Our project is groundbreaking not only due to the fact that it offers a new perspective on the (cultural) history of the Romanian Jewry, but also because it brings a more complex and nuanced understanding of interwar cultural Romanian history. Yiddish cultural life needs to take its proper place within the history of Romanian Jewry, as well as within Romanian cultural life, in fostering scholarship focusing on cultural minorities and their interactions. The impact such an innovative perspective would generate consists first of all in a better understanding of interwar Jewish as well as Romanian cultural life, since so far historians focused only on the contribution of Jewish intellectuals to the creation of Romanian society and culture on the one hand, and on the contribution of Romanian Jewry to the history of Jewish people on the other, while ignoring the population defined by Yiddish culture as well as the impact of Yiddish culture on the Romanian society. Thus, the YIDCULT project fills in some gaps both within the history of Jewish culture in Romania, as well as in the history of Romanian interwar culture and society. Broadly speaking, the current project would bring a significant reassessment of the recent scholarship concerning Romanian interwar cultural history, as well as the history of Romanian Jewry.

The presentations at the seminar will be:

-Valentin SĂNDULESCU
Yiddish Language and Culture in Context: a Look at the Jewish Community in Interwar Romania

-Irina MATEI
Yiddish: National Language vs. “Jargon” in the Political Projects of the Jews in Greater Romania

-Francisca SOLOMON
Jiddische Literatur- und Kulturzentren im Rumanien der Zwischenkriegszeit. Eine homogene oder heterogene Landschaft? (Yiddish literary and cultural centers in interwar Romania. A homogeneous or heterogeneous landscape?)

-Camelia CRĂCIUN
Establishing a Jewish National Theatre in interwar Romania: between Theory and Practice