Transylvanianism as Identity Discourse

This paper aims at making a presentation of the main regional ideologies of the Transylvanian cultural and spiritual life in the interwar period. The Hungarians’ Transylvanianism and the Romanians’ creative localism or ardelenism alike offered a wide range of key concepts and ideas that shaped/and were shaped by the cultural context of the time. Both regionalisms - Romanian and Hungarian - shared many of these concepts and ideas, although they never really sustained an open and efficient communication due to a series of causes. The shifts that occurred in the self-defining strategies, the communication breakdowns that characterized the relationships between the two cultural milieus and intellectual circles, the identity discourses that can be spotted in the media of that time, and the movement known as Transylvanianism are all approached with the purpose of identifying the causes that hindered real and efficient communication between Romanians and Hungarians.