Peculiarities of Translating and Adapting the Concept of Nation
in Central and South-East Europe

Abstract:

A trans-national perspective on East-Central European identity phenomenon is encouraged by the history of concepts and conceptual history, and by a research methodology that assumes and enriches the results the Koselleck’s studies on Begriffsgeschichte. This would contribute to a reevaluation of the European cultural and political-identitarian thinking similarities and differences. Being situated at the croasroads of many cultures, the Romanians and Hungarians have built ideologies with ambivalent senses: on the one hand, they were inspired by the ideas of the French revolution and the Romanticist German literature and, on the other, by the Oriental-Turkish one. With such a background, the identitarian policies of the 19th century generated a few peculiarities. This article is dealing with the controversial issue of the concepts that define two of the East-Central European identities, namely the Romanian and the Hungarian ones. It grants a particular attention to the translation and adaptation of the German concept of nation, insisting on either its inclusive or on its exclusive senses gained within the two political languages and cultures during the first half of the 19th century.

Keywords:

East-Central Europe, Habsburg Empire, Romanians, Hungarians, Jews, Enlightenment, cosmopolitanism, Herder, Romanticism, 1848 Revolution, political ethno-nationalism, cultural nation, nationalities.