Idei și observații politice în scrierile lui Ion Codru Drăgușanu
Ideas and Political Observations in Ion Codru Drăguşanu's writings

Summary/Abstract: The purpose of the present study was to analyze the political and ideological notes of Ion Codru Drăgușanu’s writings. He is a well known author due to his travel memoirs, The Transylvanian Pilgrim (1865). He also wrote several political articles which were published in the Romanian press of the Habsburg Empire. The first part of our study is an analysis of the way he described the political regimes of the European countries which he claimed to have visited. His main writing, The Transylvanian Pilgrim, describes, in various degrees the political regimes of France, England, Russia, Switzerland and the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies. He made interesting observations about these peoples and the ways in which these countries were led. The second part of our research focuses on Ion Codru Drăgușanu’s opinions concerning liberty, nationalism and economy. To investigate these opinions and their evolution, several of his writings published during and after the 1848 Revolution were used. Drăgușanu appears to have largely been influenced by the French Revolution and its liberal legacy. Though, he has an interesting conception about liberty, considering that not all the peoples can benefit of it, because of their cultural legacy and of their climate. He shared with other members of the intelligentsia a cult for the Nation. He argued that the nation-state and the representative government are key elements in the process of nation building. Despite of the liberalism he proclaimed, Drăgușanu had a really negative opinion about commerce, considering that it is often a theft and a way used by some nations to dominate others.

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