A. D. XENOPOL ET « LE COURRIER EUROPEEN »
A. D. XENOPOL AND “LE COURRIER EUROPÉEN”

Summary/Abstract: Based on the 1973 Alexandru Zub seminal bibliography, this article provides an analysis of all Alexandru Dimitrie Xenopol (1847–1920) items published in the weekly newspaper “Le Courrier européen” founded in Paris by Charles Seignobos. The first aim of this essay is to complete and check the bibliographical references from the 1973 work, when it was very difficult to pursue researches in foreign libraries: because the author could not use the French journal, he extracted references from Romanian secondary sources. After these preliminary ascertainments, one can refine – this is the second aim of this essay – the place of the Romanian historian in the debate of ideas through French press at the beginning of the 20th century. Xenopol newspaper articles respond to his desire to better assert some disturbing realities of his country in French and European public opinion: the dilemmas between the commitment to the Triple Alliance and the traditional friendship for France, the negative consequences of the “Francomania” on Romanian high society, national oppression of Romanians in Transylvania under the Austro-Hungarian monarchy, and, above all, social crisis highlighted by the 1907 Romanian peasants’ revolt. The historian also turned to topics of wider interest: concerns provoked by Germany’s growing military and economic power, the Peace and War Debate raised by President Theodore Roosevelt's annual report to the US Congress on December 5, 1905. Xenopol’s articles in “Le Courrier européen” are thus new testimonies to his active presence in the French culture and confirm his reputation as “ambassador” of his country's intellectual life beyond historiography and academic world.

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