Identités publiques et modèles démocratiques: regard sur la constitution des modernités politiques au sud-est européen (XIXe siècle)

Abstract

Modern European identity is built around two types of cleavages revealed in the beginning of the XIX century: fraternity and conflict. The meanings and the different readings of these two themes of the democratic modernity provide by themselves an accurate image of the period in question. For Central and South-eastern Europe, these two indicators burst into the political scenery and in the political thought at the same period, under the significant impact of the French Revolution. This article is tracking the main paradigm changes produced in the political thought in this part of Europe, especially in the Romanian Principalities, interpreted trough the lenses of civic aggregation and the creation of civil society. Individuals are more and more defined as holding a double existence, as public markers and private entities; this fresh perspective accompanies the expression of either tolerance (accompanied by an auto-critical perspective) or antagonism (of class, race, religion, civilization in a more general matter of speaking) and they are at the ground foundation of modern political system.