The Secularisation of Reading Practices in the Romanian Elite Milieus in Transylvania and Banat. History and Politics in Literary Garb (1800–1820)

At a time when printed Romanian books became increasingly secular, Enlightenment topics, such as that of the ‘good emperor’ and that of education as a prerequisite for happiness, or historical topics, such as the origin of the Romanians, glided from history to literature. Besides those themes of happiness and the good emperor, other subjects like Dacia, Trajan, and the Daco-Romans were inserted in occasional poems, odes, and folk poetry, thus reaching a broad audience. Mixing references to ancient poets and mythological characters with hints at the nation’s origins, amateur poets aimed to provide readers with elements of classical culture and, at the same time, to disseminate an identity-related topic that had been intensely debated by the historians of the time, that of the Roman origins.