School, society, culture and national identity in Oradea in the period 1920–1930

Abstract

Cultural and social life clearly contributes to accentuate the self-awareness within a community that, through the act of culture, asserts itself in the field of international relations. At the same time, culture represents a sensitive barometer for socio-economic and political life, through which a series of vital factors can be identified in the process of recovery and development of nations. In the interwar period, Romanian society faced a complex situation, generated by the extensive socio-political, economic and cultural changes that occurred after the end of the Great War. The promotion of the interests of the Romanian national state and of mass culture at the level of the entire country was pursued with consistency, this reality also manifesting itself in the historical province of Crişana, with the city of Oradea as its center. In the new context, a justified emphasis was placed on the culturalization project of Romanian society, for which an appeal was made to the main state institutions and the numerous cultural associations and reunions organized after 1918. Thus, the cultural and economic development program was intended to be implemented on a social scale as wide as possible. In a general view, the schools and organized cultural events led to a series of positive results, accepted as such by the society of Oradea. First of all, the percentage of illiteracy, at alarming levels at the beginning of 1920, was significantly reduced, especially in the countryside. The network of schools in Bihor County, together with intensive conference activity, supported by specialists, allowed not only the enablement of the peasantry in socio-cultural life, but also the understanding of some socio-economic and cultural phenomena that took place with an overflowing rapidity in the interwar society.