Dumitru Drãghicescu’s Perspective on the Romanians’ Image in the Early Twentieth Century
Dumitru Drãghicescu’s Perspective on the Romanians’ Image in the Early Twentieth Century

Summary/Abstract: In the early twentieth century, a major direction of psychological research was concerned with the psychology of peoples. This trend did not go unnoticed by Romanian researchers. Dumitru Drãghicescu (1875–1945) was the first Romanian scholar who was influenced by the ideas and concepts circulating at that time and who engaged, together with Constantin Rãdulescu-Motru, in complex approaches to the Romanians’ psychology. Using the insights of sociology, the field in which he completed his doctoral research, Drãghicescu wrote a study entitled On the Psychology of the Romanian People (1907), in which he undertook a characterological analysis that largely focused on the Romanians’ negative traits and brought him numerous criticisms. Given the topic it addressed, this work reflected the spirit of the time and was attuned to the prevalent European scientific paradigms. The present study aims to reconsider the personality and work of D. Drãghicescu, a scholar who was totally ignored during the communist period, and to outline his perspective on the education and morality of the Romanian people at the beginning of the twentieth century.

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