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Home , Alba County, Augustin Bunea, Blaj, Danubian Principalities, Lucian Blaga, Transylvanian School

IACOB MÂRZA (, )

POLITICAL DYNAMISM IN DURING THE ENLIGHTENMENT: THE CASE OF THE TEACHERS IN

A careful look at Central and Southeast European society during the Enlight- enment reveals many changes that stemmed from a bevy of factors, the most prominent of which were economic, political, social, religious, and cultural. At the same time, a dynamic Tenewal manifested itself in the political life of the Euro- pean continent by the gradual integration of bourgeois elements into political af- fairs, as well as by changes in the nobility, who still retained important positions in various sectors of public life.' We also see, mutatis mutandis, that society in the - Romanian geopolitical area was engulfed by numerous profound transformations . in the wider context of the Eastern Question and the Turk's Phanariot regime in and as well as with Habsburg imperial rule in Transylvania. Among these changes were Prince Constantine Mavrocordat's reforms, the reli- gious union of some Transylvanian with the Church of Rome, the struggle for national emancipation initiated and led by Bishop Inochentie Micu- Klein, the end of the Phanariot domination in the Danubian , and 2 enlightened absolutism in Transylvania.2 Our attempt to address political dynamism in Transylvania during the Enlight- enment would seem old-fashioned if we ignored the congruence between the Enlightenment and the Romanians' political movement. But, teachers and students in the Blaj schools, that were set up in the autumn of 17543in an epoch corre- sponding to the emergence of the modem world , spread the political aspect of the European and Romanian Enlightenment.

1. The chronologicallimits in contemporaryRomanian historiography for the Enlightenmentare from 1770to 1830,and directlyconnected to variousTransylvanian political, economic, social, and culturalrealities. The nextperiod, from 1830to 1840,would be the Post-Enlightenment.For the gen- eralcontext of thisproblem, see PaulHazard, Gdndirea european4 in secoliilal XVlll-lea: Dela Mon- tesquieula Lessing,trans. Viorel Grecu (Bucure?ti: "Univers," 1981); Pierre Chaunu, Civilizalia Eu- ropeiin secolulLuminilor, trans. Irina Mavrodin, 2 vols.(Bueure?ti: "Meridiane," 1986). 2. Cf., for instance,, Gândirea romtineascd in Transilvaniain secolulal XVlll-lea, ed. Georgelvascu (Bucure?ti:Editura ?tiin(ificit, 1966); Keith Hitchins,The RomanianNational Movementin Transylvania1780-1848 (Cambridge, MA: Harvard Univ. Press, 1969); Enlightenment and RomanianSociety, ed. PompiliuTeodor (Cluj-Napoca: "," 1980); Mathias Bernath, Habs- b?rgii,ciinceputurile formariinaliunii romine, trans. Marionela Wolf (Cluj: "Dacia," 1994), 161-258. See also an extremelyuseful work, $tefan Lemny, Romdnii in secolulXVIII. 0 bibliografie,voi. 1 EdituraUniversitatea Alexandru loan Cuza,1988). ., ' 3Iacob , Mdrza, $coala na?it?ne:$colile de la Blaj in epocarenafterii nafionale (Cluj-Napoca: "Dacia,"1987). 4. PompiliuTeodor, Interferenfe iluministe europene (Cluj-Napoca: "Dacia," 1984), p. 202. 22

When we discuss the political dynamism of Romanian intellectuals personified by the schoolteachers in Blaj during the Enlightenment, we must emphasize at the outset that they effectively participated in major political and social events and thereby left their mark on Transylvania's history. In fact, only if we look into the teachers' political dynamism may we fully appreciate the actual contribution made by Blaj's "fountains of gifts," that is, its sources of learning and knowledge for shaping Transylvania's intelligentsia during the Romanian national renaissance. Then, some of the teachers and students who had been active in Blaj until the third decade of the nineteenth century found their place in a gallery of the creators of Transylvania's Romanian culture, enabling by their deeds the generation educated in "Vormarz" to prepare ideologically and organizationally for the revolution of 1848-1849.? These learned men were continuators - on other levels and in different his- torical circumstances - of Inochentie Micu-Klein, the promoter of Transylvanian Romanians' struggle for political and national rights in the eighteenth century.6 As the initiator of far-reaching efforts to emancipate the Romanian peoples, he was also the schools' founder. Micu-Klein played a decisive role in the crystallization of the $coala Ardeleana []'s political ideology. The basic political, social,, and cultural desiderate, for which the brave bishop had fought, would also be present during the second half of the eighteenth century as well as at the beginning of the nineteenth in "Vormarz" and even in the program drafted by Transylvania's political leaders and revolutionaries. Among them were many intellectuals from Blaj. In fact, their involvement in a series of political, social, cultural, and religious activities must be mentioned before the schools' opening, which occurred when they also had other roles in the public life of the Great Prin- cipality of Transylvania. A concrete case is that of the abbot Leonte Moschonas, later one of the first teachers in Blaj, who participated in the organizational meeting of rectors in Daia of on September 22, 1747. The assembly, in which the ideas of the Transylvanian Romanians' Romanity and continuity was reaffirmed, represents as well the adhesion of Uniate clerical leaders to the political dynamism evident in Micu-Klein's Roman exile? A year later, in 1748, on the occasion of the synod, when the Union's uncertain future was discussed in the presence of the Carpatho-Russian bishop, Mihail Olsavszky, some of Blaj's students and future teachers also participated. Among them were signatories of the petition "Gra- vimina Cleri Romano-Valachici per Transylvanian, Partesque eidem incorporatas Uniti" [The Grievances of the Romanian (Wallachian) Uniate Clergy of Transyl-

5. Marza,?Scoala qi nafiune,pp. 7-8, 194-95.The term "Vormärz"suggests the periodbefore March 1848,that is, before the 1848revolutions erupted in Europe.In Romanianhistoriography, ' "VorTnarz"refers to the pre-revolutionaryperiod, that is, before1848. . 6. AugustinBunea, Din istoriaromdnilor: Episcopul loanInochenliu Klein (1728-1751) (Blaj: Ti- pografiaSeminarului, 1900); Zenovie Picli*anu, Corespondenta din exil a episcopuluiInochenlie Micu-Klein,1746-1768 (Bucure?ti: Editura Academiei Române, 1924); Exilul lui InochentieMicu- Kleinla Roma(1745-1768), ed. FranciscPall, 2 vols.(Cluj-Napoca: Editura "Viata cre?tinä," 1997). 7. DavidProdan, Supplex Libellus Valachorum: Aus der Geschichteder rumiinischeiiNations- bildung,1700-1848 (Bucure§ti: "Kriterion," 1 98 1p. ), 169; Pâeli?u, Corespondenfd,p. 106.