Category: Uncategorized

« Activities « Research Seminars

9 October 2025, 16.00-18.00 (Bucharest time)
Michał WASIUCIONEK, Postdoctoral researcher, Transnational histories of ‘corruption’ in Central-South-East Europe (1750-1850), New Europe College; Researcher, “Nicolae Iorga” Institute of History (Bucharest), Romanian Academy

In the history of the Balkans, traditional historiographies have generally framed the nineteenth century as a watershed that brought about a radical break with the “Ottoman yoke” and allowed the region’s peoples to resume their ‘natural’ historical trajectory as part of the European world following the path of national state-building and modernization. Although in recent decades the historiographical paradigm has been refined and nuanced, the basic assumptions behind this narrative have proven difficult to dislodge and the Ottoman past has continued to be perceived as an obstacle that the emergent nation-states had to overcome. Among these vestiges, the notion of corruption played a central role.

The scope of my paper is to unsettle these clear-cut dichotomies by examining the case study of the emergent Serbian polity that illustrates well the inherent tensions that force us to refine our notions of corruption in the early nineteenth-century Balkans. Emerging from the turmoil of two uprising against the Porte, the Serbian kneževina under Miloš Obrenović was in many respects a project marred with contradictions that frequently boiled over into open political conflict. Firstly, Serbia’s break with the Ottoman Empire was only a partial and gradual one; secondly, despite the elements of Western European political culture and vocabulary adopted by the Serbian elite, the upper stratum of power-holders in the kneževina was formed within the early nineteenth-century imperial realities that continued to shape their political behavior. Finally, the third axis was formed by the obvious imbalance of power between the fabulously wealthy Prince Miloš, whose political power was greatly enhanced by his financial assets, and the rudimentary character of the political and administrative institutions that other members of the elite could repurpose to enhance their position. As a result, the emergent debate over corruption was deeply entangled with the political dynamics of the Serbian political scene and embedded into the post-Ottoman political culture of the principal actors.

By drawing on correspondence of major figures of the Serbian political scene and engaging in a lopsided comparison with the parallel developments in the Ottoman Empire, the presentation will provide an in-depth analysis of the dynamics that underpinned Serbian politics in 1820s and 1830s, focusing on the ways in which the structural contradictions fueled and shaped the notion of corruption.

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This event is part of an ongoing series of public seminars organized under the ERC research project “Transnational histories of ‘corruption’ in Central-South-East Europe (1750-1850)” – TransCorr, hosted by New Europe College.

« Activities « Conference Papers

Event: Roundtable
Location: Faculty of European Studies, Babeș-Bolyai University, Cluj-Napoca

30 May 2025, 8.00-9.20
30 May 2025, 13.00-14.20

It is our pleasure to invite you to two roundtable discussions organized by the members of the ERC research project TransCorr at “Voices and Silences: 50 Years of the Society for Romanian Studies” International Conference, Cluj-Napoca:

Transnational Histories of “Corruption”
Chair: Alex R. TIPEI
Panelists: Augusta DIMOU, Silvia MARTON, Constantin ARDELEANU, Mária PAKUCS, Constanța VINTILĂ, Andrei SORESCU

on Friday, 30 May 2025, from 8.00 to 9.20, at the Faculty of European Studies, Babeș-Bolyai University, Cluj-Napoca

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Voices and Silences of Political “Corruption” in the Nineteenth Century in Romania and Central-South-East Europe
Chair: Silvia MARTON
Panelists: Constantin ARDELEANU, Lucien FRARY, Mária PAKUCS, Andrei SORESCU, Alex R. TIPEI, Constanța VINTILĂ

on Friday, 30 May 2025, from 13.00 to 14.20, at the Faculty of European Studies, Babeș-Bolyai University, Cluj-Napoca

These events are part of the international conference Voices and Silences: 50 Years of the Society for Romanian Studies organized by the Society for Romanian Studies (www.srstudies.org).

« Activities « Research Seminars

Event: Research Group
Location: NEC conference hall & Zoom

17 March 2025, 16.00-18.00 (Bucharest time)

Silvia MARTON, PhD. Associate Professor, Faculty of Political Science, University of Bucharest; Principal Investigator, ERC research project Transnational histories of ‘corruption’ in Central-South-East Europe (1750-1850), New Europe College

Short abstract:

From the very onset of modern voting procedures in the 1850s in the Principalities of Wallachia and Moldavia / Romania, candidates, politicians, and voters alike strongly denounced irregularities, fraud, and interference in elections in this pre-democratic period of census-based voting. The aim of my research is to explain the paradox of the simultaneous strong normative condemnation and the systematic and recurring practice of electoral corruption by all the relevant historical actors from the 1850s up to 1914.  The ample political freedoms, including freedom of expression and of the press, were counterweighed by the restricted suffrage which allowed limited citizen access to politics and elections, and by low literacy levels. The period also marked a high point for both nation- and state-building.

