Suchergebnisse

The aim of the article is to reframe the political ideas Dimitrie Gusti has been expressed alongside two decades of the interwar period, through the conservative political doctrine. Dimitrie Gusti did not relate his political perspective to the conservative label. Still, his political commitments and ideas, as these have been summed up in 1932-1933, when he was Ministry of Public Education in a Government led by National Peasant Party, allow seeing him amongst the leading personalities who has resumed the prewar conservatism in Romania. My arguments revolve around this latter thesis.

In the conservative imaginary, at least in the cases of Constantin N. Brăiloiu and Alexandru N. Lahovary, France was not deemed a functioning political model (i.e., a political or constitutional regime) that Romania should have followed. Compared with the English political model (or rather with the Anglo-Saxon one, since the reference sometimes included the United States of America) and with the Belgian regime, France was certainly a less favoured option. However, without exception and despite all discursive artifice, in the perspective of these two politicians, who were evidently Francophile, both by education and by cultural affinities, France undeniably remained a landmark of civilization or administrative and economic efficiency, and sometimes a beacon of legal inspiration. It must be said that the latter perception was in no way related to Constantin N. Brăiloiu and Alexandru N. Lahovary's conservative convictions. It was commonplace in the local cultural imaginary, which, regardless of one's political, social or cultural affiliation, repeated the encomiastic mantra dedicated to imperial France, to whom the Romanians were convinced that they owed the existence of their nation. In fact, one should not overlook another typical belief of this political imaginary, which is illustrated in our case by Alexandru N. Lahovary: the Romanian politicians were persuaded that the ideals included in the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen were exclusively due to the France of 1789.

According to the Constitution of 1866, the prerogatives of Carol I permitted him to be a mediator in the political struggle between liberals and conservatives, as a constitutional monarch. In 1866, there were different political groups, liberal and conservative, which formed unstable governments (1866-1871). The political stability was assured for a short period by the conservative government (1871-1876). In time, the political groups decided to unite, founding the two major parties, the National Liberal Party (1875)and the Conservative Party (1880). Both parties tended to monopolize the political power for a long period of time, generating tensions between government-opposition (1876-1888 – liberal government and 1888-1895 – conservative government). During 1895 and 1914 functioned the "rotativa guvernamentală" ("governmental rotation"), representing a particularity of the Romanian two-party system, characterized as an organized alternation in government of National Liberal Party with Conservative Party.

This study consists in an analysis of the modern Romanian conservatism's evolution. Starting with the semantic definition of the term "conservative", the author sketches the circumstances of its use in the Romanian political language in the middle of the 19thcentury and later in political practice. The author highlights that in the 50's and the 60's decades of the 19th century there was a great interest in a precise definition of the term in the political vocabulary. It was the time when "conservative" together with its antonym "liberal" were two political terms just entering the political language. Also in Romania, the conservatism defined its identity from the ideas of natural progress, organic evolution, order and legality in the spirit of the ideas of E. Burke, already common in the political imagology of the European conservatism. At the beginning of the 20th century Romanian conservatives continued to use the specific vocabulary and ideas of the former century, trying to unveil the consequences of the forced modernisation of the country, so that later, after the First World War, to disappear as a party from the political stage; conservative doctrine persisted in a fragmentary form in the interwar period.

Carol I and the political leaders maintained the two-party system founded by the political parties, National-Liberal Party and Conservative Party (after their formation) with balanced forces, in not conceding importance to the political factions or other parties, which could generate political instability. Expressing as a true arbiter in political life, Carol I used the alternation at government of the National-Liberal Party with the Conservative Party from 1895-1914, called in the specialized literature as "rotativa guvernamentală" ("governmental rotation"). In running of this type as organized alternation, an important role was assigned to Carol I, who took over the British model, because it ensured the public peace and permitted a balance of forces between conservators and liberals.The alternation mechanism to government of conservators with liberals has functioned before 1895, but with unequal period of time, with alliances between liberal and conservator factions (1866-1871); between parties and different factions of conservators (1888-1895). This system allowed the consolidation of the two government parties and the state institutions. The collaboration of the two parties was accomplished for the welfare of the state: in situations of political, economic, crises the two parties were supporting each other. The government program applied by a party which was in government was continued by the party who succeeded in power.

The article shows the way in which the journal Conservatorul Constanţei illustrated the main subject of local political debate in 1909-1912: the issue of the political rights for the citizens of Dobrudja. This debate is significant as it unfolds in the same time as the consolidation of the local branch of the Conservative Party, as well as the participation of its representatives to the parliamentary elections in 1912. These are the first elections in which the citizens of Dobrudja take part, after they were reintegrated within the frontiers of the Romanian state (1878) and after they obtained political rights (1912).