From Grigore Moldovan to Moldován Gergely - A Career in Homeland
From Grigore Moldovan to Moldován Gergely - A Career in Homeland

Summary/Abstract: Professor at Ferencz József University in Cluj, a problematic personality at the end of the 19th century, Grigore Moldovan is canonized in the specialised literature of Romanian and Hungarian ethnology with a very valuable activity in this domain. The problem consists in the fact that neither the Romanian, nor the Hungarian community can accept without critique his identity defined in his works: he is a Romanian intellectual, citizen of the Hungarian state, and loyal to it. The paper presents and analyses Moldovan’s apolitical volume entitled Egy fürdőidény Borszéken (A Bathing Season in Borszék) written in 1883. The text written in Hungarian and signed with the Hungarian variant of the author’s name, presents an aesthetised identity that, nevertheless, keeps a continuous interest in trying to get acquainted with and understand the complex, contemporary interethnic relations of the author. The national identity in the modern conception of the same period has influenced the minority communities living in the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy, while the existing forms and possibilities of identification become problematic or inexplicable from the perspective of the end of the 19th century or even from the outlook of our days. The tension existing in the duality of Grigore Moldovan/Moldován Gergely can be resolved through the study of his intellectual career, of the conceptions and identifications of his personality. This study leads to the comprehension of how the problematic identities are functioning, as well as to the more particular observation of the weak points of the paradigm of modern national identity. Thus, the research on the literary, cultural relationships between two national cultures implies the evaluation of new possibilities in contactology, such as cultural anthropology, “histoire croisée” and the theory of translation.

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