A Century since the Great Union THE TRUTH ON OUR RELATIONSHIP WITH HISTORY Reflections on how an anniversary is assessed “The best way to predict the future is to create one” Peter Drucker Marin DINU1 Abstract: The approach of this theme - an assessment of a certain timeline that has a complex significance, both eventfully and societally - is specific either to an editorial, in brief, or to a more methodologically complex synthesis, in the form of a book. This paper, which, to some extent, would qualify for the rigors of present trends in publishing, is an editorial: one that implies real identification of the problem, understanding of how visions are structured, argumentation of the method of criticism and judgment in finding a solution. Keywords: evolution of a societal entity, socio-human sciences, economic resilience JEL Classification: A13, B41, B55. An assessment of the evolution of a societal entity in the context of multiple influences - mostly uncontrollable and unpredictable, with contradictory attitudes, some being coherent and consistent and others incoherent and inconsistent but which make up a critical mass, along with rational and irrational judgment either of short or long duration - cannot be grounded elsewhere than in a comparison with the trends of modernity, with the matrix of their values. When historic reality is in line with the transformation processes of the modernity it becomes legitimate, no matter the outlier pattern of some 1 Professor, Bucharest University of Economic Studies, e-mail adress: [email protected] 6 Marin DINU societal experiments or geopolitical projects. When a society fails on the path toward modernity, as it appears to be the case of Romania, we still get the chance to try to understand and explain it by resorting primarily to the socio-human sciences. However, to find a proper measure for the Century that started with the Great Unification of Romanians (or Great Union), as symbolically underlined in this paper amid the general emotions created by a look-back at the past, stands proof that political/geopolitical, economic, and cultural maladies of that Century had been overcome and action must be taken to complete national emancipation. The simple argumentation, even a rational and explicit one, is not enough because today, more than ever, an involvement of socio- human sciences is needed to prepare a synthesis capable of identifying the following: a. The lasting trends in the human society evolution and the attitude toward them; b. The selection of some projects/scenarios in line with the trends of modernity and the reasons that keep their achievement on the right track; c. The chances for catching-up and the involvement of the entire nation in setting the directions leading mankind toward a well-being of living together (cohabitation). This article makes out a case for the need to create a research program that would use socio-human sciences’ epistemic source to elicit the actions able to generate a social synergy for a mature approach to modernity, on the one hand, and to ensure the social stability for modernity, on the other hand. The moment of truth The best description of the Great Union is made through an analogy: an astral moment in the nation’s fate. The event per se encapsulates a wake-up of the deep tissue of national conscience and a valorisation of the gift of grabbing the historical opportunity, including the diplomatic dimension. No one can deny that the Great Union was, symbolically speaking, a union of feelings and rationales, of identitary emotions and of national calculations. But it may equally represent the end of a statal construction cycle, which started in the early 19th century with an exceptional social inovation: the election of a single ruler for Moldavia and Wallachia, which formally united to create the United Principalities. This is the historical moment that put our country on the map of modernity through the creation of an election formula that led to the fulfillment of national emancipation through a nationwide decision, in step with the national will. The political creativity of Romanians had reached an apex on January 24, 1859. From the socio-human sciences’ perspective, the fragments of that century are visible, although they are not always properly explained and understood. We miss the panoramic display, at least historically, of the period when the development was The truth on our relationship with history 7 assumed to have remained a consequence of the very beginning. Such a display may not even be possible, not because of lacking data, but because the theoretical experience is weak in this respect. The contextualisation of the evolution or the focus of the analysis on ideas that would bring together details seems to be altered by the use of forced idelogical conclusions. This may explain why socio-human sciences’ researchers do not show interest in the history of ideas, and the absence from the universities’ curricula of the History of Economics, the History of Economic Thinking, Applied Epistemology, etc. is symptomatic. Events, breaks, confusion-rife episodes are favored against the socio-human sciences that are interested in the evolution of societal systems. Even if entire epochs or political regimes are under scrutiny, they are not viewed in a broader context, leaving aside a certain propensity for setting forth explanations in line with discriminatory intelectual models, the avatars of political correctness. The mere reference to the substantiation of power - of what is called a political regime, inter alia, where some homogenous elements may be detected via the ordonatory principle for all societal domains – is, in ideological terms, precisely that Century. Its timeline (from the Great Union Day) is chronologically made up of the following: 22 years marked by the possibility of national emancipation; 6 years of dictatorship and war; 12 years of Soviet occupation; 8 years of transition to domestic dependency; 17 years of a communist experiment, including the “development” dictatorship; 6 years of social sur-realism and 29 years of uncertain attempts at getting into line with global trends. This would essentially underline the fact that there are too many fractures of the content and direction in a bid to attain the well-being with the first modernity history, where the continuity of fundamental processes is the key to success in overcoming a state of fact defined as under-development. Statistically, we may count 49 years of ideological aggression, domestic excess and social experiments; 51 years under the sign of an option for modernity (of which 22 years of centripetic capitalism – by ourselves – in the balance with the centrifugic capitalism – open doors); 29 years of “capitalism without capitalists” (Eyal et al, 2001) and a consumption market replacing the national economy. It is hard to say whether the past century was for Romanians a consequence of the starting event. No doubt, for Romania it was a Century of radical caesuras, deprived of the posibility to maintain a direction in line with the Western-style winning modernity trends. Over the past century, the most unwanted borderlines of societal experiments had been reached, each being lived as a violent adversity of the other, each attempting to sistematically erase any continuity traces on the path to modernity, especially on the economic front, but also as regards a creative human fund under the pretext of a restauration from scratch of the arhitecture of the present. Thus, socio-human sciences 8 Marin DINU could not consolidate their meaning or at least ensure the activity of its authentic representatives, being frequently constrainted by ideologies aimed at directly serving the power more than they naturally should via a decription of either individual or collective issues regarding the society and finding solutions for the political decision- makers. The history, as a studied past, has an intelligible meaning only in the contexts or junctures that would be consistent with the lived life. Such an approach is deemed as a normal one. The historical moments are memorable if they match the meta-historical trends which mean the human existence. The history of the past three centuries has a transversal content called modernity. This is an emerging expression of two radical changes of the human condition with consequences for the emancipation, in terms of its rationality by setting the staff and means/instruments that would make it happen: the founding of national states/national revolutions and the setting-up of national economies/industrial revolutions. The nations/states that followed closely these processes, closing up their cycles, have produced and benefited from today’s global economy. The Great Union moment fits in the scale of modernity as a completion of national emancipation, as a statalisation of the Romanian nation. The completion of the national state is in line with the logic of the normal context of modernity. However, an abnormal contextualisation exists and some nations could not escape from this. This imperfection comes as a deviant loop induced by abnormal contexts with geopolitical roots. The 1st of December 1918 moment is the promise of a fulfilment of national emancipation as a state which had been brutally cancelled on August 23, 1939 and August 30, 1940. Today, we celebrate a Century from the Great Union, not a century of the Great Union. Speaking about the Great Union, we speak about what we may be when we know who are we and what we want to be. Historical experience shows that the evil comes when it is allowed to. The impact of blocking the completion of the nation’s statalisation/national emancipation were not offset by the completion of economic emancipation. The incomplete transformation aimed at securing an economic resilience of the state was achived through the decoupling from the waves of industrial revolutions, fostering a centrifugation of the territorial and functional structure of the national economy.