par l’écran de télévision: un monde où coexistent

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de manière destructrice la Révolution transmise en direct et l’investituredes présidents élus par vote universel, le monde qui place dans le mêmehorizon les commentateurs d’Aristote et les amateurs des bandes dessinées,finalement, le monde qui permet de rapprocher la pornographie et laliturgie. Le nom de ce Texte fondateur, en l’absence duquel la Cité del’homme devient un monde où les individus n’ont rien en commun ou unmonde où ils ont tout en commun, est la Constitution.

La définition de l’être politique non pas en tant que praxis jointe à unlogos, mais en tant qu’acte préparé quelque part à l’extérieur, par untexte; le passage de ce texte intentionnellement savant au discours ducitoyen pour lequel il suffit de savoir lire et écrire; la multiplication de cesdiscours incohérents à la suite de l’acceptation de la prémisse organisatricede la logique démocratique qui universalise la volonté; finalement,l’expression décente de la volonté universalisée seulement en base dutexte fondateur - telles sont les conditions de possibilité de la modernitépolitique.

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. Qu’est-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 caractériser aussi la perspectivede Sir Isaiah Berlin sur l’histoire des idées politiques de notre siècle.

6. Voir Raymond Aron, Mémoires, Julliard, 1983, p. 353. Pour la manière dontManent se revendique de Strauss et de Bloom, v. son article “L’homme lié etdélié”, in Commentaire, numéro 76/Hiver 1996-97, pp. 807-809.

7. V. Alain Bergounioux, Bernard Manin, Le régime social-démocrate, P.U.F.,1989, p. 129.

8. La revendication des libertariens de Mises peut être suivie, par exemple, chezMurray Rothbard, For a New Liberty. The Libertarian Manifesto, Fox & Wilkes,San Francisco, 1973, et chez Hans-Hermann Hoppe, The Economics andEthics of Private Property, Boston, 1993.

9. Pierre Manent, “La démocratie comme régime et comme religion”, in La penséepolitique, Hautes Études, Gallimard-Seuil, no. 1/mai 1993, p. 62.

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10. V. Platon, La République, VIII, 544b-569c ; Aristote, La politique, III, 7-18 ;Montesquieu, De l’esprit des lois, III, 1-9 ; J.-J. Rousseau, Du contrat social,III, III-IV ; Leo Strauss, Qu’est-ce que la philosophie politique ? , P.U.F., 1992,pp. 15-58 ; Raymond Aron, Démocratie et totalitarisme (1965), Gallimard,1985, pp. 21-107.

11. Le fait que la bonne communauté récupérait de manière nostalgique lesdonnées de “l’âge d’or”, comme dans la philosophie politique classique, ouque, par contre, elle était projetée dans le futur en fonction de l’existence enacte, et c’est le cas des discours des modernes, ne diminuait pas du tout lasensibilité du philosophe politique devant la présence d’autres régimes. Lecas typique pour le discours nostalgique est la République platonicienne.L’intérêt pour “l’existence actuelle” est très clair à partir de Machiavel et peutêtre illustré de la meilleure façon par le discours de Montesquieu : voir seslignes fameuses sur l’Angleterre en tant qu’incarnation de la liberté et l’adage“pour découvrir la liberté politique dans la Constitution, il ne faut pas tant depeine. Si on peut la voir où elle est, si on l’a trouvée, pourquoi la chercher ?”(De l’esprit des lois, X, 5). Un commentaire subtil de ces lignes chez PierreManent, La cité de l’homme, Fayard, 1994, pp. 17-31.

12. Manent, art. cit. , p. 75.13. K.R. Popper, La Lezione di questo secolo (1992), trad. fr. La leçon de ce

siècle, Entretien avec Giancarlo Bosetti, suivi de deux essais de Karl Poppersur la liberté et l’État démocratique, trad. de J. Henry et C. Orsoni, AnatoliaÉditions, 1993, p. 102. Popper est très clair : “la démocratie ne fut jamais lepouvoir du peuple, elle ne peut et ne doit pas l’être”. Nous avons commentéce texte dans Polis, vol. 1, nr. 3/1994, pp. 202-207.

14. Popper, “Liberté et responsabilité intellectuelle”, in op. cit., pp. 131-133.15. Ludwig von Mises, Le socialisme. Étude économique et sociologique (1937),

trad. fr. par Paul Bastier et André Terrasse, Médicis, 1938, p. 18.16. Mises, op. cit. , pp. 511-512.17. Mises, L’action humaine. Traité d’économie (1963), trad. fr. par Raoul Audouin,

P.U.F., 1985, p. 887.18. Pour cette interprétation de Machiavel, v. Pierre Manent, Histoire intellectuelle

du libéralisme, Calmann-Lévy, 1987, chap. I.19. Mises, Le socialisme, p. 51.20. V. infra, le chapitre L’histoire moderne comme texte.21. Alexis de Tocqueville, De la démocratie en Amérique, Robert Laffont, coll.

“Bouquins”, Paris, 1986, p. 43.22. Manent, art. cit. , p. 62.23. Pour la manière dont les formes de cette volonté s’articulent, voir Pierre

Manent, La cité de l’homme, Fayard, Paris, 1994.24. Popper, op. cit. , pp. 123-125.25. Popper, op. cit. , p. 132.26. Mises, L’action humaine, pp. 886-887.

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27. Mises, op. cit. , p. 16. Notons que, bien que dans le texte de 1937 il utilisâtune définition identique, Mises n’y citait pas Locke, la source d’inspiration decelle-ci (v. Le socialisme, p. 127).

28. Mises, Le Socialisme, p. 128.29. Le texte est considéré ici de la perspective qui faisait déjà les auteurs du

XVII-e siècle parler de der Papierstaat, c’est-à-dire de cette forme politiqueoù les rapports entre les personnes sont reliés par des textes, par des documentsécrits, perdant de cette façon la substance purement biologique.

30. Popper a consacré à ce thème toute la démonstration de The Open Societyand Its Enemies.

31. Mises, L’action humaine, pp. 1-11.32. Platon ; La République, 557b. Nous suivrons la traduction de Robert Baccou,

Garnier-Flammarion, 1966. Le passage cité se trouve à la page 317.33. Platon, La République, 562a, p. 321.34. Platon, La République, 557 c, p. 317.35. Notons que le sens donné ici à la démocratie est un des sens les plus invoqués

aujourd’hui.36. Stanley Rosen, Spinoza, in Leo Strauss & Joseph Cropsey (eds.), Histoire de la

philosophie politique, P.U.F., 1995, p. 501.37. Spinoza, Le Traité politique, ch. XI, 4. Nous suivons la traduction de Charles

Appuhn, Garnier Flammarion, 1966, p. 115.38. Locke, Le deuxième traité, ch. V, “Sur la propriété”, le paragraphe 36. Nous

suivons la traduction de Jean Fabien Spitz, P.U.F., 1994, p. 27.39. Ibid.40. Ibid.41. Locke, Le deuxième traité, ch. X, “Sur la forme de la République”, le paragraphe

132, p. 94.42. Locke exprime toutes ces choses parlant en deux occasions différentes sur le

détenteur du pouvoir suprême : le législatif et le peuple.43. Un effort quotidien ajoutera, dans cette direction, aujourd’hui oubliée,

Tocqueville, quand il définit le patriotisme, dans sa tentative de faire de ladémocratie quelque chose de vif, comme une logique de l’égalité qui acquièrede la consistance.

44. Popper, La leçon de ce siècle, Paris, Anatolia Éditions, 1992, p. 123.45. Le traité politique, XI.1, p. 113.46. Le traité théologico-politique, XIX. Nous suivons la traduction de Charles

Appuhn, Garnier Flammarion, 1965, p. 315.47. Le traité théologico-politique, Préface, p. 27.48. Le traité théologico-politique, XVI, p. 266.49. Le traité théologico-politique, XVI, p. 267.50. Le traité théologico-politique, XVI, p. 267.51. Cf. la préface et le chapitre XX du Traité théologico-politique, tout comme le

début du Traité politique.52. Le traité politique, ch. 1, p. 11.

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53. V. Popper, La leçon de ce siècle, op. cit. , pp. 103-104.54. Ibid., p. 105.55. Spinoza considérait, dans sa célèbre Lettre à Jarig Jelles, que l’état de nature

continue aussi à l’état civil.56. Tocqueville, De la démocratie en Amérique, livre I, ch. IV, Paris, Robert Laffont,

“Bouquins”, 1986, p. 83.57. V. Pierre Manent, “La démocratie comme régime et comme religion’, in La

pensée politique, no. 1, Seuil-Gallimard, 1993, pp. 62-75. On doit préciserque Tocqueville utilisait déjà l’expression l’univers chrétien pour fixer leslimites géographico-spirituelles de la révolution démocratique (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 révolution

machiavélienne se trouve dans l’article de Irving Kristol “Machiavel et laprofanation du politique”, in Réflexions d’un néoconservateur, Paris, P.U.F.,1989, pp. 169-184.

60. Pour cette interprétation, v. Isaiah Berlin en toutes libertés, Dialogues avecRamin Jahanbegloo, Paris, Éditions du Félin, 1990, p. 83.

61. Thucydide avait décrit la guerre de Péloponnèse à partir de “son début”,stimulé par le fait qu’il était conscient que c’était “l’ébranlement le plusconsidérable qui ait remué le peuple grec, une partie des Barbares, et pourainsi dire presque tout le genre humain ”, cf. Thucydide, Histoire I, l, traductionpar Jean Voilquin, Garnier Flammarion, 1966, p.31. Voir, pour des détails,David Bolotin, “Thucydide”, in Leo Strauss, Joseph Cropsey (eds.), Histoirede la philosophie politique, Paris, P.U.F., 1995, pp. 7-34. On doit remarquerque Platon et Aristote, ceux qui ont offert, jusqu’à Machiavel, le modèle de laréflexion politique, avaient écrit eux aussi après la fin du grand cycle de lapolitique grecque.

62. Voir K.R. Popper, La société ouverte et ses ennemies, 2 tomes, Seuil, 1979.63. Rousseau, Du contrat social, I, 1, édition Bertrand de Jouvenel, Le livre de

poche, 1988, p. 157.64. Pierre Manent est celui qui fait cette suggestion quand il soutient que le

libéralisme - qui a son origine dans l’œuvre de Machiavel - suppose “quelquechose d’essentiellement délibéré et construit”, un “projet conscient etconstruit”. Voir Pierre Manent, Histoire intellectuelle du libéralisme, trad.roumaine par Mona et Sorin Antohi, Humanitas, Bucuresti, 1992, p. 12.Manent choisit ensuite comme preuve de cette “émancipation de l’idée”, decette “croissance du pouvoir politique de la théorie”, le cas américain duFédéraliste, qui énonce dès sa première page que les Américains se sont donnéscomme tache “de décider si c’est possible de fonder un bon gouvernementsur la réflexion et le choix”. Cet exemple a de relevance pour nous dans lecontexte du second repère - celui vraiment démocratique - de l’installationde la toute-puissance du texte.

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CRISTIAN PREDA

65. Celle-ci deviendra une autre obsession de la modernité, qui peut être trouvéechez Hobbes, Spinoza etc. et, dans sa forme la plus claire, chez Tocqueville,dans la simplicité pleine de vanité dont l’auteur de la Démocratie disait que“pour un monde politique absolument nouveaux, il faut une science politiquenouvelle”. Il est important d’accentuer que, parlant d’un “monde politiqueabsolument nouveau”, Tocqueville y pensait non pas aux États-Unis, mais àla France, espace politique qui n’était pas encore démocratique. L’auteurfrançais assumait donc lui aussi la prémisse machiavélienne de l’antérioritédu discours (scientifique) par rapport au monde politique. Il insistait aussibeaucoup sur le fait que le monde politique américain - le “nouveau monde”par excellence - était né toujours délibérément, à partir des principes que lespèlerins anglais avaient apportés, dont le puritanisme “n’était pas seulementune doctrine religieuse ; il se confondait encore en plusieurs points avec lesthéories démocratiques et républicaines les plus absolues” - Tocqueville, op.cit. , p. 64. Voir aussi la note antérieure.

66. Machiavel, Le Prince, la dédicace adressée à Laurent le Magnifique. Toutesces choses pourraient aussi être argumentées de la façon suivante : Machiavelassumait la nouveauté de la démarche seulement parce qu’il se croyait leseul capable d’incarner l’expérience décrite par les philosophes politiquesgrecs : en effet, du point de vue de Machiavel, il était le seul à avoir réussi àunir la praxis - l’expérience des choses modernes - et le discours - la lecturedes antiques, mais aussi le résumé destiné au Prince ; à celui-ci, il réservaitl’action, alors que les masses n’avaient accès ni à la praxis (car ceux qui sontsatisfatti n’ont plus de motif pour l’action), ni au logos (car ceux qui n’agissentpas ne peuvent être que stupidi).

67. L’exemple le plus significatif est celui de la lecture cartésienne contenue dansla lettre courte, mais importante de septembre 1646, adressée à la princesseElisabeth. Descartes explique le Prince comme un traité systématique, untexte qui peut être rapidement résumé et auquel on peut substituer sa propre“leçon”. Voir la lettre de Descartes dans l’édition des Oeuvres complètes deCharles 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. Qu’est-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. C’est ce qu’on peut déduire du système que Mises expose dans Human Action.

Nous avons évoqué les limites de cette démarche misésienne dans l’article“Testul populist”, de Sfera politicii, nr. 38, pp. 9-12.

72. Le terme est de Raymond Aron, Démocratie et totalitarisme, Paris, Gallimard,1985, pp. 131-151.

73. C’est là la différence entre un individualisme gouverné de manière absolutiste(de type hobbesien) et un individualisme démocratique (de type hayékien).

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74. Personne d’autre n’a mieux suggéré les difficultés de l’imposition de cediscrédit que Benjamin Constant. Voir sa célèbre conférence sur La libertédes anciens comparée à la liberté des modernes, texte où liberté signifie enfait démocratie. En dépit de ces difficultés, saisissables aussi dans le conflitcontemporain entre la démocratie formelle et la démocratie matérielle, lediscrédit du modèle antique est l’une des constantes de la pensée libéraled’après Bodin.

75. Jean Bodin, Les six livres de la République, I, VIII, édition et présentation deGerard Mairet, Paris, Librairie Générale Française, 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 à Benjamin Constant.79. C’est justement le titre d’un livre de Pierre Manent, La cité de l’homme, Paris,

Fayard, 1994.80. Pour ce sens donné à la démocratie, v. Pierre Manent, “La démocratie sans

corps”, in Commentaire, no. 75, automne 1996, pp. 569-576.81. René Descartes, Meditationes de prima philosophia, Seconde Méditation,

traduction roumaine par C. Noica, Humanitas, 1992, p. 255.82. Karl R. Popper, La leçon de ce siècle, Anatolia Éditions, 1993, p. 123.83. V. Leo Strauss, “What is Liberal Education ?”, in op. cit. , p. 31.

MIHAI SORIN RÃDULESCU

Né en 1966, à BucarestDoctorat en histoire accordé par l’Institut National des Langues et Civilisations

Orientales (INALCO), Paris, 1995Thèse : L’Elite libérale roumaine (1866-1900)

Maître de conférence à la Faculté d’Histoire de l’Université de BucarestSecrétaire de la Commission d’Héraldique, de Généalogie et de Sphragistique

de l’Académie Roumaine, depuis 1990Secrétaire de rédaction de la Revue Roumaine d’Histoire, depuis 1996

Membre correspondant de l’Académie Americano-Roumaine, depuis 1998Boursier de l’Insitut für Europäische Geschichte, Mainz, 1995

Participations aux colloques et rencontres scientifiques internationales enEspagne, Italie, Allemagne, Bulgarie, Roumanie.

Livres:

L’élite libérale roumaine 1866-1900. Bucarest, Ed. All, 1998Généalogies. Bucarest, Ed. Albatros, 1999

La généalogie roumaine. Brãila, Ed. Istros, 2000Environ 150 études et articles. Editeur.

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SUR L’ARISTOCRATIE ROUMAINE DE

L’ENTRE-DEUX-GUERRES

Un tel sujet pourrait surprendre parce qu’il soulève, par son énoncémême, une série de questions: y-a-t-il eu une véritable aristocratieroumaine ? Peut-on parler d’aristocratie au XXe siècle dans notre espacegéographique et culturel ? Peut-on étudier ce problème complexe sansdisposer de sources systématiques et d’ une analyse statistique qui avecnos moyens actuels semble plutôt irréalisable ? Et comment étudierl’évolution de cette élite sans instruments de travail nécessaires, mais aussisans ouvrages généraux d’histoire sociale, puisque manquent encore lessynthèses dans ce domaine ? Il n’existe encore ni histoire de la classe desboyards ni histoire de la bourgeoisie roumaine. Les ouvrages de ªtefanZeletin, Eugen Lovinescu, Mihail Manoilescu, Ioan C. Filitti, ConstantinC. Giurescu - et cette énumération est fatalement incomplète -, qu’il fautapprécier comme des contributions de valeur dans ce domaine, ne comblepas le manque d’histoire des classes sociales roumaines. Il nous manqueégalement des dictionnaires des hommes politiques roumains ainsi quedes études de prosopographie des partis politiques, de même que desouvrages généalogiques de synthèse. Ces difficultés historiographiquesont des explications claires: elles sont dues aux circonstances historiquesimposées par le régime instauré en Roumanie après la Seconde Guerremondiale. Ainsi, pendant cette très longue période d’oppression totalitaireles archives n’étaient que partiellement accessibles; malheureusementaujourd’hui encore certains fonds liés à la vie politique del’entre-deux-guerres ne sont pas mis à la disposition des chercheurs. A denombreux sujets on donnait une interprétation officielle qui ne laissaitguère de place à des opinions alternatives. Dans ce climat l’étude desélites roumaines a été en grande mesure ignorée et la notion même d’”élite”avait un caractère subversif1. Cependant , qu’on veuille ou non lereconnaître, la société roumaine a engendré durant la période entre lerègne du prince Alexandru Ioan Cuza et l’instauration du régimecommuniste, des élites socio-politiques désignées par un termesimplificateur et de propagande: “burghezo-moºierime” - (bourgeoisie etpropriétaires terriens). L’importance de ces élites ne peut être niée ou

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minimisée sans mystifier l’histoire même de cette époque. C’est en effetdes couches supérieures de la société roumaine que sont pour la plupartissus des grands acteurs de la scène politique roumaine depuis lemouvement des jeunes boyards révolutionnaires de 18482 jusqu’auxleaders des partis démocratiques ou antidémocratiques del’entre-deux-guerres.

L’aristocratie a peu intéressé les historiens et les sociologues roumains,qui en essayant de surprendre la spécificité nationale ont laissé sur unplan secondaire la composante nobiliaire de la société roumaine. Cet étatde choses paraît bizarre étant donné le rôle important que les boyards ontjoué pendant tout le Moyen Age dans la conservation de l’Etat ainsi quedans la vie culturelle. Les familles de boyards ont continué à exister après1858, en maintenant leur prestige accumulé. L’aristocratie s’est perpétuéedonc longtemps après avoir cessé de représenter une partie nettementdélimitée de la société. En ce sens la définition que Mihail Manoilescudonnait au concept de ”classe” nous semble opérationnelle : celle-ci “estcaractérisée par une permanence relative des générations successives dela même famille. On reconnaît la classe par le fait qu’au cours du tempsles individus qui sont ses membres changent par disparition physique,mais les lignées familiales ne changent qu’en petite mesure”3. Cettedéfinition peut être utilisée pour les familles de boyards, dont les filiationsse poursuivent assez souvent jusqu’à nos jours. Plus que dans n’importequelle autre partie de la société roumaine, l’idée de la continuité familialese retrouve au sein de l’aristocratie. Manoilescu énonça troiscaractéristiques principales de la notion de “classe”: “1. La classe est ungroupe social composé de nombreuses familles. 2. Elle présente unecontinuité à travers les générations, résultant du recrutement de sesmembres par filiation. 3. La classe est un groupe social hiérarchique ethorizontal”4.

La recherche généalogique mène à la conclusion que pendantl’entre-deux-guerres les familles de boyards ont constitué une véritableclasse5, même si leur pouvoir économique et leur influence politique ontdiminué de manière considérable par rapport à la situation d’avant laPremière Guerre mondiale. Les opinions des historiens concernant lapersistance de l’aristocratie sont différentes. L’historien Radu Rosetti,descendant des grands boyards moldaves et petit-fils du dernier hospodarde Moldavie Grigore Alexandru Ghica, écrivait sur la “ruine parfaite desboyards qui avaient cessé d’être un facteur politique” même avant laPremière Guerre mondiale6. Pour cet auteur, même en 1907, les

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descendants des boyards, “tant par leur nombre que par leur importanceéconomique sont devenus une quantité tout à fait négligeable, une fractionavec des prétentions, mais infime, de la nouvelle classe dirigeante.L’ancienne oligarchie roumaine, si elle vit encore, doit ce reste de vie ausouvenir de sa force passée, et non pas à sa force actuelle qui n’existepas”7. Nous ne partageons pas l’opinion de Radu Rosetti sur la sortie desboyards de la scène de l’histoire. Nous allons offrir plus loin des argumentsconcrets par lesquels on peut soutenir de manière pertinente le maintiendes boyards dans les structures politiques et culturelles même après laPremière Guerre mondiale.

Une opinion intéressante a été exprimée par ªtefan Zeletin qui parlaitde la suppression de la noblesse par la bourgeoisie, de l’oppositionculturelle que l’ancienne classe dirigeante a exercée8. Si dans d’autrespays la noblesse a essayé de garder le pouvoir dans ses mains par la voiedes armes, “nos boyards ont utilisé des armes plus nobles que celleshabituelles: en tant que classe dirigeante, elle avait l’apanage de la culture,de l’intelligence, c’est pourquoi elle a dirigé contre la bourgeoisie lesarmes subtiles de la science. Autrement dit, sa lutte a été une lutteculturelle”9. Ainsi a pris naissance la société “Junimea”, en tantqu’expression culturelle de la “lutte théorique contre la bourgeoisieroumaine”10. En même temps la bourgeoisie roumaine avait de plus enplus tendance à imiter l’aristocratie, dont le modèle social et culturels’imposa 11.L’aristocratisation est un processus qui a aussi eu lieu pendantl’entre-deux-guerres et que George Cãlinescu a surpris en l94l: “Il y a unsiècle Gh. Eminovici pouvait devenir boyard, car il y avait un prince quipouvait lui conférer le titre, tandis qu’aujourd’hui le bourgeois est dépourvupour toujours de cette vanité. L’aristocratie roumaine se constitue mêmede nos jours et les nombreuses généalogies, études d’archives familialesmontre que les individus qui peuvent produire des documents ont tendanceà se constituer en caste et à résister de manière collective à l’initiative del’individu et, c’est chose à retenir, en dépassant le cadre national”12. Lesobservations de Cãlinescu ont été engendrées par le roman Donna Albade Gib Mihãescu, auteur qui éprouvait une certaine fascination pour l’espritaristocratique.

