The Gusti School of Bucharest – a dialogue among the monologues

Abstract

Hosting a rural and “delayed” society, after the First World War the enlarged Romania had to face additional provocations, due to the newly extended ethnic diversity. On the periphery of a Europe saturated with enthusiastic-revolutionary, often unfortunate national rebuilding projects, the political elite of Romania had to create its own development path in a milieu of divergent theories, conflicting mythologies and a somewhat naïve messianism of the new generation.

In addition to Europeanism and traditionalism, there existed an agrarian Third Way, and several inter-variations of these currents. All these approaches were by and large of an ideological sort and somewhat ruptured from the social reality.

On this land of deep contradictions scientifically-based, thoughtful development strategies could nevertheless arise. One of the major sociological schools of inter-war Europe, the Monographic School of Bucharest, lead by sociologist Dimitrie Gusti, did implement a long-term strategy of research and community development. The social interventionism of the School was sociologically grounded: interdisciplinary teams initiated and implemented rural reform actions on the basis of field studies.