The Revista Ştiinţifică “Vasile Adamachi” and its role in forming national and international scientific awareness of Greater Romania,1910–1933

Abstract

The Revista Ştiinţifică “Vasile Adamachi” (1910–1948) had aimed since its first edition to disseminate the newest achievements of science to the interested general public with the explicit intention of building national consciousness and solidarity that would forward Romania’s natural powers through science. Even though the editors of the journal had complained constantly that their efforts to promote the national scientific movement were making slow progress, they maintained their openness toward the international state of research by publishing notes and reviews of the main scientific developments worldwide. Caught between those two ideals (that of a Romanian science and of keeping up with the international scientific scene), the journal reflects the struggles, the difficulties, but also the successes of the individual researchers, acting as a two-way communication channel between science producers and consumers. It provides us with a valuable insight into the Self versus Other perception in a time when contact between the Romanian and Western European cultures was beginning to consciously evolve from mere imitation of a dominant power to the incorporation of fragmented foreign categories. It is a perfect example of ‘patchwork’, in which the native and foreign elements coexisted in a continuous process of redefining and reshaping the newly formed national identity.