ABSTRACT
This chapter is an attempt towards investigating the way in which postcolonial historical experiences, neocolonialist global policies, and chronic underdevelopment are shaping the national(ist) discourse in the European periphery, in the case of Romania. In order to do that, I am discussing Romania’s economic and symbolic peripherality and its structural impact on the formation and dynamics of Romanian national ethos. Subsequently, I also try to contextualize Eastern European postcolonial history within the broader postcolonial theoretical field and to try to refine a framework that would prove helpful to future researchers of the Eastern European periphery. On writing this chapter, I am fully aware and cautious of the methodological nationalism’s trap, and therefore I try to structure my investigation accordingly, by following two main dimensions when examining the dynamics of contemporary Romanian nation(alism) – a transnational one and a societal one, both understood as intertwined in the process of (re)producing the national(ist) discourse and identity. Nevertheless, this chapter is more of an exploratory endeavour, requiring a deeper immersion in the issue of so-called minor nation formation and dynamics in the European periphery.
