Institutul de Filosofie al Academiei RPR în epoca Gheorghiu-Dej, 1954-1965
The Institute of Philosophy During Gheorghiu-Dej Regime, 1954-1965

Summary/Abstract: This paper examines some aspects of the institutional history of postwar Romanian philosophy with a special focus on the Institute of Philosophy of the Academy of People’s Republic of Romania. Using archival sources the aim of this paper is to shed more light on the main aspects of philosophical research during cultural Stalinism and to underline the inflexion points within Romanian „philosophical“ writing between 1948 and 1965. One examined the lack of human resources and its impact on the emergence of Marxist-Leninist philosophy, but also the main research topics studied at the Philosophy Section of the Institute of History and Philosophy and Institute of Philosophy especially in the 1950s. We focused also on the context of unmasking and purges of the „philosophical“ front mainly in late 1950s, underlining the Agitprop fight against Revisionism and „bourgeois“ influence in social sciences. In 1948 the lack of human resources in the field of philosophical research was obvious from Marxist-Leninist perspective. This was one the reasons why in 1948-49 the communist decision-makers did not support the creation of a separate Institute of Philosophy under the aegis of Romanian Academy. Instead between 1949 and 1953 the communist Agitprop agreed the functioning of a Philosophy Section within the newly born Institute of History and Philosophy (the former Institute of History founded by Nicolae Iorga). The appointment of Constantin Ionescu-Gulian as deputy director of the Philosophy Section of the Institute of History and Philosophy (in 1949) was the Agitprop response to the aforementioned lack of human resources in the field of philosophical research. After some hesitations in 1953-54 the communist party leadership chose again C.I. Gulian as director of the newly-created Institute of Philosophy. By periodical ideological harassment directed against Gulian Agitprop succeeded in fact to control the philosophical research.

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