SOURCE: Saizu, Ioan. “The Idea of Economic Progress in the Writings of Eminescu.” Romanian Civilization 2, no. 1 (spring 1993): 75-93.

In the following essay, Saizu pursues Eminescu's “idea of economic progress” as it unfolds in his journalism.

“The progress of mankind doesn't often lie in the numbers of its geniuses—nations with many and bright geniuses are often unhappy, but in those mute personages of history who are working tirelessly without any other reward than the consciousness that progress lies in all, not in one or in some.”

When Eminescu began his brilliant activity as a publisher, human society was passing through an acute process of economic, social, political, and cultural changes. Likewise, the Romanians were certain, around 1877, but especially after gaining national independence, that they had considerably widened their possibilities to aspire to the acceleration of progress.¹ The period covered by Eminescian journalism was part of an interval outlined...