Shaping the Canon. The International Profile of Viața Românească (1906-1916)

Abstract

The present paper aims to investigate the circulation of foreign cultural input in one of the most important Romanian literary periodicals of the prewar era. The main focus of the present research revolves around the means by which the editorial group of Viața Românească (The Romanian Life), have managed to create an international dialogue oriented towards Western models that helped shape the modernization of both the autochthonous literary production and the critical or theoretical national systems. Generally considered a rather reactionary community, with nationalistic tendencies, the aforementioned literary group has engaged in many occasions into transplanting foreign theoretical and critical models. The amplitude of these communications and its quite remarkable effects on the Romanian cultural scene may still come as a surprise. By means of quantitative and digital methods, the present proposal attempts to measure and investigate this very particular process.