30 September 2014

Wordcatcher Tales: Paşoptism (48ism)

From A Concise History of Romania (Cambridge Concise Histories), by Keith Hitchins (Cambridge, 2014), Kindle Loc. 1511-1517:
Two generations of intellectuals, those who adhered to the traditions of the Enlightenment and the classical style of the previous century and the Romantics and revolutionaries, who looked to the future, placed their stamp on cultural life and political thought between the Treaty of Adrianople of 1829 and the outbreak of the Revolution of 1848. The boundaries between them were hardly rigid, as both were energetic and ready to confront any challenge. Their often naive enthusiasm and strong sense of patriotism, their grandiose projects and encyclopedic ambitions were beholden to the spirit of the time, a kind of liberalism, which after the revolution came to be known as Forty-Eightism (paşoptism). They were inspired by a single, all-encompassing goal: to raise the Romanian nation out of its backwardness and to bring it into communion with the modern world, which, to them, meant Western Europe.
Paşoptism is short for patruzeci-şi-opt (40-and-8) + -ism.

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