My focus in this paper will be on the physical and rhetorical violence in electoral politics in the 1850s-1870s. I will discuss, first, electoral fraud and interreference – subsumed in the then (in)famous expression “moral influence” – that included a wide range of (physically) violent techniques of influence, control, mobilization, or dissuasion of voters, in the context of a fierce rivalry between the two main contenders, the Liberals and the Conservatives that dominated parliament and politics. Second, I will examine the polemical and violent vocabulary and rhetoric of excess and satire that permeated the press, occasional publications (such as pamphlets), the official documents, and the parliamentary debates, when historical actors condemned electoral interference and corruption.

« Activities « Research Seminars

16 January 2025, 16.00-18.00
Event: TransCorr Seminar
Location: NEC conference hall & Zoom
Constantin ARDELEANU, Researcher within the framework of the ERC project Transnational histories of ‘corruption’ in Central-South-East Europe (1750-1850); Senior Researcher, Institute for South-East European Studies, Bucharest

The appointment of new princes (“hospodars”) in 1834 to govern the two principalities of Wallachia and Moldavia, in accordance with the “Organic Regulations”, was followed by a period of intense political infighting. Alexandru Dimitrie Ghica in Wallachia and Mihail Sturdza in Moldavia encountered considerable resistance from groups of disaffected boyars. The disagreements were especially pronounced within the Wallachian Assembly, where prince Ghica and the boyars exchanged a multitude of accusations. Facing pressure from various political factions and, more significantly, the loss of imperial Russia’s trust, Ghica was ultimately dismissed in 1842. The boyars elected a new prince, Gheorghe Bibescu, a prominent rival of Ghica’s.

In order to ensure the “good governance” of their respective countries, both Sturdza in Moldavia and Bibescu in Wallachia implemented more authoritarian measures against their political opponents. The censorship of the press was one method utilized to purge the public sphere of potentially disruptive political ideologies or provocations espoused by the opposition.
However, the opposition was not effectively silenced. In newspapers articles or printed brochures smuggled into the principalities, the princes were depicted as utterly “corrupt” leaders who exploited their public office for personal gain and the benefit of their close associates. The princes were denounced as guilty of embezzlement, extortion, nepotism, and conflict of interest. In response, the princes instructed their associates to disseminate articles and brochures defending their work and levelling accusations of “corruption” against their primary rivals.

Based on diplomatic reports, the private correspondence of several of the main actors and an analysis of the printed brochures and daily press, I will try to understand how “corruption” was defined and redefined in South-East-Central Europe and how such definitions were used for asserting or contesting political legitimacies.

« Activities

« Activities « Research Seminars

11 October 2024, 16.00-18.00
Andrei-Dan SORESCU, NEC alumnus
Postdoctoral Researcher, ERC research project “Transnational histories of ‘corruption’ in Central-South-East Europe (1750-1850)”

Intellectual histories of “empire” have long taken centre stage in scholars’ attempts to make sense of its attending “-ism” and the long shadows it continues to cast. By contrast, and with less definitional precision as a separate yet connected process, the meanings that the “colonial” held as a category for historical actors themselves have been left comparatively under-researched. That the two are – and were – deeply entwined is a given. And yet, the historical semantics of “colony” and “colonisation” deserve particular attention. As the politics, ethics, and pragmatics of “de-colonising” institutions, knowledge, and cultural praxis have in recent years gripped public imagination, my contention is that a deeper knowledge of what “the colonial” meant in its past, original context(s) is equally necessary.

The present intervention therefore takes nineteenth-century Romania as a surprisingly productive case-study for investigating the meanings that “colony” and “colonisation” could hold, as pervasively recurring concepts in public discourse. From the self-imagining of the nation’s origins as the outcome of Roman colonisation to envisioning the “colonial” potential of the Dobruja as a province, or by anxiously connoting German or Jewish presence as potentially “colonising”, the literate Romanian public sphere ceaselessly returned to, and attempted to define what these keywords could stand for. The rhetorics of colonial presence in the nation’s past, present, and future remained salient across long nineteenth century, I will argue, even in a country not directly involved in European processes of imperial expansion. Charting how, and which contexts “colony” and “colonisation” were used, and whether their meaning shifted, or was broadened across time, the present talk aims to highlight the often surprising texture of historical discourse, and how the two concepts remained hidden in plain sight for subsequent historical investigations.