Comme le remarquait George Cãlinescu dont l’histoire monumentalede la littérature roumaine contient de nombreuses généalogies d’écrivains,on peut établir un lien entre la conscience de soi des descendants desboyards roumains et l’essor pris pendant l’entre-deux-guerres par lesrecherches généalogiques. C’est de cette période que datent les

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généalogies des familles de boyards de Valachie, dressées par Ioan C.Filitti,Emanoil Hagi Mosco et George D.Florescu (restées inédites jusqu’àaujourd’hui). Pour la Moldavie on peut citer les ouvrages de GheorgheGhibãnescu, Constantin Gane et Gheorghe Bezviconi, l’éditeur de la revue“Din trecutul nostru”. La plus rigoureuse monographie de famille est dueau général Radu Rosetti et elle s’intitule Familia Rosetti (2 volumes,Bucarest, l938 - l940). Le livre est remarquablement documenté, avecdes notes pour chaque renseignement. Et ce n’est pas le seul ouvrage dece genre. Dans la même catégorie on peut citer les monographies de IoanNãdejde13, du général Mihai Racoviþã-Cehan14, Teodor Bãlan15, GheorgheUngureanu16, Teodor Botiº17 etc.

L’intérêt pour l’histoire des familles de boyards est prouvé par le nombreet la qualité de ces monographies, ainsi que par les tentatives deconstitution d’un institut de recherches généalogiques. Au moment où lesétudes dans ce domaine ont connu un haut degré de diversification, leurcoordination est devenue nécessaire. Dans la Roumanie del’entre-deux-guerres il n’y a pas eu un institut ou une société généalogiquequi aurait pu remplir cette fonction. Une Commission ConsultativeHéraldique a été fondée en 1921 - présidée par Dimitre Onciul - pourélaborer les blasons des districts, des communes et des villes.

Le 7 juillet 1938 Gheorghe Bezviconi a présenté à Nicolae Iorga unmémoire montrant la nécessité d’un institut généalogique18. Il y a eu ensuitele mémoire de George D.Florescu, publié par N.Iorga, cette même annéedans “Revista istorica”19. C’est sans doute un des textes les plus intéressantsde la littérature généalogique roumaine, dans lequel on parle de l’existenced’une mémoire généalogique chez les boyards roumains du Moyen Age.Les tableaux votifs sont autant de témoignages du culte des ancêtres dansle Moyen Age roumain.

Cet institut devait exercer un contrôle sur les travaux d’intérêtgénéalogique pour combattre le dilettantisme et promouvoir les étudesscientifiques, documentaires. L’institut devait être divisé en cinq sections:1. La Valachie avec l’Olténie (centres : Bucarest et Craiova) ; 2. LaMoldavie, avec la Bessarabie et la Bucovine (centres : Iaºi, Chiºinãu,Cernãuþi) ; 3. La Transylvanie, le Maramureº, le Banat (centre : Cluj) ; 4.La Dobrudja, avec le Qudrilatère (centre: Constanþa). 5. Une section pourla Macédoine. George D.Florescu précisait les objectifs de chaque sectionde l’institut envisageant aussi la constitution d’une Association d’entre-aidede la noblesse roumaine, sur le modèle de l’ ”Association d’entre-aide dela noblesse française”.

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Aurel George Stino, Theodor Râºcanu, George Grecianu20, ScarlatPreajbã (le général N.Negreanu)21, N.Moþoc-Epureanu22 se sont prononcésdans des articles pour la fondation d’un institut généalogique roumain.Cet institut n’a pas été fondé à cause de la guerre. Pourtant, au printempsde l’année 1943 une association de spécialistes appelée “CerculGenealogic Român” (Le Cercle Généalogique Roumain) est fondée lesoir du 7 mars l943 dans la maison du général Mihai Racoviþã-Cehan àBucarest, en présence de Octav George Lecca, Ion Ionascu, GeorgeD.Florescu, Gheorghe Bezviconi, Traian Larionescu, Vasile Panopol, IoanCârlova, Alexandru Saint-Georges, Mihai M.Racoviþã, Emanoil Bogdan,Dan et ªtefan Cernovodeanu23. Le but de ce groupe était “la recherchedu passé des familles du pays” et “l’établissement d’un rapprochementd’âme entre tous les chercheurs de notre passé“. Il s’agit en premier lieude l’étude des familles de boyards, mais le cercle se proposait une ouvertureplus large, vers toutes les couches sociales. A la tête de l’association il yavait des descendants de boyards. En tant que président fut élu le généralMihai Racoviþã-Cehan, en tant que vice-président - George D.Florescu.Du comité dirigeant faisaient partie le procureur Constantin I.Prodan, IonIonaºcu et Gheorghe Bezviconi et en tant que secrétaire fut élu TraianLarionescu, bibliothécaire à la Fondation du Roi Carol I. Le 16 avril 1943le Cercle Généalogique Roumain fut inscrit au Tribunal d’Ilfov. Il a éditéune publication intitulée “Arhiva Genealogicã Românã” dont le nomvoulait rémémorer la revue éditée par Sever Zotta en 1912 - 1913. Cetteforme d’association des généalogistes n’a duré qu’une année. Elle est néedans une atmosphère d’émulation des recherches nobiliaires et d’histoiredes familles, qu’avait remarquée George Cãlinescu.

Les descendants des boyards de l’entre-deux-guerres étaient-ilsconscients et intéressés par leur origine ? Que pensaient-ils de leur proprelignée? C’est la littérature de la mémoire de l’époque qui répond à cesquestions, littérature que l’on peut illustrer par quelques exemples. AinsiConstantin Argetoianu consacrait à son origine une riche incursiongénéalogique24. Alexandru Tzigara-Samurcaº découvrait les sources desa noblesse dans une église de Venise: “Je suis flatté d’avoir pu trouverintacte, dans l’église San Giorgio dei Greci de Venise, dans l’axe de l’autel,sous le ciel libre, la pierre tombale du grand porte-glaive Zotu Tzigara,mort en 1599 et dont le nom est resté inchangé de père en fils, que j’espèreavoir porté avec la dignité traditionnelle de la famille./ C’est au portraitfier du porte-glaive Zotu, tenant à sa droite l’épée de son rang, et à sagauche le poignard, que j’ai emprunté son blason, une main tenant une

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épée, - que j’ai ajoutée au cœur des armoiries des Samurcaº, avec lesourcil et le “samur”, d’où vient le nom. Ce blason combiné constituemon ex-libris et est gravé sur la plaque de marbre placé sur le lieu denotre repos éternel”25. Tzigara-Samurcaº, le fondateur du Musée d’ArtNational, a été élevé parmi de vieux documents de famille, dont il a apprisla valeur dès son enfance26. C’est dans son milieu familial qu’il a appris labeauté de l’art populaire27.

Si Tzigara-Samurcaº liait son affinité pour la culture à son origine,Nicolae Iorga considérait son implication dans la vie politique comme laconséquence de sa descendance des anciens boyards moldaves (desMiclescu, des Catargi etc.). “C’est d’eux et d’autres hérités par la mère dema mère que j’ai cette affection pour tout ce qui se lie à cette terre, enfaisant de mes écrits, de chaque instant que je touche ce passé, unhommage à eux et en même temps une reconnaissance de tout ce qui melie à la chère histoire de notre Moldavie”28. Pour Nicolae Iorga, l’attractionde l’histoire est l’héritage laissé par les ancêtres et la liaison étroite avecceux-ci. Le grand historien croyait en l’ascendance byzantine de la famillede sa mère (les Arghiropol).

La conscience de son appartenance sociale est clairement expriméepar l’écrivain Alexandru Paleologu, dont le témoignage peut être considérécomme révélateur pour son enfance, pendant l’entre-deux-guerres.“D’ailleurs j’ai eu une attitude personnelle dans ce domaine. J’ai toujoursdéclaré que j’avais une “origine bourgeoise” - moi je l’aurais appelé“noble”, mais la formule était celle-là, je n’ai donc pas caché mon origine(...). Il aurait été absurde de procéder d’une autre manière; en publiantmes mémoires on voit clairement que mes souvenirs d’enfance étaientliés à un milieu et à une culture noble”29.

La société roumaine s’est développée sans ruptures pendant des siècles,en créant, au Moyen Age, une couche supérieure que l’on pourrait appeleraristocratie, en utilisant une notion générale. Sa sphère large permet d’yinclure tant les familles de boyards de Moldavie et de Valachie que lesdescendants des boyards du pays de Fagaras, les nobles roumains deMaramures et d’autres régions de la Transylvanie. Cette notion comprendles différents groupes sociaux mentionnés, ayant un attribut commun, lanoblesse, dont la valeur symbolique et culturelle a gardé sa force depuisle Moyen Age jusqu’à nos jours. Nous ne nous proposons pas de définirdans ce cadre le concept de “noblesse”, mais il faut mettre en évidenceque la noblesse ressurgit de la continuité des traditions au sein de la mêmefamille ou le long de certaines lignées.

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La noblesse est un attribut d’excellence conféré d’habitude par uneautorité monarchique, attribut transmis et conservé dans le cadre d’unesuccession généalogique. “La noblesse c’est l’œuvre du temps”, disait unadage qui se vérifie aussi dans le cas de l’histoire roumaine. L’attribut dela noblesse n’est pas nécessairement lié aux titres nobiliaires héréditairesqui n’ont pas existé (sauf quelques exceptions) chez les boyards deMoldavie et de Valachie.

Les titres existants qui n’étaient pas reconnus par la Constitutionroumaine de 1923, provenaient d’autorités étrangères, d’habitude del’empereur autrichien. C’est le cas, très connu, de la famille Brancovanqui figure aussi dans les almanachs de Gotha (sous la forme “Bassarabade Brancovan”), en vertu du fait que le hospodar Constantin Brâncoveanua été élevé en 1695 au rang de prince du Saint Empireromain-germanique30. Le titre de prince fut également reçu en 1900 parRadu (Rodolphe) Kretzulescu, de la part du roi d’Italie Umberto I31, avecla fille duquel il allait se fiancer. Et les exemples pourraient se poursuivre,en incluant l’ “aga” Constantin Bãlãceanu, qui a reçu le titre de comte32,les barons Bellu, Meitani, Kapri etc.

Le système nobiliaire occidental a fonctionné tant en Transylvaniequ’en Bucovine33, pendant la domination autrichienne. En Transylvaniebeaucoup de Roumains sont restés au niveau de la petite noblesse (gentry),sans titres34. Les Roumains qui se sont magyarisés et qui ont changé deconfession ont pu entrer dans la catégorie des magnats. Ainsi, on connaîtl’origine roumaine des familles Bánffy, Kendéffy, Kemény etc. En Bucovine,les autorités ont reconnu et ont confirmé la noblesse de beaucoup defamilles de boyards35. Tout au long de la domination autrichienne ont étéconférés des titres de noble, chevalier, baron et singulièrement celui decomte pour la famille Wassilko, avec le prédicat ”de Serecki”.

Aux porteurs des titres nobiliaires reçus s’ajoutaient ceux des titresauto-assumés. Il s’agit des descendants des hospodars des principautésqui utilisaient fréquemment le titre princier : d’abord les descendants deGheorghe Bibescu et de Barbu ªtirbei, ultérieurement aussi ceux desprinces phanariotes36; ainsi que certains Cantacuzène, surtout de labranche du hospodar ªerban Cantacuzène, et des Ghica, comme le prêtrecatholique Vladimir Ghika, petit-fils du hospodar Grigore AlexandruGhica37. En pleine période de l’entre-deux-guerres dans la haute sociétéroumaine il y avait le “prince” Barbu ªtirbei, Premier-ministre en 1927, etle “prince” George Valentin Bibescu, président de la FédérationAéronautique Internationale. Les titres nobiliaires avaient donc dans la

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Roumanie de l’entre-deux-guerres une valeur mondaine et non pasjuridique.

Après 1918, l’aristocratie roumaine comprenait les descendants desboyards de Valachie et de Moldavie, les descendants de la noblesseroumaine de Transylvanie, ainsi que ceux de la noblesse de Bucovine etde Bessarabie qui avaient leurs racines dans la classe des boyardsmoldaves. S’y ajoutaient des éléments de la grande bourgeoisie qui ontété assimilés par l’aristocratie à travers les mariages. Il y a eu une tendanced’homogénéisation de l’aristocratie roumaine, manifestée par les mariagesmixtes, entre transylvains et “moldo-valaques” - quelques exemples dansce sens provenant de générations différentes: Constantin Sãrãþeanu (premierprésident de la Haute Cour de Cassation, membre de la Régence) et OlgaPopovici, la soeur de l’homme politique Mihai Popovici; OctavianC.Tãslãuanu, écrivain et homme politique, et Fatma Sturdza, petite-fillede Vasile Sturdza, membre de la lieutenance princière de Moldavie en1858 - 1859; Eugen Goga, le frère du poète Octavian Goga et ElizaOdobescu, nièce de l’écrivain Alexandru Odobescu et descendante ducôté maternel des familles Florescu et Manu; le folkloriste Mihai Pop,neveu de l’homme politique Ilie Lazãr (de Purcareti) et Irina Sturdza,descendante du même Vasile Sturdza, ainsi que de Ion Câmpineanu - ducôté 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 l’ancienroyaume et les hommes politiques de Transylvanie38. Celles-ci se sontexprimées dans la concurrence pour le pouvoir entre le PartiNational-Libéral et le Parti National-Paysan.

Dans ce qui suit je me propose de restreindre l’objet de la recherche,en essayant d’examiner la place de l’aristocratie dans la société roumaineentre 1918 et 1947. C’est le moment peut-être de préciser que je vois iciune équivalence entre la notion d’élite historique traditionnelle et celled’aristocratie qui décrit bien sûr une réalité sociale en grande mesuredifférente de celle qui existe en Europe Occidentale. Les considérationsqui suivront sont fondées sur l’analyse généalogique de plusieurspersonnalités politiques roumaines, dont j’ai reconstitué les lignéesd’ancêtres et les liens de parenté.

Si avec l’abolition des privilèges des boyards en 1858, l’existencejuridique de la classe des boyards prend fin, son existence physique etspirituelle se poursuivra dans le domaine privé. Si je pouvais oser unetelle comparaison, un peu forcée, la qualité de boyard pendant le MoyenAge roumain (XVe - XVIe siècle) était rarement due à la dignité remplie

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par tel ou tel personnage. Il la devait à sa naissance au sein d’une famillede boyards qui détenait un certain patrimoine foncier et qui jouissait d’unprestige social particulier, étant éventuellement apparentée au princerégnant (hospodar) (dans le cas des grands boyards appelés “vlastelini”)et certainement à d’autres familles de boyards39. De même, si je peux mepermettre un tel saut dans le temps et dans l’espace, une autre questionpeut se poser : après l’adoption de la constitution républicaine et l’abolitiondes privilèges de l’aristocratie, la noblesse a-t-elle cessé d’exister “de facto”en France, alors que la disparition de la noblesse “de jure” était prononcéeet que tous les citoyens étaient devenus égaux? La réponse est négative etmême actuellement la noblesse continue à exister en France en tant quegroupe social relativement clos, avec des traits spécifiques40. Desproblèmes identiques pourraient se poser dans la société roumaine d’après1858, mais ils méritent certainement une analyse plus profonde et plusétendue que celle présentée dans cet exposé.

Jusqu’à l’instauration du régime communiste, la société roumaine aconnu une évolution organique, sans transformations violentes et sansconvulsions sociales d’importance structurale. Un changement significatifdans l’évolution de la classe politique sous le régime démocrate-libéralfut l’assimilation des éléments transylvains qui se sont avérés très actifssur la scène politique roumaine après 1918. Cette élite qui est entrée dansle jeu comprenait de nombreux descendants des familles nobles roumaines,tels Iuliu Maniu41 et Alexandru Vaida Voevod. Après la disparition desboyards comme classe privilégiée de la société, leurs descendants ontcontinué à se manifester dans la vie publique roumaine, forts du capitalsymbolique et culturel associé à l’ancienneté de leurs familles42. Sibiologiquement, elles ne se sont pas éteintes, les vieilles familles deboyards, alliées parfois à des familles de la haute et moyenne bourgeoisieet qui continuaient dans de nombreux cas de longues files de dignitairesmédiévaux, ont gardé leur position sociale jusqu’à la soviétisation du pays,malgré les changements survenus après la Première Guerre mondiale.Souvent marquées par l’impact généalogique des Phanariotes, elles ontconnu quand même des fluctuations dans la hiérachie sociale du XIXe

siècle et du début du XXe.Sur la pénétration des familles phanariotes dans la société roumaine,

il faudrait entreprendre des recherches systématiques. On peut déjà sedemander dans ce contexte s’il y a eu, par exemple, une “politiquematrimoniale “ des Phanariotes. D’autres questions suivent : peut-on parlerde l’assimilation d’une famille phanariote, et après combien de générations

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sur le territoire roumain ? Dans quelle mesure les Phanariotes ont-ilsinfluencé la naissance et le développement des élites roumaines au XIXe

siècle ? De nombreux Grecs parmi ceux qui ont pénétré dans la classedes boyards roumains, comme les membres des familles Mano, Venturaet beaucoup d’autres se sont roumanisés très rapidement, alors que lesSoutzo, par exemple, à la suite de leur forte endogamie, sont restés trèsliés à ses idéaux de renaissance nationale politique et culturelle43. LesPhanariotes intégrés dans la société roumaine ont apporté une contributionimportante à la cristallisation de la classe politique roumaine ; ainsi c’estde deux puissantes familles phanariotes que descendait le politicien libéralMihail G.Orleanu (1859-1942), ancien ministre et président de la chambredes députés : les Plagino et les Aristarchi44. Cependant les descendantsdes Phanariotes ne faisaient pas partie seulement de l’élite libérale, ils seperpétuèrent aussi dans le milieu social du Parti Conservateur. C’est lecas par exemple du général Gheorghe Mano (1833-1911), l’un despersonnages les plus influents de ce parti, fils du lieutenant-princier(“caimacam”) Ioan Mano et de son épouse Ana, née Ghika45. Plusieursgrands dignitaires de la Patriarchie de Constantinople - l’héritière culturelleet historique de la légitimité byzantine - avaient appartenu à la familleMano46 et une branche de cette famille est restée en Grèce où elle existeencore de nos jours.

Malgré l’ouverture que l’introduction du suffrage universel a apportéeà la vie publique roumaine après la Première Guerre mondiale, lesdescendants des boyards ont continué de fournir des leaders politiquesau pays, ainsi que des intellectuels célèbres. Les membres de ce groupesocial apportaient avec eux la tradition des occupations publiques, ainsiqu’une éducation soignée, le plus souvent parachevée en Occident, surtouten France. Ils entraient dans la vie politique avec un large prestige socialoffert par leur passé, par leurs fortunes, par leurs liens de parenté, par desamitiés qui se sont perpétuées au fil des générations. Tous ces atouts quedéfinissaient leur statut social - l’énumération que je viens de faire est loind’être exhaustive - devaient être conservés par des alliances matrimonialessouhaitables qui, elles, avaient aussi pour objet de sauver les fortunesfoncières affectées par la réforme agraire de 1921.

Le fait que beaucoup d’hommes politiques roumains qui semanifestèrent dans la vie publique tant avant qu’après la Première Guerremondiale étaient les continuateurs des anciennes familles de boyards aété relevé par l’historien Neagu Djuvara dans une étude publiée en 198747.Dans ce qui suit on détaillera cet aspect par le biais des généalogies.

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Ainsi I.G.Duca, l’un des hommes politiques libéraux les plus illustres del’époque, descendait, par sa mère Lucie née Ghica-Budeºti, de lanombreuse famille princière des Ghica et sa grand-mère était issue de lafamille des grands boyards de Valachie Filipescu48. Les ancêtres del’homme politique Constantin Argetoianu, grande figure de lafranc-maçonnerie roumaine de l’entre-deux-guerres, étaient des membresdes familles Oteteleºanu, Rahtivanu et Slãtineanu49, pour ne donner quequelques noms de son ascendance. Cette constatation pourrait être illustréeégalement par la généalogie du grand diplomate Nicolae Titulescu dontla mère descendait de la vieille famille de boyards Urdãreanu. Lagrand-mère du côté maternel de Titulescu était la sœur du peintre TheodorAman et de Costache Aman, dont la fille Hélène s’était mariée en 1853avec Barbu Bãlcescu, frère cadet de l’historien et homme politique NicolaeBãlcescu (1819-1852)50. L’une de leurs filles sera la mère de l’ingénieurIon Gigurtu51 qui était, donc, le neveu de Nicolae Titulescu. Lesreprésentants de l’élite historique roumaine n’apparaissent pas seulementdans les formations politiques d’inspiration libérale et démocratique, maisaussi dans les mouvements d’extrême droite ou d’extrême gauche. Ainsi,le général Gheorghe Cantacuzène - “Grãnicerul” (le Garde-frontière),président du parti ultra-nationaliste “Totul pentru þarã” (“Tout pour lapatrie”), descendait directement du prince régnant de Valachie ªerbanCantacuzène52, tandis qu’Alecu Cantacuzène, jeune espoir intellectuelde la Garde de fer était le petit-fils de l’homme politique conservateurGeorges Grégoire Cantacuzène dit “le Nabab”53. Alexandru Ghyka - chefde la police légionnaire - était l’arrière-petit-fils de Grégoire V.Ghyka,dernier prince régnant de Moldavie (1849-1856) et aussi descendant directde l’homme politique Ion Câmpineanu54. L’un des intellectuelscommunistes les plus connus fut le poète et historien Scarlat Callimachi,surnommé “le prince rouge”, descendant en droite ligne d’un frère duprince régnant de Moldavie Ioan Theodor Callimachi, sa mère étant lafille de l’homme politique Gheorghe Vernescu55.

