Peripheral Nationalism, Inter-imperial Comparatism: The Case of Grigore Silași
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Abstract: The article analyzes the work of Grigore Silași (who also signed his name Szilasi Gergely) as a case study to examine the impact of ethnocentric and nationalist ideologies prevalent in Transylvania during the late nineteenth century on the reception of Acta Comparationis Litterarum Universarumʼs program. Silași was the first professor of Romanian language and literature at Cluj/Kolozsvár/Klausenburg University and distinguished himself as a nationalist militant through his social, political, or cultural initiatives, as well as his scholarly contributions on Romanian linguistics, philology, folklore, and literature. Furthermore, he attained the status of “martyr” for the Romanian nation after being dismissed from the university in 1884 due to a Romanian-Hungarian interethnic conflict. Such a multifaceted figure provides a distinctive, albeit often overlooked lens for assessing the prospects and highlighting the limitations of comparative practice in nineteenth century Transylvania. In particular, the article argues that Silașiʼs formulation of a comparative analytical framework aimed to strengthen a peripheral nationalism interested not in local exceptionalism, but in accessing a privileged transnational cultural network that could provide identity legitimacy for a subaltern nation.
Keywords: Grigore Silași, nationalism, inter-imperial comparatism, Acta Comparationis Litterarum Universarum, Transylvanian interethnic conflict.
Acknowledgement: This work was funded by the EU’s NextGenerationEU instrument through the National Recovery and Resilience Plan of Romania—Pillar III-C9-18, through the project A Global History of Romanian Comparatism: A Case Study in Inter-Imperial Comparative Literature (1877–1944), PNRR-III-C9–2023-I8-CF 22/27.07.2023, contract no. 760276/26.03.2024.
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