CEU Electronic Theses and Dissertations, 2012
| Author | Parfene, Catalin |
|---|---|
| Title | Between 'Foreigners' and Romanianization: The Romanian National Football Team in the Interwar Period |
| Summary | Established in 1922 under the direct guidance of future King Carol II, the Romanian national football team was composed throughout the interwar period mainly of minority representatives, primarily Hungarians and Germans coming from Transylvanian clubs. The team’s status of a national symbol determined an ardent debate around squad’s Romanianization, which I followed in the interwar newspapers and in the works of several renowned political and cultural personalities like Nicolae Iorga, Camil Petrescu and Nichifor Crainic. Despite the political framework characterized by integral nationalism, Romanianization and centralization, the football Romanianization eventually failed in the interwar period, irrespective of the State’s implication and regulations concerning this issue. However, the football Romanianization debate marked especially the late interwar years. It showed the solidness of the Austro-Hungarian heritage in Romania after the 1918 Great Union, sharpening the dichotomy between Transylvania and the Old Kingdom. It also led to surprising political consequences, like the development of King Carol II’s mass movement Straja Ţării (The Sentinel of the Motherland) from a governmental office whose initial mission was to control the ethnic composition of the national football team. Finally, it targeted mainly the Hungarian minority of the so-called “irredentist” clubs in Transylvania, leaving the door open to Jews in the national team until the State’s late intervention and thus determining the need for a reevaluation of the anti-Semite discourse of the interwar Romanian press. |
| Supervisor | Karady, Viktor, Trencsenyi, Balazs |
| Department | History MA |
| Full text | https://www.etd.ceu.edu/2012/parfene_catalin.pdf |
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