Parmi les 20 Premiers ministres roumains entre 1918-1940, plusieursdescendaient (par lignée paternelle ou maternelle) de l’élite historique desprincipautés extracarpathiques (le général Constantin Coandã, IonI.C.Brãtianu, Barbu ªtirbei, Vintilã Brãtianu, Nicolae Iorga, I.G.Duca,dr.Constantin Angelescu, Gheorghe Tãtãrascu, le général GheorgheArgeºanu, Constantin Argetoianu, Ion Gigurtu) ; deux étaient issus de lanoblesse roumaine de Transylvanie (Iuliu Maniu, Alexandru Vaida Voevod) ;deux provenaient du milieu bourgeois (Take Ionescu, Armand Cãlinescu),

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deux étaient d’origine paysanne (le général Alexandru Averescu, lepatriarche Miron Cristea), un descendait de familles de prêtres orthodoxesdu sud de la Transylvanie (Octavian Goga), un descendait de paysans libresmoldaves (le professeur George G.Mironescu) ; un dernier était le fils d’unfonctionnaire d’origine étrangère (le général Arthur Vãitoianu).

Les Brãtianu qui se trouvaient à la tête d’un parti qui avait pour but laformation d’une bourgeoisie nationale étaient eux aussi de vieille souchenoble, dans le sens local de ce mot56. Leur filiation remonte jusqu’au XVe

siècle et même jusqu’à la fin du XIVe, si on suit la lignée des boyardsVlãdescu, qui étaient leurs ancêtres par les femmes57.

La disparition de la scène politique du Parti Conservateur a été uneconséquence de l’élargissement considérable du droit de vote après lapremière conflagration mondiale, de l’accès à la vie politique d’un grandnombre de citoyens - surtout d’origine rurale - qui jusqu’alors n’avaientpas eu le droit de se manifester sur ce terrain. Les grandes réformes quisont survenues après 1918 ont restreint la base économique de l’élitehistorique roumaine. Cependant les descendants des familles de boyardsont continué de s’affirmer dans la vie publique roumaine, tant dans lessciences que dans les arts. On peut en citer de nombreux exemples. Aucours de l’entre-deux-guerres, la revue “Convorbiri literare” était dirigéepar l’historien d’art Alexandru Tzigara-Samurcaº, arrière-neveu du vornic(chambellan) Constantin Samurcaº, membre de l’Hétairie et haut dignitaireà la cour princière de Bucarest au début du XIXe siècle58.

L’une des figures remarquables de l’école roumaine d’architecture, àla fois créateur et historien du phénomène artistique, NicolaeGhika-Budeºti (1869-1943), auteur de l’ouvrage monumental Evolutiaarhitecturii în Muntenia si Oltenia, descendait d’une branche moldave dela nombreuse famille des Ghika59. Par sa mère il était cousin germain del’architecte G.M.Cantacuzène (1899-1960) et du peintre Theodor Pallady(1871-1956), deux autres aristocrates, brillants intellectuels quidescendaient tous les deux - l’un par lignée paternelle, l’autre par lignéematernelle - de la branche Deleanu-Mãgureanu de la familleCantacuzène60. La classe des boyards avait encore du souffle pour donnerde nombreux talents à la culture roumaine. L’inventeur Henri Coandã,fils du général Constantin Coandã, était l’arrière-petit-fils d’un GhiþãCoandã, élevé en 1845 au rang de “pitar”61. L’un des juristes les plusfameux du pays, Istrate Micescu était le petit-fils d’un personnage du mêmenom, nommé toujours “pitar” le 30 août 1839 et qui était le fils du “ceaus”

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Rãducanu Micescu, fils à son tour de Pârvu Micescu de Miceºti (dansl’ancien département de Muscel, aujourd’hui Argeº)62.

A la tête de l’école historique roumaine de l’époque se trouvaienttoujours des descendants de l’ancienne classe des boyards. Nicolae Iorgaavait dans la famille de son père cinq porteurs de rangs de boyard ; sonpère même avait été promu “medelnicer” en 1858. Mais la vieille noblessevenait chez Nicolae Iorga par sa filiation maternelle, plus précisémentpar son arrière-grand-mère Catinca Miclescu qui avait épousé le “parucic”(sous-lieutenant) Ioan Arghiropol, ayant un fils Gheorghe Arghiropol quis’était marié avec Hélène, fille du “vornic” Iordache Drãghici, l’un desboyards éclairés du règne du prince Ioniþã Sandu Sturdza (1822-1828).De ce dernier mariage est issue Zulnie Arghiropol, la mère de NicolaeIorga63. De même, Georges Brãtianu, historien d’envergure européenne,descendait directement, par sa mère Marie née Mourousi64 des princesphanariotes Constantin et Alexandre Mourousi, tandis que son épouseHélène née Sturdza était l’arrière-petite-fille du prince règnant de MoldavieMihail Sturdza (1834-1849)65. L’historien P.P.Panaitescu descendait parsa mère Leonia née Greceanu de la famille des boyards moldavesGreceanu66, des familles Mano (branche de Moldavie), Miclescu67 etc.Par une arrière-grand-mère, Profira Mano née Miclescu, P.P.Panaitescuétait le cousin au quatrième degré (malgré la différence d’âge) de NicolaeIorga68. On pourrait également mentionner l’historien et généalogiste IoanC.Filitti, descendant du côté maternel des boyards Slãtineanu. L’un desarchéologues de valeur de l’époque, Scarlat Lambrino, qui aprèsl’avènement des communistes au pouvoir en Roumanie, s’est réfugié enFrance, descendait lui aussi d’une famille de boyards moldaves d’originegrecque, qui s’était établie en Moldavie au XVIIe siècle69.

Dans la science biologique roumaine se sont distingués à la mêmeépoque au moins trois représentants de l’aristocratie : l’entomologisteAristide Caradja, le docteur Jean Cantacuzène et le spéléologue EmileRacoviþã. Aristide Caradja était l’arrière-petit-fils de Ioan Caradja, princerégnant de Valachie entre 1812 et 181870 et sa mère Euphrosyne néeSoutzo descendait en lignée directe d’un autre prince phanariote, celuiqui succéda à Caradja sur le trône de Bucarest, Alexandre Soutzo.

Le docteur Jean Cantacuzène était le petit-fils du grand boyardConstantin Cantacuzène, lieutenant princier de Valachie en 1848/49 alorsque sa mère était la fille du général Nicolae Mavros71. Emile Racoviþãdescendait de la vieille famille de boyards moldaves Racoviþã-Cehan,attestée dès le XVe siècle72.

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Dans la musique et la musicologie se sont affirmés, entre autres,l’ethnomusicologue Constantin Brãiloiu, issu d’une vieille familled’Olténie, et Mihail Jora, compositeur et chef d’orchestre renommé,descendant d’une très vieille famille moldave à laquelle avait appartenula mère du chroniqueur Grigore Ureche. Sa grand-mère paternelleSmaranda Jora née Rosetti était la nièce de Costache Negri (1812-1876),homme politique et écrivain bien connu73. Mihail Jora était également lecousin germain de Maruca Cantacuzène née Rosetti-Teþcanu, l’épousedu compositeur Georges Enesco. La liste des hommes de lettres, desscientifiques et des artistes de cette époque issus des familles del’aristocratie roumaine est très longue et risque de devenir fastidieuse.C’est pourquoi nous ne citerons plus que quelques noms : les poètes HélèneVacaresco, Ion Pillat, Adrian Maniu, la princesse Marthe Bibesco, lelinguiste Alexandre Rosetti, l’actrice Lucie Sturdza-Bulandra, lemathématicien Alexandre Ghika, le géologue Stefan Ghika-Budeºti, etc.

La diplomatie est l’un des corps roumains d’élite auquel la classe desboyards a fourni de nombreux éléments. Ainsi, en raison de leurconnaissance des langues étrangères, de l’éducation privilégiée dont ilsavaient bénéficié et du statut social qu’assurait une carrière diplomatique,les descendants des familles aristocratiques entraient notamment dans ladiplomatie, comme l’illustrent de nombreux exemples. On vient dementionner Nicolae Titulescu; de même Grigore Gafencu descendait parson père d’une famille de boyards de Bucovine et par sa mère de lanombreuse famille des Costaki74, à laquelle avaient appartenu lemétropolite de Moldavie Veniamin Costaki et l’homme politiqueManolache Costaki Epurean. La mère du diplomate NicolaePetrescu-Comnen, ancien ministre des Affaires étrangères de Roumanie,était issue de la famille Cernovodeanu75. Même dans le gouvernementlégionnaire, le portefeuille des Affaires étrangères était détenu par unSturdza, Mihail (Lucã) Sturdza, qui était le petit-fils de Vasile Sturdza(1810-1870), l’un des trois lieutenants princiers de Moldavie en 1858-1859et le premier-président de la Haute Cour de Cassation dont l’épouse étaitl’une des soeurs de Costache Negri76. Mihail Manoilescu, savantéconomiste et ministre des Affaires étrangères dans le cabinet Gigurtu,descendait par filiation maternelle des familles de boyards moldavesBãdãrau et Tãutu77.

Tous ces exemples - et on aurait pu en choisir bien d’autres - prouventqu’avant le processus de soviétisation, la société roumaine était représentéeet, dans une grande mesure, dirigée par des élites légitimes, formées non

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seulement par des descendants des familles aristocratiques, mais aussipar des membres de la bourgeoisie et par des intellectuels de souchenouvelle. Avant l’avènement des communistes au pouvoir à Bucarest, lasociété roumaine avait connu une évolution sans ruptures, fortementinfluencée par le modèle français, l’élite historique conservant son prestigesocial et culturel et réussissant à le transmettre d’une génération à l’autre.Les régimes dictatoriaux qui se sont succédés en 1938 et en 1940 n’ontpas eu pour conséquence des changements dans la structure de la société.Le premier chef du gouvernement après le rétablissement du régimedémocratique, le général Constantin Sãnãtescu descendait d’une famillede boyards du département de Gorj, anoblie par l’empereur autrichienCharles VI en 171778.

Jusqu’à l’instauration du régime totalitaire, les descendants des boyardsont continué à mener une vie spécifique, profondément marquée par lacivilisation française de l’époque, ils ont gardé leurs manoirs et leursrésidences à Bucarest.

La vie à la campagne a continué à avoir son importance pendantl’entre-deux-guerres. Les expropriations effctuées par la réforme agrairede 1921 ont affecté fortement le support économique de l’aristocratie, enréduisant “de 6 millions d’hectares la surface des terrains détenue par lagrande propriété“, selon l’estimation d’un historien contemporain79. Lesdescendants des boyards ont continué à posséder des domaines étendussur lesquels ils ont construit des manoirs. Le fief des Brãtianu était Florica,celui de Gheorghe Tãtãrescu, Poiana (dans le district de Gorj), celui deIuliu Maniu, son village natal de Bãdãcin (dans le district de Sãlaj). C’étaitdes lieux entourées d’une certaine atmosphère mythique.

La vie à la campagne de l’aristocratie a fait l’objet de souvenirs etmémoires après 1989: ainsi Matei Cãlinescu évoquait le manoir de Dârvari(dans le district de Mehedinþi), qui avait appartenu à la famille de sa mèrenée Vulcãnescu80. Elisabeta Varlam, fille du général Radu Rosetti, sesouvenait à propos de son père: “Je crois que le lieu où mon père sesentait le mieux était Brusturoasa - sur le Trotuº, dans le district de Bacãu.C’était la propriété de ma mère îIoana Rosetti née Stirbeiº, où ils passaientleurs étés dans les années d’après leur mariage. Ma mère était très liée àces lieux, comme mon père aussi. En souvenir de ma mère, mon père y aélevé une école et un dispensaire, il a réparé des églises et il a aidé commeil a su les gens de cet endroit, en nous montrant par toutes ses manifestationsson profond amour pour les paysans et pour le pays81.

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Pendant l’entre-deux-guerres Martha Bibescu résidait à Mogoºoaia,palais qu’elle a fait restaurer d’après les plans des architectes DomenicoRupolo et G.M.Cantacuzène. A Strejeºti (dans le district d’Olt) le vieuxmanoir des boyards Buzescu a été hérité par la famille Darvari; àStorobãneasa (dans le district de Teleorman) il y avait la propriété de lafamille Racottã; à Buftea, Voila (dans le district de Prahova) et Dãrmãnestis’élevaient les manoirs de la famille ªtirbei; à Sihlea (dans le district deBuzãu) le manoir des Grãdiºteanu avait été hérité par la famille Ghica(par la branche de l’ingénieur Serban Ghica). Les Ghica de Valachie (labranche de Nicolae I.Ghica, fils de l’écrivain Ion Ghica) possédaient lemanoir de Ghergani (dans le district de Damboviþa), tandis que les Ghicamoldaves étaient les propriétaires de vrais châteaux en Moldavie: àComãneºti, Dofteana etc. Les Brâncoveanu avaient un manoir à Breaza(dans le district de Prahova). Le diplomate Antoine Bibescu avait commerésidence d’été le manoir de Corcova (dans le district de Mehedinþi). ACiocãneºti (dans le district d’Ilfov) se trouvait le manoir apporté en dotpar Alexandrine Cantacuzène née Paladi, présidente de la Société desFemmes Orthodoxes Roumaines. Les Cantacuzène continuaient à posséderpendant l’entre-deux-guerres des propriétés foncières et des manoirs dansle district de Prahova: à Râfov (la branche de Serban Vodã), à Floreºti et àPoiana Þapului (la branche du Nabab) etc. A Cãciulaþi (dans le districtd’Ilfov) le manoir bâti par le hospodar Alexandru Ghica a appartenu ensuiteaux descendants de la famille Blaremberg (les Mavrocordat et les Filipescu).L’ancien manoir de Udriºte Nãsturel de Herãºti (dans le district d’Ilfov)était la propriété des descendants de l’homme politique libéral AnastaseStolojan. Le fief de la famille Callimachi était le manoir de Stânceºti (dansle district de Botoºani)82, celui d’une branche des Miclescu - le manoir deCãlineºti (dans le district de Botoºani). Les Vãcãrescu possédaient lesmanoirs de Vãcãreºti (dans le district de Damboviþa) et de Mãneºti (dansle district de Prahova).

Les “gardenparties” organisés par Lydia Filipescu née Handjerli,descendante directe du prince phanariote Alexandre Handjerli, dans lejardin de son hôtel rue Dionisie Lupu, les réunions de musique dans lademeure de Constance Cantacuzène - soeur du professeur JeanCantacuzène - boulevard Lascãr Catargi ou dans le palais CantacuzèneCalea Victoriei, la résidence des époux Georges Enesco, étaient réputées83.

La plupart des représentants de l’aristocratie roumaine del’entre-deux-guerres étaient les porteurs d’une orientation favorable à ladémocratie et pro-occidentale. Le modèle français exerçait son influence

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d’abord par l’intermédiaire de l’utilisation de la langue française commesigne de la distinction sociale84. La France et Paris exerçaient unefascination magique sur les élites roumaines85, dont quelques membresont lutté même dans l’armée française, comme c’était le cas de IoanOlãnescu, neveu de Martha Bibescu, mort en juin 1940 dans les combatsde France86. “La chute de la France a été un événement qui nous a coupéà tous le souffle”, racontait Alexandru Paleologu87. Cela parce que laFrance constituait la base de la hiérarchie des valeurs de la sociétéroumaine88. Le caractère européen de l’aristocratie roumaine del’entre-deux-guerres était dû à son éducation89, ainsi qu’aux fréquentsvoyages en Occident90. Les descendants de la noblesse roumaine deTransylvanie et de Bucovine étaient par contre élevés dans la langue et laculture allemande.

Le culte de l’honneur se concrétisait dans le rituel nobiliaire des duelsqui existait encore dans la société aristocratique roumaine del’entre-deux-guerres91. Selon Paul Morand, “Bucarest est encore une desvilles où les duels sont le plus fréquents, et les vieux garçons officientcomme pontifes de ce rite en voie de disparition”92.

La vie mondaine de l’aristocratie bucarestoise est minutieusementdécrite dans la revue ”Je sais tout de Bucarest”, éditée en 1939 - 1944 parªtefan Miculescu. On est impressionné par le grand nombre de bals quiréunissaient les membres du corps diplomatique et ceux des élitesroumaines93. Les bals organisés par les diplomates étrangers accrédités àBucarest étaient aussi très appréciés94. Les aristocrates roumains serencontraient aussi à différentes soirées musicales, dans différents salons95

et aux vernissages d’expositions96.Si on se demande quel était le mode de vie de l’aristocratie roumaine

pendant l’entre-deux-guerres, la réponse est très complexe. Quelques-unspartageaient leur temps entre “busy leisure” et des voyages97. Maisbeaucoup de descendants des boyards moldo-valaques et de la noblesseroumaine de Transylvanie se sont intégrés dans la vie active, en illustrantde nombreux domaines. L’aviation, domaine de manifestation de l’espritaristocratique, était représentée par quelques noms sonores: GeorgeValentin Bibescu, Constantin (Bâzu) Cantacuzène, Ionel Ghica, MarinaStirbei-Brâncoveanu. Le palais royal était un milieu aristocratique parexcellence, les dames d’honneur (parmi lesquelles Simona Lahovary, ElenaMavrodi née Greceanu, Irina Procopiu née Berindei, Nelly Catargi néeMiclescu) et les maréchaux du Palais (par exemple Henri Catargi,

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Constantin Hiott, I.Mocsonyi-Stârcea, Octav Ullea, Dimitrie Negel) étaientissus des familles de boyards.

Les membres de l’aristocratie roumaine se rencontraient lors desréunions des clubs d’élite, tels le Jockey Club, le club Tinerimea Românã,l’Automobil-Club, le Yacht-Club. L’accès à ces clubs se faisait surrecommandation de certains membres. Surtout le Jockey Club, fondé en1875, avait un caractère assez fermé, étant une association à composanteessentiellement aristocratique. Toutes ces institutions ont été suppriméesà l’avènement au pouvoir des nouveaux dirigeants ; tout le train de vie del’aristocratie roumaine a été radicalement bouleversée.

Le Jockey Club est issu du désir de rassembler l’élite aristocratiqueroumaine, de la tendance de se créer une institution spécifique, dépourvuede caractère politique. Pour la vie politique il y avait les partis qui sesuccédaient au gouvernement, en respectant la règle du jeu démocratique.Les membres du Jockey Club étaient unis par leur passion pour les chevauxet pour les courses, mais aussi par la conscience de leur appartenance àl’élite de la société.

Pendant l’entre-deux-guerres le Jockey Club a été dirigé effectivementpar les vice-présidents suivants, tous issus des familles de boyards:Alexandru Marghiloman et Constantin I.Bãlãceanu (1919 - 1920),Alexandru Marghiloman et Dimitrie Greceanu (1920 - 1921), AlexandruMarghiloman et Mihail Deºliu (1921 - 1923), Alexandru Marghiloman(1924 - 1925), Constantin I.Bãlãceanu (1925 - 1926), ConstantinArgetoianu et Barbu Catargi (1926 - 1947).

Le Jockey Club avait comme activité principale l’organisation descourses de galop à Bãneasa, qui représentaient autant d’occasions derencontre de l’élite aristocratique bucarestoise. Ces courses constituaientpendant l’entre-deux-guerres l’un des spectacles sportifs les plus aimésde la capitale, où on accordait le prix du Jockey Club, le prix Royal et leprix de Diane.

Le plus fameux propriétaire de chevaux de l’histoire du Jockey Clubroumain a été Alexandru Marghiloman, dont le haras ”Albatros” de Buzãucontenait plusieurs chevaux pur sang anglais. Il y avait également d’autresharas connus : celui de Târgºor (Prahova) du général Gheorghe Moruzi,celui de Afumaþi (Ilfov) de Gheorghe Negroponte, celui de Mãgureni(Prahova) de Barbu Catargi, celui de Scroviºtea (Ilfov) de la Maison Royale,celui du Ministère des Domaines de Cislãu (Buzãu), Ruºetu (Brãila) etJegãlia (Ialomiþa), celui du colonel Polizu-Micºuneºti, celui de Logreºti

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(Gorj) du colonel E.Sãvoiu, celui de Carapciu (Storojineþ) de la familleGrigorcea, celui de Balc (Bihor) de Joseph Pinkas.

Pendant l’entre-deux-guerres le siège du Jockey Club se trouvait dansun hôtel particulier qui auparavant avait appartenu à la famille Gianni,au croisement des rues Episcopiei et Nicolae Golescu, près de l’AthénéeRoumain. L’intérieur du club était aménagé avec bon goût, sans ostentationet il assurait une atmosphère agréable, intime à ses membres. M.ManoleFilitti, membre du vieux Jockey Club le décrivait ainsi : “D’une grandeattraction était la salle de lecture, avec de grands fauteuils de cuir,idéalement éclairée. Des revues et des journaux de tous les domaines,dans les langues de grande circulation étaient sur les tables et sur lesétagères. On pouvait lire sans se soucier du temps. Il y avait un silence, leplus parfait silence qui entourait celui qui était plongé dans la lecture./ Ily avait ensuite une chambre élégante de protocole, pour des entrevues,disons, secrètes. Ensuite, deux salles où l’on jouait au bridge et au blackgamon et où assis sur des canapés et des fauteuils on menait différentesconversations. Personne n’aurait eu l’idée de lever le ton. Je le répète, lapolitesse, la bienséance, les bonnes manières étaient de rigueur./ Si on setrouvait en ville, si on avait une fenêtre entre deux affaires, on pouvaitpasser au Club. On était toujours bien reçu, servi, en trouvant ainsi uninstant de détente soit en lisant, soit en échangeant quelques paroles avecun ami”98.

La salle d’escrime du Jockey Club a été inaugurée par GheorgheBibescu, le fils de l’ancien hospodar avec le même nom, qui a amené deParis le professeur d’escrime Michel. Les femmes n’avaient pas accès dansles salles du Jockey Club, sauf dans une salle spéciale ou elles étaientacceptées. Les pièces du Club étaient ornées avec les portraits de sesmembres de marque, avec des gravures de chevaux célèbres des harasanglais. Les tableaux, les meubles créaient une ambiance hospitalière quipar exemple, faisaient que le peintre Theodor Pallady y passe beaucoupd’heures où il avait aussi l’habitude de dessiner. Certains membres duClub jouaient aux cartes, un grand joueur était l’aviateur Constantin (ditBâzu) Cantacuzène, le fils de Maruca George Enescu, de son premier lit,avec Mihail G.Cantacuzène.

