HOMO BUCOVINENSIS – ÎNCERCARE DE DEZAMBIGUZARE
Homo Bucovinensis – An Attempt to Disambiguate

Summary/Abstract: The terms Bukovina, “bukovinism” and “homo bucovinensis” have spread virally in historical narratives and historiographical writings. They generate controversy in current historiography. Interpretive tendencies vary between idealization and stigmatization. The concept of “homo bucovinensis” has been and is being used by many writers as a categorical notion. The idea that “homo bucovinensis” is a regional species of the “homo habsburgensis” genus or an ideology used to implement denationalization policies is simplistic, outdated, and does not take into account the dynamics of the evolution of this identity model after World War I. To attenuate the effects of the generative factors of subjectivity – which we have called “bukovinology” and “bukovinalergy” – whose imprint is present in almost everything that has been written about “homo bucovinensis” – it is necessary to disambiguate the concept. The study also contains a very probable hypothesis regarding the creator of the Latin name “homo bucovinensis”. Ion Nistor is the one who first used the name “homo bucovinensis” in a printed publication. He created this name by analogy with names in biological anthropology and used it in a pejorative sense. Hans Prelitsch transferred this name to philosophical anthropology, giving it a very prestigious and well (although not universally) disseminated reputation. Both in Nistor and Prelitsch, “homo bucovinensis” is nothing but a metaphor. However, “homo bucovinensis” did exist in reality.

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