The Politics of Culture in Greater Romania: Nation-Building and Student Nationalism, 1918-1927 (Fascism, Bessarabia, Bukovina, Transylvania).

Romania's territory and population doubled after World War I. This exp and ed state, with its diversity of political traditions, elites, ethnic groups, languages, and religions fell short of the organic entity nationalists had envisaged. Unification thus constituted a challenge to create an integrated state with centralized institutions, and a unified elite and culture. The accelerated process of nation-building engendered an all-pervasive nationalist discourse that was embraced equally by mainstream political parties and by the fascist movement and its predecessor--the nationalist student movement. Cultural policies played an important role in the consolidation of Greater Romania, contributing also to the radicalization of nationalist ideology. By analyzing the politics of culture, this dissertation explores the social and political ramifications of nation-building in interwar Romania. The Romanian state, and local Romanian elites and educators, worked to strengthen national bonds with the newly-acquired territories, through a renewed emphasis on cultural activities. Policy toward various levels of cultural institutions became a nationalist battleground in both new and old territories, as a result of the state's expansion and of the concomitant peasant and Jewish emancipations which mobilized antithetical rural and urban population layers. Based on research in the Ministry of Education archives, manuscripts collections, Jewish archives, periodicals, and French military and consular reports, this study scrutinizes the process of cultural nationalization and suggests its bearing on the definition of a radical nationalist ideology. Romanian students formed a vanguard in the nation-building effort whose success promised upward mobility in a Romanianized state. The new generation's dynamism--itself a product of massive nationalization policies--set the tone of the radical nationalist politics of the 1920s. Romanian youth approached the problems, that also confronted established Romanian elites and the state, from a unique perspective. Overcrowded conditions in the universities and limited social opportunities contributed to the students' radicalization. Public opinion received their nationalist, often violent, critique of Romanian society with considerable admiration. While the young generation's radical nationalism assisted in the nation-building process, national consolidation, in turn, gave the radicals prominence and legitimacy.Ph.D.European historyUniversity of Michiganhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/161277/1/8702781.pd