The Traditions of Invention ― Romanian Ethnic and Social Stereotypes in Historical Context

Literary and cultural images, once considered marginal to the main currents of political and institutional development in southeastern Europe, have been accorded much greater importance by scholars in recent years. In this volume Alex Drace-Francis brings together over fifteen years of work on the topic of representations of Romania and Romanians. Crossing the East-West divide, the book studies both external images of the country and people, and domestically-generated representations of Europe and 'the West'. It draws on material in a wide range of languages and offers a long-term view, providing a nuanced and historically-grounded contribution to the lively debates over Balkanism, Orientalism and identities in Romania and in Europe as a whole.

Alex Drace-Francis is Associate Professor in the Literary and Cultural History of Modern Europe, University of Amsterdam. He is author of The Making of Modern Romanian Culture (2006) and co-editor of three books on East European travel writing. Most recently, he edited the collection of documents European Identity: A Historical Reader (2013).