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

MIHÁLY SZILÁGYI-GÁLlabeled as non-authentic Romanians. Similarly, Nae Ionescu, the leadingphilosopher of the radical right, argued that democracy, together with its specificrationalism, was incompatible with nationalism. He rejected Cartesianrationalism by claiming that it was alien to Romanianness, which he consideredto be essentially non-Western and Orthodox. 16 The conservative thinkerConstantin Rãdulescu-Motru, who, in the given context, could be seen as themain intellectual competitor of Nae Ionescu, was, nevertheless, also involvedin tracing the alleged specific anthropological characters of the Romanians,which he regarded as scientifically detectable sources of their intellectualcapacities.The rejection of democracy and rationalism, as interrelated concepts,by the radical right, is a telling example for the rejection of philosophyas a cross-cultural mental exercise as well. The ad hominem natureof Nae Ionescu’s argument lies in his assumption that cultural membershipof the philosopher is the central criterion for assessing the value ofhis argument. The source of legitimacy for any argument is the “organic”connection to cultural or national specificity. The paradoxical element ofthis line of thought is that, if anyone argues against this, the validity oftheir argument is automatically denied. A similar position was undertakenby Nichifor Crainic, the editor-in-chief of Gîndirea, who stressed thenecessity to develop a “Romanian philosophy.”The opponents of such a stance, as well as those who took a positionin-between, believed that the innovative and the specific were not necessarilymutually exclusive alternatives. However, they comprised the minorityof the intellectual elite. Some objections to the biological vision ofRomanianness were formulated by the philosopher P.P. Negulescu.According to him, one should not confuse the biology with the sociologyof the nation. The ideologically ambiguous Rãdulescu-Motru claimed thatalthough Orthodoxy should not be excluded from the constituting elementsof the Romanian identity, it had to be rejected as a normativerequirement for belonging to the nation. He stated that philosophy couldonly be universal. Mihai Ralea, who was among the few leading leftistintellectuals in the interwar period, argued for the compatibility of nationalismwith democracy. He claimed that democracy is precisely the structurein which the free expression of national sentiments is warranted,whereas dictatorship excludes free commitment because of its essentialnature of imposing, instead of allowing, individuals to choose for themselves.17 Ralea made a crucial distinction between the national feelings assentiments that reflect the specificity, on the one hand, and the acceptanceof the just and the good as universal human values, on the other. It was inthis direction that the historian of philosophy Mircea Florian argued. Inhis essay on the relationship between philosophy and nationality, pub-88