The Romanian Enlightenment in Transylvania

Abstract

This paper suggests that a significant variant of the European Enlightenment arose among the Romanian intellectual elite in Transylvania in the latter
decades of the eighteenth and the early decades of the nineteenth century.
Against the background of both the general Enlightenment and the prevailing
political and social conditions in Transylvania, it attempts to identify the
specific characteristics of what may be called the Romanian Enlightenment. To
do so, it analyzes the works of three leading representatives of the Romanian
elite —Samuil Micu, Gheorghe Şincai, and Petru Maior— and examines their
relationship with the Habsburg Court of Vienna, particularly with Joseph II. It
is evident that the Romanian elite adhered to certain salient principles of the European Enlightenment, notable faith in reason and knowledge and a commitment to apply these instruments to the improvement of the human condition. But in even greater measure they were preoccupied with the idea of
nation. It was their striving to interweave the tenets of the European Enlightenment, which was essentially cosmopolitan, with the aspirations of
nationhood, which were ethnic and particular, that gave the Romanian Enlightenment its distinctive character.