Le Jockey Club roumain coomprenait en 1937, 263 “membrespermanents”, 16 “membres titulaires” (les chefs des représentationsdiplomatiques étrangères), 7 “membres temporaires” (d’autres diplomatesétrangers); en 1939 il comptait 275 “membres permanents”, l6 “membrestitulaires” et 6 “membres temporaires”; en 1941 il contenait 283 “membres

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permanents”, 16 “membres titulaires” et 13 “membres temporaires”; en1947 il comptait 307 “membres permanents”.

Le Jockey Club était dirigé par le Comité du cercle et par le Comitédes courses. En 1937 le Comité du cercle était composé des deuxvice-présidents du Club, Constantin Argetoianu et Barbu Catargi, et dedix membres : Dinu C. Arion, Radu Crutzescu, Nicolae C. Filitti, RaduI.Florescu, Alexandru Em.Lahovary, Filip Lahovary, Radu Laptev, A.deMocsonyi, Ioan C. Miclescu-Prãjescu, le général Grigore Odobescu99. Lamême année, le Comité des courses était composé des mêmesvice-présidents et de dix membres: Ioan N. Cãmãrãºescu, le colonelGheorghe Capºa, Henri Catargi, Grigore G.Duca, Dimitrie Al. Ghika,George Grigorcea, le général Gheorghe Gh. Manu, le général GheorgheMoruzi, Grigore Rioºanu, Alexandru Zãnescu100. En 1938 on trouve dansla composition du Comité du cercle, Ioan P.Rosetti-Bãlãnescu, à la placedu diplomate Radu Crutzescu101. Dans le Comité des courses de l’année1940 il y a également une modification : à la place du général Moruzi,décédé en 1939, fut élu le général Victor Dombrovski102.

Les temps tourmentés ont également influencé le Jockey Club. Ainsi,le 11 juin 1938 fut imposé l’effacement de l’annuaire de ses membresAlexandru Cantacuzène, Alexandru Tell et Radu Meitani, à cause de leurappartenance au mouvement légionnaire103. Pendant plusieurs annéesde l’entre-deux-guerres apparaissent comme censeurs du Club ManoleHalfon et Mihail I.Kogãlniceanu; en 1946 il y avait dans cette fonctionMihail I.Kogãlniceanu et A. A. Romalo104.

Pendant l’entre-deux-guerres, dans le Jockey fut reçue une série depersonnalités de la vie publique roumaine provenant de l’aristocratie: lediplomate Radu Crutzescu (1920), Ioan N.Cãmãrãºescu (1920), l’ingénieurIoan C.Miclescu-Prãjescu (1920), le diplomate et historien Raoul Bossy(1921), le diplomate Ioan Carp (1921; fils de P. P. Carp), le diplomateConstantin Laptev (1921), le peintre Henri H.Catargi (1922), les frèresAlexandru et George Cretzianu (le premier diplomate, le second - directeurde la Banque roumaine), le contre-amiral Gheorghe Koslinski (1922),l’officier Alexandru Rioºanu (1922), le colonel et compositeur Emil Skeletti(1923), Constantin Flondor, maréchal du Palais (1924), l’ingénieur SerbanGhica, petit-fils de Ion Ghica (1924), le diplomate Dinu C. Hiott (1924),Mihail Oromolu, gouverneur de la Banque Nationale (1924), le généralAristide Razu (1924), l’architecte George Matei Cantacuzène (1926), lediplomate Dimitrie I. Ghika (1926), le diplomate Radu Djuvara (1927), lediplomate Dimitrie Iuraºcu (1927), le peintre Theodor Pallady (1927),

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l’archéologue Gheorghe Gr.Cantacuzène (1928), le colonel GheorgheCapºa (1928), le diplomate Vasile Grigorcea (1928), Mihail I.Kogãlniceanu,le petit-fils du grand homme politique du même nom (1928), le diplomateFrederic Nanu (1928), le diplomate Radu Arion (1929), le juriste MirceaDjuvara (1929), l’architecte Ion Ghika-Budeºti (1930), l’historien d’art RaduCretzianu (1930), le publiciste et diplomate Gheorghe Crutzescu (1930),le juriste Alfred Juvara (1930), l’historien et diplomate Constantin I.Karadja(1930), l’aviateur George Miclescu (1930), le juriste George Meitani (1930),le médecin Alexandru G.Moruzi (1930), le critique de théatre 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 général Paul Teodorescu (1932), descendant du côté maternelde la famille Sturdza, le médecin professeur Daniel Danielopolu (1933),le général Victor Dombrovski (1934), le physicien Gheorghe I.Manu(1935), le diplomate Grigore Gafencu (1936), le baron Ioan deMocsonyi-Stârcea (1936), futur maréchal du Palais, le colonel Octav Ullea(1936), le diplomate Nicolae M.Vlãdescu (1936)105.

Le dernier annuaire paru du vieux Jockey Club (1947) montre unecroissance importante du nombre de ses membres, parmi lesquels il yavait aussi des membres jeunes. De cette liste on pourrait citer : le futurmédecin professeur Constantin Bãlãceanu-Stolnici (1946)106, le comteN. Banffy (1939), l’architecte Ioan I.Berindei (1938), l’ingénieur ConstantinD. Buºilã (1940)107, le diplomate Edmond Ciuntu (1938), le général GrigoreConstandache (1934), Nicolae Chrissoveloni (1942)108, Manole Filitti(1945), le diplomate Eugen Filotti (1939), l’ingénieur Ion Gigurtu (1937)109,Dimitrie Negel (1942), l’avocat Mihail Paleologu (1938) et son fils le futurécrivain Alexandru Paleologu (1946)110, l’écrivain Grigore Sturdza(1941)111, le juriste Alexandru Vãlimãrescu (1945)112.

Une césure profonde s’est produite dans l’évolution des structuressociales roumaines, avec l’élimination violente de l’ancienne classepolitique qui était à la tête de la société. L’instauration du régimecommuniste a écartée brutalement l’aristocratie du sommet de la viesociale. Les leaders communistes, représentants les intérêts de Moscou,ont poursuivi par tous les moyens leur but de transformer la structure dela société, d’éliminer les anciens hommes politiques, de détruire toutetentative de résistance de ceux-ci.

On peut se poser la question de ce qui s’est passé avec l’aristocratieroumaine après l’instauration du régime totalitaire. En l’écartant de lascène politique on a voulu décapiter la société roumaine et rompre ses

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liens avec son propre passé. La répression du régime n’a pas frappéseulement l’aristocratie, elle a affecté également la bourgeoisie et lapaysannerie roumaines, classes sociales stratifiées qui ont subi destransformations radicales. L’aristocratie a eu le plus à souffrir à cause durégime, parce qu’elle a été la partie de la société la plus attachée aupassé. Les membres de ce groupe ont transmis de génération en générationdes valeurs et des souvenirs liés à l’ancienne Roumanie, que le pouvoircommuniste a essayé de transformer complètement.

La fin de la guerre a apporté une apparence de normalisation dans lavie de l’aristocratie roumaine. “Dans les premières trois - quatre annéesaprès la guerre - écrivait Ion Ioanid -, années encore pleines d’espoir enl’avenir politique et de liberté du pays, dans les maisons de la hautebourgeoisie bucarestoise les soirées étaient fréquentes, la société de lacapitale étant en compétition pour avoir parmi ses invités le plus demembres des missions alliées occidentales en Roumanie”113. L’atmosphèrede normalité disparaît graduellement, comme conséquence desévénements patronés par le cabinet Groza : la loi agraire de 1945, lesélections faussées de novembre 1946, l’étatisation des propriétésimobiliaires, les procès politiques culminant avec l’abdication forcée duRoi Michel. Un régime de terreur a été instauré contre “la classe desexploiteurs”, dont les représentants vont être obligés de supporter lesconséquences de leur simple appartenance aux couches supérieures dela société. Ce n’est pas le cas de tous les descendants de l’aristocratie,quelques-uns se sont exilés en Occident, en essayant de mener à l’extérieurdu pays un combat, souvent sans succès, contre le régime instauré àBucarest par les troupes soviétiques.

L’inexistence des titres de noblesse dans la société roumaine d’avantle communisme (avec quelques exceptions mentionnées), mais surtout ladureté de la répression ont eu des conséquences importantes sur lesentiment d’appartenance à l’aristocratie. Cependant ce sentiment existeencore de nos jours. Dans les sociétés libérales il est transmis de générationen génération et ce n’est qu’un régime politique libéral qui peut garantiret favoriser la continuité de l’existence de l’élite historique.

NOTES

1. Mihai Sorin Rãdulescu, Noþiunea de elitã în istoriografia occidentalã, în“Contemporanul”, n

0

7, 19 février 1993, pp.8-9.

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2. Dan Berindei, Legãturile genealogice dintre fruntaºii revoluþiei de la 1848din Þara Româneascã , în “Caietele Bãlcescu” IX-X, Bãlceºti pe Topolog, 1984,pp.113-120.

3. Mihail Manoilescu, Rostul ºi destinul burgheziei româneºti, Bucureºti, sansannée, p.23.

4. Ibidem, p.25.5. Ibidem, pp.303-305.6. Radu Rosetti, Pentru ce s-au rãsculat þãranii, édition parue par les soins de

Z. Ornea, Bucureºti, 1987, pp.368-369.7. Ibidem, p.369; voir ausi pp.370, 372.8. Stefan Zeletin, Neoliberalismul, III

e

édition, Bucureºti, 1992, p.34.9. Ibidem, loc.cit.10. Ibidem, p.35.11. Guy Chaussinand-Nogaret, La noblesse, ministère de l’idéal dans Noblesse

oblige, n0

89 de la publication “Autrement”, avril 1987, pp.88-95.12. G. Cãlinescu, Istoria literaturii române de la origini pânã în prezent, II

e

édition,Bucureºti, 1982, p.764.

13. Ioan Nãdejde, V.G.Morþun. Biografia lui si genealogia familiei Morþun,Bucureºti, 1923.

14. Mihai Racoviþã-Cehan, Familia Racoviþã-Cehan. Genealogie ºi istoric,Bucureºti, 1942.

15. Teodor Bãlan, Familia Onciul. Studiu si documente, Cernãuþi, 1927.16. Gheorghe Ungureanu, Familia Sion. Studiu ºi documente, Iaºi, 1936.17. Teodor Botiº, Monografia familiei Mocioni, Bucureºti, 1939.18. La revue “Cetatea Moldovei”, janvier 1944, p.67.19. George D. Florescu, Planul unui Institut de genealogie. Memoriu, in “Revista

istoricã”, n0s

10-12, Bucureºti, 1938, pp.340-350.20. Réproduits dans “Din trecutul nostru”, n

os

36-39, 1936, pp.88-89; janvier-avril1939, pp.1-7; mai-juillet, pp.25-31; octobre, pp.1-4.

21. Scarlat Preajbã, Prezentãri literare, extrait de la revue “Bugeacul”, Bucureºti,1941, pp.21-27.

22. N. Moþoc-Epureanu, Un imperativ al vremii : Institutul român de cercetãrigenealogice, Iaºi, 1942.

23. “Arhiva Genealogicã Românã”, Bucureºti, 1944, p.85.24. Constantin Argetoianu, Pentru cei de mâine, vol.I, partea I, Bucuresti,

ed.Humanitas, 1991, pp.8-11, 13-14.25. Al. Tzigara-Samurcaº, Memorii, vol.I, édition parue par les soins de Ioan ªerb

et Florica Serb, Bucureºti, 1991, p.21.26. Idem, Muzeografie româneascã, Bucureºti, 1936, pp.XIII-XIV.27. Ibidem.28. N. Iorga, Orizonturile mele. O viaþã de om aºa cum a fost, édition parue par

les soins de Valeriu Râpeanu et Sanda Râpeanu, Bucureºti, 1976, p.7.29. Al. Paleologu, Stelian Tãnase, Sfidarea memoriei (convorbiri), Bucureºti, 1996,

p.59.

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30. Les Brancovan sont présents dans nombre d’almanachs de Gotha. On citepar exemple, L’almanach de Gotha pour l’année 1912, p.287.

31. Ibidem, p.355.32. Constantin Bãlãceanu-Stolnici, Cele trei sãgeti, Bucureºti, 1990, p.59.33. Traian Larionescu, Familii vechi bucovinene, in “Arhiva Genealogicã

Românã”, Bucureºti, 1944, pp.26-27.34. Ioan cavaler de Puºcariu, Date istorice privitoare la familiile nobile române,2

vol., Sibiu, 1892-1895.35. Traian Larionescu, op.cit.36. Constantin Argetoianu, Pentru cei de mâine, vol.I, partea I, Bucureºti,

ed.Humanitas, 1991, p.110.37. Raoul Bossy, Amintiri din viaþa diplomaticã, vol.I, Bucureºti, 1993, p.187.38. Constantin Argetoianu, Memorii, vol.VI, partea a VI-a, Bucureºti, ed.

Machiavelli, 1996, pp.220-221.39. Dan Plesia, Quelques grandes familles valaques des XIV

e

et XVe

siècles, dans12. Internationaler Kongress fur genealogische und heraldischeWissenschaften, Munchen, 1974, vol.Genealogie, pp.209-219.

40. “Noblesse oblige”, “Autrement”, numéro dirigé par Yan de Kerorguen et OlivierPoivre d’Arvor, Paris, 1987.

41. Mihai Sorin Rãdulescu, Despre genealogia lui Iuliu Maniu, in ”Iuliu Maniu înfaþa istoriei”, Bucureºti, 1993, pp.14-20.

42. Dan Berindei, Mutations dans le sein de la classe dirigeante valaque au coursdu deuxième quart du XIX

e

siècle, in “Genealogica et Heraldica. Reports ofthe 14. International Congress of Genealogical and Heraldic Sciences inCopenhagen 25-28 August 1988”, Copenhague, 1988; idem, Societatearomâneascã în vremea lui Carol I (1866-1876), Bucureºti, 1992, pp.104-107.

43. Mihail Dimitri Sturdza, Grandes familles de Grèce, d’Albanie et deConstantinople. Dictionnaire historique et généalogique, Paris, 1983.

44. Dr. Grigore Ghyka, Mihai Sorin Rãdulescu, Orlenii, in “Porto-Franco” nos3-4 (9-10), 1991, p.42; idem, Din trecutul P.N.L. - Mihail G.Orleanu (MihailG. Orleanu, figure du Parti National Libéral), in “Liberalul”, n

o

34, 18-25 janvier1991, 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, Bucureºti, 1907.47. Neagu Djuvara, Les Grands Boyards ont-ils constitué dans les principautés

roumaines une véritable oligarchie institutionnelle et héréditaire? in“Südostforschungen”, Munchen, XLVI, 1987.

48. Cf. l’ouvrage généalogique, à juste titre constesté, mais parfois utilisable (pourles dernières générations) de Octav George Lecca, Genealogia a 100 de casedin Þara Româneascã ºi Moldova, Bucureºti, 1911, planche 45.

49. Constantin Argetoianu, op.cit., pp.7-17.

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50. Mihai Sorin Rãdulescu, Despre originea ºi înrudirile lui Nicolae Titulescu, in“Dreptatea”, n

0

278, 11 janvier 1991, p.2; idem, Theodor Aman – legãturigenealogice, dans le volume Centenar Theodor Aman 1991, Bucureºti, 1991.

51. Mihai Sorin Rãdulescu, op.cit., p.26.52. Ioan C.Filitti, Arhiva Gheorghe Grigore Cantacuzino, Bucureºti, 1919, annexe

II.53. Ibidem.54. Octav George Lecca, op.cit., planches 23, 45.55. A. D. Xenopol, Istoria ºi genealogia casei Callimachi, Bucureºti, 1897,

pp.198-199.56. Genealogia familiei Brãtianu, dressée par George D.Florescu, vérifiée et

complétée par Dan Cernovodeanu, publiée dans la brochure de Ion I.Brãtianu,Contribuþia lui Ioan C.Brãtianu la revoluþia paºoptistã din Tara Româneascãºi cugetãrile sale despre aceastã revoluþie, Paris, 1983.

57. Nicolae M. Vlãdescu, arbre généalogique de la famille Vlãdescu (inédit);également l’ouvrage généalogique sur la famille Vlãdescu, à la section desManuscrits de la Bibliothèque de l’Académie Roumaine, à Bucarest (côte A2460).

58. Alexandru Tzigara - Samurcaº, Memorii, vol.I, Bucureºti, 1991, p.15.59. Octav George Lecca, op.cit., planche 45.60. Jean - Michel Cantacuzène, Mille ans dans les Balkans, Paris, 1992, p.442.61. Mihai Sorin Rãdulescu, Genealogia lui Henri Coandã, in “Contemporanul”,

n0

1, 8 janvier 1993, pp.1, 6, 7.62. Ioan C.Filitti, Catagrafie oficialã de toþi boierii Þãrii Româneºti la 1829 ,

Bucureºti, 1929, p.23.63. ªtefan S.Gorovei, Mihai Sorin Rãdulescu, Strãmoºii cunoscuþi ai lui N.Iorga,

in “Acta Moldaviae Meridionalis”, VII-VIII, Vaslui, 1985 - 1986.64. Florin Marinescu, Etude généalogique sur la famille Mourouzi, Athènes, 1987,

p.127.65. Mihai Sorin Rãdulescu, Posteritatea lui Mihail Sturdza Voda, exposé présenté

au Ve

symposium de généalogie à Iaºi, le 14 mai 1994 (sous presse).66. Gh.Ghibãnescu, Familia Greceanu din Moldova, dans “Ion Neculce”, n

o

9,Iere

parte, 1931, pp.191-219.67. En préparation, Mihai Sorin Rãdulescu, une étude sur les ancêtres de l’historien

P.P. Panaitescu.68. ªtefan S. Gorovei, Mihai Sorin Rãdulescu, op.cit., p.442, notes 23 et 36.69. Cf. Alexandru V. Perietzianu - Buzãu, arbre généalogique (inédit) de la famille

Lambrino.70. Mihail Dimitri Sturdza, op.cit., pp.257-258, 420.71. Jean - Michel Cantacuzène, op.cit., p.440.72. Général M. Racoviþã - Cehan, Familia Racoviþã - Cehan. Genealogie ºi Istorie,

Bucureºti, 1942.73. Octav George Lecca, op.cit., planche 48.

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74. Mihai Sorin Rãdulescu, Grigore Gafencu - date genealogice in“Contemporanul”, n

o

38 (75), 20 sept.1991, p.6; idem, Completãri la genealogialui Grigore Gafencu, ibidem, n

o

41 (182), 15 oct.1993, p.11.75. Cf.l’arbre généalogique inédit de la famille Cernovodeanu dressé par dr.Paul

Cernovodeanu.76. Mihail Sturdza, România ºi sfârºitul Europei. Amintiri din þara pierdutã, Alba

Iulia - Paris, 1994, p.52.77. Mihail Manoilescu, Memorii, vol.I, Bucureºti, 1993, p.19.78. Mihail G. Stephanescu, Ioan N.Mãnescu, Enluminures héraldiques des XVI

e

-XVII

e

siècle dans la collection de l’Académie Roumaine, “Revue Roumained’Histoire de l’Art”, série Beaux-Arts, t.XVII, 1980, pp.32-33.

79. D. Sandru, Reforma agrarã din 1921 din România, Bucureºti, 1975, p.350.80. Matei Cãlinescu, Ion Vianu, Amintiri în dialog, Bucureºti, 1994, pp.31-32.81. Elisabeta H.Varlam, Un remember, in Radu Rosetti, Pagini de jurnal, Bucureºti,

1993, p.35.82. Princess Anne-Marie Callimachi, Yesterday Was Mine, London, 1952,

pp.230-231.83. Paul Emil Miclescu, Din Bucureºtii trãsurilor cu cai, Bucureºti, 1985, pp.101,

105.84. Alexandru Paleologu, Minunatele amintiri ale unui ambasador al golanilor,

Bucureºti, 1995, p.57.85. Roxane J. Berindei Mavrocordato, En tournant les pages, Bucureºti, 1939,

p.52.86. Martha Bibescu, Jurnal politic ian. 1939-ian. 1941, Bucureºti, 1979, p.220.87. Alexandru Paleologu, Stelian Tãnase, Sfidarea memoriei (convorbiri),

Bucureºti, 1996, p.72.88. Ibidem.89. Princesse Anne-Marie Callimachi, op.cit., p.236.90. Ibidem, p.207.91. Emanoil Hagi Mosco, Bucureºti. Amintirile unui oraº, Bucureºti, 1995,

pp.267-268.92. Paul Morand, Bucarest, II

e

édition, Paris, 1990, p.247.93. Voir, par exemple, le compte-rendu d’un bal au Country-Club dans la revue

“Je sais tout de Bucarest”, I-ère année, nos

3-4, 20 juillet 1939.94. Constantin Argetoianu, op.cit., pp.115-116.95. Stefan J. Fay, Caietele unui fiu risipitor, Bucureºti, 1994, p.12.96. Par exemple dans “Je sais tout de Bucarest”, n

os

22-23, déc.1940, sans page,le vernissage de l’exposition d’Anna Tzigara-Berza, à la salle Dalles.

97. Anne Marie Callimachi, op.cit., p.224.98. Manole Filitti, Jockey Clubul Român , “Dilema”, II e année, n

o

69, 6-12 mai1994, p.16.

99. Jockey Club. Dare de seamã pentru anul 1936, Bucureºti, 1937, p.4.100. Ibidem, p.5.101. Jockey Club. Dare de seamã pentru anul 1938, Bucureºti, 1939, p.4.

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102. Jockey Club. Dare de seamã pentru anul 1940, Bucureºti, 1941, p.5.103. Ibidem, p.8.104. Jockey Club. Dare de seamã pentru anul 1946, Bucureºti, 1947, p.15.105. Jockey Club. Dare de seamã pentru anul 1936, Bucureºti, 1937, pp.35-45.106. Jockey Club. Dare de seamã pentru anul 1946, Bucureºti, 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 noastrã cea de toate zilele, vol.II, Bucureºti, 1991,

p.222.

