Historian Remus Tenasa, author of the volume “Apostle of the Nation” Mazzini and the birth of modern Romania, recently published in the collection “History” of the Humanitas publishing house: on January 24, 1859, the last brick was laid in the foundation of the modern Romanian state. But in order to build the foundation, it was necessary to first clear the land and at the same time prepare the solution.

The most important representative of people who sought significant changes in Europe from the middle of the 19th century was the Italian Giuseppe Mazzini. As for Italy, he wanted unification; regarding Europe, he proposed the destruction of monarchical states and their replacement by republics that would go hand in hand with the idea of ​​the nation, in other words, with republican nation-states. Therefore, Mazzini was nicknamed the “apostle of the nation”, and the main idea that inspired the Paschoptists was precisely the idea of ​​the nation.

In 1848, Romanians managed to take part in the “Spring of Nations” and prove that they are capable of being an independent nation. The revolution in Muntenia attracted the attention and sympathy of Mazzini, whose company was sought by European revolutionaries. Under these conditions, it was normal for the Paschoptists to approach, cooperate with, and accept some of Mazzini’s ideas. Suffice it to mention that the eldest of the brothers, Dumitru Bretianu, was co-opted by Mazzini to the Central European Democratic Committee in London (1850-1853), from where several patriotic manifestos to the “Romanian population” were issued. At the same time, Mazzini sided with the Romanians in the dispute over Transylvania and advised Dumitr Bratian to abandon any form of republicanism in order to achieve the unification of the principalities, and later to gain their independence.

Excerpt from the volume:

“The mountain moment of 1848 became decisive for an entire posterity, friends and enemies – to use Schmittian terms – ideologically going back in time to this moment to color their own political identity. As a result, depending on the intellectual positioning in relation to 1848, the Romanian elites will approach one of the two main political camps that formed in the second half of the 19th century, liberal and conservative. .

Even if Ion C. Bretiano’s contact with Mazzini was less, Bretiano’s younger brother was also an important member of the radical liberals. As noted by the historian Apostol Sten, the political maturation of Ion K. Bratianu determined the gradual departure from the scene of the ideas of mountain radicals, most organizations in the territory became part of the National Liberal Party and K. A. Rosetti, who believed that Ion K. Bratianu betrayed the ideals of 1848 and others “apostates” from the bosom of a liberal family, radical ideas were further expressed especially by Moldavian factionalists and George Panu.

On May 9, 1875, Paul Batailleur declared that “there is no longer a single radical party in Romania,” referring to the group from Muntenia. The same Ion C. Bratianu reinforces Batailleur’s conclusion, asserting that “all our past proves that we are not revolutionaries by profession; even if there were such among us, they could learn among us that revolution is only a painful, last resort, and it should never be the end.”

The political maturing of autochthonous liberalism, epitomized in particular by the PNL, although still a tribute to leftist reflexes from the outset, was also observed over the years by the Unimist leader Tito Maiorescu. In a parliamentary speech on April 29, 1913, he credited Ion C. Bratian with having contributed to the normalization of Romanian political life by establishing constitutionalism as a guide: “In my long, otherwise insignificant political life, I had the opportunity, as a conservative opponent, to discover great credit to John Bretian, who made a party of monarchical discipline out of a party which, according to its various manifestations, seemed to us, both republican and revolutionary, constitutional.’

However, while the vizier reached the political maturity “liberating” for Romanian liberalism, he had a long intellectual journey. Let us recall that the same Ion C. Bratianu also signed the article “Nationality” in 1853, a text that assumed the ethnic imprint of the nation and included a number of doctrinal elements that strongly brought his vision closer to that of Mazzini. For those times, it was a radical option that, especially thanks to Mazzini’s stubbornness and prestige, managed to find its way onto the diplomatic chessboard of the nineteenth century. The Genoese was the one who insisted on the connection between freedom and nation, an idea that found its most obvious support in the speech of the former North American president Woodrow Wilson, the perspective of “self-determination of peoples”, even if the context of Austria-Hungary was privileged in the famous Wilson’s “fourteen points” to restore peace on the Old Continent at the end of the First World War.

If Mazzini was the one who theorized the idea of ​​the nation most aggressively, the credit for the political release of the concept belongs to those involved in the revolutionary phenomenon of 1848–1849. Eventually, statesmen could no longer afford to neglect those communities that wanted to become and be a nation, just as they could no longer neglect the desirability of a certain equality both at the level of individuals and at the level of nations. The Wallachia moment of 1848 and the exile that followed for the heroes brought the Romanian nation to the diplomatic and mental map of Europe. At the same time, like the Italian Mazinians, regardless of whether they remained followers of the Genoese until the end, the Paschoptists are forming their self-awareness as the leaders of the future Romania, a country that was supposed to be unitary and independent from the beginning. And if the rule/monarchy led to such desires, the republic could wait. Mazzini’s model would inspire many pashoptists, but it would also fuel some ideological divisions in nascent Romanian liberalism, because not all of Mazzini’s former local collaborators had completely renounced the memory of the former star of the European revolutionaries of 1848-1849.”

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REMUS TANASI is a researcher at the Institute of History “AD Xenopol” – Romanian Academy, branch in Iași, doctor of philosophy in history at the “AI Cuza” University in Iași (2016), specialization in Rome. Graduated from the Faculty of History of the University “A.I. Cusa” (2008) and the Faculty of Political Sciences in Perugia, Italy (BA, 2011, MA, 2013). The sphere of interests is the Italian and European Risorgimento, the history of political ideas of the 19th century and the “Armenian question”. Published numerous studies and articles in scientific publications, including Yearbook of the Institute of History “AD Xenopol”, East European Journal of Diplomatic History, St