Abstract
A phenomenological discussion of the topic of nation, starting with the nation as ground, with references to Cicero, Aristotle, and the Romanian poet Mihai Eminescu. (Change base to ground in trans.)
Based on the tape-recording of a lecture given by Alexandru Dragomir on 1 May 1993. His choice of theme was not random at a time when, against the background of inflamed nationalism that emerged with the fall of the Soviet Union and the conflicts in Yugoslavia, the problems of the nation and nationalism had become (and would remain) a pressing topic of discussion. Faced with the avalanche of studies, books, and speeches on the subject, Dragomir perhaps wanted show us what phenomenology could do when it touched on such a theme. What resulted was evidently a quite different approach from the usual. (Gabriel Liiceanu)
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Notes
- 1.
Mihai Eminescu (1850–1889) is commonly regarded as the national poet of Romania. His ‘Letter III’ evokes the resistance of the medieval Wallachians to Turkish invasion, under the leadership of their ruler Mircea the Old, and contrasts the heroism of the past with the debased state of the country in the present. [Trans.]
- 2.
Avram Iancu (1824–1872), leader of a Romanian peasant army in Transylvanian during the revolution of 1848. [Trans.]
- 3.
In the original Romanian, as quoted here by Dragomir, Iancu’s speech is even more concise, consisting merely of two monosyllabic interjections: ‘No, hai!’ [Trans.].
- 4.
It is interesting how the potential of energy that was commanded by the base of the French nation dried up after the First World War, while that of the Germans, who felt humiliated after the Treaty of Versailles, grew. Hitler was able to enter a spiritually wearied France without difficulty. He was able to mobilize a Germany that felt itself caught in a vice, while he did not have to face the irrational force of the ‘rivers and boughs’ of France. [A.D.]
Reference
Aristotle. 1995. Physics. Trans. R.P. Hardie and R. K. Gaye. In The Complete Works of Aristotle, ed. Jonathan Barnes. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
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Dragomir, A. (2017). Nations. In: Liiceanu, G., Partenie, C. (eds) The World We Live In. Phaenomenologica, vol 220. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-42854-3_5
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