VALENTINA SANDU-DEDIU

Born in 1966, in BucharestPh.D., University of Music of Bucharest, 1995

Dissertation: Stylistic and Symbolic Hypostases of Mannerism in MusicAssociate Professor at the University of Music of Bucharest

Co-ordinator of the collection “Speculum Musicae”, Editura Muzicalã [MusicalPublishing House], Bucharest, 1998-present

Editor at the Editura Muzicalã [Musical Publishing House], Bucharest 1990-1993Researcher in Contemporary Music at the Institute for Art History “G. Oprescu”,

Bucharest 1993-1997Member of the Composers’ and Musicologists’ Union of Romania, 1991-presentMember 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.), 1994-1995Research scholarship granted by the «Alban Berg» Foundation, Vienna, 1991

Mellon Fellow at Wissenschaftskolleg zu Berlin, 2000Awards (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 1998Förder-Preis der Ernst von Siemens Stiftung, München 1998-2001

Books:

Wozzeck – Prophecy and Fulfillment. Bucharest: Editura Muzicalã, 1991Ludwig van Beethoven. Bucharest: Publishing House of the Music University of

Bucharest, 1997Stylistic and Symbolic Hypostases of Mannerism in Music. Bucharest: Editura

Muzicalã, 1997Studies in Musical Rhetoric and Stylistics. Bucharest: Publishing House of the

Music University of Bucharest, 1999Dan Constantinescu : Compositional Substance. [co-authored with Dan

Dediu], Bucharest: Inpress, 1998Participation 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.

369

COMMON SUBJECTS IN MUSICALRHETORIC AND STYLISTICS. ASPECTS AND

PROPOSALS

Some explanatory notes

For several years now, I have been concerned with the notion of musicalstyle. In the beginning it was as a concept of art history that had migratedinto musicology, by treating - globally, historically - epochs like theRenaissance, Baroque, Classic, Romantic or Modern music, or dealingwith the personal style of a composer. My thesis on mannerism in musicmay be an example of this. This sort of approach is well known in Romanianmusicology and it reflects older trends in the thinking about style.

What about musical stylistics ? There is a field yet unexploited by ourmusicologists and that needs a necessary reference to the theory ofliterature. Being interested in a definition of musical stylistics, I discoveredvery soon that I must deal, in fact, with musical rhetorics, and that thefield of my research would actually become very large.

The present paper, however, remains basically an introduction to theproblems of musical rhetorics and stylistics. Further details will emergeby restraining my area of research to the rhetorics of modern andcontemporary music. But the following pages will draw only a generalframe of the discipline (that seems to be an up-to-date subject in manymusicological writings by European or American scholars) and propose afew hypotheses.

Usefull clarifications and many ideas came from discussions I havehad with Prof. Dinu Ciocan (Academy of Music, Bucharest), Prof. Dr.Hermann Danuser (Humboldt-Universität, Berlin) and Dr. ReinhartMeyer-Kalkus (Wissenschaftskolleg zu Berlin), to whom I express mygratitude for helping me entering into new territories, both in“Musikwissenschaft” and “Literaturwissenschaft”. But my work on this

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study was supported first of all by the “New Europe College” and its Rector,Andrei Pleºu, who offered the necessary impulse of intellectualinterdisciplinarity during ten wonderful months.

Modern musicology has been - often successfully - trying to transposeconcepts from other domains in its vision of the sonorous phenomenon,given the fact that the latter is modelled by various disciplines. Mostfrequently, literature and linguistics seem to provide paradigms to follow- from structuralism to the semiotic approach -, but mathematics andcomputer science have been full of resources for musical research.Interdisciplinarity proves to be indispensable, the more so as we are talkingabout a domain, by definition pluralist, musical stylistics. It is supposed totake into account the type of approach that characterises literary stylistics:an older and better founded discipline, which is able to provide at leastideas 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, especiallyin the analysis of rhetorical devices, even though musical rhetoric,flourishing in the Middle Ages, the Renaissance and the Baroque, haspractically faded away as a science generating real treatises of writing.But isn’t the situation the same in other humanistic disciplines as well?From ancient rhetoric, a technique with a pragmatic character (of orallypersuading the audience), the following centuries will gradually lose thispragmatism, maintaining only the notions of structuring a “beautifuldiscourse”. 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 amere enumeration of devices. And it is not a matter of chance that, asrhetoric disappears from the educational system (also because of theromantic spirit, manifestly opposed to rules and classifications), a newscience comes up, somehow “replacing it”: literary stylistics consecratedat the turn of this century (although the notion of style is much older) as adirect inheritor of rhetoric.1

Similarly, and to a certain extent, in music, the climactic period ofrhetorical theorising and applications in composition - the Baroque - seems

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to be followed by a total disappearance of the interest in the latter. It wasonly for 20th century exegeses to rediscover the Bachian creation fromthe 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 firstmusicological-stylistic approaches (Guido Adler, Knut Jeppesen, ErnstBücken, Paul Mies a.s.o.), they do not claim derivation from the scienceof musical rhetoric - the situation in this case being different from that ofthe literary science. However, in order to point out what brings themtogether (in a less obvious way), we shall have to describe, as briefly aspossible, the profile of the two disciplines in their historical evolution.

Musicians (in the Renaissance and the Baroque) will take overmusical-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 delimitationbetween 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 (namelyclassical/non-classical or Apollonian/ Dyonisian).

Later on, liturgical chant - of the Gregorian and Byzantine types -, aswell as early polyphony will contain frequent and various reflexes ofrhetoric. But the direct, indisputable impact of rhetoric with music will beproduced starting with the end of the 15th century. It is then that a newattitude appear, the creator with respect to music linked to a text (be itsacred or profane), transforming musical composition into a science basedon the word-sound relationship. If in the Middle Ages there are theoriststhat (stylistically) classify music into theoretica, practica, then poetica3 ,into sacra and secularis or ecclesiastica / vulgaris, and monodic creationinto cantus planus, musica mensurabilis a.s.o, starting with the beginningof the 16th century we can talk about a conceptualisation of the termstyle, most often equivalent with the manner of composition in a certaingenre (such as stile grave / stile madrigale4 ). At the same time, humanistinfluences bring music (at the time, exclusively accompanied by text)close to the art of rhetoric by imitazione delle parole, which is absolutelynatural in a creation, be it religious or secular, which is strictly to followthe significance of the word sung. Thus, stile espressivo will stand for theclimactic point of the expressive emphasis of the text, of the sonorousreproduction of the affection in a type of creation reserved for the initiated

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- as revealed by its very title, musica riservata. (Out of all these stylistic“classifications” there also results the specified relationship between thetwo disciplines.)

The stylistic break around the year 1600 - acknowledged and definedas such in all histories of the musical style seen as an age5 -, obvious inthe fundamental syntactic change (from modal to tonal, from polyphonyto homophony and polyphony, from vocal to instrumental and vocal etc.),resulting in the appearance of new genres (opera is the most outstandingexample), will generate a theoretical perspective oriented towards the“old” and the “new”. Of course, the important syntactic modifications aredue to the new pragmatic attitude towards culture (a certain growingsecularisation of music), to a new musical semantics, given the fact thatstylistic 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 secondcategory emphasises the affection. (Giulio Caccini, in Le nuove musiche,1601, describes modern style by “cantare con affetto”, which will leaddirectly to the theory of affections in the Baroque.)

On the other hand, other classifications are based on style as a musicalgenre or compartment: musica teatrale, musica da camera, musica daballo; stylus ecclesiasticus (masses, motets a.s.o.), cubicularis (the madrigala cappella), scenicus (opera). Important authors of treatises develop anelevated theory of style in the 17th century, from Christoph Bernhard(who, in Tractatus compositionis augmentatus, ca. 1660, makes adistinction between stilus gravis or antiquus, illustrated by Palestrina, andstilus luxurians or modernus, that is free phrase, in instrumental musicincluded, with rhetoric and the theory of affections as an expression ofhuman passions) with Athanasius Kircher (who, in Musurgia universalis,1650, differentiates between musica ecclesiastica and vulgaris, betweenstylus impressus and expressus, that is, art influenced by the human psycheand the art of composition with affections, between stylus ecclesiasticus,drammaticus, madrigalescus, melismaticus)7 . Athanasius Kircher alsoincludes in Musurgia universalis a section entitled Musurgia rhetorica, inorder to complete the music-rhetoric analogy by the vitality of rhetoricalconcepts: the baroque composer is bound to invent the idea as a suitablebasis for a composition, equivalent to a construction, a developmentaccording to the rhetorical discourse.

Actually, the musical treatises of the Baroque consider composition asan art of a primarily rhetorical nature, offering real summaries of musical

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figures analogous to the ones in ancient oratory (but I will come back to therhetorical figure in more details). For instance, Joachim Burmeister is thefirst to come up with a systematic grounding for “musica poetica” (in threetreatises - 1599, 1601, 1606, out of which the last one is even entitledMusica poetica). Johannes Lippius (Synopsis musices, 1612) considersrhetoric as a structural basis of a composition and Johannes Nucius (MusicesPracticae, 1613) analyses various Renaissance masters (from Dunstable toLassus) as exponents of a new rhetorical-expressive musical tradition8 . Whatmay come out of this enumeration is the growing interest for the music /rhetoric analogy (especially in the German exegesis) which will come to aclimax in the 17th-18th centuries, finding a way into the multiple levels ofmusical thinking - style, form, expression, interpretive practice.

Here is an example of the migration of concepts from one domain intoanother, in the making of a composition plan on rhetorical grounds: JohannMattheson (Der vollkommene Capellmeister, 1739) proposes the generatingof 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 thefacts), divisio or propositio (foreseeing the main points, to the composer’sadvantage), confirmatio (the affirmative proof), confutatio (opposingcounter-arguments), peroratio or conclusio (conclusion), all these beingnothing else but routine techniques of the composition process9 . Thus, atheory of composition is established, a syntax, a grammar of the text, notonly of the sentence (accomplished definitely through figures), which followscomponents of classical rhetoric. Pronuntiatio and memoria are connectedto 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 illustratethe baroque ideal of fusion between music and rhetorical principles (fromMersenne to Heinichen...), as a distinctive feature of the age-specificrationalism, but also of the stylistic unity based on those emotionalabstractions called affections. The purpose of rhetoric being, since ancienttimes, that of rendering human passions, it will be made in adequation tothe representations of affections, which will appear as a necessity tobaroque composers, especially to those in the German space. (Gettingonce again on the territory of interdisciplinarity, we are bound to mentionthe origin of the concept of affections in philosophy - Descartes, Francis

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Bacon, Leibnitz -, wherefrom musicians took over the rational renderingof passions, the objectivisation of emotions). The same above-citedexegetes - Mattheson, Kircher a.s.o. - will celebrate the expression ofaffections in creation, not only in the one with a text, but also in theinstrumental one, in order to transmit emotional states to the audience,according to the musical message. Therefore, the composer plans theaffective content of the work - he directs the semantics of the work, inmodern terms -, all the sonorous parameters (tonalities, harmonies,rhythms, forms, timbres) being interpreted effectively. Even if he thus laysthe emphasis on feeling, his approach will however be much differentfrom that of the romantic creator, based on emotional spontaneity, on adifferent kind of ideology, which rejects rationalism (without, however,being able to entirely avoid it). One must insist upon the fact that resortingto rhetorical figures (components of a real musical vocabulary) to embodymusical affection is not enough to ensure the value of a musical piece,which may remain a mere summing up of figures, without getting a placeamong masterpieces. Anyway, for the 20th century researcher, rather usedto a syntactic representation of Renaissance and baroque music, therestoration of the interest for an exact interpretation of the latter, in theauthentic terms that were being circulated at the time, means the obligationto reformulate the perspective.

This is why all this (brief) outline of certain characteristic notions hadas sole purpose to open a - still opaque - horizon to Romanian musicology(with the outstanding exception of Sigismund Toduþã, in Formele muzicaleale Barocului în operele lui J.S. Bach). At this time, modern musical writingsabound in references to rhetoric within the analysis of certain creations,genres or composers in the above-mentioned epochs. But, unlike inliterature, the researchers do not manifestly declare their rhetoricalapproaches as related to stylistics, although there is no doubt with respectto that. On the other hand, studies and volumes written on musical styleand stylistics only briefly refer to rhetoric and only when, for instance, theauthor deals with the style of the age - the Baroque, most often -, whererhetorical concepts cannot be avoided10 .

I would, however, go on, wondering why one couldn’t write a historyof styles through the filter of types of musical rhetoric, which might clarifymany uncertainties, especially within the modern landscape. For instance,a severe reformulation of musical rhetoric of a traditional type can befound 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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(which, to many, occasioned a comparison with Japanese haiku art), thisbeing loaded with information anyway. How are the stages of the musical“discourse” metamorphosed here11 , what types of rhetorical devices couldwe discover in a music that is rather ascetic, purified of any persuasive“ornament”, practically of elocutio itself? The old baroque wish tocommunicate emotional states as diverse as possible seems (but only in asuperficial look) to be missing here altogether. This is where one mightfind a profound change in the perception of new music: not so much inthe atonal language, the serial one etc., but rather in another rhetoricalmanner, prolongued and radicalized after World War II by integral serialists(such as Stockhausen or Boulez) and which has come to a deadlock thathas not yet found its solution. The new type of affections or emotionsmight be defined by an appeal to ideology, will, personality, temperament...

Beyond the apparent “exploding into the individual”12 of contemporarymusic, what brings together creations that are special from the perspectiveof the sonorous system may be the type of rhetoric - or... anti-rhetoric -used (as in John Cage’s extreme case). A good composer knows how tocombine 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 putit differently - anaphora, repetitio, gradatio, polyptoton, synonymia), ofcontrast (antitheton, mutatio toni), of silence (suspiratio, abruptio,aposiopesis) a.s.o. Irrespective of the sonorous system used or of varioustechniques - serialism, aleatorism, modalism, textures, stochastic or spectralelements etc. - and however far all these may be from the musical tradition,the configuration of the musical discourse should however respect thesomewhat “organic” laws of rhetoric, with a view to intelligibility andestablishing a relation with the audience, who will undoubtedly feel thattype of construction, even if one of the strictly musical techniquesenumerated is foreign to them. As what is rhetoric if not, ultimately, “arelationship of communication by means of which an individual, throughhis discourse, tries to obtain from an interlocutor his adherence to certainacts”13 . 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 Aristotleand constantly valuable for the viability of a work of art.

Ultimately, rhetorical devices are based on old and generally validconventions, whose description seems easy: usually, light, the seraphic,joy or some kind of elevating state of mind will be suggested by means ofthe acute register and, on the contrary, the gloomy and the teluric by

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means of the low register. Negating or neglecting such conventions mayconstitute an aesthetic in itself (Cage again), but, as demonstrated by themusical present, reconciliation with the past, if not achieved at the levelof language or forms, could rather be correlated to rhetoric.

In fact, what brings together stylistics and rhetoric, irrespective of theage or of the composer analysed, that is, rhetorical devices, must first ofall be defined as those means of adorning, of elaborating a discourse onthe basis of a purposeful affective representation, of adding musicaldramatic tension to words and poetic concepts. As basic units, buildingstones, 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 partsof decoratio, rhetorical devices were theorised and considered essentialin musical composition, at some point. Of course, baroque theoristsborrowed 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 exegesishas been trying to organize, to classify them on the basis of 17th-18thcentury treatises (Burmeister, Lippius, Nucius, Thuringus, Herbst, Kircher,Bernhard, Ahle, Janovka, Walther, Vogt, Scheibe, Spiess, Forkel)14 . Themost illustrative, concise and eloquent is the suggestion of the GroveEncyclopaedia to systematically group seven categories of devices thatare most frequently used in creation (wherefrom I have already quotedrepetition, contrast or silence devices): of melodic repetition, based onfugue 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 previouslysuggested to a conclusion, we shall see that the most widely spreaddefinition of rhetorical device is the concept of deviation, of modificationof a primary expression which is considered as “normal” (the norm being,for instance, everyday language)16 . This does not imply that we can findin music (an exclusively artistic language) the possibility to trace anydistinction of the kind that exists between everyday language/literarylanguage, the norm will have to be sought elsewhere, but the devices willstay as much connected to an affective or a decorative purpose. Actually,discussions around the idea of deviation have generated quite a lot ofcontroversies in literary theory: not all devices are deviations (accordingto an imaginary rule of a language that should have no devices in order tomeet the requirements of the idea of “norm”) and the other way round;

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devices are not a privilege of literary language etc., that is, the entirescaffolding of deviation from the rule fails at the level of explanation, butmay offer suggestions in a concrete description.17

Musical style as deviation

The same problems will be raised in the vision of style as deviation, oneof the possible interpretations of particular features in an artistic discourse,together with style as choice or as elaboration (categories I shall come backto). Starting from Aristotle (The Poetics), poetic discourse is defined asdeviation, opposed to practical, everyday discourse: these are the origins ofthe concept of deviation, seen by Aristotle in two situations, either exteriorisedin concrete elements for the unwontedness of the discourse (devices), orbecoming one with the unwonted discourse itself.18

Difficulties that may sometimes be insuperable are raised by the need tospecify, to establish a norm according to which one may detect deviation.To resort to a concrete example, the Bachian style would distinguish itselfas “deviation” from an average baroque style, possibly illustrated by theworks 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 ofBach’s fugues; only by comparison will one be able to analyse the means tomeasure all these Bachian attributes in the score. Or, getting to further details,the Mozartian style, as compared to that of one of Bach’s sons, JohannChristian (whose influence on Mozart is a commonplace in music history),will reveal an increase of poeticity at least at the level of the construction ofmusical phrases. With Johann Christian Bach, quadrature has a consistencethat is almost untouched by asymmetries, while the analysis of the musicaltext in an instrumental work by Mozart will lead to the discovery of patternsof the type 3 + 5 bars or 4 + 6 or 6 + 3 etc.

Specifying the four types of literature, and thus a construction that mayreverberate in musical stylistics, Heinrich Plett19 analyses deviationdepending on them. Let us briefly remember - with the inevitable risk of aschematisation - the typological acceptions. Mimetic literature lays theemphasis on mimesis, on imitating reality, but not as a mere copy, but as arepresentation of a reality that “may exist”, being adequately reflected inliterary genres such as the epic or the tragedy, with the specific man-universerelationship. Expressive literature means emphasising emotionality,

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spontaneity, originality, the notion of “genius”, it means exteriorising thepoetic ego by a suggestive character, any imitation (both of nature and ofclassical models) being “of evil repute” in genres such as lyrical poetry,autobiography, diary, subjective essay, epistle, memoirs, literature withphilosophical reflections. Receptive literature is translated through the effect,the impression produced by the work of art on the reader/audience, thereception being pshychoagogical, sociological, intraliterary, the latter aimingat the effect of texts on texts and containing references to the sources, parallelsbetween themes, motives and forms. Finally, rhetorical literature, “thatliterature that distinguishes itself by a special linguistic form”, contains thesystem of rhetorical devices as deviations that “describe in a differentiatedway the various degrees of linguistic artificiality and of aesthetic andemotional effects produced by them”.20

If we trace possible correspondences between mimetic literature andaspects of musical Classicism, between expressive literature andRomanticism (especially the programmatic one) -, then it is easy to bringtogether rhetorical literature and music based on rhetorical devices andon 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 ofreception, hermeneutics or musical pragmatics have already proved. Ofcourse, it is not for these types to be found in an absolutely pure form increation (the author admits their importance only as instruments ofsystematisation), but a multitude of valid interferences - such as “a mimetictext with a rhetorical linguistic form and an affective effect”.

Plett himself signals the connection with historical styles: theneoclassicists stress the mimetic, but never give up a rhetorical linguisticform; the romantic passage from mimesis to expressivity does not meangiving up linguistic art and its effects; rhetoric and reception have alwaysbeen in tight connection. And as regards deviation, this comes, with themimetic notion of literature, from the opposition between fiction andreality; with the expressive notion, from the opposition between referenceto the ego and reference to the object; with the receptive one, from theopposition between the emotional effect and the rational one; with therhetorical one, from the opposition between the language of art andeveryday language21 . Only the two median situations can be translatedinto musical composition, offering models to follow.

But what reveals many resources for musicology is the specification ofthe four criteria of poeticity (two qualitative and two quantitative ones) -

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of course insufficient in themselves to ensure the aesthetic value of aliterary, respectively musical text. Deviation as non-grammaticality, thatis, deviation from the rule by not observing the grammatical norm ofstandard language at several levels, a text being however supposed tocombine grammatical phenomena with anti-grammatical ones, may beillustrated by the example above: Mozart - J. Chr. Bach, at the level wheremusical microstructures are intertwined. Deviation as equivalence, adeviation that strengthens the rule (equivalent structures overlapping therules of everyday language grammaticality) may be rendered by means ofsynonyms as repetition, correspondence, concordance, identity, similarity,analogy etc. If here Plett exemplifies by the device of paronomasia, thelatter has a musical equivalent, according to Scheibe22 , by repetition of amusical idea on the same sounds, but with new additions or modifications,with a view to emphasising it. Deviation as occurrence, a statistically rareappearance of linguistic phenomena, determines the following alternative:all that is rare, exceptional, appears as poetic - such as atypical dissonancesand “diabolus in musica” in the Renaissance, the plagius in the tonalsystem, the major chord in atonalism (see the C major chord in Wozzeckby Alban Berg, in Polymorphia by Penderecki or in Winter Music by JohnCage) -, all that is frequent, normal, is non-poetic. Finally, deviation asrecurrence, the statistically frequent return of linguistic phenomena, withan 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 musicaltext - which however does not ensure its value.

