The process of integrating the Transylvanian minorities into the national state of Greater Romania, following the end of the Great War, proved to be a difficult and challenging process. The social, economic and cultural realities were completely different in Habsburg imperial Transylvania compared to those after the incorporation of Transylvania into the Kingdom of Romania, so that the German population had to readjust. Seen from the double perspective of social and cultural history, this research proposes to analyze the sphere of sociability of the Transylvanian Germans, which they used to create means of communication with the political elites in the Romanian capital. The aim is to capture local Transylvanian elites engaged in the social sphere in Transylvanian towns on the one hand, and in Bucharest on the other, where they seek to open up channels of communication with central political elites. By bringing into the foreground of the analysis public spaces such as cafés or ballrooms, the research aims to draw a fresco of the relations between majority and minority seen from the perspective of leisure, i.e. to recreate the center-periphery relationship in a period prefigured by great changes.
This research is based on archival documents, memoirs of the local elite, German and Romanian written periodicals and journals from the interwar period, such as Siebenbürgisch-Deutsches Tageblatt and Adevărul and discourses held by the officials in the Romanian Parliament.

Authors:
Daniela Stanciu-Păscărița, Lucian Blaga University, Romania
Sorin Radu, Lucian Blaga University of Sibiu, Romania

About the Presenter(s)
Daniela Stanciu-Păscărița is working as an assistant professor at the Lucian Blaga University of Sibiu focusing her research in modern European history, urban history and cultural anthropology. Her postdoctoral research focuses on minority history.

Connect on ResearchGate
https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Daniela-Stanciu

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