Concepţie şi metodă istorică la A.T. Laurian. Episodul Magazinului Istoric pentru Dacia
A.T. Laurian’s Conception of History and its Methodology. The Historical Review Magazin Istoric pentru Dacia

Summary/Abstract: The paper proposes to present August Treboniu Laurian’s conception of history. Laurian was one of the important scholars of the second half of the 19th century, whose cultural contribution included editing (together with Nicolae Bălcescu) the historical review Magazin istoric pentru Dacia between 1845 and 1848. The paper also discusses Laurian’s views on historical methodology in the context of the more general interest of the period for method and scientific rigor. In Laurian’s view history had – or should have had – a national role. Like most revolutionaries of the period, Laurian was well aware of history’s potential in forging and fortifying a sense of identity and a well-defined national character. Although he was not a professional historian, Laurian felt the need to rediscover the past, and endeavoured to publish historical syntheses and articles on local history which were to become among the most significant historiographic materials of the period. The most important claim made by the supporters of historicism – one of whom was Laurian himself – was that the values of the past, liberty and equality, had to become the building blocks of the future. Most of Laurian’s studies published in Magazin istoric pentru Dacia aim to provide syntheses of facts and tend to focus on two mains ideas: the Latin origin of the Romanians and their many similarities with the Romans. But Laurian is also interested in social and religious history and he describes the social changes of the Romanian population in Transylvania and Banat and searches for arguments in favor of the ancestry of the Christian religion in Transylvania and of the existence of an ecclesiastical hierarchy. Laurian believed that the role of history was to strengthen national feelings and to enhance the sense of belonging to the “Latin family”. Laurian was determined to support his theses with scientific evidence. He made topographical investigations, developed an interest in the cartography of places of historical significance, used modern methods for transcribing old inscriptions and had frequent recourse to the findings of other sciences. He made considerable efforts to find and publish in Magazin istoric pentru Dacia historical materials about the origins of the Romanian. He paid particular attention to the original documents, which he usually quoted in full in his studies. Consequently, Laurian’s own comments and interpretations tended to be rather brief: it was his strong belief that the historian had to let the documents speak for themselves.

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