Therefore, structural asymmetry, the multitude of rhetorical devices orthe rareness of a phenomenon are not enough to ensure the poeticity of amusic, but the four principles enumerated may be a good starting point ina stylistic analysis. But they must be completed by a “literary-aestheticpragmatics (performance), that should confirm the validity of one or theother of the aesthetic norms by certain textual updating in a certain placeand at a certain moment and in a certain society.”23 When applied, forinstance, at the level of styles in an era, they may become the vehicle ofdescribing, hypothetically, a mannerist period (with a predominance ofnon-grammaticality, of occurrence) or a classical one (where equivalenceand recurrence have the status of norms), with an emphasis, respectively,on singularity, non-predictability, newness or frequency andpredictability.24

A last specification with respect to deviation will be useful to musicalresearch, for which, as I have already stated, norm cannot be represented

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in everyday language: “linguistic-aesthetic deviation is not only differentfrom the synchronic everyday norm, but also from a poetic norm of theforerunners, which it, as a deviation from the deviation, has replaced inthe process of <literary evolution>.”25 This is why we are - for instance -analysing musical forms or harmony in Romanticism by signallingpermanent “deviations” from the classical norm: widening, structural“liberties”, as well as the “enrichment” or “chromatisation” of harmonyimplies 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 styleas choice, which other literary theorists operate with, thus explaining theoption of the author within the elements provided by a given system.26 Inthis case, there is a musicological approach in the American space -belonging to Leonard B. Meyer - which grounds the idea of choice inmusical stylistics: “Style is a replication of patterning, whether in humanbehaviour or in the artifacts produced by human behaviour, that resultsfrom a series of choices made within some set of constraints.”27 The authoris referring to lexical, grammatical, syntactic choices in a given language,justified by the premise that the entire human behaviour appears as aresult of a choice. Differentiation comes up in the context of stable styles(such as Classicism) or of prospection, leaving room for few, respectivelymany possibilities of choice, equivalent to alternative modes of sayingthe same thing. Meyer does not exclude, however, the possibility ofclassifying a style function of deviations, seen as differences of mannerwith respect to constant, recurrent features, which actually constitute themajor preoccupation of musicology. This is what a difference of styleperspective in literary criticism and in musicology would consist in: eitherdoes it refer to particular features of a poem, novel etc., or to commonfeatures, reproduced by a musical work, an artist’s work, a movement ora period. This is maybe why people of letters correlate style with deviationfrom norms and conventions, while musicologists insist on commonconventions and norms.

A few specifications made by Meyer - of the “psychological approach”type of his book28 - configurate the theory of choice. It may for instancebe analysed by the relationship between composition sketches and the

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complete work (starting from Beethoven, a famous source for suchcomparisons, this has been common practice) to explain the purposes,the intentions in the composition choice. Of course, aesthetic eleganceor expressive richness, the wish of a specific master or audience, orders,interpretation or acoustic conditions, a cultural ideology the author belongsto may become - separately or in a combined way - the determiningparameters of artistic choice. What is still important is the way in whichimitation turns into influence. According to the specificities of theirpersonalities, some composers tend to choose more novel relations thanothers - Handel seems more of an “adventurer” than Bach (a debatableassertion!) -, which does not necessarily presuppose the value of therespective works. Ultimately, particular choices depend to a greater extenton cultural-musical constraints than on personal inclinations. Innovationscompatible with the inclinations and constraints of the human processesof 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 isinfluential because it is chosen”29 - remains emblematic for a certainmentality of research. Music history tends to lay the stress on the action ofthe past on a passive present - of the kind: Enescu was influenced byFauré or by Brahms (etc.)... -, omitting the fact that it is for severalcontemporary 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 sameway. Influence implies interpreting the source: Beethoven’s fugues arecertainly tributary to Bach or Handel, but how big is the distance from thebaroque composers to the classical one! A specific situation thus bringsface to face the classical fugue and the baroque fugue. In the former,articulations are disjunct (closing cadence, then the new beginning of thepolyphonic discourse) as compared to the second, where they overlap(the reason probably being in the need for a greater tonal-cadential claritywith the classics - see Haydn’s fugue in the String Quartet Op. 20 No. 5 orthe fugue-sonata at the end of Mozart’s Jupiter Symphony).

Stylistic change consequently seems to take place not by a gradualtransformation of certain complex entities, but by permuting andrecombining certain more or less discrete features or ensembles of featureswhich, chosen by the composer, may come from separate sources. It isnot so much the past that models the present, but the present, selectingfrom the abundance of its possibilities, models the type of past that we arebuilding, history thus being the result of a selective present.30

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In order to establish a repertoire of alternatives out of which thecomposition choice will be operated, it is necessary to specify theconstraints, which in the case of the nature of musical style arepsychological and cultural constraints. Conceptualised by musicians intreatises of composition, harmony, counterpoint, forms, constraints areanalysed 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 (suchas the Middle Ages, the Renaissance, the Baroque, Classicism andRomanticism, the 20th century). The discussion is placed within thedimensions of harmony or counterpoint rules (and, as such, of the historyof the respective treatises) or of dependence rules, which are contextualand syntactic. Ultimately, the modification of rules in music history leadsto delimiting the epochs in a more or less precise way: the modal, thenthe tonal one (starting from ca. 1600) and looking for solutions to avoidthe tonal (after 1900). And strategies aim at the individual by compositionchoices within the possibilities established by the rules of a style, thusresulting an infinity of possible strategies. Changes of rules make newstrategies possible, the strategic game is that which can be defined as an“exception from the rule”, stylistic theory thus witnessing a combinationof deviation and choice.

In its turn, the composer’s individual choice is also placed at threelevels, according to the above-cited American author. Dialect would beequivalent 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 musicengulfs sub-styles within a style that has not yet found its name.) Idiomwould represent the level of individual selection: Bach and Handel usethe same dialect, in different idioms. Idiom - somehow synonymous withmanner - is divided into other sublevels, such as a composer’s creationstages. Predictably, what is left is the intra-opus style as a level of thework itself, the distinction between intra-opus style and intra-opusstructure31 generates the differentiation between style criticism and styleanalysis (the former being a more refined stage of the latter, according toMeyer). Stylistic analysis does not deal with what recurs with a certainconstancy, and individual works serve as a basis for generalisation on thenature of the rules and strategies which guide the option of a composer orof a group of composers. The style of a work is not only a matter of

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intra-opus constraints, but also of constraints predominating at the levelof idiom and of dialect.

All these classifications, besides pointing out the importance of choicein the building of a style, have gradually led us to the type of approach,ultimately to the methodology of stylistic analysis. There are many modernanalytical models focusing on the notion of style, without specifying acertain position with respect to the understanding of style as deviation oras choice, nor as elaboration32 , therefore limiting themselves to the musicalarena, without trying to establish any parallels (that may be productivesometimes) with the literary theory of style. But certain analytical gridsremain of importance in musicology by getting away from structuralistapproaches and opening towards comparison in order to establish thestyle of a work, of a composer, of an epoch, of a certain region, a.s.o. - aswe shall see while looking at certain taxonomies proposed.

Analytical models in musical stylistics

A review of the “stylistic consciousness” in 20th century musicologyis, consequently, not without use. Musical stylistics seems to mainly attractthe interest in the context of a fin de siècle “syndrome”, paradoxically asit may seem in a moment when musical composition - as well as the otherarts - lacks definitions, global stylistic orientations. The fashion ofpostmodernism (which anyway did not offer a terminological solution tomusical 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 stylisticpluralism, the creative individualisation started by Romanticism andsometimes led to its extremes in our century could be characterised byone single unifying feature: the experimentation and systematisation of agetting away from the tonal system or its reinterpretation in a “modern”perspective.

This is why the types of analysis performed on classical texts can, inmost cases, no longer match the new situations - may they beimpressionistic, expressionistic, serial, aleatory, spectral a.s.o. On the otherhand, new analytical grids are being suggested even for the tonal musicof 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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even if only owing to its stages of description (putting forth a list of features,their frequency) and classification, comparison, study of features replicatedin works or a repertoire of works, elaboration of hypotheses and theirinterpretations -, modern systems of musical analysis may be almost entirelycircumscribed to stylistic research.

Theorising may take the aspect of a rhetorical analysis, especially withRenaissance, baroque music (manifestly operating, as we have alreadyseen, with musical-rhetorical figures, with devices), but extended to othertypes of music, including modern and contemporary creation, by analogywith literary research. Western musicology has already demonstrated thisin various texts, such as Missa Solemnis by Beethoven, for instance33 ; it istrue that, in this particular case, the rhetorical tradition may easier bediscovered in a vocal-symphonic work, with religious lyrics, thus directlyoriginating 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 rhetoricalanalysis becomes indispensable, irrespective of historical context.35

Another field of stylistic analysis would aim at computer-assisted generationof music types in a given style, forcing a dissection - as minute, rigorousand exhaustive as possible of that style (most often, a composer’s style).36

For such approaches, the methodological apparatus remains the firstcondition to meet, that is, the choice of a method of analysis is fundamental,and this is why I shall enumerate several modern analytical models, someof them manifestly stating their stylistic finality. Distinct modalities ofapproach to the musical text have challenged modern analysts to try tocreate systems based either on the “fundamental structure” (HeinrichSchenker), on the “thematic process” (Rudolph Réti) or “functional analysis”(Hans Keller), on stylistic features and parameters (Jan La Rue), on semiotics(Nicolas Ruwet and Jean-Jacques Nattiez), information theory (NorbertBöcker-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 HugoRiemann (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 traditionalguidemarks that created artificial situations of form, frozen patterns,necessary to study music, but separating it from one of its primordialelements - temporal movement. The models enumerated more or lessavoid this shortcoming (it is not easy to resist the temptation of a “Procustean

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bed” as an analytical grid), all having, however, comparison as a common,indispensable method. Another obstacle in accepting traditional analysesremains their limitation to tonal, functional scores, that is, the impossibilityto use them in exploring a modern or contemporary text.38

Among the exegeses interested in stylistics, Guido Adler’s modifiesthe angle of historical writing on music, introducing the notion of STYLE(Der Stil in der Musik, 1911), as an ensemble of those features that bringtogether the works of a certain historical period. Jeppesen’s works oncounterpoint (especially Palestrina’s Style and Dissonance, 1925) haveconsecrated among the most outstanding examples of concrete, detailedanalysis.

On the one hand, Guido Adler defines concepts such as stylisticdirection, 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 severalworks 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 setof conditions and establishing its position in a given context). In fact, Adlerremains one of the first musicologists who consider that the comparativemethod is the essential one for the stylistic kind of approach. Adler’s opinion- expressed in the statement “the building of style is made of minor, aswell as major devices” 39 - is essential in pointing out the importance of acreative personality such as Mozart’s, for instance, as compared to a middlestyle of his age represented by Bach’s sons, and not only. Adler’s disciples,who carried on his stylistic preoccupations - Ernst Bücken and Paul Mies- will intensively work on Beethoven’s scores, an adequate object to focuson when investigating personal style, and similar methods will be appliedin their research by other of Adler’s followers, up to our days - Helm,Becking, Besseler.

The “empirical-descriptive” method, comparable to Adler’s, is alsoused by Knud Jeppesen in tracing the (intervallic, rhythmical etc.)coordinates of Palestrina’s melodic style, on the basis of comprehensiveanalyses of the Renaissance composer’s vocal creation, the scientific aspectcoming from the exhaustive, detailed analysis that objectively puts forthlaws of writing. Jeppesen stresses the statistic aspect and thus opens theway 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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romantic lied, five musical versions on the same poetic text have beencompared, but only the vocal line could be computer-generated.41 Theeasiest to formalise is serial music - to which one may adequately andsuccessfully apply the theory of sets -, which is explainable also by theabstract aspect of its generating process. Although with promising results,computer-assisted analysis of modal-tonal music maintains a certaindifficulty of language conceptualisation, necessary to computermanipulation.

While just overviewing historiographic generalisations signed by RichardCrocker - A History of Musical Style, 1966 - and Günter Hausswald -Musikalische Stilkunde, 1973 - to point out the late 20th centurypreoccupation for style as period, La Rue’s methodological suggestion inGuidelines for Style Analysis42 deserves, in its turn, special attention. Thenovelty of stylistic analysis in Romanian musicology will determine twoobstacles - not easy to handle at all - in the understanding of this work,namely: adapting Anglo-Saxon terminology to Romanian musicologicallanguage and accepting the fact that, generally, American musical theory(where the author belongs) contains certain principles different from theEuropean one. I refer, first of all, to the five elements suggested to beanalytically cut up by Jan La Rue - on the side of stylistic observation - andto the temptation (that is not to follow) of assimilating them to soundparameters in European theory: Sound, Harmony, Melody, Rhythm andGrowth.43 These will be pursued according to a well-established routine,specifying three standard dimensions of analysis (which may vary accordingto the genre and the length of the work analysed, the levels modifying in aninstrumental 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 Rue’s approach, withthe intention to avoid polarities of the type acute / low, faint / loud, simple/ complex, rarefied / dense, stable / active, disorder / order etc., by admittinga “medium” solution between the two extremes: for instance, simple/composed / complex. And the stylistic artistic phenomenon analysed goesthrough three main stages: background, observation, evaluation, detailedthrough various phases and conditions, from establishing the historicalreferences of the period the work analysed belongs to, to the followingstep - significant observation (not dispersion into details, but selection ofimportant 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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axiom of the analyst in the three stages (which may appear asself-explaining, but not at all negligible if we take into account thesimplifying temptation to go all along the analytical path, step by step)will always be the integrating vision of the work as a whole, and onlyafterwards the extraction of significant details.

Jan La Rue’s principles best apply to music of the traditional functionalkind (modal, tonal music), though they may be adapted to 20thcentury-specific languages. The author’s musical-analyticalexemplifications are however mainly limited to the period 1600-1900,with a predilection for the Baroque (for whose creation there is a specialcompetence), though the SHMRG formula also contains - even thoughonly theoretically - references to the Sonority of concrete music or toatonal, dodecaphonic, serial Harmony. (Here is, once again, thefirst-ranking difficulty of an analytical method, that of offering acomprehensive generality.) From the stylistic point of view, however, LaRue’s volume has the merit of offering various sets of questions (accordingto the three dimensions) which the analyst - after having gone through thegiven work by a method always “adjusted” to the respective conditions -must be capable to answer, in order to define as exactly as possible thestylistic orientation of a composition.

Although the spectrum of American musicology is rich in stylisticdefinitions, I shall only refer to two works that seem essential to me, oneof them being contemporary with La Rue (therefore belonging to the ‘70s),the other being more recent, maybe the latest significant approach in thefield of musical style, namely Charles Rosen - The Classical Style44 andthe already cited work of Leonard B. Meyer - Style and Music. Theory,History, Ideology. Rosen offers extremely valuable analyses from thecreation of the three Viennese classics, purposefully limiting the spectrumof his preoccupations to the style of a certain group of creators, definedby the most individual accomplishments. The analyst’s role is, therefore,to select the most advanced works, the elements that denote the mostelaborated musical thinking of Haydn, Mozart or Beethoven, but also acomparison between them and the average of the composers of the age(for instance, by pointing out the most frequent melodic outlines and thendetecting distinctive features).

In his turn, Meyer synthesises decades of research in a book of authentictheorising of musical style (which is unique from this point of view), where,inevitably, an enumeration of principles of stylistic analysis also finds itsplace (only a chapter of the complex texture of the volume). Establishing

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a hierarchy of levels of analysis imposes natural similitudes with literarytheory, where the notion of extremely wide extension - style - may applyto a group of languages, to one language, to an age, to literary genres orsubjects, to certain literary schools or milieus, to a writer or to a momentin 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 representedby the upside-down pyramid of the semiotician and musicologistJean-Jacques Nattiez46 , where the semantic strata of the concept of musicalstyle start at the upper part, with the universal dimension of music, crossingthe system of reference, the style of a genre or of an epoch, a composer’sstyle, the style of a period in a composer’s life, in order to arrive at the topof the pyramid - the work. With Meyer, stylistic analysis treats as a set theworks in a certain repertoire, suggesting the following taxonomy47 : a. acomposer’s works (in periods or as a whole); b. the works of a group ofcomposers (maybe from a certain period and belonging to the same culture,such as the Viennese school, impressionism etc.); c. works written in thesame geographical area (the Russian style, North-Indian music as comparedto the South-Indian one); d. works of a specific genre (opera, lied, chamberetc.); e. works written for a specific socially-defined cultural segment (folkmusic); f. works written for a utilitarian purpose (liturgic, military music);g. works written in an important period, in an extended cultural area (theRenaissance, the Baroque etc. in Western European music)48 ; h. the musicof an entire civilisation (Amerindian music, Renaissance European musicetc.), and other divisions and subdivisions are possible.

The classification of certain features is achieved according to affinitiesamong elements, aspects that are extracted out of time and treated asisolated entities: for instance, according to the melodic contour, rhythmicaland metrical groupings, according to formal typologies, expression (a.s.o.).There result structures of classes, where the (non-hierarchical) relationshipsare synchronic, not diachronic (but the importance of history must not beneglected). But classification - as a descriptive discipline - is only theprimary stage of stylistic analysis, which continues by formulating andtesting hypotheses. A concrete example of an analysis scheme, in Meyer’sbook, refers to the features of Wagner’s maturity style.

Here were several suggestions of analytical systems focusing on stylisticparameters; we may, however, come back to the idea that, ultimately,any analysis that does not stop at the level of classifications and dealswith 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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group of composers, reflected in the way of turning to good accountlanguage, of choosing specific instruments within the latter. The descriptionof a style, of the specificity of the creative gesture ultimately means relatingthe object of study to a normative system, it means pointing out the normand the exceptions from the norm. Consequently, the two postulates oflinguistics - style as deviation and style as choice - may be combined,may interfere in defining the musical style, towards a discipline that goesbeyond the historiographic frame of traditional writing on style, in orderto become a modern, interdisciplinary one.

A few particular aspects

For a natural completion of the theoretical principles exposed, a fewexamples of practical applications will be chosen, first of all from relativelyrecent theoretical writings that rediscover musical rhetoric. I have alreadystated that (in general) these studies do not manifestly claim to be of astylistic nature, but their definition as such cannot be doubted. A notableexception, a book fundamental for understanding the German musicalBaroque - Der Musikbegriff im deutschen Barock by Rolf Damman49 -clearly and profoundly emphasises the inclusion of rhetoric musicalthinking in the respective about style, as well as the relationship ofcontinuity with ancient rhetoric-style. An exquisite example of analysis ofan epoch’s style, by its interdisciplinary - philosophical, aesthetic,theological parameters -, but also specifically musical ones, the workcontains, within its six chapters, one that is entitled Dasmusikalisch-rhetorische Prinzip and another one, Der Affektbegriff.

The very term of style, which starts being more and more frequentlycirculated in scientific-musical writings around the year 1600, comes fromrhetoric, and in the Baroque a vast theoretical system of musical style isbuilt, which could not be conceived of without resorting to rhetoric. G.B.Doni, for instance, was defining (in 1640) solo vocal singing in three stylisticcategories, on the basis of its evoking the affections: stile Narrativo (naturaldeclamation), stile specialo Recitativo (a type of disocourse that specifiesthe affections) and stile Espressivo (climactically dramatic representation).50

Damman also establishes a necessary distinction (coming from the sametheories of the age) between simple composition and adorned one, namelybetween composition with and without musical-rhetorical devices,wherefrom one can derive the composition possibilities to create a “pure”

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music, with a specifically sonorous semantics, or one that resorts to thevocabulary of devices adding a type of semantics which is connected to acertain literary text. Finally, the most convincing approach is the one thatconcretises theoretical ideas by score analysis. The author cited deals withprosody with Schütz and Bach (that is, in two distinct periods of the Baroque),demonstrating the complexity and the efficiency of rhetorical analysisespecially in vocal-symphonic creation on religious texts.

At the same level of an epoch’s style one may place rhetorical detailingof a musical mannerism, in Claude V. Palisca’s study51 , but this time bymeans of particularising a certain composer - Orlando di Lasso - from theperspective of the writings at the time. Consequently, Lasso’s elegant style,which is unpredictable and “resourceful” rather than transparent, clear,uniform, presupposes constructivist procedures, allusions, word and soundcombinations, artifices of musical notation etc., as well as a phrase ofvocal composition that represents an affection which is distinct by a certaintext-inspired manner. The favourite rhetorical figures become variousmodalities to correlate the parts of a polyphonic composition - such asfugue, mimesis, anadiplosis, hypallage, anaphora -, or means of achievingcontinuity - climax, auxesis. Given the remarkable frequency of melodicrepetition devices, the author of the study cited, Claude Palisca, puts downthe conclusion of a music like “a natural sanctuary for the rhetorical figuresthat involve repetition”.52

If we accept the fact that in late Renaissance music there is nowell-formed manneristic style with a group of creators - as it happens infine arts -, but that mannerism appears, in the hypostasis of “curiosities”or of novelty, infiltrated in the creation of certain composers, then weshall move the level of stylistic analysis to the author. The consecratedexample of manneristic music is Gesualdo da Venosa, and it is not thefigures in his madrigals as such that we call manneristic, but his way ofmaking use of them: when he reveals shocking sonorities, expressivetension, aesthetic violence, then it corresponds to the manneristic aestheticideal - as it was first and foremost described by the fine arts of the age.Moreover, the novelty of expressing the poetic oxymoron in music pleadsfor a manneristic coordinate, given the fact that oxymoron is among thefavourite figures of manneristic literature. “It is the first time a composertries, by breaks in the unifying structures of a work - here a madrigal or apolyphonic motet - to express oxymoron of the type <suave dolore> or<dolorosa gioia> in the texts it uses, which belong to certain manneristpoets of his time.” (Aurel Stroe)53

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Finally, the characteristic tendency - not to destroy traditions, but tomodify them up to the extremes (as Carl Dahlhaus points out54 ) - mayalso be noticed in the rhythmical transformations of dissonant figures,inexhaustible with Gesualdo, the “concettisto”: Multiplicatio (the split ofa dissonance by reapeating the respective sound), Extensio (prolonging adissonance, contrary to the rule requiring that this should not last morethan the preparing note and the solving one), Ellipsis (an interruption inthe connection between the preparing consonance and dissonance orbetween 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, butby deforming them (as it can be deduced from the examples above).Technical means cannot be then analysed “in themselves”, but viewedfrom a semantic perspective, as it is only like this that the “agglomeration”of dissonances and exceptions, as well as the expressive tension generatedby them, will find an explanation.

Other importan contributions in the field of musical rhetoric mayconfigurate the style of a certain genre, such as 17th century harpshichordmusic or baroque fugue56 , in situations that include welcome interferenceswith an interpretive stylistics. As, finally, emphasising the sonorouslanguage of that epoch as a direct translator of human affections andpassions by means of rhetorical devices nowadays reveals its importance,especially in the field of musical interpretation. No instrument-player orsinger that approaches this type of repertoire can avoid understanding thestructuring of the rhetorical discourse and the role of the art of persuasion(elocutio), nor the emphasis on particularities such as the expressiveimportance of ornament (with its function, not at all negligible, of“entertaining”) or of madrigalisms (“word-painting”). It is true that anextreme of attention given to the “bien-dire” can be reached to thedetriment of the content, both by the composer and by the performer, andan agglomeration of rhetorical devices in a musical text is not enough toensure its artistic value. But a mentality that has for a long time beenreducing Renaissance and baroque scores (and not only) to strictly syntacticanalyses57 should be surpassed, so as to integrate the real practice of theage - that of rhetorical devices -, which brings together purely musicalsemantics, as well as the one deriving from the word-music relationship.

