SOURCE: Husar, Alexandru. “The Meaning of Civilization in Eminescu's Thinking.” Romanian Civilization 7, no. 1 (spring 1998): 77-92.

In the following essay, Husar elucidates Eminescu's concept of civilization.

Regarded as “a lucid man, an intellectual with an acute understanding of political life, a thinker concerned with outlining a social-political system, with clear opinions on foreign policy, a man active in the sphere of public life,”¹ Eminescu compels recognition through his practical way of thinking—quite an original one for a journalist in the political climate between 1876 and 1883.

Eminescu's entrance into journalism in 1873 marked the beginning of “a road taken only by him and which advanced only through his primary thinking and his public positions. It is the path of a philosophy of society; not an abstract society, but Romanian society in 1877 and in the following years—a period whose hallmark was the extraordinarily rapid evolution of social relations, a period of...