Nation-Building and Contested Identities: Romanian & Hungarian ...

MIHÁLY SZILÁGYI-GÁLconstitutional contract of togetherness, and, therefore, can be considereda pre-political attitude.In order to analyze the content and the political attitude related tothis type of organicism, I would like to identify the theoretical frameworkon which my analysis relies. Anthony Quinton defines organicism in thebroader context of conservative thought. 10 My working definition oforganicism is more restrictive, as I consider it as a type of argument focusingon the cohesion among the members of a community. Accordingly,organicism considers the bounds among the members of a community tobe as strong and natural as if they would be the elements of a living body.Irina Livezeanu relates some characteristics of the high culture ofthe period to the question of nation-building. She employs the example ofOctavian Goga, who wrote:It is a proof of the people’s health that the new intellectual generationprofesses this dogma and embarks upon its course with these slogans.This is a guarantee that out of the present ferment our organic truths willemerge victorious, and that the scum will sink to the bottom. With hopefor the great renewal, I dedicate my book to the young generation. …We give the impression that we are a sick body, and on sick bodies … parasitesusually appear. 11Such terms as “organic truths,” the “sick body” with its “parasites,” aswell as “health,” allude to a comparison of the community to a livingbeing. The conceptual implication of these metaphoric expressions isthat they are powerful illustrations of a sense of togetherness. By usingthe term “organic,” the author suggests a collective unity, which is composedof members that are not seen as self-sufficient individuals, but ascells. Moreover, each individual is considered a representative sampleof the entire collective body. “Body,” especially when related to“health” (as collective integrity) and “parasites,” alludes to criteria forinclusion and exclusion. The term “organic truth” opens a line of reasoningtowards the conception according to which the range of ideas tobe accepted as valid is limited to the members of a pre-defined andclosed community.In the sense of this metaphorical terminology, organicist considerationshad been expressed by authors who were ideologically and professionallyvery different. Looking at the texts published in the interwar period, onecan notice that organicist ideas appeared almost regardless of any classificationof the respective texts as conservative, liberal or socialist. For instance,in his Istoria poporului românesc (The History of the Romanian people),written between 1924-1925, Nicolae Iorga spoke of the duty of the historian86