Anton Golopentia and the New "Science of Reality". The Sociological Pillar of Interbellum Romanian Geopolitics

• Published in: Sociologie românească Vol. 3; no. 2; pp. 43 - 58
• Main Author: Cotoi, Calin
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: Romanian
• Published: 01.07.2005
• Subjects: Center and Periphery; Geopolitics; Modernity; Romania
• ISSN: 1220-5389

Anthropogeography, geopolitics, the dialogue and the polemics opposing sociology and geography are central elements in the process of imagining the national space in the interwar period. A dense network of competitions, alliances and counter-alliances is coming together in this area of scientific legitimacy and representativity. The birth of this new disciplinary subdomain offers us the chance to track down the external influences, to see how the central scientific canon(s) are replicated and transformed at the periphery and how the romanian culture finds itself sincronized with the dilemmas, themes and tensions of the european culture. This sincronicity is taking place -- it is one of the thesis of this paper -- under the sign of "reactionary modernism". This perspective has the ability of questioning the uniqueness of the modernity process. Is modernity a package deal or are there other ways of spelling modernity? This appropriation of the "reactionary modernism" discourse for the analysis of romanian anthropogeography and sociology is, in itself, an example of translating/ transforming scientific discourses on a central-perifery axis.