Elites, minorities and national discourse in Mountain Banat in the 20th century

This analysis focuses on the work of Cornel Grofșorean, Freemason and founder of the Banat-Crișana Social Institute. There, with the assistance of some intellectuals from the Banat region, he laid the foundations of a current of thought based on the sociological philosophy of Dimitrie Gusti. Adopting the monographic technique from the latter, Cornel Grofșorean and his colleagues began to scientifically study the issues of Banat society during the interwar period. The monographs written by the staff of the Banat-Crișana Social Institute brought to light various aspects of the Banat village that had hitherto been less known: the problem of depopulation and hygiene. The results of this research were published in Revista Institutului Social-Banat-Crișana [The Journal of the Banat-Crișana Social Institute] between 1933 and 1946. In conferences and papers, Cornel Grofșorean himself also followed these ideas of public and preventive hygiene, connected with the trend of ideas that characterised Hungarian Freemasonry, especially in the first half of the 20th century.