This is why an evaluation of the fugue genre (in its historical evolutionfrom mere imitation to the complex Bachian form), from the perspectiveof 16th-18th century writings, is the more so interesting. Erudite Greek or

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Latin terminology will maybe make a musicological approach moredifficult, but will render the reality and the initial intentionality of thescore in a more faithful and more refined manner. For instance, GregoryG. Butler, in a vast study dedicated to the rhetoric of the fugue genre andform, demonstrates how the use of terms such as “episode” or “interlude”for certain fugue structures distorts the authentic nature of musicaldescription, much more plastically suggested by confutatio. Present-daytheory emphasises counterpoint compatibilities among voices, but leavesthe fugue devoid of life, of poetry, neglecting the vitality it used to have atthe time when it represented the supreme formal musical frame. While,in fact, fugue proves to have been, at the time, one of the most analysedmusical-rhetorical structures, from the frequent application: fugue = canon= mimesis, mere analogies between fugue and mimesis or fugue andrepetition (anaphora, repetitio), to the scope of a demonstration thatminutely compares the sonorous building with a vast, complicated one ofthe classical rhetorical discourse.

Namely, the parallellism of the chria scheme, equivalent, with theGerman rhetorician Christoph Weissenborn, with dispositio58 , with fuguedevelopment defined by Johann Christoph Schmidt (in 1718), reveals anart of composition impossible to conceive without being initiated inrhetoric. Here is the example of relating fugue-specific compositiontechniques with sections and subsections of dispositio and of chria, asoffered by G. Butler’s study:

DISPOSITIO CHRIA FUGUE (classical (Weissenborn) (Schmidt) rhetoric)

exordiumnarratiopropositio protasis propositio (dux)

aetiologia (probatio) aetiologia (comes)divisio ...confutatio amplificatio - a contrario oppositum (inversion)

- a comparato similia (alteration in durationof notes of subject)

- ab exemplo exempla (transposition,augmentation, diminution)

- a testimonio ...confirmatio ... confirmatio (stretto)conclusio conclusio conclusio (closer stretto

over pedal)

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Theoretical references to fugue rhetoric are numerous in Gregory G.Butler’s remarkable systematisation. I would like to point out only twoprinciples that might be derived from here, one serving as a basis forgenerally analysing fugue as an extended rhetorical discourse, amplifyinga given subject, like a conversation, an argument, a dispute, a debate oreven a fight, and the other one placing fugue musical structures in parallelwith various rhetorical devices. The multitude of interpretive possibilitiesin this second situation reveals a fascinating semantic universe for themusician of the present. Who is nowadays thinking of naming a doublefugue metalepsis, a counterfugue, hypallage, an incomplete subjectentrance - apocopa or an incomplete subject exposition - anaphora? Inwhat counterpoint treatises does one meet inversion defined ascommutatio, renversement as antimetabole, slightly altered repetition astraduction 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 forlimiting itself to the syntactic arena, which is easier to explain and toapply, especially in an age when the study of classical rhetoric hasdisappeared. But just as in literary theory, its place has been taken bystylistics. The discipline of style in musicology can no longer avoid such aproblem either, the approach at any level being necessarilyinterdisciplinary.

From the age and the genre, rhetorical analysis naturally arrives at thecomposer and the creation, that is, at other two stylistic levels. Theirpermanent interference does not need emphasising when, for instance,the analytical conclusions derived from a work demonstrate their efficacyfor an author’s entire creation (or the other way round, situations that arehowever not obligatory). Here are two cases from different ages andgeographical areas: Machaut and Purcell59 , two creators who are just asmuch interested in the deep fusion of sound and music, either in the balladsof the French Ars Nova or in English baroque stage productions.Marie-Danielle Audbourg-Popin’s musicological perspective on a balladby Machaut has the merit not only to particularise the respective musicallanguage, 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 perspectiveof the ancient procedures of reciting, declaiming: voicing, maintaining

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the sound, gliding or protracting sounds, maintaining or adorning a recitingstring etc., artifices well-known in composition as early as theMeistersingers’ age, belonging both to talking and to singing.60 Actually,the strategy of analysis suggested by the author for a 14th century vocalpiece may be extended to any other type of music: if the identifyingcadential and precadential elements may be achieved only in music of afunctional type, the stresses pointed out by heights, durations, intervals,ascending or descending movements make up a rhetorical ensemble whichis possible to evaluate in any style - for example, spontaneous effects ofcontrast, owed to the opposition between ascending or descending lines,generated by an intervallic style in a predominantly gradual melody (orthe other way round), by the disproportion of consecutive durations a.s.o.

At the same time, poetic contrast may stand for one of the rhetoricalanalysis criteria in Purcell’s “semi-opera”, King Arthur, the idea of contrariesbeing 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 -, rhetoricalgestures such as intervallic leaps for the word “far” and gradual amble for“near” or the affective properties of tonalities correlated with theAristotelian rhetorical concept (such as the ethos of D-Minor and F-Major)are integrated to a rich range of composition meansm, meant to persuadethe audience.

After all these examples, which suggest the generalising capacity of arhetorical analysis, all that is left to us is to concretely show its qualities,for example following the figure of exclamatio in different styles. Definedwithin the Baroque by Johann Gottfried Walther62 , exclamatio isreproduced in musical terms by a small sixth ascending leap, signifying acertain pathetic expression (with Bach, in invoking divinity), a dramaticclimactic point, an emphasis of the pathos, an amplifying means oftencorrelated to another rhetorical device, interrogatio. The acception widensin current practice, any intervallic leap bigger than a third is interpretableas 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 motivescontaining exclamatio, from the air Erbarme Dich in Matthäus Passion byBach to the first theme of the first part of Symphony No 40, in G-Minor byMozart, at the beginning of the Prelude in Tristan and Isolde by Wagner,

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up to Maria’s air (“Soldaten, Soldaten...”) in the third scene of Act I ofWozzeck by Alban Berg.

Other figures maintaining their structural and semantic importancealong time are those formed by breaks, silence having its own expressiverole 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 surprisinglycomes up within a musical development, the other one interrupting themelody by breaks meant to illustrate the text.63 In the first category wemay include abruptio, aposiopesis, homoioteleuton, tmesis, and in thesecond - suspiratio. (Plasticising the sigh by breaks which fragment amelody is common practice in the Renaissance and the Baroque, in manymusical works - such as the madrigal Itene, o miei sospiri by Gesualdo orthe 6th scene in Act III of the opera L’incoronazione di Poppea byMonteverdi.)

And, to follow along music history, break or silence in the musicaldiscourse remain sources of expressivity, in various situaions. The functionsof a break coming up in the discourse abruptly (in traditional, as well asnew creation) may aim at heightening the curve of semantic tension, like(emphatically) withholding breath before a climactic point; either, in thecase of a gradual fading away, to draw attention to the disappearing sound(The Separation Symphony by Haydn, the last part), or to producehumorous effects (like Haydn in the String Quartet Op 33 No 2, at theend, when breaks are interspersed between thematic fragments), or simplyto mark segments of form, like in Bruckner’s Symphonies.64

Musical language (with the theory of musical phrases and theirclassification into main, secondary, subordinate) includes syntacticpunctuation signs: the discourse starts, has respiration moments, it is ledfurther on, it contains interrogation signs, semicolon, period. (All theseare integrated in an age-specific musical rhetoric, but with certain generallyvalid laws.) Johann Nikolaus Forkel already (in 1788, AllgemeineGeschichte 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, aswell as a “telling break”, unlike breaks proper or free bars in which apartner is to be waited for.

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20th century music marks - just as it happens in almost all of itscomponents - a change of composition paradigm in evaluating silence orquietness as a musical parameter (paradoxically as it may sound) and notas a secondary phenomenon, like breaks in the classical tradition.65

Moments of silence in new music multiply the functionality of theprocedure: breaks may count not as interruptions, cut, caesura in thesonorous development, but as “elements with equal rights in asound-silence continuum”66 . This is how, after democratising the 12semitones, after introducing noise in modern music, a third great renewalis represented by the position of equality of the break (the “non-sound”)with the sound, emphasising the ephemerity of music as a temporalphenomenon (sonority appears from and disappears into silence).

This is not the right place to go into further details, and importantcontemporary theorising (Martin Zenck and Ulrich Dibelius) have alreadyapproached the theme of silence in present-day composition, the extremeexample being, of course, John Cage. Cage’s famous “silence work” inwhich no sound is produced for, 4’33” is a work declared to consist ofthree parts, the pianist or the ensemble chosen “performs” on stage, withoutactually playing anything. A paradoxical formulation of “music of silence”may here mean the foregrounding of the inner image by a practicalinitiation into listening to silence.67 Many others of Cage’s creations orCage-inspired contemporary works may be cited as examples.

What we must emphasise in the given context is that silence, as aparameter of musical thinking, has not been an occasion for meditation initself, going through the musical tradition (up to the end of the 19th century)only peripherally, in particular ways, the essential preoccupation focusingon acoustic achievement. The change of the sound / silence paradigmcan be noticed with late Mahlerian creation, Webern’s and Berg’s orchestraworks, then Cage, Zimmermann, Nono. From now on, music is no longerprojected from and towards sound, but from the absence of sound, fromsilence, from the various “timbres of silence”.68

With a view to establishing a necessary typology, M. Zenck puts forthfour 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 preparingthe grounds for them, when complex chordic masses get thinner etc.), theremoteness effect and break, free bar -, is argued for with traditionalexamples (with Schumann - the echo effect in Davidsbündlertänze, pieceNo 17, “Come da lontano”; with Mahler - the well-known “remoteness

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effects” with brass instruments, grounding an orchestral principle of musicspatialisation). The ordering of break types in western tradition is achievedwith the same consistence in Zenck’s study, which reminds of the baroquerhetorical figure for “death” (aposiopesis), with Schütz and Bach (to belater found with Beethoven in Egmont69 ); breaks as empty bars, as anexpression of the trivial (Zenck exemplifies by analysing the 13th of theDiabelli Variations, showing how Beethoven uses breaks to change thetrivial character of Diabelli’s waltz); “General Pause”, as a tough cut inthe musical movement, as a form of a powerful contrast, as a connectionof disparates etc. (examples are given by Scherzi by Beethoven andSchubert). The 20th century change of paradigm will not mean aspectacular 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 soundand nothingness within music.

2. The philosophy of evanescence means, to Zenck, going throughcertain essential guidemarks in Kant’s and Hegel’s thinking, showing thatthe philosophy of musical time felt “irritated” by the opposite of sound,that is, by silence. The particularisation of the concept of “Verlöschen”, infunction of each of the two philosophers and in relation to other romanticthinkers (E.T.A. Hoffmann, Hölderlin) is invested with significance,especially from the perspective of new music. The reflection on silence inmusic, on the birth and disappearance of music will lead to the predilectionof authors such as Webern and Berg to compose by (consciously)conceiving of music out of silence and then coming back to the samestage, a tendency fully asserted with Cage and Nono as well.

3. The “Dal niente” places and finales in Alban Berg’s music will pointout three moments of assimilating tradition in Bergian music (with a certainaffinity for the idea of “infinite”, expressed in musical terms): a. the romanticrhetorical device “quasi da lontano” (achieved by spatial disposition ofthe orchestra from a distance, by thinning out sonority, by nuancing, byweakening dynamics etc.), in Reigen from The Three Orchestra PiecesOp 6; b. a radical change in the typology of the finale in Mahler’s lastworks (Symphony No 9, The Song of the Earth) as compared to 19th centurysymphonic music, where finales were conceived of apotheotically, asglorious climaxes (Beethoven, Bruckner a.s.o.) - a change with a directimpact on the second Vienna school: it is enough to mention the pendulummovement in the finale of the Lyrical Suite (and Berg’s indications of“völlige Verlöschen” - complete fading), in the Orchestra Pieces Op 6 or

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in Wozzeck; c. taking over certain effects of “nature music” from Mahler’ssymphonies (quint sonorities, birds’ chirping etc.): in Wozzeck, scene 2of Act I, the static vacillation of three chords plasticise the silence of thefield, but it is not a quiet happy one (like sometimes with Mahler) but athreatening, expressionistic one. (In this latter case - although Zenck doesnot specify it - the type of “silence” is dramaturgical, achieved by sonorousmeans that are meant to suggest silence in the middle of nature, practicallyonly the silence of human characters, veiled in noises specific to the naturalenvironment.)

4. Evanescence in Nono’s music means first of all approaching thecreation of the ‘70s-’80s, while emphasising the fact that now music doesnot start with a tone or a sound, but before and after any music there issilence; hence, the transformation of the poetics of beginnings and endingsof musical works (as compared to tradition). Thus, some of HelmutLachenmann’s works either explicitly assert a “destruction of sonorousmusical time” 70 , like the clarinet piece Dal niente, or they point outthose processes of sonorous appearance and fading, before and after themusic - in Ausklang, concerto for piano and orchestra.

Together with many works entitled “Silence”, “Silenzio”, belonging tocontemporary composers, Nono writes the String Quartet Fragments, Stille- an Diotima, without intending (as the title might suggest) to obtain silencebetween one musical fragment and another, on crowns and endless breaks,but incorporating the parameter of silence in a continuity where it becomesa norm, and it is for the sonorous figures (“delicate eruptions”) to representthe exception. Silence thus gives birth to continuity, it is projected intothe foreground of composition preoccupations (hence the often-citedchange of sound / silence paradigm).

All this theory of silence in new music, continuing a systematisation ofrhetorical devices coming from breaks in the Renaissance and the Baroque,illustrates only one compartment of musical stylistics that operates withrhetorical notions. Applications may be extended to following all types offigures in the 17th-18th centuries, their becoming in music history - intext-bound or merely instrumental creation -, in order to bring to the foretheir efficiency and vitality exclusively in present-day music. Paradigmaticcatalogues can thus be made up, out of musical pieces built on ascensio/ descensio, anabasis / catabasis a.s.o. But the purpose of these lines hasbeen only to arouse the interest for such approaches, and only big volumescould adequately complete the subject of the relation between musicalrhetoric and stylistics.

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The viability of the rhetorical concept inpresent-day musical thinking

One may raise the question: what is the good of stressing rhetoricalproblematics, of arousing the interest in it, in an age when any“scholastically”-connoted approach seems elitist ? Well, my intention isnot to insist on the classical meaning of rhetoric, but on the widening, theopening of musical-stylistic research by engulfing the general, fundamentalprinciples of rhetoric. From the role of a mediator between music andspeech, from the importance of an adequate decoding of the meanings ofa 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 rhetoricaldesiderata - persuadere, docere, delectare, movere - and this is irrespectiveof the sonorous language adopted by a contemporary creator, which canno 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 shouldbe as much interested in the way of determining a convincing sonorousconfiguration. The only “process” that cannot be learnt and is connectedto an authentic composer’s 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 shouldbe followed in the temporal development of a musical discourse, at thelevel of its syntax, as they will be perceived as such by a listenerpredominantly educated in a traditional culture.

In contemporary art history writings, one may often meet a similaritybetween 20th century and baroque (or mannerist) creation, owing to theluxuriousness of ornament, the predilection for disharmony, asymmetry,irregularity, the oneiric and the fantastic, in general. Without directlyaiming at this type of stylistic affinities, I shall only point out that, if, in theBaroque, rhetoric offered theoretical grounds for musical composition,emphasising the relationship of a reciprocal interaction between “Ratio”and “Affekt”, some dialects (Impressionism, Neoclassicism, partiallyExpressionism) or idioms (Berg, Berio, Lutoslawski, Ligeti a.s.o.) of thestyle of our century still observe it. (I do not intend, of course, to attributeany baroque feature to these dialects or idioms, but only to appreciate thenecessary equilibrium of reason and affection in a music, irrespective ofthe language it is written in.) The problem that remains is however todefine the new types of rhetoric derived from the poetic ideas and the

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avant-garde techniques used, for instance, in integral serialism, in stocastic,aleatory music, in the “New complexity” a.s.o., all these dialects beingmore or less permeable to the audience. Thus, maybe the multitude of20th century musical dialects could be summed up in a few rhetoricaltypes, and musicological classification could be simplified - which remainsa field open to research.

Alongside the indispensable musicological instruments of rhetoricaldiscourse and of rhetorical-musical devices, which any musicologist shouldpossess when approaching Renaissance and baroque music, here are somepossible applications of rhetoric in modern and contemporary music, instylistically defining some decades that have not yet been reunited undersome global stylistic name. Musical interpretation represents, in its turn, aprivileged field of rhetorical explanations, especially from the perspectiveof memoria, pronuntiatio or actio concepts. Also, one must recreate aRenaissance or baroque score with fidelity in understanding the specificmusical devices.

Even the theories of style as deviation or as choice are beingpermanently reformulated. For instance, the difficulty of establishing anorm with respect to which one may measure deviation becomes almostinsuperable given the fact that exception often quickly turns into a rule,and the other way round. The 20th century musical landscape wouldrather permit - but only at the level of dialect, idiom, intraopus structure -a stylistic clarification on the basis of the concept of choice. The extremelywide stylistic spectrum, at the disposal of composition options, may turneither into a handicap, leading to the birth of a style first of all by negatinganother one (as it happened with atonalism or dodecaphonism), or into ablessing for a creator that knows how to extract any sources that areconvenient to him from (European and extra-European) musical tradition.In a period that is marked by a postmodern lack of prejudices, and then inanother, contemporary one, of a need for integrating syntheses, the startingpoint for authentic innovation will probably be found in poetic ideas(inventio) that originally and coherently combine the multiple suggestionsof tradition.

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NOTES

1. See Oswald Ducrot, Tzvetan Todorov, Dictionnaire encyclopédique dessciences du langage, Seuil, Paris, 1972: Rhétorique et stylistique.

2. By way of illustration, the bibliography offered by Sigismund Toduþã andHans-Peter Türk in The Musical Forms of the Baroque in J.S. Bach’s Works,The Musical Publishing House, Bucharest, 1973, vol. II, pp. 67-92, containsan important Bachian exegesis (especially up to the middle of this century)which permanently emphasises the implications of rhetoric in Bach’s creationor of that of his contemporaries. Thus, among the musicologists cited thereare Arnold Schering, Philipp Spitta, Hans Keller, Wilhelm Gurlitt, ArnoldSchmitz, Gotthold Frotscher, H.H. Eggebrecht, Heinrich Besseler, WalterSerauky, Hans Heinrich Unger, Rolf Damman a.s.o.

3. In 1537, Listenius adds to the duality formulated by Boethius - musicatheoretica / 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 historicalconscience”, that is, of the writings about style - even before this concept wasdefined as such -, from Günter Hausswald’s book, Musikalische Stilkunde,Heinrichshofen’s Verlag, Wilhelmshaven, 1973 / 1984, pp. 37-87.

5. For instance, A History of Musical Style by Richard L. Crocker, McGraw-HillBook Company, 1966.

6. The composer Claudio Monteverdi is the author of this distinction, definedprecisely on the basis of the musical representation of the text, seconda pratticastanding for the expressive style of the work; another classification made byhim: stile concitato, molle, temperato is based on three fundamental humanaffections, ranging from passion to silence, according to the registers of humanvoice.

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,Köln, 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 ªtefan Niculescu, in Un nou “spirit altimpului” în muzicã, in “Muzica” Review No. 9/1986, Bucharest.

13. Iulian Munteanu, Stil ºi mentalitãþi, Edit. Pontica, Constanþa 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 andText Analysis, Univers Publishing House, Bucharest, 1983, Romanian versionby Speranþa Stãnescu, for the following definition of rhetorical devices: “systemof modification categories, that is, deviations, which describe in a differentiatedway various degrees of linguistic artificiality and aesthetic and emotional effectstriggered 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 poeticã ºi retoricã (Poetical and Rhetorical Terminology),

“Al. I. Cuza” University Publishing House, Iaºi, 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 Meyer’s works, Emotion andMeaning 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 Jakobson’s 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 BuchgesellschaftDarmstadt, 1983.

34. See Lothar Hoffmann-Erbrecht, Vom Weiterleben der Figurenlehre imLiedschaffen Schuberts und Schumanns, in “Augsburger Jahrbuch fürMusikwissenschaft” 1989, ed. by Franz Krautwurst; Robert Schollum,Wolf-Webern-von Einem. Anmerkungen zu Deklamatorik, musikalischerGestik, Szenik, in “Wort-Ton-Verhältnis. Beiträge zur Geschichte imeuropäischen 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 Freischütz” und “Fierrabras”, in “Österreichische Musikzeitschrift” 44 /1989.

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36. See V. Lefkoff: Computers and the Study of Musical Style, in “West VirginiaUniversity Conference on computer applications in music”, Morgantown 1966;N. Böcker-Heil: Musikalische Stilanalyse und Computer: einige grundsätzlicheErwägungen and L. Treitler: Methods, Style, Analysis in “International MusicalSociety, Report of the 10th Congress”, XI, Copenhagen 1972, I; J.L. Broeckx& W. Landrieu: Comparative Computer Study of Style, Based on Five LiedMelodies, in “Interface I”, 1972.

37. See The New Grove Dictionary of Music, ed. cit., the article Analysis, signedby Ian Bent; as well, Ian Bent & William Drabkin, Analisi musicale, Editionidi Torino, 1990.

38. An exception is the reinterpretation of the Schenkerian approach which, thoughit appeared in the first decades of the 19th century - see Harmonielehre, 1906and Der freie Satz, 1935 -, demonstrated its modernity by the fact that itsparameters were taken over by the present-day American school, in analysessuch 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 l’analyse

musicale: bilan at essai d’interpretation, 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 representedby Professor Dinu Ciocan, the Academy of Music in Bucharest, see also hisstudy in The “Muzica” Review No 3/1995: Quelques aspectes de lamodélisation sémiotique 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 générale et sémiologie, 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 derMusikgeschichte in Einzeldarstellungen, a collective volume, Bärenreiter 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. Pressof 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 madrigalsby Gesualdo.

404


54. Carl Dahlhaus, Gesualdos manieristische Dissonanztechnik, in “Festchrift W.Boetticher”, B 1974.

55. Acc. to Christoph Bernhard, Tractatus compositionis augmentatis, quoted byDahlhaus, pp. 38-39. A larger analysis of the Gesualdo “subject”, in astylistic-rhetorical acception, I have done in my doctoral thesis - Stylistic andSymbolical Hypostases of Mannerism in Music, The Music Academy,Bucharest, 1995.

