The phenomenon of Romanian “Renaissance” – which I’ve alluded to in the past – is in full development. The dignity of the Romanian man is growing by the second. The disgust or desperation one had at the condition of Romanians is disappearing, and in its place a revolutionary fever which puts an accent on Romanian-ness is growing.
A lot of today’s youths believe in the exceptional destiny of Romania, in the decisive role our nation is called to play in the foreseeable future. There is even talk about Romanian imperialism – and professor Nae Ionescu has intervened here too with his formidable vision and precise logic and has formulated with passion and clarity what was latent in the consciousness of so many youths.
Romania is soon called to decide – if the Renaissance that we are observing in the plane of artistic and philosophical creation will also find a triumph in the plane of civil life – the next stage in the history of the Balkans and Central Europe. It is getting harder and harder to conceal the facts, the realities. And the realities are such: a young nation – a creator and constructor nation – in full expansion. A nation which has continuously created for seven centuries, but whose creations have been smashed to dust by random forces of history.
A nation which has managed to keep its linguistic and spiritual unity under oppression and division from other races. A nation which, in less than half a century, managed to create a literary and philosophical language as well as a literature which is in no way inferior to its “civilised” neighbours (Hungary, Poland). A nation whose folkloric fertility has dominated the Balkans in the whole Middle Ages and premodern period; and which has realised the most beautiful types from the hundreds of types of legends which have circulated in Eastern Europe for centuries (it is known that the most excellent version of legends of the type of Meşterul Manole and Mioriţa belong to Romanian folklore).
The spiritual fertility of the Romanian people cannot be doubted any longer.
And this race which has created so many forms of state in the past – will also know how to solve the issue of the modern Romanian state this time too. Modern Romania was the only European country which has made the most radical social revolutions without spilling any blood. The secularisation of the wealth of monasteries, the emancipation of serfs and slaves, land distribution to the peasants – these are just some of these social revolutions. In Spain, one attempts to make the smallest reform – a hundred churches are being burned and a hundred insurrections are attempted. In no other European country is there such a collaboration between social classes, such a lack of self-preservation instinct in ruling classes. […]
Modern Romania has proven that it does not carry in heart the seeds of destruction, that the forces that lead it are converging and synthetic. Today we witness the decay of the young Romanian bourgeoise – a decay which is only made worse by political parties with the frauds, corruption and business which they provoke and maintain.
Such spiritual forces – which have sustained a national and linguistic unity against the harshest destiny, which created a Romania in the time of the most depressing economical and social crisis – will lead Romania further, towards endless spiritual conquests. Today, more than any other time, Romanian creator-forces, Romanian spirituality – has to say its word in the history of the world. Our conquests will be, firstly, spiritual ones. We will become a force of history, a European destiny – through these energies that today fuel the Romanian Renaissance. A single and great threat stalks us in this order of spiritual realities: the ideology of the Fortyeighters. That ideology means the mimicking of Europe. Today too, Europe is antispiritual. We have no reason to imitate Europe like we did not have one in 1848. The creator-forces of our race have to impose themselves. And they will do so according to their structure – the same structure that formulated the dor, the melancholical and fatidical in our folk poetry – meaning, they will impose themselves through spiritual creations…