Olteni contra evrei la Iaşi. Lecţia unei colonizări economice eşuate (1882-1884)
The colonisation of the Oltenians in Iasi, targeting the exclusion of the Jewish traders from the internal market as well as the entire economical circuit, was a project initiated inside the circles of Junimea, and which was hardly researched. A pilot experiment was started in Iasi, with the intention to have it extended across the whole of Moldova, and which entailed the instrumentation of the local anti-Semitism, by organising a boycott against the Jewish trade and directing Romanian buyers towards the oltenian guilds now settled in Iasi. Overall, the colonisation represented a plan made up by the bourgeoisie in Iasi, in constant crisis since 1859, and more and more strongly challenged by Jews. The colonisation was intellectually based on a stereotype of the oltean as an entrepreneur as well as a contemporary assumed idea by the anti-Semitists that Oltenia was a region unable to assimilate Jews. Despite the partisans of the economic nationalism expectations expressed during the Economic Congress that took place in Iasi between 1882 and 1884, the project failed in front of the economic realities of the market.
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