56. See Emilia Fandini, Ornement et structure musicale: essai d’analyse rhétoriquede la musique pour clavecin du XVIIe siècle, in “Analyse musicale” No 17,Oct. 1989 and Gregory G. Butler, Fugue and Rhetoric, in “Journal of MusicTheory”, 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, thereforeall the poetical-rhetorical implications disappeared, in favour of a syntactic,truncated analysis, not only of a Mass or a Passion, but also of instrumentalrepertoire, 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 d’amour et mendians d’amie”. La rhétorique

de Machaut by Marie Danielle Audbourg-Popin, in “Revue de musicologie”,Tome 72, Paris 1986 and “Hither. This way”: A Rhetorical Musical Analysisof a Scene from Purcell’s King Arthur by Rodney Farnsworth, in “The MusicalQuarterly” 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 für neue Musik, 55/August1994, Cologne.

65. Acc. to M. Zenck, Dal niente - Vom Verlöschen der Musik. ZumParadigmenwechsel vom Klang und Stille in der Musik des neunzehnten undzwangzigsten Jahrhunderts. In “MusikTexte, Zeitschrift für neue Musik” , 55/August 1994, Köln.

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. Thebreak, however, remains a means of expression with a similar meaning.

70. Idem, p. 20.

405


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411

COLEGIUL „NOUA EUROPÃ”

Punctul de pornire

New Europe College, un mic “centru de excelenþã” independent îndomeniul disciplinelor umaniste ºi sociale, primul ºi – cel puþindeocamdatã – unicul de acest fel din România, a fost întemeiat în 1994ca persoanã juridicã de drept privat. Punctul de pornire l-a constituit NewEurope Prize, acordat profesorului Andrei Pleºu în 1993 de un grup deinstitute de studii avansate (Stanford, Princeton, North Carolina, Wassenaar,Uppsala ºi Berlin). Acest premiu a fãcut posibilã înfiinþarea Colegiului ºiselecþia primei generaþii de bursieri ai acestuia. Finanþãri ulterioare aupermis continuarea programului, astfel încât, în momentul de faþã, existãcca. 100 de bursieri ºi alumni NEC. Prestigiul internaþional al colegiului afost recunoscut prin acordarea premiului Hannah Arendt, instituit pentrua încuraja eforturi exemplare în domeniul învãþãmântului superior ºi alcercetãrii. În 1999 Ministerul Educaþiei Naþionale a recunoscut ColegiulNoua Europã ca formã instituþionalizatã de educaþie permanentã ºi formareprofesionalã.

Obiective

• realizarea unui context instituþional care sã ofere tinerilor cercetãtoriromâni din domeniile ºtiinþelor umaniste ºi sociale posibilitatea de alucra la nivelul standardelor europene: burse care sã le permitã sã sededice în mod eficient muncii lor ºtiinþifice, echipament tehnic modernºi o atmosferã de lucru, de naturã sã încurajeze dezbaterea criticã,inter- ºi trans-disciplinarã;

412


• sincronizarea cercetãrii din România cu aceea a mediilor academiceinternaþionale ºi, totodatã, valorificarea a ceea ce e încã preluabil dinachiziþiile intelectuale obþinute, împotriva opreliºtilor, în perioadadictaturii comuniste;

• intensificarea contactelor dintre specialiºtii români ºi colegii lor strãinidin centre universitare ºi de cercetare din întreaga lume;

• constituirea unui nucleu de intelectuali tineri care sã contribuie lanormalizarea vieþii ºtiinþifice ºi intelectuale din România.

Programe

NEC nu este, propriu-zis, o instituþie de învãþãmânt; activitatea NECeste axatã pe cercetare, la nivelul “studiilor avansate”, prin urmãtoareleprograme:

Bursele NEC

În fiecare an New Europe College oferã, pe baza unui concurs public,zece burse pentru tineri cercetãtori români din domeniile ºtiinþelorumaniste ºi sociale. Bursierii sunt selectaþi de un juriu format din specialiºtiromâni ºi strãini ºi beneficiazã de o bursã care se acordã pe durata unuian universitar (octombrie - iulie). Cei selectaþi îºi discutã proiectele decercetare în cadrul unor colocvii sãptãmânale (“colocviile de miercuri”).În timpul anului academic fiecare bursier are posibilitatea de a petrece olunã într-un centru universitar din strãinãtate. La sfârºitul anului universitarbursierii prezintã o lucrare ce constituie rezultatul cercetãrii efectuate încadrul Colegiului. Lucrãrile sunt publicate în anuarul NEC.

Bursele RELINK

Iniþiat în 1996, programul RELINK vizeazã (cu predilecþie) tinericercetãtori români din domeniile ºtiinþelor umaniste ºi sociale care aubeneficiat de burse/stagii de studiu în strãinãtate ºi s-au reîntors în România,ocupând posturi în universitãþi sau în institute de cercetare. Urmãrindîmbunãtãþirea condiþiilor de cercetare ºi revigorarea vieþii academice în

413

NEW EUROPE COLLEGE

România, programul RELINK oferã anual (pe baza unei proces de selecþiesimilar celui pentru bursele NEC) un numãr de zece burse, durata acestorafiind de trei ani. Bursele includ: un stipendiu lunar, un suport financiarcare permite fiecãrui bursier sã întreprindã o cãlãtorie de cercetare de olunã pe an la un centru universitar din strãinãtate, pentru a-ºi menþine ºilãrgi contactele cu specialiºti strãini; un laptop pus la dispoziþie fiecãruibursier pentru utilizare individualã; fonduri pentru achiziþionarea deliteraturã de specialitate.

Programul GE-NEC

Începând din toamna anului 2000 Colegiul Noua Europã va organizaºi gãzdui timp de trei ani universitari un nou program, finanþat de GettyGrant Program. Acest program îºi propune sã contribuie la dezvoltareaînvãþãmântului ºi cercetãrii în domeniul culturii vizuale prin invitareaunor specialiºti marcanþi care vor susþine prelegeri ºi seminarii în cadrulNEC, în beneficiul unor studenþi, masteranzi, doctoranzi ºi tineri specialiºtiinteresaþi de acest domeniu. Programul include douã burse senior ºi douãburse junior pe an. Bursierii, selectaþi în consultare cu Consiliul ªtiinþifical Colegiului, sunt integraþi în viaþa Colegiului, primesc un stipendiu lunarºi au posibilitatea de a efectua o cãlãtorie de studii de o lunã în strãinãtate.

Colegiul Noua Europã organizeazã pentru toþi bursierii sãi, cât ºi pentrualþi specialiºti români din diverse domenii, un program permanent deconferinþe (“conferinþele de searã”), susþinute de personalitãþi ºtiinþificestrãine ºi româneºti. Periodic se organizeazã, deasemenea, seminarii ºisimpozioane la nivel naþional ºi internaþional.

Finanþare

Activitãþile Colegiului Noua Europã au fost finanþate pânã în prezentde Elveþia (Departamentul Afacerilor Externe ºi Zuger Kulturstiftung Landis& Gyr), Germania (Stifterverband für die Deutsche Wissenschaft ºiVolkswagen-Stiftung), de Open Society Institute, Budapesta, prin HigherEducation Support Program pentru Programul RELINK ºi de Getty GrantProgram pentru Programul GE-NEC.

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Fondator al Fundaþiei Noua Europã ºi Rector al Colegiului Noua Europã:Dr. Andrei PLEªU

Director executivMarina HASNAªDirector ºtiinþificDr. Anca OROVEANU

Consiliul Administrativ:Dr. Victor BABIUC, profesor de drept, Universitatea BucureºtiMaria BERZA, secretar de stat, Ministerul CulturiiHeinz HERTACH, director, Zuger Kulturstiftung Landis & Gyr, ElveþiaDr. Helga JUNKERS, Volkswagen-Stiftung, Hanovra, GermaniaDr. Joachim NETTELBECK, director executiv, Wissenschaftskolleg zu

Berlin, GermaniaDr. Heinz-Rudi SPIEGEL, Stifterverband für die Deutsche Wissenschaft,

GermaniaDr. Ilie ªERBÃNESCU, director, Ziarul Financiar

Mihai-Rãzvan UNGUREANU, lector, Universitatea din Iaºi, secretarde stat, Ministerul Afacerilor Externe

Consiliul ªtiinþific:Dr. Horst BREDEKAMP, profesor de istoria artei, Humboldt-Universität,

BerlinDr. Iso CAMARTIN, scriitor, Zürich; specialist în romanisticã; director,

Departamentul cultural al Televiziunii Elveþiene (SFDRS)Dr. Daniel DÃIANU, profesor, Academia de Studii EconomiceDr. dr. h.c. Wolf LEPENIES, profesor de sociologie, Freie Universität

Berlin; rector al Wissenschaftskolleg zu BerlinDr. Gabriel LIICEANU, profesor de filosofie, Universitatea Bucureºti;

director, Editura HumanitasDr. Andrei PIPPIDI, profesor de istorie, Universitatea Bucureºti;

preºedinte al Comisiei Naþionale a Monumentelor IstoriceDr. Istvan REV, director, Open Society Archives, Budapesta

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NEW EUROPE COLLEGEInstitute of Advanced Study

Starting Point

The New Europe College is a small independent Romanian “center ofexcellence” in the humanities and social sciences. It was founded in 1994by Professor Andrei Pleºu (philosopher, art historian, writer, 1990/91Romanian Minister of Culture, 1997/99 Romanian Minister of ForeignAffairs), as a private foundation subject to Romanian law. Its starting pointwas the New Europe Prize, awarded to Professor Pleºu in 1993 by a groupof institutes of advanced studies (Stanford, Princeton, North Carolina,Wassenraar, Uppsala and Berlin). This price made possible the foundingof the college and the selection of the first generation of its fellows.Subsequent financial support enabled the college to continue and enlargeits program, so that it currently numbers around a hundred fellows andalumni. In 1998 the New Europe College was awarded the prestigiousHannah Arendt Prize for its achievements in setting new standards inhigher education and research. In 1999 the Romanian Ministry of Educationofficially recognized the New Europe College as an institutional structureof continuous education in the humanities and social sciences, at thelevel 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 socialsciences working conditions similar to those in the West: individualgrants enabling them to focus on their research projects, access to moderntechnical equipment, an environment that stimulates the dialoguebetween different fields of research and encourages critical debate

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• to cultivate the receptivity of scholars and academics in Romaniatowards methods and areas of research as yet not firmly establishedhere, while preserving what might still be precious in a type of approachdeveloped, against all odds, in an unpropitious intellectual, culturaland political context before 1989

• to promote contacts between Romanian scholars and their peersworldwide

• to contribute to the forming of a core of promising young academics,expected to play a significant role in the renewal of Romania’sacademic, scholarly and intellectual life

Academic Programs

NEC is not, strictly speaking, a higher education institution, even thoughit has been consistently contributing to the advance of higher educationin Romania in a number of ways, through the activities organized underits aegis. It focuses on research at the level of advanced studies, throughthe following programs:

NEC Fellowships

Each year, ten NEC Fellowships for outstanding young Romanianscholars in humanities and social sciences are publicly announced. Fellowsare chosen by an international Academic Advisory Board, and receive amonthly stipend for the duration of one academic year (October throughJuly). The Fellows gather for weekly seminars to discuss their researchprojects. In the course of the year, the Fellows are given the opportunityto pursue their research for one month abroad, at a university or researchinstitution of their choice. At the end of the grant period, the Fellowssubmit a paper representing the results of their research. These papers arepublished in the New Europe College Yearbook.

RELINK Grants

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

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Romania’s universities or research institutes. Ten RELINK Fellows areselected each year through an open competition; in order to facilitatetheir reintegration in the local research milieu and to improve their workingconditions, a modest support lasting for three years is offered, consistingof: a monthly stipend, funds in order to acquire scholarly literature; anannual allowance enabling the recipients to make a one-month researchtrip to a foreign institute of their choice in order to sustain existing scholarlycontacts 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 Collegewill organize and host for three consecutive academic years an additionalprogram, supported by the Getty Grant Program. This program aims atstrengthening research and education in visual culture by inviting leadingspecialists to give lectures and hold seminars at the New Europe Collegefor the benefit of MA students, PhD candidates and young scholars fromthis field. The program includes two senior and two junior fellowships peryear, selected in consultation with the Academic Advisory Board. Therecipients of these fellowships are integrated in the life of the College,receive a monthly stipend, and are given the opprotunity of spending onemonth aboad for a study trip.

The New Europe College hosts a permanent program of lectures givenby prominent Romanian and foreign academics and researchers, opennot only to its fellows, but also to a larger audience of specialists andstudents in the fields of humanities and social sciences. The College alsoorganizes national and international seminars, workshops and symposia.

Financing

To date, the activities of the New Europe College have been financedby German and Swiss foundations (Stifterverband für die DeutscheWissenschaft, Volkswagen-Stiftung, Zuger Kulturstiftung Landis & Gyr),by the Swiss Department of Foreign Affairs, the Higher Education SupportProgram 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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Founder of the New Europe Foundationand Rector of the New Europe CollegeDr. Andrei PLEªU

Executive DirectorMarina HASNAªScientific DirectorDr. Anca OROVEANU

Administrative BoardDr. Victor BABIUC, Professor of Law, University of BucharestMaria BERZA, Secretary of State, Romanian Ministry of CultureHeinz HERTACH, Director, Zuger Kulturstiftung Landis & Gyr, Zug,

SwitzerlandDr. Helga JUNKERS, Volkswagen-Stiftung, HanoverDr. Joachim NETTELBECK, Secretary, Wissenschaftskolleg zu BerlinDr. Heinz-Rudi SPIEGEL, Stifterverband für die Deutsche Wissenschaft,

EssenDr. Ilei ªERBÃNESCU, economist, Director of the daily “Financial

News”Dr. Mihai-Rãzvan UNGUREANU, Associate Professor, University of

Iaºi, Secretary of State, Ministry of Foreign Affairs

Academic Advisory BoardDr. Horst BREDEKAMP, Professor of Art History, Humboldt University,

BerlinDr. Iso CAMARTIN, writer, specialist in Romansh Literature and

Culture, Zürich; Head of the Cultural Dept. Swiss Television (SFDRS)Dr. Daniel DÃIANU, Professor, Academy of Economic Sciences,

BucharestDr. Dr. h.c. Wolf LEPENIES, Rector, Wissenschaftskolleg zu Berlin;

Professor of Sociology, Free University, BerlinDr. Gabriel LIICEANU, Professor of Philosophy, University of

Bucharest; Director of the Humanitas Publishing HouseDr. 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 COLLEGEInstitut d’études avancées

Point de départ

New Europe College (NEC) est un institut d’études avancées, un “centred’excellence” indépendant dans le domaine des sciences humaines etsociales. Fondé en 1994, il est le premier, et pour le moment tout aumoins, reste le seul dans son genre en Roumanie. A l’origine de sa créationil y a eu le Prix La Nouvelle Europe attribué au professeur Andrei Pleºu en1993 par un groupe d’instituts d’études avancées : Center for AdvancedStudy in the Behavioral Sciences, Stanford, Institute for Advanced Study,Princeton, National Humanities Center, Research Triangle Park, NorthCarolina, Netherlands Institute for Advanced Study in the Humanities andSocial Sciences (NIAS), Wassenaar, Swedish Collegium for Advanced Studyin the Social Sciences (SCASSS) Uppsala et Wissenschaftskolleg zu Berlin.C’est grâce à ce prix que le Collège a pu voir le jour et sélectionner sapremière génération de boursiers. Des financements ultérieurs ont permisau Collège de poursuivre ses activités, de sorte qu’aujourd’hui le nombrede ses boursiers a atteint la centaine.

Objectifs

• Créer un contexte institutionnel avec une large ouverture internationale,qui offre aux jeunes chercheurs roumains dans les sciences humaineset sociales la possibilité de travailler dans des conditions comparablesà celles de leurs collègues de l’Ouest : des bourses leur permettant dese dédier à leurs recherches scientifiques dans des conditions de travailacceptables, un équipement technique moderne et surtout uneatmosphère de travail de nature à stimuler le dialogue entre différentsdomaines de recherche et encourager les débats critiques

• Cultiver la réceptivité des chercheurs et des universitaires roumainspour des domaines de recherche et des approches encoreinsuffisamment développées en Roumanie, tout en préservant ce qui

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peut être encore précieux dans des types de démarche mises en placeavant 1989, malgré un climat intellectuel, culturel et politique néfaste

• Faciliter et élargir les contacts entre spécialistes roumains et étrangersen développant des contacts avec des centres d’enseignement et derecherche du monde entier

• Constituer un noyau de jeunes intellectuels pouvant contribuer à lanormalisation de la vie scientifique et intellectuelle en Roumanie

Programmes

Le NEC n’est pas une institution d’enseignement au sens propre dumot. Son activité est consacrée à la recherche au niveau d’études avancées,par les programmes suivants :

Les bourses NEC

Chaque année le New Europe College offre, sur la base d’un concourspublic, dix bourses destinées à des jeunes chercheurs roumains dans lessciences humaines et sociales. Les boursiers sont sélectionnés par un jurydes spécialistes roumains et étrangers et reçoivent une bourse d’une annéeuniversitaire (d’octobre à juillet). Pendant l’année universitaire, les boursiersparticipent aux rencontres hebdomadaires (“les colloques de mercredi”),au cours desquelles ils présentent, à tour de rôle, leurs projets de recherche,qui sont discutés par le groupe interdisciplinaire ainsi constitué. Au coursde l’année universitaire, chaque boursier a la possibilité de passer unmois dans un centre universitaire à l’étranger dans le cadre d’un voyaged’études. A la fin de l’année universitaire les boursiers doivent présenterun travail scientifique, résultat des recherches effectuées dans le cadre duCollège. Ces travaux sont ensuite publiés dans l’annuaire du NEC.

Les bourses RELINK

Initié en 1996, le programme RELINK s’adresse aux chercheurs roumains,de préférence jeunes, dans les sciences humaines et sociales, ayant bénéficiédes bourses ou des stages d’études à l’étranger et étant rentrés en Roumaniepour y occuper des postes dans des universités ou des instituts de recherche.Le programme RELINK vise à améliorer les conditions de recherche et àdonner un nouveau souffle à la recherche et à l’enseignement supérieur en

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Roumanie. Pour ce faire, le programme RELINK offre chaque année (selonla même procédure de sélection que pour les bourses NEC) 10 bourses quiattachent les boursiers au Collège pour une durée de trois ans. Ces boursescomprennent : une bourse mensuelle ; un soutien financier permettant àchaque boursier d’entreprendre un voyage de recherche d’un mois par anà l’étranger, pour maintenir et développer ainsi leurs contacts avec desspécialistes dans leur domaine de recherche ; des fonds spécifiques pourl’acquisition des ouvrages de spécialité ; un ordinateur portable mis à ladisposition de chaque boursier pour un usage individuel.

Le programme GE-NEC

En commençant par l’année universitaire 2000-2001, le New EuropeCollege sera, pendant trois années universitaires consécutives,l’organisateur et l’hôte d’un nouveau programme, financé par le GettyGrant Program. Ce programme se propose de contribuer au développementde la recherche et de l’enseignement dans des domaines ayant trait à laculture visuelle, en invitant des spécialistes réputés pour tenir au NEC desconférences et des séminaires, au bénéfice des jeunes étudiants, doctorandset spécialistes dans ces domaines. Le programme inclut deux boursessenior et deux bourses junior par an. Les boursiers, sélectionnés enconsultation avec le Conseil Scientifique du Collège, sont intégrés dansles activités du Collège ; ils reçoivent une bourse mensuelle et ont lapossibilité d’effectuer un voyage d’études d’un mois à l’étranger.

Le New Europe College organise pour ses boursiers, ainsi que pour uncercle plus large d’universitaires et chercheurs roumains, un programmepermanent de conférences, dont les protagonistes sont des personnalitésscientifiques de Roumanie et de l’étranger. Le NEC organise égalementdes manifestations spéciales, tels que séminaires, ateliers, colloques etconférences, à caractère national et international.

Financement

Les activités du New Europe College ont été financées jusqu’à présentpar la Suisse (Département des Affaires Etrangères et Zuger KulturstiftungLandis & Gyr), par l’Allemagne (Stifterverband für die Deutsche Wissenschaftet Volkswagen-Stiftung) par Open Society Institute de Budapest à traversson Higher Education Support Program pour le programme RELINK et parGetty Grant Program pour le programme GE-NEC.

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Recteur et fondateur de la Fondation Nouvelle Europeet du New Europe CollegeDr. Andrei PLEªU

Directrice administrativeMarina HASNAªDirectrice scientifiqueDr. Anca OROVEANU

Conseil d’Administration :Dr. Victor BABIUC, professeur de droit, Univesité de BucarestMaria BERZA, secrétaire d’état, Ministère de la CultureHeinz HERTACH, directeur, Zuger Kulturstiftung Landis & Gyr, SuisseDr. Helga JUNKERS, Volkswagen-Stiftung, Hanovre, AllemagneDr. Joachim NETTELBECK, directeur administratif, Wissenschaftskolleg

zu Berlin, AllemagneDr. Heinz-Rudi SPIEGEL, Stifterverband für die Deutsche Wissenschaft,

Essen, AllemagneDr. Ilie ªERBÃNESCU, économiste, directeur du journal « Financial News »Mihai-Razvan UNGUREANU, maître de conférence, Université de

Iassy; secrétaire d’état, Ministère des Affaires Etrangères

Conseil scientifique :Dr. Horst BREDEKAMP, professeur d’histoire de l’art, Humboldt-

Universität, BerlinDr. Iso CAMARTIN, écrivain; spécialiste de littérature et de culture

retoromane, Zürich; directeur du département culturel de la TélévisionSuisse (SFDRS)

Dr. Daniel DÃIANU, professeur, Académie des Etudes Economiques,Bucarest

Dr. dr. hc. Wolf LEPENIES, professeur de sociologie, Freie UniversitätBerlin ; recteur de la Wissenschaftskolleg zu Berlin

Dr. Gabriel LIICEANU, professeur de philosophie, Université deBucarest ; directeur des Editions Humanitas

Dr. Andrei PIPPIDI, professeur d’histoire, Université de Bucarest ;Présidant de la Commission Nationale des Monuments

Dr. Istvan REV, directeur, Open Society Archives, Budapest

Documents

Cristian Preda- Nous Les Modernes